Things are a little tense tonight. Not major-league tense. Director Fred Bologna doesn't display the I'm-going-to-bite-your-head-off-and-feed-it-to-the-booster-club swagger that a ticked-off football coach, say, might launch into when a complicated play has just gone awry. But as I watch Bologna rehearse the dancers for the tap dance scene in "Springtime for Hitler," I start to feel the pressure of the approaching opening night. Suddenly it seems to be looming a lot closer than it was just a few weeks ago.

"Don't bend from the waist," Bologna tells the tap-dancers. "It's all about military precision. That's why it looks awful. Even though it's a tap dance, 50% of the audience will be looking from the waist up. It has to be PERFECT. Those of you who know me know that we're going to do this until it looks good for stage."

He says more, but I'm stuck on just one word: audience. Yes, there will be an audience. In just a matter of weeks. Hanging out in a rehearsal hall as I have these last couple of weeks, playing to a bunch of empty blue plastic chairs, it's easy to make all this an academic exercise. It's easy to forget that real, live, people are soon going to be sitting in front of me. One of my favorites lyrics in the musical "Billy Elliott" is when the hardened but still kindly dance teacher tells her hapless students, "We only have seven and a half months to rehearse this, so for Christ's sake, concentrate!"

We don't have seven and a half months.

For the very first time in this entire endeavor, I feel the tiniest wingbeat of a butterfly in my stomach.

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Previously on the Beehive:
I Wanna Be a Producer: The Blog (part 1)

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About this blog series: The tables are turned on The Bee's theater critic as he joins the ensemble for one number in "The Producers." He'll go through the rehearsal process and will make his Good Company Players debut at the final dress rehearsal.

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AS ONE OF THE "little old ladies" in the show's first-act finale, I need to embrace my character. Bologna gathers us round for a pep talk. We're supposed to be OLD. We have to be hunched over. Yet we have to move quickly, even with our creaking, unmatched walkers. We're supposed to be as ancient as the hills, yet we're supposed to be randy enough to get a PG-13 rating. We sing with a cracked, pitched falsetto that sounds like a screechy Edith Bunker from the opening credits of that old TV show "All in the Family."

Here's the idea: In the play, Max Bialystock and Leo Bloom are two producers who want to stage the worst show in the history of Broadway so they can take all the money from their investors and run. In this case, Max -- who is played by Good Company veteran Darren Tharp -- has quite a stable of investors. They're all little old ladies with whom he, ahem, engages in various acts of carnal excess in order to entice them out of their cash.

So that's who I play: one of those little old ladies. (No carnal excess is expected, however.) I haven't yet seen my costume, but my understanding is that it involves a skirt, blouse, wig and at least a figurative membership card in the AARP.

Oh, and another thing: Some of us are men. Some are women. It's like the finale of "La Cage Aux Folles."

In the first part of the scene, three of the ladies are sitting on a park bench when a cop (played by Cory Lung) walks by. As originally staged, they're supposed to check out the cop's butt and look at each other with a so-so response, as if they're not all that impressed. But that reaction isn't coming across as very funny for Bologna. So he changes it: Now, when the cop walks by, the three old broads are supposed to decide they like the goods. It's an upgrade for Cory!

After the cop strolls by, Max comes on stage to chat with his investors. Then all the little old ladies come on. Pretty much what I do is stick close to Steve Pepper, the ensemble member that I'm shadowing on stage. In my first entrance, we waltz across the stage. In the second, I'm in line with everyone with my walker.

And just what do we do with those walkers? The old ladies manage moves using them that could certainly void the manufacturer's original warranty. We clank them, twirl them and jump with them. Some of us even form a line and tumble onto our backs with them like a column of dominoes. That's not me, thankfully. (When Bologna was assigning the domino parts, he told the cast that "anyone over the age of 28" is exempt because "it's too hard on the knees.") Age does have its advantages.

But ancient as I am, I'm not exempt from silliness. After the walker part of the dance, which I'm still stumbling with, we discard them and form a line across the stage. As Max sings a lyric about us old broads still having that "fire down below," we swish our skirts, swing our hands like graceful gorillas and strut about as if we're the eldest but still surprisingly fertile hens in the farmyard. (Wow, two animal similes in one sentence; did I set a record there?) From there it's off stage again, to return for the last chorus of the song sans walker, then striking an emphatic final pose to end the act. Bologna tells us that we need to come up with a distinctive, fun pose that has a lot of individual character. I give this some thought. I decide for a cross between Bea Arthur on "Golden Girls" and Mother Teresa.

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ONE OF THE FASCINATING parts about this rehearsal process, besides learning that it's harder than you might think to do a fan kick leaning backwards on a walker, is watching how little pieces of a play come together. For the first few weeks of rehearsal, the cast has concentrated simply on learning the blocking, or the coordinated movements that we make on stage. Think about it: If there's a cast of 25 people in a scene and everyone has to move, that's 25 separate little "flight plans" that have to be filed. It's one thing to stand in a clump and sing a chorus number; it's another to move around as individuals. After the director gets the basic movements set, then he or she goes back and adds more and more layers of nuance. The frustrating thing for Bologna, I can already tell, is when he runs out of enough time to add that nuance.

You could almost equate the process to building a ship: We start out with the master shipbuilder (the director) showing us how to build the frame. Then we start filling in the actual sides of the ship. The first few run-throughs are far from seaworthy. But as the blocking gets ingrained, you get a chance to actually try to become your character. You get more and more confident that the thing will actually float.

Another thing that's interesting about "The Producers" is that it's quite a sassy and in some ways risque play -- especially for the Roger Rocka's crowd. The audiences that frequent musicals at Good Company Players tend to skew older. Anytime a revival such as "Fiddler on the Roof" comes along, many ticket buyers tend to be quite pleased. In an age in which the standards for TV, movies and popular music might be considered positively scandalous compared to what things were like in "the good old days," some people hold on fiercely to very tame expectations for what they will tolerate in live theater.

But "The Producers" is high-spirited, raunchy fun straight from the brain of Mel Brooks. You can't take out the suggestive humor or can the occasional naughty lyrics. And there are more gay jokes than an entire season of "Will and Grace." As director, Bologna has to remain true to the integrity of the play. But I can also see him wincing just a little at times -- no doubt thinking of some upset patron leaving in a huff.

At an earlier rehearsal, for example, the chorus of old ladies belts out the word "ejaculation!" with so much enthusiasm that it could be a high-school football cheer. Bologna asks us to tone it down just a notch -- not to drop the word or anything like that, but perhaps to deflect the emphasis.

Bologna tells me that GCP has to forge ahead with musicals that push the boundaries a little. I agree. Theater evolves, and season-ticket-holders have to be nudged into the present day. It might take a while, of course. I don't think we'll be seeing "Spring Awakening," the Tony Award-winning story of explicit young love, at Roger Rocka's anytime soon. But neither can you just stick to the classics. Otherwise you'll just wind up reviving "The Sound of Music" and "The Music Man" forever.

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THE THREE-HOUR REHEARSAL is almost over. I'm exhausted. And I'm only on stage for about five minutes! Kaye Migaki, who is sharing choreography duties with Bologna, has been putting us through the drill. I can tell that other people are slowing down, too. Eyes are starting to droop. Feet shuffle just a little slower while getting into position. The sharp scent of tired, aching bodies wafts through the air.

Bologna picks me out of the cast and tells me to move over a little so that I'm not standing behind Steve Pepper. Turns out that I've been positioning myself almost directly behind him, no doubt in a semi-conscious effort to avoid full exposure on stage. "No hiding," Bologna says. "We have to see you."

At this night's rehearsal, fellow Beehiver and Fresno Bee video guy Will Albritton joins us with his video camera to document my attempt at show biz. (He's making the video so that online readers can see me as a work in progress; and also so I can use it to practice my dance steps at home, which means I'm constantly asking Will to shoot me from behind so I can mirror the movements.) I huff and puff. It's hot in here, and although the air conditioner is making a valiant attempt to keep us alive, you can feel it start to lose the battle, degree by degree. Finally, I'm done. Sweat is dripping off my nose. Will sticks the camera in my face and asks, "How do you feel?"

I whisper back: "NOT like going to Disneyland."