July 15th

Sooo, yesterday. Let me just warn you now…it was CRAZY!! (okay, by “yesterday” I do really mean July 15th)and again, the pictures won't work just now...I'll get them on here soon!! SO yesterday started at 2:45 am for me. We had to be out at the vans at 3:45 for a 4:00 leave. The alarm went off (on the phone that we DID get back from Montana!) and I rolled over and got up. I got dressed and whatnot and I had decided to fix my hair for the show, so I wouldn’t have to do it later, but I didn’t end up getting it all done. I usually pull back the top half of my hair and put in 2 French braids that join in the back. I like to straighten the part that’s left down, because that makes it not frizzy. So, I just pulled back and separated the part I was going to braid and hit the rest with the straightener. I just did the braided part later in the van. Anyhow, we all showed up at the van and got the suitcases in and hit the road. Everyone was pretty well awake, so no one could go back to sleep for a little while. So we just talked a while and everyone dropped off to sleep. I didn’t go to sleep until 6:30ish (I think), because I thought I heard Mr. Payne say we would stop for breakfast between 5:30 and 6:00. I didn’t want to go to sleep and then have to wake right back up…again. So, I read for a while (with my jacket over my head so the light from my headlamp wouldn’t bother anybody) and then listened to some music and took pictures of the sunrise in Pennsylvania. But of course, we didn’t stop until 7-something and it was only a gas/potty break. We didn’t get breakfast until 10:00ish,and we had McDonalds, which was okay because I was sooooo hungry!! Then back in the van… Next stop was 1:20 at a truck stop place that had a big food court and gift shop kind of thing. We didn’t really have any time to look around, and we couldn’t eat lunch because Mr. P said there was a hot meal at the church for when we got there, which was supposed to be about 4. So back in the van again. I braided Fatih’s hair in the van (that was interesting!). I couldn’t really see what I was doing, so it wasn’t the prettiest braid I’ve ever done, but it goes under a wig, so it was okay. We drove past NYC. We could see it pretty well…It was just hard to get a good picture because of the roadside trees. Ah, trees…the bane of my picture-taking existence. We got to the church at 3:55 and got the trailer unloaded…in 13 minutes!! Yeah, go team!! We got set up really fast (about 45 minutes) and ran tech. Then we had dinner. Dinner was lobster (which some of the girl had been craving) and mashed potatoes and salad and some thing almost like rice that I didn’t know what it was and have forgotten the name of. I missed the “lobster lesson”, so I had no idea how to eat it. I really just wanted to play with one, no eat it. And when everyone else started pulling theirs apart and picking out that green stuff that most people don’t eat, I knew I didn’t want to eat it. There was water going everywhere because every time you break open a new part of the lobster a whole bunch of water poured out. I just got a claw and I got 2 bites out of it and then played with it. So, that satisfied my lobster wants. After dinner we all got ready and did the show! It was really interesting. Act 1 was really good; no one forgot anything that I can remember. I remembered everything I was supposed to put on/tack off. Oh, one of the trees started coming apart. The trees are wooden bases (on wheels) with screws in the top that we put PVC pipe over so hold then on. The thing is that the pipes won’t stay when they are just placed over a 2-3 inch long screw, so we tape them onto the base as well. Well, 3 of the 6 pipes came off their screws. So, the tree was kind of flat, but still standing. I had to try and get the pipes back onto the screws before I had to put it back out on stage again. (the stage was set up so that this tree couldn’t get off stage really well and some of the audience could still see it when it was off stage) I got them back on, but the tape wasn’t sticking on ANY of the poles. We move those trees around a lot, so we had to be REALLY careful with that one, or else it would just fall over. Anyhow, enough about the tree. The stage was carpeted, and they could hardly move the witch’s sleigh , so Faith just walked beside it. Oh, I forgot! I laughed on stage at a place where I’ve never laughed before. I didn’t laugh out loud, I just almost did and then had to pretend I was about to cry. When Mr. Beaver comes out he comes over to us 4 kids and we do something funny (I won’t tell you now or I might ruin it for when you come see it!) and this lady that had a really funny laugh laughed really loud. So, I wasn’t really laughing because of something in the show…it was that lady’s laugh. So then I had to be way more upset about meeting Mr. Beaver than I usually am because I had to pretend I was about to cry, and I couldn’t just be about to cry one second and just find the next. It was okay. Christopher’s voice cracked hilariously on one line just before the Mr. B part. The line is “That’s why we borrowed these coats from the wardrobe, Susan”, and he cracked on “that’s”. It was really funny, and Jonathan and I were trying REALLY HARD not to laugh. So, that’s all I can remember from act 1. In act 2, however, there’s much more!! First off, I was doing this trick/joke that’s a “do what I do” with my fingers at intermission. There really wasn’t anything wrong with that, and I hope it wasn’t what crashed Aaron, and he says it wasn’t, and I hope he is right. Most everybody was behind the main curtain (we had one in the middle and 2 wings on the sides, but we were only supposed to be behind the middle one unless we had to be on the side. The dressing rooms were off the sides, so we had to do across the gap in the curtains to get to them), and I saw Aaron behind one of the side curtains, so I went over there to get him to do the trick (as I had done it to pretty much everyone else). I was just about to tell him the answer (because he couldn’t get it) when the lights started going down. So, the lights were down and Aaron went on stage and I went back behind the middle curtain and everyone behind the curtain who were supposed to be on got on stage. Act 2 opens in the Witch’s courtyard full of statues, so they had to be out there and still before the lights came up. Aaron has a box he sits on (that he usually takes on and Katie P takes off), that was behind the middle curtain. I got to the mid. curtain and she had the box and was saying “Where’s Aaron?! Where’s Aaron?!” and I said he was on stage. Anyhow, I don’t know why, but there was this huge rushing around panicky thing to get everybody in the right place. The lights came up and everything was right and Thad (who was standing next to me just then) said “Now that was crazy, right there!”, and I said “Uh-huh” and thought “What in the world just happened?!?!” So, after that there’s a scene in the Witch’s throne room and then we get to outside in warm Narnia. At that scene change, the 2 trees and the stone table come on, and stay almost all the way to the end. I had to get the broken tree, which I almost left in the wrong place. There was a huge scurrying around in that blackout and I was wondering what was going on. So, the lights came up and I came on with Jonathan, Krystin and the beavers, and I thought “Oh, my goodness!! What just happened with the stone table?? Oh man, Aaron is kicking himself so hard right now!!” So, the table is in 3 pieces -- 2 “legs” and the top. Chris and Jonny get the legs and Aaron gets the top. When the lights came up there were 2 legs out there and NO TOP!! Krystin, the beavers and me go off for a minute in that scene while Jonny stays with Aslan. Then we all some on, except the Witch and Dwarf. We all come on screaming and then Aaron jumps out. When I got offstage before we all run back on Aaron was sitting on his little box with his head down and his eyes closed…and you could almost see the smoke coming out of his ears. When he forgets things he gets mad a himself and then he channels that anger into his character (which makes Fenris Ulf just incredibly scary). When he has just forgotten something and is sitting with his head down, you don’t talk to him. I don’t know that he’d really do anything if you did, it just seems like a REALLY bad idea. So, yeah, he was mad. We all went on, he came out and the Peter/wolf fight was sooo good. It was intense. Aaron was hitting hard (and spitting everywhere) and the whole thing was just amazing. Later I said how good it was to Katie D and she said “Yeah, because Aaron was ticked off!…We should tick him off every night.” Ha ha!! So, that was the worst of it. We have to cover the stone table at the part just after that (because it’s not supposed to be on stage but we can’t take it off), and when they uncovered it Thad was supposed to get the top on. I don’t know what happened, but there was the rushing around panicky thing again and when the lights came up the table was all crooked, but all on stage. In the blackout I saw the curtain open and Thad get the top out, then he flipped the top over (because he had it the wrong way) and I think he might have bumped one of the legs. He and Aaron both were scrambling to get in all together and get off stage before the lights came up. I don’t know what was going on…but it was NOT normal. Of course, putting the table top on then was not normal, so the whole thing was just messed up. Umm…trying to remember if there was anything else… Oh, Aaron was behind a side curtain instead of the middle because he had the change clothes for the killing Aslan part. The thing is, his rope he was supposed to bring on was behind the middle. So, when they had to come out he come from the opposite side from everyone else and Elizabeth brought him the rope. After Aslan dies and the evil people leave and Krystin and I walk around crying the lights go out and normally Thad comes out and helps My. P up and takes him backstage to get his ropes off and Aaron knocks over the stone table. We are going to do an outdoor show (that should be interesting!), so we changed that part a little. Krystin and I were supposed to run back like we were hiding from the Witch again and Thad was going to just help Mr. P up and then knock over the table. I forgot that we were doing it differently (I didn’t forget everything, just that we were NOT supposed to look toward the table), and Krystin kept shoving me back to where we had hidden when they killed Aslan (which is what she was supposed to do), and I thought “why is she pushing me?”. I did remember, but it was when we were on the floor hiding. Duh, Allison…think sometimes!! That and I almost forgot a line…that I knew came right then but my brain was trying to tell me that it wasn’t my line. At the coronation Katie P got Jonathan’s crown on all wrong. It was flipped under on the back and the top was slanted down. It looked ridiculous, but he was the only on who could fix it, and he didn’t. When we got offstage after that (and the 4 of us kids have to run right back on) Katie said “Jonathan, you come here!!” and she was laughing like crazy and so was I. It was funny!! So, I don’t think there was anything else to tell about the show. We got a standing ovation…which was funny when you know how crazy that show was! After we loaded up (and took food from all the stuff they brought us…water, chips, granola bars, cokes…) we got in the van and drove for and hour and a half to get to the hotel, most of which we had driven past earlier to get to the church where the show was. We didn’t have a hotel close to where the show was because of the mix up. I think we were going to be here tonight anyhow, though I really don’t know. I do know that we are going to be here 2 nights…and the next show is tomorrow. We listened to all kinds of crazy music in the van. Katie P (and pretty much everyone else) was in a dancing mood, so Aaron plugged his ipod into the van speakers and played all kinds of craziness. Yes, we even listened to the Bohemian Rhapsody. I knew about, oh, 5% of the songs. I knew “Saturday in the park” and “The Bohemian Rhapsody” and there were probably a few others that I thought I’d heard before. And by “knew” I mean have heard a few times and know a few assorted words. So, I guess you could say that I didn’t really know anything we listened to. Oh well, as long as it’s not Michael Jackson or the Beatles (which we did listen to on the last trip! --not my favorite). Well, since I’m sure you have something other to do than just sit there and read about what we’re doing I’ll stop now. I have no idea what we’re doing today. Everyone else in my room is asleep still (and it’s 11:00). I know some people are going to go see a movie and some want to go to the beach, but what we’re doing I have no idea. The beach sounds great…except that I know it will be FREEZING!!