Oh Camelot. How I miss you. What a wonderful dream and adventure. Camelot was one of the best show journeys of my life.

I knew from the first rehearsal this was going to be special. It’d been 3 years since I’d really had a magical experience on stage with Cabaret, and I was bracing for post-show blues for Camelot before we’d hardly begun. I knew that’d finally gotten another lightning-in-a-bottle show — one with a show family that bonds, where everyone lifts their castmates up.

I’d not worked with Gabe, our director, before, and I’d only had limited contact with Joel, my Arthur, when we were both in White Christmas together. But it was immediately evident that this was the best possible rehearsal situation, the one every actor hopes for: Here I would be respected and safe, with room to play and experiment and grow and learn.

We all just clicked.

There’s always the danger of not being able to feel safe with a director or not being able to completely trust your scene partner. Yet here I was on Day 1, thrilled to pieces about this beautiful show that was to be treated with care and love. Gabe is also a genius scenic artist among other things, and we got to see sketches and ideas for the set and special effects right off the bat.

So yes. We worked Act 1, Scene 1 a few times and got progressively better. We all chatted. I sang through a bit of “The Lusty Month of May” and pleasantly surprised all attendant parties. It was a lovely first rehearsal. I’d get to actually use my lyric soprano voice again instead of my belt!

And it just got better. Our Pellinore, Gary, was also delightful, and I bonded with him and Joel. Just me and the boys, as always! It was a joy to sing those songs and be a queen and learn to move as Guenevere. Jenny (yes, that’s her nickname in the show, not Gwen) has more dimension than a lot of musical theatre roles, so that was exciting for me. She grows up, which is always fun to play. She starts as bubbly and naive, stays vibrant as she gains some wisdom, falls for Lance and struggles with that, and then crumbles with Camelot as poor Arthur is left in its wake. It was a bit similar to Sally Bowles that way…the lively personalities are related…Guenevere is like a royal and less desperate version of Sally in a very different setting.

The leads worked apart as a small group for about a month, while our ginormous and hugely talented ensemble did their thing. We didn’t meet and try to assemble the pieces until both groups had a solid handle on their scenes and songs.

To have such an enormous show come together takes a while, so merging all the scenes went as well as could be expected. The Playhouse is old and the wiring and lighting didn’t allow us to do all of the amazing things we wanted to, but we worked it out. There were times we had nearly 30 people on that stage, plus at least two more in the wings and backstage to help with changes — it gets pretty cozy. But after choreographing every bit of movement on and off the stage and all our set changes, it all fit.

And then we got to open and invite everyone else to the mythical kingdom of Camelot.