Fame-ity fame FAME!

First day of rehearsal down.  I can't even being to describe how excited I am for this whole shebang (is that really how you spell that word?).  We got so much exciting information today, I'll try my best to condense it so this doesn't go on forever!
First thing this morning we had a music rehearsal with our music director, Jasper.  He's great. Honestly, that word doesn't do him justice, but he really is wonderful.  We learned the music to the 15 minute opening, "Hard Work" and the cast sounds awesome.  So many good voices, and they can all belt their faces to the heavens.  It's kind of a bummer cause the teachers are pretty non-existent for the majority of the song, but it was fun to sit back and listen to everyone.
Later, they showed us a model of the set.  It's two 30-foot towers weighing two tons (each or together, I can't remember), and it's currently on a ship on its' way to China.   Walt Spangler is our set designer.  He also designed the sets for Witches of Eastwick and Ace at Signature,  which is why I think the model for Fame kinda reminded me of the towers in Ace.  It's crazy to me how much work goes into the tech aspect of all these shows.  All of that work and then on top of that having to move everything as efficiently as possible around an entire country? Holy crap.  So much respect for our technicians.
Our director, Michael talked to us about the trip itself and what to expect and why exactly it is that we are taking this tour over there.  Our production team has been to China three times before to work with a performing arts university on another production of Fame, with the students in the school.  Apparently the school is great and has a lot of good instruction going on, but unfortunately after graduation there aren't any musical theatre venues in which the students can participate in any type of theatre.  Phoenix and Nederlander are trying to change that so that there are more theatrical opportunities for the students upon graduation.  So I guess our role in that is basically showing the government that musical theatre is not just an "american thing" that it can and should be accessible to everyone.  Which is freaking awesome haha!
Jake, Roddy, Justine and I got a gym membership at Fitness First last night and Jake did an hour and a half P90X workout with us.  My abs and arms are about to fall off of my bones but hey, gotta work off that month and a half of bucks county bliss (:
Anyway, this morning (can you tell i gave up writing last night and have moved onto the next day? haha) Amma (Miss Sherman) and I had rehearsal with Jasper for our duet, "The Teachers' Argument" and I'm about to leave to rehearse the Finale with some of the girls.  Things are going great, I love the cast, we're all getting along really well and I'm actually doing well with remembering everyone's name, which NEVER happens.  Hope all is well with all of you!!!