First night on stage

And it is a moment I'll never forget. All the other actors and dancers were busy off to the sides and no one had taken to the stage yet...so I had the wonderful luxury of walking slowly out from stage right wings and into the Met Opera spotlights.

Cameras are intensely forbidden, but honestly, I didn't need to capture that moment on film, because I will never forget the steep intake of breath and almost imperceptible rush of tears to the corner of my eyes that told me I had MADE it.

Oh and also, that fire scene in the final act of the opera is going to be intense. Stage fire is still real fire, and it's HOT! (Especially when you are three feet away from it).

Hooray for danger pay...

Postworthy

Can we say YUM?

In more relevant news, tonight is Don Giovanni's first stage rehearsal with piano. Holy crap!

Cheers,

A Broadway Baby

Super Nerd

listens to Saint-Saens and organ symphonies to get through two straight spin classes and morning lifting, all before 8am.

6am spin tomorrow. Burning off all the confusion and strangeness and lack of control.

A little epic organ to champion your daily battles: click here!

Cymbeline

is stunning. Seriously. Everyone must go see it asap at the Barrow Street Theatre near the Christopher Street stop off the 1 train in Manhattan.

The vigor of my recommendation comes fresh on the heels of my return from the performance, which I saw with my friend from Africa. This new production of Cymbeline demonstrates a perfect combination of humor and hope to jettison anyone away from the gloomy attitudes that muggy weather and gray skies bring.

I have to say I agree whole-heartedly with this New York Magazine review:

"The Fiasco Company brings joyful music, playful inventiveness and just an air-kiss of irony to Shakespeare's mock-epic. They remind us what theater, at its simplest and most powerful, is really for: the alchemical thrill of watching an entire world conjured into being out of sheer wit and will. A masterpiece."

- Scott Brown, New York Magazine

The most enjoyable aspect for me was that each of the actors not only sang (beautifully) the songs they composed together, but they also each played multiple instruments, and with genuine technical virtuosity!

If this is the future of theater, sign me up (and help me dust off my violin).

Progress?!

Went back in to sing for How To Succeed today. Got a "We'll be in touch" ... could be dismissive, could be good, who knows!  Any feedback is better than no feedback at all... at least it wasn't the dreaded, generic "Thank you!"

It was a gray, perfect day for me to sing my new favorite Sondheim go-to song, which literally has the line "What thought I could be duller, more depressing, less gay... now my favorite color is graaay."

Don Giovanni rehearsal was a bit full of the dramz... Don Giovanni himself even had a moment where he insisted, and this is a verbatim quote "I am the sun, you see, so everything in this production must revolve around me." True as that may be.... it was a bit absurd that he actually said that out loud! Leperello, as always, was full of timely comedic relief, and we finally met the Commendatore! What a deep voice, what a fantastic capacity to stoke fear in the hearts of all us lowly servants and party people on DG's final evening on earth!

Mr. Grandage is stunningly calm with all of the demanding personalities in his cast; I am continually impressed by his ability to coral the emotions and creativity of his team.

Anyway, another long day tomororow... now I think I may actually go to sleep super early, so lame, but soo necessary. Spin class at 6am tomorrow!

Living a lifetime in a day!

Today I was up at 5am to get home and work out and clean my house before the How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying dance call today (I know, it's an absurdly long name)

Got to the call in record time, and went in with the first non-equity (aka non-union) group of dancers. The choreographer read through my resume and got to the Met Opera engagement, and asked me about my schedule and availability. Eek! I was the only person in my room that he talked to.... it certainly doesn't mean a job, but in my world of endless optimism it means I'm one step closer to Brooooaaadwaaayy.

Met a long lost friend for a break in between parts of the audition.

According to Chris (the How To Succeed choreographer), there will be a glee replacement (Darren Criss) for Daniel Radcliff, and then, God help us, one of the Jonas Brothers (Nick, to be precise. The very same who played around on Les Miserables for about three months on tour... oh to be a Disney child). I'd love love love to dance for this show. So aerobic. So awesome!

And if the day wasn't awesome enough, I ran into Idina Menzel on the way out of Pearl Studios, and she said Hi and Thank You for holding the door open. And then my jaw proceeded to drop to the floor.... I'm about 40% sure that she saw.... embarrassment!

Anyway, spent the rest of the day at Broadway Dance Center in Theatre and Voice classes, and rounded up my day teaching for Kaplan at the JCC on the Upper West Side, and then interlude two with long lost friend. Phew!

Keep pounding the pavement ya'll!!

All my love,
Laura

Work Out Central

If ever you find yourself debating between hitting snooze one more time, or waking up early enough to get to a dance class/work out class, do everything in your power to choose the second alternative.

This morning, I woke up from a decent six and a half hours of sleep to the sound of my BALLET alarm. I reallllly wanted to keep snoozing until I actually had to be up so that I could prep for my Kaplan lesson later in the afternoon. Instead, some well trained internal switch kicked into a high enough gear to get me out of bed, and I am SO grateful.

After a week of total body workout classes tempered with the occasional morning spin class (I'm really making use of my unacceptably expensive New York gym membership), I've realized that I can FINALLY do difficult ballet again!

It was such a rare pleasure to find my body really clicking into the proper position... sans cheating... for the first time in years. I can't remember the last time I actually felt slightly beautiful while doing ballet combinations adagio and across the floor. Hopefully this morning wasn't just a fluke!

Off to prep tomorrow's lesson plan and go to bed early so I have plenty of time to rest before Sunday spin day!

Happy Fall Everyone!

And suddenly it's COLD. This is crazy! The other day the temperature literally dropped twenty degrees in a few hours. Silly me thinking I could wear jean shorts and a strapless top to rehearsal when the day started out at 86 degrees Fahrenheit.

Cuteness be damned, I actually think I caught a cold from being unexpectedly stuck in post-rehearsal rainy evening with barely anything on! Oh well, the weather today was gorgeous, sunny, with the perfect crisp fall breeze that begs for jeans but still gives a reprieve from cumbersome winter jackets.

Rehearsal today was fast, added rehearsals (already) for next week. Hopefully the director is happy with what he is seeing! Honestly, it's kind of nice to be a background element in a machine with as many cogs and facets as Don Giovanni has... I don't envy the principal opera singers all the hard hard work they must be doing with Mr. Grandage.

Started (another) job today, working part time in HR and administration for a sustainable clothing company. The boss is a bit absent minded... great opportunity to work on developing and increasing my quota for patience. OOh and I got the position I wanted with one of Mayor Bloomberg's new education initiatives. Can't wait to get started in October!!

Donated to an old friend's cause today and got an update about the 12 year old l'm sponsoring in Guatemala through Children's International... it felt good. Honestly, I've been spending more money than I should of late, but why not? Life is short, I could die any day, and I'm happy to contribute to the economy in the pursuit of making others' lives a bit brighter, as well as taking some much needed down time with my wonderful friends.

I can always make more money, I can't ever get more life than whatever I've been allotted. What is that mantra? You must do the best that you can with the time that is given to you?

Oohh girl, I'm trying. And with that, I'll leave you with a particularly enjoyable take on a scene from my old fave Disney cartoon, Beauty and the Beast, courtesy of my leggy namesake:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oxj1fw1p9Ao

Hey girl hey!

Auditions, Rehearsals, and Pointe Shoes...

How to Succeed is having a dance call next Monday. Here's hoping

[a] Don Giovanni does not request my presence at another last minute rehearsal (we're running a teensy bit behind schedule)

and

[b] That I can actually get in to be seen in the Equity dancer free-for-all chorus call. Loving the business, as always.

In other news, my new private tutoring student *Annie is an absolutely adorable, easily distracted 11 year old who loves to dance. Apparently mom's ecstatic because Annie has calmed down considerably ever since I gave her a pair of my old pointe shoes to play with.

Annie's utter joy when she saw that I remembered to bring the shoes to our session reminded me how much I actually do love to dance. Nice to see the next generation nourishing a passion as keen as my own strives to be.

Dance quote of the day:

"Dancing is like dreaming with your feet!"

Choreographers Pulled Me Aside Today

So as the rehearsal period progresses and I understand my role better, it's become clear that I will be on stage in every show in an acting role as a "Supernumerary" while I learn the dance parts as a dance cover. Essentially, it is unlikely that I will ever do any intense dancing on stage, since there are so many dance covers, but it means a lot to me that the choreographers approached me and said they were so happy to have me and so sorry that they were wasting me. That conversation might have made my whole Met Opera experience!

Now... if only I can get Mr. Grandage in a free moment and convince him that I'd be perfect for his next project... the Broadway revival of Evita.

Giovanni Requests Your Presence

I am already more than willing to oblige my choreographer and director in coming to a last minute 7 hour rehearsal on the Wednesday that we were supposed to have off... but I must say, the gentlemanliness of the email I just got from the scheduling team makes me all the more happy to be there.

These people are great. Rehearsal today was solid. I have a very friendly cover named Amanda, she's easy to teach and picks up choreography well. Fabulous. We got out early so I managed to make it down to the theater district to audition for a new production of Hairspray.

The audition choreo was literally two counts of 8. WTF. That translates to about 16 seconds of dance. This world is SO rogue. Gotta love it.

Fantastic dinner tonight with my most inspiring teacher friend. Packing it in early for a full day of rehearsal and Kaplan classes tomorrow!

At the risk of becoming an object of ridicule, did anyone else see the finale of this season of True Blood?? That s&*t was WACK yo!

Circle of Liiife

This morning was year three of my faithful sojourn to the Lion King audition. I'm glad I no longer get frustrated by the fact that I do the best dancing of my life and the casting director makes call backs clearly influenced by skin color. Honestly, I am glad that there is a show on Broadway that provides such opportunity for diverse casting. If onllly I was still getting enough California sun to take advantage of it!

Woke up this morning at 5:30am. Cleaned the entire apartment by 8am. Took a total body conditioning class at my gym at 8:15am. Lion King audition by 11am. Vocal Tech & Performance classes at Broadway Dance Center in the afternoon, and then a lengthy jaunt to the music library at Lincoln Center. Hello obsessive productivity.

Now if only I had managed to work in the crucial "laundry" item on my to do list... then this Monday may have been a remarkable feat.  :-)

In other news, I came across a GIANT turtle in the Central Park lake as I walked through the park to get home. Once I figure out the technology of my blackberry, I've GOT to upload this photo. Unreal.

Off to bed for early rise, more rehearsal and auditions (Hairspray!) tomorrow.

Lots of love,

A Broadway Baby

First rehearsal in front of the Director

He loved it!

Ben (the choreographer) is SO happy. Here's to hoping the remainder of rehearsals continue to go as smoothly.

I was listening to the Don Giovanni overture and score on my mp3 walking home from rehearsal today... I STILL can't believe that I will actually be on stage at the Metropolitan Opera house. And not only will I be listening to that gorgeous score live, but I get the privilege to perform to it!

#gratefulbeyondexpression

The Rain in Spain Stays Mainly On the Plain

... except for when it won't leave New York!!

Argh. So much for my commitment to walk/jogging across town from my apartment to the Met everyday.

Love me some Audrey. And Rex Harrison? Sigh... don't even get me started!

Back from Paradise, On to Work

After one of the most amazing weekends of my life, I am now onto one of the most amazing jobs of my life!

The choreographer for Don Giovanni is SO hilarious I feel like I'm getting the best end of the bargain, not only am I paid to be part of the most wonderful performance institution I never dreamed might find use for me, but I get a regular comedy show out of the extravaganza!

I have solo spots, and several props so far (a fan, a novel (The Three Musketeers, perfect, as its one of my favorite books), and perhaps an atomizer or two. Can't wait for tomorrow!

"There's a simple doctrine, outside of a person's love, the most sacred thing that they can give is their labor. And somehow or another along the way, we tend to forget that. Labor is a very precious thing that you have to give. And any time that you can combine labor with love, you've made quite the successful merger".

Unacceptable.

Find your own wave!

BEAACHHH

Sun sun sun, here I come!

War Horse

Go see it.

I am still in an altered state from my experience at the Lincoln Center Theater yesterday evening. War Horse has got to be the most profoundly moving bit of theater I have seen in a long while... at least since Master Class, with Tyne Daly.

The study and implementation of puppetry in this show has been given such remarkable attention to detail and character as to create living, breathing, believable beings on stage. Three men comprise each horse, working together to create the movements and expulsions of breath and sound synonymous with our experience of the actual creature. The result is a stunning, hauntingly beautiful production. I want to go back and see it again ASAP.

In other news... today is my last day with my Qatari family! I'm going to miss their warmth, hospitality, and earnest drive to improve when they go back to their country next week.

Age Ain't Nothing But a Numbahh

So one of my Qatari students (the elder of two sisters) asked how old I was. I tried to be demure about it, but - persistent as any inquisitive student should be - she asked if she could guess. Intrigued and a bit tuckered out from dealing with three teenagers, I let her go ahead.

She noticed I was icing my irascible back and she remarked, I never think of you as a dancer, because you are so smart. I burst out laughing, and respond with a quizzical "Thank You?" but she assured me that it was a good thing.

Her first guess: "Well you have so much knowledge, you must be at least 30." Given it's complimentary structure, I found myself completely flattered. An interesting shift, to be sure, given that I was pretty devastated the last time a production assistant at an audition suggested my age range looked to be about 28-35.

Anyyywayy, my pupil was so shocked when she finally got down to my actual age that I couldn't help but laugh again. Made for a fun tutoring session. The openness and warmth of the Qatari culture is really wonderful. This morning their mother made us bagels with coffee and orange juice. The kids are always running to give me snacks and water bottles before I get on the elevator to leave. Heaven on the 50th floor of the Cassa Hotel!

I will miss them very much when I start the Met Opera (next week!) and they go back to school in Qatar.

In other news, even the 4 year old boy of the family has an I-pad. As you can imagine, I'm now waiting to get mine asap. :-)