Lexicon of the Accademia

Most of the students have just left for the Florence airport. I'm here for a few more days to clean and inventory. It feels impossibly lonely without the whole ensemble. I realize too that we have developed our own special language, that only 34 people on the planet speak it, that my friends in Chicago will probably look at me oddly if I greet them with 'giorno, and that Ciao bella! will come off as an affectation rather than a sincere compliment.

A sampling of this language, dying even now:

Dov'è...? Where is...?
The first Italian words many of us mastered. Used in a number of creole questions: "Dov'è the hell is my roommate?" (in Venice), "Dov'è my sword?" (in a commedia scene with a Capitano). Also misused with remarkable versatility: "Hey, I have to go dov'è the bagno."

Ma... But...
Used especially to separate and emphasize two halves of a difficult choice, or two mutually exclusive options: "My recital is tomorrow night, MA I have to stay up tonight studying for music history. And I've just had a liter of vino."

Pregs, short for Prego You're welcome.
Also, depending on context, can mean any number of the following: Hello; don't mention it; what sort of coffee would you like; of course you should have some more wine; you go first; I am holding the door for you; it doesn't matter that you have trodden on my foot; you butcher my language, American girl, and your clothing is remarkably unflattering compared to what an Italian tailor could do, but I will maintain civility.

Ragazzis. Teenagers, especially in groups, especially smoking, or doing what they are not supposed to be doing, or not doing what they are supposed to be doing.
The real plural is ragazzi, but Ryan started using ragazzis and it just stuck. This was how the music director of The Persians referred to the liceo students with whom we were collaborating.

San Fab San Fabbiano, the winery up the road, or its red wine, which one purchases by the liter from a gas-pump-style dispenser.

The Salad The Sala Danza, or dance room, one of our movement studios. A.k.a. (of course) the Tony Danza.

Va bene. It's all good.
Notable especially for the permutations among American students: Va bens; Va bensies; Va benzo, Lorenzo (the last of which Joe invented as a parody of the others; it's even better if you imagine the look of horror on the face of the Italian man backing away from your high-five). Students also coined no bene to indicate the opposite, "Not good" or "That's awful," but it is such a departure from true Italian as to horrify even some of the American students.

Ciao. Hello, hi.
Also "goodbye." In this latter usage, when all the other students are hauling their luggage out of the villa, it becomes the hardest word in the world to say.