First Rehearsal

So I survived my first Panto rehearsal, and what a rehearsal it was.


We went on until quite late, and all these rehearsals (if they all run this late) present a problem, as I desperately needed to do a load of laundry but at this rate I'm only home between 11:30pm and 7am. However putting the washing machine on at 11:30pm would be an extremely antisocial act. So instead I decided to be only slightly antisocial and put it on at 6:15am this morning, so the quick-wash cycle would be done in time for me to hang up the washing before dashing off to work. I can see that I'm going to have to be super-organised with respect to housework.


Last night we started off blocking our first scene with the director, Frederick Testa. Well actually it was more than blocking because we got to a reasonable level with it. It's always cool to see a scene being built up and watch the cast go from a bunch of people standing around to a group of people working together to give a performance.

Since we were doing a crowd scene, there were various lines to be said by random chorus members. As Frederick was handing these lines out to people, I was trying to write who was saying what in the margin of my script, but I had to give up after the third person because so far I only know the names of a few people. I imagine this will change fairly soon as it looks like we are all going to be spending a LOT of time together!


After blocking, we had a dance session with our choreographer, who is Alison White, and it was insane. Insane as in, we did a lot very quickly! I've seen Miss Alison in action before, when I was a student at the Alison White School of Dance about ten years ago. She didn't actually teach me, but I was in a school show where she was choreographing some massive dance numbers. She had a huge stage to fill (the MCC, which besides being very big has multiple entrances all over the auditorium), and lots of classes (ranging from four-year-olds to twenty-plus-year-olds), some of which she wasn't even teaching.

Our classes only came together for the first time a few days before the big show, and it was incredible to see how everything slotted together like a great big animated jigsaw!

Well Alison kept us on the hop last night and I'm looking forward to seeing how all the dances turn out. Like most dance/singing/acting teachers who find themselves working with musical theatre performers, she is being very accomodating of the fact that she is working with a group with very mixed abilities, including people who are either not very gifted in the area of physical movement (like me) or who have never danced before. We don't get yelled at for poor technique (yet?!) or for making mistakes, but we ARE expected to put a lot of energy into it.

In the course of the rehearsal, I stepped on one of my dance partners' feet, and I think I accidentally gouged a chunk out of one of his fingers with my fingernail, although I keep them fairly short. But then I got an elbow in the ribs from someone else while doing a double spin elsewhere on the dancefloor, so I guess it all evens out in the end. It's just a fleshwound.


At one point there was an announcement where we were given an injunction to keep all show content secret, so as not to give away surprises (mostly because this year we have COMPETITION). Never fear, I shall blog with the utmost discretion.

So I am absolutely not going to tell you about the bit where *sounds of a stuggle, and possibly of a body being dragged away from keyboard*.