Light 'Em

October, 2007

First day of work in a professional production!  I was a ball of nerves, for a variety of reasons.  The rehearsals where I’d learned the show had been months before, so I’d spent all my spare time poring over my notes on blocking, choreography, and timing.  After every show, I anxiously asked the staging team and the dance leads for notes.  And being in a cast of 30+ total strangers, most of whom had their Actors’ Equity union cards, I definitely felt out of place.

But I made it through!  After a grueling five show day, I finally felt like I was starting to get the hang of it.  Exhausted and relieved, with renewed confidence, I trudged to the women’s dressing room, peeling off sweat-soaked costume pieces as I went.

The dressing room was filled with tall, slender, graceful professional dancers, and being none of those things myself, I self-consciously threw my stuff in an empty corner and tried not to call attention to myself as I got ready to go home for the night.

Since I was one of the last people offstage, everyone else had a head start on me as far as changing back into regular clothes.  Two of the dancers near me, both in various states of undress, were deep in animated conversation.

“You’ve never seen me do that?”  One asked the other incredulously, as she stood in front of the mirror in her underwear, carefully taking bobby pins out of her hair.

“No, I haven’t!”  Said the other, pulling on her jeans and starting to remove her stage makeup.

“But I did it that one time at Bianca’s party, and I know you were there!”  The first girl replied.

“Yeah, I think I was in the bathroom.  I definitely haven’t seen it!”

Other dancers were starting to weigh in on the conversation.  “Ooh, is Jenny going to do that thing?”  “Come on Jenny!  Do it!”  “I’ve gotta see this!”

By now, they had caught my attention.  I forgot about keeping my head down and minding my own business and tried to inconspicuously watch the proceedings.

Jenny appeared to consider.  “Well–okay.”  Rummaging through her oversized shoulder bag, she found a book of matches.

The next step was apparently to remove her bra and toss it carelessly into the bin of costumes to be washed.

I had not expected that to be the next step.

It was a bit like watching a train wreck, or an episode of “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo”, at this point–I had a sense of foreboding about what would happen next, but I couldn’t look away.

Jenny pulled out two matches, licked them (spit being a decent makeshift adhesive), folded them in half, and stuck one to each nipple.

…Then she lit them on fire.

Jenny then proceeded to shimmy around the dressing room like a Vegas showgirl, nipples burning merrily.

I looked on in horrified awe.

My first day in a professional production, I thought to myself.

What the hell have I gotten myself into?