Saturday, September 15, 2007

Back to being a TW

Today was the first (marathon!) rehearsal for the Christmas Revels' chorus members, so the Chief is back to being a Theater Widower, poor thing. His day got off to a rather early start, too. I woke up at 4:30 this morning w/ a migraine, which despite meds was still with me as I was trying to get ready to be at rehearsal for a 9 a.m. call. TW, bless his heart, offered to drive me, which offer I immediately accepted. (Driving w/ a migraine, even one that's finally backing off, is not fun, and not a very good idea.) So instead of taking his time over his morning coffee and the Business section, he got dressed and ferried me to rehearsal, then packed up all his toys, um, power tools before coming to fetch me home again in the afternoon.

However, this rehearsal schedule isn't nearly as bad as most I've had - Wednesday nights and one or two weekend rehearsals a month (unlike Birdie, when everyone was called every Saturday, Sunday or both), and no rehearsals at all over Thanksgiving week.

Of course, once I start my bellydance class next Monday and change my voice lesson to Tuesday, only one weeknight rehearsal won't seem quite such a light schedule to TW - I'll still be running out on him for one thing or another.

Today's rehearsal would have been a lot better had I felt better, but I still enjoyed it. Looks like we'll have a cast of 80+ once you add up the adults, teens, children, musicians, Morris dancers, and any other folks I'm forgetting at the moment. I sure am glad I don't have to ride herd on this horde! We never got around to doing any dancing today, but we did do a lot of singing (I can't believe how well most of these folks sight-read!) and were divvied up into "families". I'm a henwife (i.e., I keep chickens) married to a farmer and we have a lovely daughter who takes our eggs and wheat to market. (My husband sells the barley & hops directly to the tapster.) Many families, probably including ours, will get at least one young child once the director finishes her casting decisions.

Sounds like we're going to get our costumes comparatively early in the rehearsal process - we get our first "dress" rehearsal a week or two before Tech Week so we can see just how much they affect our movement. Even though I'll have a fairly plain costume - brocade's just not right for feeding or plucking the chickens - I'm still looking forward to seeing what I'll get to wear, as it sounds like our costumer is striving for as much authenticity as budget and modern skeletons will allow.

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