Don't Wanna Be A Canadian Idiot

It's nights like these, when I can't get to sleep and there's no boyfriend to talk to, that I should be blogging or reading the next book in The Hunger Games series. After a day like today, I think the former is the way to go, hopefully I'll get a little of the latter in too...

As scheduled, Gabe was to go on for the role of Johnny tonight so we had a put-in rehearsal in the afternoon to make sure all would go smoothly during the show. We had a couple boys out because of relatively minor-ish injuries, so both of our boy swings were put into the show. It was a bit of a whirlwind because one of the boys disappeared with his injury just as we were finishing notes, so we did the run through while spacing a fixing and figuring out tracks at the same time.

Then... just before the show started, before I was hooked into the chains that take me up for upside down girl, we get word that the rig isn't doing what we'd like it to do. Something about the power source in Toronto is different than how we had teched it in Utica, so we said 'better safe than sorry' and cut it. The great part about that is that I got to do the first number without a harness on! It felt glorious. A little weird to run on stage with the rest of the girls, but I had no idea what fun I was missing backstage while I was hanging out (literally) waiting for them.

We had an ever so quick discussion right before the curtain came up about the possibility of the fly rig not being ready. We were told that they were confident that the issue would be sorted out within the next 35 minutes, but in the off chance that it wasn't we were to basically walk the number. At some point one of the stage managers found some old non-fly contingency plan for bway (that was never put into use because FOY always works) so I got a chance to glance at it for a few seconds here and there during my numerous quick changes. Luckily, our team is so amazing that the rig was unquestionably fixed and we could fly Extraordinary Girl like nothing ever happened.

If I had ever doubted it (and I haven't), I know by what happened today that I am a part of something incredible. So much credit goes to the entire cast who tweaked things here and there to fill in spacing, vocals, and movement, but mostly to Vince and Tommy who combined did the work of three men tonight with only a scant rehearsal this afternoon. Gabe was an incredible Johnny, and we were all so excited to be doing Canadian Idiot for the first time!

What a day. With today's put-in rehearsal, I'd call this a nine and a half show week. I'm not sure that I've ever done more than five shows in one week before this, so it will be quite the personal accomplishment when we get to Sunday night! And then it all starts again on Tuesday...