The opening night of the musical show I will be making my debut in is only 7 weeks away. At the beginning of the rehearsal period (July) it felt like months away, but it is not far away at all now!
Tuesday was a day of mixed activities for me. I started the day early as I woke up with a stinking headache at 7am. I have been trying to avoid taking painkillers as I think I have been a bit too dependent on them for my headaches, but Tuesday morning was an exception. I did the usual morning routine of feeding the fish in the pond in the garden, which is when I tend to sit and relax for a while on the bench next to the pond – I love to stare at the fish as they effortlessly move for their food. Then it was cat-feeding time, followed by their daily grooming (I have two long-haired cats so they need regular brushing and de-tangling to reduce the amount of knots and hopefully the amount of fur-balls they inevitably throw up everywhere!!!!). Then I spent some time doing a bit of painting on my 3rd in the series of abstract geometric designs for the gallery in Bridlington. By 8.30am I was ready for some breakfast. After that I switched the PC on and made a start on locating various poems for the Junior/Youth section members as part of their entries for the Hornsea Speech & Drama Festival. This took longer than I anticipated, as ever, as I was still at it later that morning, 11am. In between painting I then spent the rest of the day finalising the design of the ticket and posters for the show. This was not as fruitful as I expected, but I managed to complete all by late afternoon. Then I was starting to feel hungry as I had forgotten to get any lunch. I rehearsed a couple of the songs ready for the rehearsal that night, and by 6.30 I left for a meeting with the Secretary prior to the rehearsal.
The rehearsal on Tuesday night was the first “Floor” rehearsal. It is a first for me, as I have never been in a musical show before, but it is very similar to the early rehearsal we have at Bilton Amateur Dramatic Society for our plays. We call the process “blocking the play” and essentially you need to have every move on stage written in your script to remember along with your lines.
I was cast as one of the girls in the “Pro” line (yes, a prostitute!) which actually quite pleased me since it means that I have a little bit more to do than I would have if I’d been a chorus member alone. We had a lot of fun flirting with the male characters in the scene, pretending to steal them away from their “wives” (maybe they’d spotted a talent in me based on my real life experience!) and generally be quite forward! A bit of “movement” was included in all three songs, not really any dancing as such, but it was all choreographed throughout. I found the whole evening was hard work, but lots of fun! The three songs we rehearsed were “Twice In Love Every Day”, which is the opening number, “I’m A Busy Man” (Barnardo’s solo piece) and “We’ll Get Him” . The next rehearsal for the chorus isn’t until a week next Sunday, as the children’s rehearsals are taking place next Tuesday.
I can’t wait, but in the meantime I am busy preparing publicity material for the show in order to ensure we get as much coverage as possible!
