Chaos Attraction

Minor Tech Fails

2022-11-10, 9:22 p.m.

Today has been a day of minor tech fails.

(a) I forgot my work keys, AGAIN, for the second time in 2 weeks, forcing me to take a very cold walk home and back AGAIN, that's an HOUR of walking in the cold after I've made the 20 minute trip three times. I never got warm despite all that walking.

(b) They upgraded the VPN. We can all technically get into the new VPN (couldn't all morning but it at least worked after lunch) but it has to have a NEW BRAND and I cannot get the new brand to download NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I HARD REBOOT THE COMPUTER, soft reboot the computer, check for updates, blah blah blah. It's implied that once I'm home working again, I won't be able to log into the VPN and will have to keep coming into the office if I don't get this fixed today. I didn't.

(c) I was supposed to meet Rachel for lunch today, but she parked herself at a totally random location (why?) instead of our usual area and I never found her. After 20 minutes of waiting around and listening to a bigot preach about HIS Jesus (who I hate), I left and went back to the office to make signs for the show.

I should note I have these two like, dollar store wood signs to cover and redecorate, they had like, snowman/scarecrow on them. I designed the letters on Monday, printed them in office Wednesday, brought them home and they did not fit sizing-wise, so I had to bring them TO the office and test print. I note this involved (1) printing out lettering, (2) gluing papers to other papers to make the background thicker, (3) gluing said papers to two cheap Dollar Store-ish wood signs. This has been ridiculously difficult, I tried 3 different glues. Finally rubber cement works to not wrinkle it all, but I had to redo one of them OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN and I am TIRED OF IT. I think they are done now, but if anything damages them on the way home I WILL SCREAM.

I keep some bubble wrap around the office and boy, did I pop it all just now.

I'm supposed to have had a package delivered at home today. I suspect this will not go well either?

Also, it's the final night of tech week + photography day. The rest of the week has been extremely stressful because we have too many costumes and too many quick changes and almost nobody has anyone to help them change (note: 18 people are playing something like 35 parts, one person is playing literally four roles in succession and that's the only one who can get a dresser) and SERIOUSLY I CAN'T PUT ON THESE MANY ACCESSORIES EVERY EFFING TIME.

I note one outfit has a ton of accessories and I have to put it on/take it off 4 times, another outfit has a ton of them and I have to put it on/take it off 2 times, the other 5 outfits only go on once apiece and have little to no accessories, and the costume designer is ON US if we don't have every @#%@$% accessory. INCLUDING THE PETTICOAT, which she wants on every other costume but not all of them, and nobody's even seeing them, and she won't let me layer costumes either because you can see A SLIGHT BIT OF SKIRT IN THE BACK. And I have to switch back and forth between two hats, having my hair "raggedy" and wearing a wig. Suffice it to say I expect tonight to be a train wreck too, because that has been the day so far.

My castmate last night said this theater seriously needs to stop picking shows where they have to have large ensembles (we are not getting 35+ people auditioning, more like around 18 end up in the show by the time the requisite two people per show drop out and the people who didn't get lead roles huff off) and the ensemble has to be on stage 90% of the time and changing clothes every other minute. And also need to stop picking shows that have a lot of kids in them, because we have about 4 kids where the parents are cool with them rehearsing till 10 p.m. (I note their parents also do shows, and one of these kids is little/possibly disabled and can't really do much in the way of lines or actions) and this is why we have one 13-year-old playing 4 12-year-old kids and switching off which kid every other minute. I won't even get into how small and female-ish the "boys band" was in Music Man :P The joke with our Tiny Tim is "Do you EVER get to play a girl?" (Answer: yes, she does, but not for very long in any show.)

So yeah, I am feeling GRUMBLY and I am looking forward to having the day off before the show starts.


Before the show, I made a 20 minute run to Target for makeup (slightly redder lipstick, blush, "blonde" hair barrettes, and the hairspray Morgan recommended). Still need to find some other things there, but ran out of time. Maybe tomorrow. Hairsprayed the crap out of the wig and put in the new barrettes and it seemed fine.

I passed the signs onto Kimmie, we'll see if she uses them or remembers to put them on or whatever (she seemed fine with that). The store fronts are almost done and quite adorably decked out with doors, Xmas greenery, etc.

We had a bit of rotating stage manager tonight? James wasn't going to be able to be there, so Kimmie would attempt to sub in for James, who was going to sub in for her. One of James's kids hurt a leg while doing gymnastics (presumably broken), but "urgent care was full for the night," so the kid apparently just went home to Mom's with a bunch of painkillers and will hopefully go to the doctor at 8 a.m. tomorrow (I can't imagine trying to sleep with a broken leg, I cried my head off when it happened to me), so James figured he might as well come in and do the show.

Rehearsal: ... surprisingly great? I think the Theater Fairy actually landed tonight, or at least for me because I made every costume and set change with all items of clothing on! HUZZAH! Had some things slightly less bad, or just got the timing down, or was slightly more organized, or could find someone to zip me when a zipper refused to go. Some other people missed some things, apparently, I guess we'll see how that goes tomorrow. Other than forgetting to change shoes or take off the kneepads faster. I don't like how "Link By Link" scuffed the new shoes, but I keep forgetting to change them. Maybe I need to just write it down on the cards to do that.

We did cast photos beforehand, I wore my Fezziwig dress as the best one. I looked quite fetching in the wig, at least to me. They also skipped micing us tonight for some reason, which everyone enjoyed. We were told afterwards we were so loud we didn't apparently NEED micing, but they still seem to want to do it for most people anyway. I continue to think it's hilarious that Jan is all "We will start at 7:30" and it never happens. Tonight with photos it didn't start till around 8:30 and we got out of there around 11 after all the notes were done. But I don't have to go to work tomorrow YAAAAAAAAAAAAY so I don't care and I can have a nice lie-in.

Had Jean look at my Fezziwig dress because the zipper keeps not being happy, hopefully she figured something out with that. Had a semi-depressing conversation while I was having her fix clothing stuff about the upcoming shows and how I won't be in them. It was like this:

Jean: "You could just sit in the audience in Cabaret, that happens a lot." Me: "Someone said I could play the old prostitute...??/?"
After Jean remembers who this is: "Ohhhh, it's the one that goes around in lingerie with her robe hanging open ad a lot of sailors come over and she's sexy..."
Me: "Never mind."
There were also mentions of needing "really good singers" and "really good dancers" for such-and-such and I was all I'M OUT. God, I hate being fat/ugly/not sexy/not a good dancer/not a good singer/general suck person.

I taught Maya how to cross her eyes during vocal warmups. :)

Morgan's shoes are literally totally trashed (I have never seen a heel SPLIT OPEN like that before, I'm amazed she wasn't hurt), I told her to borrow my extra pair until hers come from China.

The shovel lift did not happen tonight, as they didn't get it all situated properly (Sage: "We only just learned it yesterday." Me: "Y'all really needed more time to practice that...") and they came up with a safeword ("graveyard") If things aren't going well, a la the "champagne" safeword if the circle lift isn't, which they actually used the other day. Again, SO GLAD I'M NOT LIFTING OR BEING LIFTED.

The snow went well, it was supposed to blow for like 5 seconds and it was probably more like 10, but not at full wet strength, didn't wet the stage, didn't make anyone cough...huzzah!

Jean announced the show drinks: "Christmas Past" (amaretto and 7up) and "Christmas Present" (amaretto and Coke). Felicia immediately said, "I feel left out," and Jean said in the future they'd have alcohol IV drips.

Afterwards, James came up to me and was all "Was she in the show?", didn't recognize me without the mask (me: "You're the other one masked here!") and then said my face looks thinner with a mask on. .... Not thrilled about THAT one, mind you.

Ticket sales are not going well, which doesn't shock me. If the word Disney's not in it, probably not gonna sell much these days. I wrote Cameron, I actually emailed the tap teacher (not that I expect her to go), that may be about it for personal outreach for me here.

Obviously I didn't to do much for quotes, but here we go:

Felicia: "I'm still on a wine bottle high."
Steve was telling us something about "be Jewish" while taking the photos. Scrooge Scott: "Say meshuggunah."
After Jan says "don't wait for anyone missing a line, JUST GO," Steve: "I have never forgotten a line!" (Uh-huh.)

The show is only an hour and 35 minutes long--about 52 tonight for act one, I guess the rest was about the same. Short show FTW!


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