The Maine Adventure!

It's been a great week!

Pestle previewed to a very nice crowd on Thursday and opened to a nice crowd on Friday. The crowd on Saturday night was quite, but I think appreciative.

Saturday we woke up for 9 am changeover training after being up until three the night before celebrating Pestle's opening.

Beka, me, and Beth at the Opening Night photo booth

 Audio changeover is nothing, so I helped Beka with props stuff and then went home and dozed some. Saturday was the day of all naps.

Sunday we started tech for Shrew, which meant I was sitting and watching until the night came. Then I actually got to run sound because we lose Wednesday night as there's a Pestle show. I'm actually really enjoying running shows because it means I get to read in the booth. I'm flying through books and absolutely loving it.

Josh and Ambien as Petruchio and Katherina

Today was a glorious day off. Beka, Beth, Amadi, and I went to Brunswick (which is near where Beka grew up) and ate glorious drive in hangover food and then delicious gelato. We went into Cool As A Moose which was awesome and brought back a lot of memories of the one in Bar Harbor that my family used to go to when I was younger.

Beth, Amadi, Beka, and I

We also went to Target to meet Beka's mom to get laundry (yeah...her mom does her laundry for her...must be nice) and pick up a few things. Then we stopped by CVS so I could pick up a prescription and some nail polish (more on that soon!)

Then we headed home and had a nail polish painting party while watching Shakespeare in Love. Now we're watching History of the World Part One and hanging out. Tomorrow we go right back into Shrew tech. Such is the life of a production intern.

Sorry this is a little later than normal. I've been super busy lately!

Before I begin, I'd like to recognize the tragedy that happened on Saturday. Cirque du Soleil performer Sarah Guillot-Guyard died after falling 50 feet during a performance in Las Vegas. As a member of the performing arts society, my heart goes out to her and her family, both blood relations and performing. You can have all the safety features in the world in place and accidents still happen.

Now on to happier things.

Black Fly went well. And by went well I mean everyone enjoyed it thoroughly.

It was for me, however, one of the most stressful sound situations I've ever been in. The computer was acting really glitchy, and at intermission we figured out why. The computer had used the wrong patch when I set up the Black Fly SFX file, and obviously it wasn't having it. We fixed the patch, but that meant that all my levels were wrong. The short story is that Beka and I ended up mixing the Disney princess medley over headset, since it's virtually impossible to hear from the booth. Not an experience I'd like to repeat, though the princesses were lovely.

Alex as Jasmine, Beth as Pocahontas, Amadi as Tiana, and Hannah as Cinderella

Then we moved right on, and now we're in tech for Knight of the Burning Pestle. It's going very well. I haven't been doing very much in the booth - mostly reading and playing Candy Crush Saga - but the show is looking very nice.

Aislinn and Alex as Lucy and Jasper

Tomorrow we have our preview and then we open on Friday. It gets fun after that. A month of tech, y'all!

Monday we had another day at the lake filled with swimming, jet skiing, kayaking, and delicious food. Beth, Amadi, Beka, AD, and I went out to Margaritas for dinner. It's been a good couple of days. I wish I could write more, but I must go back to Pestle tech! And it just started raining buckets!

Do you guys have any fun plans for the Fourth of July?

We're preparing to start our month of tech! It's exciting to be starting all the other shows. I've now seen stumble throughs of Our Town and The Year of Magical Thinking which are both going to be great. I have a lot more appreciation for Our Town then when I was in the production in 10th grade.

There I am, in the white

The Year of Magical Thinking is based on a book by Joan Didion and the play combines the stories of the book by the same name and Blue Nights, her next book. The play deal with Didion's husband's sudden death of a heart attack in 2003 and the subsequent death of her only daughter 20 months later in 2005. It's a one woman show, and I was really touched, even in the stumble through.

I had some problems with the play, but I think I tend to be easily swayed by true stories of love and loss. Even though Janis (our actress) was beating herself up, I was moved by her performance.

Rew and I spent Tuesday recording songs that will be used in Knight of the Burning Pestle to help the actors learn their parts and then slogging through our recordings to find the best take. It took the better part of the afternoon, but it was nice to feel like I was working toward a palpable goal. Rew's also given me the task of researching music of the time period for The Taming of the Shrew because he's feeling a bit behind.

On Thursday I spent most of my time editing together a Disney princess medley for Black Fly Follies, and found out that my editing skills aren't nearly as bad as I thought they were. Rew gave me a few pointers, but I was basically on track, and that was an awesome feeling.

Our tech for Black Fly was...not fun. People aren't taking it seriously, and it was a really frustrating night. Hopefully the performance will be better. Stay tuned!