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!

19 Days, 6 Hours, 37 Minutes

That's how much time before I leave for Hawaii!!! Not that I'm counting...

In the meantime, I've got a show to open (in 2 days) and a wedding to go to (17 days from now). I know I mentioned this in a previous post, but I didn't give the countdown.

The show is fine, it's just not my favorite play. I'm doing sound design, so I'm DONE when we open. (Yay!)

The wedding is one that many have been looking forward to for lo these many years. All I can say is it's about time!

As If There Was Any Doubt...

This tender moment of joy, delight and pride is brought to you courtsey of my brother, Munchkin's father. (No doubt he's rolling his eyes and shaking his head.)

(Sigh)

So proud...oh, so proud! Too emotional to speak! (Sniff)

Need Suggestions

I've got a layover in Honolulu from 9:00a to 5:00p on my flight out of Hawaii. Do any of you have suggestions on what I can do or where to go during my layover? This will be my first time in Honolulu, so I'm completely open to suggestions. I'm also open to lunch suggestions. Also, if any of you have been to Kauai and have "must see / must do" ideas, let me know. I'll be in Kauai for a week.

Brief Updates

Not much to blog about, so I'll just post a few updates.

Nemesis' birthday party was this weekend. The theme (because all of his parties have themes) was "Party Like A Rock Star". Dinner was at 59 Diner (going for the 60's rock & roll thing) then dancing at Chances. Fun times had by all (not to mention good topics for next week's discussions).

I'm finally taking a vacation! For real!! I'm going to Hawaii! I've never been to Hawaii before - even for just a layover. I'm staying with some cousins who live on the island of Kauai. A whole week of the beach!!! And Cingular/AT&T covers that island all the way down to the beach, so some special people will be receiving up-to-date reports live from the beach. (Just sharing my joy with others.)

So I've got my new show I'm doing sound design for (Noel Coward's Design For Living), then a wedding (you people need to stop with these weddings), then Hawaii the following Monday (yay!). After a week or so in Hawaii, then I come back just in time for my birthday party, then about 3 days after that, I'm off to West Virginia!

A Very Busy Two Weeks

It's been awhile since I last posted, but it's been very busy. Last weekend was Easter, the weekend before that was Dad's 60th birthday party and in between, Munchkin (aka my niece, The Grandchild) stayed with us for the week.

The party was fine. The only major snafu was the DVD with the glorified slide show of Dad through the years was from a corrupted batch of DVD's.

Translation: 1.5 weeks of work + 1 bad DVD = No slide show.

Very upsetting. So, I'm going to bore y'all with some pictures from the slide show that no one saw.

Moving on...

Like I said, Munchkin was in last week. It was a very busy week. She saw her first musical - Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella (she's in the princess phase) and she was on the edge of her seat the entire time. This is quite an accomplishment considering the show ended a whole hour past her bedtime (she's only 3, folks).

Of course, we had Lolo's birthday, where she helped blow the candles, cut the cake and open the presents.

We went to the Children's Museum, where she went shopping, milked a cow, scampered about in a '69 Ford Mustang and held a puppet show.


The Zoo (thanks, Scott!). Lions and tigers and bears, oh my! (Ok, we didn't see the lions and bears, but we did see the tigers and others.)

When we didn't go on outings, the mornings were spent hunting and trying to pet the cats, the afternoons were spent coloring and helping Lolo tend his tropical orchard that was the backyard, and the evenings were spent dancing the night away. One of her favorite activities - playing with "my best Jock EVER"! (Poor Jock! And he endured all with nary a whimper, bark or sigh.)

Oh, The Pain!

In our first appearance in the Sweet Sixteen in 27 years, we lost last night to Memphis. 64-65. One point. One basket. My only consolation was that I was watching my show, so I couldn't witness (in real time) the pain and agony.

I need my support group to commiserate with.

Another Show Up (Go See It)

Nemesis and I just got back from opening night of my latest show, Anna In The Tropics. I did sound design for this one and I'm fairly happy with it. Yes, there were one or two last minute changes I was considering and I had to stamp out the urge for some additional tweaking, but overall, I think I'm satisfied with the design. (If given the chance, I'd probably tweak all the way to closing night. Sad, but true.) This show was lots of fun to research and build. I found some great Cuban music for this show. Unfortunately, I couldn't use a lot of the really good songs, so I tried to cram as much of it into the preshow and intermission music. Still, a lot of really good stuff got left out because preshow is only 30 minutes and intermission is only 15 minutes. So I have hours of stuff I couldn't utilize. (Sigh)

Here is where I extend my gratitude and gratefulness to Sunshine for the Mac Mini that is now our new soundboard and audio input source. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!! I LOVE IT!!! (Please don't take it away!)

Anna In The Tropics is a fantastic script - beautifully written. For those who don't know, it was the Pulitzer winner in 2003. It takes place in Tampa in a cigar factory owned and run by Cuban immigrants in 1929. The factory workers have just hired a new lector and he has chosen to read Tolstoy's Anna Karenina. (A lector is a reader hired by the factory workers to read and entertain them with the day's news and novels as they work.) I won't tell anymore except go see this show. Overall, it's a solid production - good ensemble cast and a well-designed show. It's playing at Main Street Theater (at the Times location) and runs till April 15.

I'm Outta Here! - Part 2

My gig up in West Virginia will be almost 2 months of summer stock. In otherwords, 1 week rehearsal, 1 week of performances. This theatre does 6 shows over the summer, with the shows divided among 2 different staffs. My shows for the summer are:

• Sweet Charity
• Funny Girl
• Chorus Line

I hear it's crazy mad, but a lot of fun people.

I'm Outta Here!

Well, for part of the summer, at least. I'll be working up in West Virginia during June & July. I've got some other applications out for the rest of the summer, so we'll see what happens with those. I'll be up in Morgantown, WV working with West Virginia Public Theatre as an Assistant Stage Manager. Morgantown is close to the Pennsylvania border - about 30 minutes south of Pittsburgh (according to my friend). It's somewhere in the mountains (as is a lot of West Virginia). Mean temperature in July (this is important): high of 83 degrees, low of 63 degrees. YES!!!! That makes me happy. I'll be updating as I get more information.

Anti-V Day

For those who know me, I hate this time of year. It's not even a real holiday. Do you get the day off? Holiday pay? I think not. It's an over-hyped day that only serves to kill more trees (to make those saccharine cards) and to discriminate, ostracize and marginalize those who are not coupled up. They saturate the stores (starting on Jan. 2) with those sappy pink & red displays pushing their cheap candies and cards. The bombard the media with commercials for their pathtic, over-priced products. They ambush you at restaurants with reminders of their special dinner-for-two deals. So in honor of those who are happily (or unhappily but don't want to admit it) single, here are some products geared to that large, over-looked and ignored section of the population.

Anyone got a voodoo doll?

Ain't that the truth.

Chocolate, like shoes, is one of the few reliables that will always make you feel good.

February 14 and April 15 - two of the most dreaded days on the calendar.

And my personal favorite:

The Knitting Circle

This last show I did had a fair number of knitters. They came out in full force by the second day of rehearsal. One actor came in with her knitting and the following day, there were no less than a third of our cast showed up with their knitting. The main instigator started converting others throughout the run of the production. She sucked in another actor, one of my crew and (sigh) me. I finally gave in to the dark side during our third week of performances. You don't want to see this piece. I'm attempting to knit a scarf, but frankly, I think I may donate this "scarf" to my cats. They like to lie down on it (while I'm knitting) or "help" me knit. Mind you, their version of helping is playing with the ball of yarn or swatting at the knitting needles (while I'm using them).

New Year's Eve 2006 - Update

New Year's (like Christmas) snuck up on me this year. It's been a stressful holiday season. The show I'm stage managing (Urinetown, The Musical) went into tech the day after Christmas. Literally. It's a huge production - cast of 16, lots of song-and-dance numbers and lots of light cues. LOTS. Most straight plays I've done have averaged about 30-40 cues. Most musicals have averaged close to 100. I think this one is close to 300. At least. I've been to scared to count, to tell you the truth. I do know that one of my busiest (and scariest) songs has 43 cues alone. So this tech week truly has been a hell week (there have been other stuff going on, but I'll save that for another post). On top of hell week (which was actually 2 weeks - tech week and previews), I got sick. In fact, I'm still sick, but at least I can function for most of the day now. Before today, I'd spend most of the day home, trying to rest up as much as possible before going into rehearsal. It has not been a fun holiday season. I'm just glad it's over and we finally opened. There were a few times over the past 2 weeks I didn't think I'd see opening night.

Christmas Traditions

My mom is the WORST out of the entire family about Christmas presents. Not buying them, opening them. She wants to open them ASAP. She's worse than my (younger) cousins. The most they do is case the Christmas tree on an hourly basis. Mom, on the other hand, will pick up the presents and feel them and look for tears in the wrapper ("since it's torn, I might as well open it"). If there are no tears, she will create them. Ok, she personally won't create the tears. She enlists "help". In past years, she used our dog. She would set the present down in front of the dog and let him sniff it. He would then be overwhelmed by curiosity and start pawing at it and start to tear it open. This year, my mom has upgraded. She used her granddaughter. She didn't even have to tempt her. Unopened presents are temptation enough for Munchkin. Munchkin knows her Lola can't refuse her anything, so anytime she wants something, she immediately runs to her. Munchkin wanted to open the Christmas presents NOW. She doesn't really care too much who the present belongs to, she just wanted to open them. So Lola decided to appease her need to open presents. It seems, however, that the presents she handed to Munchkin weren't presents for Munchkin - they were my mom's presents. How convenient. My brother and I stopped the Dynamic Duo halfway through present number 2. Folks, they were attempting to open their Christmas presents TWO DAYS EARLY. It's getting worse and worse with every year.

Music Junkies, Check This Out!!!

My co-worker just introduced me to this website:

http://www.pandora.com

Set up by the Music Genome Project, the website builds radio stations based on your music choices. Here's how Pandora works: you enter a song or artist and based on the entry's music characteristics & attributes, Pandora goes through it's MASSIVE library and compiles your radio station. It's so cool!!! The day my co-worker introduced me to this fabulous site, we spent about 2 hours plugging in different songs / artists and seeing what songs Pandora pulled. (That was a productive day at work.) So if you're stuck in a musical rut, go check it out!!!