The Apple Tree, and why I will never eat cashews again.

I haven't posted in a couple weeks because I've barely had enough time to eat, let alone turn on a computer. Sleep is apparently completely optional now, and we've working from 9 am to well after midnight each night for rehearsal. In addition, I spent several hours in a Nemaha county ER today. Apparently, I now have a nut allergy that I never knew about, which led to a distinctly unpleasant afternoon and my boss telling me to go home and get some rest, so that's what I'm doing now.

As of now we have three shows open. I'm acting in two of them and I'm follow spot for the musical (The Apple Tree), which is interesting because I've never had any experience running lights before. It's kind of fun, and I get to watch the audience react during the show which is new.

We're currently in rehearsal for the Prevalence of Mrs. Seal, which I'm stage managing/script supervising. Essentially, the director gives me the blocking for six sections of the script at a time, and I'm in charge of running rehearsal for each chunk of six sections. Each one is done six times (three on book, two off book with line calls, and once off book no line calls) and then we go back and do combos, so we'll do section 1 twice, then tack on the next section, then the next until we're running the whole little bit.

It's a neat little system, and it's been letting us have crazy short rehearsal schedules. The musical opened in about a week. The downside is that it can be crazy stressful, and script supervising is absolutely exhausting because you're in the theatre from 9 until midnight, listening to actors mess up again, and again and again. It's rewarding because you get to see the final product start to come together when they eventually get it right, but until then it can be a bit hellish.The last two shows were both script supervised by the same girl and you could tell it was starting to wear at her. Once the show opens, I'll get to take on the role of a more traditional stage manager, so I'm excited for that. Despite the stress I'm enjoying myself, and I think I want to try my hand at stage managing some more next year.

I'll try and update more regularly to make up for the last few weeks, which may or may not mean updating from my phone over lunch. Hope everyone is having  fabulous, art-filled summers.