What it looks like to me: June 2008

Monday, June 30, 2008

china...

Isn't this lovely?

Especially after 3 hours of sleep...

I'm in the airport waiting to get on a plane. Our load out last night was surprisingly ok. 2 truck dock, plenty of space and a crew that's done this a few hundred times makes for a pretty mellow night.

We finished around 1:30Am, got home and packed, went to bed around 3, got up at 6:30 and headed to the airport. And now we wait...

We had a full company Come to Jesus meeting about China the other day. Main points were as follows:

1. China is not a free country.

2. Do NOT talk about the three T's - Taiwan, Tibet, Tiananmen Square

3. Expect that they will be monitoring your email and internet usage.

oh, and

4. Have fun.

In addition, there was a huge hullabaloo the last day about flammable substances in our workboxes because of the FAA regulations on all of our stuff.

I'm not talking about blowtorches and C-4, I'm talking about hand sanitizer and AA batteries. And paint. And glue. And acetone. And approximately three quarters of the props and carpentry work boxes, in addition to... hairspray.

Apparently on Hairspray, we can't actually transport hairspray...

And, true to form, no one on the crew knew anything about these restrictions until the day of load out. Which means that thousands of dollars have been spent by the crew stocking up on stuff that we can't take with us.

And then the rumors start running rampant

"The beds in China are terrible, you have to bring a foam pad or you'll never sleep!"

"Buy tampons! The Chinese don't sell tampons!"

"You could be arrested for having hairspray in your personal luggage!"

Seriously? The inmates are taking over... :)

But the most horrible and possibly real rumor of all is that we'll be on a plane for 14 hours going thru two countries and two sets of customs - we have to go through customs in Seoul to get to our connecting flight to China... - arriving at 8PM the day after we left where we'll possibly be met by media crews wanting to interview the cast and then 3 hours later have to drag ourselves to the theatre and dump the trucks that have arrived with all our stuff.

That, my friends, will be the worst day ever.

And incidentally, I have hairspray in my luggage.

I'm going to end my last free world post with the intriguing "sculpture" here in the DFW airport.

It's gargantuan and it's all hands...

I don't know what that means, but it's creepy.

later...

Saturday, June 28, 2008

Spray the Love

Hairspray... yeah. So, when i took this job I was told that I was being hired to “help with the language barrier.” Since we're going to China, I figured this meant that they just needed more hands on deck to train dressers because I don't speak Chinese. .Except they only need 6 dressers and there are already 2 wardrobe people on this show where I was training 10 dressers by myself on Producers. But I get to go to China! So, whatever... right?

I show up the first day for work and the first thing the Wardrobe Head says is “So, what are you going to be doing, exactly...?”

Yep, welcome back on tour.

There are several things you can depend on when you are on tour :

1. You will always be apprised of the closest place that serves alcohol.
2. A lot of learning your job involves showing up and paying attention because you don't get anything as formal as “training.”
3. You will rarely know about your travel arrangements more than a week in advance and usually more like 24 hours in advance.
4. Schedules and itineraries will change without notice and you will usually hear about it through the props person or the E2.
5. Everyone has a horror story about working in Waco.
6. Somehow you continue to work and get paid and it's still one of the best jobs in the business.

I sat out and watched the show on Tuesday and it's really fun. I love the idea that we are taking an idealized version of America – the place where celebrities fall in love with chunky girls and the civil rights movement went as smoothly as integrating a TV show – to Asia. I guess I shouldn't complain. Our biggest cultural export was Baywatch, a show equally as true to life. In that case the Chinese should love us and most of them will think it's real, the same way that we think most Chinese can fight like Jet Li and Jackie Chan.

Point being that i don't really have a real job. I'm training in the tracks of the Wardrobe Head and the Wardrobe Assistant, which allows for the completely unheard of possibility that one of us could be sick and actually not come to work. We're still reeling from the idea. I'm kind of the crew local. Who gets to go to China. There are many worse jobs.

We're playing the Music Hall in Dallas and it's a great gargantuan space with a 2 truck dock. The crew seems very competent and the show's been going well.

I haven't seen anything of Dallas. I have a stellar hotel room to myself and after months of crashing on my infinitely patient and fabulous friend's/family's couches, I'm enjoying the solitude. I'll be back in Dallas (and at the Music Hall) for 2 weeks with Wizard and Ryan will want to see everything worth seeing so I'll do it all then :)

Right now I'm trying to figure out everyone's name and what they do or who they play and learn to recognize all the actors out of makeup and wigs. And learn all the backstage rituals.

Every musical you see has crew members back stage doing all of the choreography in the wings. Or their own choreography. Or singing along to the songs but with their own lyrics. It's one show on stage and another one back stage. Sometimes the two intersect and other times it's a parody. This show has a lot of fun choreography so most of the crew attempts all or parts of it in the wings while waiting for other things to happen. It remains to be seen whether I'll get it down but it's fun to try :)

We leave for China on Monday! We fly thru Seoul and arrive on Tuesday night and then have Wednesday off. I'm very excited... so more later.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Under da sea...

These pictures were taken by a friend of mine. I did not see the turtle, but the sea lions were awesome.

Viva Mexico!

We wanted to dive, so we took a charter boat out to Seal Island

See the sea lions (lobos marino) on the rocks sunning themselves?

They swam all around us while we dove like big molten gold bullets. Their eyes are enormous and brown with really long lashes and they are friendly and curious as long as you don't get too close to their pups.

It was one of those weekends where you spend three whole days in a bathing suit.

We also did a little sea kayaking.

This is the mountain named Sepent's Fangs by the local indians and San Antonio by the conquistadores. Serpent's Fangs seems more apt, no?

The lovely white sand beaches of San Carlos.

A perfect end to my vacation. And now I'm back at work in Dallas on Hairspray. I get to see the show tonight so I'll post tomorrow.

xox
k

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Welcome Emmett Reed Barrett Johnson

He took forever to be born and after he was 13 days late he still had to be forced out and Bethany was induced. The labor was hard but thankfully brief and he was born 2 minutes after Bethany's birthday on 6/7/08 weighing 9lb 1oz.

These are some of my favorite big sister/little brother shots

I love this sweet look on Pippa's face while the kid screams his head off :)

Me and the sleeping baby. How cute is he??

And the baby quilt I made for him. We used a Thai batik textile for the back. Bethany bought it years ago thinking it would make a good back for a quilt...

Any quilters who see these need to go easy on me because I've never made anything like this so i kind of made it up as I went along and it definitely shows!

I quilted around each of the three fish, all the fins etc. and then did a water type pattern around them. And the top was shaded from light to dark.
Weirdly, a lot of the fabrics had water themes - shells, fish, seaweed, turtles... - plus the fish on the back and I was taking classes and getting my open water scuba certification while I worked on the quilt. I didn't realize the connection until later.