Chapter 13 Start Spreading the News

It is a very busy morning for the cast as we prepare to run the show for the department heads. They are here to watch the final run-throughs of what we have learned so far. Everyone is wearing their best dance clothes. The girl’s faces have been painted and most are wearing false eyelashes. 

We are exhausted by all these rehearsals and we push ourselves to the limits. It would really be terrible to be “let go” at this time in the rehearsal process but that is still a legitimate threat. The ‘Company’ posted a list of how we should look for today on the stage managers wall and we are told to follow it to the letter.

We run the three shows back to back for the next two days, at full tilt. The audience is made up of department heads and they don’t react to anything that is being presented to them. When the cast is not on stage you can find people napping in the wings and being woken just in time for entrances.

Our nerves are jangled and frayed. I sit on the steps that lead to the wings and smoke my second pack of cigarettes for that day. There is a mouse stuck to a glue trap that continues screaming as I inhale. It is five feet away from me and doesn’t know what is happening to it. I walk over and pick up a stanchion and bring it down killing the mouse. I can’t stand to hear or see things suffer and this is a quicker death than for the mouse to starve. I end up sticking the stanchion to the glue trap and the dead mouse. I’m too tired to feel really sorry for his death, but I couldn't free him.

Like trained monkeys we smile and nod when the Director or The Department heads address us. The Director and staff are so busy kissing the Department Heads butt’s that they don’t see one of the girls nodding off to sleep. I hope that the director bought a box of depends because if anything went wrong he would mess himself. He almost chokes while laughing at his own jokes in front of the cast. It is clear to us that he is just as nervous at pleasing them as we are.

We are a hit on the first day, and they love us, but there are to be many changes in the show. This comes as no news flash to us. A day hasn’t gone by without major change.

When we leave the theatre the Director pulls me aside and tells me that I looked great today. He was worried because he thought I was looking lazy for the past week. Here’s another place that I have to clarify. I had let my understudy do my role while I taught him and stayed right by his side. That's how I looked lazy.

Tonight the Director is rushed to the hospital with severe de-hydration. We won’t see him again until we get to Italy.

We aren’t nervous to continue the next day without the Director present. Even when we swordfight, we move like a well oiled machine. It feels like a black cloud has been lifted. The Company Heads are happy and the department heads are happy and we are happy because we get the next morning off.

We go home to our condos and drink in celebration of a great run. Soon we will be back on our ways home and points beyond. Or so we think.

To be continued…..

Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writting "Not Only Magic Floats". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.

Chapter 12 Ho Ho Horror

The argument is already in full swing by the time we enter the theatre. Several cast members had an early morning rehearsal, leaving the rest of the cast to lounge in their beds one extra hour. 

We arrive at the casino, enter through the theatre doors, and head down the ramp to the stage. We place our dance bags on the tables and everyone pretends that we don’t hear anything. Silently, we all glance at each other.

"Fuck you" screams The Director, "I am senior show director at the parks, and when I give you a direction, you take it, you don’t ask me any questions." The cast member that he is screaming at is in tears, and she has begun to shake. She puts her head down, and quickly walks the ramp at the front of the stage. He follows her as she walks over to her dance bag, pulls out paper and pencil and begins to write. As if in a television episode, she speaks her thoughts out loud as she comically writes with large gestures. “Dear mom this place sucks, the director is an asshole.” With that she glances at The Director and storms up the aisle out of the theatre.

In rehearsal, whenever we ask this director for character development he tells us to watch the cartoon version of the film. As we all know cartoons are all trained in the Stanislavsky method of acting.  Soon the response to his series of questions including “Why can’t you move faster?” “React bigger?” “Jump higher?” is summed up best by a cast member who screams out “Because we aren’t fucking cartoons!” I’m surprised that no falling anvils are placed into the shows.

Another day spent with lunatics. Another cast member and I pretend we are in strait jackets with our arms tied behind our backs; we rock back and forth and sing “It’s a small world.”

The Choreographer doubles over with laughter at another one of his funny ideas, no one else laughs. When he has one of his brilliant ideas, we are in deep shit. He comes up with new dance steps for a part we have already learned, the steps look all too familiar because they are usually taken from a current Broadway show. We find that if he doesn’t take the steps from the show, he steals them from their television commercial.

After two hours of this new idea, someone asks for a break. "I always give breaks”, he responds. "I came from the Equity theatre" and "I will give one when I am ready".

Blue in the face and gasping for air, we move forward. One of the cast members begins to slow down, her face is flushed and she bolts into the wings. I follow. She is doubled over and crying."Two down", I think to myself.

"I can’t do it, I can’t,” she sobs. “I was hired as a singer, and this is putting a lot of pressure on my knee". “You can do it, I say, now get back out there before we get in trouble.” “I won’t go back out there, this is bullshit,” she says.

I go back on to the stage and get The Directors attention. "What now?” he screams at me. I tell him what’s going on and one of the choreographer’s assistant’s walks into the wings. Unfortunately, the cast member in trouble has danced herself right into a meeting scheduled for the next day.

We break for lunch, its pizza again. We all meet at the pizza parlor in front of the theatre, and go over our early morning woes. When we return our flight information for our break has been posted. None of us are leaving on the same day.

to be continued...........


Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writting "Not Only Magic Floats". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.

Chapter 11 Vacation is Rumored Part 2

We finally arrive at the Dolphin encounter. It is a series of wooden floating decks attached to each other forming a corral with one end open to the sea. The trainer in charge is about 18 years old and wears a whistle around his neck. Every time he speaks he lifts the whistle and blows it. I’m not really sure why as we don’t see any dolphins yet.

He asks us to form a line and we are handed life jackets. No one is allowed in without one, even though the water is about 3 feet deep. Slowly everyone creeps down a ramp that leads us into the water.

Now the trainer lifts the whistle and blows long and hard. Two dolphins swim into the coral.

One dolphin named “Jake” swims right up to us but the second dolphin named “The Fatman” refuses to swim over to us and stays at a healthy 20 foot distance. The trainer blows the whistle making Jake “perform” all sorts of tricks. He jumps, he splashes and he humps my friend. I’m not sure that the “humping” was part of the show.

The trainer blows his whistle and “The Fatman” swims up to me. He is balanced on his tail so it looks like he is standing up. The trainer blows another series of whistles and “The Fatman,” begins splashing and spitting water in my face. For this trick he gets a series of fish. It is explained to us that the dolphins are not captive mammals but are free to come and go as they please.

We wrap up the day throwing fish to a baby dolphin that giggles and spits at us.

I return home to find a message on the phone; another meeting is in the works for tomorrow. I climb into bed early, and even the shaking of my bedroom cannot keep me awake, I drift into sleep.

I rise early; the sun still hasn't come up. I go downstairs and spend 45 minutes warming up with a ballet barre. I don’t have a barre, so I keep one hand on the sliding glass door. After eating a quick breakfast, I shower, dress and mentally prepare myself for the day.

The cast have started having secret meetings to discuss meeting about the meetings that we've had before. Then we have meetings to plan about having future meetings. Nothing gets done at these meetings except we agree to meet again. Today we plan to meet to have another meeting and talk about future meetings, and then we meet to get everyone up to date about new meetings. So basically nothing gets done except that everyone is very vocal and complains about our conditions and how we are being treated. When it comes down to meeting in front of the producers, the sound of crickets drowns out our silences. Everyone is afraid to lose their job and no one speaks.

After todays cast meeting we have another meeting with the Producers and the staff. The casting director now stands in front of us.

"Hi, everyone." he says into the microphone. He is met with silence "How is everyone?" he asks hoping to get some sort of response. Everyone grumbles feigned happiness. "What I want to tell everyone is that because of the delay of the product, we all feel that everyone should have a nice break, and be home with their families for the holidays”.

The cast look around and at each other in stunned silence. “Then we will all meet in Italy,” "You all mean so much to us and we feel that a break would be great."

“When?” shouts a voice from the back of the room. "We aren't really sure yet, but we will let you know?" “Why?” shouts another. The Casting Director raises his hand and blocks the lights in his eyes."As soon as we find out,” he responds.

Not happy with the answers another person yells out “When will that be?”  Now becoming agitated he shouts out "I said as soon as we find out." He has become slightly impatient with the group.

The cast agrees to have another meeting soon to discuss this meeting.

The Casting Director taps the microphone "Oh, and one more thing, I have new contracts for you to sign before you leave".

to be continued...........


Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writting "Not Only Magic Floats". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.