"why you wear thong?"

“Jacket. No, not pants, I’m wearing pants…jacket…no, black jacket…not the….no, don’t take my shirt off, JACKET!! Ugh, Buddha!”

As if the measly thirty seconds available to change out of a seven piece tux into a sailor’s outfit does not provide enough stress to kill a panda bear, the addition of (sometimes) hard-working but frenzied local dressers who speak absolutely NO English into the equation make life offstage much more…insane…than one could possibly imagine. Given, they are learning, not English, but at least what we do offstage during the show, so much so that every time I stand up from tying a shoe I am face to face with “smile,’ my delightful but curiously dependable dresser (I refer to her as “Smile” because anytime I have tried to ask her name or pantomime the question, she doesn’t understand and I am merely greeted with a smile. If that’s the way she wants it!)

But we have a good time together. I ask for a tie, she gives me a shoe. I take off a shirt and hand it to her with a hanger, she hangs the hanger up and lays the shirt on the chair. It’s like a little game we play. She waits patiently with my shirt while I tie my shoe and the second I am done she hangs up my shirt instead of giving it to me. What a tease, she is! She’s even learning a few tap steps, as I occasionally witness her dancing in the wings while I am on stage.

Perhaps she doesn’t quite get it, though. We aren’t frantic ON stage, why must we be constantly running around BACKstage? Maybe it’s this whole musical theatre thing, either. The costumes, the microphones, the excitement and silliness backstage…and the thongs. When the boys first starting changing backstage at our first performance, wearing nothing but dance belts and socks, our dressing ladies quietly giggled as one asked “why you wear thong?” Even if there is a way to explain that in Chinese, I’m not sure I want to learn how.

And with every new city on tour comes a new dresser who doesn’t speak English, who sits on the chair I need to put on my shoes instead of hanging up the clothes I just tossed on the ground instead of into her absent open arms. There comes a new stranger to stand offstage holding my hat and watch the entirety of my hysterical (in every sense of the word) quick change, all the while I am whisper-screaming for my jacket while she stands, amused, disinclined to helping me in the slightest sense of the word. And there comes a new assistant to watch me as I dance on stage after barely zipping up my sailor outfit, only so my stage manager can come up to me afterwards and ask “why was your sailor pant leg tucked into your sock just then?” Thanks, ‘Smile.’ Thanks.