Thursdays are for Thinking Out Loud #4: Theater Week – Jitters and Joy

This week’s Thursdays are for Thinking out Loud is brought to you by Rachel of Clara’s Coffee Break. Check out the link-up here.

Thinking-Out-Loud
This weekend, I am going to be in Birmingham Ballet’s production of Hansel and Gretel. I am very excited about it. Quite giddy actually. Today is our first dress rehearsal.

I am performing the role of a Village Mother and also a Flame in the witch’s forest (there are anthropomorphic parts like flames and shadows in this scene).  I feel that it’s more challenging to “get into character” when your character is something like a flame, but I am trying to draw inspiration from the Firebird. I’ve been watching a YouTube video of Maria Alexandrova dancing the Firebird and I love the quirky energy and power that she puts into it. Her dance is much different than ours, but I think it’s helpful to try to absorb the general mood of it and try to emulate the way she accents her movements (*try* is the operative word here!)

In both of my roles I’ll be doing more dancing than I have in past performances, but I’ll also get my “acting fix” since the part of the village mother is dramatic as well.

We will be performing in a smaller theater than we usually do and seeing the audience’s faces will be unavoidable. I guess this should not make me nervous, but, I confess that it does. Yet, on the other hand, I actually like the smaller size of the stage and wings. It has a cozy magic to it. And after watching some of the rehearsal from the house, I think it is special how the audience will be closer to the performers.

It always seems like theater week is going to be long, but it goes by so fast. Too fast. After this, there won’t be anything until Nutcracker rehearsals begin in September. Oh well…so long as you have another performance to look forward to, life is good.