First Four-Show Day

Yesterday was quite possibly the longest day of my life.

Haha.

It was our first of seven days we have with FOUR shows back to back all day long. 11am, 2pm, 5pm, and 8pm. If I thought I was tired before after having many two show days, that was nothing! Not much could have prepared me for it, but I was thinking of how thankful I am that they killed us during rehearsals drilling our choreography into our bodies so that it was so automatic by the last few shows!

Ironically, it wasn't my body that was so tired but my head. By the time we got to our second break, before the third show of the day, I swear my eyes were closing on me as I was sitting up trying to eat dinner. I wasn't really sleepy just...tired. It felt like my makeup was weighing down my eyelashes and all I wanted to do was lay down like those little dolls whose eyes automatically open and close as you move their heads (you know what I mean?). It was rough.

Definitely the third show was the worst, even though you'd expect it to be the last one to take the hit. During our fourth Santa of the day I somehow got a third wind that took me through the end of the day, which was really really nice.

Luckily next week for our four show Tuesday I have people coming to see the third show of the day, so that should liven me up! I'm sure it will get easier as we have more four show days, too.

The shows themselves went well overall. As my mind starts to check out as I get tired I'm very grateful that my body is holding me up, haha. Some parts are so automatic now I don't even think one bit onstage, and other parts (like Nutcracker in the bear head) I am concentrating so hard on the floor and where my feet go so that I don't get hurt. It's a different way of working when you're that worn.

Because we were permanent residents of the theater for 12 hours, the cast had a potluck so that we had a TON of food to keep us going. It was fun! I brought muffins and coffee cake for the morning, and others brought all kinds of food that we munched on ALL day. We even had leftovers for this morning...which were much needed since we all were hurting from yesterday, haha.

Today's shows went well, also. People who have done this for many years kept warning us that the day after a four show day is usually awful..."like you were hit by a truck" I believe were the words of one dancer. I actually didn't feel quite so bad this morning...it was just last night. Oooh yeah.

At least it's a day off, now. It's good that our cast has our four show day Tuesdays and a day off Thursdays. The other cast kind of STARTS their week with the hard day because its visa versa. Anyway. I have school tonight and then tomorrow I must force - FORCE - myself not to take class or anything, haha. A real physical day off. We'll see how that goes...