It's good to have you back. And out of traffic.
Christmas day was filled with many reminders of why my family is a big pile of awesome. I did the three-hour drive to my grandmother's house on Christmas morning and arrived just before the house exploded with people--there are only a dozen of us at 100% attendance, but the house is small.
My cousin brought his pug, as usual, and within minutes she had caused a ruckus. During a run around the backyard, she stopped at the dish where my grandmother disposes of her questionable leftovers--"for the birds," she always says. The questionable leftovers must have been 1.spaghetti and 2.extremely fucking questionable, because after the dog ravenously devoured the contents of the bird dish, she ran into the living room and vomited a pile of whole, unmasticated spaghetti...and then started eating it. Grammy was in the kitchen, so the rest of us flew into problem-solving mode--we were less concerned about the dog (who was fine) and more concerned that the lady of the house not find out that the dog had just defiled her carpet. My cousin scooped up the spaghetti, then in rapid order, the rest of us disappeared and reappeared with a damp paper towel, a soapy paper towel, another damp paper towel, then a dry one. In under three mintues, we had destroyed all evidence that vomit (and vomit-eating) had just occurred. In the immortal words of Jack Black, that's fuckin' teamwork.
The rest of the day was equally awesome--moreso, since no more unfortunate body fluid incidents occurred.
After what happened with yesterday's show, I am glad I opted to drive home the day after Christmas. Team wardrobe had been in for a few hours doing our prep, and were about to take dinner when word came that the two leads who had driven up to NYC together for the Christmas weekend were still stuck in traffic.
With Claudio (the romantic hero, whom I dress) and Benedick (the dour hero) stuck in a car north of Baltimore, that amounted to five understudies going on. Two of them were mine, a couple of the acting interns whom I adore (I will confess to adoring most of the acting interns). We skipped dinner and without much confusion were able to pull the pieces we needed, shift people around, figure out our changes, and do our normal routine. I stood in my usual spot and watched the guys slapping each other on the shoulders encouragingly as the stage manager explained the situation to the audience. Sure it was a scary, last-minute inconvenience, but everyone was clearly amped and full of adrenaline.
I watched my new Claudio standing at the head of the line of soldiers; I had assured him that I'd be right there to help with all his changes. He mostly looked down and ran his lines softly, but every now and then, I caught him look up and grin to himself. By sheer coincidence, his parents were in the audience.
Everything went smoothly. About a half hour in, the leads arrived and the decision was made to swap them into the show. The Real Claudio arrived upstairs looking wild-eyed and out-of-sorts, rocking at least three days worth of stubble. After his first scene back in, Real Claudio came and found me, hugged me tight. "Merry Christmas, honey," he said.
I smiled. "Merry Christmas, Claudio. It's good to have you back."
My cousin brought his pug, as usual, and within minutes she had caused a ruckus. During a run around the backyard, she stopped at the dish where my grandmother disposes of her questionable leftovers--"for the birds," she always says. The questionable leftovers must have been 1.spaghetti and 2.extremely fucking questionable, because after the dog ravenously devoured the contents of the bird dish, she ran into the living room and vomited a pile of whole, unmasticated spaghetti...and then started eating it. Grammy was in the kitchen, so the rest of us flew into problem-solving mode--we were less concerned about the dog (who was fine) and more concerned that the lady of the house not find out that the dog had just defiled her carpet. My cousin scooped up the spaghetti, then in rapid order, the rest of us disappeared and reappeared with a damp paper towel, a soapy paper towel, another damp paper towel, then a dry one. In under three mintues, we had destroyed all evidence that vomit (and vomit-eating) had just occurred. In the immortal words of Jack Black, that's fuckin' teamwork.
The rest of the day was equally awesome--moreso, since no more unfortunate body fluid incidents occurred.
After what happened with yesterday's show, I am glad I opted to drive home the day after Christmas. Team wardrobe had been in for a few hours doing our prep, and were about to take dinner when word came that the two leads who had driven up to NYC together for the Christmas weekend were still stuck in traffic.
With Claudio (the romantic hero, whom I dress) and Benedick (the dour hero) stuck in a car north of Baltimore, that amounted to five understudies going on. Two of them were mine, a couple of the acting interns whom I adore (I will confess to adoring most of the acting interns). We skipped dinner and without much confusion were able to pull the pieces we needed, shift people around, figure out our changes, and do our normal routine. I stood in my usual spot and watched the guys slapping each other on the shoulders encouragingly as the stage manager explained the situation to the audience. Sure it was a scary, last-minute inconvenience, but everyone was clearly amped and full of adrenaline.
I watched my new Claudio standing at the head of the line of soldiers; I had assured him that I'd be right there to help with all his changes. He mostly looked down and ran his lines softly, but every now and then, I caught him look up and grin to himself. By sheer coincidence, his parents were in the audience.
Everything went smoothly. About a half hour in, the leads arrived and the decision was made to swap them into the show. The Real Claudio arrived upstairs looking wild-eyed and out-of-sorts, rocking at least three days worth of stubble. After his first scene back in, Real Claudio came and found me, hugged me tight. "Merry Christmas, honey," he said.
I smiled. "Merry Christmas, Claudio. It's good to have you back."