Little Night Music has been the greatest joy of my life to work on - a great script, fabulous director/tech/crew, and a cast with no egos - just people working hard together to put on a great show. I’ve made some new lifelong friends and reconnected with some old ones. The biggest professional thing I learned, and my humorous story for this post: never do anything in performance that you have not rehearsed - at least once - in a real rehearsal. As wonderful as our costume crew was, there was a miscommunication about a costume change, so the stage crew ended up helping me until opening night (the guys were perfect gentlemen about the whole thing). Well, I was so focused on it that I jumped the costume change to the exit before it needed to me (they were pretty close together and almost identical - I ran off crying in both instances). So, on opening night, the dressers started stripping me (and the merry widow/long line gave out so out comes my top half) when the next scene starts, and I realize “Oh, crap, I have to be on stage in about 5 seconds!” Our Fredrik later told me he didn’t think we were going to make it, but we did - me running on with my shawl covering my unzipped bodice, let out the giant sob when I see Henrik and Petra together and running back off for the proper change time (which was interesting all by itself). Ah - live theater!
I’ve never cried at the end of a run before. Desiree and Fredrik were at the moment for their kiss in the last scene when everyone backstage started weeping and hugging each other. Noone wanted it to end. Several people in the company are also working on the move to NYC (I still haven’t found the right apartment - yet), so we decided to start looking for a larger space as well to open up more options.
AW has been a big help through all this. Especially the artist’s dates. I actually took myself to a jazz concert (Charlie Hunter Trio) that was at the college where we performed A Little Night Music. The concert was so energizing, fun, and over far too soon. It was a joy to see the performers up there showing that they were having fun, joking around with each other, and letting the audience in on the fun. I felt funny at first, dressed in nice slacks and blouse with all these guitarists in jeans and tshirts sitting around me. The one guy sitting next to me started up a brief conversation when he saw my copy of the coloratura soprano aria book (I took the opportunity to use a practice room for a bit). He thought it was pretty cool that a “stuffy opera singer” was at a jazz concert. I really am relishing doing things like this for myself.
