Music Rehearsals and a FLASHBACK!!

Well, things are humming along with the show. We have blocked it and tonight is our first run OFF BOOK! Hooray! We're really ramping it up at rehearsals and it looks very distinctly like this show is going to completely kick butt and take names. As we've been singing through it, I keep realizing just how great the music is and how wonderful it has become through the interpretation of these really amazing actors!!

I was thinking the other night as we were talking through a scene alllllllll of the dates that I went on that were so very super weird that I DIDN'T put into the show. Sequel? Nah, maybe those ones are meant to be left in the dark.

Ok, I'll give you one. But ooonnnnnllly because you asked for it. It's not kissing and telling, either, because, in fact, we never kissed. Is that giving away the ending? I don't think so. Let me start at the beginning.

I was in a show in high school, Taming of the Shrew, I think. I played a lady of the court (fancy way to say that I was an extra...). It was such a fun show and I got to work with so many great people. Anyway, I got to be friends with one of the guys in the show, so when it came time to find a date for the Sweetheart Dance (my high school's version of a Sadie Hawkins dance), I asked this guy. Let's call him Chris.

After I asked him, he started paying a LOT of attention to me. He would "run into" me on my way to class and want to chat me up at my locker.

O.K. Here's the thing: I won't lie. I had asked him to the dance as a friend because the boy I TOTALLY HAD A CRUSH ON (let's call him Jim) was already going to the dance with another girl...maybe his girlfriend...I had blinders on. I can't remember. All I remember is that I had made up my mind to go, so I asked Chris, who'd been nice enough to say that he would take me. I didn't mention it to him at the time because I was worried that if he knew my real reason for going, he wouldn't go with me. (which wasn't very nice, but I was 15, so what are you going to do...). In any case, Chris was following me around and trying to TALK TO ME ALL THE TIME (the nerve! You'd think he'd thought I had asked him because I was actually interested in him...ahem...um. Wait.), so I was avoiding him. Like you do. Still, we were going to have to go to the dance together. Fine with me. It was a means to an end. I mean, I could put up with anyone for a few hours if it meant that I'd be at the same dance with JIM! Swoon.

So the night of the dance came. I was 15 and couldn't drive alone, so his family dropped him off at my friend's house where we were having a remarkably grown up dinner for a bunch of 15 year -olds. There were 6 of us there, and my girlfriends all knew how I felt about this guy, so they managed to seat us at the opposite ends of the table. He looked nice, and had brought me a corsage, but was saying weird stuff during dinner (the kiss of death to a 15 year-old. As an adult, I now realize he was probably totally nervous about the whole evening...) and kind of freaking me out. In a strange and awkward moment of weirdness, my girlfriend who was hosting the dinner at her house found out right before we were supposed to leave for the dance that her dog had been put to sleep (the timing could have probably been better...), so while we were waiting to see if she would in fact be coming to the dance with us, we were making small talk in the entryway of her house. Chris told me, sort of out of nowhere, that my feet were very proportional to my body. Uh. Thanks? Weird. Anyway. That should have been a red flag. It was a little bizarre, truth be told. So, my friend with the now dead dog comes down and we head to the dance.

When we got there, I figured I owed Chris at least one slow dance before I tracked Jim down and hung around him (and his girlfriend? what was wrong with me??) all night, so we slow danced. Now, Chris was a year older than me, but I've been taller than almost every guy I was EVER IN SCHOOL WITH until I was about a senior. I have been my full 5'11" since I was about 16, so you can imagine me with heels and this guy who was maybe 5'7"? Seriously.

So we're dancing and I'm scanning the room for Jim and Chris is looking at me. Staring at me intently. I feel so awkward, I won't even meet his eyes, so I look up at the ceiling. The dance was held at the Greysolon Ballroom in Duluth, Minnesota and the ceilings there are really ornate, so I thought I'd look up at them to kill some time. From the strained silence between us, I hear Chris say, "Did you know you have very attractive nose hair?" I practically got whiplash as I looked down at him, "What did you say?" said snotty, 15 year-old Kelly.

"I said, did you know you have very attractive nose hair?" says Chris.
"What does that even mean? Do you mean that as a compliment? What are you even talking about?"
"I thought it was a compliment. You do. It's nice."
"I don't...I'm not...that is just...you know what? I need a soda. Excuse me." At which point I stomped off to the "bar" that was set up for us and found my girlfriend and told her exactly what had happened. She and her boyfriend laughed and laughed. I was completely mortified. "What do I do?" I asked.

"You're going to have to go hang out with him, Kelly. You brought him here. Where's Jim? Have you asked him to dance yet?" said my friend. I left grumbling all the way back to the table where Chris was waiting. I was still looking for Jim and Chris still only had eyes for me. He was staring at me with his head in his hand like a puppy dog, and I kept vacillating between shooting daggers at him and trying to be polite. Oh the brain of a 15 year old. Finally I saw Jim. It was like the crowds parted and there he was. His girlfriend was just walking away and there was my window. I looked at Chris, told him I'd seen a friend that I'd promised a dance to and rushed away. I went up to Jim and asked him to dance and he said yes and we danced. It was magical at the time. (An interesting side note: he never broke up with his girlfriend, he never even knew I existed in that way, we were just FRIENDS!.....UNTIL college when he saw me play a lesbian in a show and made out with me when I walked him to his car. WHAT??? I digress...)

After dancing with Jim, I floated back to Chris and began the penance of waiting out the remainder of the dance with him. We sat there for what felt like years until finally, midnight rolled around and my sister came to pick us up. We drove him home, where at that point, I think he got the message that I wasn't interested and shook my hand good night.

As we were leaving his neighborhood, this woman only a few houses down from him ran into the street after our car yelling for us to stop. We almost didn't, but figured something must be wrong. She pulled open my sister's driver's side door, and begged us to call 911 because her husband was in a diabetic coma (WHAT WAS HAPPENING IN THE WORLD THAT NIGHT???) and she had no phone. SO we went back to Chris's place and banged on the door. We knew he was up since we'd just dropped him off, but there was no answer. Apparently, I'd made an even better impression than I'd thought. :) Luckily, we knew some people who were friends with my parents that lived just down the street and we woke them up out of a dead sleep and had them call the ambulance.

After that, I looked at my sister and said, "Please take me home before anything else happens tonight." She drove us back to our parents' house and I went to sleep wanting nothing more than for the night to be over.

I think even at that point, I knew that some day I would have to write all of this stuff down and laugh about it. Better yet, I made it into a musical. I wonder what song would have come out of that one if I'd put it in the show: "You Have Very Attractive Nose Hair...For a Sophomore!" Um, no.

Tonight we did a music rehearsal that went really well. We've only been rehearsing for about a week and a half, and already the tunes are almost show-ready. It's great to see how wonderful the cast is and how it's all coming together. Everyone's really in the groove of the show and making it come alive.

It's so weird to think that this thing that was in my brain (and Bobby, Blake, Jason, Andrew, Alan, Steven and Phillip's) even mere months ago is now a living breathing piece of theatre. As one of my friends said to me the other day, it's part of the canon now. It EXISTS. :) I hope I'm not repeating myself, but it's just so astonishing to me that this is happening, and at the same time, it feels perfectly normal.

The songs for this show are so very good. I just can't believe that they are as good as they are. I'm not saying that to discount the talent that is involved, I'm saying it because to have gone from just essentially a play that I wanted to make into a musical to having found SEVEN DIFFERENT people to write the music and to STILL have it come out feeling like one show feels like kismet. And victory. And perfect. Everyone's talent is so great that I'm not surprised in hindsight, but I'm sure that it could have gone differently, and I'm just so blessed that it didn't.

As I sit here on this hot June night, I'm sort of transported back to the days when I lived in Duluth...high school and college. Maybe it's because I'm reliving all of my old flames through this musical theatre journey in my show, but maybe it's also because I feel like my younger self again a little. I'm looking at this business and this career...this life with such open and hopeful eyes. I don't feel the emotional wear and tear of ten years in New York City. I feel so optimistic about where this show has come from and where it's going. I can't wait.

I'm also remembering those days of college because it was so FREAKING HOT today. If I was back in Minnesota, I'd drive quietly down to Park Point or The Deeps in Lester River and swim to cool down. I'd never been night swimming till we lived in Minnesota and there's something very refreshing about it...I think I'm going to go to sleep dreaming of dark water and cool rivers and the Big Lake.... :) Good night!

So here we are on the cusp of the start of rehearsals. I don't know about you, but I'm THRILLED! I mean, it's here, it's coming...in a month and a half it will be in front of a live audience.

I can't wait. I mean, I completely can't wait. It's a little ridiculous.

I was thinking today of the people who have already mentioned to me that they'll come to see it. My parents, for one. Now, many of you might think that's a relatively unremarkable thing. Well, it's not. I'll tell you why: my parents have never seen me perform since I was in college which was *ahem* years ago. They haven't even seen me do stand-up since 2003, which was sort of bizarre anyway, since it was kind of an impromptu set at my Grandmother Hauser's funeral lunch. Per request...I should mention that...my family wanted to see it, and I obliged. I won't lie. It was bizarre, but successful. I (please forgive me for this, Grandma) killed, actually.

In any case, my parents have bought plane tickets to make their way to New York to see this show. That's almost more scary to me than the whole rest of it. Kind of like when you're singing in front of a dark audience vs. in a small room with a bunch of people you know. It's remarkably easier to do it in front of the people you don't know. At least for me.

Oy. In any case, I'm still ridiculously excited. Right now, though, I have to run...

More later...