Grandma's Wardrobe Crisis - The Wedding Singer

Sweat bands - Check.

Trainers - Check.

What next!?

For those of you unfamiliar with the film or the musical, there is a short scene in The Wedding Singer involving Grandma doing her excercises.  Now, these aren't just any ordinary excercises, these are excercises 80s style, and it's because of this I need your help!

With the power of google, I have narrowed my outfit down to four possible looks:

1/ Shorts and Leggings, legwarmers etc...

2/ Leotard and leggings, legwarmers etc... (there's a theme here, isn't there!)

3/ Sweatpants, and (yes, you guessed it) legwarmers etc...
4/ Shell suit

And no, before you ask, I am not going all 'Green Goddess' and wearing head-to-toe green lycra!

The only other consideration I really have is the colour, although for some reason I have my heart set on pink and grey which is odd, because as many of you know, I have an allergy to pink!  I swear, this is one of the shortest scenes I am in, yet the costume is causing me the most problems!

I've had a few great suggestions from twitter so far from @nikkicross (the shell suit) @Bobbybeebee (shiny shorts!) and have my ears and eyes open for a few more... come on guys, help us out a little!!!
Grandma!

4 Weeks 'til Curtain Up! - The Wedding Singer

I genuinely cannot believe how close it is until opening night.  Ok, so 4 weeks might not sound an awfully short time, but when you look at your outlook calendar month, and can see show-week without scrolling down, it does dawn on you how close things are getting.
Rehearsals have gone from flat out dancing, to scene-blocking, and back to the hard dance practice, except for one difference - that being that we have now blocked all the numbers in the show, so instead of just one dance we are now going through all of them!
I am also sporting a huge bruise on my right knee because the choreographer is trying to kill me.  We have now blocked Grandma's Rap, which now involves something akin to break-dancing (I kid you not, though thankfully a very watered down version!) and my knee has taken a serious battering with one particular move.  I swear, as the weeks go on, I feel more and more like my character, and after the show I doubt if I'll be able to walk without the walking stick!  I wonder if my Grandma, Grandpa or Great Grandmother (I only say this as my mum was unable to tell me exactly whose stick it was I borrowed) ever thought that their walking stick would be used by their descendant at the tender age of 29!  I hope they are looking down with some pride on my endeavours, or at least having a laugh at my expense!
Anyway, I've realised that I've meandered through this post without a clear goal in mind, so I shall sign off here.
Next post will be about the costumes... Ahhh the 80s, the decade that fashion forgot...

Auditions! - Thoroughly Modern Millie

Well, after the bravery, or stupidity (I haven't decided which) of auditioning for the part of Grandma in The Wedding Singer, I decided to set my sights a little more realistically for TMM when the auditions came around on Sunday, and aimed for the Chorus line.
This was a very last minute thing as I made the decision to take part in the audition a week before the final one - very little time to prepare, and with no knowledge (bar the 10minute opening of the film that I'd seen) of TMM, I arrived feeling very nervous.  I noticed after a few more arrivals that I recognised some of the other hopefuls from Rent, a production that I'd seen a few years back with the folks at the Talisman in Kenilworth.  They were good - and I knew this, so I started a little mantra of "You're only here for the chorus, you're only here for the chorus" and started to feel a little better.
Nerves aside, I expected the dance to be relatively easy as I'd been rehearsing twice a week for the WS for quite a while.  I was so wrong!  By the 4th run through of the first sequence I was drenched with sweat, and felt like my body temerature had risen by 100 degrees!  On the flip side, it was so much fun, with a few Charleston steps thrown in and the general feel of the 1920s I was soon getting to grips with the choreography (well... apart from a few little hiccups!)
Next up was the tap routine. Now I didn't necessarily have to do this one as I wasnt 100% sure if I wanted to audition as a 'dancer' only, however as I'd not done tap since I was about 13, I thought I'd give it a go just to see what I could pick up - minus the tap shoes!  Now that might sound a little silly, however as one of the girls that I spoke to there suggested - at least the choreographer wouldn't be able to tell when I was making mistakes, a very good point. It took me 24 hours after the rehearsals finished before I managed to get the moves straight in my head!
All-in-all it was a good morning though, and I'm glad to say that my efforts landed me a part in the chorus line.  Can't wait to swap the 1980s for the 1920s!