FINALLY!

I'm FINALLY finished with Harry Potter!!! It took a few days because work got in the way. In fact, due to work, I had to go 3 whole days without reading it! But I'm finally done, so now we can discuss.

Harry Potter Day!!!!

Finally got my book hand-delivered by our assistant company manager. He was handling mail call and spent most of the day (when he wasn't picking people up from the airport) hunting down and delivering the much-anticipated (to put it lightly) Book 7. He took great pains to get the books into people's hands shortly after UPS made it's delivery partly because he's an understanding, kindhearted guy and mostly because he knew his life was in mortal peril if he dallied on the deliveries. I am currently in Chapter 15. Ok...I must get back to my book.

Slight Change Of Plans

I'll explain...

Originally my contract as assistant stage manager is over after we close A Chorus Line. (Which, by the way, is such a blast!) But the other stage manager who is suppose to do the last show has to leave due to a family emergency. She is currently (even as I type) doing Aida, but will be leaving after Sunday when Aida closes. So the artistic director came up to me and asked if I would take over as SM for the last show, Full Monty. What does this mean? This means that:

1) I get an extra week of pay since I'll be here an extra week
2) I get a bigger paycheck since I'll be on a stage manager contract (as opposed to an ASM contract)

What this also means is:
3) I have to leave Chorus Line after Thursday to start work on Full Monty
4) I inherit the old SM's interns (they're...not as good as our intern)
5) I get the crazy costume designer
6) I have to leave Chorus Line after Thursday (day after tomorrow)

It's number 3 & 6 that tears me up. I love the show and I've never worked it, so I was excited about doing it. Plus I LOVE our director! She's a great director, fabulous choreographer and a fantastic person. We have so much fun in our rehearsals! Our cast is fantastic and retained all the chorus people I like. So I'm sad about the fact that I'm leaving all that. I also feel weird about leaving the production halfway through. I'm excited about stage managing a show here and the director for Full Monty is great - I worked with him in our previous show. So it's a mixed bag of emotions.

So don't expect me back in Houston before the 2nd week of August.

It's A Good Day (Finally)!

After a hellish, painful 72 hours of tech, dress and 3 shows, I finally have a full 19 hours off. Getting Funny Girl up on its feet and open has been nothing less than sheer torture. My stage manager and I kept telling each other "Chorus Line is next. Chorus Line is next". But now we are in performances and I had the morning and afternoon off. So this is how I spent my day:

9:45a - woke up. I had my alarm set for 10:30a so I could slowly wake up and get ready for the movie, but my Fanny Brice lives above me and I woke up to her vocalizing. (Silly singers.)

10:45a - headed to the bank and found probably the only spot in WV that sells bubble tea! (Yay!!!)

12:00p - headed to the movie theatre with my stage manager and our intern to watch...

12:45p - HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX!

Now I'm home eating dinner and resting before tonight's show.

One Show Down, Two To Go

Q: What the definition of a coloratura soprano?
A: It's a woman who can't find her note, but as a hell of a good time looking for it.

(As told by my music director during this afternoon's rehearsal. Feel free to pass it on to your favorite soprano!)

We just closed my first show Sweet Charity yesterday afternoon and started rehearsals on my next show Funny Girl this morning. Things move at lightning speed here. I'm kind of excited, kind of sad and very exhausted. I'm excited to move on to a new show, but I'm sad the last show is closed partly because of some of the people who left at the close of Sweet Charity and partly because my deck crew just got into the groove and everything about the show was just starting to gel - on and backstage. Ah, well...it IS summer stock after all.

So now it's on to Funny Girl and it's very hard to hear the signature songs from the show without hearing Barbra Streisand's voice in your head. This should be an interesting show. We have a handful of serious divas in the cast. We'll see how this pans out.

Even With My Sweater It's Cold!

I just got back from our weekly pool party. This is our second and so far, it's always been too cold for the pool. So the hot tub has been packed. I had a sweater on and it was still cold. You could see steam rising from the pool (yes, the pool, not the hot tub which was producing so much steam you couldn't see who was in it till you were at the edge).

I just checked with the weather channel and it's officially 48 degrees.

In July.

In the summer.

So, how's the weather back home?