I am back to dreaming about the play tonight. Yarn Empire Scott was in it, but thankfully not as a serial killer. I think he was just wandering around with his family or something.

I still need(ed) to make up about three hours of Craft Center time and someone said she needed someone to make up the first two hours “or the whole morning shift if you like” (I’m not sure why she was vague about that), so I jumped on it.

I was hoping to get my last three hours in and get some quiet work time to type up all of my play notes. But jeebus christ no, it was super fucking busy like my damn day job. I have never seen a Saturday morning so busy here in my LIFE. Usually on a weekend you have a few people here and there working on projects and maybe 3-4 weekend classes running and nobody really bothers the staff very much.

But seriously, the phone was ringing and ringing even before we opened. Every few minutes someone wanted us to give them the parking pass* and/or open the back gate for them. The first person who called at 9:45 a.m. (we open at 10) for the parking pass was all, “Oh, I got special permission to keep it in my car all day.”** and then within five minutes, someone else wanted the parking pass. I told the manager this and she said, “Oh, we have two.” Which was fine, and the second person was fine with risking a ticket and not keeping it to herself all day, but then more and more people wanted the dang pass to get in and park about every 5-15 minutes and I probably racked up a good chunk of steps making the runs out to the cars. I was hitting my “STOP CALLING STOP NEEDING STOP ASKING QUESTIONS STOP NEEDING HELP” point early. Sigh.

* the nearest parking lot has been forbidden for anyone to fucking use it. It’s a three minute walk from the next parking lot, but this is still a huge problem when people are hauling stuff. The only negotiated concessions we could get on this was that we have a “parking pass” that (a) lets them get through the gate, but some volunteer has to walk it out to them every time and (b) a 30 minute pass that means they can load stuff and then have to move their car elsewhere or else get ticketed.
** We can’t actually give them any kind of special permission to not get ticketed if the parking guys come by, and they will enforce parking if you are in that specific “nobody’s allowed but us” lot. If you are there past a half hour, you are fair game and we can’t save you from a ticket. So this was pointless. I can only hope that parking enforcement was occupied with the other big event going on today.

And then the person I was filling in for showed up at 11:30, ready to work. I...still needed a stray hour. After determining that I couldn’t do any afternoon times or shifts later, she nicely decided to “leave the building” for awhile to let me finish out my last hour. So sweet of her.

Some cast e-mails went out, including one from Jean saying that her now-dead mom’s birthday was tonight and while she might be crying for real a bit tonight, her mom would love it that they’re performing. Awwww.

Since I could not go to Maker Faire this weekend (given the absolute fucking pouring rain going on and that that event is partly outdoors, this may be all for the best) I went to see a new play, Love Logic, premiering here. I didn’t find much about it first but thought it sounded promising. It....was a mixed bag.

The plot alternates between the following:
(a) Daniel and Bronwen, two physicists, are taking the same European train to a conference in Switzerland and find that they literally cannot manage to pass each other on the train because they will react in the exact same way every time and say the same things and do the same actions every time they try. This, and how their relationship develops in between attempts, is sweet and adorable.

However.

(b) The other half of the plot, the “logic” bit, I guess, features Daniel’s twin Michael (same actor), who is a total womanizer. We see his relationship with Carol, who originally declines his marriage proposal because she knows he’s a cheater, and they weirdly negotiate that since he only goes off with women who come on to him (yeahright), she can potentially pay some woman to come on to him and then find out if he’s cheating or not. The actress playing Bronwen also plays Elaine, the potential cheatbait he meets in Florida. While all this is going on, a “mental construct” of Michael and Elaine’s daughter in the future, Suzanne, castigates her dad for being a cheating bastard. Eventually we find out that Daniel and Bronwen will get married and have twins in the future and no shocker, Carol divorces Michael. Carol tells Suzanne on her 18th birthday (uh, happy birthday?) that a few years before the divorce, she actually did hire that Elaine to come on to him, but she hadn’t hired her the first time, but tracked her down online because Michael would never suspect her. Then when Michael shows up for the birthday, so does Elaine, who films the whole thing and they’re...going to sell the video? WTF?

I hated the whole Michael plot. I actually was falling asleep during his plot during the first act. There’s no fucking mystery in whether or not a cheater is going to cheat. HE WILL CHEAT. BECAUSE SKEEZE BE SKEEZE. I DO NOT CARE ABOUT WHETHER OR NOT HE DOES BECAUSE HE DOES, DUH.

Uck.

More Daniel and Bronwen, please, less of shitty cheater twin. I note that the shitty cheater twin part is NOT something they are advertising anywhere in the media, somehow.

Lines I tried to write down in the dark:

“Why can’t two theoretical physicists cross the road?” -Daniel, I think
“cupcake of my loins”--Michael calls Suzanne this to her face and I’m surprised she didn’t kick him in hers.
“He’s seventeen minutes older and I’m sure he spent those seventeen minutes hitting on the nurse.” -Daniel on Michael.
“He’s cute and funny, but so are all the men who make me wish I was dead.” -Carol on Michael
“He only put in the hot tub so he could see my friends’ tits.” -Carol
“Excuse me, something is on fire in my room.” -Suzanne leaves during the ambush filming.

So, not recommended.

On to the play! I have even less written down for tonight than I did last night, I fear, which is sad.

Notable moments:

(a) Nunzio said he’d offer me a job at the Animal Kingdom, and Vinnie is cool with that.
Someone (never quite found out who) has made up Anima Kingdom business cards for Johnny (manager) and Maddy (choreographer), though I didn’t see too many making it to the tables.

(b) Tonight was .... clearly, it was Drinking Night. Linda said that none of us were supposed to be drinking actual alcohol throughout the show. BUT several people had flasks with actual alcohol in them that they offered me, or beer, which I sniffed and was all “well, no... I haven’t eaten and shouldn’t be drinking” about. I also brought out my flask for a toast with the other flaskers, which was fun, but I have water in mine. (Which was probably a good move since I never even got a regular drink last night for dinner.)

During the Champagne Ceremony, Linda provided me with an opaque bottle that had like, ginger ale or some kind of non-alcoholic covered beverage in it or other (I didn’t get to drink it so I dunno, but it at least looked like champagne). Somehow that bottle had utterly disappeared this night and there was a bottle that was pretty clearly plain water on the table.

Sierra came up to me and provides me with a bottle of Chaucer’s mead and said “Connie wants to use this for the ceremony.” To which I was all, fine, I thought it was the bottle I provided as an empty bottle for the show since I also drink Chaucer’s Mead. Then was ah, enlightened that this was actual alcohol. Having drunk the mead myself (pretty lightweight) and ah, not particularly being inclined to be a stool pigeon or having any better fake wine options about, I just went along with it. Totally forgetting that Yarn Empire Scott, unlike his character, does not drink alcohol. OOPS. “It’s okay, I smelled it and didn’t drink it,” he said.

The bar offered a “Colosseum” drink special for the night involving various fruity liqueurs, and Andrew the bartender very nicely gave me a freebie around dinner. It was delicious. So I caved too. Thankfully I don’t think anyone was all that drunk enough to bugger up performance.

(c) The show was sold out again, but the catering/food/space situations were vastly improved tonight:
* Linda had plates of crackers put out on every table by default so I didn’t have to try to pass them around.
* The tables were moved enough to clear out an aisle for the wedding party.
* The catering direction was switched so people lined up at the BACK, which turned out to be so much easier for lining up with people
* The caterers also got as much of the cake cut ahead of time as they could, which really worked well too. Kudos to all there!

(d) There were still issues with getting people to notice when the Dom/Sister kiss was happening. It is unfortunately hard to figure out the cues for the performers on this. You can’t go on the singing of “My Heart Will Go On” because “unfortunately, it sounds just like the beginning of the song,” said Cameron. Mostly Sierra has been trying to start based on the moment when Michael karate-poses at Sal. I forget who said, “The karate comes before I love you?” and Manny’s response to this was, “In most marriages, yes.” Which comes first, love or karate?

(e) I continue to appreciate how Connie makes Bible lines as dirty as possible.

Out of character quotes:
“Ain’t no party like a flask party.” -Cameron
“It’s already an adventure getting it back on.” -Cameron on her dress
“That’s gotta last through several falls.” -Jean on her fascinator hat.
Robert was playing his ukulele backstage.
Linda on the audience being possibly involved in the food fight: “But don’t hurt them.”
“The thing is that it’s just a really long song.” -Linda on “My Heart Will Go On.”

Mom and Mauricio came tonight (early, even) and Mauricio dressed up like a 1940’s gangster and looked amazing. They made friends with Pam’s relatives at the same table.

After that, we had the cast party at Nancy and Steve’s house a few blocks over.

Things I found out:
* Linda said she’d tried to get the rights to Tn’T for at least ten years after seeing it.
* Linda thought I’m 31, which I am pleased about.
* Pam has a barn that we could use as a theater venue, should we be so inclined. Yes, please.
* I had an interesting conversation with Laurel about my previous theater career failure and she said people probably didn’t know how to cast me and that I’m a free spirit. Good points.
* Yarn Empire Scott enlightened me as to why John Wick has surprisingly good worldbuilding. I might have to get around to seeing it sometime.
* There was some discussion of going out to a movie--either Endgame, Captain Marvel, Pikachu, John Wick or La Llorona--sometime later.
* Sierra, who as I’ve said before reminds me of a Disney princess (resembles Rapunzel the most, l but she could probably pull off others), said that this theater company is the only one that hasn’t cast her as a slut.
I think at some point she said, “Everybody watch how a nun can take a shot.”
And speaking of Disney princess, she has also played Belle and after she graduates, is moving to Disney World, where I dearly hope she gets a princess gig.
* Also on Disney: Heidi mentioned at one point in life (I forget the context) finding herself talking to a lamp and saying, “Lumiere, you know what I mean?”
* From a conversation in which Heidi was talking about the horses at her family’s ranch: “He’s the only white horse--”
Sarah: “That’s racist.”
Valentin: “It’s black and it’s white.”
* Sierra mentioned how the rest of her family is all about sports and that makes her the black sheep of the family for being into theater. Her family had to figure out that singing is her sport.

Quotes from Manny:
”Dude, it’s weed. No one’s ever got high on weed and killed someone.”
“I don’t care, motherfuckers, I’m doing a British accent.”
“Dingles and dongles, write that down on a card.”
Manny on Heidi: “She’s not ticklish.” Yarn Empire Scott: “Then what’s the fun in that?”

Me: “Fucking fridges, how do they work?” (Sadly I can’t remember context of this, presumably along the lines of “how does a fridge work?” though)

Robert’s wallet says “fuck you” on it. This must be amusing if he ever pulls it out at work....

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