egg on my face

       Leave it to me to get a music note in the alternative scene at the end of the show.

        The, ah, scene that has no singing. No harmonizing. No nothing that has anything to do with music at all...

       But, our music director pokes his head into my dressing room at about 15 minutes till curtain and says, Jess, after Connie's line and before you're line there is a musical button that you need to wait for before you speak.

                 There is? I say, since I have been doing this for a long time now and have never even heard about it before. Yeah, he says, I've been meaning to tell you for...six months now. 

                   Um, ok, I say.

                 So, it's the end of the show.  We are seriously discussing what we would do if we couldn't dance anymore.  Connie says her line, and I am wondering what the heck that musical button sounds like, hoping I'll know it when I hear it...She finishes her line, wait for it, wait for it...I hear something from the pit...And then I jump forward and finally say my line.

                 Finally.

                And meanwhile Connie has turned around and is waiting for me to talk, pointedly looking at me, wondering why I haven't yet, and the rest of the cast thinks that I just dropped my line.

                Thanks for that note...

                I spoke to my stage manager tonight and politely told him that I would no longer be waiting for that obscure musical cue and therefore looking like an idiot before I say my line in the alternative scene.  

                And like I said--leave it to me to get a music note in an acting scene.