Before the show

The last week has been interesting. The rehearsal schedule was unusual, and we never really knew what was happening exactly. Tonight is the final dress rehearsal and Thursday is the opening, and I suppose we'll be ready, but last night was not the best indicator. Last night we had a dress rehearsal and it was really our first time on the sets as they will be (we think). There were some big surprises - like the fact that the bohemian's apartment is actually on a platform that limits the amount of stage space we thought we had into about half of how we rehearsed it, and there is a giant post in the middle of the set which you can end up standing behind half the time if you're not careful. It's always normal to feel confused your first time on the set, and this rehearsal was no exception. My biggest faux pas last night was that when I was supposed to throw a snowball at Marcello, I missed him and threw it into the pit. I thought it was going to be a ball of rice that would fall apart when I threw it, but instead it was more like a tennis ball covered in coconut shavings, so it sailed right past Marcello into the pit, missed the conductor by inches, bounced off his stand, bounced off the first violists stand, and landed at the conductor's feet. In the States, if something is thrown into the pit, the rehearsal stops and the orchestra may decide to leave and go home because the chances of the flying object damaging one of their instruments is too great to risk such lack of cautionary measures taken by the production team. We didn't stop the rehearsal, but I was horrified.

The other thing about last night that was really funny was the fact that Georgia and I share a relatively small dressing room, and we each have a dresser and a make-up person to ourselves, so often times there are six of us in this dressing room which is the size of a large bathroom. As usual, the Colombians are incredibly nice and kind, so we love having them around, but at times the feeling in the dressing room can get so claustrophobic that I have to go outside and stand in the hallway. This was one of those times (you can't see Georgia - she's sitting behind one of the ladies, but she's in there too).

The costumes are really beautiful. My first act dress is this incredible shade of green and I adore it. Here's a photo of me in the costume wearing my own jacket because I was a little cold. I promise to put some better shots of the dress in later blog entries.

Georgia has this really cool costume in the third act with this very sassy fur collar. She loves it, but it's really HOT. Here's a photo of her overcome with heat stroke and general colombian exhaustion.

We're going to do our best and have as much fun as we can tonight and with the rest of the shows. It won't always be easy with strange platforms and heavy snowballs, but we'll do what we can.