Back to Woooork!!

Alright… I was so exhausted after last weekend, I didn’t even want to reflect on the awesomeness that was the last week of rehearsal. Quick Recap – As it always happens in show biz, the show must go on, and we were all super sad that about 3 hours before our first full preview run with a Clemson audience, one of our main dancers and the production staff decided that he should heal his extremely sore knee and save it for the actual tour. He’s a big guy and always has a really strong attitude about him, but we could all see how bummed he was that he was going to have to sit out the first two full runs with an audience (but everything’s ok, he saw his doctor this week, and he’s cleared to put his dancing shoes back on!!). The even more amazing part about this story, is that the male dance swing in our show is AWESOME!!!.. He had literally only been taking notes and practicing dance steps on his own (what the swings are supposed to do) and he had everything down so well that after only 3 hours of preparation he KILLED both shows we did last weekend. It was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen – these dancers are just amazing… one day, maaaybe I’ll be a quarter as good as them, after I take a few years of classes hahaha… yyyyyeeeeaaa, not gonna happen, I’ll just keep training my voice 🙂

Fast forward… we got the week off from the production staff, and it was glorious. I slept all week and did as little as possible to get my batteries recharged. Now, I’m ready to rock and roll!!!… Tomorrow night is opening night at Penn State, there’s already a huge hype around the opening and when the stakes are high that’s when my adrenaline pumps the fastest. I used to honestly get nervous before shows, but the more and more I’ve been taking this career seriously, my mind has gotten to this “C’est la vie” mentality. I no longer fear what could potentially go wrong… I now understand more than ever that as an actor you are portraying the reality of imagination – two things that on a basic level are complete opposites. Therefor, by being actor, you are technically crazy for trying to put the square peg in the round hole… my point being that as long as, if by chance you mess up, you continue living your life (the life of the character while you’re on stage because the two of you are one in the same), accidents happen and you just respond to them as you would otherwise normally respond… and yes, I know that probably only made sense in my brain and little jet pilots are flying over everyone’s head right now, but I’m just excited to have seen that transformation in myself where I am always myself on stage, even though it’s through the guise of a character that has been molded and shaped with hours of rehearsal and mental preparation.