What's worse than munchkins? Their mommies!!!
After being assured that the munchkin madness would be laid to rest in Gainesville – stage moms interfering with my fittings “can't my daughter wear bows in her hair? The other little girl has bows and she wants bows too...”, moms altering the costumes in the dressing room “can I have a needle and thread so I can just fix this??”and 8-year-old munchkins fighting, playing poker and gambling in the dressing rooms between shows – we have our final preview performance (and second show since all of our dress rehearsals were cut for technical problems that continue to plague us) in Gainesville on Sunday night.
We then have a 13 hour load out that goes until 5:30AM, we get three hours of sleep and get on the road at 9AM to drive ourselves to Tampa and start load in at noon, a bare 7 hours after we finish load out. The carpentry crew works until 10PM and is back on site at 8AM the next morning to work feverishly until 6PM which mean our final afternoon dress rehearsal is cut, again for technical problems, leaving me with a new crew who has never run the show, dresser tracks that still have problems because we've only ever had 2 shows to work them out and an opening night that constitutes the third performance we've ever had.
So, opening night, it's opening night!!! Everything that could go wrong did. It was really a terrible show. The highest uppity up guy in our company said it was the worst show he's ever seen.
hooray!
So happy we worked ourselves to death for 2 weeks and got no sleep and did everything we were told to do and more only to produce the worst show ever. Can someone please transfer me to Springtime for Hitler? I beg of you..
But fortunately, it's the Wizard of Oz, which everyone loves, so we got a standing ovation and a good review by the grace of God, which means that somehow we'll continue to sell tickets while we iron out the rest of the problems over the next month.
And then the munchkin mommy showed up. She's not only a mom of one of the munchkins – did I mention that we pick up 12 local kids in each city to be munchkins?? - but she's the teacher at the local dance studio where all the kids take lessons. During the fittings she wanted to take pictures. Which would be ok if they were candid shots but instead the kids want to smile and pose and do dance steps while I'm trying to get them to try on shoes, and fasten belts and figure out why a parent would mark down that their kid is 4 feet tall when clearly they are 5 feet tall, which means that the costume I chose for them based on the advance sheets won't work at all. And 12 kids means 24 hands for gloves, and 24 feet for two pairs of shoes each, and each kid gets two costumes consisting of many many pieces ([petticoats, shirts, bum rolls, jackets, suspenders, hats etc.) so that's a lot of stuff and i have one hour (1!) to get all this done and she wants to distract the kids by taking pictures.
So I ask her not to take pictures explaining that I'm busy and pressed for time and that I lose the 10% of the kids' attention that I had to begin with. I know I was harried but I also know that I used the word please. And instead of saying “oh, you're right. There are three of you and 12 kids and you must be busy...” she just gave me a look like I had told her her child was an untalented wreck that didn't deserve to be on stage and turned around and walked away.
well, then.
So I finish fittings, we have our mediocre opening night and this munchkin mommy continues to cause us problems. For legal reasons we have to have local chaperones to watch the kids backstage. And if I could I would post this sign in the dressing room:
“To all local chaperones, you are a baby sitter. You are here only to watch the kids, not to give us costume advice,and not to alter the costumes. We don't tell you how to raise your kids (or we would tell them to stop punching their neighbor and fleecing the next door munchkin for their lunch money), so please don't give me advice on what color your daughter should wear. She's a Lollipop munchkin. This is her costume. That will be all.”
But instead we have to say “thanks for your help but could you stand over there so we can get this done as quickly as possible?” And every time we said that to the Tampa munchkin mommy, she would stalk away from us and say loudly as she walked away “Girls, I love helping you with your costumes but i just can't because THEY won't let me!”
Really?? Are we 12??
AND THEN, Jennifer went into the munchkin room on Wednesday night and that same munchkin mommy was drinking beer.
In the dressing room.
Backstage, during a performance.
While she is in charge of 12 kids.
!!!!!!!!!!
And when Jennifer told her that she would have to get our company manager, the mommy says “oh, so now you are going to tell on me??”
Those were her exact words.
To recap: gambling munchkins and their moms on the bottle. This is Wizard of Oz on tour.
We then have a 13 hour load out that goes until 5:30AM, we get three hours of sleep and get on the road at 9AM to drive ourselves to Tampa and start load in at noon, a bare 7 hours after we finish load out. The carpentry crew works until 10PM and is back on site at 8AM the next morning to work feverishly until 6PM which mean our final afternoon dress rehearsal is cut, again for technical problems, leaving me with a new crew who has never run the show, dresser tracks that still have problems because we've only ever had 2 shows to work them out and an opening night that constitutes the third performance we've ever had.
So, opening night, it's opening night!!! Everything that could go wrong did. It was really a terrible show. The highest uppity up guy in our company said it was the worst show he's ever seen.
hooray!
So happy we worked ourselves to death for 2 weeks and got no sleep and did everything we were told to do and more only to produce the worst show ever. Can someone please transfer me to Springtime for Hitler? I beg of you..
But fortunately, it's the Wizard of Oz, which everyone loves, so we got a standing ovation and a good review by the grace of God, which means that somehow we'll continue to sell tickets while we iron out the rest of the problems over the next month.
And then the munchkin mommy showed up. She's not only a mom of one of the munchkins – did I mention that we pick up 12 local kids in each city to be munchkins?? - but she's the teacher at the local dance studio where all the kids take lessons. During the fittings she wanted to take pictures. Which would be ok if they were candid shots but instead the kids want to smile and pose and do dance steps while I'm trying to get them to try on shoes, and fasten belts and figure out why a parent would mark down that their kid is 4 feet tall when clearly they are 5 feet tall, which means that the costume I chose for them based on the advance sheets won't work at all. And 12 kids means 24 hands for gloves, and 24 feet for two pairs of shoes each, and each kid gets two costumes consisting of many many pieces ([petticoats, shirts, bum rolls, jackets, suspenders, hats etc.) so that's a lot of stuff and i have one hour (1!) to get all this done and she wants to distract the kids by taking pictures.
So I ask her not to take pictures explaining that I'm busy and pressed for time and that I lose the 10% of the kids' attention that I had to begin with. I know I was harried but I also know that I used the word please. And instead of saying “oh, you're right. There are three of you and 12 kids and you must be busy...” she just gave me a look like I had told her her child was an untalented wreck that didn't deserve to be on stage and turned around and walked away.
well, then.
So I finish fittings, we have our mediocre opening night and this munchkin mommy continues to cause us problems. For legal reasons we have to have local chaperones to watch the kids backstage. And if I could I would post this sign in the dressing room:
“To all local chaperones, you are a baby sitter. You are here only to watch the kids, not to give us costume advice,and not to alter the costumes. We don't tell you how to raise your kids (or we would tell them to stop punching their neighbor and fleecing the next door munchkin for their lunch money), so please don't give me advice on what color your daughter should wear. She's a Lollipop munchkin. This is her costume. That will be all.”
But instead we have to say “thanks for your help but could you stand over there so we can get this done as quickly as possible?” And every time we said that to the Tampa munchkin mommy, she would stalk away from us and say loudly as she walked away “Girls, I love helping you with your costumes but i just can't because THEY won't let me!”
Really?? Are we 12??
AND THEN, Jennifer went into the munchkin room on Wednesday night and that same munchkin mommy was drinking beer.
In the dressing room.
Backstage, during a performance.
While she is in charge of 12 kids.
!!!!!!!!!!
And when Jennifer told her that she would have to get our company manager, the mommy says “oh, so now you are going to tell on me??”
Those were her exact words.
To recap: gambling munchkins and their moms on the bottle. This is Wizard of Oz on tour.
Labels: munchkins, tampa, wizard of oz
posted by KBARRETT at 4:01 PM
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