The Reviews Are In

So it turns out Guffman – two Guffmans, actually – did show up to our little show, and they published their opinions of our attempt at creating musical theatre magic.

Review #1:  A rave!  We’re so amazing, Godiva should sell us in chocolate.

Review #2:  The critic seemed rather confused by the concept of a musical “revue.”  Complained that there was no plot.  Um, no.  Music revues, by definition, do not have plots, my dear madam.  Also, she did not like our tamborines. 

Comments about Mama:   Ahem.  I have, apparently, “pizzazz, spunk, and sparkle.”  Also, I am “leggy.”

Personally, I have always felt very pizzazzy.  It’s so nice to have this confirmed by an impartial third party.

New York New Hmm?

About halfway through the finale of our final show, jazz hands wiggling, blasting out, “NEW YORK NEW YOOOORK,” I completely checked out.

I was ready for a robot birthday party.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I managed to reign in my thoughts about cupcake sprinkles and whether I’d remembered to clean the toilet long enough for the big finish, and then after many happy hugs with family and cast members, I zoomed back home, shedding my sequins for my ever-so-comfortable mommy jeans.

At home, we frantically washed dishes and blew up balloons in the last few minutes before robot chaos completely erupted.  Moo was happily caught up in the swirl of cousins, presents (snakes! baby doll!), pizza, and, of course… ROBOTS.

Calvin’s Battlebot:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Liesl’s Fashionbot:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Opa’s Robot, winner of Best Use of Recycled Materials:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Clara and Irwin’s Candybot:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And yes, the robot covered in candy did win the robot contest (as chosen by Moo).  They knew how to play to their audience!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy birthday, Moobot!

Do You Know Why My Garter is White?*

Six shows = six garters that I fling out to the audience (rubber-band-style) during “All That Jazz.”  Let’s take a look at the statistics:

Garter #1:  landed pitifiully in the first row, where no one was sitting.

Garter #2: Aimed squarely at Herbie in the third row, but landed in the seat right in front of him.  Guy next to Herbie made a play to grab it himself, but Herbie claimed it first.  “Gonna go up to her after the show?” said the guy.  “Nice.”  “Well, actually, she’s my wife,” said Herbie.  “But good idea.”  Garter 2 now hangs on our headboard.

Garter #3:  Perfectly flipped into the lap of a man in the middle of the third row.  I rejoiced until intermission, when one of the ushers handed it back to me.  Rejected!

Garter #4:  The night of the Great Boob (Almost) Escape.  I was so angry about my costume malfunction, I took it out on the garter, fwanging it straight up instead of down toward the audience.  This turned out well, as the garter reached all the way to the 6th row and was not returned to me.

Garter #5:   Flipped respectfully into third row, right at an older gentleman.  After the show, the gentleman found me and handed me the garter.  “It’s a souvenir!” I protested.  “You can keep it!”  “I would,” the man said, “but I don’t think my wife likes the idea.”  Hee.

Garter #6:  My last garter, my last performance!  My whole family attended the show, and I couldn’t see any of them in the audience until the very beginning of “All That Jazz,” when I spied my dad sitting in the stage right section.  He looked like he was in about the 7th row, but I thought I could make it.  How fun, to fling it to my dad during my last show!  Everything was going so well – I eased the garter down my leg and over my shoe without falling over (always a challenge), spun it around on my finger, aimed and…FWANG!  “Noooo I’m no one’s wife!” I sang, looking for the garter landing out in the audience.  Wait a minute, where did it go?  I looked down – ACK! (which, apparently, I said out loud.)  There it was at my feet!  How did that happen?!  I could NOT end this way! ”But ohhhh I love my life!” I sang.  I picked up the garter like a hot potato, twirled around, and flung it like a frisbee out into the audience, where it landed in the 10th row, right in a very startled gentleman’s face.  Ha.  And no, he didn’t return it.

And allll….

that….

jaaaaazzzzz!

 

*Because everyone who’s passed above it has gone to heaven!

Making Up for Lost Time

All my life, I’ve been late.   My family and friends and dear husband can verify this – I have rarely been on time for anything.  School, jobs, interviews, blog updates, auditions, movies, dates, weddings, planes – I’ve been late to ‘em all. 

So it’s kinda funny that during both “Kiss Me Kate” and “The World Goes Round,” I was always early.  Not the first one in the theater, of course – that’s almost always the stage manager – but always the first cast member.  (Except that one time I got a flat tire.)

Granted, I’m not an idiot, nor am I really into self-sabotage - I’m just not going to be late for a show that I’ve been slowly striving toward for 14 years.  But our “call time” is always an hour before curtain, and I was always there about an hour and a half before that.

 I felt a little guilty telling Herbie and assorted babysitters that I just HAD to leave by 5, when really I didn’t HAVE to be there until about an hour or so after that, but getting to the theater first is, for me, one of the best things about the whole entire experience.

When I first get there, I flip on all the lights in the dressing room, saving those bright lights around my mirror for last.  I set up my makeup and plug in my curling iron, and then I slip out to the wings of the stage to gather up whatever costume pieces may have been tossed behind the props table during the mad rush the night before.  The stage is almost completely dark and silent, and it’s tempting to go leaping across it willy-nilly, but I know Toby is probably in the sound booth and might tease me about it later.  So I just stand there and let the quiet seep in and calm my racing heart.

Then it’s back to the dressing room, where I prop open the door so I can see and hear the slow trickle of people arriving.  Soon Toby switches on the intercom, so I can hear the backstage crew (a.k.a. very nice rich ladies) laughing and sweeping the stage, and later, the first few bweeps and bum-bum’s of the band warming up.  Julie is the next cast member to arrive, and we chat about our families while we slather on makeup.  Mary the director usually pokes her head in to say hello next, and then the boys arrive, shouting hello before they disappear to hunt for food.

Around this time there is almost always some sort of costume-related emergency – Norm has a mysterious bump in his shoe, ALL of our pantyhose and backup pantyhose have holes in them, all of our costumes are missing, all of our costumes have been attacked by a Bedazzler, I forgot my white bra, Julie’s bra is missing (she found it later in her driveway), you can see my “Britney” through my orange pants… and so on.  Amazingly, almost all of these crises can be solved with a single safety pin.

Next, Blaze arrives, having made herself up at home, and we’re all called on stage to warm up and test our mic’s.  At this point I do actually leap across the stage willy-nilly, as it’s my only chance to warm up my muscles, and also because there is nothing more enjoyable than leaping willy-nilly across a stage.

Warmed-up, we trot back to the dressing rooms, and I curl my hair and reapply all the makeup that has already worn off because I started getting ready so damn early.  Over the intercom, the band blares as they squeeze in a few last minutes of warm-up before Daniel opens the doors for the audience.  In the dressing room, we sometimes tell dirty jokes back and forth.  Sometimes we warm up our voices more.  Parrot calls work well – CA-CAW!  Sometimes someone appears in the doorway with roses from an admirer (thanks, sweetheart).

And then, suddenly, Daniel’s voice comes over the intercom and announces that we only have 10 minutes, and I have not even started getting dressed.  With the help of Spray Mount, I chemically bind myself into a torn pair of pantyhose and pull on my increasingly sparkly purple leotard and skirt.  Then I ask Julie to slide my mic pack down near my butt crack, and I ask Blaze to tape the wire to the nape of my neck (because she always gets it just right).  Now we can hear the low hum of the audience over the intercom as they start to take their seats, and I stick a couple bobby pins in my hair and spray it into submission (once grabbing the Spray Mount by mistake – close call!), slick on some ruby red lipstick, poke my favorite sparkly earrings through my ears, and put on the wrong shoes, which I will realize about four minutes before I have to go on stage.

We all gulp down water, clasp hands with Mary in the hallway, and shout “Kander and Ebb woo!” or “Yay pretty princesses!” or some such ridiculous thing.

“Break a leg!”  “Break a leg!”  “Break a leg!” 

And then Daniel’s voice commands us to take our places for the top of the show.

Sometimes I linger in the hallway for a couple minutes, my eyes going over the song list to try and remember what the heck it is I’m going to be doing in a few minutes.  And then I flap my arms back and forth like a goose, and clap my hands five times.

In the wings, it’s not quiet anymore.  Blaze is already singing.  The backstage ladies are whispering in each other’s ears.  Norm and I bump fists.  The band is swinging, and the lights are blaring, blue and purple and red.

Blaze starts building toward the end of her song, and I bury my face in one of the curtain legs and take deep breaths.  Then I gaze up into the endless heights of the stage – it just goes up and up and up.   I join Norm for our entrance, and I do a little dance to the last few bars of Blaze’s song, hips shaking, to get my energy up.  The audience applauds for Blaze.  Norm gives me a nod, and I pat him on the back.

And then we’re singing.

…If I had the keys to the building, I think I’d get there at the crack of dawn.

Friday Blues

I’m having a little trouble remembering that I have a show to do tonight.  Having a break all week was nice, but the bad news about our canceled show makes all our effort feel a little futile, plus I’ve lost all the nervous energy I had leading up to last weekend’s shows.

All I want to think about is Moo’s birthday party. 

In a small way, I’m relieved that now I have all of Saturday to help Herbie get our house ready for the party on Sunday evening.  But Sunday will be even crazier - two cakes to decorate in the morning, then we’ll all rush off to the Sunday matinee (hopefully leaving behind a perfectly party-ready house), where the entire posse of cousins, aunts, sisters, and in-laws will watch the show, and then we’ll all rush back to our house to eat cake and open presents.

And, of course, declare the Grand Prize Winner in the home-made robot contest (winner picked by Moo).

And in all my errand-running, and fussing with prizes and cleaning and decorating, I kinda keep forgetting that I’m going to be on stage tonight singing and dancing.  Moo hasn’t forgotten, though.  She always wants me to sing songs from the show, discuss our costumes, and divulge her plans to introduce everyone in the cast to her favorite stuffed animals.

So why am I having trouble getting excited?  After all, my so-called quest is just three performances away from being dunzo.  Three more performances, and then – what?  I probably won’t be back on stage for a while.  For one thing, I am asking a lot of Herbie without exactly contributing to the family coffers.  Plus, Herbie and I might like to start on a much smaller-sized quest of our own very soon.

Maybe I don’t want to think about all this coming to an end.  I just hope it’s not another 15 years before I’m on stage again.  But at least then I’ll be old enough to actually play Mama Rose!

Apparently, People are Quite Sleepy on Saturdays

Bad news for The World Goes ‘Rounders – our Saturday matinee show was canceled, due to poor ticket sales.  Sigh.

I got a call this morning from Candy, the nicest box office woman in the world, telling me that she needed to move my entire family (because of course that’s the show they were planning on attending) to the Sunday matinee. 

“I hope you’re not hearing about the cancellation from me for the first time,” she said.

Uh, yes.  I am.

So I guess people are holding onto their wallets tightly these days, and we shouldn’t take it personally.  Certainly it’s not a reflection on the show, since a) The show is great! and b) There haven’t even been any reviews, let alone poor reviews to drive people away!  But it’s definitely a blow to my musical theatre soul to work so hard on something only to see an entire show get flushed down the toilet.

All that work for only six shows!

More Photos

Here’s the second installment of pictures from our dress rehearsal.  I call this series, “CRAZY FACES:”

“Coffee in a Cardboard Cup” – we would really like some coffee, please:

 
 COFFEE NOW!

Nobody tell Ricky I posted this one:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Taking a little break to play beach ball:

 

 ”OHHHH no, two of our castmates appear to have expired.”

Attacking Norm with crutches!

 

 

 Don’t tell Ricky about this one, either.  CA-CAW, CA-CAW!:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wow, that really looks – I mean, just so you know, I am NOT, ummm:

Fringe A-Flyin’

 Heh heh…

Three Shows Later…

And I’m… sticky.

My boob has the tendency to try to escape one of my costumes, and Blaze had the cure:  Spray Mount!  No, not special Boob Spray Mount, but the stuff that you use on posterboard in high school presentations.  It worked very, very well.

So well that I could not get it off even when I scrubbed and scrubbed in the shower.  Then I went back to the show, sprayed some more Spray Mount on freshly scrubbed skin, and – OW.

At least my boob didn’t pop out, and my mother-in-law has now armed me with medical-grade adhesvie remover, so I’m all set for the next round of shows this weekend.

I think our first weekend went really well.  Tickets sold well, the audience seemed happy, and Moo – oh Moo.  Moo went to the Sunday matinee with Herbie, and luckily they were sitting near the back of the theatre and I couldn’t see them until the finale, or else I probably would have been crying through the whole show.  On Saturday night,  Herbie was sitting in the third row on the aisle, his head always RIGHT THERE in my peripheral vision, and I was a nervous wreck throughout the show.

But back to Sunday - as soon as I saw Herbie holding up Moo, both of them clapping, I teared up and choked through the last few lines of, “New York, New York.”  Then I ripped off my mic as quick as I could after the bows and rushed out to the lobby.  Moo and Herbie were waiting at the end of the hall.

“There’s Mommy!” said Herbie.

“Mommyyyyy!” called Moo, as she came running down the hall to me, arms outstretched.

Besides getting married and giving birth, I don’t think I’ve had a happier moment.  I scooped up Moo in my arms, and she began patting me on the chest, just like she did in Kiss Me Kate, as if to double-check and make sure this lady wearing the crazy costume and all the makeup is really her mommy.  Soon she began inspecting my sequins and hiding in my shoulder when all my castmates wanted to say hello.  But that didn’t last long, and in no time she was introducing everyone to Hop and critiquing our costumes (“Sparkly!”) and declaring her favorite songs (“The coffee song!”).  Later at the cast party, she even showed off some of her own dance moves, trying to impress Mary the director.  (Join the club, Moo!)

And now, a whole week until our final weekend of shows.  I don’t know how to feel – sad that it’s nearly over, happy that it’s nearly over – or just anxious about what comes next. 

Supposedly, there were two critics in attendance at Sunday’s show, but I haven’t found any reviews yet, so perhaps we really do have a waiting for Guffman situation here.  I have never been reviewed before, and I’m horrified at the prospect, and yet I google “world goes round review” about every 10 minutes.  …Okay, every five minutes.

Opening Night

I was prepared for the giant Mothra-sized butterflies in my tummy, rearing up every 20 minutes or so.  But I was not prepared to suddenly start crying on the way to the show.

I was rehearsing one of my songs, “Colored Lights,” during which sometimes I get choked up, because the song hits so close to home.  It’s basically a woman singing about past relationships and how everything always seemed so perfect, and yet she felt so sad, because the colored lights of her childhood were missing.  In the original song, she’s singing about literal colored lights, because she grew up in a roller-skating rink (random), but when I sing it, I’m singing more metaphorically, about how everything is full of hope and light when you’re young (like when I dreamed of being on stage, and like when I still WAS doing theatre as a youngster).

So I often get a little teary singing that song, but I suddenly started really pouring out the waterworks on the way to the show.  It has been such a long journey back to being on stage, and the full meaning of being there suddenly crashed down on me – all the years of feeling kinda empty but trying to ignore it, all the support I’ve received after deciding I’d like to try auditioning again – well I was just a big weepy wuss.

So much so that I had trouble turning it off.  Even waiting in the wings before our entrance at the top of the show, I was fighting back tears, and had to tell myself sternly that I had a job to do.  So I pulled it together until the end of “All That Jazz,” which was just so much FUN – oh God, those drums!!  The number went really well, even though my garter sort of impotently flopped into the first row when I shot it out into the audience, not landing in anyone’s lap.  I was so – jazzed, forgive the pun – with the feeling of dreams realized, the tears started again, and Ricky sort of looked at me, alarmed, and escaped to his dressing room.

Overall, I think the show went well.  My loved ones and friends insisted they didn’t hear any off-key notes, and whether they were being honest or just nice, I’ll take it.  During intermission, the fire alarm went off (crazy wind outside), and the fire curtain came down over the stage, so there were about 15 panicked minutes as the entire production staff tried to figure out how to rid the stage of a giant sheet of metal.  We finally shed the fire curtain, and once the second act got going, the biggest issues were costume changes, fears of costumes falling off (I had three minutes on stage where I was convinced my pants were falling off), microphones going out (just for a second), and evil harmonies.

There were reports of a few people asleep in the front row, but everyone I talked to said they loved the show.  Of course, those people HAD to say they loved it, but I do think, regardless of scary harmonies and the need for a little more rehearsal, that it’s a very entertaining show.

And after “All That Jazz,” I didn’t cry again – well, at least not until my mom came running up to me after the show.  There’s just something about your mom looking really proud of you…