Busy theater weekend

Quite the theater weekend I had.  Rehearsal Friday night and again Saturday morning/afternoon, the strike & after party on Saturday, then Sunday I went from the cast rehearsal that afternoon to the orchestra rehearsal that evening.  Audition last night, voice lesson and rehearsal tonight - whew!

Tomorrow night's choir practice was cancelled, so I actually get a night at home for a change.  TW might not recognize me!  :D

Another audition behind me

Had another audition tonight.  Felt good going in.  Seems that was misleading, as I not only felt like I was struggling thru the register shifts but managed to go up on the words as I was going back into the A section. :( And they didn't have us dance, either.  I can second-guess myself all night - "I shoulda picked a different song," "I wish I'd had more time to prepare".  Doesn't matter; it's done, so on to the next.

Two more auditions coming up next week, both straight plays.  We'll see how they go.

Long theater day

Yesterday started with a 10a.m. rehearsal, which covered all of Act I.  From there it was off across town to help strike the set for the play I'd done some make-up consulting on.  Then we got to our just deserts - the strike party.  I'd forgotten that this director, a very sentimental soul, gives little gifties to *everybody*, including the person who shows up for one rehearsal during tech week, does a make-up demo, goes home, sends everyone detailed instructions, then disappears.

I got home more than 12 hours after I'd left the house, and put close to 100 miles on the car for the day.  I'm still recovering from the long day, but don't regret any of it.  :)

Got a half a snow day

As I expected, we went in to work (or many of us did; many others opted to take leave) but were sent home around lunchtime.  No pilates class, but it turns out we wouldn't have had class anyway - today was the last day the group fitness classroom was closed for floor refinishing.

I opted not to go to my voice lesson, but my teacher offered an alternative - a lesson via Skype.  It was a little weird, especially as she couldn't accompany me due to the time lag, but we managed to get some good work done.  I still prefer an in-person lesson, but with an audition next week and Yeomen opening in a month, I'm glad I didn't have to miss this week's lesson.

TW fired up the snow blower, with some difficulty, this being the first time we've needed it since the double-whammy blizzard 4 years ago.  He's made 2 passes, one this afternoon and a second after dinner, and the white stuff is still coming down. 

I wonder how much we'll end up with?  Various forecasts have upper numbers of 8-10 inches.  I'm starting to wonder if we'll have a delayed opening at work tomorrow, or if we'll be closed for the day.  I'd love to sleep in, of course, but I have a deadline that I was on track for and more time off will really wreak havoc with that project.  Oh well; if we have a snow day tomorrow, I'll just have to fall back and regroup when I get back to work.  And in the meantime, a snow day would give me a good, solid chunk of time to spend on learning my Yeomen material and brushing up my song for next week's audition.

Please don't send us home too early...

We're under a winter weather warning for tomorrow.  Snow's supposed to start sometime tomorrow morning (after I'm at work, at any rate), with a forecast total of 4-8 inches.  All the signs are there for work to send us home early.  I'm just hoping they don't send us home too early, as I want to be able to get to the lunchtime pilates class at the gym in my building.  If they send us home early, the gym will close early too. :(

I've only had one class with this teacher so far, but I definitely want more.  It's way beyond me right now, but nothing that isn't achievable if I keep at it.  Please don't make me skip a week - my core needs the work-out!

I guess I did pretty well, especially for a maiden effort

The area community theater community (over 30 companies!) has a recognition organization that does our own little awards ceremony every year.  The 2013 nominations were announced last night and, to my shock, I was on the list!  I was nominated for hair design for my November show.  Surprised me because, of the 7 cast members, only 3 had hairstyles that needed any research or special attention.  (The others?  One military cut, one old-fashioned bun, one daughter in pigtails, one daughter in a snood.  No challenges there.)  As I told the cast, though, they had as much to do with it as I did.  After all, while I did the style design and showed them how to achieve them, they were the ones who did the actual styling the adjudicators saw and scored.

This didn't feel like nearly as much work as, say, when I costumed the Pirates I was in a few years back.  I certainly couldn't have styled 3 heads without making the owners of said heads show up as much as 2 hours before curtain.  Since I trained most of them to do their styles (one woman was already well versed in doing period styles), then left them to do their own hair, I really do feel that the cast earned this as much as I did.  I didn't see the other productions that were nominated, so I don't know what we're up against, but maybe Sybil's victory rolls will tip the balance and earn "my" cast an award.  We'll find out at the awards ceremony in March.  Good luck, ladies!

Hmm.  Maybe the awards ceremony would be a good excuse to buy a ballgown... ;)

December birthstone - blue!

Saw yet another FB ad for a mother's bracelet and suddenly decided to look up December's birthstone.  Apparently December babies have 3 choices, all beautiful - tanzanite, turquoise and blue topaz!  Should I decide I want a mother's [piece of jewelry], I've got some pretty great choices for the stone.

End of an era

When I moved in 20 years ago come August, Ed was one of the first neighbors I met.  He seemed much younger than his 60-something years - fit and full of energy, and the block grandfather/mayor.  TW likes to tell of how he went over to borrow a ladder and Ed got it from the back yard, tipped it over the fence, then vaulted said fence to carry the ladder over to our house.  Avid football fan - don't dare call or come to the door during the game!  Always out working in the yard, held housekeys for probably everyone on the block.  Then he started to get sick, to the point where his daughter moved back home to help him.  There were a few ambulance calls that had us all worried for him.  When we got hit with the double-whammy blizzard a few years ago and TW ran his snowblower up & down the block, he also helped shovel a gurney-sized path from the street to Ed's front door, just in case.

Last night Ed died.  No more pain and medical trauma for him, but his caretaker daughter and the rest of his family are grieving, as are the neighbors who were privileged to know him when he was still hale, hearty and friend to everyone.  Rest in peace, Ed, and may flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

I thought I was over this cold; not quite yet...

I've been lucky in that this cold has been merely annoying, for the most part, instead of making me utterly miserable.  (Thank you, healthier eating habits!)  However, I'm apparently not out of the woods yet.  Today the chorus at work sang the national anthem at a ceremony this afternoon.  Because of the numbers, I ended up singing melody instead of alto.  Usually that's no big deal, but today the top notes were a real effort; I may even have been a touch flat on the Fs. :(  Fortunately, the other soprano is good and solid (operatic training, thank you very much!), so I just backed off and let her take it. :)

Tomorrow's rehearsal shouldn't be as bad; Dame Carruthers' music sits pretty low, and I think most of what we're working is ensemble stuff anyway.  That's one of the scarier things about having a principal role - no fellow ensemble members to cover you if you're not feeling up to par.

I guess we're the holdouts

I noticed tonight that none of the neighbors' Christmas lights were on tonight.  Ours were on, but that's chiefly because we haven't gotten around to unplugging the timer. That'll probably happen Sunday, when the weather should be halfway decent for that sort of thing.  (It's supposed to rain pretty much all day tomorrow.)

Finally got a lead w/ this company and adjusting to how it feels

As I noted once before, I've worked with this company for years but this is the first time I've been a principal, not an ensemble member.  Friday and yesterday we blocked some of the bigger scenes.  It seemed weird to be singing by myself out in front of everyone else, instead of being blocked with some of my chorus buddies.  (There's one woman in particular with whom I always get blocked when we're in the same show.)  I'm having fun, of course, and enjoying the process of learning how much I can really do (which is why I was sorry to wave off this week's voice lesson), but given that I've had leads with other companies, I'm a bit bemused that it's an adjustment now that I've got a lead with this company.

People have been encouraging.  My one chorus buddy told me the other day that she noticed an improvement between that rehearsal and when I sang the same bit at the read-thru.  It was kind of her to mention it, and gratifying to know the voice lessons with my new teacher are already working.

Tried to dodge it, but no such luck

TW came home from Christmas with a cold, spent New Year's coughing and blowing his nose.  Good thing our friends only planned to stay the one night; I hope they managed to escape the contagion.  I was doing pretty well - made a pot of chicken soup, taking preemptive Zicam, making sure we had plenty of oranges on hand.  By Saturday evening, though, I could tell I was not going to escape the germs, and by last night I could feel it blocking my sinuses.  This morning I got the sore throat and the cold started moving into my chest.  The symptoms aren't too bad so far, so maybe the full-court anti-bug press wasn't a complete waste of time and effort.  If I can continue to keep the worst of it at bay, I'll declare victory and be glad it wasn't as bad as it could've been.  I went ahead and postponed this week's voice lesson to next week, and was relieved when my director called to say tonight's principal rehearsal was cancelled because the principal who's in everything we were going to run tonight had to leave town for a funeral.

As my director said, better I have the cold now than during tech week or, worse, during the run of the show! =:o