Georgia Update

So here is the real update that you've been waiting on pins and needles for I'm sure...or not.

Anyway, life continues in a theatrical fashion here at GA Shakes. We now have 2 shows up and running since Merchant of Venice opened on Friday. This whole last week during Merchant techs and such I haven't had to be at the theatre, but everyone else has. So it's been a quiet week here in Lake Wobegone. Though I have definitely enjoyed the down time and a chance to catch up on reading, learning guitar (badly), and watching Gilmore Girls episodes. However, it would occasionally be nice to have some people to hang out with. We've started going on random late night trips to Steak and Shake which is wonderful--a lot like high school trips.

Opening night of Merchant of Venice was a lot of fun and Katie Webster came and was my date. It was nice to see a show that I didn't have to do a ton of work on but that I still knew everyone in the cast plus lots of funny stories about it. Then we went to the "non-event" afterwards which is the party that "doesn't" occur on the back porch of the theatre. They're always a lot of fun as the tech people write a parody of whatever show is going on an then perform it for all the actors and administration people. Usually hilarious and usually helped along by alcohol. The rest of the party is just a chance to hang out outside--which is something theatre people tend to forget what it looks like--plus just getting to hang out without worrying about the show. At least until the next day comes along and back to work we go.

All's Well opens in less than 2 weeks now. I'm a little concerned cause we haven't even blocked the whole show, only the first act. There are a lot of dances though which are pretty cool and the music for the show is great. I guess it has the potential to be either really cool, really weird or some combination thereof. I think I'm also going to spend a lot of time just sitting backstage since all the actors stay on stage the whole time and do all of their own scene shifts. So I guess Jesse who is the stage ops head and Kate who is wardrobe and I will be spending a lot of time trying to figure out how to keep ourselves occupied.

I think I like the people and environment here better than at any other theatre I've worked at. I mean, of course Centre feels like home and probably will for a while. But GA Shakes just has a positive and energetic vibe that I really like. The people are great, when we actually have time to hang out with each other, that is. Things will fall into a different pattern once all the shows are open and we have afternoons to hang out before doing shows.

Tomorrow is a day off and we seem to always end up going to grocery shopping and to teh Dekalb Farmer's Market which is not really a farmer's market in the usual sense. It's more like an international grocery store and has a bunch of produce, a bakery, dried fruits, grains, nuts, and all sorts of fabulous things. You can buy great stuff in bulk and for fairly cheap. Each week my suitemate Jenn buys some new exotic fruit and we all try it. So far we've had horn melon--looks like a pomegranate inside, but also slightly like boogers and tastes like bananaas. Also had passion fruit and starfruit. We contemplated some huge fruit that was the size of a watermelon, but had some gray scaly rind. Decided that was a bad option if we didn't like it and had a ton of extra.

Just waiting to go into work for evening and eating some chocolate covered espresso beans. Yeah, it's a bad life... :)