searching for an old familiar face

Day 24: No rehearsals today. Back to the daily grind tomorrow, full with OTIS tech, OTIS run, and Fiddler run. I just love it, so great.

The count as it stands today--
Time spent in Ohio: three weeks, three days.
Our season opens: FRIDAY, four days.
Back to North Carolina: nine weeks, minus one day-ish.
Back to Wingate: ten weeks, minus one day.

We had our first tech rehearsal yesterday, for Fiddler, and I think it went very well. I've been in house on book, because as child wrangler, I'll just wait with them in their designated waiting room, until they're on stage. The children are wonderful, some are very soft spoken others, very outspoken. Haha. They're a fun bunch though, so I'm excited for that.

I'm really looking forward to shows starting, but also, the start of Ruddigore, which is my lead SM show. Our first rehearsal for that isn't till July 7th. Between now and then, we'll do 20 performances of our first four shows: 7 Fiddler, 6 Sing, 3 Venice, 3 Pinafore, and 1, Modiste will open, so five shows.

This past weekend was Wooster's Relay for Life which was super fun! I was off for the sitzprobe, so I went to the opening ceremonies and walked from 7:00 until 9:15 or so, when we stopped for the Luminaria presentation with the slideshow for Brian Woods of OLO, husband of our very own Jessie Wright Martin. She gave the event organizers lots of pictures of him and they showed them over a recording of him singing Schubert's Ave Maria (I think Schubert.....). It was a beautiful presentation. Beautiful voice. Just awesome. When all that ended we continued walking for a while, about half the group left just before or around midnight. I stayed till about 12:30, because I'd really gotten into the walking groove. :) It was a fun night all in all.

Saturday night was preview night which was wonderful. The long time patrons of OLO get to come out and see a showcase with numbers from each of the shows and then they get to meet and greet the cast. I didn't have to work the event so I got to rest in the afternoon (a good thing too, to catch up from Relay) and then see the show that night. We had a 'Wine and Cheese' party at Stevenson after the show which was a lot of fun. It was a good chance for all the cast and crew to just mix and mingle and it was a beautiful night, so lots of us were outside in the quad. Our choreo-master, Carol, came by with her dog which was a big hit with those who are missing pets at home for the summer.

And today is the company day off, no rehearsals for anyone, but all our tech staff and crew are working hard. Fiddler's set involves three rakes, that give the impression of a roof and take up a good chunk of stage. Of Thee I Sing also has platforms upstage, but they're rounded, and more presidental. So, completely different. :) Those have to be switched out for tech tomorrow, and will have to be switched again on dinner break for our last Fiddler run through before dress rehearsals. As well as everyday for the rest of this week as we're back and forth with these two shows through Saturday. I'm finding this whole system quite interesting, because you have to put everything away to set for a different show... It's very different from what I'm used to, but I like it so far.

I'll try to post again soon, in the next couple weeks. Other than tomorrow, I think....*hope* we have most mornings off this week, and Jessie is doing some Alexander sessions that should be neat. Constructive rest, here I come. :)

Until next time--