Since I have flown in a lot of airplanes, I knew how to tie mask straps around my head. Those flight attendants will always give you good examples, or forward your attention to the card in the seat pocket in front of you. But never did I think that I would spend time with that mask on my face being nearly as out of breath as I turned out to be. I was spending hours upon hours breathing through a mask that was keeping the dust-like particles of newly laid concrete out of my lungs. My feet had since swollen to the size of canoes and had just ended a few weeks of a strike, yet here I was, the masked dancer traipsing around a construction zone as though I was in “The Making of West Side Story: The Musical”. And amidst the craziness of the situation, I was still less than shocked. Here is why.

I walked into the dance studio, a few hours fresh out of my airplane from my extended European vacation. I was barraged with a slew of past Irish Dance cohorts and stomping and banging that could compare to being woken up by the gardener’s lawnmower. As I gave my hugs, I looked over the shoulders to see new faces in Flamenco shoes and long skirts that couldn’t be kept still. Confuse me? I thought I was meant to be Irish Dancing? Unbeknownst to me, I walked out of France and into Spain. I slinked over to the swivel chair so I could both entertain myself with a bit of rotation, and watch as the Spaniards mastered their routines. It had been a month since rehearsals for this show began and I, being the late-comer, was enchanted with the talent I saw in front of me. I suddenly began to see a light at the end of the tunnel. As the dancers finished their rehearsal and the Irish dancers were prepping to begin theirs, I shook a few hands and, in good European fashion, gave a kiss on both cheeks. I was awful at names so the faces were all I could remember. I met the new members of the Spanish side of our show and was welcomed with open arms by a handful of people that spoke primarily Spanish - a problem for me because my foreign language skills rest just northeast of Spain. 

I walked out into the middle of the dance floor and collected my people together. My closest friends gathered around me and quickly gave me the run-down. “We have a bunch done, but you’re doing a ton of stuff alone. So, just walk around until we figure it out,” they told me. Alright - I can do that. Easy enough. I watched the Irish dancers rehearse one of the numbers and there was a gap of space meant for me. The next number cycled through and again, the same gap happened in that number too. I was slowly realizing the magnitude of work I had ahead of me and the insanely small amount of time I had to perfect it. At this point, I had eleven days to fill that emptiness and perform it like I own the world, when the show was technically supposed to open. My heart was racing with the idea of solo time on stage because, like every other dancer, I had worked my whole life to hone my skills so I could finally be the lead of a show. My day had come and it was time to get cracking.

The next few days were a blur of choreography and Spanish. I was pulled aside to meet my counterpart - the Spanish lead dancer, Javi. He had a jacket tied around his unreasonably small waist, that sat a good 5 inches above mine. He towered over me and had a smile that never seemed to fade. I looked up at him as he smiled and said “Nice to meet you” in his best English. “France?” he asked me. “Yes I was in France for the Holidays, but I’m here now!” I replied hoping he would understand me, even with my inability to consolidate words. “Ah yes! I see it,” he replied to me, pointing to his face. I pondered what he meant as I casually giggled, and finally realized - he thinks I’m French (his hand gesture meaning he could see that I looked French). We left to go work on material to do together in a ‘Battle’ sequence in the show and he occasionally referenced my french heritage. “Muchos language! Me Spanish, you French, and todos English!” I played along by maintaining my casual giggle, and continued working on the mixing of Irish and Spanish rhythms, which I found to be inexplicably different. A few listens to Javi’s hand-clapping and overall excitement for the show really knocked the beat into my head quickly and we rallied out a few steps that would prove to be the building blocks of our highlighted number. 

Rehearsals continued on and I picked up all of the choreography that had been taught while I was abroad. I had been working so hard on the footwork almost 6 days a week that I fell victim to a foot injury, pulling the tendon that runs across the top of my right foot - a Lisfranc’s sprain. (As I was continually reminded by my eternally clever and witty friends: “Of course you would injure yourself in some French way.”) Though usage of my foot was frowned upon by doctors and my mother, I had to learn the choreography in tennis shoes and still look professional. I spent a week and a half out of dancing shoes entirely but was able to translate my New Balance choreography to the Irish shoes, that had previously wrecked my feet, when the time came. We had just begun mixing the Spanish and Irish for the battle scene. This was quite the learning experience for everyone because the basic language for this rehearsal was Spanish. I can scream right through an order at Taco Bell, but making my point choreographically was proving to be more difficult than the drive-thru. We attempted a few different steps, translating the Spanish rhythms to Irish sounds, but also creating some form of story between the two cultures. The over-catholicized Irish dancers, arms seemingly tied to their hips, had to somehow give the force of energy that the Spanish gave, who spent every second cheering on their lead. We had a lot of work to do. 

Days passed and we built more and more of the choreography to the point where it was as much as we could do without being on the actual stage. You see, we spent this entire time rehearsing in a space about half the size that would actually be used. The theatre we were preparing for was once an abandoned Toys R’ Us that was purchased by a Spanish businessman with the dream to open a show in Anaheim. He was once associated with Medieval Times and had discussed with us, at the audition, how Anaheim proved to be one of the highest markets for these kinds of shows. The theatre was under construction for quite some time, as one would assume turning a toy store into a thriving theatrical setting, equipped to seat and feed roughly 1,000 people. We were waiting for the day the permits cleared so we could enter the building and start getting used to our new home away from home. 

We were approaching the deadline quickly as the originally eleven days of preparation I had become a solid two weeks. We weren’t aware of when our opening day would be, but we were sure it could happen at any moment. We had scheduled rehearsals for the theatre at the beginning of the week, and those had been postponed as the permits needed more time, but the next day, magically, the permits for non-hard-hat clearance came through and we were told that in four days, there was going to be an audience. We walked into the building, which had yet to be carpeted, lit, or given running water. The stage was a concrete floor that took up nearly one-third of the entire dining area, an area that had yet to receive tables, chairs, or any semblance of somewhere an audience could be seen. The cast was skeptical of the probability of opening on time. We all discussed telling our families of days to come and we came to the mutual conclusion that we can’t plan past tomorrow. 

Rehearsal began in the Lobby of the building where there was a large wooden floor laid on top of cement. We needed to use it for size reasons alone, but also because the stage was meant to be installed that evening. We noticed there was a thick dust in the air and it was increasingly dry and hard to breathe, so out came the masks. A gracious assistant brought us all masks to help us not be breathing in small particles of cement and it became the first fashion trend to happen amongst the group. With all of us masked up and ready to go, the theatre began taking shape at an alarming rate. We walked onto the newly laid stage, bounced around, looked at the lighting rig, and also where the audience would one day be. Excitement filled our veins and we began practicing some of our steps on the stage. The countdown was three days and we began running full numbers on the stage. There was a massive plastic tarp suspended from the ceiling just at the end of the stage that blocked our view of the audience. We were always curious what it was looking like on the other side of the tarp. We wanted to see the chairs and tables pop up one by one and watch as the stairs got their lights - but we had work to do, and somehow, we had to get this show together in three days.

Day two approached and we were still dancing on stage with the masks on, waiting for the demon dust to settle. A few of us had lost our voices, a few others were close to medically insane, but what was to come really threw us through a loop - 4am lighting rehearsals. Lighting rehearsals are notoriously the worst part of opening a show. You are required to stand in place, in most of your costume, so that they can arrange the lights in a complimentary manner. These things, especially with Spanish in the mix, can take ages, if not eons. We stood there, slowly losing our minds, in our formations at 3am hoping that this number can be easily lit so we can go home, get our decent night’s sleep, and come back for another 11 hours tomorrow. But there was another problem, there was another inspector coming the next day - which is the day we were supposed to have our first set of guests. Local hotels and newspapers and investors all were invited to our pseudo-opening night, but if the county inspector didn’t think things were up to code, well, we’d have some explaining to do. 

We spent all of that day on edge, not knowing whether or not a show would happen. We had two run-through’s scheduled before the show for the audience: one for blocking, and one with costumes. The blocking rehearsal started far too late for a dress rehearsal due to an issue with the fire alarms constantly being on. We had a continually flashing light and warning message playing for about 4 hours. If you want to know something that slowly rips away at your sanity, this is your ideal place. We couldn’t find a quiet place, or an area not enveloped in cement dust, so we settled for sitting on the stage watching other numbers rehearse, occasionally snapping photos of us in our stylish masks we had grown so accustomed to.

Suddenly we heard word: we were on for tonight. In just three days, this building went from unapproachable, to fully operating dinner theatre. We aren’t sure exactly how things went down, but we are still contemplating if someone lost a pinkie finger as collateral. (We often joke about our lives being protected by the mafia. We haven’t been assured enough to believe its entirely untrue.) We tossed our costumes on and heard that the audience was lining into the seating area that was slowly being dressed throughout the day - just enough to sit the roughly 70 people viewing the dress rehearsal/opening night. We were finally through the rehearsal period. All of those hours worked; all of those injuries, language barriers, and moments of sheer insanity. We completed the daunting task of putting on a show, and now it was up to us to keep the show running and stable.

So there we were: onstage, lit, and performing a show we were relatively sure wouldn’t have happened for another week. It all came together somehow, through all of the crazy that went down. Yet, with all of the crazy behind us and all of us just hoping the show would happen, we wouldn’t have guessed that the crazy would just keep peeking around the corner at any given notice. I have never experienced anything quite like this show, and I know that with every day that passes, something new, interesting, and possibly mind-blowing occurs. That’s entertainment for you: you never know what is coming next until the inspector says, “clear”. 

And yes, we kept the masks - just in case.

xx.