I didn't sleep past 1 a.m. last night. I spent the night reading "The Traitor King," a book that is around 400 pages of "The Duke and Duchess of Windsor were shallow boring self-absorbed assholes, and oh yeah, there's some Nazi stuff but not enough to fill 400 pages." It was a nasty book and while I don't doubt the two of them were nasty, and the guy has pages of bibliography, I seriously wonder about him throwing every single random drop of scurrilous gossip he found in there, in some cases not necessarily having much on it, such as "the Duke had an illegitimate child." Me: "How? Didn't he have mumps and like, no body hair and some testicle issues and basically nobody thought he could father a child anyway and obviously he didn't elsewhere?" And saying for pages that both of them were gay, which I doubt. Look, even if he was a femme-y personality and she was a dom personality, that doesn't necessarily mean they went for their own genders (another thing where I feel the uh, "research" is perhaps questionable). I also continue to think the whole "Wallis had a years-long affair with a young, very gay guy" thing to be questionable. Did they pal around a lot, sure, I bet, but I find it hard to imagine that sex happened. Probably more along the lines of Eleanor Roosevelt's pseudo-boyfriends who were married would be my guess. So..... THAT'LL BE AN INTERESTING BOOK REVIEW, WON'T IT.

In other up all night fucking thoughts, I have thought, hey, if Scott's only in two of the plays and the two he's in are in the first half, I could just leave early and nobody would see me leave. Very smart plan, there. Heck, that might be intermission break, if they have one.

I heard from Cameron--she has something happening on one of the show dates, so that rules it out for her (but sounds like she still didn't wanna do it anyway, sigh). Said the performances of Art were better than rehearsing. It's going to be weird telling her I have her part...I'll finish writing that letter after rehearsals this week. I still haven't announced in public yet/on FB.

Work: ugh, first day of the season and drama erupting, as usual. Three people died (groan), big deal processing happened, but hey, at least no phones. I sat through two trainings, one of them being on abuse in the workplace. Nothing that happens to me counts as abuse, which doesn't surprise me. I did appreciate how that one let me just read a script without having to sit there and listen to it read aloud to me, for a change.

Rehearsal!!!!! I got to karaoke early, ordered dinner (I did ask Ashley if she wanted to go--no--and texted Robert I'd be there getting dinner, he said "ok," which I interpreted as "eh, probably not." But Manny and Greg came in to eat (Ana's vegetarian, apparently, so not eating here and came later), and I waved them over, and then Robert and Brian came in, and we had people at the table! Reunion!!!! And then Jean showed up, with a big ol' boot and a wee little fracture. So she's in again, yay. Said she's been doing mystery dinner theater lately...yes, same place I was. Manny and Heidi are still together AND SHE'S COMING BACK HERE FOR A MONTH FOR THE SHOW! I'm so happy for them that they're still together after all these years and her living elsewhere for the last few, as far as I know. Manny has moved to my town, is still working in pizza.

I asked who everyone was playing. Robert and Brian were doing the same people again, but Greg and Manny were all "I dunno, there was an email?" This was pretty funny later.

We did not have the entire cast there, but we had most of' em. Here's the list:

New Tony: Manny--thought he was playing Barry again, but NOPE! LOL. "I get to marry my girlfriend," he said.
Tina: Heidi, returning next week from LA for a month to be Tina again.
Nunzio: still Greg, Maddy: still Ana. Michael: still Robert. Mrs. V: still Jean. Grandma Nunzio: still Nancy, but she was on vacation tonight. Brian: still Joey.
William: Johnny, Tony's brother
Donna: now me, Dominic: now Rodney
Donny the emcee (previously combined with Vinnie in the show): now Mark Gail: playing a photographer, I think? She wasn't there tonight.
Bridget: now playing Loretta

Super new people (to me, anyway): Denise: now playing Aunt Rose, who wasn't in the show before Tom: now playing Father Mark Ed: now playing Vinnie, already coming off as loveable Destiny (recruited for the show): now playing Marina Thomas (previously in Midsummer, moved here and emailed asking if there were any auditions coming up...): now playing Barry.

(We asked what happened to Julia, she dropped out. Bummer.)

No nun, no pregnant Connie, sigh. Apparently Robert helped Linda figure out how to deal with a lack of bridesmaids. I was surprised we had a Marina and no Connie, but clearly Destiny was REALLY into the role and playing emotional/cry-ing/a bit dumb but super sweet? It was adorable. She's gonna be fun to hang out with.

Anyway, we were supposed to get into family groups (more or less) tonight and discuss backstories. I was with Rodney and explaining to him how the show goes since he didn't see it before, explaining his character, we talked about what he's like and what I'm like. Then we went around introducing ourselves, which was, of course, hilarious. We are supposed to go home and write backstories and the like. I note that Mark brought his old "Animal Kingdom" business card and passed it around.

Cameron and Scott were mentioned--Manny was sorry he didn't get to see her, and "Handsome Scott" and "Funny Scott" references were made, sigh. Also, the guy who did videos for Winters resigned from the board due to health issues, which is a bummer (though if Scott were around, he would have muttered some comments about it).

I attempted to find some time to write down quotes:

Denise on her costume from the other night: "I look like my mother has come back from the dead."

Someone made a crack about "Rose" to the occasion.

Greg on Jean's broken leg: "you fuck shit up, we break the other one." (I think...good lord, did I make a lot of typos on the first part of that sentence.)

Destiny, as Marina: "They call me spineless, but I'm flexible."

Linda: "This is theater like nobody's ever seen before, except the last time they saw the show."

Three black cats were wandering around, leading to cracks about "you gotta have three black cats at rehearsal!"

Robert said he was changing his backstory about how he knew Tina, as in he's in an emo band and she was a groupie. Manny: "You better watch your backstory."

Ana, as Maddy: "I know I've seen y'all at the club..." Brian as Joey (who's gay): "Not all of us."

Greg, as Nunzio: "I started out busting people's heads with pipes." Jean as Mrs. V: "So you were a mechanic?" Later he made a comment about putting a hook in people. Destiny as Marina: "You fished her?"

Denise as Aunt Rose introduced herself as a psychotherapist. Destiny as Marina: "She's a psychopath?" Manny: "Aren't we all?"

THIS IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOO MUUUUUUUUUUUUUCH FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUN.

I have now done my official FB post pimping the show, so someone has been notified. Ahem.

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