The second cast caste system

You know what, this morning, when I reread what I posted last night, I thought I sounded like a whiny baby and I just don't want to put that energy out in the universe, so I deleted the whole thing and am starting over. Just to summarize what I was complaining about, I discovered yesterday that not only does the first cast get the bulk of rehearsals, but they actually get treated differently when onstage rehearsing. I experienced this first hand yesterday as the victim of what felt like a kind of hazing by someone in an important position during my rehearsal, only to discover that at the first cast rehearsal everyone was treated with respect and admiration and not chastised for making the same mistakes I was making. And while I stood my ground and took it like a professional during the rehearsal, I went home and cried during the lunch break. But I recovered, accepted the fact that Italy was the birthplace of fascism and the mafia, and decided everything that didn't kill me was in fact going to make me stronger. But I couldn't help but be really pissed when they took away what was supposed to be a rehearsal for us in costume and wigs today and gave it to the first cast.

That all being said, I've been informed by the Italians in my cast that this is actually very normal treatment of the second cast in Italy, and I definitely shouldn't take any of it personally. And the best revenge against those who test you is to pass their test with flying colors by doing a fantastic performance, and that's exactly what I plan to do. The bass in the cast actually gave me some good advice which I'm going to take - he said "BASTA! Enough crying and stressing and freaking out! You are here, you are supposed to be here, and you might as well enjoy yourself!!" He's right and that's what I'm gonna do.

The best part of yesterday was describing the whole fiasco in italian to my friend Vincenzo. First of all, it seemed hilarious when I was trying to tell the story of what happened in Italian, I got to feel good about the fact that I was in fact able to communicate this complicated situation in Italian (although I was using a lot of hand gestures) and finally, while I was telling the story we were walking to gelato. Ah, sweet relief in the form of a cone of chocolate magic in the company of a good friend.