Dear Sanna - The Replacements

First of all, sorry for the absence! I'm not sure if it's a good thing that blogging more often was not on my list of new years' resolutions (because that would mean I failed miserably), but at any rate from this point on I am adding it!



So we managed to get through the extremely crazy december schedule, but definitely not without plenty of drama. During one of the shows, a company remember notorious for goofing off was messing with a stage worker, resulting in a big metal bar smashing down on somebody's head. This person happened to be the principle of the show. She had a huge welt on her forehead, with no chance of being able to dance. Unsurprisingly for this company, she was actually a replacement for the original principle, so not only did we need to replace her main part, but also a corps part she is also involved in. We had about 2 minutes to get the poor corps dancer ready. The alternate cast soloist had about 20 minutes.

These changes did not even directly affect me, but it was amazing to see how much it indirectly affects everyone. I am impressed with how this company can come together, helping to piece together a non-existent costume and guide a dancer through choreography she doesn't know at all. Not to mention the chain reaction of switches in the second act when we plucked the other principle out.

...but that's not all! The next day was our very important PREMIER of our triple bill! Nobody knew if the girl with the welt would be able to dance or not, so we all prepared to share her parts. Thankfully she came the next day. I really don't know how she danced, but we still helped her out by filling in where we could.

Then about a week ago we began replacing the principle in another ballet because she will have to miss one show. Just after we arranged everything, the replacement got injured and we had to really scrape to replace the replacement! This of course is just 2 days before the show. That meant emergency rehearsals and a lot of overtime for everyone!

It seems to be in order, but only time will tell!

Janie