Becoming Miss Hannigan

Opening night for "Annie" is just two days away. (insert expletive) The reality is starting to hit home.

I've started my traditional internal stress mechanism of having no appetite and being nearly nauseous before the show, and then ready to frighten Old Country Buffet patrons by the end of the show. Although I'm older now and I better rationalize why I shouldn't be stressed, it's still there. I'm grateful for the fabulous supply of Ativan left over from the 2008 U.S. Figure Skating Championships.

I'm comfortable with the songs and dances now - and a shout-out to the physical therapists at Mayo Clinic Health System's HealthReach for excellent work on getting my knee to behave. I'm loving my costumes which is good since I made two of them myself and all three pairs of shoes that I wear in the show are my own.

The hair was a concern because, with my short style, there isn't always a lot you can do with it. I wasn't keen on wearing a wig as I'm already "glowing" on stage with the costume and the hot lights. The solution we came up was using my own hair with lots of back-combing and layers of hairspray. If I had any gray (showing), I would look a little like Cruella DeVille.

The biggest concern is just remembering the damn lines. At last night's rehearsal, I dropped one line that could be considered important to another line later in the show. "You! Your days are numbered." It's a line that I have to say to a six-old girl who knows every line of the show. You don't drop a line with a kid and not expect to hear about it later.

Then there's the screaming. I don't just raise my voice to the kids and do a little shouting. I have two scenes in the show that I have to scream. And as coincidences go, they are the same scenes in which I have to sing. Heck, one scream is in the middle of a song! The music director talked to me last night about what I should be doing to make sure I still have a voice by the second week of the show - no caffeine drinks, lots of room-temperature water and appropriately warming up the voice. I was also told that I need to talk more in my head voice than I do. (I've been guilty of that for years!)

Okay. Bring it on.