idea).
Still, I was filled with hope. At Wicked I could write my own story. Now there was Alexa, Fiama, Neka, Penelope—my new maybe-friends, whose names all by coincidence ended in vowels and sounded vaguely royal.
Who would care that growing up I’d never been so great with the “popular crowd?” That I had a tendency to clam up socially, to go at things on my own, to shy away from others? And what did it matter that everybody here was super-cool, successful, and outrageously attractive? That the dressing room could have been a holding cell for the earth’s most diverse and exhaustive collection of beautiful specimens? (We’re not talking “hot girls” here; we’re talking women who cause heads to turn and fashion-challenged individuals to tingle with a conflicting mixture of jealousy and hero-worship. Not that I knew what that was like.)
Whatever the outcome, so far, on my first day, I felt like I’d arrived. All the mystery, the piecing together, the wondering about who to be, had been overwrought.
The words that Julie had spoken during our coaching session floated back to me.
She’s brave, and sticks her neck out.
It was true.
And if Elphaba could do it, so could I.
8. THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’
January 13, 2010. Felicia’s Blog.
When one is inserted into a pre-existing company, the first few weeks of rehearsal are, in a word, insane. In, like, a good way, but also in a way that makes me want to hide under a rock.
Since I am a replacement cast member, my staging rehearsal has involved the dance captain playing all the other people's roles around me while I try to map out my particular pathways along a grid (there are numbers across the front of the stage to describe stage L versus stage R, and then there are other markings to determine depth of my position).
Without getting into the nitty-gritty, let me just say that today really made me appreciate just how precise and detail-oriented Wicked is. There is, of course, room for interpretation -- and, dare I say, acting! -- but everything from a head flick to the angle of one's stance is evaluated for its clarity of expression and cohesiveness with the whole. Musical theater is a veritable playground for those with OCD-like tendencies!
I need to go shower now because, well -- based the grueling nature of the past two days of rehearsal, I'm sure you can extrapolate just how often I've been able to shower.
Cleanly,
Felicia.
I had done it: survived my first two weeks of rehearsal.
The main challenge didn’t so much stem from the fact that the days were long (which they were), but that I was learning the entirety of Wicked by myself. On a good day, one or two cast members might lend me some of their time, running around, playing a combination of parts, sporadically reciting lines or singing harmonies, while I wandered around in confusion to the damp underscoring of a lone upright piano.
But more often than not, it was just me and the dance captains, Kristen and Allison, who took me under their wings like weary and reluctant governesses in a Victorian novel. As Wicked veterans and keepers of its blocking, each had memorized all the “tracks” (or parts) in the show, from the ensemble to the lead characters, teaching incoming cast members their every step, twirl, and gesture, down to the most minute, painstaking detail. Not only that: in addition to teaching, they were incredible performers—subbing in for members of Wicked ’s ensemble on a near-nightly basis.
Mostly I was obsessed with the fact that you could (in theory) walk up to either of them, shout a moment from Wicked , and they could perform it for you, as any character, right before your tired, glossy eyes, while you did a slow clap and gave them accuracy scores. (This never actually happened, but sometimes I dreamed of doing it as a party game.)
On the bright side, I was done with my two-week stint of living in the hospitality hell known as the
Still, I was filled with hope. At Wicked I could write my own story. Now there was Alexa, Fiama, Neka, Penelope—my new maybe-friends, whose names all by coincidence ended in vowels and sounded vaguely royal.
Who would care that growing up I’d never been so great with the “popular crowd?” That I had a tendency to clam up socially, to go at things on my own, to shy away from others? And what did it matter that everybody here was super-cool, successful, and outrageously attractive? That the dressing room could have been a holding cell for the earth’s most diverse and exhaustive collection of beautiful specimens? (We’re not talking “hot girls” here; we’re talking women who cause heads to turn and fashion-challenged individuals to tingle with a conflicting mixture of jealousy and hero-worship. Not that I knew what that was like.)
Whatever the outcome, so far, on my first day, I felt like I’d arrived. All the mystery, the piecing together, the wondering about who to be, had been overwrought.
The words that Julie had spoken during our coaching session floated back to me.
She’s brave, and sticks her neck out.
It was true.
And if Elphaba could do it, so could I.
8. THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’
January 13, 2010. Felicia’s Blog.
When one is inserted into a pre-existing company, the first few weeks of rehearsal are, in a word, insane. In, like, a good way, but also in a way that makes me want to hide under a rock.
Since I am a replacement cast member, my staging rehearsal has involved the dance captain playing all the other people's roles around me while I try to map out my particular pathways along a grid (there are numbers across the front of the stage to describe stage L versus stage R, and then there are other markings to determine depth of my position).
Without getting into the nitty-gritty, let me just say that today really made me appreciate just how precise and detail-oriented Wicked is. There is, of course, room for interpretation -- and, dare I say, acting! -- but everything from a head flick to the angle of one's stance is evaluated for its clarity of expression and cohesiveness with the whole. Musical theater is a veritable playground for those with OCD-like tendencies!
I need to go shower now because, well -- based the grueling nature of the past two days of rehearsal, I'm sure you can extrapolate just how often I've been able to shower.
Cleanly,
Felicia.
I had done it: survived my first two weeks of rehearsal.
The main challenge didn’t so much stem from the fact that the days were long (which they were), but that I was learning the entirety of Wicked by myself. On a good day, one or two cast members might lend me some of their time, running around, playing a combination of parts, sporadically reciting lines or singing harmonies, while I wandered around in confusion to the damp underscoring of a lone upright piano.
But more often than not, it was just me and the dance captains, Kristen and Allison, who took me under their wings like weary and reluctant governesses in a Victorian novel. As Wicked veterans and keepers of its blocking, each had memorized all the “tracks” (or parts) in the show, from the ensemble to the lead characters, teaching incoming cast members their every step, twirl, and gesture, down to the most minute, painstaking detail. Not only that: in addition to teaching, they were incredible performers—subbing in for members of Wicked ’s ensemble on a near-nightly basis.
Mostly I was obsessed with the fact that you could (in theory) walk up to either of them, shout a moment from Wicked , and they could perform it for you, as any character, right before your tired, glossy eyes, while you did a slow clap and gave them accuracy scores. (This never actually happened, but sometimes I dreamed of doing it as a party game.)
On the bright side, I was done with my two-week stint of living in the hospitality hell known as the
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