Opening night!

Pictures will definitely come tomorrow. I tried to take some at our final dress rehearsal on Monday, but they weren't great. Tonight is the night!

Dress rehearsal went super well, by the way. The whole cast is really at the stage of needing an audience. We did have a small invited audience on Monday, but they didn't seem to feel allowed to clap or laugh or respond, so it felt really flat. Advice to audiences: ALWAYS clap or laugh when you feel you want to. The performers need it, and will continue on even more energized! Tonight will be different, though, because it's opening night, and I'm told it's always very well attended in Omaha. Whee!

Okay, so yesterday was our "day off" for the week. I put that in quotations because it did not feel like a day off AT ALL. But, you all know how that goes in real life - weekends are always full of errands and work parties, right? Right? Yes. Okay, then.

Meanwhile, here is something funny: the music world is full of cheek kisses, which cracks me up, coming from my straight-laced Midwestern small town full of extra straight-laced Dutch people where nobody would ever kiss an acquaintance on the cheek, much less a coworker of three weeks. But EVERY goodbye with these people, particularly the ones who have been in the business for a long time, involves a cheek kiss and a hug. Ah, performers - boundaries disappear quickly. It's nice, actually, because we do spend a lot of hours together in a short span of time.

I'm drinking coffee right now and need to get back to learning some music for the short rehearsal I have with the other Voices in Residence before our call at the theater, so I'll wrap things up with this promise: pictures next time!

A day off!

Well, it's Monday, and we have finally been given a day off. Our weekend was very busy with lots of work: rehearsals, meetings, costume fittings, and more rehearsal. Tomorrow we will start rehearsing in the theater (the Orpheum, if you know Omaha). So far, our rehearsals have been split between the OO offices and a large space in the Scottish Rite Temple, which is a block or two away.

Our costumes are beautiful! We are wearing brand new costumes for this show, which also means that they were built to our exact measurements. Our wonderful director, Francis Cullinan, decided to move the action forward 20 years from when this show is usually set, so the women will be wearing Gibson Girl type outfits circa 1900. We all have big puffy shoulders and lace and bustles and cameos and big hats and parasols - I'll definitely post some photos once we get into dress rehearsals! The pirates' costumes have lots of gold braid and buttons and burgundy velvet and big hats - basically, what you might imagine for pirates, but probably quite a bit nicer.

So far the rehearsal process has been painless. Our cast is full of wonderful people, and the stage director and conductor get along extremely well (this is definitely not always the case between conductors and stage directors!). I'm totally impressed with the chorus and how quickly they are picking up the very precise staging.

For my day off, I'm trying to be quiet this morning, as yesterday was full of talking and singing. After rehearsal, we had a meet-and-greet with members of the OO board, and then dinner and a little party with the cast. It's been great getting to know all these wonderful people, but I have plenty of other music to learn (and laundry and email and grocery shopping to catch up with!) today. If you're reading this, please leave some comments, or send me an email or message on Facebook! I miss hearing the news from each of your lives!