Chain, chain, chain...

Well, Dirty Rotten closed on Sunday without too many incidents. I had a GREAT time working with Kim. We really became friends on this show. The other dresser with us in the female ensemble room was Jess – the “I think I’m getting a digital camera…” hippie girl from my locust plagued Sonora Theatre Works job a couple of weeks ago. Small town, smaller cast of characters in this business… And while I like Jess, she and Kim didn’t really get along (Kim’s comment to me after 10 minutes of talking to Jess was “she’s kind of dumb, isn’t she?”) so some of the drama last week was merely generated between them.

There isn’t much to report overall but there were a couple of notable things. The first is that I presume this touring Wardrobe Head is competent because he’s certainly been in this business long enough and has worked enough shows, but he’s not really big on communication and some of the ways he organized the work for this show made no sense. Case in point: Kim and I were given a certain amount of work to do the first day and 4 hours to do it. Done. No problem. Then the next day we were given the same amount of work and an hour and a half to do it. Wha…?? Well, almost but not quite done after working like maniacs. The next day we had all that work to do again and only and hour and a half so we decided that the only way to do it was to not do everything we were being told to do. So we didn’t, but who likes that kind of solution? Then the next day, I was brought in during the day and given the exact same amount of work to do by myself and given 4 hours to do it. It makes no sense…

Then there was the problem of the assistant wardrobe head who would give us directions and then come in every day to repeat them, sometimes once or twice a show. DUDE! We got it! Stop repeating yourself, you’re getting annoying! Added to which we ran out of baby wipes the second day of the show. Now a wardrobe department of a touring show running out of wet wipes is like a car wash running out of soap or a restaurant running out of ketchup. I’ve never heard of it happening. Wet wipes are used for everything. The actors use them to take off makeup, we use them to spot clean costumes (FYI, they work great for removing lipstick), we clean equipment like the iron and the steamer with them, basically we can’t function without them. When one of the dressers asked why we had run out, the assistant wardrobe head said “Oh, well I haven’t bought any more because I’m not sure where to get them.”

How is it that people like this still have jobs???

But the upside is that the costumes were beautiful. Hand beaded dresses and pants, beautiful millinery and I’ve never seen so many expensive shoes in one place – Versace, Prada, Enzo, Rossi, Manolo Blahniks. It was like The Devil Wears Prada meets “Sex and the City.” So that was cool.

On the closing night we all went to the bar to celebrate three dressers’ birthdays from the past week and one of the actresses met us. She – Natalie - was the coolest girl in the female ensemble and Kim’s birthday was that night so Natalie came out to buy her a drink. Then it just so happened that it was karaoke night at the bar so Natalie sang “Chain of Fools” for Kim as a birthday present and we all got to be back up singers. And I'll tell you what, that girl channeled her inner soul sista and brought down the house! She was incredible. And of course, Kim went over the moon.

“I got to be a back up singer for Natalie! It’s the best birthday ever!!”

And now this week I’m taking a break and only working one job, for the first time since August. For those of you who don’t live here and don’t know, a close friend was diagnosed with cancer last week so if you think about it, send up a prayer for Gene and his family. It’s been a rough week for them (and all of us who know them).

Talk atcha later :)