Rehearsal Follies

I have been rehearsing for a huge July 4th performance at my church. We have spent hours trying to perfect things and tonight was one more stab at getting things right. Tonight, though, everyone was tired, and as a result we ended up with what I call rehearsal follies. There were so many funny things that happened it was a wonder we actually accomplished anything. Here are some of the highlights: one of the girls in the group is consistantly using sign language to say everything everyone is saying while one of the guys tries to mimic her except his signs are totally ridiculous and usually end up with him indicating how ridiculous he thinks this girls is; during one of the big group numbers one of the guys starts acting like a wacked out NSYNC member making huge, overly exaggerated movements as he sways and sings and claps; repititions of numerous lines such as, "The flag was. . . the flag was. . .the flag was. . . What am I supposed to say?"; and guys who were supposed to be interacting with each other but couldn't keep from laughing at each other. Of course there were the blank stares as someone realized that they were supposed to say something but couldn't for the life of them remember what it was or what they were even talking about. My favorite messed up line of the evening came when we were discussing transitions and staging between numbers and we were trying to figure out how to get one of the girls to her position on time. The drummer, trying to help, said, "I know how to get her across town!" and then paused as everyone else broke into laughter. There were slips of the tongue, the bursts of laughter, the missteps, the "technical difficulties" and just general mistakes. As the evening progressed everyone's silly genes came out and by the time rehearsal had ended hardly anyone was being very serious, as can be attested to by the director starting to read one of the readings and being entirely too dramatic and continuing on even when everyone protested she stop. When one of the group noted that it was after 10 p.m. the director said, "Oh, too bad. We were having so much fun!" Of course, that didn't keep everyone from clearing the building in a matter of minutes. I guess no one thought we were having so much fun we shouldn't go home. We did actually accomplish a lot of work tonight, but we also had quite the number of follies, but I'm glad we did.