And terrified.
Millie was a dance show! I had just spent 5 1/2 years rotating on a turntable. Uh oh.
My audition process for Millie was pretty painless. I did a lot of calls, I did a work session, I did a few dance auditions, and Rob Ashford laughed at my grab-offs. :) They were pretty balletic, I must admit.
It was another wonderful company. We rehearsed on 42nd Street with the original creatives and they built in some changes to the show on our company. I had to do a lot of dancing. They put me in the opening number, which Miss Dorothy doesn't usually do, because our cast was smaller.It was a lot of fun going from "the girl who doesn't get the guy" to "the girl who gets all the guys". Eponine was down and dirty and Miss Dorothy was prim and proper. Poverty to wealth, belt to legit soprano, pathos to comedy - you couldn't get more opposite characters than Eponine and Miss Dorothy. I was in acting heaven. Pink acting heaven.
Miss Dorothy was pink incarnate. The original actress in the role was a natural redhead (I think), and I was now an unnatural redhead so everyone wondered if I would also have a long, red curly wig. I didn't. Red still didn't work on me. I was a brunette again, naturally. And I had a cute blonde bob for the opening number. Why do I keep talking about wigs?
Anyway, I made amazing friends again. We teched in Green Bay, opened in Kansas City and we were off. My dresses and costumes were outrageously expensive and gorgeous. I didn't have to wear any dirt. And I got to see a lot of the same cities again for the 3rd time. I got audited by the IRS and had to run back and forth to deal with the INS and Department of Homeland Security while they processed my green card. There was stress and there was glitter.
A year on tour was enough. I had just got married and this quick refresher of touring life was enough for me. I didn't renew at the end of my year and jumped ship in Los Angeles, where I was living with my uncle.
When I was doing Les Miserables, a music attorney had attended the show and asked me if I was interested in singing pop music. He was prepared to set me up with the right people if I wanted to pursue a recording career, and I was just going on tour so I never had a chance to follow through, although I met with a few of them. Now that I was in LA, I contacted him again and he set up some meetings for me there. I started working with a producer there on a demo, but more importantly, I started writing songs again. I had always written songs, even produced a demo of my own on the Les Miserables tour, but now I was focusing on it. It was great - I was really enjoying it!
Now, anyone who knows me, knows I'm a Disney-maniac. I had been an Annual Pass holder for a few years, especially when I was on tour. Anytime I was near a theme park, I was IN the theme park, and it was while I was in LA that I got to do a reading for a Disney musical for their cruise line, Twice Charmed by Alan Zachary & Michael Weiner (shameless plug), and not only that, I got to play my favourite princess, Cinderella! I even got to sing some more demos for them, which I very much enjoyed. But the best part of all is that we did the reading in the theme park studios, and after we were finished for the day, we could just push open the gate and walk into the park. It was the perfect job. Playing Cinderella during the day, and hanging out in Disneyland during the evening. Blissful.
I wasn't in LA very long before I got a call to come back to NYC... and the very next day I was on a plane...
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