World Cruise - My Stingray Lover

So… the time has come to restart the blog! I couldn’t think of a better time to get back into it, considering that a few days ago we sailed out of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, to begin our World Cruise! I figured that this journey might actually be quite interesting, considering the absolutely incredible itinerary we are embarking upon, so what better time to get back into the world of blogging. Plus now that we have a lot more spare time I thought I could really use this outlet to keep me sane… or perhaps 'less insane' is a more appropriate expression…..

We've already been on board for 4 months. It's been incredible. Ups (a lot). Downs (a few). Amazing times and six million photos to prove it haha… It's been awesome so far, and I have seen some of the most wonderful places in the world. Places like the Pyramids and the Amazon Rainforest, that i've been dreaming of visiting since i was a tiny little nerd studying the encyclopaedia at home. (Those who know me will believe that that is not an exaggeration haha). I’ve dined in Italy and shopped in Turkey. Sunbaked in the Caribbean and floated in the Dead Sea. The list goes on and on and on... Plus I'm having a absolute blast performing in the shows on board (what I’m actually here to do lol), and I’m learning every day from the incredible cast who I share the stage with. I consider myself a very lucky boy, and the World Cruise is the next part of this enormous adventure!

Now at this point I should warn you that in the 107 day World Cruise from Florida to Rome, I believe there are something like 60 sea days spread out in between the ports of call. And sometimes we can be at sea for 5 or so days without touching land, and we even have one stretch of 10 days at sea in a row!! Horrible!! So if I run out of interesting things to talk about on the longer sea legs and start rambling on about nothing at all, forgive me haha… 

For now, however, a few fun stories… starting with the stingrays.

You may or may not be aware, but there is a magical land in the Cayman Islands, just south of Florida in the Caribbean, called 'Stingray Island.' It's not so much an island as a little sandbar in the middle of the postcard-picture-perfect, crystal-blue water that is home to hundreds of stingrays. And of course tourists are allowed to go to this sandbar and literally play with the marine life. So when our boat (I'm told I should say ship, but i feel that is boat is much cuter) docked in Grand Cayman, our first World Cruise port, myself and some of the beautiful Spa Girls made our way to Stingray Island to frolic with the rays.

The half hour boat trip to the sandbar was a tour in itself, sailing through the stunning canals leading out of the marina, with mansions lined up along the banks and mangrove forests sprawled out beside us. We drifted past Bill Gates' and Sylvester Stallone's holiday homes, safe to say with our jaws on the floor. 

But honestly, nothing could have prepared us for how COOL the stingrays were going to be. I'm generally not very good with wildlife (in the Amazon I absolutely refused to hold a baby alligator and nearly shat my pants when some little jungle kids pulled an anaconda out of a box in their house) so I was filled with trepidation jumping off the boat into the stingray infested water. Plus, we all know what happened to Steve Irwin when he decided to play with stingrays…. 

Our guide, however, did not share my fears, treating the stingrays like old friends, greeting them literally on a first name basis. He even decided to lick the barb on the tail of his favourite ray, which looked almost sexual in a really creepy ‘you-could-die-doing-that’ kind of way… 

After a little while spent squealing like a 10 year old girl every time a stingray brushed past my feet, I warmed to them a little and before I knew it I was actually holding one in my arms. It felt like wet muscly velvet, not slimy and gross as I had imagined, and it was surprisingly chilled out by this time, simply hangin’ out in my arms. The next step was to kiss the ray on the face, which was pretty weird really, considering my intense dislike for anything to do with seafood. But thankfully stingrays don’t smell at all fishy, so I managed the second challenge. The last little part of my hot date with the ray (who turned out to be pregnant by the way, what a hussy!) was to let her give me a back massage with her flaps!!! (No dirty comments please haha)... It felt nice, but I’m more of a deep-tissue massage kind of guy, and quite frankly her pressure was not up to scratch lol... 

But all in all it was a totally wonderful experience. It was a BIG step for me, though it certainly doesn’t mean i’ll be snuggling with an anaconda anytime soon, but at least I partially conquered my fear of handling wildlife hahaha... And how many people can say they made out with a stingray??? =)

Week 6... Guys and Dolls vs The Human Centipede

It's Week 6 and Toby is back with a vengeance! After a rejuvenating weekend I arrived at rehearsals on Monday with a new-found vigour and energy... Probably because this week's show is all about MUSIC THEATRE! Yay! Being a true Music Theatre boy, I feel so at home with this kind of material, and it is so nice to get back to my MT roots. Jazz hands, box steps, over-use of facial expressions... Plus the songs are fantastic, the choreography is classy and effective... It's heaven! We cover Cole Porter, Jules Styne, Richard Rodgers, Les Mis, West Side Story, Guys and Dolls and a few other Broadway classics. It's like a little trip through MT history (this time without the lovely Ann Adlem to guide us through it hahaha)...

In this show, we also never leave the stage, so it's up there on the list of most exhausting! My favourite part is, of course, the West Side Story section. We do both “Mambo” and “Cool,” which are two of my favourite pieces of music from Leonard Bernstein's most famous show. The dances are so energetic and intense and fierce and blah blah blah AMAZING! It almost makes up for not actually being cast in the Aussie production of West Side lol... Well, not quite, but at least this way I get to perform SOME of the show, and I'm doing a world tour (or at least that's what I'll tell myself hehe).

This week we also learnt the “Welcome Aboard” show that we will perform at the beginning of each cruise. At a glance, it is possibly the lamest song you've ever seen (a version of Ricky Martin's classic “She Bangs,” re-titled “We Cruise,” remixed with island bongos, and with alternate lyrics regarding the amazing cruise ship experience the passengers are embarking upon. However, no matter how tacky, I think it is my favourite song/dance out of everything we have learnt! It's so infectious and exciting, and the chorey is just a dream. It's one of those dances that just makes you feel amazing, and you can't help but smash every single count until the very end (when you realise you danced so hard you almost want to vomit).

And after learning that.... We had learnt EVERYTHING! What an amazing feeling!! It's so strange to know that you have 6 whole hours of lyrics and choreography embedded somewhere in your brain. I'm praying that it stays put! And I'm sure it's nothing compared to the amount of info, for example, a doctor has to remember (and in my situation it isn't quite the difference between life and death), but I'm still very proud of my little brain for coping.

So... in unrelated news... Have you heard of the movie “The Human Centipede”? It came to my cast's attention a couple of weeks ago, and it kind of became a running joke between us. Basically, the movie is about a crazy german surgeon who makes a human centipede, by joining people via the gastric system (ie mouth to anus... gross, I know). So we had been joking about making our own version (pretend of course), and one afternoon after rehearsals we were all a bit delirious and decided to make a little video of our cast as a human centipede. It was very, very funny (to us at least) and we thought it would be even funnier to send the video to our choreographer, who was also in on the joke. Little did we know our plan would totally backfire the next day lol. We were at rehearsals, and a couple of cast members were a little bit sketchy on some of the lyrics to the song we were learning. When this came to our choreographer's attention, she came out with the quote of the year: “If you've got time to make a human centipede on a Thursday night, you've got time to learn your lyrics!” I honestly don't know how she said it without laughing, and I definitely had to face to back to conceal my own giggles haha.

And then.... this week we actually WATCHED the movie. Bad move... even though it was hideously C-grade, it kind of scarred us all for life. I don't want to spoil it, and if you're up for it, definitely watch it.  It's kind of cool (well I don't think cool is really the right word) but if you like gross movies like 'Saw' you will love it. I always just wonder what kind of creep actually comes up with these movies? Or how they get actors who are willing to perform in them? Actually, if you had asked me a couple of weeks before I got this job, I may have been desperate enough! Lol...

Anyway, after a final bit of shopping on Saturday, I finally have everything I need to venture off on this amazing journey... It is so surreal to think that in a few days I will be sailing around the Mediterranean on a floating hotel, teching in our 6 shows. Considering I've never been out of the country, I'm jumping out of my skin with excitement! During our first official cruise, it will be my birthday. And I will be in Egypt. AS IF! I will actually be standing at the foot of the Great Pyramids of Giza, on my 23rd birthday. Childhood dream, tick! Like I said... DYING with excitement!!!!!!

Week 5... Space Cadet!

So... If you haven't heard the term 'Space Cadet' before, let me clarify... I first heard it used (in this sense) by one of my very best friends from WAAPA, and it refers to a person who is more than a little bit vague in the head. In Week 5 of rehearsals, this was me. I can hear my friend's voice clearly in my head saying, “Oh, he's such a bloody space cadet!” And yes, I am. Call me Space Cadet Toby. Basically, I think that all the physical and mental exertion of the past several weeks had finally caught up with me and I was simply exhausted... and a little bit stupid. ALL the time.

This made things difficult in a few ways. One, it was nearly impossible to dance all day because it took 90% of my energy just to stay standing with my eyes open. Two, I found it a lot harder to pick up choreography because my brain was like big mushy stew of kick-ball-changes, pops and head snaps. And three, when I get tired I get really giggly. And giggling is highly counter-productive and annoying to all involved (except the giggler themself).

Anyhow, we were working on a really cool show in Week 5. Probably one of my favourites actually. It pays tribute (in Cruise Revue style) to a few different musical greats, including the Beatles, the Beach Boys, the Rat Pack and some good old disco Divas. Again, sounds nice and simple, but the amount of intricate choreography in this show is insane. There are a couple of occasions when we have to fit 4 counts of chorey into a one syllable word... So, for example, try and fit a clap, a point, a head flick and another clap all into the word “you.” Good luck lol... And what a coincidence that the week with the world's most fiddly, bitsy chorey is also the week that none of us have a properly functioning brain! Perfect.

So there was sooooo much to learn, plus these days we also have to squeeze in a couple of runs of our other shows during the week (so we don't forget how they go). The workload is getting pretty crazy. There are definitely moments where it feels like not a single extra step or lyric will fit into your brain. And that if you do learn anything new it will just push some older info out. Surely there must be a limit to how much one person can learn in a few weeks? It doesn't help that steps all start looking the same after you've learnt 60 or so dances... or they actually ARE the same and start on a different leg, or turn a different direction. It's a total mind-fuck.

One particular afternoon, I was so mentally exhausted that I could barely focus my eyes on the choreographer. It was almost impossible to retain anything she taught me, and I knew that she could see I was about to pass out. The overwhelming feeling of being swamped by information became so strong that, suddenly, most of us were on the verge of tears, for no particular reason. And of course then I felt stupid, because I'm meant to be a professional, and this is my job, so I should just suck it up and get on with the work. But when it comes down to it, I guess I'm only human and I'm allowed to have a bad day. Right? Haha I hope so...

Listen to me, whinge, whinge, blah, blah lol... Really it wasn't all that bad. I'm still having the best time ever! =)

And on the upside, my stamina must be improving, because we barely leave the stage in this show, and I didn't DIE after we did a show-run at the end of the week! Yay! My fellow singer/dancer and I have some very testing moments, going from hectic dance after hectic dance into our own songs, but it all seemed to go ok I think! Though, in all honesty, I did nearly faint at the end of the run... But like I said, I didn't die! I think I'm gonna be a machine by the end of this contract. An all singing, all dancing MACHINE! (The campest kind of machine there is lol)...

On another note, I bought a bow tie. And it is so cool =)

Week 4... Paris! (But not really)

It's Week 4 and we're off to Paris! (Not actually though!) But Paris and Newcastle... No big difference, right? Anyway, this week it's a French themed show, full of love songs, beautiful language and some killer dances. At first glance the show looked like it was gonna be a breeze: not as many songs, less lyrics to learn, fewer dance numbers. However, the sneaky dance numbers that sounded really simple, such as the “Waiter's Dance,” turned out to be massive numbers.

When I picture a dance about waiter's, I imagine aprons, drink trays, and tea towels. All correct. What I didn't envisage was two and half minutes of kicks. We have your regular 'grand battement' (your standard straight leg kick), but we also have attitude kicks, swing kicks, spring kicks, hitch kicks, held kicks, twist kicks and a kick line. Now, for someone who attended one dance class in 2010, it is certainly safe to say that this one dance contained more kicks than I have done all year! Lots of fun, though I don't think my hamstrings would really agree...

The morning after we learnt the waiter's dance of death, my legs were stiff as boards. I thought, possibly, we may be granted a little reprieve from hardcore ballistic leg movements that day... No. No such luck. The next dance that we learnt, a charming little can-can, finished with a good ol' jump into the splits. Awesome. I could practically hear my muscles screaming, 'Noooooo!' But by some stroke of fate, I found that once I had warmed up I was as flexy as ever, and loving myself jumping to the floor in a big fat front split! Again, not quite sure whether my hammys had quite as much fun as I did.

My other favourite dance in this week's show, is to 'Vogue' by Madonna. Not quite sure how it fits into the French theme (though I guess Vogue is a French word?) but it's so cool. The only upsetting thing is that it starts with two girls on stage doing some really fierce fan choreography. (As in fans that you fan your face with). Why is this upsetting, you ask? Because I don't get to do it. And yes, I did say that it's just two GIRLS that do it... and isn't that just a little unfair? When do boys ever get to do fan dances? We totally get jibbed in that department. You just can't beat the feeling of flicking that fan open in front of your face, your hair blowing gently in the wind.... Next time I ever have to choreograph anything, it's totally going to involve a fan, no matter how appropriate it is. I'm picturing “Do You Hear the People Sing” from Les Mis... all those French Revolutionaries marching to glory, flouro-coloured fans in hand....... Bliss.

If there is one thing I'm not a huge fan of (no pun intended) in this show, it is the song “Ah Paris” that I have to sing. I don't actually know where it's from, but it has the worlds ugliest melody. The intervals are so unpredictable and I'm pretty sure the guy who sings the song on the guide CD (which I had to learn from) just makes some of it up. So therefore I do the same. Plus it mentions all these different places, like Cairo, Carlsbad and Constantinople, which sometimes become interchangeable when I sing the song. I probably should be practising it right now........

To change things up a bit this week, instead of having our normal rehearsal time in the boys apartment, we decided to do a run of one of our other shows in the park across the road. We figured some fresh air and a bit more space would serve us well. Which was kind of true, but in the end it was quite unproductive. We all kept forgetting which direction was the front, couldn't hear our music and got itchy from the grass lol... it was still fun though, and I'm sure the passers-by enjoyed it. One (crazy) guy on a bike actually stopped and watched for about 20 min. He even took a video of us on his phone I think... mentioned something about YouTube. I sincerely hope he was joking.

So if, by chance, you stumble upon some footage of a group of crazies dancing around in the park... It's probably me! =)

Cast Pyramid in  the Park

Week Three... Now We're Rockin'

As if it is only Week 3! It feels like I've been rehearsing for about 4 months... in a good way though! It's one of those strange things where time goes so quickly and the weeks fly by, but when you look back on things, they seem like they happened ages ago... Plus it doesn't help that I keep having deja vu! It has happened about 5 times since we started rehearsing, full on deja vu about the most random things. Like being in the carpark at Westfield in Kotara, or making a cheese and tomato toasty at the studio (albeit I do have a couple of them everyday, so perhaps that doesn't really count?)...

This week our show is all about rock 'n' roll... Total 50's and 60's extravaganza! Lots of jiving, lots of twisting, lots of 'chooking' (not so great for my fragile neck haha)... But we also still manage to squeeze in some good ol' Cruise Jazz Ballet lol. My fave.

I even get to sing in this show! Actually quite a lot... And although my Elvis impersonation is not so spot-on, I'm told I do a pretty good Austin Powers, whilst serenading some femme-bots with "Pretty Woman"... haha. I don't really know if that's a compliment though... I can't imagine anyone on a first date would want to hear the words, "Oh my God! I just figured out who you remind me of: Austin Powers!" Not exactly a turn on, is he? Mmm... yellow teeth. Gross.

Anyhow, the show is tonnes of fun and surprisingly tiring. My favourite (or least favourite?) moment is when we have to all stand at the back of the stage after a huge Beatles dance medley, sweating profusely and struggling to catch our breath (not allowed to move our shoulders), and then having to sing "Imagine." It's safe to say the only thing the audience will be imagining is me singing nicely, because in reality I'm about to pass out and would rather hold onto the little oxygen I can get...

Sorry to bring the conversation back to sweat again, but since I've already mentioned it... My partner and I have found a way to combat our clamminess! Two words: Baby Powder. She had brought some lovely talc with her to rehearsals (for someone else's unrelated chafing haha) and we realised that if we talc our hands like gymnasts we have 100% gripping ability!! Yay! No more slip 'n' slide lifts! Try it... You'll never go back!

And in other news, we found out at the beginning of the week that I've been chosen as the Dance Captain for our cruise! Very cool... I do love cleaning dances. Plus the control freak side of me has now been satisfied lol. And as my childhood dream was to be the School Captain of my Primary School, which I was NOT (I think, due to a serious vote rigging scandal) this is kind of redemption =)

As soon as we reached Friday night, after a very big week, it was time to party. A lovely dinner out, a few drinks and a very good boogie on the d-floor. Newcastle certainly didn't know what had hit it when one of my lovely male castmates did a leg mount in the middle of the club we were in... But it's safe to say we were, as always, the life of the party! This was follwed by some serious retail therapy over the weekend and a lot of good company... consequently, my smile couldn't be bigger (although my bank account doesn't quite feel the same way hehe)...

Wait, back to deja vu for a second... One of my castmates said that there is a belief that experiencing deja vu means your life is on track at that exact moment. I kind of like that. My life certainly does feel on track right now... Things are looking up. And I can't predict that future, but I reckon it's gonna be pretty sweet! =)

Week 2... Injury Strikes!

After a lovely restful weekend, I decided on Sunday afternoon that I needed to hit the gym. I scoped out my options (which, in Newcastle were not that plentiful) but found a really pretty gym down on the Esplanade called "The Forum." Totally fancy. Heritage building. Lots of highly attractive people. Score.

I'm determined to get a good body before I step foot on the boat. For one, because I will occasionally have to wear skanky costumes in front of crowds of filthy rich passengers. Secondly because I will be spending a lot of time at exotic beaches, and every skinny guy knows that beaches are not great for self esteem... So I made the effort of going to the gym before rehearsals on Monday AND Tuesday. This meant getting up at 6am and being at the gym by 7am. Hideous, but so worth it. I had intended to this every day during the week, but on Tuesday morning my workout did not quite go according to plan...

Now, this is probably my fault, so I can't really complain... but it was still really, really annoying. So there I am, loving myself in my gym gear, and I head over to the shoulder press machine. I decided to lift a bit more weight than I usually would, simply because there were a lot of really buff guys at the gym and I didn't want to look too ridiculous in front of them. Normally when I get this feeling I just go to the stretching area and do the splits to show off, but I thought it was time to try a different tactic. So there I am, giving it Arnold Schwarzenegger on the shoulder press, and I feel this horrible twinge in my upper back that shoots pain straight up into my neck. Instantly I get off the machine, grab my stuff from the change room and leave, trying to play it cool so all the buff guys don't know that I hurt myself =(

By the time I got to the studio at 7.45am, my neck had absolutely no range of motion. Front, back side to side. Nothing. Devo. All I could think was, “I'm gonna get kicked off the cruise because I look like Lisa Kudrow in 'Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion' when she has her scoliosis brace!” But I soldiered on, booked a physio appointment for that afternoon and took it easy in rehearsals. Now, I don't know if any of you have tried to learn hectic choreography without using your neck AT ALL... But it is very difficult. Especially when every second count of the dance you are learning seems to be a head roll or (my favourite) a snappy head to the front haha...

The physio said I had sprained a muscle in my upper back and that my neck must have tried to compensate, and consequently spasmed and seized up. Great. What a good idea. So basically my body just made things even worse for itself. Good move. But after some nice massage and constant wheat pack action ALL week I'm now totally 100% again! Yay!
I think I've learnt my lesson though... I will still be back to the gym on Monday, but this time I will try to pay less attention to what all the insanely good-looking people think. Apparently they are a serious health risk!

The rest of the week was amazing. Our 2nd show is jam packed with full-on dancing, literally from Irish dancing, to classical ballroom (if there is such a thing?) to a slutty Latin skank fest... A. Mazing.

I really do love dancing more than most things in life, so I'm still in complete employment heaven. The only downside is that any form of liquid I take into my body in rehearsals is sweated out pretty much instantaneously. The more I drink, the more I sweat. It's getting out of hand. And it's really pretty gross. I don't know why I keep talking about it. Soz...

Anyway, after 2 weeks and 2 shows learnt, I still couldn't be happier. I can't believe how lucky I am! Every day I get up and sing and dance with an incredibly talented bunch of people, who have become my little cruise family. We've even had a MacBook Pro Photo Booth photo shoot... That's how cool we are hahaha...

Thanks Photo Booth for the Good Times

Rehearsals Week 1...

Week 1... I was so excited to start! To be doing something with my life! No longer was I an unemployed performer. No longer would I have to partake in that hideously awkward conversation we have all had,  that went something like:

"Oh so what do you do?"
"I'm a performer."
"Oh what kind? Like acting?"
"Well, music theatre mainly."
"Right, so what instrument do you play?"
(Insert frustrated face) "No, like singing and dancing and acting. Like, you know 'Wicked?' 'Mary Poppins?'"
"Cool. So are you in 'Mary Poppins?'
(Insert 'trying not to be disappointed' intake of breath) "No. I'm not."
"So are you in anything?"
(Insert 'my life has no purpose' sigh) "No. I'm not at the moment."

Now... I was employed. I had a purpose. So... I had been anticipating the first week to be Death Week, in terms of my body hating my guts for not keeping it in shape since I finished at drama school. And I was kind of right. My lower back and hamstrings certainly do hate me. But my soul was happy to be dancing again!

I'm not sure what I had expected, but I'm having and absolute blast! I guess, like a lot of performers who have never done a cruise, I kind of thought of it might be a bit tacky and not that creatively fulfilling.

I WAS WRONG!

The show we learnt in Week 1 is so much fun and full of amazing choreography. I'll admit, some of it is a little over the top, but isn't that half the fun? Anyone who knows me can be certain that any dance that involves smiling, cheezy facials and a few snappy heads to the front, is pretty much heaven for me... So there are those kind of numbers and then there are some really hot ones too, like our Can-Can and the Tango...

For my partner and I, the Tango is basically a Sweat-Fest. There couldn't be two sweatier dancers on the planet, and as the Tango is near the end of the show we are already covered from head to toe (obviously we work very hard haha). Normally this isn't too much of a problem (except for flicking sweat all over the audience... gross), but lifts certainly become more than a little difficult when both dancers are like a walking slip 'n' slide...  After knowing each other for less than 12 hours and already being covered in each other's bodily fluid, it's safe to say we bonded quickly lol!

38 numbers, 5 days and a lot of homework later... Friday Show Run!! I couldn't have had much more fun if I tried, and didn't fuck up quite as much as I thought I would. I don't think I've ever worked so hard and it is totally rewarding... It is a joy to wake up every morning and sing and dance all day with a truly lovely group of people! Honestly, what more could I ask for?

How about a Friday night out on the town? Sounds great! Beautiful dinner at "GRIND" on Darby St, then to "Isobar" for some drinks, then a little boogie on the d-floor at "The Brewery" on the way back to our apartments. I suspect the citizens of Newcastle have not seen men (well boys really, who am I kidding?) dancing up a storm to Beyonce for some time, because we literally had girls standing around us clapping... lol, good times.

Day 1 Happy Cruise Family