Opening Weekend!

As I promised last week in my blog, I want to walk you through the opening weekend of "9 to 5"! Since I posted my last blog we finished our last two nights of tech rehearsal on Thursday and Friday. On Friday night we had our traditional invited dress rehearsal. This is where anyone in the theatre arts department is welcome to come watch our rehearsal and the cast can invite close friends. This allows the cast and crew to perform for a small audience before we officially open a show. It is very helpful and gives us a way to get our nerves out before having a full audience. 

Invited dress had a few bumps along the way, but we worked through them and it helped prepare us to open the show on Saturday night! After the last dress rehearsal we fixed what went wrong and went over our director and choreographers notes and got out of rehearsal at 12 a.m. It was a very late night, but they got through everything we needed to so we wouldn't have to come in early before the show the next day.

Although our call time wasn't until 6 p.m. on Saturday, I was up bright and early to go support my sorority in the Greek Olympics! I was in tech rehearsals every night of Greek Week, so I wanted to be involved somehow with the little bit of time I had off from the show. It was so fun to spend time with my sisters after not seeing them for a while. I was able to sneak a nice nap in later on in the day, grabbed dinner with friends and then headed to the Freed Center for opening night! 

Opening night is always so exciting with every single show that I do. There's just an energy throughout the cast where everyone is so excited to finally present our show that we have worked so hard on for weeks to an audience. Our call time is always an hour and a half before the show begins so that we have plenty of time to get ready, get in costume and do lift calls. We had a phenomenal opening show and it was extra special for me because this is my very first show at ONU! I was a little sad knowing that this would be the first opening night that my family wouldn't be at. Living eight hours away is always hard, but it's even harder when I am so used to my family supporting me in every show I do and then not having them here for my first college opening night. However, I have the best friends who went out of their way to be there supporting me and surprising me with flowers. I felt so much gratitude after opening night. 

We had a matinee show on Sunday and it went great! Everyone was a little exhausted at this point but we powered through and ended the opening weekend with a bang. It was weird since I didn't have anyone there to see after the show so I just gathered my things and headed home for a relaxing evening. With such a big family I always had different groups of people at different shows so I would always see them after the show which is why it was so weird for me to be able to leave right away. However, I am so excited for this upcoming weekend because my mom, little brother and grandma are all making the drive to come see the show! I haven't seen them since spring break and I keep saying to my friends that all I need is a hug from my mom and it will fix all my issues. 

Now that we finished our first weekend of shows we get 3 nights off and have one brush-up rehearsal on Thursday before our final three shows! I don't know what to do with myself now that I have a few nights off because I haven't had those since the beginning of March. If you didn't see "9 to 5" this past weekend, make sure to get your tickets and come see us on Friday or Saturday! Tickets are selling quickly and you don't want to miss this incredible show. I hope to see you there!