Elf (the musical)

As one of my ‘things’ to do one day is be an actress, or be in some sort of performance or pantomime, I jumped at the chance when I saw an advert in our local town magazine advertising the upcoming ‘Elf musical’ at the Landmark theatre, and did anyone want to be part of it?

Of course I did, so I promptly emailed them asking if I could take part, and on the stage (as in not helping with scenery/ make-up/ costumes etc). ‘I can’t sing, once got mistaken for being injured and calling for help when I was singing in the shower at home, but can learn a dance if you show me enough times‘.

Surprisingly they must have been quite desperate for newbies, as they got back to me, and even more surprisingly asked me along to an ‘audition’.

I wore my running trainers and sat close to the door in case they asked me to sing anything for an audition. However, they didn’t, and once everyone had had a chat and general info had been passed around, most people got up to leave and the director asked ‘all the new people’ to stick behind. Turns out there were only three of us. One could tap dance. One has had jazz and modern jive lessons. And then there was me. With my enthusiastic smile.

Turns out they were really keen to get new people involved, and I was in!! (No singing/dancing or acting demonstration required, which I was a tad disappointed about; I was ready to bust out some dance moves if necessary).

However, I somehow managed to get mysELF involved and over the past couple of months have been going to rehearsals once or twice a week (soon to be every night closer to the actual performance!) but I’m actually really enjoying it and it’s also keeping me busy now the nights have got darker (I usually HATE this time of the year once the clocks have changed) so it’s nice to be doing something fun and meeting new people.

I have to confess, I never realised (but it makes complete sense now) that there were actually different names for several of the dance moves in the choregraph. There’s a: ‘madison’, ‘cannon’, ‘spread eagle’, ‘scarecrow’, ‘smack the baby’ and the ‘weeing round the dinner plate’ move amongst others. Now, I highly suspect some of them – definitely the last one- is made up, but for all I know these could be internationally known names. I completely thought that the choreographer was making them up as she went along, so I started suggesting things like a: ‘reverse twizzle whizzle’ (which sounded better to me than some of the actual names) but turns out a ‘reverse twizzle whizzle’ isn’t a thing. Yet.

I’m not going to lie, one of the dances in particular (‘Sparklejollytwinklejingle’) is very fast (almost impossibly so to start off with), but we’re getting there. There’s one other ‘Elf dancer’ my age (in our 30’s) and all the others are 17 and at performing arts college; very young, fit and flexible and know such things as ‘cannons’ and ‘madisons’. However, we may not have picked it up quite as quickly, but we are -surprisingly – picking it up at least.

I’ve also learnt that ‘up stage’ and ‘down stage’ is closer to the front or back, and ‘stage left and ‘stage right’ is the same as ‘surfers left and surfers right’ when you’re surfing. As in, it’s from the position you’re in ON the stage (or on the wave). Not from the perspective from the person looking at you. Makes TOTAL sense now. But didn’t to start with. It’s all good fun though and it’s been a good learning curve.

I also remember near the beginning when I was lost on the sheet of music and I asked the lady next to me. She pointed at the (notes? symbols?) and she was flabbergasted when I admitted that I couldn’t read music. So then I thought EVERYONE could read music (turns out, not everyone there can read music).

Another time in one of the earliest rehearsals, we got asked to move into groups of our voice ability and whether we considered ourselves to be ‘alto’ or ‘soprano’ or even a ‘higher soprano’. I decided against being a ‘higher’ anything, so grouped myself with the sopranos because it made me feel like a gangsta (being in the ‘Soprano family’). But in reality, I think I just sing in the same note/ tone as the person stood next to me, so really it just changes depending on who I’m stood next to.

So really, ‘fake it until you make it’ couldn’t be anymore profound than right now. And I’m making it, OK? Or at least trying to….