Accolade copy editor junior Serenity Li auditioned last semester to join the cast of the spring musical, “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” and director Annie Pagano — theater teacher Christian Penuelas’ substitute director — cast Li as one of Joseph’s brothers’ wives. With Pagano’s approval, the junior will document some of her experiences — before and during rehearsals — leading up to opening night, Friday, March 7. Be sure to stay tuned in the A&E section to read the rest of her entries. Those interested in watching the performance can purchase $15 tickets from the show’s ticket website.
Rehearsal No. 4: Saturday, Jan. 11
Red, yellow, green, brown.
Scarlet, black, ochre, peach.
Ruby, olive, violet, fawn.
These 12 colors are among the 29 hues I needed to learn, memorize and dance to for a song in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” a musical based on an Old Testament Bible story about the son of Jacob – considered to be among the patriarchs of the Jewish nation.
As the title describes, the main character becomes known for his cloak of multiple shades weaved into it – a gift from his father to his favorite of 12 children.
So here I was on a Saturday afternoon, running up the stairs of the Performing Arts Center [PAC] to get to rehearsal – I was already 6 minutes late. I said hi to some of the 37 other castmates who were talking and waiting for the director to start rehearsal.
I recall the director getting everyone’s attention by announcing, “OK, let’s start on what we’ve already ran through, from the top of the show! Then we are going to block the ‘Jacob’s coat’ and ‘One more angel.’”
The director wanted us to continue what we were working on earlier in the week, which included making sure we got all our words and movements down for the “Joseph’s Coat” number, which appears in the middle of the first act.
Although we have no props to work with yet, the challenge for me was to envision 30 different colors and how we have to follow the unique dance moves for each color.
It became a confusing endeavor that became difficult to get used to. I already didn’t know the lyrics well, and, on top of that, I had to memorize each movement for each hue.
I wondered if others around me felt the same way. I noticed my friend Celeste who plays the wife of another of Jacob’s sons. She kept forgetting some of the moves and went through the motions slower than the quick learners.
“How are we going to sing and dance this at the same time?” she said, out of breath.
Of course, we both knew there was some time to get used to the fast-paced and confusing choreography. All we had to do was practice, I told her as we started to run through the motions again with each other.
Back to me.
I kept messing up on a few lines, mistaking a later verse for an earlier one or vice versa (pun intended). To my luck, I found that running the steps through my head or in small movements while going through daily life helped me practice anytime, anywhere.
Sunday, the day after that rehearsal, I served as a crossing guard before and after my church’s second service, at a time when pedestrian traffic stopped, I was basically alone. I used this opportunity to lightly go over the basics of the steps while mouthing the corresponding colors to the movements.
I spent many minutes chanting those colors over and over again and continuously going through the motions. I wouldn’t be surprised if years after this musical I still remember it much like my choreographer does.
She saw how out of breath we all were and bewildered at the choreography but encouraged us saying, “It gets easier the more you practice it and you’ll remember it forever. I still know it and I learned it when I was a teenager.”
While we were practicing the first half of that song, my castmates playing Jacob’s sons had to act like they hated my friend Caleb, who played the favorite son and the main character. Our stage manager found it so funny with Caleb’s diverse array of scared facial expressions, he called it, “Bullying Caleb: the Musical.” Thankfully when he saw it, my friend found it funny as well.
At the end of the rehearsal, I was exhausted. It was three hours of dancing and I just needed a good nap but aside from my tiredness, I was excited to see how the different rehearsals would play out and how I would get to know my castmates better later.
At the end, we gathered on the stage and listened to the director and choreographer’s notes about our performances like to keep practicing and come to rehearsals with clothes we can dance in. After, we are all dismissed, free to get our phones back, which were held in the dreaded phone pockets to keep us focused during rehearsal. Then, we head back out of the PAC, to resume our normal lives again.
Well, until our next rehearsal that is.
