Opening of South Pacific

So much happens so quickly when you put a show up in ten days. The last few nights, I have chosen to go to bed at 2 am instead of updating here, but here are some highlights I'll have to abbrevaiate (tonight I'm staying up an extra 30 minutes for this!):

We have one house member, who I'll call Lulu, who is utterly, mind-bogglingly young and dim. This girl couldn't find her dishes when we put them in the cupboards. No, really: "Has anyone seen my colander? It was in the drying rack...oh, it's here in the cupboard?" She's only 19, I think, and clearly wants a lot more attention than any of us have the patience to give her. We all want to slap her. During tech, all the girls got into their "playtime" costumes for SP's "wash That Man" number. These costumes are very 40's and very cute: bathing suits with super squared off legs, little patterned tops, one girl has a leopard print belt with matching leopard bandana and sunglasses - completely Hollywood! Everyone looks adorable. Lulu is, I'll grant you, in a pink bathing suit with her hair in two braids, but she was so entranced with this costume that she had the poor taste to say, OUT LOUD, to all the other girls:

"Oh, look! I'm the cute one! I didn't know they were going to make me the cute one!"

I should take bets on how long it will take before someone actually does physically injure her. Some day ask me for my impression of her explaining how she fell off the stage the other day during a dance number.

To change the subject, I am ambivalent to report that the cast list for Cats went up early, and my name appears no where at all upon it. As in, currently, I have no role whatsoever in the show. There are rumors of "pit singers" - I am one of about 4 or 5 company members missing from the cast list, so we're not sure what they'll do with us. I admit, it's a blow. (How clearly can a choreographer put it that your dancing sucks if not to sinply leave you out of a show??) But on the other hand, I don't yet know what kind of nightmare I'll be avoiding by not being in the show. So, the jury's out. More on that two cycles later, when we actually start rehearsing it.

Tomorrow the cast list goes up for the next show: Fiddler on the Roof. I am hoping to have a small role so as to be able to concentrate on Nellie in SP, but we'll see. The rumors have been flying. Our director from SP calls these casting days "Black Fridays" because so many people are disappointed.

SP is open. We did two performances today, the afternoon to an audience even older than I could have imagined. (We have slots for wheelchairs, and we ALWAYS use them. ALWAYS.) Sadly, I think I killed one of the audience in a blackout, while hauling a crate offstage. The show is fine - I feel a little wooden about it, because the guy playing Emile really is not my cup of tea. (Twnety+ years in sales explained a little of that to me - you can imagine.) I want to be good enough to act beyond him, but he gives me very little to play against. Even our director has been heard to say he plays the role like Captain Kirk. He's gotten a lot better, and he still sounds beautiful singing, he's just very condescending, which for me ruins the romance of Nellie and Emile. She says the attraction is that they are the same kind of people - well, if he's busy winking at her and thinking how "cute" she is, it's more like he's looking for a daughter and she's looking for a father. Creepy. I want to be able to think past his performance, but I just can't seem to find the emotional depth I'm looking for. It's all mechanical. Shame. It's not bad, it just lacks life, and as much as these audiences may not notice the difference, I know there is one and wish I could make the leap.

And yes, he does wink at me on stage, despite childishly denying it to our director during notes yesterday. People are crazy here.

I have a ton of good excuses for my mechanical performance: Emile's dreadful, we've only had ten days, blah, blah, blah, but they are excuses. I wish I knew how to get beyond them to a fuller performance. Maybe I'll discover it over the 2 week run.

In the meantime, I need to get some sleep if I have any chance at doing a good show tomorrow. More dish then, and more of the ridiculous backstage snafus that have been going on. Plus, tales of the Turnpike, the dive bar down the road we go to on opening nights. Until then, g'night. Acting advice will be welcomed if it doesn't involve pretending to be a tree.