My soul was consumed up on stage today. So
much so that I came home and promptly went to sleep on the couch in the
basement. Being a child who stays up until the wee hours of the morning,
this scared the living shit out of me. And so, long about two am, I
plugged my camera in and tried to justify a late update. A later than
usual update. For reasonable people. If you scroll to the bottom, I
promise it will be worth the wait.
Our stage crew is falling apart like a small asteroid
being burnt away by the earth's atmosphere. They are unguided, confused
and their leader can't decide if he's homosexual or not. This is Monday,
three days before Thursday we're talking about, and the set is only forty
percent completed. The above picture is off their new "idea" to
built stuff faster: build everything out of foam. Good idea in theory,
but one doesn't lean on a foam wall, they go straight through it. And so
today our fearless director found someone else to lead the crew and put her in
charge, effective immediately. There was some tears, some laugher, but
we're still doing the goddamned foam idea.
The Dance At Gym scene looks fairly wonderful,
compared to other elements like the set and the pit. It's what happens
when you do the same thing over and over until the people onstage lose any hope
that they'll get over any time soon. I was originally cast in that scene,
but they ran out of ladies. In the beginning, I was so furious that I
took it as a personal insult to my acting and dancing ability. Now, after
watching grow and evolve for two months, I can honestly say it's more fun to
make snide remarks at the people dancing instead. "Oh my gawd.
Do you see her dress? She looks like a transvestite!"
I have still yet to figure out why the sky is sideways. And on a slightly
sour note, I can't understand why the pit is terrible. Our school decided
to blow the rest of the fund for everything on a professional pit, on people
who can actually play the parts in ninth position on their personal
violins. But the entire pit continues to fall under pitch and run at half
tempo. It sucks the energy right off the stage. How am I supposed
to get hyped about stabbing Puerto Ricans if your first chair horn player is
fucking up the melody line? This does not even address the problem that
the music is slow enough the audience is going to fall asleep regardless of
what crazy dance we're doing. And the pit conductor only directs in
two. Up down. Up down. Up down. "This is five over
eight, why aren't you following me?"
I resort to taking pictures with captions like these:
"This is your brain on reality."
Kind of bleak and ugly right?
"This is your brain on crack." Notice that although everything
is blurry, it's much more colorful and everyone is smiling. Makes reality
look pretty damn bitchin'.
The director informed us at the end of practice today that on Wednesday and
Thursday we're excused from all of our classes for a super emergency two-day
rehearsal. We cheered. I'd conjecture that there's a point in the
human psyche where we begin to rationalize suffering. Certain processes
get a degree of necessary evil and when one process can be used cancel out the
other, we seize the moment. That fact that this is my last musical at the
high school has not dawned on me yet. I keep repeating the mantra,
"three days" but I don't think I really believe it. Photography
has distanced me from the reality; it has made me believe that I can exist as a
casual observer. And although I'm missing the experience, the hilarious
captions always seem to be worth the sacrifice. Case in point:
Comments (4)
I liked the blurry one and the hat thief.
I'm not sure I like my brain on reality.
LOL @ your captions :)
Nice photos you have there.
@yayforhippies -
Why thank you!