Devil's Island

Ship Life

We’ve been on the ship for almost a month now, and our schedule is finally getting a bit easier.  Since boarding the ship in Cape Town, we’ve been rehearsing day and night to get all four shows teched and ready to open.  Some of the bags that contained costumes and music tracks went missing, so we had lots of technical issues.  Since this is an inaugural cast and all the shows are brand new, we had a lot more work to get the shows opened than a regular cast would have.  We also had 4 cast members who arrived late to rehearsals in Florida who had to learn most of the choreography on the ship.  The schedule and the workload were insane and I really did not think my body was going to hold up, but we made it through and the cast has grown very close.  The production team is gone now and they made me Dance Captain, so I’m in charge of rehearsals, cleaning, and re-blocking from now on.  We’ve only been able to get off the ship for a short dinner in Namibia and for one day in Rio.  Fortunately we were in Cape Town for one day before we had to board the ship, so we were able to spend some time there as well. 

The accommodations are okay, but this ship is older and in need of some upgrades, especially in crew areas.  The food is pretty awful, but we are allowed to eat in passenger areas under certain circumstances and those meals are much better.  In general, the passengers are very old, wealthy, and extremely demanding, so we’ve all found our socializing duties to be quite challenging.

As promised, here are some photos:

Cape Town

Cape Town

View from my hotel in Cape Town

Company Gardens in Cape Town

Rio

Rio

Jesus Statue in Rio

Rio

Ipanema Beach

Ipanema Beach

Dinner at Maurius in Rio

Dinner at Rafts in Namibia - We sampled Zebra, Wart Hog, Ostrich, Snake, and Crocodile!

Dinner at Rafts in Namibia

Latin show tonight!

We're opening our Latin show tonight, the last of our four shows.  The end of this craziness is near...I'll update soon about all that's been happening since we left Florida.  Things have been absolutely insane and I can't believe my body is still working!

Cape Town Here We Come!

On our way to Miami:

Chris, Mason, and Ghislaine

George, me, and Scott

Let the journey begin!  At least I have 2 days off from rehearsing.  My body needs a break.  We are currently on the flight to Atlanta....gotta love the free Wi-Fi! 

Goodbye Ft. Lauderdale...Hello South Africa!

We're leaving Miami tomorrow and flying through Atlanta and Amsterdam, arriving in Cape Town late Wednesday night.  We'll board the ship on Thursday and start rehearsing right away.  We open our first show on Dec. 5th.  We're all feeling pretty unprepared, especially considering we just acquired our last cast member 2 days ago.  Unfortunately we probably won't see much of Cape Town or Namibia, but I'll take pictures of what I can.

More Cast Photos

Thanksgiving dinner at Jean Ann's

 Mariner Cast

 Mariner Cast and Michiko, our stager

 Mariner Cast plus a couple people from the Navigator cast

 Kaleigh, my roommate

 Taylor and Scott - Mariner singers

Spanish Web Video

Update

Rehearsals have been going well and we are only one person away from having a full cast.  We started on our 3rd show today.  We started learning the hoop and the spanish webs (ariel apparatus) for the Cirque show yesterday, both of which I really enjoy.  The Latin show is my favorite so far.  Hopefully I'll be able to get some rehearsal pictures/video soon.  They are a little funny about us having video of the choreo so it could be tricky but I'll post it here if I'm able to take it. 

We have to work on Thanksgiving day but Jean Ann is having us over for dinner that night, and we get Friday off.  Can't believe we have less than two weeks before we leave!

Cast Photo

From left: Taylor (singer), Kaleigh (dancer), Chris (dancer), Lisa (dancer but quit yesterday), George (dancer), Ghislaine (dancer), Scott (singer), me, Stephan (adagio).  Not pictured: Cindi (adagio).

Rehearsals have been extremely intense.  We finished the first show yesterday and started learning the Latin show today.  This one seems a bit easier so far, but yours truly was chosen as one of two dancers who has to sing with a mic.  Lovely!  And one of the songs is in Spanish! 

Looking forward to our first day off on Tuesday.

Day 1

So far so good!  Today was very easy.  We didn't dance at all, but we did have to sing.  That's right - I'm singing (very quietly).  We might not be mic'ed, and they didn't seem to care that us dancers were horrible!  Tomorrow we'll start dancing.

My cast consists of a married adagio couple from France, two singers from the US, one dancer from Australia (my roommate) and one dancer from England.  We're all very tall!  There are also 3 male dancers and 2 female dancers who should arrive within the next few days.  We are here with the cast of the Navigator, and we'll be working with them somewhat as two of the shows are the same on both ships.  Most of that cast is from England.  I feel lucky because that ship's itinerary is not nearly as good as the Mariner.

My biggest complaint is the FOOD!  Or lack of it.  I feel like I'm back on my college diet.  All I have to cook with is a microwave, so my options are pretty limited.

I promise to post pictures soon!

Change of plans

I have just been notified that I will not be going to FL tomorrow.  It will be sometime later in the week.  We aren't starting rehearsals until Saturday now.  No complaints here!  More time to get ready. 

Happy Halloween!

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From Bronson

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Packing

I finally heard from JAR and I'm officially leaving for Ft. Lauderdale on November 2nd, provided I pass a TON of medical tests.  In the meantime...back to packing!

One week to go

And still no word from JAR.  I'm told this is normal but I'm nervous...