We started CDC rehearsals (our shortened title for the piece) last Sunday, after many, many meetings between Christine and I, where we wandered back and forth between personal sharing, discussing structure and theme concepts, and general "Wouldn't it be cool if..." conversations.

It was a relevation to be on stage at the Shotgun Theatre - almost literally - it used to be a church.  As part of their support for our lab proposal, Shotgun theatre provides space for rehearsals as long as it doesn't conflict with their main production - so for our first rehearsal we got to rehearse almost literally on the spare set of "Owners."  During Balé Tech's previous projects, we rehearsed in a black-box theatre (which was inspirational at the time) and often in someone's house, a park or in a band / music rehearsal space (which is not necessarily inspirational, but the lingering cigarette-smoke smell reminded me of my days in a band....)

Unfortunately, because of ubiquitous scheduling conflicts, there were only four of us there that first rehearsal - including Christine, the director for this piece who is not performing.  Thankfully she jumped in and did a bunch of exercises and improvs with us - and even strapped on a drum and banged away.

Some of the highlights:  singing John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, which everyone seemed to know but me; Sarah hanging from one arm off a light rack (a low one - and she's an acrobat, she knows what she's doing); and realizing how out of shape I was after running around the room for a warm up exercise.