Work: another day where I ran out of things about midafternoon. Had meetings in the morning. Christmas parties got scheduled for first and second weeks of December, I cannot go into the office to work those days again. In the afternoon, I got told there was A Problem with the printer, printer wants an answer tomorrow because one problem is holding up everyone else, I sent a bunch of emails, nobody responded. I got my cross stitch caught up on till yesterday. It was supposed to rain today, but it only sprinkled when I was going home and didn't do it today.

Ugh, today is the first day of costumes and miking. I plan on staying masked until picture day (Thursday) but are they going to have a problem with me doing that with the mask on? Like yes, they certainly mic'ed (miked? mi'ced? mi-ked? mi-ced? I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT IS) people with masks on earlier in the year, but could they take them off to drink water without banging it off? Also I get to walk around chilly in the theater in my spandex body bra-tank-top-Spanx-whatever the heck it is. (I note we all wear this sort of thing and matching bike shorts under costumes, especially when constantly changing.) I can't wear a warmer shirt, I have to go around like that while they mic me. Bleeech. I don't like this. I'm not sure if I can refuse it or not? Unless I'm a large sweaty man because apparently those guys get out of it, but if they already have a loud, booming voice, who cares.

First night of dress rehearsal and props and sets. If any day is Hell Day of tech week, it's THAT day. Jan gave a big ol' speech at the end last night about how IT'S NOT HELL WEEK THIS IS NORMAL, but I dunno, it depends on what you're doing. I mean, when you think about it, it's a little bizarre to throw ALL OF THAT SHIT TOGETHER only in the last week. On the other hand, it literally takes 6 weeks/2 months/whatever to get all the set pieces built and get all the costumes and props together, so you can't really start much of that earlier. But seriously, it's like an avalanche of exhaustion on the actors. I am resentful of having to go into the office Wednesday and Thursday.

Look, I have six costume changes. Some have more, some have less, Sage apologized for having stuff everywhere and I said, "you're literally playing FOUR PEOPLE, of course you have four people's worth of stuff." I have four costumes that I wear once apiece, most of them the dance number costumes, and unfortunately, the outfits I wear more than once had to have all these accessories, and god forbid you don't have hat + coat/shawl + muff/gloves + petticoat (who's seeing that? I have no objection to petticoats, but if there isn't time to put on another layer, then fuck it) on every single time. I tried to layer the costumes and got told NO, I CAN SEE YOUR OTHER SKIRT POKING OUT IN THE BACK. Layering WOULD HAVE HELPED, THANK YOU. Also, who's checking that? We no longer have any kind of local awards ceremonies in existence to judge that shit. So I was pretty cranky on that alone. I technically made all the times I was supposed to be on stage, but Very Barely in some cases. "Go change in the wings!" Umm, that's kinda difficult when there's not a lot of room + large set pieces you can't put stuff down on + accessories. It's still somehow quicker/easier to run back to the dressing room to get all the crap on and off. I'm not sure if I'm going to try to demand that we get extra cubbies for stuff like we had in Evita, since we don't really have the floor space for that in the wings this time.

And then on top of that, you have to worry about/remember set changes. I only have 2 per act and they aren't bad, but I still forgot half of them because OH SHIT I HAVE TO CHANGE takes precedence over OH SHIT I HAVE TO ROLL A FLAT AROUND.

So, y'know, this is not fun. Also, if they insist that you change your hair.....there's 1 bonnet, 1 mob cap, 1 scene where you have to have your hair down and messy, and then the rest of it's being wigged. I like my wig, but it's gonna need hairspray. I asked around because the Internet says GET WIG HAIR SPRAY SPECIFICALLLY, REGULAR HAIR SPRAY WILL RUIN YOUR WIG, and Stacy and Morgan (I note one of Morgan's jobs is hairdresser) said "eh, I just use regular hair spray." Though Stacy did say that one of her wigs fell apart, so um, isn't that proving the point? Late into the night I was trying to find anywhere to buy wig spray in the area (nowhere, it turns out) and how quickly I could GET wig spray (answer: not before next week at fastest via mail), finally gave up and will probably just use regular hair spray until that shit comes in the mail. I should have worried about this WEEKS AGO, but I did not. Bad Jennifer, again.

I note that steering the wheelbarrow around is kind of a pain in the ass. It hasn't broken, anyway, but they're making me wheel it out at the very far edge of the stage and they are stashing it in the back, which means I have to wait around for all the flats and bed to be moved before I can slowly haul it to the front and then I have to slowly haul it back. Kimmie has put LITERAL BONES in this, including pieces of what look like beef jerky and bone necklaces and I seriously wonder what the heck show used these before. People keep coming up and marveling at it.

I had a mic on for the first time. Thankfully it didn't really cause me any problems, other than it's now harder to put on some outfits, but at least I could get them on, because some people could no longer do that. I did a mic check for the first time and frankly...I couldn't hear any difference? I didn't sound any louder? Very weird. I note that literally everyone has one, including little Alex, having one put on his lapel. (He needs it most.) As far as I know from doing tech on Mary Poppins, the sound person is supposed to flip your mic on when you're onstage, but I don't know if they bother with group scenes or just solos. I couldn't notice a difference during my solo, honestly. Confusing.

Obviously I had no time to write down people's funny shit (sigh). Felicia, I am told, still tested positive today but it was fainter, so they hope she's back IRL instead of on Zoom tomorrow. Some jokes were made at the end of the night about how her mic wasn't on and she missed her set changes.

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