But I'm not ready!

TW pointed out to me last night that my show opens just 2 weeks from tomorrow! ACK! I am so not ready! I've got 2 scenes where I definitely do not have my lines memorized yet (TW has promised to help me run lines this weekend - so much for a relaxing weekend at the cabin). Worse, I'm still learning nearly all the music, and we have one number we haven't even gone over yet. Yike!

We had our first of only 2 choreography rehearsals earlier this week. Straightforward stuff, fortunately, and easy to memorize.

I realize I've been very spoiled with the musicals and operettas I've done up to now. This is the first musical I've done where our "accompanist" was a CD, not a human. I have to completely relearn how to learn my music, since it's often hard to hear my musical cue in the accompaniment. Complicating things is the fact that the stressed syllables of words often do not fall on the downbeat and much of the music is irregularly syncopated, making it very tricky in places to get the timing right.

If I feel under-rehearsed, I'm sure that's due in no small part to the fact that our rehearsals have been scheduled for only 2 hours instead of the 3 I'm used to. You can't cover nearly as much material if you don't have that 3rd hour, but our director has tried very hard to make sure the middle- and high-schoolers in the cast aren't up too late on a school night, so we've been stopping at 9 p.m. Now, though, we work until we get as far as we need to, and we may well lay on another rehearsal. Not that I want to give up a Sunday (I've loved having no weekend rehearsals for this show), but boy, do I need more rehearsal time!

I suspect I'm not the only one who feels that way, too. Some of us have some dance background, some don't, but the music is presenting particular challenges. Not only is it hard to learn, but several people have expressed their frustration that they don't read music, aren't used to singing harmony rather than melody, etc. This has sometimes meant spending 10 minutes or more on a single, tricky phrase, which means we haven't gotten nearly as far as I'd like. (Yeah, I know; I gotta quit being such a nervous nelly and learn the stuff, already.)

OK, enough whingeing; back to learning my lines & music.