Emily Levey -- Cast Member of BUSYTOWN

One of the most wonderful things about Richard Scarry's books is the wide variety of characters he depicts in his illustrations, and so one of the most exciting things about getting to do BUSYTOWN is that each of the actors gets to play so many of them. Not only do the characters have a wide variety of jobs, they are all different animals, and a bunny rabbit moves and sounds very different from a pig or a lion!

At the beginning of our rehearsal process for BUSYTOWN we explored the different animal characters we would be playing. Our director/choreographer Krissie Marty asked us to think about what sort of joints each animal has and the way that effects how they move. There are times in the show when we are all different animals, and then there are times when we're all playing the same kind of animal. In those scenes we all worked together to come up with uniform postures and movements, for example as mice we scurry and as pigs we have a pretty hilarious waddle. One of my characters, Betsy Bear, is 5 years old. I have to be on top of thinking about how a bear moves and sounds, and I also want to work on how a 5 year old moves and sounds. It is great fun. 

Now after learning lines and blocking and working on defining each of our many characters, we've reached a really exciting point. It's hard for me to believe we've already come to the end of our second week of BUSYTOWN rehearsals. Last week we were learning music and reading from scripts. Now we've blocked the entire show and we're gearing up to move on to the stage. I can't wait to start working in costume and on the set.

I'm so excited to be a part of BUSYTOWN. Hope to see you there!

Emily Levey