On Wednesday night, at six o’clock, we drove down to a theatre in the Stevenage where we’ve been rehearsing our pantomime with our Friday drama group, Identity. But we weren’t rehearsing today; today we were doing the real thing, the show, the performance, and all the parents and grandparents and aunts and uncles had come to watch! We’re doing it again on Friday night, which we are very excited about, because today was extremely fun! I’m Elphaba, the wicked witch from the musical Wicked, and Tilly’s Glinda, the good witch from Wicked, too. We did a hundred dances (closer to seven; to be precise, six including the bows and my solo) and a lot of running-from-left-wing-to-right-wing-to-Green-Room-to-back-stage-to-left-wing-to-back-stage-to-fairy-door-to-right-wing-to-left-wing-to-fairy-door recurring! Because I am an evil witch, I had my face plastered with green and painted with black eyebrows and lips on top, not forgetting crimped hair! Tilly had a lot of make-up and an incredible amount of mascara, and I wore my Halloween dress (as you do) and Tilly a flouncy pink skirt and vest.
On Friday night, again at six o’clock, we repeated the show – and, if anything, it went much better! For one, I remembered the lolly I was supposed to eat in one of the scenes which I had forgotten last time (if you could call that remembering; Chanel had taped it to the wall), for two, I didn’t drop my wand on Scene One of Act One, and for three a lot more. (Ooh, that rhymed!) There was also the odd bit that did go wrong… basically, in one of the songs that we did at the end, Seasons of Love, the first line is “five hundred, twenty-five thousand, six hundred minutes” and you have to start singing at a particularly awkward and at a not-at-the-beat part of the song. Luckily I didn’t do it on Wednesday, but on Friday I said, “Fi-…” at the complete wrong part of the song, and I noticed some of the audience turn their heads and mutter stuff, but the rest of the show went fine! I am very excited to start a new pantomime or other performance after half-term with Identity.