make believe is hard f**king work!

I haven't posted in 16 days. That's because all but two of them have been spent
at the theatre. Our days have averaged 12 hours. I worked 69 hours last week alone.

We are doing Sophisticated Ladies. It's a musical review using the songs of Duke Ellington. That's 32 numbers in 2 hours. Very elaborate costumes , big sets , insane choreography, but only 8 performers. Once again , the back stage crew outnumbers the folks on stage. It's like a huge clockwork machine. Most of the musical numbers are about 4 minutes long. So every 4 minutes every thing changes. We all move at precise times to avoid moving scenery, or mass exits from stage. And of course, everyone is changing costumes in the midst of all this. It is really a beautiful thing when it is working
smoothly.

But it takes many long and painful hours to get this all down. And last week started out
badly for us on the wardrobe crew. TPTB decided that we could make do with only two
dressers. This was a big mistake . We were literally sprinting from fast change to fast
change. And I ended up twisting my ankle quite badly while making one run. After
our first very wobbly preview, we got our third dresser. And now we are a happy little band. It's still hard work , but we have got it controlled now. And that makes a huge difference on the whole backstage atmosphere.

I am due for a huge treat , though. I'm going computer shopping this week!!
All this work has to be for something.