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.