Leavenworth

The letter has come in - I'm playing Maria in Sound of Music, Hattie in Kiss Me Kate, and understudying Kate/Lilli in Kiss Me Kate. I'm so excited! So I'll be out of town for 10 weeks rehearsing for my 30 shows, and hopefully working some too.

Roommates

Well, and now I'm sick. Which always happens after a stressful week -- and with my job going to heck this week, and my immediate resignation on Tuesday, now I'm spending my Saturday with a cold. On the plus side, I have nothing scheduled for today except a costume fitting. And getting my room back in shape from being gone all weekend followed by houseguests.

My roommates have all been home, and this week has been a guest haven. I had Drea here for four days, Denise here overnight, and my whole family in for dinner. One roommate's boyfriend (who won brownie points last night for bringing me popcicles for my sore throat) was in again, and the other roommate has a friend up from Eugene staying on the recently vacated sleeper sofa.

I'm leaving next week for a week and a half nannying in Florida. Very excited. Should have been getting in shape all spring, but have instead been munching on whatever suits my fancy at any given moment. I do not want to see what I look like in a swimsuit just now -- added to pale-and-pasty Seattle skin (which in any other context I love - just means lots of big hats and SPF 50) which will look out of place in the land of fakenbake.

I finally went on yesterday as the actor number two in Alice's Wonderland. I'd only had an accent rehearsal - no physical one, so I was very nervous trying to remember my entrances, and no idea of how long my fast changes could take. All went well, however, and somewhere around the Cheshire Cat everything clicked into place.

Also, the 1985 made-for-tv Alice in Wonderland was just released on DVD for the first time. I bought my copy yesterday!

And that's all for me today. I'm off to clean my room, drink my cafe au lait, and eventually get dressed and go to my fitting.

November

November

OH and the film I costumed, that we sent into here, has been nominated as one of the 20 best films submitted - and therefore will be shown at the festival, and is up for best film, as well as many acting and production awards.

Happy Bloody St. Patrick's Day

Yesterday was miserable. At work they had me scheduled for upstairs, which the bartenders quickly contested, because they don't usually have a waitress upstairs as there's no computer terminal for them to place orders. Then, after following my bosses around to try to find out what I was supposed to do, I was given a basket and told to circulate with sandwiches. After I got over the frustration of not knowing what I was supposed to do with myself, coupled with not having worked all weekend - so being out of the loop (my own fault - out of town audition), I became the "Little Sandwich Girl."

Well, I busted my butt, and sold so many that the kitchen had to start an assembly line to make more once we ran out, and all was going well...until someone stole my waiters notebook with all my big bills in it - $180 worth of cash - out of my apron pocket as I walked by. I spent the rest of the night selling like mad just trying to break even for the night. I came up $50 short even still. Everyone 'felt bad' for me, but I management's stance was 'well, that's why you have to be careful with your money.' So far now, in four weeks I've had to eat over $300 at this place, plus all the nights I came in and paid for bus or parking, only to get sent home an hour or two later, plus the nights I bussed those first two weeks and was never tipped out by anyone. I think, all in all, I may have broken even this month, but only barely.

Cinderella

I just was offered, and accepted, a position with Storybook Theater as an understudy for one of the Stepsisters in an original musical production of Cinderella. Pretty cool, huh? This show opens about a week and a half before Alice closes, and runs through the end of the school year. I'm guaranteed at least one day of multiple performances, but they said in the last show they actually used their understudies quite a bit. That gets me up to June something-eth with continuous theatrical employment since November.

Also this weekend is the Leavenworth Summer Theater audition.

Alice's Wonderland

Here's a cast photo of Holly and me in Alice's Wonderland this morning! We began rehearsals as the C-cast, but have rotated around so much now every body's worked with everybody else. I begin rehearsals this week to start playing "Everybody Else" as well - The White Rabbit, The Caterpillar, The Cheshire Cat, The Mad Hatter, and The Red Queen.

November Shoot

Just a few pictures of the crew from my shoot. We spent four days filming, which was absolutely great! I had so much fun, and worked so hard - often sewing on set, then going home to work until midnight or later finishing up the costumes for the next day's shoot.

The cast was amazing, our lead actress had such an emotional depth to draw from I was duly impressed. Our crew and directors were very professional, and worked very hard to make a really wonderful film, short, and under a deadline though it may be.

On the set, day one, with Roach, Natasha, Constance and Ben

With Ben and Eric final checking the extras.

Myself as Natasha's stand-in.

MLK- In His Own Words

Martin Luther King - In His Own Words Cast.

This is Me, Charles, and Andy, the touring team of three that went round to schools in the Puget sound during January, doing a 30 minute play about Martin Luther King's Life. It was a lot of fun, and as driver, I got to pick the music on the long car trips. Mostly, since it was very early, they slept. We always were surprised by the kids' questions at the end. Almost every time we got a kid ask "where was he shot?" followed by "no, where on his body?" when we answered with the locale. Then "what kind of bullet..." etc. We did get some good questions too, like, "will segregation ever come back again?" To which a teacher replied by asking the school, "I don't know -- will you ever let it come back again?"

The only part of the show I didn't like was my eyes giving out again, and having to wear my glasses. But then I found out that having an actress in front of the kids wearing glasses, made some kids feel better about having to wear them themselves. I grew reconciled after that. Well, almost.

Update

So, sorry for the long delays between posts. Many many things have been happening recently, most of which I either couldn't talk about, or didn't have time to.

One of them was work, which has been going badly for a long time, but of course blog-law says not to talk about it. Tomorrow is my last day, and I've just been gutting it out. These past couple have been sooooo hard -- I've started my new show, which is paid, last week I was nannying, also paid, started a new job - to cover this one, since I could see the handwriting on the wall for the current one, and starting production meetings for the movie I'm costuming this week. It has been insanely busy (following almost a solid month of inactivity, Teri, because of the pass closure, and all my money being tied up in moving), but getting less each week. Three weeks from now should be lovely.

I realized again today how much music can affect me. As I've spent the last few days forcing myself to not walk out - as I desperately want to, I've been listening to the "cool favorites" station at work. It's not a bad channel. In the evenings I can't stand it because the DELILAH show (gag!) is on, but during the day they play a lot of pleasant music. Somehow, when I think I can't last one more minute, the Cranberries song from You've Got Mail plays, or that Hawaiian "Over the Rainbow" (also in You've Got Mail), or something else fun, and for that three minutes life is ok again, and I'm not fuming over how much I loathe this job, and how much I have to do today that I'd rather be doing. But tomorrow is it.

I've had one week of Alice in Wonderland, and the shows have got well. The kids, as always in this genre, always give me a run for my money, and I never know what they'll say or do or laugh at. It's different every day. Thursday I had to do the show blind, as my eyes have completely wigged out again from using my contacts the first two shows. It's fun to prance around in a frilly blue dress and pinafore for a few hours a day, acting young and emphatic, and watching my fellow actress play the other six characters.

Life at the new job is so far slow, but doable. My manager and I need to have a talk though. She keeps putting me on the schedule when I'm not really needed just to "give me hours." I finally had to let her know yesterday that I have plenty of "just hours" elsewhere, what I need here is just a couple of nights or days good serving. The other three or four jobs (soon two or three) can take care of "hours" and I'd rather have the time right now. I'm going in tonight to waitress.

I'm costuming a film for the 168 project this week, which is very exciting, and I'm having a great time working out how to reproduce my designs, but since its for a competition, I can't discuss anything at all until the film is finished.

And now I'm off to nap. Last night there was great upheaval and crashing about in the middle of the night, which, as it turned out, was my roommate getting hauled off to the hospital by four EMTs. Very exciting stuff.