It’s all over!

We are officially done and I’m back in VA. But before I get ahead of myself, I will write about everything that happened the last week.

So, on Monday which was our last day off, I was able to go to the mall and then go work out at the YMCA. I also went swimming at the Y and then I just relaxed the rest of the day. Our last week was Secr

et Garden, Mulan, White Christmas, White Christmas, Secret Garden, Mulan, White Christmas, and Secret Garden! Nothing too exciting happened at our first Secret Garden. The elevator was broken though so at changeover they had to carry all the Mulan stuff downstairs and a lot of the Secret Garden stuff had to stay downstairs because it was too big to be carried up. They got it fixed before White Christmas thank goodness because that would have been a pain! At Mulan the first big thing was that our Shan-Yu was missing half his mustache. He came backstage to me just seconds before he was going on and told me he couldn’t find the other half of his mustache so he was wearing the half he had as a beard and then he went on stage. It was really difficult to hold in the laughter. Later in that same show, I had to actually wipe the sweat off his upper lip with my sleeve so we could apply his Fa-Zu mustache. Later that is how he introduced me to his fiance. “This is Brannon, she applies my mustaches.” Nothing too exciting happened at White Christmas that night besides me going on a wild goose chase for my secret santa gift. My final gift was a tool belt, a wrench, duct tape, a flash light, measuring tape, and a lava lamp. I also was able to figure out who had me. My stage manager had me, which was ironic because I had her. I had also made this ridiculous scavenger hunt for her where the clues led her to different people and then those people had tasks for her to do before they would give her the next clue. She had to do things like say the pledge of allegiance while doing jumping jacks or serenade someone with a love song. I thought it was pretty genius! She had no idea it was me until that night at the reveal. Anyways, on thing I discovered doing White Christmas two nights is that I am too easy to ninja while sitting on the train. People will crawl behind the train and then jump through the window to ninja me. It was mostly the two Andrews in the cast.

Anyways, I was really glad when Friday finally got here because that was the day that my two friends from school were coming and my parents were coming. I was so ready for them to see the shows! Erin and Mason got there Friday morning. Mason forgot to bring nice

clothes to usher in so I took him over to the costume shop so my roommate could get him clothes to wear. He looked very spiffy in his white tuxedo! :) His clothes were leftover from White Christmas because he was wearing pants from Blue Skies and a vest from I Love a Piano. After we finished there, my parents had arrived so we met up with them in the parking lot to say hi and for them to give me stuff that needed to go in my refrigerator. After we took the stuff back to my apartment, Erin, Mason, and I went to explore downtown Valdosta. It was hot, but we still enjoyed ourselves. The show was Secret Garden that night which I was very happy about because in my opinion, that was our best show! During the show, I scared the guy that played Archie because I was sitting on the floor and I was wearing all black of course and he didn’t see me sitting there. So I said “ninja” very nonchalantly. :) It was fun for me because he was the one who always ninjas me on the train. After the show and the changeover, Erin, Mason, and I went to the store to get stuff for dinner and then we took a little side trip to the top of the parking garage because there are 5,000 stories on that garage and I wanted to see how far you can see. Then we made an amazing dinner of spaghetti and green beans and garlic bread. It was very classy because the only cheese I had for the spaghetti was string cheese so we just strung the cheese and laid it over the spaghetti! It actually looked very pretty! We stayed up talking for a while, but we finally went to sleep. The next morning we made breakfast and then Erin and Mason had to head back to VA. It was good to see them but there was no point in them staying longer because I had to work two shows on Saturday.

It was the beginning of the end! Saturday was our last Mulan and our last White Christmas! Mulan went great except for a few things breaking here and there. The cricket cage broke, a branch on the tree broke, and I think a few of the fans broke, and I don’t even know what else broke. It was all okay though because it was our last show. Oh, and we had found the other half of Shan-Yu’s musta

che. It had gotten stuck to one of the other actor’s mic pack. I knew it had to just be stuck to someone somewhere. The banners fell perfectly at our last show and the pyro looked amazing! We couldn’t have asked for a better last show! I even got to play with the pyro before the show because the propsmaster had promised me I could do the pyro if we had leftover at the end of the summer! It was cool! :) Well, actually it was hot, but you understand. After the show, we had our first strike. There wasn’t a whole lot to strike after Mulan. But it was kind of satisfying to strike things. Everyone had sooo much energy for White Christmas that night. I was overwhelmed because the energy was so high. I didn’t know what to make of it. I think everyone was just so excited to be doing White Christmas for the last time because we had done it soooo many times. We all liked the show, but we were glad to be done with it. We had a few mic problems during the show, but I don’t think the audience noticed too much. I had told Andrew before the show started that I was not going to let him ninja me on the train that night. So when I knew he was going to be coming backstage for his song, I was standing up and paying attention to all my surroundings so he couldn’t sneak up on me. So he wasn’t able to ninja me then, but after his scene I was distracted because we were doing a scene change so he walked past me in front of the train and then he came back on the train really quietly and snuck up behind me to ninja me. He was so proud of himself. I have to give him props because it is much harder to ninja me by getting on the train because it usually moves when you are walking on it. Our plan for strike was to stay until we had everything struck. We were just going to work till midnight, but all the actor techs and the crew wanted to just strike it all so we could be done with strike earlier the next day! The ensemble got released around midnight because everything that was left at that point only needed a few hands. The master electrician crashed the barn again during strike! I was standing right next to it and I had to run away so I wouldn’t get hit by it. We all wanted to kill him! Anyways, the fly loft looked sooo empty after we struck everything! I was a little scared for my life while people were ripping the wood apart because things were flying across the stage. By 1:30am, we had everything except for the drops struck so we called it a night. We came in early the next day to get Secret Garden set up. It took us a grand total of 30 minutes to get Secret Garden set up with just the actor techs and crew. We felt good about that. Oh, and did I mention the other thing we didn’t strike from White Christm

as was the snow bag? :-D Anyways, we had some issues with the lights at the end of the first act in Secret Garden, but everything else went pretty well! By the end of the show, almost everyone was crying. It stunk having the most emotional show as our last show of the season! When the curtain closed for the last time, we dumped the snow bag on everyone and no one really ran from it because they were all crying and hugging! We got to eat dinner before we began strike, but once strike got into gear, everyone got to work and the crying stopped for a while. By 9:00 we were all sitting in the house just waiting for people to come grab how many people they needed for the few small random jobs that were left. We had a little end of the season meeting and then we were released by 9:30pm! Of course, everyone stayed around for a while to do all their goodbyes and hugs again. After that, I went back to my apartment and packed up all my stuff. I was on the road by 8:30 the next morning and was home by 9:00 that night.

Overall, the entire experience was great! I had sooo much fun even when I was absolutely exhausted! In 9 weeks we only had 3 days off and the first month and a half we were working 70+ hours a week! And you know what, I think I would do it all again! We will se

e where next summer takes me! I met a lot of amazing people and I’m sure I will work with some of them again in the future. The theater world is a small world. Every co

ntact you make helps! Hopefully having this on my resume will open some doors for me!

Goodbye for now Peach State!