Oh Sally boy...

What a weekend! What could have been just another busy show weekend transformed into a lot of responsibility and a lot of fun.

Let me start from the beginning. Whenever someone leaves the company, we have a little party for them before their last show. We eat their favorite foods, and there are usually cards signed by everyone for them. We also like to put on a little skit. The skit is usually the highlight of the goodbye, filled with inside jokes, imitations, and lots of silliness. Since I've been here I've seen two, and they've both been awesome. For Katie's goodbye (the girl I replaced) there was a video that had been edited to make her answer questions with funny answers. For Kate's goodbye there was a man in a tutu and a serenade by the Phantom. And that's just the beginning! I've heard tons of stories about fantastic and funny goodbyes, and i know there's more that I can't even imagine.

So, since Sal, one of my favorite cast members, was leaving... a goodbye was in order. Carli, one of our ballerinas, has organized tons of goodbyes over the years. She recruited me to help, and we started brainstorming. All last week we would say... "oh, we really should work on Sal's goodbye", and then we'd go back to doing the show. We would occasionally think of something that should be added, and then later couldn't remember it. We were not making much progress, and the goodbye was getting closer and closer. Finally on Friday we had our first good ideas, and after about five minutes of planning were a bit closer to our goal. Sal has a fierce pop voice, and has auditioned for American Idol in the past (he got to sing for Simon, Paula, and Randy, but Simon told him that his cheeks puffed out too much when he sang). He also is the inventor of the idea (with Katie) of Ghetto Phantom. Ghetto Phantom is the concept of doing Phantom in a ghetto style, with booty dancing, strippers, and Crystal Diamonds (Christine Daae) as a drug addict. Because of all this, Carli and I decided to rock out with a skit centering on these ideas.

Since we had been brainstorming for a few days, we figured we could crank out the script in an hour or so, and since we were so busy during the week, it got pushed back to Saturday between shows. So after our first show on Saturday, Carli, Sean, Emily, and I went to dinner to write the script. We sat down and gabbed and came up with a million great ideas. Unfortunately we realized that since the show was the next day, we were running out of time! After two hours of eating and talking, we finally had an outline and some serious ideas. We planned a rehearsal for after the second show, and cast the show with people who we wanted to play the roles.

Carli and I had eventually decided on on a skit that was the premier episode of a TV show called "Ghetto Phantom". It was the search for the stars of the new Broadway musical 'Ghetto Phantom', featuring as judges our director, choreographer, and music director. It involved a lot of choreographed dancing, bad auditioning, and spanking of asses. It was also in horrible shape after our shoddy rehearsal on Saturday night. Not everyone showed up, and jokes didn't land as well as they should have. Carli and I were pretty nervous, but figured there wasn't a lot we could do. That night we were freaking out a bit, but on the two show days there's not a lot of time to figure things out, so we thought we would just fly by the seat of our pants and figure it out as we went.

On Sunday between shows, I had a goodbye dinner with Sal where he reminisced about all his time with the tour, and what he'll miss the most. Then I ran back to the theatre and we all got to work. We banged out another quick rehearsal, and things went much better. We tweaked the skit some more and added some specifically Sal jokes. We added costumes and attitude, and we were on our way. Suddenly things happened very fast, and before we knew it, it was time to perform! I had run out of time, but I quickly changed into my outfit (heels, booty shorts, a hat, earrings, bra, and cropped jacket) and we got the party started. And even with all the drama that happened putting the show together, it went very smoothly. Everyone performed amazingly, and the audience loved it! Sal and his boyfriend Adam were front and center, and they laughed so hard that they cried. Overall it was the perfect goodbye for Sal... funny, inappropriate, goofy, and pretty fierce.

I'm attaching a picture but don't look at it too long or your eyes may fall out of your head.