Opening Night

I have waited over three months for this moment.

After two weeks of rehearsals, 7,500 miles, dozens of misplaced props and set pieces, stressful power issues, and an iron language barrier, not an ounce of Disney magic was lost in our opening of Winnie the Pooh to a crowd of 1,500.

Moments like this are what I live for.

One of my responsibilities in the show includes entertaining the audience with a pre-show. About fifteen minutes before the show begins, my trio stumbles on the stage. The whole point is that we are busy dusting the stage when we notice a huge crowd of people. We then descend upon the crowd for about ten minutes, dusting the children and executing nonsense.

As a Hunny Helper, I am a filler character within the story line. We do not exist within The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (nor would you want us to!). As such fictional characters, I was quite surprised at the extreme enthusiasm of the crowd as we playfully hoped around and greeted them.

It was an ambush.

Hundreds of children literally thrust into my person as aggressive parents pushed and shoved to get the perfect picture with me, a strange non-existent clown. Infants were duly plopped into my arms as toddlers pulled and grabbed at my overalls, begging to get a photo. I was slowly lured into a corner where a lengthy line formed to capture my soul in a digital memory.

The noise and excitement was so intense that I completely missed my five minute call. The two other Hunny Helpers see me from the stage and begin hurriedly gesturing for me to join them for our choreographed section of pre-show. After allowing one last child to rub my head (they are mesmerized by western hair), our trio joined together to further excite the masses.

We do a cute little tumbling and bumping routine as we frantically dust the stage before the three minute call. At that point, I am lifted up by a Hunny Helper's shoulders and led around a giant clock, attempting to dust the top. Of course, the other Hunny Helper bumps into us and we lean back and forth on the stage, falling into a double tumble. I, with absolutely no stunt talent, am still working this routine. For the moment I simply do a goofy hop forward. The tumbling practice is on tomorrow's agenda.

For the most part, the show went extremely smooth with little set backs. I screwed up a few moments, but the energy in the theater was so great that nothing fazed me. I cannot get enough of that rush.

Besides tonight's opening, we will be performing 8 more shows here in Nanjing over the next three days! We went into this tour sprinting!

Thank you to everyone in the Disney Live! cast for making this experience so much fun and the transition into tour life very comfortable.

-- Nathaniel Beaver

Comments

[a-z]

Congratulations on your opening! Quite an adventure - your trip to China sounds like an amazing break both personally and professionally.

[Mom and Dad]

Your Dad and I wish you the best and would love to quote the phrase “Break a Leg” but with you doing all that tumbling well....

Best wishes to all the Hunny Helpers and the Disney Live! cast members.

Love Mom and Dad

[Shavar]

Aw Beaver! Welcome to the cast! All your hard work sure did pay off. Nanjing was a great audience and a great way to kick off the 4 month tour! The theater was really nice too.