"I've had the time of my life and I owe it all to you"

As you all know i joined Ashfield Musical Society in Feb, after an extremely disasterous audition, And i know I promised an update on the goings on of the rhershals and the lead up to the show. Unfortunately I havent been blogging the past few months for various reasons.

The June bank holiday weekend signafied the end of my trip "Back to the 80's" and what an adventure it has been. This seriously has been the most fun I have had in a long time. I seriously regret not emailing to join all those times i have thought about it over the past 2 years. because of that i missed out on being in "Chess" and "Spamalot" and those of you that know me well will know im a HUGE "Monty Python" fan. Ah well what is life without regrets.

"Back to the 80's" is an amazingly energetic show with the tackiest storyline EVER!!. you know your typical American highschool story. Boys has crush on next door neighbour, she has a crush and starts dating the school top jock (you know the coolest, hottest guy in school). The jocks pick on the new girl in school by sending false love letters, teachers who are dating having a rough patch, cause well he discovers a photo of her as a centerfold of a "mens" swimsuit magazine from a decade before and then there was the nerds. The  songs are all hits from the 80's that I have to admit amazingly fitted in with the story. egs were "kids in America" well cause we were "Kids in America", "Hey mickey" the cheerleaders perform this for the school elections, "Michael" was the name of the cool guy", "Centerfold" ala the swimsuit magazine. The musical even got rickrolled. I mean seriously how cool IS that. There are also a number of songs I could do without ever hearing again "we are the world" being one of them

Rhershals were more then fun. The first rhershals was the most daunting. Seeing as i didnt know anyone, it was almost like starting a new job or even the first day of school (except i didnt have THAT problem being a twin). Thankfully, Richard remembered me from the auditions so i had someone to talk to. That didnt stop me from chatting to other people.  The first few weeks of rhershals were mainly learning the songs. we would just sit in lines and follow the instrustions from the musical director David. I have to admit i showed my shy side here. Being a contralto(and a bit of a belter) i found sitting beside sopranos with amazing voices made me nervous to sing out. but also made it hard to get the harmonies right. It wasnt till midway through i lost that nerve.

The dancing came next(apart from one which we learned from day one that went one to be in "footloose" which i want in), i was quite rusty seeing as it had been 5/6 years since my hiphop classes back in Dublin. Energetic is deffinately a word i would use to describe these. Even though I hate the song "Love Shack" was my favourite of the dance routines.

Putting the Acts together was so much fun, it meant that I finally got to see scenes that the principles featured in. Hearing some of the jokes the first time round had me in stitches and tears on some occasions. Espically when "Mr Cocker" was calling out "beuller" and "kirk" responded that it was his day off. I think that was lost on some of the younger cast.

Show week was an exhausting week. We had "bump in" on the sunday with an 10 hour day of rhershals. As you can imagine it was the longest work day ive had in forever. :). we had full dress rhershals on the monday and Tuesday getting home about midnight. Wednesday was a night off, however i went to see the amazing miss Kylie that night. Then it was Thursday aka "opening night" eek. It was so exciting and I was so nervous. I managed not to screw up, apart from my boob issue. My dress for the second act nicely fell down a bit an exposed my boobs for the audience to see. Thankfully I wore my cardigan closed that night so im not sure if anyone seen anything. Thank god.  Friday night was the one i was the most anxious for seeing as i had 25 friends in the front 2 tables. It went without a hitch. ok well maybe one hitch. a second boob malfunction this time druing "get out of my dreams" but it was ok i was at the back of the stage and  managed to fix it. lets just say dress got pinned to bra from that night onwards and no more boob action insued. woo!!! saturday was exhausting with 2 shows but it flew by and then it was sunday and it was over :(

We had a great buffet dinner afterwards in the room next to the auditorium. It was great to just relax and chat away with everyone. But extremely sad that it was over. Everyone was signing each others programs. This time reminding me of getting my shirt signed by class mates at the end of school....

I had the greatest time and so much fun, I've lots of new friends including some great new friends ( you know who you are). So many amazing and talented people with different personalities who all in turn have one thing in common a love of musicals..

Thank you guys and galls, I've had the time of my life and i really do, owe it all to you xxxxxx

Heres to the next show. More laughs and tears and memories to have

Claire