Tutto e Gioia, Tutto e Festa!

I got flowers tonight! Two bouquets! We opened "Rigoletto" tonight, which is my last show with Florida Grand, at least for the time being. People knew it and met me with amazing fanfare. Every once in a while I find myself in a situation where I feel needed and loved. This was most definitely the case tonight.

The whole cast and crew did a tremendous job. I sat in the audience with Chuck, the associate director. We were very happy with the show and I loved listening to the crowd around us respond to moments we'd all worked so hard to achieve. Our singer under the weather got it together and gave a fantastic performance, my supers did a great job with their dance after much nervousness and heartache over getting the steps and timing right, and the crowd went nuts during the curtain call.

Watching is so much harder than being on stage. Once I'm in the audience, there's nothing I can do about anything that goes wrong. Sitting out there goes against my control-freak nature and forces me to let things happen as they are going to happen. I always find myself tensing up during especially difficult moments, and any movement on stage I end up feeling in my own body in the seat. I pity the stranger who sits next to me when watching a show I worked on. Chuck and I were both doing the sympathetic dance in our seats, especially during the abduction scene, as two of my super supers slapped Gilda, dragged her down the stairs and carried her out the door.

I had two glasses of champagne in the donor's tent at intermission. The chorus master and I toasted to a good show, and one of the waitresses kept coming by and refilling my glass. It was a nice way to calm my nerves in between acts. Not something I get the chance to do when I'm performing, however, when I did "Akhnaten" at Chicago Opera Theater several years ago, the gentleman playing the title character brought a bottle of tequila into the dancer's dressing room on opening night. As soon as the curtain came down, we all took a shot. It was a great way to end a show and begin an evening of celebration.


It's strange to think that this is my final experience here. I've been here for so long, these people and places have become commonplace to me. What an odd profession I have, moving from place to place, never truly finding a place to call home. It's a constant rush and search for a new place to hang my hat. It'd be really nice to find one place where I could be for a little while - at least two seasons.