By Michelle Gao

Gargoyle assistant editor

Posted Monday, April 9, 2007, The OG, features

[Note: Junior Michelle Gao is a cast member of Uni High's spring musical, “Anything Goes.” For the rest of this week she'll give us a firsthand look at what goes on behind the scenes as cast and crew work to put on the best show they can. Click here for Sunday's entry.]

FOLLOWING UNI THEATER tradition, the cast members of the spring musical, Cole Porter's “Anything Goes,” will dress up every day this week. Today happens to be Tie Day.

Most of the cast showed up today in brightly striped, checkered, polka-dotted, or smiley-faced ties. The ones who didn't … well, they'll get yelled at later if they haven't already.

Secret buddies for the musical should also be giving each other candy every day this week to help keep spirits up. The more sugar the better; everyone will need it to stay awake. (By the way, to anyone in the cast: If you haven't given your secret buddy something yet, boo, and shame on you.)

I can't speak for everyone, but I personally am feeling a mixture of excitement and trepidation. Tech week for any show is exhausting, and this week happens to be a particularly bad week for schoolwork.

I have a huge English paper due on Friday (but that I worked on over the weekend!!), and I also had a history test scheduled for Friday until junior Lucy Zhang (a member of the pit orchestra) convinced teacher Bill Sutton to change it to Monday.

I have a physics quiz tomorrow, and an English test on Wednesday. I take the ACT on Saturday after performing the previous night; after the ACT, I'll have to run back to school in time for the afternoon performance.

All of this is on top of five-hour rehearsals every day this week, from 5 to 10 pm. This is on top of trying to run on approximately five to six hours of sleep every night.

But is opening night going to be worth it? Is being in this show worth it?

Yeah, actually. Because the really cool part is that we're in this as a cast. We're all going through it. We're all going to go through school half-dead together, and we're all going to run out and get dinner together every afternoon before rehearsal. And on opening night, we're all going to panic together.

But as I said in my earlier post, we've still got a long, long way to go. Everything is going to have to come together in 15 hours — three days of rehearsal.

You know, now that I've written all of that out? I think I'm going to panic.

RELATED

— Gargoyle countdown: Time to put everything together

— Gargoyle photo slideshow: Getting ready for “Anything Goes”

— Gargoyle coverage: Spring musical cast members selected, rehearsals begin

— Gargoyle coverage: Auditions for spring musical to be held Monday, Tuesday

— StageAgent.com: Overview of “Anything Goes”

— Internet Broadway Database: Original Broadway run (420 performances) of “Anything Goes”