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.