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Well, we made it! The final dress rehearsal was great, and after we made that pesky quick change (with room to spare! I knew we would…), I started to relax and really have fun. I’ve written here before about the importance of joy and playing and having fun in this line of work, and this production of Cendrillon allows – even encourages! – us all to do just that. Every person on that stage, even the stage hands dressed in full costume and makeup, is having a blast. And when we look out at the audience for the final chorus, we can see the smiles on their faces, too, and the joy multiplies. I love it!

Something else I love about performing are those moments on stage, little quirks or comments, that fly completely under the audience’s radar. For example, last night: After the quick change (successful again! I even had time to take a drink of water…), I come onstage without my shoes and gloves. Four dancers are in the scene, acting as our tailors; one of them hands me my gloves, and then two of them lift me up by my armpits and put on my shoes. Not exactly the beautiful lift I dreamed about in my dancing days, but it is funny! Last night, when E handed me my gloves, he said something to me. We even made eye contact, but I had no idea what he said. The words, coming at me in a place and time where there is usually no spoken English, just didn’t compute! The scene continued: I put on my right glove, the shoes went on, and then I started to put on the left glove. At this point I heard E’s voice again, in my mind, and this time I understood him: “It’s two right gloves.” Oops!

Fortunately, the gloves are very flimsy, so I could get the left one on with relative ease. I doubt even the folks in the front row could tell that it was wrong! E and I had a good laugh about it after the show, and my costumers made sure to pin a right and left glove together for next time.

We have another Cendrillon on Wednesday, Flute on Friday, and Salome opens on Saturday. I’m not in that one, but I’ll attend the final dress rehearsal on Thursday. It should be another great show! I’ll post reviews of Cendrillon as they surface.

A teaser: In the past few weeks, there has been talk of future work. Some big steps which, of course, I can’t talk about in detail yet! But bear with me. I only mention it to share the excitement of seeing my calendar booking up farther in advance than I’m used to, and with work that excites me not just because it’s work, but because the Who and the What and the Where are things I only dreamed about. Until now!