Donna Lucia is getting tense

February 2, 2000

The play is opening in two weeks and we had our first rehearsal with the entire cast present. Talk about a nerve-wracking experience. The play has been block, except for the last quarter of Act Two, a scene where everyone is crowded on stage, drinking tea! The china was rattling after that one.

We met the costume designer for the first time. She checked us out, chin in hand, didn't want to know sizes yet, but insisted that we start to wear leather-sole pumps and not our rubber-sole tennis shoes. There should be lots of slippin' and sliding at tonight's rehearsal. They gave us "practice" skirts to wear, to get the feel of the long dresses. One good thing about playing the "older woman" is that I don't have to kneel at someone's feet looking up in adoration. Humph! All three of the young girls have to do exactly that. How ever does one get up gracefully with six yards of fabric under foot?

Some of the guys are getting worried about not knowing their lines. Good thing, they have many pages of them. The lead guy, Jack, has 40 pages of lines, but he's getting it well in hand! The guy who plays Lord Fancourt Babberley, Babbs is hilarious. He's the one impersonating my character and taken to his skirt like a duck to water. We have a hard time not laughing when he's rehearsing. It's great, he has no inhibitions, not the least bit self-conscious, the actor's deadly enemy. It's fun to watch this newly post-teenager enjoying his role as a cross dresser! That's the great thing about acting, you get permission to become another person.

I arrived last night a bit after 6p.m., rehearsals formally began at 7 and we didn't get out of there until after 10p.m., but everything is now blocked. We're also going to be rehearsing on Sunday besides our usual days. Everyone agreed that we desperately need the rehearsal time.

We ran Act two last night. The first run through was horrible, terrible, awful, slow agonizing...you get the idea. We were so mortified that Ela, Sir Francis and I went off by ourselves and ran our lines and scene over and over and over. Soooooo the second time through it worked much better. It actually flew a bit and the energy level was way up. Part of the problem for the slow start is that they are setting the lights, and it's extremely distracting. Now we not only have to know our lines, where to move, how to hold yourself, but you have to literally use your head as a heat sensor to find the spot light and plant yourself in it's cone of light. So there we were practicing by walking the stage and trying to induce hot flashes! I want to tell you guys, this is hard work! But it's great fun. More rehearsals tonight and this time I'm bringing my own practice skirt. Velvet over jogging pants is not the slickest feeling. Sooooo tonight it's my little lace up black shoe/boots and an ankle length black silk skirt. Hmmm, the last time wore that was on a trip to Toronto to the opera! Whoever would have thought I'd be on stage myself the next time I wore it?!

Yours still reading and studying and learning and implanting lines in my head,

Suzanne & Cassis (I just ignore her now when she starts all that acting stuff...humans!)

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