While pursuing our dreams, especially at the beginning of the journey, we may not have the foggiest idea what we are doing. This phase might lovingly be called “learning the ropes.” As you’ll read below, I was roped into my first musical theatre job before I knew diddly-squat about professional performing practices and terminology. I had to swallow my pride, look like a twit for a short time, and learn on the job. If this happens to you, you may feel like you’re at the end of your rope. But hang on! Expect there to be a learning curve and cut yourself some slack. Soon you’ll know the ropes, too.

Please enjoy your next installment of

Long Legs and Tall Tales: A Showgirl’s Wacky, Sexy Journey to the Playboy Mansion and the Radio City Rockettes

by Kristi Lynn Davis

The next day I reported for rehearsal with Sandi, the “dance captain.” The title sounded intimidating. Unlike the name implied, she had no military training whatsoever, although that probably would have helped her in her pursuits. Apparently every musical theatre show had a cast member who served as commander. It was the first time I’d heard of such a role. Jenny explained, “Someone has to keep the show clean after the director and choreographer leave.” “Aren’t there maintenance men to mop the stage?” I asked, but she wasn’t talking about that type of clean. “Clean” meant keeping the original directions and choreography intact. Over time, if someone didn’t keep a close eye on it, choreography had a sneaky way of morphing into moves unapproved by the choreographer. Since the director and choreographer skedaddled out of the theatre for good after “putting up” the show, the dance captain was needed to maintain the proper moves and grooves.

The dance captain was in charge of settling choreographic disputes—a customer service representative of sorts, listening to performers’ gripes about one another. If you saw someone on stage doing the choreography incorrectly, it was taboo for you to tell that person directly. You were supposed to tell the dance captain, who would then relay the message to the offending dancer.

Jenny, Kristi, and our dance captain in costume

Finally, the dance captain assumed the monstrous responsibility of knowing everyone’s individual “tracks”—their choreography and “blocking” (where to move to at specific times during scenes). Hence, Sandi was the one to whip me into tip-top shape in only seven days time. Thankfully, she was about as sweet as dance captains come, so I could let down my guard and rest at ease. She was a beautiful girl a few years older than I, who had done oodles of shows at Beef and Boards. Her handsome hubby Matt was in the show, too. Sandi loved performing, meeting people, and socializing with her show biz friends. I envied how she made the most of her job and enjoyed the journey.

Fortunately, she wouldn’t allow me to dwell on the dreaded pre-show, as I had plenty to focus on for the real show. My numbers included an opening rehearsal scene; a military-style tap dance; “Sadie, Sadie, Married Lady,” a simple number sung by Fanny and the girls about how glorious it was to be married; and “Beautiful Bride,” a fashion show of sorts in which we glided around stage in ridiculously over-the-top, extravagant, designer wedding gowns with towering head pieces, escorted by debonair men in top hats and tails. This is the song where Fanny Brice, decked out in a wedding gown and roller skates, turns to the audience to reveal that she is hugely pregnant. I also did a couple bit parts, and my character even had a name: “Polly.” My first real role! I had only two speaking parts—called “lines”—in the show, but it was a start.

Once I learned my track, a portion of the cast was brought in for a quick “put-in.” A put-in is a rehearsal where the new actor is plugged into or “put in” the hole left by the original actor who vacated it. The cast consisted of the two leads (Fanny and Nicky), a group of older character actors (one man and three women), and the ensemble (three men and four women) who did the heavier dancing. Since my role required little in the way of direct interactions with the leads or the seniors, they were allowed to lounge at home in their pajamas and rest their voices while the ensemble gave up their time off to rehearse with the new chick. Jenny, Sandi, Matt, Brent, Steven (a debonair tenor), Harriet (a tall, statuesque redhead in her early thirties) and I comprised the ensemble. Everyone was warm and welcoming except for Harriet who offhandedly commented, “I was the prettiest one here until you came along.” The words sounded like a compliment but the tone made me tremble. I treaded carefully around her after that, not wanting to step on her toes, literally or figuratively.

For the put-in, I had to do all my costume changes and numbers “full out”—at performance quality with a big old smile plastered on my face—while the rest of the cast “marked” the show in their sweats. In other words, they went through the motions without really performing, so they could conserve their precious energy for the real deal. The numbers I wasn’t in were bypassed to speed up the process. I basically got a rough idea about where everyone else would be on stage relative to me and where I might crash into someone or trip over a set piece.

The put-in also prepared me for my “traffic patterns.” “Traffic patterns? Are you going to be driving cars on stage?” you might ask. Not usually. The term refers to how and where and when people move around on and off stage relative to each other. Performers are required to strictly adhere to their specific sequence every night, every single show, without fail or exception, or there’s bound to be an accident.

The problem with a put-in is that, without running the entire show at regular speed, you don’t get any idea of the pacing of the show and how much time you have to change costumes or how out of breath you’ll be in between numbers. That pleasure is saved for the first time you do the show for an audience. Scaaaaaary. With our “dressing room” located on the second floor, Jenny and I were constantly running up and down the stairs to change costumes and wigs. I didn’t know how it would all pan out come show time.

Being wigged the entire show and having no prior experience wearing fake hair, I was grateful when Jenny took it upon herself to teach me about pin curls and wig caps. “Take small chunks of hair and curl them, like you’d wind a hose, into tiny buns all over your head,” Jenny demonstrated. “Then secure them with two bobby pins placed in an ‘X’ formation.” When I finished, my head looked like I’d been attacked by cinnamon rolls.

All these mini-cinnabuns and any leftover wisps of hair were then further secured by covering the entire hairdo with a wig cap. (See featured photo up top.) Our wig caps were sections of pantyhose tied into a knot on the top to form stretchy caps like criminals wear. After the show, all we’d need to do is pull the wig cap all the way down to hide our faces, and we’d be ready to moonlight as bank robbers. “I’m a sperm head!” I screamed as I grimaced at my hideous image in the mirror. Jenny burst out laughing, grabbed her camera, and took my picture. While I certainly did not feel glamorous, I was learning a vitally important lesson. The beautiful secret of pin curls is that they provide something you can anchor your wig into with hairpins. I didn’t want to take a chance on a wig mishap, as I did not look attractive in a wig cap. I learned to love wearing wigs, because I could be having the hair day from hell and it wouldn’t matter one bit.

After “Wigs 101,” I was ready to hit the stage and shine like the star I was meant to be. I plugged into my part with no particularly troublesome problems. The songs and dances were pure joy to perform. Once I got into my show routine and knew the ropes, I felt quite comfortable and confident that I was doing a bang-up job. The exception was the pre-show, of course. Even after banging away at it for several weeks, I still couldn’t tell if my singing was passable or even tolerable. I was too mortified to ask. They weren’t firing me, so I left well enough alone and had fun faking it as best I could. Eventually, I became so comfortable with the show that I was able to play cards in the green room between scenes with the other actors waiting to go on stage.

Military tap dance

The most hazardous part of the show was running through the kitchen of the theatre for certain entrances and exits during the performance, being careful not to slip on spills on the tile floor. I wasn’t too stable to begin with in my much-too-tiny, used shoes. The smell of steam and industrial dishwashing soap mixed with a collage of leftover buffet food became etched in my olfactory memory.

Our performances were Tuesday night, Wednesday matinee and evening, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday matinee and evening. The matinees were overrun with senior citizens. You could tell by the glare of all the glasses. Those two-show days were tough for me. Coupled with the show the night before, I felt like I never left the theatre for days. I was in and out of make-up and costume over and over and over. I loved dancing and singing and wearing the costumes, but running up and down stairs for fast changes scene after scene, show after show, day after day got monotonous.

The saving grace was Monday night—our “dark” night at the theatre. A “dark night” sounds like a moonless night or a night when everything goes insidiously wrong, but it really refers to a night in which the theatre is dark, as in no lights, no audience, no show. In other words, it was our precious day off. While Funny Girl was dark, however, there was always something else booked in the theatre. Acts as famous as Marie Osmond (who made her own beet juice, by the way) performed there. Once there was even a male strip show, which, of course, Jenny and I eagerly attended. The muscular, young men stripped on stage and then circled the room, dancing and caressing for tips. I bravely and carefully stuffed a dollar in one guy’s G-string and received a kiss on the cheek. It was revolting in one sense and stimulating in another. The smell of the strippers’ cheap cologne lingered in our green room for days. It felt like slimy strangers had invaded our home.

Barring the striptease, my time off was often ho-hum, as I was essentially trapped at the theatre without transportation. The cast members from out of town did have one company car to share, but it stayed parked near the lead actors’ apartments several miles away from Beef and Boards. Consequently, those of us living at the theatre had to beg for rides to the grocery store and were at the mercy of the people in control of the wheels. The theatre was within walking distance of a few mediocre restaurants, but otherwise there was just an exit off the highway and a few office buildings.

Thankfully, the cast learned to make our own fun by organizing activities we could drive to together, like racquet ball, gymnastics classes, progressive dinner parties, and bowling. Sandi served as the unofficial extracurricular activities coordinator and, being a local who had her own car, also kept the ball rolling by giving us rides to the various events. She was a big proponent of continuing Beef and Board’s post-performance Friday night bowling tradition, for which cast members would buy a bona fide bowling shirt and sew on a patch for every show they had done at the theatre. I’m sure we were a hoot to watch as we dance-bowled our way through the game doing crazy ballet-jazz moves before, during, and after the ball toss.

A couple of times the cast ventured to downtown Indianapolis to a sing-along piano bar where we played pool, shot baskets, drank beer, and ate peanuts, throwing the shells on the floor. Occasionally a group of us made the exciting trip to a popular pancake house that served “dutch babies”—a puffy pancake the size of a large plate, topped with cooked cinnamon apple compote. On Halloween, our leads hosted a costume party at their apartment, and Jenny and I went as headshots of the Doublemint Twins. I was “Wanda Job” and Jenny was my twin sister “Anita Job.” We drew our oversized headshots on poster board, cut holes out where the faces were, and stuck our faces through. On the back we created funny, mock resumes. Socializing with the cast was a highlight of my experience at Beef and Boards. Fortunately, I liked my castmates (even Harriet and I had made peace), because ours was a pretty closed world, and I spent most of my time hanging around these same few people. We rarely even got to fraternize with the techies, as they were local and scooted straight home after the show.

Speaking of going home, it was a bit eerie living in that theatre when the crowds, waiters, staff, and the rest of the cast had gone home for the night. “Rumor has it that the theater is haunted,” Jenny informed me. When the lights were out, those ghastly white Styrofoam wig heads looked pretty creepy. It felt like we were living on a Scooby Doo mystery set and at any time would find Scooby, Shaggy, Velma, Daphne, and Freddie bursting through the door with flashlights on their search for the ghost of  Beef and Boards.

You can’t know it all until you know it all. And do we ever really know it all? Thanks for reading.

Bowl-dance on,

Kristi