After the orientation meeting, we split up into our production team job groups and took inventory on everything in our work areas since the theater only does business during the summer and therefore required some rebooting. As monotonous as taking inventory can be, it was a good opportunity for me to start getting to know Shelby, who is my assistant in the box office. Oh yeah, I forgot to say that my job on the production side of things is box office supervisor. Shelby and I are responsible for all the ticket sales (online and in person), budgeting, email and mail, and whatever odd jobs arise that relate to any of those things. Until last night (May 26th) I was incredibly busy. There was always something that needed to be done. This is pretty impressive since we work 7 days a week from 9am to 11:30, then 1pm to 5pm, and then 7pm to 11:30 with the only exception being Monday mornings which we have off. This leaves little room for social time in the evenings unless you're willing to sacrifice what little sleep we are given time for. But last night I got everything caught up and since then I have had virtually nothing to do. There are very few phone calls coming in as of now and since our big trip to Omaha on the first Monday here (May 19th) when everyone got all the supplies they would need for the season, there have been even fewer receipts to enter into the budget excel sheet. It seemed overwhelming at first, but now I feel comfortable with my responsibilities since the learning curve was so intense.
The reason I had a rough first week is that at the end of Omaha day (May 19th), we ate at Spaghetti Works and right as we were finishing up dinner, my mom called me to give me the news that my Grandpa (her father) had passed away. He struggled with Alzheimer's for 7 years so it wasn't unexpected but I was so mad that I had had to leave just 3 days before it happened and that I couldn't be there to support my mom. I didn't know my grandpa very well and I have plenty of regrets that I don't need to go into, but my mom was my biggest concern. And if that wasn't hard enough, two days later she called me again to give me the news that my dog Leo died too. At the time, I had similar feelings as before. I was so angry that this was all happening right after I left and all at once. There was a lot of stress to deal with that week and I'm still dealing with it but it's getting better. Doc was understanding enough to let me leave for a few days to attend my grandpa's funeral and spend some much needed time with my family. Before I left, the company here all gave me a big group hug and when I got back, they had baked me a cake. They're really nice people.
At this point I am just counting the hours till I get to start rehearsing. Our season consists of 5 shows: 4 comedies and a musical. I was cast in the musical and two of the comedies. I believe I'll be performing in a total of 31 performances over the summer and I can't wait to start playing with the other actors. That was one thing I disagreed with right off the bat here. I would have really liked to do some preliminary rehearsals right when we got here in order to get more comfortable with the rest of the company early on. But we have found other ways to get to know one another and now we're all just itching to get into the space and start doing what we came here to do, instead of the traditional work that we have been doing thus far.
I know I should have been posting last week, but as you now know, there was a lot going on. So I hope no one will hold it against me. Anyways, I'll be posting plenty from now on.
Till then!
W
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