The warm-up was when the director told me at rehearsal the other night "I'm so glad you're in this show. You're so knowledgeable." I assumed she meant about things G&S, but in any event it was sweet of her to say so. I've been trying not to be a Little Miss Know-It-All (having done all but one of the extant G&S shows and seen all of them, I'm the only one in the cast who's done more than one or two G&S).
Today we reviewed and started to polish what we've blocked so far and then did more. This is the part I like; for the numbers we ran today, we'd already roughed in the blocking (which is the part I find most tedious) and were "fixing" things, such as which note we shift the parasols on, or whether we do our turns on this measure or that one. And of course once you've run it a few times in a row, you start to remember more and more, so that before you know it, you're actually doing it, not trying to dance with your score in one hand, watching other people to see what comes next, or doing things in the wrong sequence and running into people because you're not where you're supposed to be. I get frustrated when I don't quite understand what I'm supposed to do or when I'm supposed to do it, because I want to get it right and I want to get it right the first time. I like dancing and choreography, and blocking set to music is just more of the same, so the sooner I get it right, the sooner I can relax and enjoy myself.
While the men were working one of their numbers, another woman and I were chatting with the assistant director (AD). She commented that I not only carry myself well, but when we're "on stage", I carry myself more like a Victorian lady than a 21st-century woman. I mentioned that when I had done HMS Pinafore, the director, knowing me for a choreophile and therefore one who paid attention to details of body mechanics, appointed me posture & movement coach for the ladies. This responsibility had prompted me to carry on a correspondence with an expert in the Victorian posture & movement field who was generous enough to answer all my myriad questions. The AD mentioned that she might ask me to do the same for this show. What really surprised me was that when she gave us a few notes before sending us home this afternoon, she announced that they, or at least the women, should watch Pitti-Sing (me!) because "she has all the moves". Well! I'm not used to getting publicly singled out for praise; I'm deciding I like it. :)
As we were walking out, one of the other women in the cast, who had asked me a couple of blocking questions (one of which I couldn't answer) earlier in the rehearsal, thanked me for my help. Thinking only of the question I couldn't answer rather than the ones I could, my thought (which I didn't voice) was "what help?" But how nice of her to say so.
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