Fezziwig's Warehouse
The Happiest Party in London, c. 1850
| Wooly Rambles: Dress rehearsal weekend (2/2) |
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You've already gotten the highlights for last weekend, and we're about to hit the opening. A couple of quick reminders before I get to the ramble: * Weather might happen this weekend; if you have clothes that might be damaged by rain then it would be a good idea to have a way to cover them up going to and from the warehouse * <insert standard illness comment here> * We can handle anything that goes wrong, from missing articles of clothing to major power outages, 'cause we're Fezzi's and we rock (and occasionally rock out) I will never know if you skip reading the rest, so if you've got other things to be doing then by all means hit the delete button. See all of you over the course of the weekend. I missed more first workshops than I made it to this year. Saturday I rolled up to the Cow Palace and had a brief flash of concern when I saw someone working parking. I still don't know what that was about, but I'm guessing that the insane bicyclists had something to do with it. Gave myself the tour of London-under-construction with a pause by Operations to get my pass and another one for some conversations with Mrs Cutter, Mr Scrooge, and Mr Pickwick. Then I went back to the warehouse to hang out while folks had lunch, since Dance 2 was wrapping as I walked up. More conversations ensued, followed by Dance 3. As often is the case dress rehearsal weekend, Dance 3 was practically all Fezzi's. It's great to get the bonus time to run the set dances, get them drilled a bit deeper in to the brain. I generally have more fun with set dances than partner dancing. I think it's a combination of comfort level ('cause I've been doing them longer) and... you know, it all comes back to comfort. I think that most Fezzi's swing the other way, enjoying partner dances more, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Most of Saturday's rehearsal is a blur, which is a little unnerving. Sunday's rehearsal is the same way. I've got bits and pieces, and can do a rough sort by day, but I know that I'm gonna claim something happened one day when it actually happened the other if I try to get too detailed. So... time to punt. I'll face the Sunday morning meeting now and look at both rehearsals together. You probably already have the sense that I am not happy about the traditional Sunday morning meeting and character round robin. After being at that morning meeting with minor variations many times I am not very respectful and have very low expectations. I also read all of the missives from Cat, so the vast majority of the information I've heard before. Here's what I have been reminded of after talking to folks Sunday and over the last couple of days. We've got people who haven't been to that meeting, or who don't read the missives, or haven't worked fair for *cough* years. If those of us who've been there too many times could just stop talking while Mark, Cat, Robert, and the rest of them are trying to communicate then maybe everyone would be able to hear and learn something new. So, in short, I came away with nothing from the meeting because I didn't go in ready and willing to learn. I really hope that other Fezzi's did better than I did. The character round robin was the same thing for me. I almost never leave the warehouse to do anything other than finding food unless Mrs Bagnet is performing somewhere in London. I will have bit gigs on the street with folks, but I'm never going to manage the recall a name based on that character meeting. I've been working for weeks to learn the names of the Fezziwig cast; years in some cases. Once again, I went in just trying to get through, so that's all I got. Yeah... I'm pretty annoyed with myself. There's nothing that can really be done about it now, but next year I can remember this and decide to be better. If I'm going to be an old hand I should at least be a good example of one, dang it. Which brings us to the blur of rehearsals. Lots of dancing, partner and set. Some new people stepping up to teach dances, which is always good to see. Going around and around with the Grand Names set, which was really effective and significantly faster than running through the name circle multiple times. We'll have a few people showing up that you won't have memorized 'cause they weren't there, but I think that I'm personally in a lot better shape on names than I normally am this time of the year. I wonder if we should do a Grand Names instead of the Fezzi circle as the first part of warm-ups? I'll talk to the management types about that. Might be a good idea, might not. We spent a bunch of time on Sunday listening, and I'm really glad that most Fezzi veterans did a much better job of paying attention for Mr Fezziwig's talk through of a day of fair, the teaching and leading tips, and the etiquette review than I did for the morning meeting. A lot of it was repeats for those who know, but hopefully there was a tidbit or two that each of you picked up. If there wasn't, was there something you managed to teach or a chance to be a good example? If anyone is interested I will give a quick lesson on how to read your schedule; just grab me after you have it in the morning. Once you've got the trick of it there's no difficulty, but I have had people who admitted after a couple of years as a Fezzi that they had never been able to understand it. In fact, if you've got questions, ask. The worst that's likely to happen is that I won't know the answer. There's going to be a lot of this weekend that will be running on auto-pilot for the veterans, and it might be confusing for those who haven't been Fezzi's before (or even those who took a sanity break for a year or fifteen). Keep your eyes open, ask questions, and tell management if something isn't working for you. We'll take care of you. I keep thinking of more and more things to share, but I really need to wrap this up before it goes from too long to insanely long. Your devoted servant, Mr Bagnet
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