Monday, October 20, 2008

Xmas Rehearsal Day 8: Welcome to AGVA!

Today was an exciting day at rehearsal because we had a meeting about joining the AGVA union, finally.

I was surprised to see how many people were new to the union. They basically gave us all the information we need about paying our induction fee and then how much our semiannual dues are going to be (expensive but well worth it). Then they gave us insurance information and so forth...

It was great though, because after rehearsal I went to take class and for the first time I got to pay the union rate by showing my brand new AGVA card :) I saved myself a whole $3 tonight. Yes! Haha but it adds up with the number of classes I take per week! And the other benefits of being in the union are good as well, of course.

Rehearsal itself wasn't too tough today. We had a shorter day, and just ran through a big chunk of the show in order. We went from the Santa number through a scene Santa himself does with the young boys, and then into our "magic parade" thing. I like that we keep building on what we have because every time we work with more of the show it feels more real. There's one part after our last dance where the older young boy starts to sing about finally believing in Santa and in magic and so forth, and all 4 times we ran through it today I almost started tearing up. This is all still unreal.

Anyway all night I went to class and my other rehearsal for Giselle stuff. It's a bit strange - my body is more sore after 3 hours of strict ballet class than it is after 8 hours of rehearsal for the show. Hmm.

Anyway, tomorrow we rehearse at the theater but not actually onstage. We're there because we're doing Nutcracker IN our bear costumes...I'm a little scared! Seriously, when I tried it on it was like dancing with your eyes closed. Eek...

Oh we also got our tentative tech schedule, and we start onstage this Saturday!!! I can't wait to get on that stage. They're going to need to stop everything and just let me stand there and look out into the empty house for a few minutes to take it all in. Luckily we have a "stage orientation" thing before we actually dance Saturday morning, to teach us about the safety issues of all the crazy backstage things that fly around and so forth. Very exciting.

On top of all this, I have a midterm exam Wednesday night, another midterm paper due Thursday, another exam next week (which, um, I might have to reschedule because of tech?), and several reviews/articles that need work.

Better get to bed to prepare for it all!

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