May 12, 2013Happy Mothers Day to all mothers! The culmination of this week's rehearsals was the studio dress for Barefoot Renegades on Friday. We have been working extra hard on this concert and it shows! The pieces are all in fine shape, even Les Noces which has had the least amount of rehearsals (because of the time it took to choreograph it!).
May 5, 2013The big news from this week was that on Friday we were able to sketch in the last minutes of Les Noces, and actually got to the end! It has been a very intense week again working on the choreography. The music is so surprising, and makes so many twists and turns that we literally had to inch along taking it one second at a time!
March 10, 2013This was the final week of rehersals for Piaf Plus. We were deeply saddened to learn of Jill's mother's passing over the weekend. The dancers and staff attended the funeral service at Crown Hill on Thursday. We are dedicating the upcoming performances to her.
April 28, 2013This was an intense week! It started with Spotlight 2013: Seeing Red on Monday. I was in the theatre all day starting at 8AM with my dear friends David Dreyfoos and Rob MacPherson. It is always a special day when all of the performing arts in Indy come together to raise money for the Indiana Aids Fund. This year, the show got rave reviews from everyone! (and we were able to raise $367,000)
March 3, 2013The week began on Tuesday since the dancers had Monday off. We finished learning all of the "bits and pieces" of Piaf that we still had not learned, and were thus prepared for the "stumble-through" of the entire show which we did on Friday. This is always an extremely valuable eye-opener since the dancers get a sense of how the show is going to run for the first time.
April 21, 2013We had a very busy week! On Monday I tried to get a little further along in Les Noces. We did two Discovery Series concerts with the ISO on Tuesday, and our costume designer Cheryl Sparks stopped by the studio for fittings. On Wednesday we rehearsed the program which we performed at opening of the new Schrott Theatre on the following evening.
An eventful week for us! On Tuesday we did the first two of our Discovery Series concerts with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and assistant conductor David Glover to two packed houses at the Hilbert Circle Theatre.
The dancers came back to work on Monday April 1 after a week off following the Piaf Plus performances. We went to work right away on Les Noces. I started with a duet for Caitlin and Mariel. The music is very complex and intense, and extremely difficult to navigate through. It takes a lot of listening to over and over. So far the work has gone well, and I'm not so scared of the enormity of it all.
February 17, 2013We had a pretty exciting week! On Tuesday Michael Feinstein and his partner Terrence Flannery came to the studio to watch a costume run-thru of OLD BLUE EYES. I was particularly anxious for Michael to see the show because of his connection to the Great American Songbook and his affinity for Frank Sinatra.
