10/27/2010
So , it's Tuesday night ...ok.. Wed morning if you are being Technical... and we are almost ready to close up crates in the morning and get them ready to ship to NY. So many new costumes arent here yet. They will meet up with us in NYC and there we will do the last minute fittings with the usual Tech week, which is really 2 weeks of 8 am - 10 pm 6 days, insanity. We load into the Garden at 8 am Tuesday the 2nd and open on the 19th. Lots of nights of no sleep and i will apologize to my crew for any lack of sleep crabbiness at the beginning, long before i get crabby!! I love live theatre and i LOVE my job. Not just the job with Cirque, although i do, but playing in costumes and being creative... always makes me feel like i have reached my own kind of Nirvana. I could do without all the paperwork... but its a sacrifice i will make. Cant wait to get into the space and get moving........and be home!
Halloween;
Ok, so home I am home from Montreal. Its Sunday night and I am to meet with my assistant in the morning to set up dressing rooms and the wardrobe room. My head is still spinning. There are a lot of costumes for the new cast members that haven’t been shipped YET and I feel we will have people not in costume come first rehearsal on the November 7th. No one else seems concerned but this is my job to be concerned about such things. I have never had an actor go on stage naked, unless he was supposed to be, and I don’t intend to make it happen now.
I have roughly a handful of band members, 50-ish “artists” (they refer to them that way rather than actors as they are more athletic in what they do? I don’t really know. I would think either was appropriate but I keep being corrected.) 6 dressers, 2 seamstresses, 2 laundry people, my assistant ( my left hand) and myself. There is also Johanne, (my right hand) who is the laision between me and the Cirque headquarters in Montreal. She is a goddess among women…not to mention funny as hell, and is pure pleasure to know and work with her. In any event I am responsible for each artists costumes, who handles/dresses them, where they need to be at what time, how they get to specific quick change places and so on. There are roughly 1000 costume pieces, give or take a few, that I need to be able to locate on a moments notice if necessary and run to the stage. Things are sometimes misplaced to forgotten in the dressing room. It happens. Sometimes it can be catastrophic…many times not. But it is our job to make sure the show goes on as the designers designed it… not as forgetful artists or dressers, or anyone, wish it to be. Tomorrow starts the mayhem.
Nov 1st.
During my train ride in to the city I watch, sort of, the sun rise - my eyes half closed because I am still in a semi state of sleep. The clouds are a dark mauve-ish purple and the sun streams up behind them, limning them, making it look like a turbulent sea with whitecaps across the sky. Pretty. Hard to really appreciate half asleep. I will, for the next 10 weeks or so , have to join the “normal” world and be up a the hellish hour of 5:30am… (again with the A.M…… that should NEVER be in my vocabulary EVER!!) for 6 days a week. Now I want you to understand - I love my job with a capital “L“, you will never hear me say I don’t , but the hours during tech are enough to try a saint. (Namely, me.)
I come in with my assistant and left hand, Ellen, and we scope out the dressing rooms and wardrobe room. There are dressing rooms on 2 floors (of course not the 1st and 2nd or 2nd and 3rd… noooooo, has to be the 1st and 3rd - Murphy really has to find a new person to torture don’t you think??? Then there are 7 more dressing rooms down a long corridor we call the crossover. The crossover is like one of those hallways in a bad dream that you never get to the end of and its either freezing or sweltering - no happy medium. It is my job to decide how many chairs and tables need to go in each and set up the wardrobe room. I find 12 cents on my walk through… I am rich…lol. On Tuesday I am to meet up with my dressers, Ron, Pattie, Barry, Jenn, Audrey and Billy, 2 stitchers, Sue and DanaJean and my 2 laundry people Tom and Aaron at 8 am outside of Madison Square Garden … did you read that people, 8:00 AM at Madison Square Garden!!!!! WOW! Sooooo out of my time element here. There are two large dressing rooms outside the wardrobe room. One will house, as we affectionately call them, “the Russians”. They do the Russian Barre routine at the end of the show… a thing where they balance on these bendy poles suspended between two of the mens shoulders and the third does jumps and flips and tumbles on this bendy pole no more then 4 or 5 inches wide. The other dressing room houses an array of skateboarders, freestyle bicyclists, hip hop dancers, gymnasts and rollerbladers.
After I have spent 3 days trying to get all the proper tables and chairs set up (because I have done this before) 2 of my dressers decide, without consulting me, to ask for things I didn’t want and changed the rooms. There is a reason I set things up the way I did. . Since I worked with these people last year I already KNOW this stuff. THAT’S why I chose what i chose. Do I speak Chinese, hummmmmmm? Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! ok. Crisis over. Snit over. Onward.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Thursday, October 21, 2010
MY OWN BERMUDA TRIANGLE
October 19th 2010
OMG,OMG,OMG,OMG,OMG,OMG,OMG,OMG!!!!!! lol... excited much??? hummm - nah, not me!
This year has seen me in June in Hawaii, where the water was bathwater warm and sun melted over me. July i was winding my way down the Nile through Uganda, where the smiles of children reminded me of important things i left back home. Now, NOW..... I have died and gone to heaven!!! What you ask has gotten me so .....so?? well, I have been asked to be the wardrobe supervisor for this, the last season, of Cirque du Soliel's - WINTUK at Madison Square Garden. Yup. ME! (stopping here to remember to BREATHE!!!)
They called me late Thursday afternoon while i was in the middle of Tyler Perry's Mamas Big Happy Family at the Coliseum. If i was the type of person to whoop and holler i am sure you would have heard me - wherever you were... but i am afraid, sometimes if i speak things aloud they will dissipate like mist when the sun comes out. Besides, i do all my whooping and hollerin' on the inside, not being one for those emotional displays. All the while trying to figure out how i am going to be in Montreal in a day and a half when i have a ton of things i have to reschedule/rearrange/hire. I then get a call from the union rep at the Garden, who is booking my flight, making car arrangements and car service to pick me up to take me to the airport on Sunday afternooon. I feel like a queen... or a rock star.... all the attention.
I start putting out my feelers for co-workers immediately. Before i have gone back from dinner i have a handle on my crew for the show, my flight is being booked, i have to figure out what to do with the animals, find my passport, get to the bank, to the store to buy pet food for the animals and pack. Would be nice if that was all... but there must have been a thousand other things i needed to do. In my head, which is constant chaos anyway, i just added a few more heaping handfuls!!! Nothing but the best for me, i say! I THRIVE in the insanity.... PILE on the work and i find i am more productive. I need that. If you give me to much free time... i get .....side tracked easily, by the simple pleasures of life and less gets accomplished.....must be the ADD.
10/16/10
ahhhh, last minute friend to the rescue to help with the animals.....ok... one less crisis averted, banking done, food bought, bills paid, mail taken care of, clothes washed and drying, fridge cleaned out, crew almost filled.....passport found...what else do i need..hummmm, nothing but finish packing and me i suppose to be on that plane at noon tomorrow.
10/17/10 noon... driver is here right on time.... one last quick check around the house....once im outta this house... brain will shut off for a few hours. Ali, my driver, is a nice man. I tell him how its my first time for someone to pay my way on a business trip and spring for a ride to & from the airport PLUS a car and Apartment for 2 weeks. He says when good things happen to someone its because of good Karma - what goes around comes around. Its funny because i haven't told him how i spent my summer vacation.... but he doesn't need to know that ... its my secret.
i land in Montreal and head to the car rental place.... and what do they give me ... but the mini batmobile. No kidding. Bells whistles, probably ejector seats for all i know. Buttons all over the place and whirlygigs that probably make the thing fly... if i knew how to do it.
Then i get to the apartments and i am on the 22nd floor and the view out my window is astounding. Like a Manhattan skyline - lights twinkle across the bridge over the water...surely i am dreaming!
That one phone call has made such a difference the place is AMAZING!!!! Cirque du Soliels headquarters are the size of at least 3 football fields, probably bigger. The work environment is great. WAIT til i post pics... (when i figure out how to get them on here) ...props decorate the hallways and offices.. bright things dangle, hang, sit on every conceivable space. They have EVERY possible tool my creative mind could want and some i didnt know i wanted because i didnt know they existed. .....and its has taken me to a place where i don't feel like the strange, freaky, ugly stepchild!i took a tour of the place and it really almost made me cry. There is nothing i can compare it to because i have nothing like it anywhere to make the comparison. Any bizarre idea i can think of is not to bizarre for here. in fact, the more bizarre you can make things the happier they are. They never look at me like i am strange.....Here i can coruscate, hummm be coruscating, yes i think that is correct -BE coruscating! i dunno ...its my word of the day and i think its appropriate for me... (Youuuuuu have to go look it up - i will not let your brain atrophy - i want it to be used, so you can be around with me for as long as the powers that be let us stay together!) I told them i am not leaving and they will have to drag me from here... i will leave claw marks on the hallways as they drag my ass out of there. LOL the only downside of that would be i could no longer be crepuscular (another word of the day... ) i would actually have to be a 9 - 5er......THAT could put a serious crimp in my lifestyle.... BUT i would be willing.....
more later.....
OMG,OMG,OMG,OMG,OMG,OMG,OMG,OMG!!!!!! lol... excited much??? hummm - nah, not me!
This year has seen me in June in Hawaii, where the water was bathwater warm and sun melted over me. July i was winding my way down the Nile through Uganda, where the smiles of children reminded me of important things i left back home. Now, NOW..... I have died and gone to heaven!!! What you ask has gotten me so .....so?? well, I have been asked to be the wardrobe supervisor for this, the last season, of Cirque du Soliel's - WINTUK at Madison Square Garden. Yup. ME! (stopping here to remember to BREATHE!!!)
They called me late Thursday afternoon while i was in the middle of Tyler Perry's Mamas Big Happy Family at the Coliseum. If i was the type of person to whoop and holler i am sure you would have heard me - wherever you were... but i am afraid, sometimes if i speak things aloud they will dissipate like mist when the sun comes out. Besides, i do all my whooping and hollerin' on the inside, not being one for those emotional displays. All the while trying to figure out how i am going to be in Montreal in a day and a half when i have a ton of things i have to reschedule/rearrange/hire. I then get a call from the union rep at the Garden, who is booking my flight, making car arrangements and car service to pick me up to take me to the airport on Sunday afternooon. I feel like a queen... or a rock star.... all the attention.
I start putting out my feelers for co-workers immediately. Before i have gone back from dinner i have a handle on my crew for the show, my flight is being booked, i have to figure out what to do with the animals, find my passport, get to the bank, to the store to buy pet food for the animals and pack. Would be nice if that was all... but there must have been a thousand other things i needed to do. In my head, which is constant chaos anyway, i just added a few more heaping handfuls!!! Nothing but the best for me, i say! I THRIVE in the insanity.... PILE on the work and i find i am more productive. I need that. If you give me to much free time... i get .....side tracked easily, by the simple pleasures of life and less gets accomplished.....must be the ADD.
10/16/10
ahhhh, last minute friend to the rescue to help with the animals.....ok... one less crisis averted, banking done, food bought, bills paid, mail taken care of, clothes washed and drying, fridge cleaned out, crew almost filled.....passport found...what else do i need..hummmm, nothing but finish packing and me i suppose to be on that plane at noon tomorrow.
10/17/10 noon... driver is here right on time.... one last quick check around the house....once im outta this house... brain will shut off for a few hours. Ali, my driver, is a nice man. I tell him how its my first time for someone to pay my way on a business trip and spring for a ride to & from the airport PLUS a car and Apartment for 2 weeks. He says when good things happen to someone its because of good Karma - what goes around comes around. Its funny because i haven't told him how i spent my summer vacation.... but he doesn't need to know that ... its my secret.
i land in Montreal and head to the car rental place.... and what do they give me ... but the mini batmobile. No kidding. Bells whistles, probably ejector seats for all i know. Buttons all over the place and whirlygigs that probably make the thing fly... if i knew how to do it.
Then i get to the apartments and i am on the 22nd floor and the view out my window is astounding. Like a Manhattan skyline - lights twinkle across the bridge over the water...surely i am dreaming!
That one phone call has made such a difference the place is AMAZING!!!! Cirque du Soliels headquarters are the size of at least 3 football fields, probably bigger. The work environment is great. WAIT til i post pics... (when i figure out how to get them on here) ...props decorate the hallways and offices.. bright things dangle, hang, sit on every conceivable space. They have EVERY possible tool my creative mind could want and some i didnt know i wanted because i didnt know they existed. .....and its has taken me to a place where i don't feel like the strange, freaky, ugly stepchild!i took a tour of the place and it really almost made me cry. There is nothing i can compare it to because i have nothing like it anywhere to make the comparison. Any bizarre idea i can think of is not to bizarre for here. in fact, the more bizarre you can make things the happier they are. They never look at me like i am strange.....Here i can coruscate, hummm be coruscating, yes i think that is correct -BE coruscating! i dunno ...its my word of the day and i think its appropriate for me... (Youuuuuu have to go look it up - i will not let your brain atrophy - i want it to be used, so you can be around with me for as long as the powers that be let us stay together!) I told them i am not leaving and they will have to drag me from here... i will leave claw marks on the hallways as they drag my ass out of there. LOL the only downside of that would be i could no longer be crepuscular (another word of the day... ) i would actually have to be a 9 - 5er......THAT could put a serious crimp in my lifestyle.... BUT i would be willing.....
more later.....
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