Dress Rehearsal minus 1

Dress Rehearsal Minus Two

Today we drove to Lake Oswego for another round of early morning mock shows. I remember most of the monologues I'd forgotten yesterday, except one where I was so busy worrying about the lines I took my shoes off a scene early, and that threw me for a loop, so I forgot it again.

And in one scene, Austen delivered the pick up line, and I completely blanked and jumped to the end of the scene. He blinked, delivered the line after the one I threw. I jumped back to the beginning of the dialogue, he followed. I went to the middle, and then the end, and he covered my ...self every time. Good thing, too.

On a positive note, I did remember all my Balangao.

Another day, another show

Another day, Another show.

Our first mock show in a new venue. The kitchen crew only did a little set up, since we can't cook until we have an audience. I got ahold of sysco and our food for the next four shows is ordered. Having never done that before, I thought it went very smoothly. And then Austen and I were sent to forage for dinner (which was really lunch, since we'd synchronized our watched to "real show" time at 7am.

We went to two different supermarkets that should have had a deli, and neither did, so knowing that the entire team would hate us if we brought sandwiches (which we get PLENTY of on tour), and not having the authority to make our own decision on food, we went to McDonalds in the middle of their lunch rush and ordered 24 double cheeseburgers and 8 biggie fries. That went over well.

It was our first show with new and improved sound cues. Most were good. A few were terrible. And the spooky Ichaw music, after a few bars, turned into nostalgic mood music. There's another that's very Princess Bride, and a third that reminded me a lot of Indiana Jones, but I can't remember why. And we have a cool "hiking through the jungle" conga beat.

The helicopter crash scene is improving. I'm really self-conscious about writhing around moaning. Today it was "more believable, but still needs some work. You need to be more out of it." Well, tomorrow I'll skip my morning coffee and pass out directly. I'll be up again at 5:30. I HATE mornings.

And tonight we have the evening free. I may do some mending. Several people have mending that I said I'd help with, and some black signature Wycliffe Dinner Theater polos need shortened...

Sysco

Ok, so the food order that I was stressing about adding to my job list I started doing today. And....I LIKE IT!

Today I had to count the boxes of things, figure out how much we use per show, and then when we need to order more.

It's almost as much fun as labeling my notebooks at the beginning of the semester, and might be MORE fun than planning out my four-year prospective class schedule.

heeheeheehee!

Cannon Beach

Yesterday, under the auspices of a drive test for prospective (and a co-piloting test for me, as possible lead co-pilot) we went to Cannon Beach for seafood, the then up the road a few miles to a touristy town to hang out for an hour.

The conversation on the way there in the sub was interesting, though I heard it in bits and pieces over Austen's music as Aaron and Liz argued themselves in circles. The debate was over love, and the part I picked up on was: does love grow in amount over time, or is the amount constant, but the aspect of love within that constant shifting. At least, I think that's what it was. I drew a chart.

On the way back I programmed Grusha (Our GPS system) without Julie's help with much rejoicing at the end! Hurrah! Even through she did take us the back....wards way into Milwaulkee at the end. We only nearly pulverized a small car with the sub and drama trailer as we got on a highway, only to exit .3 miles later. I bet he had to change his clothes when he got home...

Consensus

Yesterday something happened that has never happened in Wycliffe Dinner Theater history, as far as I know it.

We reached a unanimous decision in under one minute.

Quote

"Our Great Adversary is used to train us for His ultimate defeat."

Exhausted

So we're in the throws of tech week. Today was our costume parade, and then first run through with them. My costumes were all wrong, so I made three trips to the loft to get various pieces, try them on, and then decide they weren't right either. This is the time where wearing multiple hats becomes difficult. We are supposed to strike the set tomorrow (we tear down at the end of every rehearsal week to practice for being on the road -- and because we rehearse in a church, and they want their fellowship room back), but Liz needs more time with the technical equipment, so we're doing a makeup test in the morning, at which point I'll go get the rest of the costume pieces that were negated today, and then a full run with costumes in the afternoon. Saturday morning we're striking, then doing a drive test to the coast. Sunday, after church we're free, but Monday begins a week of mock shows -- and our set up begins all week at 7am.

Needless to say we're all very tired. And today was our last day to call for lines, so after spending the last two hours doing last minute alterations, I've got to nail down some monologues...

Old Shadows

Angie: "I have a contact allergy to peanuts. Eating them, not too bad. Having peanut butter smeared all over my face by the youth leader? I broke out in hives."

Tasha: "Excuse me, lets have this conversation when somebody knows what you're talking about."

Julie: "Den Mother?"
Vicky: "That sounds funny. I think I'm thinking of Bears."
Julie: "Raarrrrr."

Jerry: "If I catch any of you lipsynching to my stories you're out of here."

Jerry: "The hitch fell off and the dinner trailer was rolling away."
Chris: "Now that's travelling dinner theater right there."

Angie: "Eating it gives me rashes on my knees anyway."

WDT Ice Breaker: "Hug me. Now sign this."

Jessica: "I don't know what Chris' first name is."

Jessica: "Don't worry Aaron, I'm not sitting next to you."

Mission Accomplished

So blocking is done. We finished Thursday. Since I am in every scene of the show, for three days straight, seven hours a day, I didn't get off the stage. My legs fell asleep a lot from kneeling. It's a big relief to have that done. We are supposed to be off book on Monday.

Friday morning I found out that I was supposed to perform for a drama workshop at the Northwest Missions Conference. It was supposed to be on a volunteer basis, but they decided that a scene from the show would be more effective than a sketch. So Vanessa and I spent Friday after teardown rehearsing for that.

It went well this morning. Tasha gave the same information we were presenting in that scene in lecture format. Then we did the scene, and the group talked about what information came across better, how much can be inferred from drama without actually giving the facts, etc. Then they broke into groups and improvised their own scenes.

After that was over, we opted to stay at the conference to hear Joanne Shetler speak in a formal setting (Friday morning she'd talked with us about our characters for three hours, and the night before we'd trapped her at the table with pronunciation questions). We had to sit through an hour worth of church before she got up to speak, which I found a bit odd. They took an offering and sang some songs and a woman in the corner danced (a little distracting) and finally Jo spoke. Her talk was great, as usual - we're already familiar with the story, but it's great to hear her actually saying the words that became my lines in the show. (We use some of the same gestures. That was heartening)

After that we went around to a few booths that looked interesting, and then went home. I worked on my lines this evening, and I've got everything fairly well memorized except for John 3:16 in Balangao, which became my lines on Thursday. Tomorrow I'm taking the afternoon off and catching up on my postcards, letters and emails. Every night this week has been spent in the script.

Achi metap-ar

Achi metap-ar - will not be thrown away.

My favorite story in the show isn't even in the script, though it's referred to.

One of the most difficult passages to translate was from John 3:16 "shall not perish." Doming and Jo threw many ideas around, such as "shall not pass away" (like floating down a river?), "shall not be swept down the river" (what if they need to go down the river, and the Bible told them not to), and "shall not expire" (Like lettuce? Like wilt?). Nothing ever seemed to fit.

Later, Jo was at home with her friend Tekla and her children. In a culture of headhunters, it wasn't strange for an exasperated parent to tell their children, "I'm going to kill you!" Jo didn't feel comfortable with that, so she told a child she was going to "throw you away!" In a culture where face to face confrontations weren't acceptable, Tekla turned on her and told her never to say that to a child.

Jo was mystified. Tekla explained that killing someone took purpose and intent. To throw something away meant that it was essentially meaningless and without value. Jo had finally found the right word.

"Creator-God so loved the people of the world he gave his only child, that whosoever believes/obeys him will not be thrown away, but live forever with him."