Dress Rehearsal

The Messiah performances are this weekend and we have a dress rehearsal tonight that’s scheduled to last three hours but might be longer. On Tuesday at rehearsal, the woman next to me mentioned tonight’s rehearsal and I said, “It says ‘dress rehearsal’ on the sheet so we need to wear concert attire, right?” and she said, “Oh, no, not for Friday. You just wear whatever you’d normally wear to rehearsal.”

I’ve never been to a dress rehearsal where I didn’t wear my concert attire. Isn’t that what “dress rehearsal” means? In typical Lorie fashion, I’m completely stressed out about it. I don’t want to show up in black concert clothes and have everyone else be in jeans, and I don’t want to show up in jeans and have everyone be in black concert clothes. I have never had a good sense of style and, especially when my family was really poor, I often just didn’t own the right kind of clothes for certain occasions. One of my greatest sources of social anxiety is that I’m not going to be dressed properly for the occasion. I think this is probably a typical girl thing anyway, but I really do take it to new levels. I am still scarred from a thing I went to in high school where my best friend and I wore sweaters and jeans and everyone else rolled in wearing church clothes. We actually hid in a back room for the entire event. This has actually kept me from going to things once or twice – if I can’t find someone I trust to ask about what I should wear, then I might just stay home.

I cannot exactly skip dress rehearsal because I don’t know how I should dress, though. I’m wondering if I should email the director or if that’ll make me look like even more of an idiot. Currently I’m wearing black pants and a black wrap top over a black shirt with tiny white polka-dots, so if I wore that to rehearsal tonight and everyone else came in concert attire, I wouldn’t look too out of place. But maybe I should just trust Angela, since she has been in it for two years now and swears they don’t dress for dress rehearsals.

ARGH. I don’t know what to do.

Also, I would like to share that I started to come down with a cold yesterday, which is just perfect since I’m supposed to spend like 8 hours singing over the next three days. I busted out the Throat Coat tea and the Halls and they seem to be holding the cough at bay, but I’m still worried.

12 Replies to “Dress Rehearsal”

  1. You could just wear what your wearing and if everybody is in jeans you can just say — oh I had to come here straight from work. :)

  2. Isn’t there, like, someone that generally stands in front of you all who, like, has answers to questions like that…? Where’d that lady go; couldn’t you ask her? Is there a number on that rehearsal sheet you can call to get this answer? …Hell, I say just put on the concert outfit and sneak a peak inside; if no one else is dressed up then go out and change into your jeans in the car.

    Sounds like “dress rehearsal” may only mean a full run-through with no stopping as if it were for audience with points made after the run-through and certain sections revisited. Therefore, it won’t matter what you where, only that you show up ready to give audience length and worth performance.

    Off to the beach now.

  3. I was going to suggest layers; black pants with a colourful light shirt under something black (maybe even a jean jacket as well to stave off looking to formal if the need is not there to be so). This way, you can peel or add the moment you walk though the door…but alas, that was two days ago. How did it go? What did you decide on? Please don’t tell me you stayed home.

  4. p.s: I am also nervous because today is the 12th. I am wondering what happened to the everyday post (no pressure – just curious)? Have you become so sick that you can’t get out of bed to reach your just-out-of-arms-length computer?

  5. listen to the veteran.

    or wear something that could pass as “i came straight from a work function.”

  6. Or! Perhaps Angela is just trying to sabatoge you.

    (I’m totally kidding and don’t want you to stress about this anymore. I hope it all went well and you’re not too sick.)

  7. All the theatrical dress rehearsal’s I been in required the costumes to be worn during performances. Chorus dress rehearsals just means that everyone shows up to do a complete runthrough, no costumes required.

  8. -She showed up in the wrong outfit and, like, totally died.
    -She showed up and, like, this old knight dude was kneeling on the ground and, like, he said, “She did not choose wisely” and she melted a bit before bursting into flames; and then Harrison Ford did this silly victory-dance ’cause, he, like, totally chose wisely.
    -She showed up wearing the wrong thing and gasped when she realised her error. …and so this ninja, he, like, killed the whole town.

  9. I’m starting to think that ~A is right…where are you Lorie, where are you? Are you dead? Were you smote by an old knight dude? Did ninjas get you and your little town too? Or did you just expire from the embarrassment of wearing the wrong thing?

  10. I was in a performance of “Messiah” with a symphony orchestra and 200 choral members. Its enough pressure to make you want to swear off any Christmas pagents forever.

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