Long Legs and Tall Tales: A Showgirl's Wacky, Sexy Journey to the Playboy Mansion and the Radio City Rockettes (39 page)

In addition to being a tourist destination itself, Atlantic City was also a great home base because we were close enough to head to NYC or Philadelphia on our days off. Like our show, most professional musical theatre shows were dark only once a week, so performers had learned how to milk every second out of their minimal time off. We considered each day off to start the second the show ended, and even made preparations during the show in order to ensure the quickest exit from the theatre, thereby maximizing our precious free time. What we really needed to do was sleep in until noon, then lounge around in our jammies all day resting our weary muscles, sipping herbal tea, and watching a good movie, followed by a hot soak in the tub and a good night’s rest. Instead, we squeezed more activity into those free hours than seemed remotely possible.

On one day off, for example, two of my roomies and I managed to hitch a ride to Philadelphia (only about 62 miles away) with a young couple from our show who had a car—a rare and precious commodity. “Road trip!” We crammed in as many highlights as we could in the short time we were there: We took a carriage ride, saw the Liberty Bell and the site of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, ate the best coconut cake in town at the Old Original Bookbinder’s restaurant, toured the Norman Rockwell museum, and feasted on famous Philly cheesesteaks.

In February, we had a rare, couple days off while country music singer Barbara Mandrell took over our stage, so I boarded a bus to the Big Apple (about a two-hour ride) to see my old pal, Jenny. I had a taxi waiting to take me to the bus terminal immediately after the show to catch the late bus to New York City. The characters who rode that night bus seemed creepy and strange, and arriving at the Port Authority terminal by myself in the middle of the night was also creepy and strangely quiet. Thankfully, I felt much more aware and street-smart than when I lived there, and I had no problem hailing a cab to Jenny’s. The city felt different to me—less terrifying. It probably hadn’t changed much, but apparently I had.

Jenny was currently taking a break from performing, opting instead to serve as executive director of the Broadway Bach Ensemble (a New York City orchestra that offered free concerts) and work coat check at an upscale bistro. We had a ball taking dance classes, shopping, and reminiscing. Best of all was our day of pampering at the Russian-Turkish baths. The steam room, hot and cold pools, and fresh carrot-ginger juice were just what the doctor ordered. Don’t get the wrong impression; this was no luxury spa for manicured ladies who lunch. A lot of professional dancers frequented the baths as necessary therapy to rejuvenate their sore and suffering bodies. A lot of heavy, hairy Turkish men also used the baths as part of their regular health routines. It wasn’t a pretty place but it was functional. Maybe next time I’ll get the special treatment where men in diapers and turbans smack you with eucalyptus branches in the steam room. Maybe not. (Who thought of that anyway?) The Rolfing session I had with the butch, Russian woman was enough of a smack down for one day. Afterwards, I met my friend Bobby, our DJ from Celebration Magnifico, for a wonderful night on Broadway to see
Crazy for You
and have dinner in Little Italy. It was great to be entertained by someone else for once. The next day, I spent a few hours marveling at masterpieces in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, then loaded up on fresh bagels and goodies from Zabar’s Deli before bussing back to Atlantic City in time for our show.

*******

When
Sugar Babies
ended, the cast had a closing party in which everyone gathered at my condo with their leftover food. We ate strange combinations of lingering tidbits. Annabelle talked me into helping her create silly awards for everyone, and we presented all the Sugar Babies with packages of Sugar Babies candy-coated milk caramels. We ended the evening with a ceremonial ritual in which we decorated the outside of a shoe box with positive words indicating what we wanted in our lives (love, prosperity, happiness, oneness, compassion, peace of mind, charity, hope, tranquility, acceptance, truth, laughter) and filled the inside with personal lists of what we wanted
out of
our lives. Then we tossed it into the fireplace and watched it burn. It was hard saying goodbye to this wonderful cast, but since many lived in Los Angeles, we vowed to get together back home.

I had decided to fly to Michigan first to visit my family for a week before heading to L.A., and my flight was leaving later than the flights of most of the rest of the cast. Juliet, who was also taking a later trip, found out and said, “Kristi, why don’t you ride in the limo with me so you don’t have to wait around the airport by yourself all those hours?” That was the kind of person she was. Of course, I took her up on her generous offer and enjoyed every glorious minute basking in the light of this shining star.

“Would everyone like to take a peek into the Rockette dressing room?” the Rockette asked, her hand on the doorknob. We all enthusiastically shook our heads “yes,” and she obligingly allowed us into her privileged, private, wonderful world. There should have been violins singing and trumpets blaring like a movie score announcing the momentousness of the occasion.
Do these people know how lucky they are to witness this?
The lovely dressing room was neat and tidy; it was clearly the off-season.
If only they could be a fly on the wall during peak performance time. Then they’d really have something to write home about.

Seeing the ocean-blue carpet with the swirly wave pattern, the rose red walls and matching upholstered chairs, the cloud-white counters, and light-bulb rimmed mirrors made me want to dance there. I was impressed by the Rockettes and other entertainers who could handle Manhattan and make it their home. I had tried taking a bite out of the Big Apple, but it had been more than this mild-mannered Midwesterner could chew. California had seemed much more palatable. Little did I know, New York City’s hectic lifestyle wouldn’t shake me up nearly as much as a genuine California earthquake.

Act 2, Scene 3

The Love Boat

Since The Big One hit L.A., I was absolutely terrified to be back there. Driving over bridges, waiting in traffic under overpasses, or entering tall buildings left me shakin' in my boots for fear of earthquakes. I worried about the priceless antiques that might tumble off my shelves, how to secure my kitchen cupboards to keep my fine China from catapulting onto the floor, and whether the pictures I hung over my bed would kill me if they fell on my head during the night. I simply would have done just about anything to leave.

Once again, my prayers were answered and my ship came in. A week after my return home, Anita Mann’s office called. “We’d like for you to come in and audition for a cruise ship job. It’s a five-month contract sailing mostly around Alaska.” Yes! I had never even considered traveling to Alaska, but I jumped at the chance to leave shaky Los Angeles. This was one boat I did not want to miss. The audition gods were on my side, and I landed the gig. The icing on the cake was that I was hired as a
singer
-dancer. At a whopping $750 per week, the pay was considerably higher than the $275 per week I was offered only to dance for another cruising company. Singers generally got paid a better wage. Wasn’t I smart to take voice lessons?

The cast consisted of a mere six people—three men and three women. Fortunately, we were all between the ages of 24 and 32. Performers on ships are often much younger, making the atmosphere like the immature drama of high school. Being such a small group, everyone would have to pull his or her weight to pull off the performances. There was no room for slackers.

Our job was to learn two full-length ninety-minute shows, entitled “Let’s Dance!” and “Birth of the Blues,” and two twenty-minute “bumpers”—basically short, warm-up acts where we bumped up against whatever other headline entertainment was happening. “The Tonight Medley” bumper featured classy, elegant songs like “Tonight” from
West Side Story
. The other bumper was a glitzy, hip-swiveling Elvis medley entitled “Viva Las Vegas.”

“Let’s Dance!” featured songs and dances from the 1940s through the 1990s. It included everything from an homage to Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers to a ’40s swing dance to a ’50s/’60s medley featuring the hand jive, the mash potato, the twist, the alligator, the watusi, and the monster mash (actually, this was basically the same number the singers did in the Playboy show that I had been dying to do) to a country medley, a tropical Latin medley, and a medley from
A Chorus Line
. There were medleys within medleys. Our cruise ship shows were all about medleys, assuming the audience had the attention span of a three-year-old and couldn’t listen to a song in its entirety. If someone didn’t like a certain tune, they’d only have to suffer through a snippet of it before we moved onto something else.

Choreographers and dancers from previous casts taught us the choreography, some from memory, others by pulling it directly off old videotapes. Learning the dance numbers was a ball. They were high energy and high octane. The show was boatloads of fun. I even got to sing a solo in the
A Chorus Line
medley. It was only a short and sweet few verses from “The Music and the Mirror,” but I wanted to shine singing it. I wanted, at the very least, to not completely embarrass myself singing it.

Unlike “Let’s Dance!” which was a vintage Anita show that had been successfully executed by many casts before we got our hands (and feet) on it, “Birth of the Blues” was a brand spanking new baby that was created for us and choreographed on us for the very first time in the history of the world, amen. We even got gorgeous, new costumes dreamed up for us by Emmy Award-winning designer Pete Menefee! (This prolific, versatile artist had clothed showgirls, entertainers, and celebrities galore, including Michael Jackson, Kiss, Diana Ross, and Elvis. His jaw-dropping, jewel-dripping, feathered fashions were featured on stage, screen, television, ice rinks, and at the Olympic Ceremonies. Fabulous!)

While performing in the original cast was an absolute thrill, delivering a new production was also a considerable challenge. Starting from scratch and figuring out what works and what doesn’t can be a tedious process of trial and error that can have you singin’ the blues if you can’t go with the flow. “Birth of the Blues” featured an “All That Jazz” tribute, a New Orleans Dixieland medley, a section on George Gershwin and the Blues, Rhythm and Blues, Women and Blues (“I’m A Woman,” “Respect,” “Lady Is a Tramp”), Country Blues, and a sizzling “Le Jazz Club” finale (including “Le Jazz Hot,” “Hit Me with a Hot Note,” “Sweet Georgia Brown,” “Caravan,” “Minnie the Mooch,” “Jump Shout Boogie,” and more).

Between the two big production numbers and the two bumpers, there were oodles of songs and dances, harmonies, lyrics, and choreography to keep track of. When learning the first number of a show, my brain seemed to be in control. “I can remember this. This is easy.” After being taught four or five numbers, however, I’d start to confuse similar parts in different numbers and forget which number started on which foot or from which wing. I bought an oversized three-ring binder to house my sheet music, and on my breaks I’d jot down as much of the choreography as I could for later reference. Sometimes we had choreography shoved at us so fast that we’d learn a number one day and not come back to it until a few days later. After learning several other numbers in the interim, it was nearly impossible to accurately remember the first number. Hence, my detailed notes and dancing stick-figure drawings were a necessity.

Unfortunately, birthing a new show took longer than expected; even laboring overtime past midnight during the final week of rehearsals, we couldn’t complete that baby before we had to leave Los Angeles for the ship. “Don’t worry. The cruise director promised me you won’t have to do the show until you are ready. We’ll finish on board,” Anita assured us. “There’s no pressure to perform it right away. Other entertainers can fill in.” We didn’t sweat it too much. What choice did we have, anyway?

*******

MS NOORDAM

Ship's Registry:  The Netherlands

Passenger capacity:  1,924

Crew members:  800

Gross Tonnage:  82,318 grt.

Length:  936 feet

Beam:  105.8 feet

Maximum speed:  24 knots

The cast flew to San Francisco to meet what was to be our floating (hopefully) home for the next five months—Holland America Line’s
M.S. Noordam
. First, we’d sail up to our home port of Vancouver, British Columbia. Then every two weeks the ship would sail north from Vancouver along the “inside passage” of Alaska to Ketchikan, Juneau, Sitka, Valdez, and Seward, and back down to Vancouver again.

Walking up the plank to board this monstrous sailing vessel, I thought, “Oh, Kristi. What have you gotten yourself into?” I felt a blend of excitement, trepidation, and outright fear. This was such a strange world I was entering—a floating world with lots of rules and restrictions. I didn’t know what to expect but I knew that nearly half a year could go by slowly in the confines of a ship you despise. But there was no way I was going to stay in L.A. Anchors away!

While I knew this was an opportunity of a lifetime, cruising life freaked me out at first. For starters, as is prudent, we were immediately corralled, along with all the newly embarked passengers, to take part in a lifeboat drill. This wasn’t just a one-time event. For every new cruise, we were required to attend the drill and assist each fresh group of passengers. Skipping out wasn’t an option, as failing to show up meant answering to The Captain on The Bridge. Just watch the movie
Titanic
, however, and you too would put up with wearing the awkward orange life vests each week and directing clueless passengers to make sure everyone has a spot reserved on a boat, even if you already knew the drill. One ship in our fleet actually did run aground in Alaska. It hit an island. How the captain managed to miss seeing such a big chunk of dirt is beyond me, but it just goes to show you that accidents happen, and it’s wise to be prepared.

During drills, our ship actually lowered a couple of lifeboats holding crew members into the water to make sure all was in working order. Castmates cautioned me, “Don’t let them put you in a lifeboat! People have gotten injured on the way down.” Their warning may have been pure hogwash, but those boats did have a long, intimidating vertical drop. If an inept crewmember “controlled” the ropes that lowered a boat, that boat could jerk all over the place or plummet into shark-infested waters at high speed. I was terrified I’d get chosen to take the plunge. 

It was scary when I dwelled on all the possible dangers of a ship, like, God forbid, crashing into an iceberg (or island), a fire starting in the kitchen, or someone falling asleep while smoking in bed. If we were out to sea at the time, we’d be trapped with nowhere to go. I hoped and prayed we had a competent captain and crew.

Another big concern of mine was the potential for seasickness. Simply riding in a car sometimes nauseated me. Even swinging on playground swings left me uncomfortably dizzy. The ship was Queasy City. I had to “get my sea legs” before I could begin to tackle any of the other challenges before me. “Keep your stomach full,” I was advised, if I wanted to avoid being green around the gills. That seemed counterintuitive, but I did as I was told and armed myself with loads of graham crackers and apples plus seasickness pills and special wrist bands that somehow helped by putting pressure on pulse points. I had a pounding, persistent hangover, but at least this combo of curatives kept me from puking and falling faint. Thankfully, after about four days, I was able to wean myself off the drugs, toss my wristband to the wind, and eat at my leisure.

Those first few days were crazy madness dealing with seasickness and the dreaded lifeboat drills, getting lost among the multi-level maze of corridors, and adjusting to our new quarters in general. Meanwhile, we continued rehearsing “Birth of the Blues,” but the only time the stage was available to rehearse was the middle of the night. So we became sleep deprived as well.

Our jaws dropped to the floor when Anita announced, “As it turns out, the cruise director needs the show right away, so we’ll be performing ‘Birth of the Blues’ tonight.”
Shiver me timbers!
Panic. Nervous breakdown. Cold sweats. The pressure was on. We had to make it work, make it happen, make Anita proud, and, most importantly, keep from making complete fools of ourselves. Anita could sense we were frozen with fear. “You can do it. You’ll be fine, “she said trying to instill confidence. But even she didn’t know what to expect. This show felt like a sinking ship.

The cast was scarfing down a quick dinner and reviewing the show in our heads when my roommate, Candy, and I had the startling realization that we hadn’t even completed one number. “We don’t have an ending for ‘Twist and Shout!’ What do we do?” Thankfully, my Celebration Magnifico training in spontaneity came to the rescue. Candy and I made an executive decision and gathered the rest of the cast. “Let’s all improv at the end of the number and watch each other to signal a final pose.” All shook heads in agreement.

I’ve never felt so ill prepared, so mentally taxed, and so panic-stricken at show time. We barely knew how to manage our costume changes let alone perform the show. We were trying to memorize choreography, harmonies, words to songs, how to enter and exit stage, where to preset costume pieces, which costume pieces to wear for which numbers, and the order of the numbers in the show. Our memory banks were overloaded and shutting down. We had no mental storage left.

The girl’s costume for “Birth of the Blues” was a beautiful, rhinestone-studded, crushed velvet, royal blue leotard to which we added and subtracted various spectacular skirts, coats, hats, gloves, bracelets, earrings, necklaces, fans, feather boas, and parasols for a clever change of appearance. We rushed to make cheat sheets for all the numbers so we’d know what to put on and what to take off. Every cast member was in some portion of almost every number, leaving literally seconds in which to change costume pieces and return to stage. What were we thinking with the cheat sheets? We had no time to read them and nowhere to put them. There wasn’t time to pop in and out of a dressing room, so we’d have to dress at different places surrounding the stage. We preset our quick-change costume pieces in the halls and hoped no passengers swiped them for souvenirs. Working out the logistics of presets and costume changes was a major fiasco of its own. 

Adding to the “fun” were the cordless microphones and “mic-ography” (microphone choreography). Remembering which hand to hold our mic with and which hand to have free for choreography was a befuddling brainteaser. In L.A., we practiced with wooden dowel rods as pretend mics. Singing into a real one and hearing yourself through the monitors was an entirely different experience. Plus they were slippery little devils when your hands got sweaty. An exuberant arm flick sent many a mic flying out of someone’s hand and crashing down the stairs to the dance floor below all the while amplifying each contact with the ground for the audience to hear.

The clock quickly ticked down. Before we knew it, we were made up and in costume, and the show was getting underway. As the intro played, I felt as if I would actually die from embarrassment right there on stage. During some numbers, I felt I preferred death to performing. Can you imagine the horror of being on stage and forgetting the words to your song? Slam dancing the person next to you who is exiting the right way while you try to dance off the wrong way? Being the only one on stage in only a leotard without the skirt, because you preset it on the wrong side of the stage and had no time to retrieve it? Forgetting your choreography and just standing there dumbfounded? Accidentally flinging your mic into the audience and having to pantomime singing into a pretend mic for the rest of the show?