Imagine if...

...every evening at about six thirty your life rewound 24hours and replayed, every day. Then imaginevthat the four hour that got replayed involved being dressed in a series of increasingly bizarre outfits and dancing and singing with a large crowd of people who, on the one hand, you don't know at all but, on the other hand, are such an intense part of your life and have been for months now that they feel closer than they should. It's sort of like that.
It's good but not entirely - I'm so glad I have a job where I don't have to be cheerful all the time, I don't know how people do it. Especially in much more demanding roles, for months at a time.
still - last day today - two more shows.
At warm up last night we started on a gospel number that went:
I wanna sing sing sing, I wanna dance dance dance...' which then went to the sopranos whilst the altos did 'swing low sweet chariot' and the basses did 'Oh when the saints' - the three worked together in great harmony and I think everyone got tingling spines, or some sort of buzz, there were a lot of smiles.
Backstage even the one person who I've struggled to like was nice to me - hope yet?
One lady (who I rather get on with) brought a (one, solitary) bottle of beer in to drink before the performance. No big deal to my mind - I'd been up to the sand bar for a swift pint myself. But apparently this is FORBIDDEN backsatge, absolutely unprofessional and an instant sacking offense in the world of REAL theatre and a couple of the more professionally experienced choir members made this vocally clear. It reminded me of the difference to attitudes to drinking and scuba diving at the Red Sea (very very bad) and Wales (no big deal and quite funny really) and smoking (Egypt 20 marlboro reds throughout the day - Wales shock and horror at one roly).
Overall I've got a new found understanding and appreciation of the effort and dedication taht goes into making and performing a show. Certainly the choir have worked hard but our bit has been nothing compared to the focus that the main characters and support crew put in.
I want to be an engineer again.
Right - I'm going to try and make my flat less of a health hazard

What day is it?

Is it Thursday? I think so - it was a matinee. I can't remember a time when I wasn't performing Doris, or when my eyes didn't hurt. Or not my eyes as such, although shutting them stops it. I think it's my frontal lobes.
I'm noticing how we make space for each other when there is no space. Someone commented that it's a shame I have to sit by the stage and miss out on all the cameraderie back in the changing rooms but I think I would crack up if I had to sit in there, even though they're (almost all) nice people. There's a way to be stood next to someone and leave them be, as if they weren't stood there.
I'm not signing up for anything with a two week run again, not unless I can stop working and everything else whilst I do it. I'm so glad I don't have a job where I have to be cheerful all the time. I could never work in Disneyland.
Someone was sick in the corridor just before the first number and a breakaway choir section wanted to go on all from the same side but as chaperones we said no and made them walk past it. A phone went off in the dressing rooms in the first half - twice - it turned out to belong to one of the two actresses/writers. We all had slightly different positions as not all the cast could make the matinee which threw some people out but actually made for a much less crowded stage.
My eyes just want to shut so I'm going to let them.

Groundhog day

I really don't know how actors and such do the same show over and over, nigth after night for months, with matinees. If I was doing anything else every night or day (aikido, spokes, work, etc.) it would at least be different every night but this is exactly the same every night. Well not exactly - One of the skateboarding nuns crashed into the set tonight causing the male lead to forget his lines. But it's only little differences like that - which somehow make the absolute repetition of everything else more surreal. The gaps between the choir's stage appearences seem shorter somehow, as do the gaps between performances. This is especially marked when we have a matinee, like last Saturday and I'm sure tomorrow twice, then Friday then Saturday twice will seem even more groundhog-like. I'm glad that I'm chaperoning as it gives me the chance to sit near the stage. I tend to read in the corridor but everyone else is in one long thin room, almost on top of each other. On Saturday they have arranged to take over the bar area between shows for a pot luck buffet and then afterwards they've planned to go to somewhere in the Northern quarter. I'm glad to have the excuse of a visitor to get out of it to be honest - they're a good bunch and I like several of them very much but we all feel a little too close.
I think I will be singing 'Secret love' forever.

I'm discovering a whole new world of tired. Friday I woke after four hours sleep - too excited to sleep but my eyes and brain were hurting. Somehow I made it through a BREEAM presentation and workshop - managed to get my photo taken with the certificate that has my name on - it's a good photo if I do say so myself but I was disappointed to have our technical director tell everyone that my I looked good on it - not well done for being the first BREEAM Communities assessor in the country and getting the first certificate and helping our relationship with these important clients and contributing in your own way to sustainability', oh no - nothing like that - just 'pretty hair'. And worse - people seem to think I should take it as a compliment, rather than a nasty and patronising chauvinistic put down.
Still....trying not to be angry.
So the day was tiring enough on Friday and then at five I was at Claire's house sipping energy drinks and rehearsing the spokes comedy routine - the girls have been practising all week and it really showed. I managed to fit in and then we cycled down to critical mass and did it for real in front of around 200 people, then I did Doris, then sat up late chatting to visiting friends, then did Doris again on Saturday afternoon, then again on Saturday night. Sunday I cycled up to Salford and caught the train to Chorley for an aikido seminar then tonight was back in the theatre doing Doris again. I am loving it but I'm also looking forwrad to getting my life back.

Opening Night

After a fraught few last rehearsals Desperate to be Doris opened at the Library Theatre tonight to a sell out crowd. Myself and another lady have been asked to act as chaperones which means that we have to hover around the wings until we hear our cues and then fetch our halves of the choir and lead them onto the stage in time for the numbers. This would seem at first glance a simple and straightforward request but it seemed to rub several of our fellow choir members up the wrong way and we received plenty of ‘Ooooh, I say! Who do they think they are?’ looks, and comments, and even more when we asked people to be quiet and not slam the doors backstage for the very simple reason that sound carries and it was spoiling the show. Then for the dress rehearsal last night several people turned up who had only been to a couple of rehearsals and quite clearly didn’t know the songs or the moves. I had a few minutes of feeling petulantly five years old and rather cheated and resentful but then realised that I could ruin the whole thing for myself by doing that or just get over it. But it did mean that there was even more people on an already cramped stage. There was also massive confusion over the dance for ‘Steamed Up’ (which has replaced ‘Steamed Heat’ which apparently cannot ever be performed unless it is part of an entire production of ‘The Pyjama Game’) even though we’ve gone through it I don’t know how many times, and the words for that matter.
As we started tonight I felt like screaming when no less than three people asked me what the first song was – it’s ‘Que Sera’, it’s been ‘Que Sera’ for over three months now since we started rehearsals and its written up on the walls in the changing room in big letters.
Anyway.......we only had one door slam tonight backstage, and not too much whispering and one bit where we got on the stage a little too soon, but it all went quite well, the audience laughed in the right bits and sang along at the end and cheered and clapped and as we came off I remembered just how great I had felt when I saw it at York – how I’d gone in feeling ratty and come out feeling elated and smiled for days in the knowledge that there was a big crowd of people in the world in pink feather boas and pink stetsons singing ‘Enjoy Yourself’ and so that then the world must be a pretty good place. Then I realised that the whole audience would be going out into the Manchester night feeling like that and we’d done it.
There were ‘drinks on the house’ in the bar and everyone seemed upbeat and a few people even thanked me for chaperoning and said I’d done a good job. I was going to come home but then got a text from the Sand Bar so took a detour for some fried chicken and cherry beer. Chemistry Claire from the Spokes was there – they’re rehearsing all week without me ready for our guerrilla performance of the comedy routine before Critical Mass (and just before Doris) and have all made their props. I have tomorrow night to make a big spokes flag.
One show down, another twelve to go – fourteen if I count the two Spokes routines.
After this I am retiring from the limelight and getting stuck into my Masters thesis.

The Cheesy Rucksack Incident

Rubbish - two months off but I'm back and through to the end of the year.
I recently completed what I'd forgotten was a challenge which was to take a 60 year old lady who had never been abroad before to France. It wasn't much of a challenge to be honest as she's an absolute dear and it fitted nicely with plans to visit Portugal. We 'did' Paris, well the Eiffel Tower which is quite a lot like Blackpool really, although I have to say that the food in Blackpool tower is better (although still dire), and it has a circus and a sea view so Blackpool actually knocks the spots off Paris, in tower terms at least. Hayden, our 10 year old companion was most impressed, so much so that he now wants to visit Blackpool next time he is in the UK.
It was a great holiday, not least because I was ready to come back at the end and glad to pull into Manchester. European trains are fabulous and I heartily recommend them over flying for more than just the carbon reasons.
A lot happened but you've hopefully had postcards, or rung me or we've met or something so I won't do the whole holiday as what I really want to blog about is Desperate to be Doris which opens tonight but I will recount the 'Cheesey Rucksack Incident'
I drove up to Seia on my last full day to get a new mountain hat and various delicacies. Included in this was a serra cheese - mixed sheep, goats and cows milk, unpasteurised, very soft at room temperature (runny - remember this, it is important). I packed my rucksack carefully with the cheese at the top so it wouldn't get squashed (and remember the location of the cheese). I spent a lovely evening in Coimbra - if you ever go visit A Capela - the little chapel that has been renovated as a fado club (Portuguese version of the blues sung by women in Porto and men in Coimbra) and has fado every night and expensive (by local standards) wine. It's well touristy but very well done and the Vinho Verde was chilled and delicious. I spent a night in cotton sheeted air conditioned luxury in the Oslo hotel, had a monstrous breakfast and checked out to explore the botanical gardens and the University, leaving my rucksack in the boot of the hire car. After a lovely day exploring I dropped off the car, sat down to write last postcards with a beer and got the train up to Coimbra B where my sleeper was departing from. 20 minutes to go and I looked down to see something white and squidgey oozing from the zip at the bottom of my rucksack (remember where I left the cheese?). I quickly realised what it was and sat there for five miserable minutes thinking 'I could just ignore it' but then accepted that as I had over 24 hours on trains including a night in a cabin with five strangers that wasn't an option. Two minutes later I'd got the rucksack unpacked and had a swarm of flies buzzing round me as I scraped handfuls of molten cheese from the inside. I did the best I could and then on the train unpacked again and tried to wash stuff (it was on everything) in the train toilet under a tiny tap that dribbled water. I merely succeeeded in covering everything, including myself with a thin film of cheese.
My rucksack - since scrubbed in the bath still smells of it. The cheese that I did manage to save I had on some toast at work yesterday lunchtime and it resulted in the most malodourous wind I can remember having. I cooked some of it into a pasta sauce last night thinking that boiling it would kill whatever has developed in it. I've just had a big bowlful and am sat at my desk hoping for my work colleagues sake and the Choir in the performance tonight (and the audience to be honest given yesterday's experience)that I'm right.

This project has become a victim of its own success. I'm now so completely challenged that I no longer have time to write about it in between work and study and rehearsals and socialising and sleeping and just doing stuff.
Without even adopting any new challenges I am currently:
-finishing my last ever essay
-setting up my thesis experiment
-rehearsing for the 'Desperate to be Doris' show in September
-planning a comedy routine with the spokes for October (Manchester Comedy festival)
-learning to hula hoop
-working on about six different projects at work including getting BREEAM certification and talking with Australians about sustainable cities
-trying to ignore the slovenly appearence of my flat, at least til I finish the essay
-planning a trip to Portugal later in the year and a cycle ride to Copenhagen in November
-trying to find new recipes to get me through the several kilos of dried apricots I found on my last bin raid
The list of things I am not acheiving at the moment is about four times as long.
This blog will be ressurected, soon