Opening

So I opened the show this week which was good. I wasn't nervous at all which I thought was kind of weird, but I guess when you're being put into a show that everyone else has been doing for 2 years or more, you don't get that same anticipatory excitement. Also there's none of that, 'I hope they like it!' anxiety in a show like this. It's Mamma Mia, they're going to like it. So even though there were a few costume changes I was unsure about and had only practiced the curtain call once (which is about as long as the entire second act - I bow 5 times total) I was surprisingly calm and focused most of my energy on remembering all that biting, witty dialogue.

I had like 8 bouquets of flowers in my dressing room which was rad, and people kept asking to come in and see the spread because they'd heard it was like a funeral parlor in there. I felt like a real star! The flowers were good for me politically too though because my friend Kate came up to me and said, 'we figured you must be really nice if you got that many flowers from your friends.' So thank you to everyone who sent them, not only because they were beautiful, but also because it won me acceptance points among cast members.

There were no big mistakes or anything, it just felt good to finally do it and to have an audience there. During 'Name of the Game' which is my big solo number where I'm confronting one of my 'dads' about our familial status, a few audience members tried to start clapping along which was really awkward because it's a slow song that doesn't necessarily lend itself to audience participation. I had no idea what was going on at first and thought that maybe they were just clapping for the song because they knew it and they were excited to hear it, but then it kept going at this weird, slow, labored pace and other people kept joining in trying to make it this kumbaya type of thing that just totally backfired. So I was thrown off for a minute, but I just kept singing and finally they got the picture that it was not working and stopped. At least they were enthusiastic.

All week long there have been parties and gatherings to go to, though on the actual opening, I just went and ate sushi with Kate afterward. I was pretty exhausted and got drunk off one Kirin Light, which was a good way to spend my first post-show decompression. We'll see how I feel after 6 months of this. Probably still getting drunk really quickly.