A heck of a post for Heck Week

So with my last post, I left off at the beginning of the horror we call Heck Week. So there I shall begin.

It began alright, we had Dance. Well, wait a second, what am I saying? It was bad from the beginning. So we have Dance on Monday, and Mom's working, so I call David to ask for a ride. He, being the nice guy he is, agrees. (Idiot . . . j/k David :P Well . . . then again . . . considering what happened, maybe not) So, since David and Sarah are in ballet, they pick me up early so that they can go to ballet. So I'm sitting outside waiting, the time I expect them to arrive comes and goes, and I begin to wonder if they have forgotten me. Then, their van pulls up, I hop aboard, and off we go to Didi's.

At least, that was the plan. What actually happened was something different. Once I was aboard, David says “So I go back the way I came, right?” I, stupidly, say “yes.” In actuality, the way to Didi's lies on the other side, but I of course was forgetful of this.

So we're cruising down Lugonia, and David asks me if Highland intersects with it. “I think so,” I say. Well, it turns out it doesn't. So we're just going along . . . and along . . . and along . . . and finally David says “Any of this looking familiar?” “Yes,” I say, “but not for a trip to Didi's.” David wasn't overly thrilled at this. He decides to take the next left, only to find that the next left is a long time coming. We end up at the end of Lugonia, in San Bernadino (quite far from where we were trying to get). Ballet was already supposed to be starting, so Sarah called Didi to tell her they'd be late. It was actually an amusing conversation (mostly because of David constantly yelling “It's Mark's fault! It's Mark's fault!”), but I choose not to relate it here because I don't remember it too clearly, and I don't want you all to grow old reading this.

So anyway, after driving for a short while, we end up in Loma Linda. David seems to know where we are, much to my relief, because I'm still totally lost. He makes a few turns, and all of a sudden, there we are at David and Sarah's house. *humiliated sigh* So basically, we start over where they began in the first place, and now someone who knows where to go is directing (namely David).

Now, added to all of this, their van has no AC, so they had the windows open, and it was windy anyway. Generally speaking, I'm not too concerned about how my hair looks, but . . . oh, man, it looked horrible. It was uncomfortable, too. Sarah told me the windswept look was good for me, but . . .

So anyway, we finally get to Didi's, about 25 minutes late. So I successfully cut down the time I had to wait for my class to start from 45 minutes to 20. We enter the house, and everyone yells, “You're here!” As if they expected me to keep them lost forever . . . which I probably would have, knowing my skill with directions. We began to tell the story, and everyone thought it was hilarious . . .

Eventually, everyone calmed down, and ballet began again, and I sat down to read. I finished The Princess Bride. Then time came for Jazz & Tap (aka my class). Pretty routine, until we actually got to doing the routine, at which point we were already all dripping sweat (it takes place outside . . . ugh). So we did it a few times, then Katrina (the teacher) told us what we were doing with the traveling timesteps we'd learned the previous week. So after staring at her feet with a “You want us to do THAT?” look on our faces for a while, we tried it. Turned out to be slightly (SLIGHTLY) easier than we expected. At least, it did for me. I can't speak for everyone else. In any case, it's still really hard, but thankfully I'm behind Sarah so I can just watch her and mimic her exactly . . . since she's like the only one who actually got the whole thing . . .

Anyway, after class ended, David and Sarah were also taking me home (surprising they still agreed to it, considering our previous experience). And so my hair was messed up for the third time that day (wind, sweat, wind again). The trip home was actually pretty painless, other than a certain even that I won't mention because Sarah would probably want to kill David all over again, and then I won't have him as an option for a ride to future dance classes. Although, as previously mentioned, it's highly possible that I don't anyway, because of what happened.

So once I got home things were good for a while, then came time for rehearsal. And just to let you know, they call it Heck Week for a reason. The good rehearsals are from 5:45-10, and the worse ones are 5:45-2 AM. Well, okay, I'll be honest, that's only happened once. But still.

In any case, I arrived at LifeHouse, and was told two very important things: 1) Get into costume and be back in the seats by 6:10, and 2) The AC wasn't working. WONDERFUL, I thought. So I had to get in a Sowerberry costume with 4 layers of black clothes and a hat, and no AC. So yeah, that was fun.

So I was thinking about how awful it would be when it came time for the Sowerberry scene, then John says that we're doing Act 2 first, and inwardly I rejoiced. Two reasons: 1) A long period of time offstage to just hang out and get used to the head, and 2) Now Sowerberry scene in Act 2. No, in Act 2 I'm the shoe-thrower. (I found out later that I'm Sowerberry for the finale, since that's who I'm going to bow as, but at the time I didn't know.)

As it turned out, we didn't run Act 1 at all on Monday night, we ran Act 2 twice. It went pretty well, nothing too interesting happened. Except for a very sad moment after we finished.

You know the scene where I throw the shoes at Nick and Megan, well . . .th-they . . . here's what John said: “When you throwing the shoes, throw them offstage.” I was so sad!!!!!!!! It made it so I couldn't throw the shoes AT them anymore!! Inwardly, I wept. They also told us that Larry would be there on Tuesday to choreograph A) the finale and B) Dodger and Bet's song right before I throw the shoes (sob) offstage.

Then we all went home, and before I knew it, it was Tuesday. The day was spent in wasting time, on the computer, playing ToS, etc. etc. Then it was time for rehearsal.

And I must mention . . . Wayne has a way of giving us his notes in the form of a newspaper every night, and he always comes up with stupid alliterative names for it. For example, for Lion Witch it was the Narnia News, for Heidi it was the Dorfli Daily, for Anne of Avonlea (he couldn't quite get this one alliterative) it was the Avonlea Inquirer. But I think that for Oliver he's really gone down a notch . . . we're getting the Dickens Daily, which I honestly think is the stupidest name of a paper ever, even for Wayne. (When I told him this, he said, “Well, I was going to call it the Pickwick Papers,” but I didn't think too many people would get it.” I sighed and wished he'd called it that.)

On Tuesday, we did indeed begin with choreography. Nick and Megan got there at 5 o'clock to do their song, and they were finishing when I got there. Honestly, I think it's the best-choreographed song in the show, and they do it really well. And Larry has officially become awesome. Because not only is he a good choreographer, but he obviously choreographed this particular song with my best interests in mind. As I said earlier, this is the scene in which I throw shoes. Well, you know how John (who is the co-director by the way, I don't think I mentioned that) told me to throw them off-stage? Well, Larry specifically choreographed it so I could throw the shoes at them!!! THEY GAVE ME BACK THE POWER TO THROW AT THEM!!!!!! I almost danced with joy.

After that, Larry did the finale, which was . . . interesting. It consisted mostly of lots of little kids (aka Fagin's Gang) running around and set pieces moving. It was confusing. And later, they actually changed it and made it much simpler, which is very cool.

Anyway, after all this we were told we were going to run the show. So we went back and got into costumes (AC still wasn't working . . . and this time we were running Act 1). We ran through Act 1 with what seemed like little incident, but apparently it looked worse than it felt. Because we never got around to Act 2, we just did Act 1 twice. Then we went home.

I apologize if it seems like I'm robbing you of interesting anecdotes, but there really wasn't a whole lot happening that would be interesting to someone who wasn't there. On Wednesday you'll get a little something, but not a whole lot.

In any case, Wednesday passed without incident until rehearsal, as usual. (I'm going to have like nothing at all to write about once we open . . . no more rehearsals, and shows only on the weekends.) On Wednesday night, the AC was apparently fixed (thank the Lord), and we did a complete run-through. The run-through wasn't really anything special (I mean, it wasn't bad, but nothing happened in it worth recording). But what I do want to talk about happened backstage . . .

Okay, so first a little something about LifeHouse in general. One thing that LifeHouse prides itself on and is famous for is close-knit casts that are like a family to one another. Probably one of the most drastic examples of this would be when one family's house burned down (this was before I got involved with LH), and the cast did something to help them, I think they gave them money and meals and helped them salvage stuff from their house. So they really came together to help this family. Billy Fernandez, who is an LH veteran, been in tons of shows, said that the house burning down was just a larger example of the little things that happen at LifeHouse every day.

I had always heard about this, but the first time I actually saw this type of thing happening was in Lion Witch. One of our cast members (who will remain anonymous) was going through a very hard time, and it was amazing to see what the cast did . . . I don't know if she felt it the way it looked like, but it was just amazing to watch . . . I don't think there was one person in the cast who didn't give her a giant hug and offer help or prayer or whatever they could. They did all they could to help cheer her up, to try to take her mind off things and enjoy being there. (And yes, I was in this cast, but I'm referring to them as “they” because A) I don't think I did as much as most of them to help her, and B) Because I certainly felt as though I was watching this happen, not necessarily actually being a part of it [although I might have been, I don't really know].)

So that was something that I found amazing. And on Wednesday night, I saw the same thing happen again, only slightly different . . . this same girl was going through another struggle, and she was talking to me about it, just kind of sitting off in the corner with me unloading. And she started crying, and I still am amazed at what happened. Every single person in the room, without exception, even the people just walking by, every single one came immediately up to her and started hugging her and telling her it would be all right. Even more amazing was the fact that they didn't even know what was wrong, they just knew something was and immediately tried to comfort her. No one asked what it was, no one pretended to know, they just offered her comfort asking nothing at all in return. Of course, this might not sound as impressive in writing, and maybe it was just something clicking inside me personally, but I was just amazed at how caring these people are . . . and that's not the end.

The girl, who obviously appreciated the comfort but who wanted to talk to just me (I was also touched by the fact that I was the person she came to), thanked them, but asked if she could talk with me privately. Immediately, without hesitation, everyone patted her on the back, stood up and walked away. No mutterings of “why does she want to talk to just him?” no sense at all of feeling left out, no sense of her not appreciating their comfort, they just all complied with her request and left. Again, maybe this doesn't seem like anything special, but it just really struck me as amazing that these people surrounded her with so much love and comfort and everything and weren't offended or put out in the least by her asking them to leave. I guess it just really hit something in me, I don't know . . . I was just amazed by it.

And even after that, after they'd all left, after she'd finished talking to me and was getting ready to go on, one of the people that had left when she asked them to came up to me and asked if she was okay. He didn't ask what had been wrong, just if she was okay. The whole thing just struck me as . . . well, I've been using the word a lot, but it struck me as amazing.

So anyway, other than that the night passed without much incident. Which brings us to yesterday. Again, I shall skip ahead to rehearsal. And again, there isn't a whole lot to say. We ran through the show, and I think it went pretty well.

After running the show, when everyone was going home, Steve and Larry selected a few people to do a special re-enactment scene (basically, there's a long monologue, so they wanted something happening other than just talk). I was chosen to be the guy who gets killed. So we were there another 20 minutes or so learning this and, in my case, getting killed many times.

Then we all went home. And I had an interesting experience at home. As I'm sure you all know, the sixth Harry Potter book came out recently. I was reading it. I started it on Tuesday, I think, after finishing The Princess Bride. It's easy reading, and it's good, so I was moving through it pretty quickly. Last night, however, I reached a very exciting part and decided “Well, I'll read for a little before I go to bed.” This was about 1:30 AM (I had been doing some other stuff since rehearsal). So I got in bed to read. Next thing I know, it's 5 AM and I'm finished the book, having read at least 150 pages in the one sitting. I laughed at myself, then went to bed. The book was really good, but also very sad . . . saddest ending by far to a HP book.

So today I got up really late and have been wasting time since. And now I write on my blog (well, okay, actually in Word, but for my blog). And now it is time for comments:

Rachael 1 and 2: Well, I'll have you know, I typed it on Word, and Word has a very cool thing that counts the words for you, so I didn't actually go through and count. Even I'm not that stupid. And as for the Canada thing, here's my answer: Canada has cleaner air as a result of less pollutants from cars and such because there's not too many people there. As a result of this, not as many people breathe in bad things that cause disease, therefore there aren't as many serious cases, therefore healthcare costs are lower. Happy?
And I purposefully didn't respond to the Pollyanna & Jimmy thing, because I didn't want to offend you, but since you brought it up, I thought that it was pretty darn obvious from the original book that they were going to get married later on.
As for the make-up hall water . . . again, no offense, but I've been in quite a few more shows than you, and I am perfectly confident that the water there is healthy. I have replaced it myself several times in the past. Happy?

David: What Rachael said . . . you can get a detailed account a few posts down.

Cormack: Yep. Reminds me of something that happened earlier: Stephen: “I'm scared of what you mean by a super-long post . . .” Rae: “Just know that you can count it as your summer reading for this year.”

Rachael 3 and 4 (mainly 3): Well, here's my answer to your accusations: I sometimes purposefully make myself appear to not know all, because people sometimes get freaked out by it. So I'll pretend not to know something to make myself more like you poor pathetic mortal beings.

(Final count: Pages: 6; Words: 3041)

NOTE: my next post will probably be on Sunday, covering tonight's rehearsal, Saturday's rehearsal, opening, the after-opening party, and Sunday's show.