AYL: dance, dance, dance

Last night was the “off-book” deadline for actors in As You Like It. No more scripts in hands, we can begin to fine-tune performances and really explore characterization.

Not that they had any text to worry about last night.

Last night was all about the dance finale…

Here the actors are, partnered up. Now if the gent in the center of the picture (Chris C., our Silvius and our Frederick) looks a little lonely, there’s an explanation.

His partner here should be our Phoebe, Ashley. But Ashley is also our choreographer. So that’s one reason she’s missing: she’s overseeing the dance. But there’s another reason…

Her previous production had been Oklahoma. During which she injured her foot. And while she was in a boot for a while, it never seemed to heal completely. And when she began to choreograph As You Like It, it appears that she has re-injured the foot, or at least exacerbated the existing injury. Thus, she was watching this rehearsal with her foot raised and iced.

And of this, of course, presents a number of challenges. She may need to be kept out of that finale, so she may have to choreograph a work-around. She’s also a “dancing Shakespeare” in our earlier “Uptown Girl” dance sequence… last night, she began working with an understudy (Libby, our Celia) for that number. Ashley had also been tapped as the “ring-card girl” for the wrestling match in Act One, but I’ve already resigned myself to scrapping that bit–the fight itself is solid enough.

But then there’s Phoebe. Her early rehearsals were wonderfully physical. To protect that foot, we may (probably will) have to reign that in. I’ve told her that for the time being, she is to plop herself down on one of the two stumps we have on stage and let her scene-mates work around her. I know it bums her out (hell, it bums me out), but there’s no show worth damaging yourself permanently for…

It’ll all be fine.

Right?

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