What is handy about this situation is that (a) we had foreknowledge of the circumstances, (b) nobody was directly replacing another role and (c), for me, it barely affects my track at all. However, we were faced with what the cast termed "schizophrenic Loretta": Darlene is the character who is most resistant to joining the cow strike and, with her gone, that responsibility falls to Loretta. Yet, Loretta is the impetus for "Loretta's Anthem," in which she quickly (and with much gusto) decides to join the strike. Now, poor Aaron would be playing both sides of the coin, proclaiming in one breath that he's "proud to be bovine," while in the next telling Maddy that he's "not sure about this; making milk is all [he] know[s] how to do." After quickly running the show in the hotel room the night before, Aaron and Claire were ready for all their changes. The rest of us, however, hoped we would be too.
The big day arrived in Boston and we arrived at the venue extra early (not entirely by design; the receptionist at the hotel had warned us to leave lots of time for traffic, but there was none to be seen), loaded in, suited up, and got ready. What was nice about the day was that we had two shots to get all this right: so any missteps of the first show could be rectified during the second. And, while there were few abnormalities to report (both shows went extremely smoothly), I thought it worthwhile to share some of the better quotes from the show:
• Lyric change: instead of singing "If he plain refuses to hear us three, Maddy swapped out "our plea." Smarty-cow!
• Lyric change: instead of "The first thing you should do is send an offer to those three, just tell them what you want and what you'll do if they agree," Jenny changed it up to "those two" and "come through."
• At one point, in an effort to recall one of the many Darlene lines she was covering, Loretta suggested that everybody "just sit back, relax and made some milk."
• "Loretta's Anthem" provided quite a few gems: First, in order to get into the song (having no Darlene foil off of which to bounce her arguments), Maddy would up tricking Loretta into announcing she would join up (the repeated lines are, "We can't," "We won't" and "We gotta"; I bet you can figure it out). Then, Maddy fabulously jumped between two octaves at one point to negotiate singing a line written in "boy key," while Loretta shot up an octave (or perhaps two!) for her "sing it 'til the cows come home" riff. And, in addition, with all of Loretta's back-and-forth during the song, it was all any of us could do to keep it together off-stage.
• When Jenny returns the computer to the cows (after Farmer Brown wins it in a tug-of-war), the cows handed it down the line: Maddy, Loretta and... oops! When Loretta realized that there was no Darlene, the two cows shared a momentary look of panic.
• At the end of the show, when I reconcile with all the cows (hugs all around!), I called Loretta "Darlene" and, after I caught myself, changed it up to "Nope, you're Loretta, Loretta."
And, of course, it all worked out wonderfully, without a child (or teacher!) the wiser. When Grace returned to meet us later in the evening, we were all excited to tell her of our two-cow exploits, but delighted to have her back. This show really is a six-person cast, and, while understudy's always give us a nice jolt of energy, it's nice to be back to the status quo.
Kid Quote of the Day: Before the second show, the entire audience started chanting "Farmer Brown."
Call tomorrow: 12:45pm!! We have a 3pm show in Waterbury, CT, and are staying a stones throw away from the venue. The sleeping begins... zzz...
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