It's been a while...!

Meow! My my, blogging is hard to keep up when you're in rehearsals from 10am-6pm six days of the week! Sorry it's been a while but I am hoping to make amends with my next few posts :) I won't be doing separate weekly posts for the weeks that I've missed but will instead pick out some highlights and share them with you now, hope that will suffice :D

First I'll update you on all things Cats and what we've been up to in rehearsals!

In the opening number, we pick out a guy in the audience and will no doubt make him feel rather uncomfortable as 22 cats stare straight at him and sing about his ignorance of Jellicle Cats, before informing him and the rest of the audience exactly what they are :) When we first learnt this section of choreo we were all fixing our focus on different spots in the studio so we eventually got creative by drawing and labelling our very own 'Man' which makes me chuckle every time I look at it!

Gus: There's a man over there, with a look of surprise.. As much as to say 'Well now how about that?'
Munkustrap: Do I actually see with my own very eyes, a man who's not heard of a Jellicle Cat?

To help us get used to how they would move and get into character we were introduced to our rehearsal tails!!! Such a weird sentence to type! Needless to say, when I saw this box sitting inconspicuously in the studio I got far too over-excited and couldn't wait to pick one out! 

Enric, Kelsie and I showing off our new tails! 

It's actually crazy how quickly you get used to wearing them! I don't feel right when I'm running through the show without mine anymore :) we have to be aware of them when we are pirouetting/whirlygigging (!) and also negotiate ways around not sitting on them while we are rolling around on the floor being feline! But like I said, I am getting far too comfortable wearing mine.. I even wear it for lunch breaks, am surprised I haven't worn it home yet...!

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Royal Caribbean and Dreamworks have teamed up to offer character meet and greets, parades and lots more on board some of their ships! The Oasis is one of the ships that will feature the Dreamworks characters and we were lucky enough to meet some of the characters at the studios as the Oasis Dreamworks cast were rehearsing :)

Dom, Lee and I with the Pengiuns from Madagascar!

Apparently the penguins had to cross 4 lanes of traffic to get to the studios to interact with us! Can't imagine what the people of Hollywood thought of that! Too funny :) Why did the penguins cross the road?!

Kelsie and I with Kung Fu Panda :)

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So Cats and being a Cat has kind of taken over my life... I find myself gesturing to things using a paw instead of a point and when we run our other show, Come Fly With Me, find it difficult to break out of being a kitty! We've been spending a bit of time improvising whilst being a Cat - how they sit, how they walk, how they run, how they move in general, how they react to sounds/situations, how they feel, how they interact and so on and so forth! Very valuable research to do for the show :)

As of midweek this week we've now learnt the whole show; from opening to bows and every wonderful moment in between! Hooray! Sometimes we were a tad overwhelmed with learning lyrics/harmonies etc... especially for a section in the show where we portray a Siamese Cat army... haha! I was unfamiliar with this part of the show and it took a while for me and most others to get the lyrics in our heads...

This was my roommate Kelsie really trying learn the words for the Siamese one break time! If I had been wearing a hoodie I would have been doing the same thing too! 

We did get there in the end however so all is well! Pheeeeew! Since learning all of the material rehearsals have focused on cleaning, working with click tracks to set the tempo for each number, tightening up transitions between numbers, developing our cat characteristics, identifying our relationships with the other Cats in the tribe and just really trying to pull the show together! We ran the show from start to finish for the first time the other day which felt awesome :) and we've just started adding the mics in too! It is such a pleasure to get to do this show, I can't even put it into words! Cannot wait to get onto the ship and explore the set to see where Syllabub's favourite place to sit actually looks like :)

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For me, Cats is such an iconic and amazing show, and over the last couple of weeks I have tried on my costumes for Syllabub, had my wig fitting and been given a tutorial on my very complex Cat make-up! I was sooooooo unbelievably excited for each of these to happen and literally couldn't keep the smile off my face as I saw myself transforming into Syllabub bit by bit! I haven't tried everything on all at once so I have had snippets of what I will look like eventually so cannot WAIT to put it all together :) and also I can't wait to see what the rest of my cast will look like once they're transformed into kitties too! I have a feeling it will be hard to recognise some of them :) Unfortunately I can't post any pictures of my time in wigs, costume or make up because I was never in them all at once and wouldn't want to ruin the full effect! Be assured that as soon as I can, you will be inundated with photos of me as a kitty! Bet you can't wait! 

Right! That's all for my recap on rehearsals! Will aim to get my food roundup on here soon too :) 

Meeeeeeow! :)