Words Words Words

For someone who works in a creative field, I have a sad lack of artsyness in my life at the moment. My knitting needles hold a few uninspired projects, and I haven't cooked anything more exciting than soup and grilled cheese in nearly a month.

(Well, I did knit Droopy Dalek last week, but even he was black and grey.)

In an attempt to get my Right Brain working again, I spent the last hour and change paging through Inspire Me Now.

Though I remain idea-less, I am now filled with love for human creativity.

Did finally manage to shuffle my theatre-blogging over to Quick! Change!, a task I've had on my To Do list for nearly 6 months.

Hooray for promptness?

I sat down to write this while listening to Mountain Goats (Sunset Tree, "Pale Green Things") but whoa, not the right music or brain place. Instead, a transition. Muse! The Resistance.

Yeah, that's better. For flailing about theatre, at least.

Theatre is awesome. I love seeing it, I love hearing about it, I love reading it, and most of all I love making it happen.

And I really, really love my job. As wardrobe crew, I have a few basic responsibilities:
1. Make sure the costumes/wigs stay clean and mended.
2. Make sure the actors look how they're supposed to on stage.

But my actual duties are rather more complex. They break down more like this:
1. Make sure the costumes/wigs stay clean and mended.
      A. Do laundry every night
      B. Brush/set/tend wigs however often is necessary
      C. Keep dressing rooms supplied with whatever is needed-- cotton balls, bobby pins, and tissues are hot items.
      D. Be prepared to fix anything and everything at all times
            i. An actor rips his pants and has 45 seconds before he has to be on stage? Safety pins to the rescue!
            ii. An actress pops the strand of beads on her dress? That's what the needle and thread are for. No need to take the dress off.

2. Make sure the actors look how they're supposed to on stage
      A. Do everything possible to make the actors feel comfortable, confident, and attractive in their costumes.
            i. Actors, as a general rule, have rather low self-esteem and are VERY critical of themselves. You would be too if it was your job to get stared at by hundreds of people 8 times a week and if your getting jobs was in no small part dependent on how you look.
      B. Do pretty much whatever is necessary to keep the actors in the right brain-place
            i. This covers everything from providing tissues to having a steady supply of hair pins, to being a should to cry on as necessary.
            ii. This task necessitates an ability to--for lack of better phrasing--read people accurately and quickly.
            iii. Consider thinking beyond costumes for this task-- have a cup of water and a throat lozenge ready for the actor with a scratchy throat, a tissue for the actor who tears up on stage, and a sweat towel for the actor always wiping his forehead.
      C. Perform all actions without playing the role of servant.

In short, as wardrobe crew, it's my job to keep the actors pretty while figuring out what everyone needs 5 minutes before they need it and then provide it, without looking like I'm fetching whatever people need.

And it's the coolest job EVER.

Friday starts tech rehearsals for Camelot, which means this past week has been ASTOUNDINGLY busy. As such:

Indicators that Alina's Preping and Teching a Show (To Be Developed As Camelot Moves into Techs)
1. I've gotten in the shower with pencils still stuck in my hair.
2. I've eaten all three meals in the same room (the costume shop, of course).
3. All of my black clothes, jeans, and sweatshirts (is cold now!) have safety pins attached.
4. I don't know the time, day, or date.
4a. I can't hang on to any of that information either, and am likely to ask "is today Thursday?" repeatedly over the course of two or three days.
5. Pretzel with nutella is a perfectly acceptable breakfast, just as tea is lunch and cereal in milk is dinner. Midnight snack remains either tomato soup or ice cream.

Sure, I'm busy. But it's more the absurdity of what's happening and is going to happen over the next few days that has me so exhausted. Somehow, 21 actors, 10 interns, a handful of permanent staff, a smallish design team, a bunch of musicians, a few square acres worth of trees (in the form of a set), a positively epic number of costumes, enough lighting instruments to outshine the sun, and (if we do it right) lots of massive audiences are gonna combine to make theatre happen.

Wooooo!

I've been in Olney for exactly a week, and am completely exausted but loving it. I live quite literally above the theatre-- the Historic Theatre (the oldest of the 4 stages at Olney) has 5 rooms above the house, and that's where most of the interns live. It's quite awesome. Much of the building is original (so it smells of old wood and awesomeness), including the baskets that serve as shades for the house lights.

My room is about 4 steps away from the SM table/alcove, and I can hear whatever is happening on the stage. The Historic isn't the mainstage, but is used by the Olney traveling troupe for rehearsal as well as by rental groups. At the moment there's lots of yelling and pounding; I think it's Lord of the Flies rehearsal. Ah yes. There was "KILL THE PIG!!!" Lord of the Flies it is!

I spent most of yesterday distressing pieces for that show. The designer mentioned that she hates distressing, so I happily volunteered. I got to spend Saturday attacking a bunch of shirts and pants with spray paint, rocks, mud, and razor blades. So much fun! I've also done a bunch of tailoring for the next mainstage, Night Must Fall. I had a fantastic moment on Tuesday when the pattern I was working from required a French seam and I actually said out loud "Hey! I can do that 'cause I learned it in costume construction!"

Skilz. I haz dem.

The designer for Night Must Fall is Liz Covey, who (in addition to being one of the authors of The Costume Technician's Handbook) is an amazingly brilliant and tiny British woman who swears ALL THE TIME. She's definitely as much teacher as she is designer, and has already taken the time to answer my questions about her renderings and fabric choices and research and anything else I can think of.

There's lots more going through my head, about this industry and money and our environmental impact and shared creativity and being invisible and a gazillion other things. But I think I'm going to sleep.

G'night!