Why would anybody want to take...the plane?

This is a line I have to sing in the musical Lucky Stiff, a part of the musical number "Good To Be Alive" where the hero is taking the corpse of his murdered uncle, an Atlantic City croupier, to Monte Carlo.

But this line has a double meaning for us, considering the high gas prices right now. When we practiced this number at rehearsal last week and when Savannah and I (the girl who's playing the other southern belle in the scene) sang that line, our music director added, "Especially now."

Gas prices are so bad that I've heard about airlines are now charging for things on flights that up until now were complimentary, like soda and snacks. It's really sad. Next time I take a flight, I better bring my own snacks and drink, thank you.

Okay, I'm done dealing with the gloom and doom. Back to things that make me smile, like...the musical!

We finally have a full cast! At last! Some guy that Savannah knows will be playing the Emcee. I've been asking friends in the branch, friends I know who have strong voices, if they would like to be in this play. I even asked Tim (my home teacher) because I know he has a good strong voice (he sings in the branch choir sometimes when I can snatch him up for it, and he did some things for the last musical fireside we had back in February). Sadly, none of them could do it because of their busy and full schedules. But it's okay now. We have our completed cast and something tells me this Brandon will be great as our emcee.

We had rehearsal for blocking last Saturday afternoon and because it was a beautiful day, we went outside on the front lawn of Strahan Hall at MCC. The scenes we blocked were the boardinghouse scene (where I play the spinster), Rita's confession scene (I'm the optometry patient in that scene), the train scene (Savannah and I are the southern belles), the cabaret scene, and the casino scenes. And here was the difficult part: we didn't sing any of the musical numbers as we blocked things. Instead Scuba had us speak the lines of the songs. That was awkward for me because I kept going in rhythm to the music in my mind. During the train scene, Savannah and I kept talking in thick southern drawls and Scuba loved it. He was laughing at our really cheesy accents. He also asked us to name our characters. Since I used to watch "Dallas" reruns on SoapNet, I just grabbed "Sue Ellen" out of thin air, but I'm thinking of changing that. Savannah is "Daisy Mae", and I think that name suits her.

This weekend, I won't be at rehearsal because I'll be going up to Iowa City to spend the weekend with my friends and going down to Nauvoo to attend the temple with them. It's going to be fun, but I told Scuba that I'd take my script and CD recording with me to study. I'll be able to keep up, I'm sure. :)

I really love working on this show, and I will be inviting as many people as I can to come and check it out.