When you are doing a three-month tour of pretty intensive dancing – there are bound to be a couple of injuries. Add to the fact that we were far away from New York (or the USA for that matter) – available replacements were not easy to come by. We did however have one swing dancer – Bill. Swing dancers are those performers who are either NOT in the show or they are cast into one of the insignificant roles – so if someone in one of the key positions gets injured, the swings can step into that role. They pretty much understudy the entire cast. Bill was the sweetest man. He was eager to learn and always enthusiastic. Unfortunately, he wasn’t much of a dancer, he wasn’t much of a singer and he couldn’t pick up choreography quickly – he was pretty useless. I think he got the job because he was the only man in New York who would accept the pittance of pay that Jo offered for the position. Whatever the reason was – Bill was our swing. Even with the added insurance of having a swing – some injured dancers were beyond the quick fix of a couple of days off. Douglas was the first dancer to be sent back to the States. Three weeks into the run and he had a nervous breakdown. The NY office decided that it would be best if he were sent home. Good call. So while we waited for Douglas’s replacement to be sent, I shuffled the casting around and split Douglas’s positions between all of the men (except Bill). The replacement finally arrived – Bruce. Bruce was a good dancer – very competent and I had worked with him before although not the months leading up to this tour because he was injured. In fact – he was injured a lot. I will never understand the line of logic that the NY office used when they sent a chronically injured dancer to work in a physically challenging show. Whatever. Within the week, Bruce took over all of Douglas’s positions and we got back to normal.
After a few weeks, another man got injured. This time it wasn’t a big deal – he would easily heal in a couple of days and he was a corps dancer. I shuffled the cast around again to cover any obvious holes in the choreography and I made the decision to put Bill in one of the numbers. He would be my partner for the dance and I could guide him through it. Bill was thrilled – Bruce wasn’t. After the performance began, Bruce stopped me in the dressing room hallway and demanded to know why Bill had been given this role, rather than him. I really couldn’t understand what he was fussing about. It was a corps role – you know – one person in a large group of people – doing exactly the same thing. I tried to reason with Bruce – but he wasn’t buying it. He continued to argue his point. I lost my patience and snapped back. Our argument continued throughout the entire show. Smiling and performing on stage then whispered verbal volleys while waiting for our cues backstage. Bruce never backed down – not even after the show was over. I had finally had enough. “Look” I yelled at him, “When I called New York for a replacement, I asked for a healthy soloist. You’re neither!” His face dropped and he instantly began to cry. “Oh my God,” I thought, “I’ve turned into Jo!” Bruce and I made up the next day.
The injuries continued to plague the cast throughout the tour. Everyone was having problems at one point or another. As far as the office in New York knew – everything was fine. Really – what was the point of telling them? What were they going to do? They certainly weren’t going to send over other dancers – not with the expense of the air fares. We even covered up Mary being in a cast for a couple of weeks. A gesture of kindness that came back to bite me in the ass – but that’s another story. I was opting to get cortisone shots in my feet so I could continue dancing. Cortisone numbs pain – and although I knew that it was a dangerous drug – and one not recommended to athletes anymore – I still chose it. Why? Well – when the Japanese doctors gave me a choice of different drugs that they could inject into my inflammation – cortisone was the only name that I recognized and I figured I would rather go with the demon I knew versus the demon I didn’t.
I really have to give credit to this excellent cast of dancers. These people were professionals to the extreme. There was a point where the casting changed daily to cover the injured in the show. Every day the dancers would arrive at the theatre and read my latest storyboard for the performance – you do this part, so-and-so does that part, etc. (it was almost an epic novel) – and they did it – no problem. We rarely rehearsed for these cast changes. Professionals – love them! At one point, too many of the men were injured at the same time for us to cover one of the final numbers – an all male dance. That – plus the show had already started and we had about one hour to come up with a workable solution. It was decided that I would have to fill in. I taped my breasts to my chest with a thick bandage, threw on the large shirt, rolled the sleeves up, hemmed the pants to my ankles, wiped off my lipstick and pulled the hat down to mid-eye level (to cover my false eyelashes). It wasn’t too bad of a disguise. When we finished the number and I was filled with that euphoria you get when you’ve pulled off the impossible. Everything had been perfect and I hadn’t made a single mistake. The next evening’s performance I was still in the male number but things weren’t going so well. Something was wrong. I wasn’t in the same position as the night before. Panicking, I kept dancing while desperately looking around for a clue as to what I was supposed to do. We finished the number and as we were walking back to the dressing rooms, I apologized to the men for messing the number. “Oh you didn’t mess us up,” said Larry, “You were in the wrong position last night so tonight we shifted you over to where you were supposed to be.” No one thought to mention that before?
A post note to dancing in the all-male number was that I gained some notoriety with a local theatre company, the Takarazika Girls. This very popular group staged musical theatre productions throughout the year in a large downtown Tokyo theatre with an all female cast playing all the roles (male and female). The women who play the men’s roles had reached star status throughout Japan. I don’t know why – but that’s Japan for you. My playing a man’s role got me an invitation to see their production. I also had my own small group of female fans who thought I was hot stuff. Go figure.