The good, the bad and the star: The dressing rooms. Blog Installment 11/16/10

Hi again. Hope this finds everyone well. The last time we talked the cast was on the West Coast of Florida. We are now in Melbourne, Florida on the Atlantic Side and back in the Eastern Time Zone, for a few days anyway! We all needed a day off as the travel schedule has been rather grueling to say the least, but yesterday the crew, cast and production team all had a day off after traveling for 8 hours! Today most of the company had massages and played in the ocean. A wonderful way to relax and unwind. Last night we sat on this beautiful deck of the hotel eating from the restaurant and listening to the waves hit the shore. Pure heaven!! Tonight’s show was to a full house and we really gave them a good one, I think.

Anyway, back to dressing rooms….When we were in Detroit, I had my own dressing room, which was spectacular. My own refrigerator and bathroom. It was so lovely to be able to just gather my thoughts and get ready for opening night. Since then, I have either been in a dressing room with one other person, two other persons or the entire female cast. Now sometimes the dressing rooms have been on stage level and other times they have been in the basement and one time it was on the third floor!!! Needless to say it is always an adventure to see what the dressing room configuration will be like….a few times we were so squeezed in that one could not move the chair or have enough room to move elbows!! Once there was only one toilet for 12 women, a little ridiculous!! We had to take numbers to go to the toilet!!

Tonight however, I walked into the theater only to see that I had my own dressing room. Not only that, there was a TV, a refrigerator, a black leather couch and a corner shower stall in a huge bathroom attached. I am telling you, I really felt like hot shit!! It was such a wonderful feeling to have my own space to prepare for the show. People walked around outside and I was in my own oasis. The laundry lady had also laid out my clothing to change into. It is amazing how little things like that mean so very much. It really makes the moment special and I really appreciated it. The good news is I have it again tomorrow night!!

Well this is short as I have to go to a party. John, our Tevye has a gorgeous suite at the hotel overlooking the ocean. He has graciously invited the cast and crew for a party. I have to take the chips and guacamole!! More later…..

Blog Installment, Sunday, November 14, 2010

Well, I am sitting looking out at the Gulf of Mexico from our beautiful hotel in Pensacola, Florida. I walked the sandy beach yesterday in both Biloxi, Mississippi and in Pensacola, Florida and had a great show last night. The audience was not to be believed. The cast can’t figure out which has been our best, we have had so many great audiences!! The theater was another gem in Pensacola and from the stage, it looked to be a full house!

I have to comment on how great our stage and wardrobe crew are! We get to sit on a bus all day and then perform at night, but then we come back to a lovely hotel and sleep in a non-moving bed for the night. Our crew loads everything out after a performance, all the props, costumes, wigs, sets, lights, sound on to three or four forty foot container trucks and then they load themselves onto a bus and head out at midnight or so to the next destination. They sleep on the bus, their bus actually has beds on it, but still it is a bus. Once they arrive, usually very early in the morning, they then have to Unload everything once again and set it up for the evening’s performance! If we have a matinee, their load in time gets cut down and must be done much quicker! Amazing is too mild a word for them. They always have a smile on their faces and they are the best crew to work with. We are so fortunate that they really know their business and take very good care of us and the show!! Thanks and cudos to all of the Fiddler Crew of 2010-2011!!

Needless to say, all of us will be looking forward to staying in one place for a little while!

Not much else to say today. I want to go walk on the beach one more time before wheels up at 11:30 am today. We have a show in Panama City this evening and then on to Melbourne, Florida for three nights, and two shows. Oh, I think I mentioned another member of the cast who plays our Rabbi, Tom has been keeping Updates of all of our experiences during this tour. He had some interesting facts about the last 10 days that I wanted to add here:

“Since October 1st, we have driven 2969 miles through 13 states and 1 Canadian province, performed the show 12 times in 7 different theaters and racked up enough Holiday Inn frequent flier miles to house the entire Chinese Army for a fortnight.  

Since Springfield, Missouri on October 15, we have travelled 2385 miles through 3 additional states, performed the show another 12 times and, again, have racked up enough Holiday Inn frequent flier miles to house all of the homeless people in Amarillo for a week.  (There are a lot of homeless people in Amarillo, surprisingly enough?)

So, that brings our totals to date:  (As of 10/31/10- we have gone further now folks!!)

MILES DRIVEN:           5354

MILES FLOWN:            860

STATES VISITED:   16

PERFORMANCES:     22

CITIES VISITED:         21 (including 5 stopover cities)”

Tom also had a copy of one of our reviews from Lincoln, Nebraska:

Timeless classic ‘Fiddler’ sparkles

BY ELIZABETH GOVAERTS / For the Lincoln Journal Star JournalStar.com | Posted: Tuesday, October 12, 2010 11:45 pm

"Fiddler on the Roof" is one of those rare, timeless works of art that speaks to us as effectively today as it did when the musical opened on Broadway in 1964.

It's the story of Tevye, a poor Jewish milkman in Anatevka, a village in Russia at the turn of the 20th century, and his struggle with the impending upheaval of life as he knows it.

In the touring production at the Lied Center for Performing Arts, John Preece played Tevye with an authentic weariness. Tevye has been beaten down by life and poverty, but is anchored by his strong love of his family and his traditions. He struggles heroically to adapt to the changing times, but, inevitably, cannot let go fully of what he knows and give in to the unfamiliar. This is the irony of this morality tale about the evils of hate and prejudice that displace Tevye and his family from their beloved Anatevka. While he valiantly attempts to accept his daughters' decisions about their lives and the young men they love, his own prejudices are too deeply held and cause him, in the end, to reject his daughter Chava.

"Fiddler on the Roof" is full of some of the most memorable songs written for the stage, and it's the score by Jerry Brock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick that are the centerpiece of the show. Songs such as "If I Were A Rich Man," "Sunrise Sunset," and "Tradition" live beyond the context of the show, and stand alone as masterpieces in and of themselves.

The original Broadway production was directed by renowned choreographer Jerome Robbins, and director/choreographer Sammy Dallas Bayes has lovingly reproduced Robbins' original dances for this version. The choreography was expertly executed, most spectacularly in the euphoric "To Life" and in the series of wedding dances which culminates in the famous "Bottle Dance."

This seasoned cast is consistent and tight throughout, with notable performances by Preece, Kevin Stangler (Perchik), and Nancy Evans as Golde. Despite the fact that this cast has performed this show hundreds of times, favorite moments in the show, like Hodel, Chava, and Tzeitel singing "Matchmaker Matchmaker," are even better than remembered, thanks to the sparkling enthusiasm of these talented performers. Don't miss this wonderful opportunity to see this timeless classic for yourself.

More later…..

Blog Installment November 10, 2010

12 shows, 10 days, 8 cities, 5 states

How about that? This was the plan last Tuesday when we started our evening performance in Fort Smith, Arkansas. We knew that we would have that schedule to look forward to….Our next stop on Wednesday was Tyler, Texas. Then on to Baton Rouge, Louisiana on Thursday. Friday we stopped in Birmingham, Alabama for a 5 show weekend! This means we had a show Friday, two on Saturday and two on Sunday. Monday we departed to perform in Montgomery, Alabama. Here our spot light operator had a hand injury and had to be taken to the emergency room. This meant we had a new person doing the follow spot for the first time. It was very interesting to watch the spot moving all over the stage looking for the actors! Luckily, the  guy was a quick study and before too long, things were back to normal onstage. At the same time, we had no pit, so our wonderful conductor and orchestra were in a remote location meaning we had monitors on stage left and stage right and up on the balcony railing. This was most traumatic for our conductor as his monitor feed kept breaking down and he couldn’t see us!!! Many of his musical cues are based on our staging and what we are doing at a particular time. So to say the least, this raised his stress level; as well our sound guy and head carpenter were tireless throughout the show in trying to get a monitor down in the remote location to function. Needless to say, the performance went off without any glitches and the audience gave us a huge standing ovation!!! Everyone in the cast was really on their toes and watching the monitors like crazy. The audience didn’t realize anything unusual was going on!!

This issue also made our sound check before the show longer as we had to make sure monitors were working as well as microphones.   Thankfully our spot guy just sprained a finger or two and was back with us for the next night which was Tuesday in Oxford, Mississippi at Mississippi University or “Ole Miss” as they like to call the school. We had a sell out crowd that was just amazing. In fact, all of our audiences this week have been terrific!! Of course, we again had some excitement onstage as one of the scenery fly –ins literally flew in and kept dropping down. Dancers had to bend down to go under and luckily our Fruma Sarah, who is on another actor’s shoulders reaching almost 12 feet, was in front of all of this!! So thank goodness no injuries, just lots of excitement!! We are presently on the bus; our bus call this morning was 6:30am for luggage and wheels up at 7am!! We are presently heading back to Lafayette, Louisiana for a show tonight. Tomorrow is Shreveport and then we are through with this segment of performances!! We get a day off to travel; we stop in Biloxi, MS then head over to Pensacola, FL where we will stay on the beach. We have a show Saturday there and then Sunday it is Panama City, Tuesday and Wednesday we perform in Melbourne, FL, then on to Huntsville, Alabama for another 5 show weekend. However, we are all very excited as after this madness we fly up to Ottawa, Canada where we will have 8 shows. However, we will be staying in one place for 6 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! No early morning bus calls, no packing and repacking, no lugging and schlepping. We cannot wait! It is so interesting that the performances have become the constant in our lives. Actors sometimes get nervous before a show as they don’t know what to expect from the theater, audience, stage crew….we are so delighted to just be back onstage and not on the bus or lugging suitcases or worrying about where we will find food or when to do our laundry, that our shows continue to be joyous and full of energy and good fun!!!

I realized when I was talking about our extended sound check that I have never talked about that part of our process. Every time we get to a new city, which of course has been practically every day, we need to have our sound man, Deniz, make sure our sound system is working and appropriately acoustic for each venue. Many a time we wait onstage silently and patiently for him to get rid of the “ring” or “feedback” which can cause untold problems if not addressed before an audience gets there. The sound check starts with each individual member of the orchestra, then various combinations until they are all playing together. We also have a clarinet and mandolin onstage during the wedding, so they put on their mikes and head up to the stage for their sound check there. Once that is complete, Deniz starts working with the various actor solo numbers, moving toward the big group numbers, “Sunrise, Sunset”, “Sabbath Prayer” and ending with “Tradition”. All of this takes about an hour. My husband Peter was at our opening show in Detroit and he couldn’t get over how great the sound system was!! Everyone sounds super and Deniz and his assistant, Chrystal are top notch!!!! This is also a great time for the cast to be doing stretches and sit-ups and our arm lifts!! We have been complimented several times on our sound check etiquette. Some casts find it difficult to stand still and silent for the five minutes or so it takes the sound man to adjust the system. Every time we rock.

On that note, I must compliment the cast and orchestra. Our conductor got a message from Harvey Fierstein. He had worked with our conductor on the National Tour last year and had friends who saw our show and reported back to him that we are wonderful!!! He wanted to call and congratulate us and let us know. What a huge compliment! We are all so happy about this. We work very hard so it is super that people are recognizing the talent and camaraderie that has been established among us. Our chemistry onstage is electric and we are now functioning like a village and a family! Quite extraordinary. Our conductor who has worked with lots of different casts in lots of different productions is constantly telling us how unique we are in our ability to not only get along with each other, but how we bring that wonderful closeness onstage and no matter what gets thrown at us, we are always up to the challenge. Fiddler Cast of 2010-2011: I salute you!!!!!!!!!

October 31, 2010 Happy Halloween!

Hello, it has been awhile since I was here writing to you. We have now performed in 16 cites, 7 States and 1 Canadian Province!! There isn’t a lot of down time on this tour and this blog business is harder than I thought. My sister did warn me….Well, I did learn a good lesson. I don’t know if you remember, I tried to write an installment one night a few weeks ago, had several versions as the computer keyboard is touchy and erased several of my versions until finally it was 3 am, I was frustrated and tired and just wrote a shortened version. Now I am using Word Documents so I can save my work as I go along and not have it vanish into the netherworld of cyberspace. Well enough of; that let us journey along the highways of America on a bus shall we?

OY!! Riding on a bus for 8 hours is the most uncomfortable thing I have ever done. I thought I could sleep anywhere. I have been known to fall asleep sitting in uncomfortable positions in a car. This is not so easy on a bus. If you happen to be thinking of going on tour, make sure you negotiate in your contract that you will have the bus seat plus the seat next to you as well so that you can stretch out. Even with that I have to extend my legs into the aisle at times. Some of the others who have a seat mate end up sleeping on the floor. Muscle cramps and a sore back are everyday occurrences. Then, of course, we have to get off the bus and go perform!! I am painting a rather absurd picture, but most of it is true. In reality, the Company Manager, who is great, arranges for us to arrive at our destination with two hours to spare before we have to be at the theater. Thus, we can hit the exercise room, stretch, take a shower or a nap or go find somewhere to eat, all before our 5pm company meeting.

You see, every venue is different. Stage left might have a large wing or no space at all. We have a very large house and a tailor shop that live in the Stage Right Wing. Some nights, we get to the theater to find out that entrances have to be adjusted as there just isn’t space for people and set!! We will be in a theater this week that has no pit for the orchestra. That will be an adventure. Anyway, back to the schedule. We get to the theater; have the meeting where they tell us changes to the show and where everything is-i.e. costumes, mikes, props, bathrooms. Next is Sound Check. Whenever we get to a new venue, which this week will be everyday, Deniz and Crystal, our fabulous Sound Team, have the orchestra and the actors do a sound check. This is very important as each house has different acoustics. Sometimes there is reverb that needs to be addressed, sometimes it is monitors out of place, always it is what we will sound like in the venue. They do a terrific job!! My husband, Peter, was at our opening in Detroit at the Fabulous Fox Theater, built in the 1920’s and you wouldn’t believe all the greats who have performed there and signed the wall (now including our cast!!). Anyway, Peter said the sound was so great. After sound check we have a half hour to get something to eat or rest or start to get ready for the show.

In rereading what I have just written, I realized I should probably tell you a day in the life:

If we are heading to a new venue our schedule looks like this:

A time for luggage drop off for the bus, a half hour later we depart. Most mornings if we have a long bus ride, the day starts at  7:30 am or 8:00am. We have also had some 6:30am starts!! After a performance the night before!! This is not the life for the faint of heart!!

On the bus trip, we stop for 15 minutes every two hours to stretch, hit a bath room and have an hour to eat a meal. If it is a short ride, under 5 hours, we don’t get a meal stop as we will eat once we reach our destination. Once we arrive at the hotel, there is usually 2 hours before bus call to go to the venue for the stuff I mentioned earlier. If we are lucky enough to be in a place for more than one night, we don’t have to be at the theater until a half hour before curtain. These days are great as one can sleep late, see some of the surrounding countryside or just do one’s own thing!

Laundry is another task that becomes part of the learning curve. When to do it, where, how to fit it into the schedule, how to pack so you have enough clothes without taking multiple suitcases out of the bus for one nighters…..Most of the hotels we are staying in have one washing machine and one dryer. If you take too long getting to the laundry room, the line is quite long and your day is taken up doing laundry. Some of us now have our laundry bags on the bus and immediately hit the laundry room before we even go to our hotel room! During the rehearsal period, when we had meetings about what to pack, large numbers of underwear were mentioned!! Since we have such a large number of one nighters, and we are on and off the bus nearly everyday, it does become difficult to schlep large suitcases on and off the bus, so most of us have figured out how to pack for two or even three weeks at a time, find that laundry room and keep wearing the same clothes. In fact, today is a GOLDEN DAY, meaning we don’t have to travel AND we don’t have a performance tonight. So today the Bus Driver, Dave who is so fabulous and kindhearted is taking the bus and anyone who needs to do laundry to the Laundromat. The hotel’s machine is not working…..Thank goodness I did Laundry a couple of hotels ago!!

Seeing America from the bus is interesting. From my perspective a lot of the uniqueness of areas has been lost due to the standardization of building malls and fast food joints. They are everywhere. The scary thing is if one has been sleeping on the bus and wakes up once the bus stops, looks around, it looks the same as the last stop and one starts to wonder have we just gone in a circle. The same stores, the same fast food, boring!!!!!!!!!!!! For variety one day, our Company Manager had the bus go on smaller highways instead of the Interstate. We passed through smaller towns that did have personality and local shops. In one such shop we had a wonderful experience. They were having the local Lions Club meeting, so there were several older gentlemen sitting discussing various events for Paducah, Texas. As all 28 of us converged on the bathrooms and shop, some of the men started talking to us. One asked our Music Director a great question, “Are y’all traveling or are you going somewhere?” to which our MD responded, “Yes.” Then another gentleman asked another cast member what we were doing, he was told we were part of the Fiddler on the Roof National Tour traveling throughout the US and Canada to which the gentleman from Paducah responded, “That’s nice. Most people who come through here are either lost or on the run!” Tells you how out of the way and small this place really was.

The other wonderful thing about America is how nice everyone is. Wherever we have gone people have gone out of their way to be nice to us. We have had wonderful experiences in terrific restaurants and hotels across Middle America. We begin our Southern Experience now. We leave Texas tomorrow and head for Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Florida with a quick trip into Arkansas. All of our audiences have been terrific, cheering and clapping and continuing to give us standing ovations. As we were getting on the bus, two sisters ran over to us one night after a show in Amarillo, Texas. They were cute as could be; the younger one was no more than 10 years old. She was jumping up and down in her enthusiasm about the show. She said we were “Awesome!” Both sisters thought we were terrific and really enjoyed the performance and wanted to tell us. It was so special to see how we affect our audiences, especially young children!

We also have local crew members and local dressers to help us with the costumes. There is not a lot of time to talk or socialize with these people, but they have all been so terrific and kind and I would like to publicly thank them here. It is a very hard job they do. The crew, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, travel by bus overnight and get to the venue before us. They instruct the crew and dressers as to what the night ahead will bring. Most times it is just for one performance. Luckily we just had three shows in Lubbock, so we all could get used to the routine at this theater and by the third show, things were really rocking!

Well, is seems I have covered all I wanted to say this time around. I want to go spend some of my valuable “GOLDEN DAY” hours in the exercise room and then out to dinner with some members from our orchestra! Happy Halloween to all and to all a good night.

Blog posting, Sunday, October 03, 2010

Hello, I am now riding through Tennessee on the BUS! I will now take the time to write a more complete recounting of our time so far.

First, we had our second preview last night in Chattanooga at the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Auditorium. We had about 1700 people last night. What a wonderful crowd, we got a standing ovation. A friend of one of the cast members who has seen many incarnations of FIDDLER said this was one of the best casts he has ever seen and predicts we will only get better and better!! Yesterday, Sammy, our director, had us in early, fine tuning scenes and dance numbers, making sure we were in better positions for sight lines for the audience as well as having more fluidity in the scenes. Dialogue was helped along with more background information. Ken, the Assistant Director/Assistant Choreographer, gave great advice and counsel to us, adding more flavor and depth to our characterizations. It paid off, the performance was so much better.

I have said it before, and I will probably say it again throughout the next 9 months, this cast is exceptional. Every person, now including our clarinetist, mandolin player, violinist and trumpet player (they are on the bus with us as well as the merchandise lady and our Company Manager, Nicole) is incredible-very talented at what they do as well as being very interesting nice caring human beings! I am so lucky to be a part of this cast. Our Tevye, John Preece is a veteran of 9 National Tours and yet he is so supportive and wonderful to be with onstage, generous with his talent and with his humor! Our conductor, David Andrews Rogers, or DAR as he likes to be known has gone off to Singapore for a quick gig as part of a Musical Festival Celebrating Rock Musicians of the 1980’s. We will miss him, but Nathan will take over the baton. He is our rehearsal and pit pianist. Very talented!! DAR will rejoin us in Lincoln, Nebraska and will then be with us for the duration.

All of us this morning felt as if we have graduated from a very intensive course on building a top notch show and are now ready to spread our wings and perform on our own. Ken and Sammy as well as Suzayn, our Stage Manager and all of the fabulous Design Team were very much in charge during our Tech Week. The actors were very secondary to all of the various people and things that had to be accomplished during our marathon 9 days in Chattanooga. Luckily we had two performances or previews for audiences there. Now we are heading to Detroit to open on Wednesday, October 6, 2010. Sammy will meet us there and we will have more rehearsals where he will further refine our performances.

The crew is traveling separately in three 20 foot container semis! They had a load out last night and will load in to the theater on Tuesday. All of the costumes are in large gondolas as are the props and sets. It is quite amazing to see all of the thousands of articles of stuff that we use boxed up and sent on its way. Last night was hilarious in that we were trying out best to get out of costume and quickly give laundry, shoes, wigs, costumes, makeup and other various sundries to the appropriate person, who would then pack it up and load it on the correct gondola. My dressing roommate, Birdie, who plays “Yente” in the show, said it reminded her of a hospital room where the nurses keep coming in to take temperatures or straighten up while the poor patient is trying to sleep. We of course weren’t sleeping, but trying out best to get organized, yet having constant interruptions. Anyway, it all got done.

I haven’t mentioned the wig person, Sonia, a lovely young woman who is very calm under pressure. I have a quick change right before the song “Sabbath Prayer”.  For those of you who are not theatre people, a quick change is a costume change that has to occur on stage or in the wings as there is no time to get back to the dressing area. Usually it occurs in less than two minutes hence “quick change”. During the two days of rehearsals before the previews, I was not making it back on in time for my entrance. A scene is constructed in such a way that there are cue lines when an actor must be walking onstage in order for their next line or next action to be on time and not cause a huge gap with others standing onstage doing nothing….So since I was late both rehearsals it was a little disconcerting for me to say the least. At one point the director told the actors to start calling for me and adlibbing. When I finally got on I told them I couldn’t find my “Shaitle” (Yiddish for wig). Since we didn’t want this to happen during the actual performance, it was decided that we would have a quick change rehearsal. When we first started we finished in two minutes. Our Wardrobe Master, Jay, who is really on top of things, helped us figure out what comes off first and how to best get the dress on quickly. There were two people helping me and we practiced the moves 5 times and got it down to 50 seconds! Not bad, Huh?? Needless to say, I was on time, even early waiting for my cue for both of the previews. Every new theatre, and there will be 80 of them, will have a new dresser assisting me as well as Sonia, our wig lady helping me. Luckily Sonia will instruct the new dresser as to the sequence of events that have to happen to make the quick change work. Thank goodness, Sonia will be there and Jay will keep his eye on this as well. Ah, the life. Oh I didn’t mention that the quick change takes place behind the house on stage next to Tevye and his dresser, he has a quick change as well and there are four brawny stage hands back there waiting to move the house for the next scene, a little crowded. Oh, and we can’t let the audience see us!!! But we are getting it done.

Well that is enough for one day. I will let you know how the bus is in the next installment. We will be stopping for lunch soon.

More later…..

October 1, 2010

Well folks this is the third attempt at this. Everytime I finish a post and try to do spell check the damn computer goes wonky and I lose the work. I am tired and want to go to sleep. I wanted to fill you in on what has been happening this past month and I did, but I didn't hit save in time! Oh well. Here is the third attempt.

Quickly, the past four weeks have been very intense, lots of rehearsals, lots of learning things about the characters, show, props, sets, people we are working with and each other. We were in New York for the three weeks from 10 am until 6 pm Monday through Saturday. Sammy Dallas Bayes our director and DAR, our musical director kept us very busy learning choreography for the big dances, learning the scenes, the music and the set changes. OY the set changes. Most of the actors have to help move the set pieces.

We had a much deserved day off on September 22 and on September 23 we all flew to Chattanooga, Tennessee for our Tech Week. Tech week is very difficult for actors in that we are no longer the most important thing on the stage. Now we have to add the design team, the sound team, the set team, the prop team, the orchestra and the costumes. Each day brought another piece to the puzzle that is the "Show". We as actors just stand around waiting for the sound man to get rid of the hum in the sound system, waiting for lights to be adjusted or waiting for a set piece to be moved or learning where we go for a quick change during a scene or what the clarinetist will do during the "Bottle Dance"! It is quite exciting to see the show come together in layers like this. Each day brought a new piece to make up the whole. Our cast is very talented and our Tevye, John Preece is exceptional. He is a wonderful colleague. In New York when I had no idea what I was doing, he dragged me around and made sure I was always in the right place. Now we have fun onstage with the lights, costumes and sets! Our Village of Anatevka is really becoming a reality. Each person in the cast is terrific and brings a unique talent to the show. It is a pleasure to work with them and watch them grow as performers. We are so lucky in that we all have wonderful senses of humor and get along very well onstage and off. I think this is very important as our journey is just beginning...on a confined space for several months...the bus.

But I digress. Tonight was opening preview with a live audience. It was a wonderful audience. We made them laugh and cry and we got a standing ovation! I think we have a hit! It was so great to perform for people after all of our hard work. Now we will continue to have fun and create magic every night.

Now I have to go to sleep as I have a 12:30pm rehearsal and another preview tomorrow night.
Good night and sleep well. Will have more to say later....Thanks for listening...

September 6, Ten o'clock

Hi all,

I, of course, have not told people about this blog as I have been a little busy. But I will write a new episode as I will let you all know about this and if you are in fact already reading my nonsense, I want to give you more fodder for contemplation!

This past week, rehearsals for FIDDLER ON THE ROOF began in New York City. It is a very exciting show, with lots of wonderful dancing and singing as well as a dynamite story! As I told you in the first installment, I will be playing the role of "Golde" on the National Tour. Anyway, I still had 8 shows to do at the Mac Haydn: SHOWBOAT, my role, "Parthy'. I had to drive three hours each way to get to and from rehearsals and to and from the shows!! It was an experience. Fatigue sets in very quickly. But as my director up at the Mac Haydn told me, "You are a working actor, get on that stage!!". It worked. I woke up and actually had a wonderful show. All the intense work I am doing with FIDDLER helped me get more focused so that I could bring more to my role as "Parthy"! I had such a good time applying things I had learned in rehearsals in FIDDLER to a role that I had already performed 16 times. "Golde" is still so new for me, I am just getting off book. (For the non actors who might read this, Off Book, means one has learned their lines and can now concentrate on the blocking and emotional life of the character.)

As of Sunday night, SHOWBOAT has closed. It was wonderful fun. I worked with terrific people. The director was also in the show and whenever we were onstage together, I was in heaven!! In fact in one of the last performances I  found new emotional depth for one of the dramatic moments and was able to reach new depths of feeling onstage. It was glorious. I was thrilled that we had such a hit show.

Now, to the point I wanted to make with this installment:
Rehearsing while living at home vs. rehearsing at a theatre out of town. I have never really thought about logistics when one is rehearsing a show in New York versus being out of town and only having to concentrate on the work. Although I love being at home and sleeping in my own bed at night, it takes much more concentration and discipline to live in your own home and get to rehearsals on time, study what needs to be done, do laundry, interact with family members, cook dinner, clean the house, run errands and somehow have "Life" interfere with one's concentration. When one is on the road, the rehearsal process is everything. One still needs to eat and do laundry, but there are no other distractions. Also, cast housing is usually accessible to the theatre, not an hour away! Now last week was an exception to this formula as I still had 8 shows from another contract. We still have two weeks left in New York before we take off for Chattanooga. The director hopes to have the entire show staged by this Friday. We all work very hard from 10 am to 6 pm, getting the show on its feet. Of course, I must head home, cook dinner, clean the kitchen and then get to work studying and reviewing blocking, songs and dialogue from the day's work as well as look ahead to be learning the next scene/song/dance!! "Golde" is in several scenes, lots of dialogue and lots of dancing! In fact, I have to go learn the song Anatevka now.

Thanks for listening. Have a good night. More later.....