Three Weeks 'til Showtime!

I haven't been onstage in a production since my college days, some 40 years ago. But in three short weeks I'll be opening Act 2 in a locally-choreographed ballet of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" in the role of Peter Quince, the leader of the actors troupe.

This being a ballet, and a short one at that, the actors troupe subplot is very truncated. We appear on stage for a total of five minutes, including the finale. But that doesn't make it any less scary. We've had 8 rehearsals thus far, and yesterday's was the first time I didn't blank on any of the choreography. We have two more weekend rehearsals before "tech week", which consists of a complete run-through in studio Wednesday evening, a dress rehearsal in the theatre Friday evening, and performances Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.

The role of Nick Bottom, a much more significant role in this production, is being danced by one of the professionals. The rest of the troupe is made up of supporting cast members. One of the supporting cast is a teenager and I haven't learned much about her. The other three have similar stories: they started dancing at a young age, stopped for a while, and now in their mid 20s are taking adult ballet classes. Two of them (and the teen) are pretty competent at pointe work, and the third is probably headed in that direction.

And then there's me. I'm pretty sure my last performance in front of an audience was before any of the rest of the cast were born (including the pros). I'm only non-professional male dancer in the production, which has led to some interesting conversations. The director is a woman, and when I asked her to clarify some positions and port de bras that are generally gender-specific, she gave be a surprised blank look and said, "I honestly don't know what the guys are doing. Ask one of them?"

I'm also starting to get paranoid about injuries. We've already had to substitute at least two dancers (one from the student company and one from the professionals) due to injury or illness. I have a tightness in my left heel that is probably from an overly tight calf muscle, but when it twinged a bit in class today during jumps I excused myself and went home.

Time is getting short. I flip-flop between being excited to be back on stage and wondering why I got myself into this situation. Sometimes I manage both at once.