#understudy run

So I made it through my understudy run.

And i don't really know how i feel. To start the night, I was so shit scared because not only was it the first and only run for me, but it was the first run for the WHOLE cast but all of the understudies were on together so it was nice to not feel so alone.  Tracy Turnblad is a BEAST of a character. In a two hour show, she probably spends about 10 minutes in total off stage and she is constantly singing and dancing and giving SO MUCH ENERGY I felt like I was exploding. 

I only called for lines twice, once in each act, so that made me pretty happy. I dropped a few pieces of chorey and made some dumb blocking mistakes and acting choices but it was the first time i had run 99% of this show on the floor, so i'm trying to be less of a perfectionist about it.  Also fun fact/spoiler alert/my life is sad: I had my first stage kiss. Not only stage but first kiss ever. Yup. 

To add to the already awkward moment for me, i barely knew the guy playing link and we had NEVER run any of this together before. Brilliant. I spent most of it takes two feeling like i was going to throw up but then just had to remind myself i was playing a character and threw myself at the guy. 20 seconds of insane courage right? But I survived and then went on to do it another two times. Good. But he was so sweet and so supportive, as was everybody onstage last night. I felt so much love from all these people.  But now it's all over. We open in three weeks, so now is serious knuckle down time, which means I probably wont get to run anything as Tracy again because I'll be back in my ensemble track. So it's a very bittersweet day for me today. I've wanted to play Tracy since I was 14 years old and this is the closest I've come so far. Yes, I could have done better, but this character has been a part of me for so long that at moments of the run, i felt like I wasn't even trying to be Tracy, it was just happening. I admit, I did tear up during I Know Where I've Been and felt so much joy when I was doing You Can't Stop the Beat. It was one of those moments where I was reminded why I do what I do. Because there is nothing else in the world that comes close to beating what performing feels like.