Opening Night

After a fraught few last rehearsals Desperate to be Doris opened at the Library Theatre tonight to a sell out crowd. Myself and another lady have been asked to act as chaperones which means that we have to hover around the wings until we hear our cues and then fetch our halves of the choir and lead them onto the stage in time for the numbers. This would seem at first glance a simple and straightforward request but it seemed to rub several of our fellow choir members up the wrong way and we received plenty of ‘Ooooh, I say! Who do they think they are?’ looks, and comments, and even more when we asked people to be quiet and not slam the doors backstage for the very simple reason that sound carries and it was spoiling the show. Then for the dress rehearsal last night several people turned up who had only been to a couple of rehearsals and quite clearly didn’t know the songs or the moves. I had a few minutes of feeling petulantly five years old and rather cheated and resentful but then realised that I could ruin the whole thing for myself by doing that or just get over it. But it did mean that there was even more people on an already cramped stage. There was also massive confusion over the dance for ‘Steamed Up’ (which has replaced ‘Steamed Heat’ which apparently cannot ever be performed unless it is part of an entire production of ‘The Pyjama Game’) even though we’ve gone through it I don’t know how many times, and the words for that matter.
As we started tonight I felt like screaming when no less than three people asked me what the first song was – it’s ‘Que Sera’, it’s been ‘Que Sera’ for over three months now since we started rehearsals and its written up on the walls in the changing room in big letters.
Anyway.......we only had one door slam tonight backstage, and not too much whispering and one bit where we got on the stage a little too soon, but it all went quite well, the audience laughed in the right bits and sang along at the end and cheered and clapped and as we came off I remembered just how great I had felt when I saw it at York – how I’d gone in feeling ratty and come out feeling elated and smiled for days in the knowledge that there was a big crowd of people in the world in pink feather boas and pink stetsons singing ‘Enjoy Yourself’ and so that then the world must be a pretty good place. Then I realised that the whole audience would be going out into the Manchester night feeling like that and we’d done it.
There were ‘drinks on the house’ in the bar and everyone seemed upbeat and a few people even thanked me for chaperoning and said I’d done a good job. I was going to come home but then got a text from the Sand Bar so took a detour for some fried chicken and cherry beer. Chemistry Claire from the Spokes was there – they’re rehearsing all week without me ready for our guerrilla performance of the comedy routine before Critical Mass (and just before Doris) and have all made their props. I have tomorrow night to make a big spokes flag.
One show down, another twelve to go – fourteen if I count the two Spokes routines.
After this I am retiring from the limelight and getting stuck into my Masters thesis.