No internet post 3

So today was our first performance day. I am trying to remember what we did today. Oh yes… we traveled to the new “theater.” We were sent in escorted cars that said Sound of Music on them. These cars actually escorted us into town the other day when we came in. Today they limoed us 4 at a time to the theatre. While in the car, we heard the Sound of Music radio commercial!

It is actually a HUGE assembly hall that they built to have meetings in twice a year. Yes, this huge building was built for two meetings a year. It is so big and confusing to get around in that company management actually told us NOT to wander the building because we will get lost!

So I have some video of Chongqing getting there, and just a tiny bit of the building on video, and some pictures.

The dress run with the new locals (set moving crew and costumers) was quite bumpy. Here, the flys (for the backdrops) are mechanical and run at snail speed, so almost every scene change ran late and the mountain backdrop most definitely landed on the house a few times.

A few times, the house just didn’t move at all, and once it moved so fast it literally missed running me over by a mere inch and a second. It did actually hit me in a previous performance, as I may have mentioned, but that was because some side lighting had been taken down and it was pitch black so I couldn’t see the switch to move the poof. But this was fine, just the house came extremely fast.

And my dresser… these dressers are very unlike the previous dressers. They aren’t as helpful, but when they do help, they are very forceful (I felt quite manhandled and was forced into my costumes with such force that multiple times I nearly fell over!) and don’t really use their heads. For example, my dresser just doesn’t get that if I need to put my arm in a sleeve hole, she can’t hold the sleeve hole above my shoulder, I’m American, not mutant, I need my sleeve hole more in the vicinity of my waist where my hand is so I can actually get my hand in it to then have my arm follow into the sleeve. She kept putting away my costumes that I had precisely set for quick changes, but was also very good in that she knew the order in which my clothes should be set out. Our old dressers were so sweet and only wanted to do their best and be helpful and listened, caught on quick, they didn’t manhandle us… so sweet. I’m sure these ladies will catch on, but it was weird. And we’ll go through this in every city. Some cities we won’t even have a run through beforehand.

The building was brand new. Apparently, when the crew came in on Monday, they were still laying down the floor and painting the walls and putting in electricity and such. We are quite literally the first to come in. The wood flooring is just beautiful. We do have our own show floor, but it only covers the main stage area (that the audience would see) and the immediate wingspace, but not the backstage area. So I feel bad because while I am sure the stage beneath our flooring is fine, the flooring where we don’t have our own floor backstage is just getting scratched to pieces.

Unlike the other theatre, you can’t smell a lick of smoke anywhere, and there are western toilets in addition to squat pots. However, no toilet has TP, and one of the western toilets has no light. Actually the two western toilets feel like closets with a toilet- and that’s it. There’s nothing else in the room. The door and the toilet.

The audience was fine, again. Some things the audiences usually laugh at they didn’t tonight. But that’s ok. They definitely still had fun. And the presenting team walked through the two cast lines an personally shook each of our hands in front of the audience. That was kind of cool.

Then we waited for what felt like forever (but was actually about 20 minutes or so) for the buses to come pick us up.

We heard understudy rehearsals start Monday, so we are excited about that. I don’t know what to expect, except that “all kids” were called. But this is my time to get in there. So I’m wondering if I”ll get a heads-up as to which role I should be learning first. The real child swings will get to perform fairly often, and they’ll get swung in whereas I am understudying adults, so I only go in if Liesl/Louisa get sick or hurt. But Elita knows she’ll be going on as gretl first and bryan knows he’ll be going on as Kurt first, so they’ll both rehearse those roles first and get those ready, but if that’s the case I should be learning Louisa first (and that’s the role I know better anyway), but Liesl is the more important track (sorry Vivian!) and more complicated of the two, so I’m sure they’ll want me to learn that one first. We shall see!

Oh, I did hear that there is some shopping to be done at the theatre. They have gray wind jackets that say Sound of Music on them (in English AND Chinese!) for 50Y (or about $7) and black baseball hats with SOM on them for $3. So I may buy a few of these items for people back home. And programs for 10Y (about $1.25) so I may get some of those too. Let me know if you definitely want one by YOUR Saturday so I can be prepared for my Sunday. They are cheapies so just let me know either way.

Otherwise, I am doing ok. I seem to have some kind of thing going on with my toe, that will be explored, and I may have to see a local English speaking doctor to get ointment or cream.

And that was a lovely way to end my blog, but I’m out of things to say and it’s bedtime! I am off to buy a suitcase tomorrow! And hope to hit up the starbucks so I can post all of this stuff.