It's been a long time now.

Hey blog,

I'm sorry I've not updated you in so long. I'll begin turning that around now.

Jake

So, I've been home for a week after an interesting trip to get here. I took a greyhound from Missoula to Spokane. But, it was two hours late, causing me to miss my flight. They couldn't get me on a plane until the next day and I had to stay in the hotel in Spokane. The airport in Spokane is the most remotely located building I've ever experienced. It's surrounded by nothing. There are two hotels, and only one was remotely close, so I had to spend the evening at the Ramada. So I had to spend way too much on it.

But, suffice to say, I've gotten home to Petersburg, and gotten to spend some good time with all of my old friends. So that's been nice.

Tomorrow, its off to Hanover to see some of those friends and support Casey as she begins workshopping on her play they're producing.

I hope anyone who reads this is doing well.

"My kids were very embarassed by me."

What an excellent little show these kids put on here at Randolph Air Force Base. I'm really proud of our last week. We had a great show to finish out our summer tour.

So, with the summer tour over, I'm looking at some real worrysome money issues over the next few days. Hopefully all will take care of itself in a timely fashion and we won't have to stress out too much.

Even though I'm so worried about that, I still can't find myself being unhappy. Its been nice reflecting on the last 10 weeks, what a great job I have, and what an excellent set of experiences this summer has brought. I had the thought today, that I wasn't dreading starting work again...even though I haven't started my vacation yet. I'm thankful for that.

This week's question during our call-in was "What is your favorite moment of the summer?" Unfortunately, Casey and I's responses were both pretty goofy, rather than anything genuine and sympathetic, and sweet, touching, etc. Really, our season has been somewhat devoid of those moments. There hasn't been that special case where a girl came off stage crying with excitement or anything like that. Great kids, no really special stories.

Then this week, the Gnomes got such a resounding applause when they left the stage they could hardly contain their excitement. Of course, I had to promptly shush them, but they were jumping, clapping, and celebrating with each other the instance they got off stage. It was great to see.

Randolph Air Force Base has featured some of the nicest, most cordial people we've worked with all summer. On both Tuesday and Wednesday we were invited over to some parents houses for some great dinners. Both made a spicy chicken entree...different ones, and both pretty good. The second one especially...I should've gotten the recipe. Damn was it good.

Another mother bought us Subway for Lunch on Tuesday, and brought us each those Oscar Meyer Deli Creations (which are AWESOME) on Wednesday. Casey and I normally don't eat lunch, we drink Slim Fast in the mornings and skip lunch in the laziest attempt at weight loss ever known to man.

There was one particular mother that must be blogged. On Monday, we cast her Son (as Rumpelstiltskin) and her youngest daughter as a bee. Her middle daughter didn't make it. She tried some very stringent negotiation with us after the rehearsals. I held strong against her. Before she asked "Well, if anyone drops out, will you put her on a list or something?" Having had no one drop out at all this summer, and knowing that this would put the button on her tactics, I replied, "Yes, if anyone drops out, I'll absolutely call her first." Before they left, they spent a long time in the corner, the 4 of them in the family. I'm pretty sure she tried to convince her son to drop his role of Rumpelstiltskin so the middle daughter could be in the show...(She told us the middle daughter wanted to be there the most, and he the least.) They didn't come back and talk to us, but Rump was late to the rehearsal claiming "there was some stuff...but, I got it taken care of."

Well, eventually her daughter was cast, because we had a few drop outs. Then, on show day, Mother dearest, while intruding in our dressing room made her daughter switch dresses with another girl because hers was too big. They're all too big. We told her that, she switched them anyway. The other girl ended up deciding to play a boy because the dress was so big. (It was more sutied to her to be a boy anyway.)

Well, after all this...after the show was over, this mother came up to us and said. "I know I'm difficult, thank you for putting up with me, my kids were all very embarrassed. They told me I should apologize." We accepted.

Speaking of how nice this residency was...our contact got us free tickets to Schiltterbahn Water Resort...one of the biggest water parks in the country to go to on our day off this week. We went today and really had alot of fun, even though thrill rides/slides aren't Casey's thing..I did a few things by myself while Casey lounged in the rivers, hot tobs, wave pools and the like. Then, the sky opened it up and it began to rain. So not only did we spend our day off surrounded by even more children, it got rained out. We waited for about 2 hours as everyone got on shuttles and such to get to their cars...and just as we got to the other side of the park (its seperated by several blocks, spread out over 65 acres) the clouds cleared up and the rains stopped. Even though the ride I really wanted to go on was back where we just were, we took advantage and I rode some of the tube rides I'd missed earlier.

People make me really upset sometimes. While we waited in line for the bus, there were two people who attempted to cut in line behind us, in front of way over 150 people. Another women kept rudely yelling at the people working. Also, another man was complaining about how they weren't filling up all the seats...he even had the audacity to yell at the workers once he was boarding the bus about it. There well over 1,000 people all waiting for the busses out in the rain, and these select few felt they were special enough to insist their problems on the staff. Who do they think they are? I enjoyed putting sunblock on in the rainstorm, trying to give the disappointed kids and parents around me a laugh. After all, they'd paid for their day.

The process of check-in in Missoula and getting home now begins...

Viva Sunita

This is an Indian short film, starring my friend, Chandan.



Its been selected for the Manhattan Film Festival which is the first step for an international short film towards being considered for an Oscar nomination.

"I need some serious touchin' up!"

What a show day.

When we finally got into our performance space, for the first time the whole week, we're shown our dressing rooms. They're antique, and we can only allow 10 people in them at a time.

This made changing into our costumes quite a drag. It took a very long time. So long in fact, that our dress rehearsal...our first on this stage mind-you was cut short. Not to mention the fact that because they're a union house, they had to open the house a half-hour earlier than we're used to. They didn't tell us that until it was time to open the house.

Well, if anyone can handle it, these kids can....Well, maybe. Our afternoon show at the downtown Paramount Theatre in Austin was our worst show of the season. They needed a rehearsal, so they took it. They took their chance to make mistakes, miss cues, and drop lines...it was just unfortunate that their happened to be an audience there. There were so many little things, the biggest of which being that one character didn't come out at all during a three person scene between he, myself, and one of our leading ladies. I did my best to cover for him, but his absence really confused both the girl and myself, and we stumbled over the scene, ruining the pace of the show to such an extent that it never really picked back up. (They audience stopped clapping after songs after that scene.)

This was the most talented group of kids we worked with yet, and they handled the issues well. It was really too bad that they didn't get the chance to rehearse in the space until the day of the performance. If they were rehearsing in the space all week...my goodness, I can't even imagine how incredible the performance would've been. I described the situation like this: In some celestial universe controlling room, my boss tapped on the shoulder of God, who sits at my boss's right hand mind you and proclaimed, Jake and Casey are mere rookies on their first tours, they don't deserve the best show in our company's history. We must throw them a wrench. If it weren't for that wrench, what a show we could've had.

And the evening performance was almost there. It went smashingly. As our lead girl put it "well, that one was really like a rehearsal." Apparently the kids needed to get it out of their system. The kids were incredible in the evening for, thankfully, a much larger audience. What lines they missed earlier were back, where we stumbled previously, we now soared. I was very proud of them, and they were very excited to have put on a great performance...but there is one priceless story from the second performance that must be heard.

So, the busy bees, our youngest group, wear these large pillowly "bee bodies" complete with stingers which are worn in the back. Well, after about a verse and a half into their song, the audience just slowly starts giggling, louder and louder, and I'm unsure what's going on as I'm singing. I turn around and look at the bee next to me, and I notice one of her arms is tucked into her body and she's working on tucking the other. As the giggles build, my eyebrows clearly question her. Seeing this, she holds up the front of her bee body...her stinger hanging between her legs. Then, she tugs on the stinger, holding it up for me to see...which the audience of course roars at. I just turned out, my face slightly more cherry tinted and laugh my way through the rest of the song before sending them off. I'm glad our summer tour didn't end without a blatant phallic reference from a 6 year old.

At this point, knowing I have a few other things to talk about, I'll warn you that this is a longer post than usual. Maybe that can make-up for my lack of posts the last couple of weeks.

It was a terrific experience working with the Union technical crew at the Paramount. They were so efficient, polite, and friendly with us as they helped us set up and tear down. Tearing down was especially funny. I explained to them, as I always do the helpers that we don't pack our steel base plates into our boxes before we put the boxes in the truck because they're too heavy to carry. They scoffed at that idea, and explained, "See, when that happens to us, we have two people carry it." The enjoyed joking about how heavy the remaining items were for the rest of the load-out. It was actually a lot of fun. I always think Techies are a lot more fun than most of the artistic types.

Last night, we rushed over to Coldtowne, an improv theatre in Austin. We got to see a couple of their teams, one of them a group of students, the other one of their house teams, and the artistic director of Coldtowne's favorite improv group. I could see why. They were an excellent team. What stood out to me first was their patience: their form was very loose, they had one main scene that their other scene ideas drew from. They started as a group of four roadies working for the band "skeetercat" and for, what was probably 20 minutes or so stayed in that scene before jumping into anything else...simply because the scne was producing some great watchable moments as it was, and nothing had jumped out to go to a different scene. Never once did it feel slow, old, or like they were rushing to find something. The show kept going that way, they'd jump to a scene based on the main framing scene and when they were doesn't, they'd just go back to the main scene. Plus, they were so incredibly smart, remembering and incorporating comments made form each scene, peppering them throughout the evening. They even managed to work a drunken heckler's additions in the show.

What was even more inspiring to me, was the theater itself. It was a very small building...the lobby area of which was being built to be a bar, it was a large area, with a nice bar in the corner. The theatre's fairly new, and their application to vend alcohol was hanging in the window. The charge for tickets was "$7-$10" $7 gets you in, but if you have it and wanted to give more, we'd be happy to take $10. I'm sure they wouldn't object to a bigger donation. They also said, its BYOB, so feel free to pick up something at the gas station next door and bring it over. The stage was made out of four 4x8 platforms, their seats were folding chairs and couches. They had a projector, a screen, and a desktop computer that served as both the projection system and the sound system. They lit the stage with 5 lights, and lit the house with 3 others.

So basically, they built an improv theatre for under 1,000 dollars. Under 500 if they didn't have to buy those lights. I can't wait to do that myself somewhere. It was great.

I probably had more to say in this post, but i don't remember. I started writing it on Saturday, and then kept closing the browser. Good thing blogger keeps things. Lucky for you.

"Do you know what weight you have in each costume?"

Oh, today. What a funny day. We had a great rehearsal, working in things like scene changes...introducing the busy bees to everyone else, the magic wall, etc.

Then we took a little break in the afternoon and answered some questions about costumes, show day, etc. and so forth. It was a good break, longer than normal, but these kids are so awesome...it really didn't matter in the least.

We did an over-the-top rehearsal after the break, which produced some hillarious moments, the most hillarious of which was when "Cameron 10" - whom we call Cameron 10 because Gnome 9 is also named Cameron. It was his suggestion. He's 6. His line is "yup." Well, he said "yup" and I told him to do it real big over the top...he exclaims "Yup-a-daba-do!" I can't describe how funny it was.

So, Casey's been getting really into the X-Men lately. She always liked them, but she got sucked into the world of their comic books at long last. Comics can be a crazy world, producing hell-bent obsession, and fanatical collections. It can also be alot of fun. I've gotten alot more into the "No, now you need these issues to complete this story." It's like a scavenger hunt. It's fun. So I'm sort of getting into it as well. Eek. The fact that we found an awesome comic book store with some really nice folks working there..The owner of which, has not seen "Dark Knight" yet. He must be the only one. I overheard him tell someone, "I have so much comic book stuff in my life that when I go to the cinema (no lie, he said cinema) I just prefer to see something else." Sort of an unusal sentiment from a comic nerd.

I have officially put Texas on my grad school list. Austin is one of my favorite cities in America, and possibly number 2 right behind Chicago. They've got an incredible independent theatre scene, its just the sort of place that works well for the type of theatre I want to do. Almost every coffee house has a theatre upstairs or down, and there are ALOT of coffee houses. There's improv, too. Plus, for a long time I've wanted to go to a grad school with a great D1 football program. And it's freakin' Texas! Hook 'em.

More later on me loving teaching more and more.

Bats!

This week in Austin is just going so well. I can't tell you how exciting it is. I'm getting very anxious to go home, and see some old friends for a while. Should be alot of fun.

Not a whole lot of grand stories coming form this week, other than just an absolutely incredible group of kids. This week is going so easy. There is one little complication in the fact that we can't set our set up until Saturday morning, because there's a crew working on the roof of the paramount theatre...where we're performing.

In the mean time, we're rehearsing in the State theatre, a theatre right next door. This theatre is INCREDIBLE. Though it doesn't look it, its the type of theatre I dream of having as my own artistic vehicle some day. It has a clasroom set up upstairs, and a great stage. The decor is so contemporary...the only thing I'd add is a studio theatre set up, which could easily be installed somewhere. This place is so incredibly cool. I feel awesome working in it.

Our contact doesn't trust us. But i think he's one of those people who thinks he's smarter than everyone he meets. He's not putting a damper on this week.

It wasn't the kids that bothered me this week, it was just all the scenarios.

Well, I was just thinking a couple weeks ago how Casey and I had gotten lucky without our share of problems: cushy hotel rooms every week, without a single home stay, the whole summer - good kids, not a single small cast...only one cast all even....I was thinking about how unfair it was that we were getting all these great residencies. After reading about other people's adventures, like Sam and Emma's in Oklahoma.

Well, things still aren't mice in my room bad. They probably won't be...but damn if things haven't been aggravating the last week/today.

So, our military base's contact was new to being a contact, and new to the base...the lady who was supposed to be our contact, and had been a contact before got promoted shortly before our arrival.

We did 11 workshops. One day we did 3 of them in 2 hours. They last 45 minutes each. Figure that out. On show day, the kids had to leave for their snack break. Those snack breaks on show day last 15 minutes. They took an hour. Then they opened the house without checking with us first and audience was flooding in as we were putting the kids make-up on on stage. Plus, they lost our mail. But the show went well, and what people were there (perhaps I'll get a chance to talk about the weird relationships military base kids have with their parents later)seemed very proud of what they saw.

But, no worries. Next week was Austin, TX. Downtown at the Paramount theatre. A huge town, with lots to do, lots to see...the Radisson hotel. The Radisson! Awesome. I can't wait.

Then we get here. They have our reservation. They don't have a credit card for it. I call our contact. He has nothing to do with our reservation...its another lady. I have her number. Oh wait. Its a fax machine. Next number. Work number. I could've guessed. I'll call our contact back..he's a cool guy. Whoops. Phone dies. Battery rained after a day of GPS usage. As I grow angrier and angrier I pull out my debit card, and lay it on the counter. "Charge 1 room to my card tonight, we'll get it straightened out tomorrow."

The bellhop gets our luggage as I park the truck and go up the elevator thinking about how much I love that $190 bucks of mine will be locked up until Thursday...even after they transfer the room charges to the theater's account. I think about how wonderful a week it is for such a thing to happen, with my having to buy my plane tickets home, and hotel for check-in this week.

But at least I'm in a REALLY nice hotel. A bellhop with my luggage, a fish-tank littered lobby with access to TGI Friday's and Starbucks at either side. "The room is to your left." I think the cielings are awfully low. I open the room...hmm, sort of small. The smallest room we've been in so far in fact. Well at least we read that the bed's were sleep number beds...those'll be comfortable. Wait, no controls for the fancy beds. Call the desk. "We do have some rooms that don't have sleep number beds, and your room is one of those." Oh well...I like my mattresses on the firmer side anyway. Now, I'll just get on the internet for a while and....$9.95 a day for in-room internet access? I have to make sure of this. Let's look in the book...no free breakfast, free wifi if I want to sit in the lobby. I guess the fish may need to check their e-mail.

Pfft. Forgive my tenses. And, honestly? Anything that happened here is pretty small fish. Who am I to be dissapointed? What sort of luxury do I expect? Its really not all that bad. What makes me the most upset is the fact that there was a reservation made...but no credit card with the reservation. Originally I thought "The lady that made this reservation was either doing something really stupid, or something really shady." Later as I cooled down slowly, I thought well, hotels actually make a lot of mistakes. I hope when I pressure to also pay for the Internet access in our room, she'll oblige..considering the complications this whole thing has caused.

And as far as this hotel goes...apparently you're paying for the glass elevator and the fish in the lobby...this room is the smallest we've had so far, with the fewest amenities...cheap coffee...no fridge...no extras in the bathroom. Keep in mind, I don't really require or care about all of these sorts of things...but this is also the most expensive hotel we've stayed at so far. So if you travel alot. Just remember that.