The Love Show Sneak Peek with Miss Lady Legs
Get a glimpse behind the scenes and see what goes into creating a love-filled evening full of camp, glamour, sensuality, and ease for our audience!
Photo by @thesilent13studios
After having to cancel A Night to Remember, our prom-themed show, we wanted to start the year off with a show that would have a similar vibe. That vibe being: fun, nostalgic, carefree, and filled with joy.
Knowing this, we (troupe soloists and I) started brainstorming a collection of acts that would be glamorous, over-the-top, and bring lightness and escapism to our audience in these incredibly dark times. And, this was before the fires and election, fyi!
We’ve been talking for a while about doing a Queer Love show (we hope to make it a pop-up this year!) and eventually I said, “Hey, what if we just do a show all about love? ALL KINDS of love!?”
The troupe loved it and so we were ready to start casting guests and finalizing our act decisions.
The guests in question?
We’re incredible lucky to have a fierce roster of guests presenting signature and debut acts!
Miss Spent Youth is closing the show with a premiere act featuring two of our dancers (Cassie Dailey and Shannon Kelsey).
Viktor Devonne is performing his signature act to “Digital Get Down” by N’Sync where his dialup internet connection gets lost in the middle of getting ready for some steamy cam sex on his early aughts Mac computer. It will be his first time performing this act with a live band and the band had a new challenge incorporating AOL Instant Messenger and dialup sounds into the song.
Pionono and Mars Wright are debuting a wax play duet to a classic song. I requested an “extra steamy duet” and I cannot wait to see what they deliver!
Photo by @thesilent13studios
Putting Together the Set List
Once our whole cast is on board, it’s time to start planning our photoshoot (check out the Pinterest inspo board here) and finalizing the set list for the band. When finalizing our set list, soloists and guests send me song requests and I seek approval from the band on whether they can successfully cover that song or not.
Some back and forth may happen with several song ideas being passed from performer, to me, to the band, and back again. I LOVE the set list we’ve landed on for this show. It’s incredible eclectic including:
jazz standards
90s rock
80s, 90s, 2010s, and current pop
a soul cover of a 60s rock song…
We’re all over the board.
Get a glimpse into band rehearsal with our IG Live still up (I accidentally streamed from my account 🤦🏻♀️).
Photo by @thesilent13studios
In Rehearsals for The Love Show
Once the set list is together, we determined which acts would be enhanced with backup dancers and began outlining choreography for those acts. Outlines consisted of tables with timestamps, actions the dancers are doing, and actions the soloist is doing at each moment in the song.
Next, I sent the outlines to the soloists and collaborated with them to convey what they want their act to convey and ensure the dancers and choreo aren’t getting in the way of the stripping. Having these outlines helps us know exactly what sections of music require dancing and get an understanding of how complex each act might be to master in rehearsal.
I worked with our rehearsal director Charlie Whiplash to create the rehearsal schedule and start working on choreography.
We have 8 dancers, 2 are swings. Swings are dancers who learn EVERYONE’s part in a dance so that if someone gets sick, injured, or something else happens, they are ready to step in at a moment’s notice.
We set up rehearsals starting at 6-weeks out from the show and hold them twice per week.
We settled on five dancer numbers: a group number and backup dancing for Jade Risqué, myself (Miss Lady Legs), Pansy St Battie, and Miss Spent Youth. The group dance had one dedicated rehearsal, Jade and Miss Spent’s had two dedicated rehearsals, and Pansy and my acts had three dedicated rehearsals. That plus two “run everything” rehearsals equals thirteen total rehearsals for this show (excluding tech/dress the day of the show).
Solo acts with dancers started with a single rehearsal with just the dancers, rehearsal director, and myself to set the choreography. The dancers had just two hours to learn each 4-5 minute dance.
The second rehearsal, we invite the soloist to join us so we can block them in, try it with their costume, and clean the act.
Those that have a third rehearsal spend extra time getting polished and all the acts were run at our members-only open rehearsal and will be run Saturday before the show.
Want the Whole Scoop?
Get access to the entire set list, costume process photos, and a montage video of rehearsal clips and me talking about the rehearsal process on the member version of this blog!
Our members support our ongoing work and get access to all kinds of exclusive content, show tickets, and even members-only events like our new open rehearsals!
We LOVE our members!!
THANK YOU to our outside sponsors who sponsored prizes to our donation-based raffle benefitting the LA LGBT Center!
