VICTOR/VICTORIA

Date of Run: January 10-February 2, 2014

ROLE: Ensemble

Photos by Eric Chazankin

My first show of 2014 was the musical Victor/Victoria at 6th Street Playhouse. The director was Michael Ross, the music director was Cynthia Cook Heath, and the choreographer was Staci Arriaga. This was the first musical show I ever did at 6th Street after seeing multiple brilliantly done musicals produced there. This was a show I almost didn't do and also the musical where I was more of a dancer than anything else, though just barely.

I first learned about the open auditions for this show on Facebook and decided to go for it. However, I ran into problems preparing for it. I couldn't get a headshot printed because of a copyright mark on the photo I wanted to use, and I also couldn't get a resume printed because my printer stopped working and I couldn't find a place to get one printed (I know, I know). Figuring without them I couldn't audition I decided not to go for it and so I didn't really prepare. On the night of auditions, I went to the playhouse because that night there were some staged readings of new plays being done that night. I ran into my director from Cuckoo's Nest, Lennie Dean, and she encouraged me to go for it, saying it didn't matter if I didn't have those things. It turned out she was right.

I happened to have sheet music for a song in my car, but I was not warmed up enough for the audition and as a result I felt I didn't do as well as I would've liked. The dance part of the audition was extremely tough and a lot of it was very quick, but in the end, I felt I did reasonably well after doing the routine many times. About two weeks later I got the call offering me a part in ensemble.

The majority of the cast consisted of several people I already knew: Tim Setzer, Dwayne Stincelli, Anthony Guzman, Greg Maddox, Sam Starr, Abbey Lee, Jared Newman, Janine LaForge, Chelsea Smith, Peter Warden, Eyan Dean and LC Arisman. The rest of the cast consisted of Taylor Bartolucci, Natalie Herman, Sarah Passemar, Amy Webber, Christine Graham, Connor Figurate, Kelsey Miller and Shawna Eiermann.



At the first read through I found that the musical was not going to be as I expected. Michael said that he was going to replace the second act opening song "Louis Says" with one from the movie "Shady Dame from Seville" and he would also replace the ending song "Victor/Victoria" with the movie ending. I was not that pleased because those two songs were the only ones where the ensemble really got to sing and after three months of Cuckoo's Nest my voice had gotten out of shape, and I was looking to get back into singing in a musical. All I got to sing in this show was a few lines in the song "Le Jazz Hott."



We started our rehearsals by learning the dances. Our first one was "Le Jazz Hott." It was a very tough dance to learn in some areas mostly because there was literally no break in between many moves. It's like they came in on top of each other. As time passed, I noticed that in this number, and even the others, it seemed like everyone would be seen by the audience because we all got turns in the front of the group. I had two lifts to do in this show, both of which involved Taylor (Victoria/Victor). The first was in "Le Jazz Hott" where Eyan and I would lift her off a piano bench and to the stage, link arms and walk across the stage with her. The second was in "Shady Dame of Seville" and in that one Jonathan, Sam, Eyan and I lifted her above our heads, rotated in a circle and put her back down. It was very difficult having to do that lift because it Taylor's arms were straight up and it was a bit difficult to grasp her. For the final Saturday performance, we figured out a different and easier way to lift her by having her have her arms straight out like a T. Too bad we didn't think of that earlier.

"Shady Dame from Seville" involved more staging than dancing. It had a couple moments, but it really was more posing and walking than dancing. In that one, they had to cut some of the end out because it was a series of "Ahs" from Taylor, and during the last verse and this we just stood there doing nothing. As we moved closer to opening we found that the music would be slightly different than what we were using. We had been using the movie soundtrack for that part, but as there was no sheet music for an orchestra available, it was different. I heard from someone involved that they hired someone to listen to the music and transpose all the parts onto paper. It took some time for us to get used to it.



In addition to the dancing I was given about six lines, all of which were in the first act. The scenes that involved ensemble members were staged first, mainly because several of the principle actors were involved other productions that began performances about a couple weeks after our first reading. When they finally returned to rehearsals we staged their moments, but as a result, I was usually only a rehearsal for about 1.5-2 hours, sometimes a little longer. After a few weeks of this we had a designer run through and then I had to stay late.



When it came time for our costume fittings, I missed my appointment. I had to get up at 5 in the morning that day to be at work at 5:30. Then when I came home from work, I took a nap that lasted two hours and I forgot all about it until I went to rehearsal the next night and I suddenly remembered it. Oops! I eventually got fitted, but I was so embarrassed that happened.

My costumes, L to R: Reporter, "Le Jazz Hott" dancer, party guest, "Shady Dame" dancer, and Chicago patron. I know it's blurry, but it was the only way I could get them all together.

A month before we opened, we worked on fight choreography. Our fight choreographer was a man named Marty Pistone. He was the most amusing fight choreographer I ever worked with because whenever he was agitated, or something didn't go right he would start talking in Sicilian. With him, you definitely had to keep on your toes and keep up with him. We would only get him for a couple nights in the whole thing. There were several scenes where there were beatings given. I was in the biggest fight scene of the show in the second act where everyone was involved. In that scene I would be in the back of the crowd for most of it until toward the end. Then I would come forward center stage in front of Jared where he would swing with both arms at me and I'd duck both times and then he'd clock me in the head and I'd fall back. This scene was funny because sound effects were added for comic effect, in a way like America's Funniest Home Videos.

Two weeks before opening we moved into the theatre and that's when we ran into problems, mostly with the dancing. In the rehearsal space we had plenty of room, but once we moved into the theater, we saw that our dancing space would be much smaller. During "Le Jazz Hott" in one section we'd spin in circles into our next place, but quite a few times we crashed into each other. In time Staci worked it out, before moving on to "cleaning up" the dance. She was quite the perfectionist about everything from our hand placement to straightening our arms to how close our arms had to be to our body. A lot of these were things that would go so quick no one in the audience would have time to notice.

End of "Le Jazz Hott"

We had three preview performances for invited audiences. During the first one we had to stop because the curtain that hid the hotel set didn't open when it was supposed to and the audience was not responsive. The other two went without a hitch and the audiences were very enthusiastic.

In this show were the four Proteans from the Spreckels Theatre Company production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum a year earlier: myself, Sam Starr, Anthony Guzman and Greg Maddox. As soon as rehearsals started, we picked up where we left off, quoting SpongeBob and also other movies like How the Grinch Stole Christmas. During some of the early rehearsals we quoted lines from Forum as well as sang some of the songs and even did some of our moves. In the dressing room, though we didn't do this intentionally, we wound up against the end wall in a group.

In this show, I took to smoking fake cigarettes in several of my scenes. I would mimic smoking a cigarette during rehearsals and I'm pretty sure as a result they got a box of them to use. I think I was the only one who actually used them. I got so accustomed to fake smoking I would keep bringing my fingers up to my mouth, even when not in the scene. But don't worry, I never actually picked up the habit.

In the beginning of the run and also in some of the dress rehearsals I noticed that in this show I was picking up fallen garments from other people's costumes. First, during a preview, I had to grab Eyan's sash during the second "Shady Dame from Seville." Then during one performance I had to grab Abbey's bow, during "Chicago, Illinois" because it started falling off and she just took it off and tossed it my way. In this case I made it work, since the scene takes place in a speakeasy with men watching a show with girls and I dove for it as any man would do if a girl threw a piece of clothing into the crowd. Then finally during a performance, one of Shawna's detachable cufflinks fell off at the end of "Le Jazz Hott" so I grabbed it before getting offstage.

A couple times I had to think of helping someone onstage in a scene. And in this particular case it was the same thing both times. On the second Friday before the fight scene, which took place in the Chez Lui Café, there was a fake piano, but twice there was no piano bench because apparently, someone forgot to put it on the podium (oops!). Amy was the person who was at the piano, pretending the play to have to stand for the song "You and Me." Not wanting her to stand for that and then the fight scene right after, I grabbed an empty chair from a nearby table. I had to do the same thing again during the last Saturday evening performance.

On the second Sunday performance, something interesting happened. Taylor and Tim were onstage alone, and Taylor was singing her song "If I Were a Man." Then immediately as it ended the power went out. We were all wondering what was going to happen next. Would the performance be cancelled? Or would it go on? During the power outage, the cast went onstage singing "That's Amore" while Sarah played the accordion. Then right when we finished the song, the power came back on. It had only been out for ten minutes.



During the run, before the people in charge of the playhouse caught up with us, we had some backstage theme parties during intermission or shenanigans as we called them. They all happened on the girl's side of the dressing room. I don't remember all of them, but the two I remember that the entire cast got involved in were a disco themed one and then a beach party.



On the third weekend on Saturday, I decided to play with one of my parts, just to make it more interesting. In the scene immediately after "Le Jazz Hott," in the dressing room I played a party guest. Others in the show had a little backstory that I was a criminal mastermind and that two of the people in the room were out to kill me. So I decided to start imitating Disney villains during the scene for fun. I did these villains in this order for the remaining eight shows: Shere Kahn, Cruella DeVil, Scar, Madame Medusa, Ratigan, Lady Tremaine (Stepmother), Gaston and Ursula. I even said some of the lines of those characters (sotto voce) during the parts where I mingled with the other people onstage. However, during the performance where I was imitating Medusa, I couldn't go far into it because I had to cover someone and was forced to drop it.

For the party scene, Sarah, Jonathan, Janine and I would go on and begin it, but at one performance, one of us never showed up (I know it wasn't me), but waiting was not an option. He had to go on without him/her. Luckily, I knew all the lines in the scene, so I said those of the missing person until they showed up toward the end of our moment and said their last line. The person gave me a box of band-aids with mustaches on them as a thank you token.

The Party Scene. Left to Right: Janine, Jonathan, Me and Sarah

Unfortunately, I could not fully enjoy the show as I might have hoped. It had nothing to do with the show itself (though I wish I had gotten to do more singing and dancing) or the people who were in it with me, but rather a deep depression. There were several nights when I was very sad and often, I'd find myself in a dark corner backstage, in tears. There were even a couple nights while I was onstage during a performance when I had to fight back tears. It was only years later that I came to the realization that at the time I was still dealing with grief over my father's death a few months earlier. For a time, I convinced myself it was other things, but I was wrong.   

This show had the most performances I had ever done in a run, up to then. With this show, as many musicals at 6th Street, there was a possibility of an extension to the run if we sold really well. We didn't end up having an extension, which I was grateful for because in all honesty, I was done with that show after four weekends of performances. And I wasn't the only one who felt that way. This had not been one of my favorite shows to do, simply because I was not doing as much singing and dancing as I would've liked. It was one of my more relaxing shows, but I felt like I was not doing enough. But then, Victor/Victoria is meant to be a star vehicle with a few supporting roles and not much else.