It's been a wild one!

Adventure that is! Okay, where do I need to start on this update? This past week was our first full week of rep! It was a pretty good week! I like this new schedule of sleeping in till noon, relaxing in the afternoon, and then running a show in the evening. Well, on Wednesdays and Saturdays we have matinees, but it’s still pretty relaxing. This past week we did Secret Garden, Mulan, White Christmas, White Christmas again, Secret Garden, Mulan, White Christmas, and then Secret Garden. That kind of gives you an idea of how changeovers go. It’s hard to changeover when you know you are going to be doing that show again in just 2 days. But changeovers are getting faster and easier the more we do them. Okay, now let’s see if I can remember the details from this week. Monday was our first full day off! It was really nice! I went to see Toy Story 3 at the normal theater and then I saw Date Night at the dollar theater. Then we went out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant called Las Banderas. It’s not as good as Plaza, but it’s close. I think I also had the opportunity to clean my room that day! Then on Tuesday we still didn’t have to go into work until 6:00pm so we pretty much had two full days off! I’m really liking this schedule! I used all our time off this past week to just rest and clean. The next two weeks I will be trying to see some of Valdosta! There were things that happened this past week that I really wanted to remember, but now I’m having trouble remembering them. Oh wait, I remember one of them. At our performance of White Christmas on Saturday, our fly operator had a little fun with the actors at the very end of the show. As soon as the curtain closed after the bows, he dumped the entire snow bag on everyone who was on stage. The actors didn’t know it was going to happen, but everyone on headset knew so I got it on video! It’s pretty hilarious! Our performance of Secret Garden on Sunday had an interesting start. Within the first couple of minutes I was already sweating and out of breath because I was having to run to the opposite side of the stage multiple times and crawl underneath the platforms on stage because two of the lights on stage behind the platforms weren’t working. I had to keep running back and forth because I had to be on headset for certain cues and then I had to go back under the platforms and then someone’s mic was muted so I had to fix that and then I would have to go back under. Finally after I had checked all the connections and tried a couple other things to fix the lights and nothing had worked, I just made the decision to move the two lights that were working center stage so that it wasn’t just half of the stage that had the lights. And that’s how it was for the rest of the show. At the end of the show, we discovered that the dimmer had been tripped because the white wire in one of the connectors on the twofer had come out and was touching the black wire. In the words of our TD, “that would do it.” In that same show, I had another mic problem I had to fix in the second act. It was funny because I had just been saying earlier that day how I just stand backstage and cue people the whole time. Speaking of which, I don’t know if I have ever fully explained what I do during the shows. I am on stage left headset. It is normally the job of an assistant stage manager, but we only have one ASM and she is on stage right, so they put me on stage left. I am on headset to cue the actors for shifts. A shift is just when scenery is moving on or off stage. The actors do most of the shifts because we don’t have stagehands. For Mulan, we have a couple stagehands because the entire ensemble is not cast in that show. I still get off headset every once in a while to help with shifts. There is one moment in White Christmas where I have to go to the other side of the stage to fly something in because there are four things flying at the same time and we only have one fly operator. In Mulan I am off headset a lot for costume changes because there are so many super fast changes in that show. I’m off headset very little in Secret Garden. I have said before that I run the pacman that is on stage left. The fly system is on stage right, but the pacman which is the motorized line sets is on stage left. In White Christmas, there are three line sets that I fly in and out. Two of those come in and out a few times. In Mulan, there are only two line sets that I fly in and out, but one of those comes in and out a couple times. In Secret Garden, there is only one line set I fly in and out and it only comes in once and it’s in the first couple of minutes so the rest of the show I am really just cueing people. There is not a ton of room backstage in Secret Garden though so for almost every shift that happens on stage, I have to shift stuff around backstage so everything will fit and go on and off smoothly. It’s a little science.

I’m really having a blast working backstage as an ASM and still getting to do the sound and electrics stuff! Since all I’ve done at school is design, I haven’t had a chance to work this closely with the actors. They are all pretty awesome people!

I went to church again this past Sunday. The same church I went to last week. Still on Northside Drive. :) It’s very contemporary and targets our age group. I talked to the music minister this time and he told me that they just had the LED lights installed last week. I just thought that was ironic since it was the first thing I noticed when I sat down last week. :) Sunday night we had a potluck at the house of a couple VSU students that are in the company. We had some small fireworks so I did get to see some fireworks for the 4th of July. We have some really good cooks and bakers in our company. I made brownies of course. Not very exciting, but people like them! :)

Okay...now to the Wild Adventures part! Yesterday was our second full day off so I had been planning on going to Wild Adventures for the past few weeks! It’s a small theme park here in Valdosta. Parts of Zombieland were filmed there in case any of y’all have seen that movie. I haven’t seen the movie myself. Anyways, I had found a couple people to go with me, and then a bunch of other people decided to go as well so we met up with them in the afternoon. We got there as soon as they opened in the morning and the plan was to stay until they closed, but we were pretty exhausted with an hour left before the park closed so we didn’t stay that last hour. We were there from 10 to 7 though so we still got a full day! It was an awesome day!!! I love going to new theme parks because everything is just so new and exciting! My stomach didn’t totally agree with everything I did, but I did as much as I could. I did both water rides during the day and got completely soaked both times! It was awesome! :) I did all but one of the roller coasters! The one roller coaster I didn’t do was kind of a mix between Big Bad Wolf and Alpengeist so I was okay that I didn’t get to do it. I got to hold a snake, an alligator, some sort of colorful bird, and I fed a giraffe! It was a very adventure filled day! I also finally uploaded some pictures to facebook because I finally took some pictures this summer! I will try to take some more pictures in the next couple of weeks! I need to save these memories in more than just a blog! :)

Oh, and since there isn’t a ton of stuff happening right now, feel free to ask me questions about anything I am doing and I will answer them on here. I have a feeling when I get home I will be telling people about what I’ve done this summer for a very long time so the more I can answer on here, the longer before I lose my voice! :)

I’ll be home two weeks from today! I can’t believe it’s already coming to an end!