I opened presents from Jackie--Baby Yoda, Baby Groot stuff (love it) and The Princess Diarist. I got together with Dawn and Loretta and they helped me pick up the dairy-free cupcakes from Pushkin's and then we went to Vampire Penguin and had delicious shaved ice goodies. Loretta got me some beads, stickers, and a craft book I wanted. Dawn was all "I don't have any today" and I'm all "don't worry about it, we got together :)" So that was the best part of the day.

Evita rehearsal: hoooooo boy. We did cue-to-cue in the afternoon, which is assigning who moves what set pieces. I was all "don't really care what I move as long as it's not the giant revolving door" and I am pretty much ONLY moving that giant door, along with the chairs for "The Art Of The Possible." LOL on that. Ah well. Nobody else wants to wear a mask, so I am going to cave in and go mask-free. Nobody here is judging me on that, but I know darned well how it'll look to the public if I am the only one in the building doing it. SIGH.

Lunch break was going to Black Bear Diner. Scott obviously couldn't do that one, sigh, and disappeared. I was hoping they'd order pizza and have it sent here again a la The Producers, but Jan said she can't eat pizza right. I just announced I have cupcakes and will bring them out later--didn't say why, I felt weird--but told various people (NOT Scott though...he wasn't around much, I have no idea if he ever got one though I did tell him about them last night...well, this was spending a birthday with him, I guess, no matter how token) about the birthday and people were sweet and various people got some later. Stacy, who also can't eat dairy ,was very happy about them, so yay.

For the record, Jonathan the musical director was offered some and declined. Okay, fine. Then later he came by and said he still didn't want any. Me: "Fine?" and thinking, "Weird guy." Not sure if he was being funny or what, but whatever, dude.

Black Bear was delicious--Jan, Jared/Alisa/Jillian, the Sierras and I. I taught Blonde Sierra how to do a crochet chain stich and Brunette Sierra told us about all the times she's been a bridesmaid (me: "27 Dresses?" Her: "Pretty much."). She said she's just going to have her bridesmaids pick some pale pink dress and I was all. "Blush and Bashful?" Again, pretty much! She is a hoot. We all had a good time chatting. Jan said she might move back the start date of auditions starting with Beauty and the Beast--something about how us starting right away is an issue when people audition at multiple theaters.

However: this was full on dress/props/set tonight and man, did it suck. Well, you expect it to, to be fair. Sets, not an issue. Clothing: a fucking issue, especially literally having to change entire outfits AFTER EVERY FUCKING NUMBER FOR THE FIRST HALF OF ACT 2 IF YOU ARE FEMALE. Too many people having to do that, not enough space, a lot of "I lost my dress/glove/whatever" going on. I think I can layer all my dresses, but putting on and taking gloves off is just plain fucking slow. And they want us to be constantly putting up and taking down our hair every few numbers, WHICH IS RIDICULOUS. I would like to say so, but (a) they don't like you talking back like that and (b) "Well, we've done it before, four times now," is the kind of answer you get when you point out the logistics of things like this. I am all "This is why I didn't want outfits with a lot of buttons and snaps!" Jan did give a very nice speech afterwards about buck up, don't worry about it, your acting is great, etc.

Also, being a dresser was not super fun since trying to get tiny buckle character shoes off someone's feet sucks, and Lindsay's hair got into the necklace. Bleah.

Kimmie is doing her best. I don't know what happened with Sam (the original stage manager scheduled for this), but Sam is out, Kimmie is mostly in BUT already has a pre-scheduled trip for a week and they can't get any stage manager on opening night. That's pretty trainwreck right there. Clocky will fill in other nights, I hear. So she can't help as much as usual, though she did say she was going to get us each individual clothes hooks for the clothes issues. We don't really have the people to change enough people. (I note that Scott said last night they wanted more people for Evita JUST because of the clothing change issues...makes sense.)

Hah, I got home and I had two new zits from stress. Whee. Still rehearsing in a mask tonight, so nobody saw it.

Anyway, the real drama of the night: Jonathan has not been a delight as musical director. Nobody really likes him. He's pretty cranky/sour and and kinda yelly. The other week or so--I can't recall if I wrote it down or not at the time--but Lindsay wanted to Say Something about how he yells at us and we're not getting paid here, we're volunteers and we don't deserve that. I'm not sure if she got to it that time or not. I did find out that he made Brunette Sierra cry on Thursday. Anyway: he was being his usual sour peach self. Kinda being weird on vocal warmups as to what he was doing, Lindsay was all "I'm not getting a very good one here, can we do something else?" (politely).

But toward the end, on Eva's Final Broadcast, he was yelling at Lindsay about her lines and she finally snapped and yelled at him not to yell at us, we're volunteers and not getting paid, I'm 37 years old and a grown ass woman and I'm doing a lot here and we're all doing our best, and stop acting like that. I desperately wanted to cheer, more than I ever want to during the show usually, hah hah. To his credit, he backed down after that. We all told Lindsay we were very happy she did that in the dressing room later. I told her that the other musical directors here don't act like that (this is her first one here). I do remember hearing during Urinetown that the guy was having health issues within the last year, but Morgan said that when she's worked with Jonathan before in the past, he's always been like that. I forget who said that he acted like that in Titanic too.

I do note that after we finished, Kimmie told us to NOT GO INTO THE HOUSE and she'd get anyone's stuff that was left out there and if possible, walk around the other areas of the theater and do not go on there. I note that the camera was still on backstage and I could see Steve and Jan having A Talking To with him....

By the time I got home, Steve posted that Boris is taking over as musical director tomorrow. Likes abounded on FB over THAT. :)

Quotes from Sunday I forgot to put in:

Kimmie is always walking in the middle of interesting conversations.

Kimmie: "I need a body." Arthur: "In the casket?"

Kimmie: "Where are you?" Isaiah: "Chillin' in back, watching the Giants game."

Kimmie on Evita: "That's why she's dying, we keep making her move furniture!"

Kimmie: "This is one of the top 5 easiest shows to move."

Kimmie: "Tedious Time has begun."

Steve: "I bet the revolving door won't make it until the end of the run." (Damn right.)

Steve, re: spotlighting: "Scott, cut your head off." Re: same scene: Scott: "We are going to have hats and sunglasses." Steve: "I don't care."

Brunette Sierra: "I know in cue to cue to sit and be silent."

On the white chaise longue in this show: Steve: "We have three of those." Scott said something about it not being something Roger DeBris would be into. Me: "He wouldn't want it, it isn't pink." Scott: "This is the chaise Roger DeBris upgraded from."

Me: "I have never heard stairs fart like that before."

Kimmie: "Tech week, I'm backstage bitch."

I note that the men's dressing room is a party once again.

Brunette Sierra is missing a button on her dress. "It's where my belly button is, congratulations."

We had a conversation backstage (Rhiannon, Arielle, Morgan, me) about the joys of performing and the high you get from it, even if you have various stage injuries (Morgan). Rhiannon notes that she moved here a few months ago and was already jumping back into theater.

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