Photo Hunter: Low

My niece at Christmas three years ago.  (Note: puffins = pumpkin muffins)

'Putting the puffins out of my reach?  That's just low!'

Photo Hunter

Help a Friend Help a Friend!

Hello!  I have two friends right now (Joey Melcher and Victoria Eisele) that are in a contest to win a walk-on role in a TV show.  The first part of the contest is pure popularity - get enough votes to get into the top 10 girls or top 10 boys out of nearly 2000!  The second part will be judged by the company on the appropriateness of their picture.  I don't know anyone more deserving than these two.  Joey just graduated last year and is struggling to find work as an actor and having this on his resume, even as a walk-on will certainly help!

It doesn't take long, so please pop on over and give my friends five-stars each!

http://madmencastingcall.amctv.com/photos/view/698

http://madmencastingcall.amctv.com/photos/view/611

You cannot vote more than once in a day, but you are allowed to vote every day until August 12, so if you remember you can give them a boost again!  Tell your friends; any help is appreciated.  Thanks!!

'That Was Wild!'

Do you ever have those days when you're shopping where you want to find the most outrageous things and try them on? I picked up the bug yesterday while I was in Target with my sister-in-law and ended up spending more time embarassing her than helping her. However, I think you will agree that the fabulous pictures I obtained was worth it. And as Shery declared, "That was wild!" I thought this was a fair assessment since most of the items were animal themed.

The hat that started it all. Adorable!

How can you resist when you're looking into those eyes?

Best. Sweater. Ever.

Isn't this the most fabulous purse? From the sleek length, classy coloring, and subtly decorated clasp it is certainly a keeper!

In this picture, the camera tried to protect us from the true color of the lining. Instead of a complimentary blue, it was a perfect purple -- quite an atrocious match. :/

Photo Hunter: Utensils

Utensil:
1 : an implement, instrument, or vessel used in a household and especially a kitchen
2 : a useful tool or implement
(courtesy of merriamwebster.com)

What luck!  I have a picture of a single object that fits both definitions of utensil, from one of my scenic projects last semester.

Also, need a writing utensil?  Another result of a scenic project...

Photo Hunter

Zilker and the Music Man

Boy oh boy, has it been an experience working on this show!  I really enjoy it, but it's very foreign to me.

1) I'm a costumer.  I avoid the costume shop like a plague at school.  It is the least interesting, most frustrating part of a production for me.  The great thing about this show is that I'm working under a guy that graduated from my school two years ago, so he's someone I know and since we share the same background it's easy to ask him questions about how costumers and stage managers should interact.  This will be very useful to me in the future; however, Carl did have to teach me how to sit still and not try to fix everything backstage.

2) It's a long run.  Once a year we'll have a show (the musical) that runs for two weekends, but all our other shows are Tues-Sun then it's over.  This is every weekend (Thurs-Sun) for six weeks.  It's great because it gives me something to do every weekend until I go back to school and it's closer to what it will be like in the real world (hooray!).

3) It's outdoor theatre.  It's summer in Texas and we're putting on a show without a roof and therefore without air conditioning (except in the dressing rooms).  I've adapted very well to the heat and absolutely love being in the open air.  They even built a porch swing that is only used in the first scene of the show which Carl and I have claimed as our own.  Nothing better than sitting on a porch swing under the stars listening to a barbershop quartet sing 'Lider Rose.'   

The cast is great - fun, friendly, helpful, and good natured - and several others in the production staff are fantastic to be around.  There are the few bad apples that we do our best not to let under our skin, but it's a nearly flawless company so far as personalities go.

Whew!  I've written a lot, but here's what I was really planning to talk about: We had a GREAT show tonight.  Last weekend was extremely rough and the beginning of this week was slow to kick off (there was also a lot of sickness involved).  Tonight, everyone seemed to relax and enjoy themselves again.

Right before intermission, during the song 'Well's Fargo', they bring on a Well's Fargo wagon "pulled" by a wooden horse (a flat one, not like the Trojan one).  One of the actors, Leslie, is the driver of the wagon who unloads the instruments and he always interacts with the horse on his way to and from the wagon.  Problem is, he's short and the horse is very tall.  So tonight, Leslie misjudged and walked under the horse's head and his hat got knocked off.  At the same time, he managed to slip and fall in a dancerly way.  Those of us backstage were highly amused, but Leslie being a fabulous actor and perpetually in good spirits, blamed it on the very unmoving horse.

I thanked him for making my day, but then I was met with a strong challenger to that position.  After Marion and Harold meet at the footbridge and she tells him that she's known all along that he's a con man and doesn't care, Harold stays on the footbridge and she enters downstage and they trade off singing lines of a couple songs and are both very much in love.  Marion was leaning against the wall of the stage and got her hair (wig) caught on the bracket for a flagpole.  She played it off as well as she could, spending a lot of time with her hand on her neck and tugging at it while Harold was singing and the audience was supposed to be watching him.  However, it was stuck very firmly, so the ASM on my side ran to her side of the stage and stuck her arm around to help untangle the hairpiece.  Marion didn't move away from the wall, so those of us watching were convinced that it hadn't worked and were waiting for her to walk away with a couple of curls hanging on the bracket.  The song ended and she left the stage, the wig intact.

So it was a fabulous night and none of this would be possible without the joyous uncertainty of live theatre :)

Photo Hunters: Rock(s)

I haven't done this in a while, but I figure better late than never.

One of my favorite things in my childhood was walking on the rocks along the river at Sand Point Park in Florida. These are from Hong Kong (Stanley Market), but it was still exhilarating to watch the water break over and to walk among these rock(s).

Photo Hunter

Irony Never Fails

Here's the first irony which is closer to a catch-22 really. When I have time to blog that usually means that nothing is happening. Literally. Nothing. However, whenever something is happening, particularly if they're exciting somethings, I do not have the time to pop online for a quick and quirky anecdote.

All this to segue into a complaint that I have had virtually nothing to do this summer. Between cooking regularly (and washing a lot of dishes), reading several books, seeing friends, watering the lawn, watching way too much TV, and checking my email entirely too often, I still have many open hours for computer games, sleeping late, going out of town, and redying my hair blue. Beyond that, I have time to stare at the wall, wish I had something to do, and still have very little information worth mentioning to an outside party.

I went to a couple of rehearsals for Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well with my Baylor friend, Victoria, who is playing the lead. I was hoping to help, but the play is part of a festival so the theatre is providing most of the technical support. I did however enjoy meeting and listening to the director, who is very knowledgable and friendly. He was in Miss Congeniality :) Victoria and I watched it one day and were delighted to recognize him for his five minute appearance!

In pursuing this, I was afraid that I had missed the opportunity to volunteer for a production of The Music Man. Randomly, a Baylor guy, Carl, who graduated two years ago contacted me about volunteering as a dresser for the show. I hate anything costume related, but was desperate enough to agree. Rehearsals and the first weekend of performance was last week and the show runs every weekend until August 15; a week before I need to be in Waco. After being there a week, I am glad I ended up on the costume crew since the crews I would have volunteered for seem sketchy. Carl is a professional, so I'm learning a lot about costume crew that I never knew and need to know. I also enjoy the cast--they take a lot in stride. It's outdoor theatre, which is a new experience, but I like being outside and (fortunately) I like the show.

The irony continues in this: the day after I started working for the show that would tie up most of my nights for the rest of the summer I got a call from Express offering me a job. Express was the first store to interview me and even called me back to say they were having trouble getting in touch with one of my references which was the only hang-up. Then I went for almost a month without hearing from them. Apparently, the manager had moved my application into the orientation folder early since she had been planning to hire me, then couldn't find it when she wanted to call me and had no way of contacting me. She finally found it and still wanted to hire me. It's a little annoying that it took so long for the job to come through, but I suspect that will make her more sympathetic to my show schedule. If she had hired me earlier, I don't think I would have been able to do both.

So, I am making the shift from nothing to full days again and as usual it all comes at the same time in ways I didn't expect. It couldn't have come too soon!

And just for the sake of this post, I'll share one more irony. As I was thinking about what to put in this post (early!) this morning, I was opening the door to lug sprinkler hoses around the sticky grass when the breakfast I had been waiting on popped out of the toaster. Go figure, right?