I will never claim to be a dancer, yet at the same time, I'm not incapable of it. I'll never win the Chita Rivera Dance Award, but I can generally hold my own in most musical theatre dance numbers with enough practice.
I've never had the gripping urge to practice my fan kicks into a choreographer's face. Until very recently. Left, right, left, right, look at that extension, the curve of the foot, the smooth arc of motion, the blazing showgirl smile!
And there aren't even any fan kicks in the show.
So here's the point of this post. Future producer/director self: If your choreographer thinks infinitely more of himself than he does of the actors, if he took the job only for the paycheck (and particularly if he makes that fact known to the actors), and if he needs to repeatedly tell the actors how amazing and clever he is and how much training he has and how many years he's been making actors crazy with his snide and condescending style... You're gonna have a bad time.
In this case fortunately, nearly every one of the actors has as much stage time under their belts as said choreographer, have worked through much tougher dance numbers with other choreographers, and are able to look ahead to the end of the process. Thus we gallantly refrain from violence while he's near and vent when he's not.
And then we spend several hours outside of rehearsal to practice, so that when we perform much better a few days later, the choreographer, thinking it's only third time to run it, once again reminds himself and everyone else how amazing he is because obviously he did a great job teaching it.
Fan kick!
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