Sorry I haven’t posted anything in a while, but I have been a little sidetracked by the holidays, good family stuff and a new job. Yeaa!
For some reason today I started remembering my time early in my show business career when I had the great privilege to work as the stage manager for Juliet Prowse and her show. The last year or so of her time doing shows in Las Vegas she did a show centered around “dance.” It was a natural and perfect topic for her, considering what an amazing dancer she was.
In the show she and the company would perform new dances to several classic songs, everything from “Shall We Dance” to “Mr. Bojangles” to “All That Jazz.” But the highlight of the show for me was at the very end after all these awesome song and dance numbers she would walk onto stage all by herself, dressed in her simple dressing robe, stand still at center stage and sing a song written by Billy Barnes – “It Isn’t Easy.” The lyrics went:
Dancing looks easy, doesn’t it?
You sweat a little, get out of breath a little
But by and large, it looks like a simple thing
So what’s the great big deal?
If given half the chance
You climb upon a stage – hell, anyone can dance.
Right?????
It may look easy – it isn’t easy
It may look simple – it isn’t simple at all
When you consider all the hours and hours of rehearsing
The millions of steps and combinations
The lifetime of classes, lessons and learning
The training the body, the stretching and turning
It may look painless – it’s very painful
It looks like nothing to it – it isn’t nothing at all
To spend a lifetime dancing in some depressing little hall
It isn’t easy at all
But ask a dancer what she’d do if she had a second chance
This dancer would tell you – I’d dance.
Then she would say good night, take a deep bow and we would bring the curtain down to end the show. I LOVED that number and the way Juliet performed it. I still remember every word of it today. And through the genius of Billy Barnes, it perfectly summed up Juliet’s life.