Standing in first position

Last Friday afternoon, I got a call from the Kennedy Center wanting me to come over this afternoon to audition for a bit part for their Kennedy Center Ballet Series. The Mariinski Ballet of the Mariinski Theater of St. Peterburg, Russia, more commonly known around here by its Soviet name as the Kirov Ballet, is dancing a production of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet.

So, after spending the weekend constantly stretching and carefully watching what I was eating (including not eating at all today) so I could lose at least a little bit of weight, I wandered over. The Kennedy Center was a madhouse! Shows were scheduled in all the houses tonight, including this great big MLK concert that had people standing in a enormous line winding up and down the lobby to get free tickets. Then, the audition group, which I expected to be small, was huge! They were casting a dozen guys and eight females, but there had to have been over sixty people queing up and filling out forms.

At the appointed hour, they led everyone in single file backstage onto the Opera House stage. As I entered, I espied the ballet master, so I shouted out a quick "privyet" (hello in Russian) to him.

We did our thing. And I got cast.

As a matter of fact, I got double cast. Both were iffy.....the wardrobe people didn't really want me cause I'm too big for their costumes, but the ballet master did, and he won. I'm going to be a "warrior" in acts I and II and a "mourner" at the end of act III. The only problem, aside from having to stand for five minutes at a stretch in first position (legs turned out, heels together, and feet pointed apart at a 180º angle)? The costume.

My costume is this heavy, black wool jacket with black wool short pants worn over black tights, and, on top of that, I have real metal armor—a helmet and one of those heavy front and back molded torso coverings—to wear on top of the woolens. So, I was melting. My "mourner" outfit is basically the same—all black woolens—plus a black three-quarter length cape.

I'm just in from rehearsal tonight. Dress rehearsal is tomorrow afternoon, and then we open tomorrow night at 7:30. Looks like I'm going to be spending my week at the Kennedy Center, since we've performances every night through Saturday plus matinees on Saturday and Sunday.

Meanwhile, I need a massage.