Skating About the Stage

Rehearsals at the Princess Theatre are always a riveting experience. The beautiful historic building holds some of my most treasured memories. Some of those come from my recent work on Elf: the Musical this past December.

It was getting closer and closer to showtime, and we were having another, well, actually quite stressful rehearsal. The show wasn't going as smoothly as planned thus far (it never really does) and tensions were high among the cast and crew. The scene we were rehearsing involved a few "ice skaters" who were actually just rollerskating around in circles as some of us walked around pretending to be on coffee or lunch dates. Some of us are a bit too clumsy for rollerskates....even some of those who were actually using them. There was a lot of bumping and falling and huffing and puffing, and there were still hours left of rehearsal for the night.

As I took my fake "selfie" of our fake coffee date, I took the opportunity to take a couple of real pictures, and as I took the first one, we were photobombed by a rogue skater! I quickly took another picture to capture the three of us, and now this is one of my favorite photos in my gallery. The genuine, happy smiles we all have in the second photo perfectly capture why we suffer through the stress of these, sometimes disastrous rehearsals. Where else would we be if we weren't here, skating about the stage?