A day in the life of.... Selena on Tour! (Pt. I) - January 22, 2009

Well, it's been two entire weeks since I've started my tour-adventure and SO much has happened! (I've been a slacking blogger/friend... I knew I needed to update people when four people texted me in one day saying they needed updates!)

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Before I joined the tour, I was NOT ashamed to admit that I had absolutely NO idea what I was getting myself into, and most of the first week of rehearsal was no exception.

My first week I mostly felt like I was either back in school and shuffling from class to class, or that I was being trained to be an assassin, like in the movie with Angelina Jolie called “Wanted.” The trainee assassin goes from specialty to specialty though out the day. To learn how to shoot, he goes to the gunsmith, to learn how to use knives he goes to the butcher, etc. I felt like I was being trained to be a Lion King assassin or something!

So the first week, I rehearsed for one day with the Dance Captain, Keisha, who is leaving to get married. Kendra, the girl I’m replacing, is moving up to take Keisha’s place. The rest of the first week I was with Celise, the Dance Supervisor. For all you dancers out there, this show isn’t run like other shows. The Dance Captain is a swing and helps teach and give notes, but above her is a Dance Supervisor, who is the end-all-be-all for these sorts of things.

Our Dance Supervisor, Celise, is awesome, but she’s leaving too, to open the new Lion King in Las Vegas. (In fact, lots of people are leaving to open Vegas, such as Jay, our conductor!) Celise was awesome to rehearse with though. She kicked my butt! She’s a tough cookie. If you get it REMOTELY wrong, she makes you do it again, immediately. But I love that ethic of work. Pound it out!

My first week was a blur, just shuffling from fitting to rehearsals and vocal practice, and by the end of it my body was really looking forward to a few days rest!

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My daily routine that first week was (and pretty much still is), generally:

9:00 am- Get up, make breakfast from my little fridge from my hotel, usually PB&J or cereal (Thank goodness for my fridge!). They didn’t have any microwaves, so I’m living like a poor college student. (Probably worse, actually!) You’ll see what I’m talking about at dinner-time…


11:00 am- Walk to rehearsal studio or theater, depending on what I have scheduled for the day, usually singing along with my vocal rehearsal tape (see my 3:00/4:00-5:00 timeslot for an explanation of this.) I’m staying at the Four Points Sheraton about a half a mile away, which is a nice 15-20 minute walk. It’s not so bad, actually. I thought it would be torture, since I’m so used to my car, but since it’s a college campus, people are walking around all the time. (Well, my first two weeks they were still on break. Now they’re back. It was really cute to see the campus ‘wake up’ from break. I saw some freshman with their parents and siblings moving them back in, and friends reuniting after the long holiday break. I’m just glad they’re back because that means the Quizno’s on campus is finally going to be open! YES!)

My very FIRST day I had a wardrobe fitting at noon, and it was really exciting. (Everything was really exciting the first week, naturally!) Most of my costumes are being customized for me, since Kendra, the girl I’m replacing, is just moving up to become the Dance Captain/Swing, so she needs all of her costumes. Ever wonder what it is like to have something custom made for you? Well, all you need to do is stand in one place moving your arms up and down out of your ‘costumer’s’ way. (For your costumer you can use a friend, parent, or force a younger sibling to help) Now have them pin a piece of cloth to you with about 100 stick pins and/or safety pins. Now walk around and feel like a porcupine for a few minutes. Then spend the rest of the hour unpinning. There. That’s pretty much what getting a custom costume fitted to you feels like.

I also had a wig fitting the next day. I was fitted into something called my “bubble.” This is like a mold of my head, which is sent out to London, of all places, for all of my wigs and head puppets to be fit to! Now, to re-inact this for yourself, all you have to do is get some saran wrap and clear packing tape. (I kid you not!) Now, wrap your head just above your eyeballs and OVER your eyebrows all the way to the crown of your head. Now, tape the saran wrap all around your head really, REALLY tight. Draw your eyebrows and ears on to the clear tape, so the people molding your wigs to know where they are. Sit like this for around 20 minutes, until you’re feeling sufficiently disoriented from looking through wiggly saran wrap and a little claustrophobic. Cut a little slit up the back of the bubble and slip it off your head. Now, you have a clear bubble the exact shape of you head! Weird, huh?

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Stay tuned for the second half of my average day, my first weekend off, and my second week of rehearsals!!