Surviving Spandex

Today's rehearsal was a bit longer than yesterday, mostly music. Our fabulously talented music director Wendy and I did a short review session, then I started singing with some of the other people in the show. It started with our new "Rosie" (Allison). She walked in the door, we greeted each other with a little small talk ("How are you?...it was great to meet your kids yesterday...they're so adorable..."), then we got down to work. The song we sing together, "Take A Chance On Me", is a duet, but she has the lions share of the material, so we reviewed my small parts first (which come late in the song), then we started at the top. Suddenly she opened her mouth to sing and I knew I was gonna have to raise the bar on my game - a lot. When I say this woman has pipes, I mean PIPES. She sounded terrific and she blew the roof off the place. She belted out the song with such confidence and power, I was amazed - and thrilled. I really felt like "Wow, I'm in good hands with this actress. She knows what she's doing and how to do it." We had a great session and a great connection and we sounded very good together, our voices blending well.

Next was my "daughter Sophie", played by Alyse. Again, she has the lions share of the duet we sing together, "The Name Of The Game", but I was a willing and involved participant. And again when this young girl (I call her a girl but she's really a young woman in her 20's) opened her mouth I was stunned. Maybe I'm just easily stunned, but she was terrific. So much so that she started the song, singing directly to me, using lyrics like "...tell me please, cause I have to know, I'm a curious child, beginning to grow..." with a desperation and a longing in her eyes, and a voice that had such control and yearning that my own eyes began to well up. There's something about the clarity of the voice and connection between two people - as Rilke says in his LETTERS TO A YOUNG POET, "...things aren't all so tangible and sayable as people usually have us believe; most experiences are unsayable, they happen in a space that no word has ever entered... those mysterious existences, whose life endures beside our own small, transitory life." In that moment, in that rehearsal, I wanted to help my "daughter" figure out who her father was. And if I'm it. And that, my friends, is how the seed is sown. The first connection of how a relationship onstage begins, in a rehearsal room, singing a song directly to each other, just saying the words on pitch. Simple, clean - amazing.

The final rehearsal was a trio - it should be a quad but we're still missing our "Sam" (my friend John Dosset) who's out in San Diego - so it was just Alyse ("Sophie"), David ("Harry") and me singing "Thank You For The Music". This is a great song which comes early in the show about connecting to each other and old times. It's sung with ease and we had a great time with it. Again, our voices blend well together and it's easy to see that the ride is going to be a pleasant one.

And now what you've all been waiting for...

The final part of the day, which was not a rehearsal at all, but another costume fitting. Again, a subway ride down to Barbara Matera's. Again the wrought iron elevator ride to the 5Th floor. Again, Angie greeting me at the door.
"Hi, come on in. Did you wear tighty-whities by any chance?" (Referring, of course, to my choice of underwear and wasting no time in getting down to business.)
"No, I'm a boxer-briefs kinda guy."
"No worries. You'll be wearing a dance belt during the show anyway (which is basically a jockstrap without the cup), but for today the boxer-briefs will do. So if you can just slip into this and pull it up to your waist, don't worry about zipping it up. We'll do that in a minute."
All I can say is thank God I've lost 40 pounds in the last few months! (Special shout out of thanks to my friend Jack Cummings for that. He knows why!) This was one of the tightest pieces of fabric I've ever had the pleasure of sliding over my body. I began at the feet and slid up, first one leg then the other, cinching and tugging as I went. Once I got it past my waist (I just couldn't stop, it felt so good), it was over the shoulder with one side, then the other. At first I wondered about the lack of fabric in the middle, across the chest. Are they missing some? Did they not measure correctly? Oh, wait, no. This is Mamma Mia. Disco, Abba, the 70's - they're not missing a thing! The tailor then came into the room and spent the next 45 minutes cinching and pulling the already tight fabric even TIGHTER, with our assistant costume designer Scott looking on with approval and disapproval as every inch of my thigh and midsection and chest was scrutinized.
"This could be tighter here... it's pulling a bit there... can this be pulled in here?"
Oh but we're not done. Now that my body from the shoulders to the knees was hermetically sealed in spandex, we still had the legs to deal with.
"Here come the 4" platform shoes. Now don't worry, these might be a little tight, but they're just for fitting purposes. The real ones will be at the theater when you get there."
Oh good - I wouldn't want to be stuck with the bad ones. I mean really, what will people say?

I'll tell you this much, Freddie Mercury would've been proud. I took it like a man as I stood there for another 20 minutes, pained by the platform shoes that were a size too small, and had the hem on the bottom of the pants fit to size. And finally, there I was, in all my glory. Red spandex and sparkling codpiece and silver platform shoes. I sent a text with a picture to my wife and the following message,
"Need I say more?"

I love my job!