Whew! Made it through the week, and what a week it was. On the rehearsal schedule it’s called “Tech Week”, but most people refer to it as “Hell week” because it’s…well…difficult. Rehearsals run long and tempers run short when adding costumes, lighting and sound, scenery, and hair and makeup to. Yes, those are the things that really make a show come alive, but it’s an adjustment.
It started last Saturday, when, after having rehearsals at the outdoor stage all week, we had to come in on Saturday morning to record the singing onto the tracks, and then have a scene change rehearsal. Everyone learns what scenery they are responsible for, and when those things need to come and go.
Here’s a model of the set, and all these set pieces change and move and turn around to change from England to France, a ballroom to Percy’s office, and even a boat. The set, REALLY is amazing. But, to get everything changed around…well…that’s pretty amazing, too.
There are four pages of this kind of notes, telling us who is assigned to each piece of scenery and when to move it where. It’s quite amazing, actually, and we have our stage manager Julie to thank for that. But we had to rehearse the on and off, and when those things come, and it was getting very hot and sweaty. I think we stopped at 1:00. We had to come back at 6:00 for another rehearsal.
By Sunday, I was wiped out, and enjoyed sleeping in, and a pretty restful day. Well, restful if you could church, nursery, then a trek fireside. But no rehearsal.
Monday morning I had start my week of driving the Chinese carpool. I was supposed to have the girls ready to go by 7:30. We may not have always left by 7:30 every day. Had to pick up four more Chinese kids and take them to their school in Orem every day, so there was no sleeping in.
I kind of dragged through the days, taking a naps when I could. At about 4, I started curling my hair. Some days I drove to the theater with hot rollers in my hair. It’s still kind of a work in progress, and the hair changes every night.
It would start out curly like this
One of those days I convinced Ryan to drive the morning carpool for me so I could sleep in a bit, and by opening night I was at least not SNEEZING all over every one.
Kudos to Bryson, who made this video of the cast before opening night. I wish I didn’t look so GROUCHY, but considering I felt like crap, well, what else should I expect. I love seeing everyone ELSE in the video, and love the music.
Saturday was a LONG day with breakfast at the park for Highland Fling, a Parade (which I had to skip), a wonderful funeral for my friend Diana (hopefully I’ll write more about that later), then a bridal shower for our niece Camille that we aunts were hosting. I went straight from there to the theater for our second show. I didn’t do any singing on stage, because singing makes me cough, and if I start coughing, it’s not pretty. But that’s ok. They can do without my voice for a bit. Just typing that makes me ready for a nap.
So today is Sunday. It’s our last day with our Chinese girls, and we were going to do something fun, but I was seriously just so tired, so we decided to just go to church and spend the day at home, then invite the other host family and their girls, as well as my parents over for dinner tonight. I was coughing a bit much in church, so I came home after sacrament meeting, and brought the Chinese girls with me. I had a heavenly nap.
I’m looking forward to THIS week. Yes, we have performances on Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, but that means we get Tuesday and Wednesdays off! And we send the exchange students on their merry way tomorrow morning, so that will eliminate that added pressure (mostly on Ryan, since he’s been the one taking them places. Friday after we all went to their closing social, he took them to the mall AND to fix a cracked ipod screen. He’s awesome!)
S0, if you are local, I sure hope you’ll come and see our show. It really is GREAT. I’m a tiny part of the show, but I still love being part of the show. I may complain about how tiring it is, but it’s such a great experience.
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