I still can’t believe it’s so soon. We have two press events tonight and then we have our first rehearsal with the orchestra, which I’m very excited for. This score is really beautiful. If you’ve never heard the RSC London recording of Wizard of Oz, I really recommend you give it a listen, because the music is gorgeous. This is one of the largest orchestra’s the mountain has had in a while – it may be the largest, I’m not sure. I’m still excited 🙂
There’s also an old theatre saying that I should have learned from by now, and it’s that you should NEVER act with animals or babies. Well, three of the shows I’ve done now (Annie twice, and now Wizard) have involved dogs…so maybe I’ve learned to work around this adage. We started working with the dog(s) really late in the process (they started on Saturday) so it’s been a bit of a struggle getting them used to me and the other actors they deal with, but it seems to be working out nicely. The main dog’s name is Gus, and he is actually pretty cute. When he runs it’s absolutely adorable, and he almost completely responds to me, but seeing as I’ve had so little time with him this is good! Ketchup (the other dog) and I didn’t quite see eye-to-eye when we started working together. I met her on Saturday and she proceeded to pee on my leg. It wasn’t fun, seeing as I was already having a stressful day. (By the way: the SATs went ok) A few things will have to be adjusted now that we have the dog, but everything is falling into place so it’s all good.
The only downside to all of these good things is a bad thing resulted from this past weekend’s rehearsals: after carrying Gus in the basket for 4+ hours, I blew out my back and inflamed my right shoulder/elbow joint. It still really hurts. I can dance, and it will be well in time for the show, but it means that we’re going to have to work around my injury and I can’t pick up anything over 5 pounds for a few days. It’s very frustrating, but I’ll have to work through it.
I’ll write more after the rehearsal tonight to let you all know how it goes. Hope to see all of the Bay Area readers at the show!
~Sarah~