It'll all be fine in the end. It's the getting there.

"They're going over my head
Unheard of! Unthinkable!
Then go on! Be wed!
And uncover my hat and pull out my...head?"

The lyric Our Leading Man MEANT to say at last night's rehearsal was "Then pull out my beard and uncover my head."

Personally, I like the new version better.

I remember, when I was in third or fourth grade, hearing one of our teachers talking about how she came home from running errands and, to her horror, found her little dog in the swimming pool. The poor thing had fallen in and couldn't get out. It had a wild look in its eye as it swam in endless circles, unable to see, unable to hear, every fiber of its little doggie being just trying to keep its head above water. Luckily, the teacher was able to use the pool net to scoop up the pooped pup and save the wretched creature. That story made such an impression on me. I've never forgotten it.

And what do you know? It's totally applicable here!

Lola Levenstein has fallen into the swimming pool of musical theatre and is in doggie paddle survival mode. She can't see. She can't hear. All she can do is swim around and around in little circles.

In other words, she crazy!

Sunday was supposed to be our first rehearsal with the entire cast. Didn’t happen. We almost had everybody last night but one of our leads had to rush his wife to the emergency room.

So here we are, one day away from final dress rehearsal with incomplete costumes (we’ll have them tomorrow), an incomplete set (we’ll have it tomorrow), a wedding canopy that doesn’t have poles (we’ll have them tomorrow), dances that look like train wrecks (we’ll fix them tomorrow), supporting actors who don’t know their lines (they’ll learn them tomorrow), lead actors who want to pull off their heads (tomorrow), and swarms of little girls who look like they just came from Annie rehearsal (tomorrow, tomorrow, I love ya tomorrow). It is the hard-knock life.

But best of all is the bottle dance.

You remember the bottle dance from the movie. It looked like this:

The bottle dance is one of the highlights of any production of Toddler on the Wall (we don’t have a roof, so our pre-pubescent fiddler stands on a stool behind a flat). Dancers usually learn it weeks before, so as to give them plenty of time to hone their bottle balancing skills. When they pull it off, the audience goes bananas every time.

We have a slight problem with our bottle dance.

We don’t have one. But Captain Ahab—er—Lola is determined to make it happen. Even if it kills us all.

The guy who was going to teach it to us was supposed to come in five days ago. Unfortunately, he had a skiing accident and can’t really walk right now. He was to call Lola during rehearsal last night and let her know whether or not he’d be able to come in and teach anything at all.

When we got to the end of rehearsal, Our Leading Man asked Lola if the bottle dance guy had called.

“Yes,” said Lola, “I have a message from him on my phone. But…” she went on nervously, “…I really don’t want to check it right now. I’ll check it later. After you guys leave. And if he can’t come I’ll...uh...I'll teach it to you tomorrow.”

Tomorrow, tomorrow, and tomorrow.

Around and around in the swimming pool. Around and around.

In other news, Hillary Clinton's surprise visit to the 39th Floor made getting into the building rather difficult this morning.

And that’s as political as this blog is ever gonna get.