Nipples, Florida

I cracked myself up for a full week calling Naples, Florida, where I went to visit my fiance last week, “Nipples.”  It didn’t take me long to realize that Naples is the least sexy city in Florida, as evidenced by the eight– count ‘em, eight– wheelchairs that “pre-boarded” the airplane.  Orlando is a close competitor for the “least sexy Floridian city” title.  It depends on which you find least sexy:  octogenarians or pre-teens and toddlers.  I choose the octos.  Anyway.

After driving for an hour through suburban sprawl hell, we finally found the center of town, which made for a idyllic date night.  We ate outdoors in December– December!– munching on fried oysters and lobster at Alice’s Sweetwater Neighborhood Bar and Grill.  (Slogan:  “We serve clams, oysters and big people!”)  We tried to take a moonlight beach walk, only to stroll along a moonlit boardwalk for what felt like miles before abandoning any hope of arriving at the actual beach.  We were alone on said boardwalk, so naturally I felt a little frisky, but my fiance, who is a good deal more paranoid than I am, did not, due to an irrational fear of chainsaw murderers hiding in lonely Florida swamps.  I had to settle for holding hands as we walked through downtown Naples, licking a peppermint ice cream cone and watching the remains of the local Christmas parade get swept away.  We had apparently missed it due to our foray to the beachfront.  It is entirely possible to go to Naples and never see the ocean.  Or the Gulf.  Or any sort of water that doesn’t come out of a tap.

It’s also possible not to see any ethnic people.  With the exception of the rest of his cast, my fiance was literally the only black man for miles.  As we returned to the hotel, we nearly missed the entrance to the parking lot because we were so distracted by the sight of an overweight Indian jogging with his shirt off, sweating bullets.  My fiance put it best, “Damn, Mowgli.

Reading through what I’ve written here, it sounds like I did not enjoy Naples.  This is not the case.  I am not so foolish as to disparage any Floridian city in December, from smokin’ hot Miami to family-friendly Orlando to quiet, retiring Naples.   I was there when the rest of the nation was getting slammed by blizzards.  On the Weather Channel, the man was asked, “Is there any section of the US not getting hit with a snowstorm right now?”  And he replied, “Well, southern Florida, and that’s about it.”  While I do appreciate snow, it was really nice to walk around in shorts and sandals for a few days.  Sunny weather does wonders for one’s psyche.   I understand why doctors in the olden days used to recommend that their patients take a few weeks at the seashore.  We’d all be better off if we took the time to stop and enjoy ourselves in a warm and relaxing climate,  as opposed to over-medicating while continuing to run ourselves ragged.  I’m very lucky.

 

Texas, so far

New Yorkers wear their rudeness like a badge of honor.  Those visiting the City may not notice it–  hopefully will not notice it– because  they should be treated politely by concierges and those paid to be nice to them.  They may not ride the subway, and they probably don’t go to Piano’s at 1:00 AM on a Saturday and try to get the bartender’s attention.  But those who live there accept rudeness as more or less as a way of life.  We’re tough there.  It’s never personal, it’s just the way you turn out to be when you live in close proximity to so many different, crazy people.

But leaving New York jerks you into the “real world,” where social conditioning and good manners get you further than an aggressive, “you- can’t- scare-me” attitude.  And nowhere is that more true than in Texas, where Scenery Chewer finds herself right now, typing away in her uber-modern, loft-space-turned-hotel room that makes her miss the fiance.

We landed in Austin after a week in Detroit, where it was cold and gray, and one of our company members had had her car stolen out of valet parking.  (Thanks, Doubletree.)  The first thing you notice upon disembarking from the plane is that Texas smells amazing.  Let’s face it, airports usually smell like Lysol sprayed over BO.  I don’t know if it was ’cause I was hungry when I got there, but the smell of BBQ and delicious fried food hit me in the face and I fell just a little in love with Texas right away.  The weather was a cool 65 degrees as we loaded onto the buses, which felt like 79 degrees after Detroit in November, and the sun was shining and everybody was happy.

From that moment forward, Austin unleashed a string of surprises so pleasant, so understated, and so cool that the entire cast fell in love with Austin en masse.  From the comfortable, Christmasy lobby of the Radisson hotel with its elk antler chandeliers, to the charming boutiques and restaurants on South Congress (SoCo), to the nightlife on 6th Street, to the Whole Foods Mecca in the corner of the city, we just kept exclaiming to each other, “Yes, but have you been to ___?  Or how about the fish tacos at ____? ” and so forth.  The Long Center, where we performed, was brand spanking new and so huge I never did figure out where Cruella’s dressing room was.  We had flat screen TVs in our dressing rooms– great news for any swing, especially during Thanksgiving week, when all sorts of nostalgic TV is available to the (slightly) homesick viewer.  And each time we left the hotel, something unexpectedly awesome would happen.  I returned from a jog along Lady Bird lake (or whatever it’s called) to find Mr. Potato Head chugging down my street during the annual holiday parade.  While walking to the theatre one night around 7:00, the sky exploded with fireworks over the river.  Cast members would pour out of the theatre exhausted at night only to find the energy to peer into a live music venue that just happened to be kicking up around the corner.  On Saturday night a group of us went to hear live music at Antone’s, one of the best live music halls in the city, and danced all night to a band we’d never heard of, drank too much, and had a generally amazing time.

We loved Austin so much that we were a bit sullen when we pulled away from the Radisson, heading for Dallas.   I’ve only been here a day, but the cast is in love with our very reasonably priced and completely fabulous hotel, the Aloft, which is part of the Starwood chain.  It’s a new hotel, which means the people who work here aren’t over it yet, which is wonderful.  Either that or people are just nicer everywhere else in the world, and particularly in Texas.  I went to Urban Market yesterday, a great little grocery store downtown.  (It’s always a good sign to me when people live downtown instead of just working there.)  The guy offered to help me carry my bags out to the car, but when I told him I didn’t have one, he insisted that I take the grocery cart home with me (!) and told me he’d come by and pick it up (!!).  That floored me.  I rickety-rolled the thing home, feeling a little bit like a hobo, but told everyone I saw in the lobby what had happened and how DAMN NICE everyone here is.  The guy came back for his cart about 20 minutes later.  He didn’t even expect a tip.

Not in New York, folks.  Not in New York.

 

Nothing But Love for the Midwest

We are now on our second week of tour, playing in Appleton, Wisconsin.  I go on tomorrow!  (Our Cruella, Rachel York, has a concert date.)

Our first stop however was Minneapolis, MN.  I hail from Ohio, but I’ve called New York home for some years now.  I rarely miss the Midwest.  But over the past three weeks, a few experiences have helped me remember that I’m not in Kansas anymore– or rather, I am.  More or less.

1.)  Cuisine.  One thing I love about the Midwest is the food, or more particularly, Arby’s and Dairy Queen.  We don’t have them in New York, and I miss them so much.  Naturally, I went straight to the Arby’s counter at the Mall of America.  It is always as great as I remember it.  I also love Midwesterner’s undying devotion to carbs.  Every restaurant brings you a bread basket.  And if you eat all the bread in it, they re-fill it without being asked.  And while New York restaurants feature relatively exotic breads like warm pretzels, sourdough or seed-crusted flatbread, in the Midwest you get rolls.  White bread rolls.  Occassionally some whole grains will slip in, but anyone eating Bob Evan’s butter-soft dinner rolls isn’t thinking about fiber.  And even if you polish off that bread basket twice (it’s very possible), you invariably get more carbs as a side dish.  Yesterday Jeff Scott Carey got honest-to-goodness tater tots with his tuna wrap.  No New York City chef would serve those unless he was being ironic.  Note to New York chefs:  be ironic.  Tater tots rock.

2.  Gluttony.  Not only do I love white-bread culture, but I’ve forgotten how much everyone here expects you to eat.  As a die-hard fan of local programming, I watched a lengthy commercial the other day for a local diner that advertised their “heart-attack burger,” and featured shot after shot of various foodstuffs being lifted out of boiling vats of fat, then hefted onto a plate and served to an overweight consumer in a football sweatshirt.  My gracious hosts Pat and Ron Rollins are constantly exhorting me to eat.  On more than one occasion I have stumbled downstairs in full pre-coffee bitchiness to find a pot of organic steel-cut oatmeal bubbling on the stove (does oatmeal bubble?).  Pat will have boiled me an egg as well, and then she will try for the millionth time to get me to eat toast.  (See?  Devotion to carbs.)   If I rummage through the fridge post-show, she will call down to me from the comfort of her bedroom the most recent additions to the fridge, to which I am encouraged to help myself:  pork, roasted root vegetables, homemade applesauce, Hagen Daaz, fruit, cucumbers, bananas.    I compare this to days spent at my Shop Gotham boss’ Upper East Side apartment, where she would break for “lunch” at 2:00 by spritzing lite Italian on a few leaves of lettuce.  I’ve gained 1.4 pounds.  This is not a promising start to tour.

3.  Nice.  No, really.  Everyone is painstakingly, excrutiatingly nice.  Last week on my way to rehearsal, my bus sped past me, and I let out a string of curse words incongruous with the safe, residential neighborhood.  Two shocked Minnesotans walking their dogs heard me two blocks away (how could they not?) and actually stopped the bus in the middle of the street– ie, not at a bus stop.  The bus waited patiently while I sprinted to catch it, and the driver, a sweet librarian type in her 50s, apologized to me.  “I didn’t know you needed the bus.”

Not in New York, folks.  Not in New York.

 

Overheard in Rehearsal

Now that we’re out of tech (but not done with rehearsal, that’s for sure), I have more time for blogging.  This one’s been in the works for a while.  Most of these are verbatim and recorded early in rehearsal, when as a swing I had to sit there, listening and watching.  All of Warren’s quotes are best imagined in a London accent.  There have been a myriad of amazing quotes since, particularly from Jerry when giving notes, but I couldn’t possibly record them all…

“By the time we get to ’smokin’,” everyone with a penis should be near Rachel.”  Warren Carlyle

“And as Topol once said to me, ‘If they’re laughing, DON’T MOVE.’”  Jerry Zaks

“It’s always acting 101, from Nathan Lane to Moishe Pippick.”  Jerry Zaks (that’s the goyem spelling of that last name)

“It goes one, two, orange alert, sing.”  Warren Carlyle

“One, two, Ripley Grier, two, two, Ripley Grier.”  Warren Carlyle.

“We’ll take it from one, two, Ripley Grier.”  Warren Carlyle

“You know what they say about not giving line readings?  I don’t give a shit.”  Jerry Zaks

“Then we’ll take a Broadway seven, and everyone in America will come around my special Joel.” Warren Carlyle

“Those haystacks look like fucking tombstones.”  Jerry Zaks

“When Parker or Sara hits you on the back of the head, get up and dance.”  Warren Carlyle

“That’s my rap name, Jew-Z.”  Jerry Zaks

“It’s a little schnook.” Jerry Zaks (once again, my apologies for the goyem spelling)

 

First Week in Minnesota

Upon our arrival in Minnesota, the temperature stayed moderate for a matter of days, then plunged into full-fledged November.  (Note to reader:  we arrived September 26th.)  I was picked up at the airport by my best friend Annie, despite the fact that she initially drove to the wrong airport.  Minneapolis has two airports– who knew?  I was whisked off straight away to her parents’ house on Beard Avenue next to lovely Lake Calhoun.  She took me to a dinner of fried cheese curds and burgers at Acadia Restaurant, where they pour 28 different draft beers.  (Their slogan:  “No crap on tap.”)  We met up with her friend Alison, and then we all went to see a truly boring play at the Mixed Blood theatre.   By 11:00 I was exhausted, partly because it was 12:00 by my time, but partly because I had gotten up at 6:30 to do advanced power vinyasa flow before boarding the plane.

Rehearsal at the Orpheum Theatre started at 1:00.  I found it easily because there were two huge 101 Dalmatians trailers parked next to an enormous tent in the parking lot.  The dogs had arrived.

We are working with 15 rescued Dalmatians, all of whom have been training in Florida as long as we have been rehearsing.  They are featured at the beginning and end of the show, so as not to upstage the actors, thank you very much, but to definitely steal the show.  We watch them jumping and leaping across the stage, and it is everything we can do not to rush and cuddle them en masse.  They are just adorable.  But we receive a very strict lecture from the animal trainers, who are all about 26 and all have speaking voices that sound like they’ve spent the past hour sucking helium.  We are told that the dogs can’t be distracted when they’re on or off stage, that we’re to ignore them completely so as to not inadvertantly give positive or negative reinforcement, whether they perform well or totally biff.  We’re assured they will have adequate time to get to know the dogs as cast mates and friends, all under the careful supervision of the trainers, just in case one of the rescued dogs decides he doesn’t like you.

Even more exciting than the dogs is the uncovering of the set.  Up to this point, we’ve only seen sketches, but in its full glory, it is explosive, cartoonish and gorgeous.  Our set designer Heidi Ettinger won Tonys for Secret Garden and Big River.   The sets are slanted upwards slightly, as if we’re seeing them from a dog’s perspective.  As actors we feel like we’re children who’ve stumbled on a hidden playground.  We feel like the Pevensie kids when they first discover the wardrobe.

But with these added elements comes the responsibility of putting a show together.  Rehearsals run from 2:00 to 10:30 with a 90-minute break for dinner.  I eat with the cast usually (I feel a little left out because I’m not staying at the Doubletree with everyone else).  But for breakfast and lunch I am lucky enough to be staying with Annie’s parents, who are a particularly pleasant type of pushy:  “Don’t have drip coffee!  I’ll make you a double cappuccino!” or “Do you need a snack for the theatre?  How about some fresh-picked raspberries from our backyard?”  I’m not used to being mothered, but I’m trying to enjoy it.  Incidentally, I haven’t received a key to the Rollins’ house.  They don’t lock their doors.

We started ten-out-of-twelves Tuesday.  That’s when we work 12 hours with a two-hour break for dinner.  We are in from 10:30 to 10:30, but since the dogs and technicians need more work than we do, we’re not usually called until 2:00.  It’s really amazing to watch the show grow.  Check out our latest press, as well as some pictures from LaGuardia Airport our first official day of tour.

http://www.the101dalmatiansmusical.com/index.html

 

Love Letter to Harlem

This post was hastily scribbled in a notebook one day during a particularly long rehearsal right before I made the move to Brooklyn.  I now reside in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.  It was a good move.

Dear Harlem,

Our time together was brief and fleeting, but I will cherish our time together for a lifetime.  I will remember fondly every vivid detail, from the chicken bones that littered the street to the radiant yowling of feral cats forever in heat, to the strands of discarded hair weave that always made me think I’d missed a particularly good fight.   I’ll remember Stanley and Stella, who lived in the building next door, but whose racuous jousting I could hear as if they shared my bedroom, as well as the closeted homosexual who lived downstairs.   May he never realize that ghetto-blasting the “Fame” theme song was not the act of a heterosexual male.  To the strange people across the hall: I do hope your precious cherubs don’t go hoarse from screaming at the top of their lungs for four hours straight every Saturday night, although they’ve quite certainly lost their hearing, based on the volume at which they play their video games.  Goodbye to the ghetto sprinklers: an empty milk jug attached to a hose.  Goodbye to the losers on the street corners who seemingly never had a job or anything to do.  Goodbye to the 3 train, which ran quick as lightening to until 110th Street, at which point it slowed to a crawl.  Goodbye to the gypsy cab drivers, who always slowed down to offer their services, assuming I must be lost.  Goodbye to the laundromat where fights broke out, to the convenient stores that were clearly drug fronts, and to the Pathmark that always smelled like chitlins and never failed in its promise of hellishly long lines.

Please do not mourn me, Harlem!  The time has come for me to move on:  to the tree-lined streets of Fort Greene, to  people who smile at me regardless of the color of my skin, to cute restaurants that sell organically-grown dishes and not fast food, where no one litters, and where everyone’s pants sit comfortably at their hips.  Harlem, I hope you work out your issues with gentrification and that you come to terms with your anger.  I truly wish you the best of luck.  And I wish that  from one borough, several bridges, and many, many subway stops away.

 

Engagement Story

I’m surprised Andre was willing to propose marriage given that I was horrid and miserable all morning.  We had closed on the Brooklyn apartment the day before and celebrated with nearby Junior’s cheesecake.  Yet we awoke Friday to a cold, dreary day and I was  in a funk that no amount of hot coffee could coax me out of.  He was moving his stuff from his storage unit into the apartment that day while I was in rehearsal.  I was out at 2:00, and we had a million errands to run: getting new keys cut, deciding on curtains, blah, blah, blah, and when he suggested we go someplace dressy for dinner to celebrate, I was in no mood.  We got takeout from Whole Foods and ate on a picnic blanket on my floor.  I suggested we open the bottle of champagne I had bought in honor of the new apartment.  ”We’ll open it after the party,” he said.  ”I don’t want to go to the party,” I whined.

He had committed us to a party at a Harlem townhouse that night thrown by Brenda Braxton (Google her; she’s a Broadway person), and he convinced me to go.  ”You may want to dress up,” he told me.  ”There’ll be lots of black people there and black people dress.”  (He says that all the time.)  As I threw on a dress and grabbed my keys, I noticed he was taking his messenger bag.  ”It completes the outfit,” he said.  I suspected nothing.  ”Then I’m not taking my purse,” I told him.   “Or my cell phone.”  I handed him my lipstick and a Metro card and we were out the door.

We got off the train at 125th Street and walked east.  At Park Avenue I pointed upward, where the Metro North station rises above the street.  ”Look, Baby.  That’s where we met.”

“Why don’t we go up there?” he suggested.  ”I haven’t been up there since then.”  I agreed and we took the elevator to the very track where we met when we were traveling to Massachusetts to work at the Barrington Stage Company.  We lingered for a few minutes, laughing over how I had written in my journal that I hadn’t been interested in him when I met him.  I turned away for a second and when I looked back over at Andre, he was on one knee with a ring in his hand!

“Get up!”  I shouted.  My first concern was for his pants, which were getting dirty on the wet train station concrete.  Other than that I am not sure what happened.  I’m sure he said something wonderful.  I’m sure at some point I said yes, for the ring is on my finger at the moment.  I did not, as certain parties present attest, “laugh and run away,” although I might have had a freak-out moment where I turned away to collect myself.  I didn’t quite cry because I never want to be the girl who cries.  But I did tear up, and so did he.

After the deed was done, I had no way of telling anyone because genius me had left without her phone.  So we walked over to my sister Katie’s apartment.  She eventually let us in.  She and Derrick were dressed in pajamas with Mad Men paused on the DVR.  I held up my left hand and we both got a little excited.  She poured us both a whiskey (we’re Irish, remember) and Andre sat down to tell the whole story:  how he had called my mother three days before to ask for her blessing, when and how he had bought the ring, and how he had managed to get me out of the house on a night when I really didn’t want to go anywhere.

Then we went home and popped open that champagne.  I called all of my sisters and a few close friends.  I changed my Facebook status.  I texted people.    Stay tuned for wedding updates!  Sorry it’s taken so long to post this…

The ring

 

Week Number Three

Having pieced together almost all of act one, our cast of 20-plus adults, eight kids and what seems like 300 pairs of stilts are packing up and heading to the spacious New 42nd Street studios, right in the heart of crowded, overpriced, annoying-as-hell Times Square.

But I am excited for the move, mostly because there will finally be space in the studio for me to do numbers full out instead of marking them, squished into the corner 18 inches from where the air conditioning blasts at top speed throughout the day, regardless of the actual temperature outside.  The rehearsal space is kept approximately three degrees above freezing, which is only sort of uncomfortable if you’re dancing, but if you’re sitting and watching, as I am (since I’m the swing), it is literally unbearable.  I already dress in layers for rehearsal, and a couple of cast members have wrapped themselves in Cruella’s rehearsal furs.  I think Jerry Zaks, who prefers the chill,  is part Eskimo.

But I have nothing bad to say about Jerry, or about watching the rehearsal process.  While the days do get long, the actors are hysterical and a joy to watch.  It’s a little frustrating not getting to get up and work myself, but then last week when I did step in for one of the nannies, who was delayed by evil New Jersey Transit, I was terrible.  I mean, seriously.  I know when I’m great and I know when I’m awful.  And I was not good.  It was just a read-through of the scene, but I hadn’t prepared for it.  I had been focusing on music, figuring that during staging rehearsals I would learn the scenes.  I always learn lines that way, from getting up on my feet and getting it into my body.  Rote memorization never works, at least not for me.

Anyway, in this case I was awful.  And I was really mad at myself because the few times I had had to step in during musical numbers I felt I had done really well.  As the swing, my job during this rehearsal process is to earn the trust of the creative team, who need to know that they can depend on me to know my stuff.  Now it was like, “Oh, God, she’s thoroughly unfunny.”  “I can be funny,” I wanted to shout.  “Just let me have a rehearsal!”  But understudy rehearsals don’t start, of course, until after the show has opened.  So, being the dope that I am, I went to Jerry during a break and said, “You know, Jerry I hadn’t worked on that scene yet, but it’ll get better, I promise.”

And do you know what he said?  He said, “I am so glad to have you in this show.”  I said, “Really?”  Like, I really didn’t believe him.  I was not expecting him to say that.  And he goes, “Yes.  You’re going to be terrific.  I look at you in rehearsal sometimes and you seem so worried.”

“Oh, that’s just my ‘learning it’ face,” I replied, laughing.  “I’ve been told that before.”  And I had.  My friend JV directed me in Merrily We Roll Along, and one time when he was giving me a note, he said, “Did I piss you off or something?”  And I said, “No, why?’  And he said, “Because the look on your face is like, ‘Asshole.’”  And I realized that when I’m trying to incorporate something new or different into a performance, apparently I make a face like I think everyone in the cast is a huge prick.  I don’t know I’m doing it, and I can’t control it because I’m thinking about something else.

But I digress.  Anyway, wasn’t that nice?  I mean, obviously Jerry Zaks has dealt with insecure actors before.   But it was the perfect thing to say.  If he had said, “You were great,” I wouldn’t have believed him, nor would it have been true.  But he knew I will be great as soon as I pull it together, and that’s what I needed to hear.  When you’re the understudy and you don’t get to work in rehearsal, sometimes you need that little extra vote of confidence.  That took a lot of the pressure off, and rehearsals are fun now.  These characters can only be created through play, so we laugh a lot. And everyone in the cast seems great.  There’s usually one or two crazies, but none have emerged so far.  There’s also usually one cast member who dances in the back all through rehearsal, whom Andre and I call the ‘gotta dance’ guy.  I think that’s one of our little boys, who came to us after not getting Billy Eliot, bless his heart.  He’s still workin’ his tours through. There’s also someone who likes to be naked at cast parties, but that person hasn’t emerged yet and probably won’t until shots are served.  There’s also usually a lone conservative, too, but the closest I’ve come to intellectual discussion has been proposing a cast book club to Robert, who is gay and definitely not conservative, so we’ll see about that one, too.  Touring brings out the best and the worst in all of us…

 

Second Week

Rehearsals started exactly a week ago, and here is a list of things I can do on stilts:  time step, shimmy, chassee, grapevine, pivot step.  I have the music theatre basics DOWN.  I can also do several different types of walks: stroll through the park, jog in the park, “sneaky-sneaky,” and “dirty little gypsy.”  Most mornings at ten we have stilt class.  It lasts an hour and is conducted like a regular dance class.  We start with a warm-up created by our physical therapy team that makes sense in some places (hundreds, runner’s lunge) and not in others (push-ups, contractions).  Then Warren, the choreographer, shouts, “Suit up, people!  We’re goin’ in!”  and we all climb onto our high stools to strap ourselves into our stilts.

Warren and his assistant Parker then lead us through a series of steps.  We warm up in the center, then move across the floor, finishing with a combination, just like a jazz class would.   First we march.  When Warren shouts out, “Exit!”  And we all have to face the exit while marching.  Then he’ll go, “Dog it!”  And we all have to march to face the back wall, which is covered with pictures of various breeds of dog.  Next, “Window,” then back to the front with “Mirror.”  This goes on for about five minutes, with Warren switching up the directions in a sort of stilted Simon Says:  “Mirror!  Window!  Dog it!  Mirror!  Dog it!  Exit!”  We invariably futz up, but no one’s fallen.  Yet.

Then we walk across the floor.  “Sneaky, sneaky,” or, as it’s sometimes called, “Cheeky, cheeky,” requires one to walk on the tips of one’s stilts as if one were a cat burglar or, in this case, a dog thief.  It’s a strange feeling to get used to.  Lately, we’ve been doing cheeky, cheeky backwards, while Warren cries out encouragement, using the various nicknames he’s quick to assign to us  (I do not have one yet.)  “Good, Bob!  Steal the puppies!  Steal the puppies!”  Bob’s name is Garreth.  Dirty little gypsy requires us to lunge forward in the stilt and sort of drag the other leg behind us.  Warren has Parker demonstrate as he calls out in his London accent:  “Stroll, stroll, stroll, stroll, dirty little gypsy, dirty little gypsy, dirty little gypsy, dirty little gypsy.”  Today we had a new challenge: quick-stepping with a mannequin on wheels.

I do love Warren and Parker and their other assistant, Sarah, who is a tiny, beautiful English dancer.  I realized today I sort of wish I were her (she).  And I like myself, so that’s saying something.   As for Warren, I love his turn of phrase, plus I love that he refers to the kids in the cast as devil children.  (Even though, truth be told, they’re not.)  He gives us notes like (imagine this in an English accent), “Use your arms to help hurl your carcass off the floor,” or to the kids once, “When Park or Sarah hits you on the back of the head, get up and dance.”  The choreography is balletic (my favorite), mixed with shameless music theatreness, such as the aforementioned grapevine and jazz hands (or in this case, jazz paws).

We’ve been spending most of our time dancing or learning music.  Our composer/lyricist is a former member of the band Styx, which I’m not familiar with, although everyone assures me I am.  He attends every music rehearsal and loves to jump in and tweak things: he’ll change a lyric here, a note there, add a rest or another bar, and sometimes coach us on how to sound more “pop.”  It’s kind of neat creating a show.  He isn’t intimidating at all, despite the fact that he wears the requisite sunglasses all the time (although I think there could be a medical reason), and he’s actually quite funny in a musician sort of way.  Today he walked into rehearsal with five metrosexuals in office wear.  “These gentlemen are from the CIA,” he announced.  “They’ve received reports that we’re torturing singers.”  We all laughed, then he said, “No, seriously, they’re from the Thanksgiving parade.  They’re just here to hear some of the music.”

Now, I’m the swing.  Before my mom or anyone freaks out, I probably wouldn’t be on TV even if we were chosen for the parade, unless I were to start rolling marbles down stairs.  Incidentally, we’re scheduled to be in Texas at that point, so I don’t know how that would work out.  But still, it was very exciting.  We sang “Twilight Barking.”  Now doesn’t that sound like a lovely song?  There’s no woofing, by the way.  The dogs speak English with various British dialects throughout the play.

Speaking of dialects, and even though it’s completely off topic, don’t miss out on Spike Lee’s movie of Passing Strange.  If you missed it on Broadway, as I did, run to the IFC if you’re in New York and check it out.  If you’re not in New York, move.  Or at least visit.  It’s the final performance of Passing Strange captured on film and it was simply amazing: one of the best things, if not the best thing, I’ve seen all year.  Also really loved In the Loop, a British farcical satire about the UK/US decision to invade an unnamed Middle Eastern country.  Hilarious, but absolutely rated R.  Profanity is an art form for these people, and you will guffaw.

One final recommendation:  couldn’t put down Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger.  Andre will attest that it held me captive for the last couple of days with a Harry Potter-like tenacity.  I kept it in my purse, even though it’s a tome, and at restaurants when Andre went to the bathroom, he’d come back to find me reading just one more page… call your library.  Hook it up.

Stay tuned for more updates.

 

Stilts

Yesterday I had my first rehearsal for 101 Dalmatians.  It turns out this show isn’t the latest excretion of the Disney machine.  The producers went straight to a Miss Dodie Smith, or at least her nearest surviving relative, who penned the book 101 Dalmatians.  Who knew it was a book?  Did you?

Anyway.  Yesterday was lovely.  Not only were there bagels and coffee (no cream, though.  What is to be done with New Yorkers?)  and a few lovely speeches, but we ended 30 minutes early after a read-through of the script.  As the swing, I had no lines to read, which killed me of course, but I’ll get my chance soon enough!

If you’ve read my blog before, you may know that the human characters perform  on stilts.  The show is being told charmingly from the point of view of the dogs, and as such all the adults are taller and somewhat outsized, as they would appear to a dog.  Enter the stilts.

I was expecting pegs attached to our feet by strips of Velcro.  What I got was a highly technical prosthesis, the type of thing I might order for myself if I suddenly lose my lower leg, say, in a logging accident.  The stilts have shock-absorbing springs and very secure straps that go around our dance-sneaker-clad feet with remarkable comfort and efficiency.

Before mounting our stilts, however– and that term is accurate.  To get them on, we had to sit in high, stool-level chairs and be strapped in by a member of our physical therapy team, while being supervised by a member of Actors Equity.  I felt the way Bonnie Blue Butler must’ve felt the day Pork first set her on a pony.   But I digress…

We were led through a warm-up by Ashton.  She isn’t our main PT, but she ended up being the first one to help me walk in stilts, so I won’t have a word said against her.  Overall, the physical therapy team took their jobs about as seriously as the bag check people do at JFK.   In their noble efforts to emphasize safety above all else, they managed to kill a lot of the fun– except, of course, full-grown adults clonking around in stilts provides hours and hours of undeniable hilarity.  If said adults attempt to do a grapevine in said stilts, rehearsal becomes more fun than a barrel of monkeys.

I’m sure singing and dancing in stilts will be no sweat in a couple of weeks– days, even.  Meanwhile, after about 30 minutes of step-touching, step-clapping, and, of course, the grapevine, I could feel a burn in my ass and inner thighs.  We have to stay just slightly pitched forward with our abs engaged.  We’re going to be a smoking hot cast by the time we hit Miami.  Possibly we should put together a swimsuit calendar.  After all, there’s nothing sexier than a bikini on stilts.