Photos from the preview! (Text added)

Last night we had our preview performance! I was up very late with the adrenalin and excitement of having an audience for our show, and I managed to upload some photos but no text, so here is the text, at last.

The show was just incredible. They told us to expect 50-100 people at the preview, and it was definitely packed, from what I could see onstage. There were a lot of English speakers, so it was neat to get their reactions to the actual spoken lines, rather than the supertitles (we have no idea what the translations are!). It'll be different with mostly or entirely Chinese audiences, and that will be interesting to see as well.

It was particularly exciting being one of the kids, because we are treated like superstars by default -- we didn't even have to be good! (But I think we might have been...) The audience just loves the kids, laughs at everything even when it's not funny. Every single kid in the cast was just glowing and full of energy as soon as they stepped onstage and saw the crowd.

Today we have just a 2-hr notes rehearsal, then a longer dinner break, and then our real opening night -- with a Troika-sponsored party to follow ... and we have been promised American food! What fun.

Jen and I just had lunch at our old favorite place, the Kung Pao chicken place that was near our rehearsal theatre. We haven't been back in ages, but since we had the time, we ran over for lunch. The people in the table next to us were smoking like chimneys, and I actually still smell smoke in my hair and clothes (ugh!) even though I'm back in my hotel now. They also tried to talk to us, and flirted with us. People keep saying that my pale skin is "so beautiful." Ha! Take that, O Tanned Ones! I'll keep my un-tan-able skin, thank you very much.

And now, back to the photos. I have to thank Zachary's mom, who took my camera during the preview and got me all these great shots.

Costumes!

We are in dress rehearsals! We open Tuesday, which is hard to believe, because it's already Sunday. The kids and Maria started working with costumes a few days ago, because we have so many costumes and several quick changes and shoe changes to boot (pun intended).

My costume changes are just fine. I only have one costume that I truly dislike, and that's the party dress. I probably won't have a photo of it online because it's one of the faster changes, so I hang around backstage immediately after changing to get ready to go onstage, instead of being able to get my camera and shoot a photo.

We all have Chinese dressers who don't speak English, which is very interesting. The costume racks are set up behind the stage in the back walkway, with a chair numbered for each cast member. Since I play a kid, but I'm not a real kid, my chair and costumes were placed near the kids, but sort of segregated to give me a bit more privacy. Well, I don't think my dresser realizes that I'm not a kid -- on the first day, she saw that my changes weren't near the rest of the kids, so she carefully moved my things to be with them. Now I get to change right near our 11 and 12-yr-old boys! Oy... But the changes are so fast, and everyone is focused on her own costume change, so no one stands around gaping, thankfully. My dresser also wants me to walk around naked. We all have bathrobes that we can wear backstage before changing. After the show during our first run-through, my robe was in my dressing room, and our changing area was backstage. I started to walk to my dressing room to get the robe, then bring it back and change out of costume and into the robe, and the dresser grabbed me and said things to me in Chinese, and the gist of it was: she wanted me to change backstage and then walk in my underwear down the hall to the dressing room where my robe was! I kept trying to mime what I wanted to do, pointing to someone else's robe and toward the dressing room, and she didn't get it and kept gesturing for me to take off my clothes right then! Finally I just smiled and walked away, then came back with my robe, and she got the picture. Now I make sure my robe is IN the changing area!

On the first day with costumes, I came to the costume area, and my dresser had my sailor dress laid out for me. But I play a postulant (nun) in the opening scene before I am a kid! So I pulled out my postulant costume and showed her, with a lot of miming, that it was my first costume. Also, since this was before the show started and we had plenty of time, I wanted to change in the dressing room, not in the backstage hallway where all the dressers, crew, and random other people were standing around. So I tried to mime that, but she didn't understand. (Some of the other nuns had made that point, because they were changing, with the help of their dressers, in the dressing room.) The head dresser/costumer came over to translate, and I explained what I wanted to say, and he told my dresser, who nodded. I took my nun costume and started walking to the dressing room, but she didn't follow me. So I did the change myself, which is quite fine, but I think my dresser didn't realize she was allowed to come to the dressing room. Or something. It's all a bit confusing.

From then on, the costume changes are backstage. I change into the sailor dress, take off black socks, and attempt to make my hair look nice (after it has been smashed under the tight nun veil). Then we change into nightgowns and slippers for the bedroom scene. Then into the "curtains" outfit, which is my favorite of all my costumes -- and I only wear it for about 2 minutes of the show! So tragic. Then we have our first real quick change back into sailor suits. My quick change always goes well because I can help with it, and have my dress undone and ready to take off, but the dresser, who would be most helpful just holding up the next costume for me to step into, insists on helping me out of my current costume, so I get to spend a bit of time backstage in my underwear while she prepares my next costume for me to get into. Not my ideal way of changing, really ...

After that we get into the dreaded party dresses. I really hate this costume - it looks like an unattractive pink sack. Because our Brigitta is a lot bigger/taller than the previous tour's Brigitta, she is wearing a lot of the previous Louisa costumes, and I am bumped up to a lot of the previous understudy costumes (and the understudy was an average-sized adult, apparently, because the costumes are all quite roomy and long). Fortunately, we don't do much in the party except "So Long, Farewell," and then I can take the sack off.

We have intermission, and some of us attempt to use the squat toilets backstage while in costume. That is dramatic! The toilets (and the whole back corridor) smell like rotting pickles, so it's always an experience trying to use them and not touch ANYTHING in the bathroom, with our hands or our costumes. Yuck. Last week I was wearing long jeans, and I noticed at the end of rehearsal as we walked home that the cuffs were wet -- but it hadn't been raining and wasn't wet on the ground anywhere ... except the bathroom. Disgusting! Now I roll up my pants if I have to go in there. Squat toilets are NOT hygienic.

For Act II, I wear a cute flowered playclothes dress that is one of the most complicated costumes I have ever put on. It opens in the front, and has a hook at the waist, then 2 snaps underneath ... then it zips up with a zipper that opens at the bottom (like on a jacket), then has a few more snaps on top of that, then some snaps up the skirt, then an apron snaps around the waist in 2 places. I am lucky I don't have the really crazy quick change after the wedding into this costume, because I would never be onstage in time.

The wedding is next, and although we complain of looking like a creme puff, I quite like the wedding dresses. They are a dream dress-up dress, puffy and shiny green and ruffly. After the wedding, 3 girls have an extremely quick change - maybe 20-30 seconds - back into the playclothes, but I am fortunately not one of them. I have a bit more time before my entrance, thankfully. Notice that on many of these changes, we are also changing shoes!

The last costume change is from the playclothes into the festival outfit. For some reason, the costumers and dressers think that this is a quick change, but it's only quick for Liesl and Maria. The rest of us do our "quick" change in a special, designated location, then just hang around backstage waiting for our entrance -- because we have plenty of time. Then Liesl and Maria run off for a truly quick change just before we all enter. During one of the dress rehearsals, Maria ran onstage, and we heard her say her line, "Immediately? I'm afraid that will be impossible" and then she SCREAMED! With laughter. Turns out she had run onstage with her festival costume completely unzipped in front! A bit of a wardrobe malfunction, as they say. She was a bit pink-faced for the rest of the rehearsal, and we were all giggling in that scene. Yesterday, she nearly went onstage unzipped again, but this time we were paying attention and whispered "ZIPPER!!!" as she was entering, so she took care of it. Very funny stuff!

At the end, we put on enormous, unattractive wool jackets and canvas backpacks for our trek across the mountains.

That is my costume story. The other, non-kid costumes in the show are GREAT, but we don't spend a lot of time looking at them because we spend all of our offstage time changing and waiting for our entrances. The dresses that the adults wear in the party scene are GORGEOUS, as are the wigs. I'll probably steal some photos from other people to post on here, since I don't have a lot of time to take them myself.

Tex Mex restaurant!

Yesterday started out as mundane as any day, but became exciting toward the end of the day. But first, some photos:
The front curtain for our show, and the kids singing a bit of Do Re Mi:




Michael (Captain von Trapp) got this nifty camera that has a smile detector -- you can set it to go off automatically when it detects someone smiling! That explains our expressions here:


Most of us were off rehearsal yesterday evening, so we decided to go to the Tex Mex restaurant that a few cast members had already visited. It was far, and required a taxi. A lot of us were going, so several groups left directly from rehearsal, restaurant business cards in hand (to show the taxi driver the address), and went to the restaurant. Jen and I stayed back to make sure everyone we had invited had a ride there, so we ended up in the last group, which wanted to stop off at the hotel and drop off some things. We walked home, left our stuff, met in the lobby, then proceeded to find a taxi. Well ... we tried for 45 minutes to get one! It was rush hour and most of them were full, although some just didn't see us, or didn't stop. We tried 5 different locations at the side of the road. We asked at the hotel front desk. We asked the hotel doorman, who directed us to a location across the street, and as soon as we got there, we saw him helping another group into a taxi that he had flagged for them. Grrrr! Irritation does not describe it, particularly since this dinner had been Jen's idea, and she and I had spread the word -- but everyone else was already at the restaurant eating, except the two of us and 3 other kindred spirits. Finally, we split up and spread ourselves down a street, all trying to flag a taxi. Jen got one, and the rest of us came running and piled in -- 4 in the back, 1 in front. The driver started talking in Chinese and shaking his head -- he wouldn't take all 5 of us. More irritation! Michael and Clay agreed to get out and try for another one or perhaps just give up and eat near the hotel, and Jen, Sarah, and I were on our way to the restaurant. We arrived an hour and a half after we had left rehearsal! As our taxi pulled up to the restaurant, who should we see walking in front of us, but Michael and Clay! They had gotten a taxi as well and actually arrived before us! I was glad to see that they made it. The early group was there, drinking it up and having fun, but we just slouched off to our own table, heads drooping, and ordered a 9-layer dip (only 8.5 layers really, since the restaurant was out of guacamole) and sat there, salivating, glancing over to where the food came from every few minutes, waiting to eat. And eat we did! In addition to the dip, I got tacos (which looked like burritos), with the most delicious chicken inside. I wish I had taken a photo, but I was too tired. We all got dessert as well - hot fudge brownie sundae for me. The restaurant was in an expat area of Chengdu, so we actually saw a lot of non-Asian people around, although many Asian people were eating Tex Mex in that little restaurant!




The rest of the evening was fun - we took a taxi back to our hotel (taxi driver was illiterate and could not read the hotel address on our keycard, but a nice English-speaking Chinese man near us read it out loud to him before we took off), then played Catchphrase in a hotel room until it was late and we went to sleep.

No News is Good News?

Not much more to report right now, but I feel obligated to blog every few days, so that my faithful readers will not get behind in the tales of my life!

It's Tuesday of tech week, exactly one week before we open! We've started a new daily schedule for rehearsals, of which I am quite fond: we start at 1 p.m, have an hour and a half for dinner, and finish at 10:30 p.m. Could it be any better? Sleeping in, a leisurely morning, a long dinner break, and still some playtime after rehearsal. Perfect!

I DID have an adventure last night - I nearly forgot to mention that. After rehearsal, a group of us were walking back to our hotel. Somehow, suddenly, we all began a spontaneous game of Red Rover on the cement walk outside the theatre. After a bit of this, I found myself on one side just with Jen, who is just about my size, with all of the others on the other side. It was our turn to call someone over, so we chose Rebecca, because for some foolish reason we thought she would be easy to trap.

Well ... she came toward us like a bull toward a red cloak, stamping feet and all. The next thing I knew, she hit our tightly clasped hands, and we all ended up on the ground. I was flat on my back, and I hit the side of my knee, my right arm, and my FACE! Hit it on Rebecca, not on the ground. I hit my upper lip and my teeth (all intact though) and ended up with a nice, subtle, puffy upper lip for most of today! Jen and I walked slowly and stiffly home, the others all far ahead of us, played around in our room for a while, then went to bed.

Today we had a full run-through, even with the kids, from 1-5 p.m. Unfortunately, we only got through the wedding scene when it was 5 p.m. and we were all released for dinner, the kids for the day. A group of us went to dinner at Italy Food (yes, that is the name of the restaurant). I first ventured there on Sunday and ordered a pineapple shrimp risotto, on the recommendation of other cast members, which was quite good even to someone who doesn't usually mix fruit and savory food! They also have delicious smoothies - mango is my flavor of choice. Today, for dinner, I decided to get the mango smoothie and bacon and mushroom spaghetti. Delicious! I probably ate more of that meal than of any meal I've had since coming to China (partly because I don't have a real lunch on this new schedule, just leftover food I've sneaked out from breakfast).

We came back in the evening to rehearse the rest of the show, skipping the kid scenes since the kids were not called. (They seriously would not be tired out if they came to rehearsals all day -- those kids have more energy than any of the adults! It might be good for them to have a longer day once in a while...) We've been doing this for several days because the kids are always released before the evening rehearsal, so I got to read the kid lines, even though most of my scenes were skipped. We finished early so the techies could have their own tech rehearsal (so nice not to be part of that!), and then the nuns went into a room to pre-record some nun music that will be played back during the show, sort of as a musical announcement to the audience that says, "We're back in the Abbey now!" That was fun, getting to do choral singing like I used to do all the time, and then we came home bright and early, by 9 p.m!

Tomorrow will be a big tech rehearsal all day -- and I hope we get to do all the kid scenes since the kids have done most scenes in Act II only ONCE! (They always get released before we get to them.) Then Thursday we start wearing costumes and, I assume, doing the quick changes! I think I only have one extremely-quick change and a 2 quick-ish changes, which will be nice.

We've been rehearsing in our show shoes and microphones, but that's it so far. The kids change shoes in nearly every scene, which is kind of funny, even though we only have 3 different pairs total (including the ones I wear as a nun in the beginning). The mics are really fun. I have only been miked in one show - Fiddler on the Roof in my senior year of high school. These mics are much classier, and, of course, since this is a professional show, the sound issues will probably be nonexistent!

Stepping back in time...

On Sunday, Easter, we kids had rehearsal in the morning, then Radar (company manager) the Easter Bunny came to visit and brought candy. The real kids didn't eat it all, so we "teens" got to eat some, too! What a nice surprise. I haven't celebrated Easter in a while. Then a bunch of us went to the aforementioned Italy Food for lunch, then walked for HOURS to a little historical district we found on the map. It turned out to be very touristy, although there were few, very few, non-Asian people there (other than our group). We split up, and I wandered around by myself for a while, and found an absolutely gorgeous red silk jacket with gold dragons embroidered on it. I wanted to buy it, but it was 680 Yuan, which I didn't have with me! I told the woman, and I was being honest, not even trying to bargain (although I did need a lower price in order to buy it), and acted sad, thanked her, and started to leave, hoping she would stop me. Did she? NO! Apparently she wasn't going to accept less than 680 Yuan, so I left without my jacket. I joined a group of our people and sat down for a while. We actually found a TCBY there, in China, to satisfy Christine's cravings. I can't even find TCBY in the U.S. anymore!

It got quite cold and I regretted my warm weather clothing, but we walked the long way home, then met again for dinner. It was quite late, after 8 p.m., by the time we got out of the hotel and went to the fancy restaurant next door ... which was REALLY fancy. I was extremely tired and grumpy by then (I hate eating dinner late), and I wished I hadn't gone to dinner - could have just eaten snacks that I have, or ordered room service. But I was there and couldn't exactly just walk out without good reason, so I stayed. This was a classy, expensive place, U.S. standards considered. Many of us were ordering steaks, but I decided to just get a sushi roll. It was good, and then I found out that I also got free bread from the bread buffet and free fruit from the fruit buffet! That brightened things up, but we got out of there after 10 p.m. which was just too late for this old lady. Now, of course, after just a few days of night rehearsals, I'm already adjusted to staying up late and sleeping a little later in the mornings!

We ordered room service in our hotel for the first time yesterday. Everyone knows that room service is overpriced and generally a waste of money. I got a tuna melt on a croissant, and french fries, for about $3.50. Yum! Not a waste of money at all! I could do that for any lazy meal when I don't want to go outside. The only complication is finding someone on the room phone who speaks English, who can take the order.

About all for now ... here are some pictures of rehearsal on the set. Someone actually took pictures of the Do Re Mi scene for me, so I have some kid photos! I especially like the one of Friedrich, mid-jump.

p.s. My title is a lie - I guess I had a lot of news, after all.

More photos and small updates

Well, we've learned one thing: it is not cheap to do laundry in China. I'm posting the laundry list, which is more like a dry-cleaner's list: each item is charged for washing per piece, and there are no "self-serve" options.

Since underwear is one of the most expensive items on the list (too private?), many of us have resorted to washing it, and other items of clothing, by hand in our hotel sinks.

I have a new breakfast discovery: yogurt! Really good vanilla and aloe (haven't tried that yet, but people say it's good) yogurt. You drink it with a small straw created especially for that purpose, in similar style to a juice box.

I finally got some panda photos onto my computer! Here are a few:



Oh wait -- those are fake.

Here's a great sign in the mall next to our hotel - as you can see, there is a Starbucks and a Kentucky Fried Chicken in the mall.



We found a new restaurant for lunch. I still like the original place best, but we were having so much trouble getting fed in time that we had to find a new place. Of course, the two times that we have gone to the new restaurant, the moms and kids did NOT go to our old place, so we could have gone and gotten fed! We did, however, discover something delicious: soup buns! They are little dumplings filled with soup and seasoned pork (tastes like sausage). When you bite into them, the juicy soup dribbles out and makes a nice mess all over you and the table, but then you finish eating the meat inside and you swoon! We had them yesterday, and went back today, and I decided to have ONLY soup buns for lunch, no real food. Here's our group at lunch today:



I got a few photos during our rehearsal today, and here they are:







And, of course, a picture of the cast watching the rehearsal:

The Adventure Continues:

We've just finished our fifth day in China. Every single day, I still look around and say to myself (or whomever is nearby), "We're in China!" It hasn't sunk in yet for anyone, I don't think.

I have to pity one of our cast members who flew in late Sunday night and whose luggage did not make it onto the plane. She is STILL waiting for her luggage to be delivered to the hotel! How ridiculous! I can't imagine how she's functioning with just the clothes she wore, whatever she had in her carryon, and a few things she might have bought since arriving. I couldn't possibly stay as calm and patient as she appears.

Today I made a breakthrough: I was able to walk to the rehearsal space, and back, all by myself! AT LAST I AM INDEPENDENT! It's a good feeling. Of course, it won't last long because on Monday we move into the theatre, and my knowledge will be for naught. But today, after rehearsal and a costume fitting, I stopped off at the mall on my way home to buy more bottled water (nobody is drinking enough! Maybe this will inspire me), milk tea (I drink half a bottle every morning...I'm addicted...), some coconut wafer cookies for snacks at rehearsal, and a few Chinese-equivalent Cup-a-Soups. I can't tell what flavor they are, but the pictures on the lids looked interesting, so I got four different ones, and I'll see which ones I like. Those are for any time I don't have the energy to go out for dinner with a group, or if a group decides to eat American food and I neither want American food NOR want to seek food alone. While shopping today, my arms were dying from carrying the 4 quart water bottle and my three milk teas, but sometime when I'm not buying water, I need to go back and explore that store further - alone, if possible! So much less stress shopping alone. Now that I know I won't get lost walking next door from the hotel to the mall, I realize this is something I really can do! And I want to try the interesting foods and snacks that we don't have in the U.S.

Speaking of American food, I have broken down. I admit it. Two nights ago, I had Kentucky Fried Chicken for dinner with a few friends. It was a matter of time and convenience, not particular choice, but my stomach was NOT happy about that! Last night I went with a group to Pizza Hut, simply to be with the group, and not because I needed pizza. It was very good pizza, but again, my stomach didn't want it! Apparently my stomach prefers the Chinese way of dining ... is there something to learn from that? Breakfast is my favorite meal, even though it's always the same, because it takes no energy to go downstairs and get it, there's a neat assortment of food, and the whole cast eats in the same place so you can go alone but still find people to eat with!

Yesterday we had a press event that involved going to see pandas -- real pandas! It was so much fun. The pandas looked like huge, motorized, stuffed animals, not real animals at all. What else can I say about them? They were cute. We did a lot of walking and my crippled ankle hurt. We didn't get to hold them, but after we left the area and walked to our bus, we were absolutely accosted by vendors selling panda paraphernalia! Our group had unfortunately stopped at the gift shop, so we couldn't please these vendors who came up to the bus windows holding little pandas the said, "I love you!" (in English, no less) or walked back and forth on the ground. As one mom said, "Yes, I'm really going to jump off this bus, which is about to depart, to buy your overpriced walking panda."

I'm starting to adjust to the time difference, finally. I've been waking up in the middle of the night (after getting tired each day around 4 p.m.), but not checking the time because I don't want to think about what little sleep I'm getting. Then I lie in bed, awake, until it's time to get up. I'm talking about hours, not a few minutes! For two nights I took Benadryl to force myself to stay asleep, but I still woke up. These times, though, I simply felt comfortably groggy and at peace as I lay awake in my bed. Last night I slept naturally from about 10:30 pm until 5 am! That's nearly seven hours, which is practically normal! Once we start rehearsing at night, we'll probably be forced to adjust because we'll be up so late (with adrenalin), and then will have to sleep in to make up for the lost sleep!

At least, that is my hope.

Rehearsals are going well and quickly. It can be hard to get things done because the kids have school every weekday afternoon, so we usually only rehearse kid scenes and music in the morning (10-1), then have lunch (at our favorite restaurant, more about that later), then I'm either free, or I have nun stuff. But as of today, we've blocked the whole show through the wedding scene! We also got props, so we can start adjusting to the bed, the toy chest, and so on. It'll be nice to move into the theatre for the dreaded tech next week, and actually have the staircases to work with, and such.

We gave away our secret about the incredible lunch restaurant, and we will forever regret it! Now we can't get fed. We have only an hour for lunch. Two days ago when we brought the huge crowd there, we didn't get served until forty minutes later, and had to gobble our food in ten minutes and run back to rehearsal. Today, again, a similar thing happened. The moms had been at the restaurant early to order, I guess, but we old folks can't do that. We arrived, sat down, and couldn't order because so much food was being brought out for the kids and moms. We also didn't know if the proprietor was going to bring out special food for us, without our ordering, which he had done before. We suddenly realized, sitting there waiting, that we were not going to be able to eat lunch that day -- and we all had rehearsal until 5 or 6 pm! Finally, a mom took pity on us and brought us an extra plate of spaghetti that they couldn't eat. It was GREAT! That was the special dish of the day -- Italian spaghetti at an authentic Chinese restaurant. It really was delicious, quite possibly rivaling my mom's spaghetti, although that would be quite a stretch. Three of us shared the plate, then the others who couldn't eat (or didn't want) spaghetti caught the waiter and said they wanted to order food to go, because they had to leave. He apologized profusely, and took their order. Then he brought out free bowls of fried rice and cooked greens for them to eat while they waited! Nice, right? I was very happy with my spaghetti, though. We gobbled it, paid, and went back to rehearsal for the rest of the day.

And that was my day! Does anyone want to know anything specific about the rehearsal process, the cast members, China, anything at all? If so, please send me a comment and I'll try to answer!

MORE PHOTOS!

This is me eating Kung Pao chicken.


The paparazzi that mobbed us at the airport.


The Kung Pao chicken itself.


The Liesls and Rolfs in Chengdu.


My breakfast (rice porridge, a steamed pork bun, chicken, fried rice, mashed potatoes, and a bun).


Popular alternative transportation in China.


And the newspaper article about our arrival that appeared a day later!