Pictures & a PSA

I'll get the PSA out of the way first.

I had sometime before my show this past Saturday, so I went to one of the new early voting polls to go vote. I was in line for about an hour before I got to vote, which is kinda cool, if you think about it. An hour for early voting for the PRIMARIES. The whole point for this little story? GO VOTE! Early voting ends Feb. 29, the actual primary is on Mar. 4 and (at least on the Democratic side) caucus starts at 7p on Mar. 4.

End of PSA. Now the pics.

Yes, I know, I know, these pictures are overdue. These are some of my pics from last month's trip to the Philippines. I'll get the rest posted on Flickr (once I figure it all out).

Mom & I at Fort Santiago in Manila.

My cousin's wife, Ann & I at the Shangri-La.

Me & the de la Cruz family.

The Parreno side of the family at Lola's birthday party.

More to come later. Really. I promise!

My Super Bowl Sunday

This was the first Super Bowl Sunday in awhile that I can remember having off. Usually I'm in a rehearsal or a performance and it always cuts into part, if not all of the Super Bowl. So today was luxurious! Here's what I did today:

• wake up (because the cats woke me up)
• feed the cats (that's why they woke me up)
• move to the couch with blanket & pillow in hand
• doze off listening to the political talking heads
• wake up again
• foraged for brunch (really, it was too late to call it breakfast)
• doze off again
• woke up in time for pre-game
• cook my lunch and dinner for the next day and a half
• threw some laundry in the washer
• go back to the couch to watch the Super Bowl
• ate dinner somewhere during halftime
• finished watching Super Bowl (I thought it was a good game, a few of my friends did not)
• met up with a couple of friends at Agora because I needed to get out of the house for a bit

Basically, I just lounged about and did nothing constructive. It was GREAT!

From The Land Of Cheap Pearls & Really Good Coffee!!

I know it's been a long, long while since I've updated this blog, so let me bring you up to speed. For those who don't know, I'm here in the Philippines for my grandmother's 85th birthday. It was a little traumatic getting here. Our flight out was delayed due to the bad weather in the Northeast. We almost had to stay overnight in Guam, but Continental had the plane wait for us since it would be cheaper than trying to put up a planeload of people overnight. Once we got here, it took us almost 2 hours to find our relatives that were picking us up from the airport in Manila. BUT (and here's the good part) we're staying in the Shangri-la in Makati City. Makati is the business & financial district in the Manila and the Shangri-la is one of the top hotels in Manila. One of our relatives works here, so we got a GREAT discount and when we got to our room (at 3am), there was a fruit tray and 2 bottles of wine courtesy of our relative!! WOO HOO!!!!!!

We spent today pearl shopping! We walked out of the market with bundles of pearls for almost nothing!!! After that, we did some sightseeing at the historic part of Manila. I'll post the pictures when I get a chance.

We leave for the provinces tomorrow afternoon and the rest of the week will be family fun-time and we'll wrap up the week with a huge birthday bash for my grandmother complete with a "here's your life" slide show courtesy of moi.

More to come (complete with pictures) later.

Frankaren's Wedding - Pt. 1

Well, I'm still recouping from last week's wedding. Overall, it was a fun event. During the wedding rehearsal, all of the groomsmen (save one) seemed to revert back to 12 years old. The church coordinator looked like she was going to smack them, then put them in timeout.






Here's one of the offenders. Doesn't he look like he's up to something?












Another one of the 12 year olds. Don't let that "momma's boy" routine fool you.










For the reception, we had the BEST entrance music! Most weddings will have the wedding party enter on something along the lines of Sinatra or some upbeat, light jazz. Not this wedding. We entered on T.I.'s Bring 'Em Out. Ok, "enter" may not be the right word. We danced in. With that bass thumping, how could you not dance in? Speaking of dancing...

"That's definitely Eddy's daughter." - Munchkin's mother in response to her daughter's non-stop dancing.

Even Munchkin got in on the action. Actually, she was ready to hit the floor as soon as they started the first dance. Since the first dance traditionally belongs to the bride & groom, however, we had to hold her back. As soon as they opened the dance floor to the rest of the guests, she was dancing & prancing around the ballroom. She didn't stop until Lola & Lolo extracted her at a very late hour and whisked her home.

Hi Ed! Shameless plug for his yummy blog Is It EDible?

More pictures to come.

I Know I'm WAAAAY Overdue...

I know, I know...it's been a month since my last post. Here's my sad, pathetic excuse:

1. I pulled into town at 2am on a Wednesday. At 7pm, I was sitting in a rehearsal for a show I was sound designer for that opened the following week.
2. 14 hours after that rehearsal, I headed back to work. And it hasn't stopped.
3. Days after the first show opened, I started rehearsal for my current show that I am stage managing and sound designing.
4. Somewhere in the midst of all of that, I've been gearing up for wedding where I'm playing the role of bridesmaid. This wedding is in less than 3 weeks.

What can I say?It's been a long month.

I need a vacation.

On My Way Home

I am currently in Dallas, which means home is a hop & a skip away. That also means that I have to join the real world really soon.

Sigh.

At any rate, I've been taking my time driving down to Houston. Spent a couple of days at the Blackwater Falls State Park in West Virginia and did some hiking and sleeping in. Then I was off to Muncie, IN to visit Kerry, Charlotte & Brynna. I attempted to ride their horses, went on the grand tour of Muncie and spotted some of the concrete animals the residents of Muncie like to display on their front lawns. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures (didn't want to scare off the concrete wildlife). On the way down from Indiana, I stopped at some of the tourist spots - Lincoln's birthplace, the National Corvette Museum, Mammoth Cave National Park. I decided to skip Graceland because it's Elvis week. Basically I've been prolonging my summer vacation (albeit a stressful and intense summer vacation).

So for the Houston folks, I'll be home really soon. And I'll get to see my cats again.

Some Pictures from My Summer

For your viewing pleasure:




My Full Monty Cast







The 6 Monty's









...in action








Me, my original stage manager & our intern








Our lighting designer. We both went to UH and he's the one who got me the job.

Just Keep Swimming

"Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming, swimming."
(attributed to Dora from Finding Nemo; commonly quoted by one of my director/choreographer. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, go rent the movie.)

This was our motto for the summer. At the bare minimum, at least once every 2 weeks (during tech), we were just trying to keep our heads above water. With Full Monty, however, it's been pretty much since day 1. It's turned out to be a great show - hooting, screaming and standing ovations every night - but it's been such an ordeal. Here are a few highlights:

1) We got the Monty stripping costumes 2 days late. 2 days may not seem very long, but this is summer stock and we only have 7 days to rehearse before we tech. We asked for the costumes early so the guys could practice and get accustomed to the costumes. It may be the last 5 minutes of the show, but if the guys are freaking out over the last 5 minutes, it could kill the entire show.

2) Props. This has been thorn in the side of every production. Why? Because the props master is lazy, unprofessional and has no business being in the business.

3) Sets. I got no less than 4 versions of the ground plans of the set throughout the rehearsal week and the version I was working off of when we moved up to the stage (apparently) was 1 or 2 versions old. The set designer failed to give me the updated version. Didn't really matter since we changed the set before we started tech and during tech. And no one was giving me any information.

4) AFM (American Federation of Musicians) - we have to use union musicians in our orchestra pit. I have nothing against unions. I'm in a union. AFM says that after 3 hours (on a performance day), they go into overtime. We've been coming down about 1 or 2 minutes over 3 hours. It's just one musician in the pit who's raising a stink about it. I wouldn't care except I have the producers breathing down my back, calling me every morning to see what I've done to get us under the 3 hour mark. I don't need an alarm clock, my producer's morning calls takes its place.

5) My assistant, or rather, ex-assistant. Useless & lazy. She had been an ongoing problem all summer, but since I was on the other stage management team, she was not our problem. Until they moved me up. Then she was my problem. At the opening night cast party (hosted by a local pub), she was caught drinking (yeah, she's underage). Did I mention she's not exactly the brightest bulb in the bunch? This turned out to be a good thing. My producers called me in for a meeting the following morning and they told me that since it was the last week, they would just put her on probation - which is very generous since company policy is that underage drinking is grounds for immediate dismissal. I told them about the complaints from the crew, her laziness and how she single-handedly delayed the start of tech by almost an hour and I said it would be best for the show, cast and crew if she was just fired. So they fired her. Her replacement came in with less than 30 minutes to go over her show assignments (which is quite a bit) and pulled it off better than she who was with the show from the very beginning.

I know this is a big rant, but it's not all doom and gloom. The cast has been great, my crew has been phenomenal and it's a fun show with a rockin' soundtrack. If you get a chance, go see it. If you're in WV or in the Pittsburgh area, come see ours.

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?

West Virginia - The Long, Overdue Update

I've now been here for 1.5 weeks and I'm exhausted! We just opened "Sweet Charity" and it's been such an intense period. Part is because this is my first time doing summer stock and part is because I have such an inexperienced crew backstage. Sunday during the day was my "day off" then we had a final rehearsal that night from 7p-midnight. Monday we rehearsed from 12p-12a. We teched the show (with all of it's huge set changes) and we were only able to dress the first half of the show. Tuesday day we did a dress with the orchestra and opened Tuesday night. Yesterday we did a double show and today we have off till tonight's show. I called my crew in early on Tuesday to give them the "coming to Jesus" speech. During the previous day's tech, I realized that I when I tell them something, I had to detail everything out. For example, just because I said you can park a set piece in a certain location and not worry about it till act 2 doesn't mean you may have to move it before then to get to an act 1 piece you may have stored behind it. Or no cellphones backstage. Or you have to keep your eyes and ears open because when someone calls for something to be done, they want it now and not when you decided to get up stroll over. Urrggh! Everyone on my deck crew are interns and all are inexperienced. The girl I have on my side of the stage is quick so I'm feeling better about her. Our stage managing intern is ok, but always looks like she's on the verge of tears of breaking down. The other girl that's with her and our guy on the fly rail are completely useless. There's such a lack of urgency and presence of mind with those 2. It's quite frustrating and the worst part is that I think we get them again for our next show, which is "Funny Girl" and is harder show (tech-wise) than this one is.

Oh, and during last night's intermission, our Charity fell down the stairs running from the dressing rooms (which is 2 floors up) to the stage and dislocated her shoulder. She popped her shoulder back in and ran onstage to finish out the rest of the show (minus her lifts in one of her dances). What a trooper!

This is the post where I vent. The post with all the positive things about here is forthcoming, but I'm going to do yet another load of laundry and take a nap before tonight's show.

I'm Finally Here

Finally made it into West Virginia. It was a 4 day drive, but I'm finally here! It's definitely much cooler up here. I think I may need a sweater for the evenings. (Don't hate.)

The drive through Tennessee, Kentucky and West Virginia was pretty. Lots of rolling hills and mountains. Now I'm in my apartment and for the most part I'm unpacked and moved in. That was my main goal for today since once we start, it'll be fast and furious. I'm sharing an apartment with 3 other girls - 2 from the costume shop and the stage manager (not mine) working the other 3 shows. I'll keep you posted on how things go, but for now, I think I'm going to take a short nap before grocery shopping.

My Birthday & Onward To West Virginia

This past Saturday was my birthday party. A group of us tried out a new restaurant, Catalan. We were seated late (it was packed), but the manager was real apologetic (we had a 9p reservations but were seated about an hour later - it was really, really packed), so he kicked in a couple of appetizers. The food was fantastic and the place wasn't as pretentious as their sister restaurant.





Afterwards, we went to Spotlight Kareoke. Overall, it was a great birthday.






Right now, I'm in my hotel room in Memphis, TN. The previous day, I stopped in Temple for lunch with Leah and Al. After that, I headed up to Dallas to spend the night with Eddy, Rachel and Rory. We celebrated my birthday with cupcakes from Sprinkles. Originally from Hollywood, this bakery only does cupcakes. And what cupcakes! I had the Mocha, which is a dark Belgian chocolate cupcake with mocha icing. Yum!!! Nothing eventful on today's drive except that right outside of Little Rock is the Scott Hamilton Parkway. I tried to get a picture, but the sun was overexposing it.

Hawaii, Pt. 2

Here are some pictures from Hawai'i. Yes Charlotte, I did take these myself. These are not postcards with the sunshine Photoshopped in.


Wednesday's beaches & sites




This is the Hyatt hotel & resort at Poipu. I went through the hotel to access the beach they're associated with. Since beaches are public property, they can't rope it off like a private beach.

The back of the Hyatt as seen from...

this beach.

Other sites from Wednesday:

Spouting Horn








Me amidst the plumeria at the National Tropical Botanical Gardens








The ever-present roosters that have NO biological clock! They crow literally at any time, day or night.





Thursday's beaches




Kekeha Beach - if you look closely, you'll see Ni'ihau in the background (otherwise known as The Forbidden Island).

Waimea Canyon

Russian Fort Elizabeth

Friday's beach



Polihale Beach - This was by far my favorite beach. By about 3p, it was starting to get crowded. It was me, my cousin and about 6 others. This beach is so remote that more than 2 people is a crowd.




Saturday's beaches

My 2 cousins, aunt & uncle drove up to the north shore where Hanalei Bay is located. That's the bay that was used as Bali Hai when South Pacific was filmed.











Sunday's beach

My cousins and I went to the south shore and spent the day Baby Beach. It's a protected beach (like a small bay) that's popular with families. This picture is outside the protected area.


Monday & Tuesday - no beach

Ok Charlotte, it rained these 2 days. But it was only 2 days and we got a rainbow out of it.


Wednesday's beach

I left for Houston this day, but I had about a 6 hour layover in Honolulu, so after checking in my bags, I headed to Waikiki. By the way, this was my least favorite beach. I'll take any of the beaches on Kawai'i over Waikiki. I think it's overrated - as far as Hawaiian beaches go (which still isn't bad).


The last picture I'll leave you with is not a beach, but a picture taken from inside the Honolulu International Airport. (Really)

Hawaii, Pt. 1

This will be a short one, but I'll add on to it when I get home.

For those of you who are wondering, yes, I'm in Hawaii. I made it in safely, albeit late. I missed my connecting flight in Minneapolis. Yeah, I had to fly north to fly west (go figure). This is my first day online, so I'll just give you a short rundown on my week (so far) in Kauai.

Monday - flew all day to Hawaii. Missed my connecting flight in Minneapolis, so arrived in Kauai 5 hours late.

Tuesday - rested and hung out with my aunt and uncle

Wednesday - beach

Thursday - beach

Friday - beach

Saturday - drive along the coast of Kauai up to the north side (briefly visited one on the beaches on the north side)

Sunday - beach

Monday - no beach since it rained last night till this morning. May walk down towards the beach though.

So as you can see, there's been a running theme in my visit here in Kauai. I haven't repeated a beach yet (don't want to commit till I've checked them all out and with all the beaches they have here, that won't be possibly to do before I leave). My next post will be a rundown of all the beaches and accompanying pictures. (Don't hate.)

Brilliant!!!

I love it!!! I was grinning throughout the entire video!