A Perfect Storm

A science test, a drawing, and the first rehearsal on Monday. A major drawing and a rehearsal on Tuesday. A complete portfolio on Wednesday.

The read-thrus went swimmingly. The first (Monday) was a buzz of organized chaos as we met all together for the first time to take a look at what we are about to create. The second (Tuesday) was a more intimate, more detailed disscusion of the play involving the principle roles instead of all 28 cast members. What a relief to finally have the groundwork! I now know who my assistants are, who my cast is, and we are entering the point of execution as opposed to a year's worth of speculation.

After Monday's rehearsal, I spent seven hours bent over a light table creating an intricate drawing for my scene design class. I left the theatre at 9:15am to run errands for my next project, my portfolio. The portfolio elicited another all-night work call for Tuesday, allowing me only 5 nonconsecutive hours of sleep in the last 63, but I am extremely proud of both projects. They turned out to be high quality and very presentable which was of course the goal. The fortunate part of this situation is rapid approach of Spring Break and the fact that it is all truly behind me now. Here is what happened to me on Monday night:

(photo taken around 5:00am)

Happy Birthday!

Happy birthday, Julie! I hope no one was sick this year ;) Love you!

Photo Hunter: Thankful

What an impossible word! Here are a few of the things I am thankful for, family, friends, roommates, theatre, college, hard work, good times, open air, chameleon sky, purple lighting, the Atlantic, music, Microsoft Office, lumber mills, power tools, electricity, color, aesthetics, symbolism, beds, blankets, empty stages, full houses, quiet times, quiet tears, dances, and icing fights. Naturally, I have multiple pictures for most of these words so how do I narrow it down? For the purpose of this exercise, I will assign a term that means all these things: Life.

I give you in full color and vibrancy a symbol of friendship, a symbol of growth, and a hint of improvisation in sustaining the life for which I am thankful.

(whew! that took some circular thinking!)

Photo Hunter

A Scare

Yesterday morning I was awoken at 8:15 am (alarm set for 8:30) by a pounding on my bedroom door. My roommate came in saying, "I need your help. Jasper's table fell over, the cage fell open, and he's not in it." Well. There's one way to get me out of bed. We spent the next several minutes crawling on our knees, shining flashlights between the wall and major appliances, and opening every type of door in our house. No luck.

Our next door neighbor is in theatre with me, so I found her in the hallway and warned her not to panic if they found a black and white mouse in their apartment. She told me about the cat she just got and his tendency to beat things to death (although he didn't eat them). The whole day I worried about that little mouse.

I came home around midnight and instinctively looked at the cage that we had left open with food and water in case he returned. What happiness to find that the cage was closed! Jasper had been apparently been found. Christina shuffled out of bed and told me that she had found him in her bed. He was quite eager to return to a safe environment and all is well. I think it was a rather traumatic day for all three of us, so I am thankful that it only lasted a day. Jasper's cage is currently residing on solid ground.

Photo Hunter: Warm

There's not a whole lot that can warm your heart more than burning a physics project that induced a lot of pain. Cardboard was toasted and marshmellows were roasted as the flames and our spirits rose higher and brighter.

At the same time, my theatre mind immediately thought of warm vs. cool light. This is a picture from Antigone, a workshop scene that I did my first light design for. I used mostly white or amber light for the scenes and some crazy colors and shadows for transitions and dream sequences. This is a good example of warm light on skin.

Photo Hunter

This Thing Is Actually Happening

I woke up at 7am yesterday morning with a knot in my stomach (my alarm was set for 8). My heart starting fluttering and I had difficulty swallowing. It was Audition Day. Now, I am not an actress so I have never worried about any university audition, even the ones I had to perform for. The myriad of auditions that I have run from the outside were a cakewalk and realtively devoid of responsibility, but this was my first time to be on the inside as a Real Stage Manager. And while I knew the fear was unjustified, I still felt like I had missed something.

As expected, all my nervousness was ungrounded and auditions went very smoothly (we were even 20mins early at one point). It gave me the opportunity to see how extremely talented our department is and how difficult it would be to choose only 20 people from a group that is equally qualified. It was quite exciting to be in the thick of it and anticipation is all that is beating against my heart now.

Due to other show schedules, we are having a callback this afternoon for the people in the current show before continuing with auditions. This meant I was able to give an actual callback last night, leaving voicemails instead of emails. So there is a full day today and one tomorrow, then we'll have a cast list by the end of next week. UNBELIEVABLE. This thing is actually happening.

An Upgrade

Over a year ago, I went to a basketball game and I dropped my phone beneath the bleachers. This was the one in about forty times that my battery cover popped off and while I was able to retrieve my phone and battery, the cover was sadly MIA. Fortunately, I knew that there was a razor battery cover in the assistant stage manager desk in one of our theatres. I claimed this battery cover as my own and was actually quite pleased with its different color. However, a different color apparently indicates a different size and I had to resort to using spike tape to hold my phone together. The ghetto phone became such a part of my life that when the time came for an upgrade, I chose to keep my razor that was loaded with personality. Alas, in the last couple of weeks the razor stopped responding and the upgrade happened. I am enjoy my new phone very much, but I wanted to immortalize the phone that served me through many years and many misadventures, a phone with personality. (The green tape is part of the original tape job)

This is my new phone, which is clearly quite shiny.

Ironically, I published this post and then checked my email to find a message from Verizon that said, "Give your new phone some personality!" What do they know?