A dramatic turn of events *

Day 24 - Wednesday

Morning: a 10am chorus call provides a rude awakening after last night, but is soon overshadowed by a full company meeting, where we are told that one of our colleagues has been sent home and replaced. It's not entirely a shock, but I'm sure it affected everyone. Kelly handles this extremely uncommon and difficult situation very well, explaining the reasons for this drastic step: while this is a learning environment, the program is aimed at entry level professionals, and demands a degree of preparation which ensures that everybody benefits from the process. If someone is behind in that respect, then the entire company of a production suffers, the atmosphere and energy sour, and little meaningful progress can be made. I won't go into detail about how it has been with respect to this situation, fascinating as the full story is, but this isn't the right forum to expand upon it.

I'd much rather say right now how amazing it was to watch the replacement singer, a professional who'd done the role before, brought in to 'save the day' so to speak. Needless to say, the cast were worried sick at the prospect of having to redo the work they've been doing for the past 5 weeks with someone new, not thoughts you want to be having a week before opening night. However, I think they needn't worry. Having done the role before, obviously knowing it inside and out, our 'ringer' managed to get through an entire act over the course of a 3-hour rehearsal. A joy to watch: one sing through with the maestro, one walk through with the director (with no singing), then one run through of the scene. That's it! Inspiring, educational, and very positive to see the show come together for once.

Only one photo taken today, and it's out of focus...

a glimpse of the Albanian incarnation of Ferrando

Afternoon: we have an understudy session with Kinza, ironing out the kinks in our Italian. With chorus schedules easing up a bit we get more opportunities for individual work and hopefully we'll have more sessions on Cosi as covers.

Evening: back on the main stage for Act 2 of Lillian Alling. 2 big crowd scenes to stage, and not much time to do it in, but we manage to put together a rough sketch to build upon some other time.

* A sneaky reference to the upcoming album by Dream Theater, also drawing a parallel between what's happened here and what happened to the band a year ago.