How did we get here already? I'm exhausted! But it's the best kind of exhaustion. I wouldn't have it any other way. We've been having a very busy week. Between A Chorus Line and the other shows we are crossed into, we've all had a preview or dress rehearsal plus a four hour rehearsal call every day this week. We can see the finish line of Opening Week. We are so close!

Our previews are coming along very well. We've been continuing to rehearse, always in an effort to improve on what we've done before. Our houses keep getting bigger and everyone seems to love the show.

It's almost like a Polar Bear plunge - standing in the wings getting ready to make your first entrance. Even though we have been rehearsing for weeks, priming our bodies for this moment, it still feels like a shock to the system.

We are onstage running the show more often than not, with many of the elements that are important. It can be wonderful or all wrong, but just when you think all may be lost, the director gives you a note that helps you to turn a corner and find exactly what you need.

BroadwayWorld is pleased to present an exclusive first look at the first ever professional production of A Chorus Line to have approved new choreography at The Stratford Festival in Canada. The production is directed and choreographed by Donna Feore.

We've now completed six previews. I love this time of year because no two shows are alike. After each matinee preview we rehearse on stage from 5:30-9:30p.m. Boy, do we have fun in those rehearsals, especially from 8:30-9:30p.m., or as we like to call it 'the witching hour.'

We stood in a rehearsal room with our hearts beating full and hard, and sang with the orchestra for the first time. We listened to the extraordinary beauty of Stephen Sondheim's music played by some of the best musicians around. We heard the arrangements that Jonathan Tunick so masterfully created. We let the glorious music wash over us and inform our interpretations. We are all keenly aware of how unbelievably lucky we are that we get to play in this special sandbox this year - 'A Little Night Music' - here at the Stratford Festival.

Last Saturday was arguably one of the toughest days of rehearsal all year. We started our day with a really great second dress run of the show which started at 1:45PM. This last dress rehearsal was almost as busy out in the house as it was for us on stage. We still had all of the production tables in the centre of the house for sound, lighting, and our director. Then we added an invited audience of roughly 500 people, about four video cameras for b-roll footage, plus two roaming photographers taking still shots. It was wonderful! The excitement before the show was high. It was very exciting to finally have an audience to find out if jokes would land and where we might have to hold longer for applause. The audience was mainly made up of friends of the cast and friends of the Festival. So the true test came on Tuesday when we had our first preview audience.

If I need to dance all over the stage, they make sure I can do it. If I need to sing a lot and have extra diaphragm room, they will make that happen. And if I need an extra hook on my waistband, so that I can eat between shows, they have been known to give me that too. (One size for matinees and one size for evenings, we like to say….)

The train is going at full steam now and there is really no slowing it down until after Opening Night. This week has been full of a lot of fun things. First off we had out Sitz Probe on stage which was amazing! Finally getting to dance and sing these numbers full out with the orchestra was incredible. Then we moved into our Tech Run on Tuesday. Tech run: A full run through of the show with all technical elements including lights, sounds, sets, even show shoes and props, just no costumes yet. During Cue to Cue week, we break the show down into pieces a lot, not focusing on the arc of the show. So it was so great to have a really solid Tech Run of the show.

In 1965, my sisters and I auditioned for summer stock productions of Annie Get Your Gun, Gypsy and Finian's Rainbow being done at The Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto. In true Baby June fashion, I belted out ..

I fell into an orchestra pit. Just like the Coyote being chased by the Road Runner and ending up in a puff of smoke at the bottom of an endless canyon, I plunged into an empty black crevasse that was just as unforgiving. It was in the Avon Theatre, the year was 1983 and the show was The Gondoliers.

The train is going at full steam now and there is really no slowing it down until after Opening Night. This week has been full of a lot of fun things. First off we had out Sitz Probe on stage which was amazing! Finally getting to dance and sing these numbers full out with the orchestra was incredible. Then we moved into our Tech Run on Tuesday. Tech run: A full run through of the show with all technical elements including lights, sounds, sets, even show shoes and props, just no costumes yet. During Cue to Cue week, we break the show down into pieces a lot, not focusing on the arc of the show. So it was so great to have a really solid Tech Run of the show.

As I mentioned last week, Actors Never Get Weekends! HA! I'm not really bitter about it. It's something we all signed up for. But that's not what this week's blog post is about. The theme this week is Cue to Cue.

I want to stay in the discovery of the character, not in the attitude of her or her life. I want to be completely subjective about her. I want to speak in her voice genuinely and not pump emotion into a moment or a line. For that to happen I need to just stay on the text.

?Today is Good Friday! It's 2:00 p.m. and so far it's been the Best Friday! I keep finding myself wanting to have the process of creating A Chorus Line go faster because I'm so excited for so many things along the way. But at the same time, I want it to slow down because I never want this excitement to end.

I feel like Linus in a Peanuts comic strip. My script for A Little Night Music has become my security blanket. For the last month I have walked around the house casually carrying it, glancing at it off and on during the day.

Every Thursday night, I sit down at my computer to write these posts. These Thursdays keep coming around so quickly. I feel like I just wrote the last one yesterday. I'm pooped. We're pooped. We are having a blast, but working very long, very hard days.

'But if today were the day you had to stop dancing, how would you feel?' It's the heavy question asked by the director, Zach, close to the end of the show. We've touched on everything else in the show so far and today was the day we finally got to tackle this scene. It's a day of rehearsal that I've been looking forward to in some ways and so not looking forward to in others.

Starting a new show is a gloriously wonderful, terrifying experience. Everything I think I know about acting gets questioned. My heart races, my mind becomes numb and my soul pushes against the cage of fear. I am a 55 year old actor. I have been doing this since I was five, but it doesn't get any easier. It's the terror of the first day of school mixed with the joy of spring after a long winter. New beginnings, new friendships, new families, new life.

12 Weeks until Opening Night... There are specific milestone days during rehearsal every season. One of my favourite milestones happened this week: first day onstage. It always seems to creep up on us so quickly here at the Stratford Festival. They love to get us onstage as early as possible. This year we had 13 primary rehearsal days in the rehearsal hall before our first onstage day this past Wednesday.

Thirteen Weeks until Opening Night . The Festival has done some amazing things for us this season that will help make the transition from the rehearsal hall to the stage much more seamless .

BroadwayWorld Toronto is thrilled to announce that following the success of our 'Road to Opening' blog series last year by Stephanie Rothenberg and Sara Farb - The Stratford Festival and BroadwayWorld will bring the series back this year with two new bloggers!Beginning Monday February 22nd BroadwayWorld readers will get a behind the scenes look at The Festival's

Following last year's recording of CRAZY FOR YOU, this year - the Stratford Festival company of CAROUSEL recorded the festival's second original cast recording. The recording is now available for order and digital download on CDBaby. Rodgers and Hammerstein's Carousel, named the best musical of the 20th century by Time magazine, returns to the Festival for the first time in over twenty years in a vibrant production directed by Susan H. Schulman. Previews began Tuesday, May 5, at the Avon Theatre.

It has been reported in The Toronto Star that A CHORUS LINE and A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC will both play The Stratford Festival next season. Both Broadway musicals first appeared on Broadway in the 1970s and will surely make a splash at the festival next season. A Chorus Line will play on the Festival Stage and A Little Night Music will be at the Avon Theatre.