groups.

I somehow manage to simultaneously be great and awful when it comes to group projects.

Great because I get along with everyone. I saw that eye roll.
Awful because I procrastinate. Don't we all?

I don't know what it is with society and groups. We need to be individuals, who also happen to work well with others. You want me to stand out and be part of the team?  You want me to that likable person that everyone also happens to hate because they're so fucking likable? Like Jennifer Lawrence.

It makes no sense.

But back to this problem of my GOVT group project that's due tomorrow/today at 8:30 am.

My group consists of 3 people: myself, a guy who we shall call Husband, and a girl who we shall call Wife. Husband and Wife are married. Husband was the one who literally walked up to the back of the lecture hall to ask me if I wanted to be in his group with Wife.
I think it was because he recognized me from when I let him bum a cigarette.
Regardless, in this simple action of approaching me first, he labeled himself as one who takes initiative; a leader. I fully expected to be a follower, as I usually am in group projects, and he would pick the topic and delegate tasks to us.

I was wrong.

Husband and Wife have come up to where I am and Husband asks me what topic I'd like to do. I said I don't care, which of course means that I'd like to do it on the legalization of marijuana. He says we'll just think about it and come back next class and pick it then. Sounds good.
After that I swear they missed the next 2 weeks of class. I actually thought that they dropped.
Then one day, they're finally there. Husband, with Wife following, asks me if I've picked a topic. What? But he walked over to me. HE'S THE LEADER FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.

I tell them I've narrowed it down to Illegal Immigration and Legalization of Marijuana.
I literally flipped a coin to decide between the two. I really wanted the weed one, but immigration won fair and square (2 out of 3).

They actually attended class all week, so I told them we were doing immigration. Then Husband says "You know, I think we're just gonna let you take the lead on this."
Well fuck me. I'm the leader.
We still hadn't exchanged information, but went our separate ways.

This is where all the days run together. Below the Belt was up and that was really the only thing I cared about. So, somewhere in that 3 week period, me and Husband exchanged information (apparently he and Wife are joined at the hip or something) and I actually did type up a general outline. I sent it to Husband after sending far too long looking for his email.

And then I waited. For anything. A text. An email. Hell, it could have been a blank email as long as knew that he was alive. Then, out of the silence, I hear my phone. 3 days later Husband finally texted back explaining how crazy his work schedule is. I'm not sympathetic. I text him back. "That's okay, as long as you reply." Damn my good nature. We set up a time to meet after my classes on Monday.

We go to the library. I pull out my laptop and bring up everything I typed and some stuff that I found as sources. Then I realized that Husband had never even opened the email, as they had never seen the outline before. I then explain it to them, and pretty much tell them what to do.

LEADER.

I looked up the entire first half of Husband's information.

Wife is smarter, and was already looking up her information.

I told them to email their information so I could add to the Power Point (which I had already started), and we left.

We present on April 12th, which is, as of this post, today. And it's 1:00 AM, and I'm looking up my information. And waiting for an email or text or something from them. Will I get an email? Will they send a text confirming that we'll meet up before class tomorrow? I don't know.

All I know is that my part of the presentation will be good. It has to be. I'm so close to passing with a B.

All I know is that I hate working in groups.

closing night.

Office

I know it's been a while. And I was supposed to talk about opening night. Yet now closing night is upon us, and you have no clue as to my first show went.

Did it go okay? Was it horrible? Was I a nervous wreck? Did anybody even listen to me? Do I still want to be a stage manager?

It's been going surprising well. Though there was one weekend, the second week of the show, where all the tech (myself included) was all kinds of fucked up.
The show has gotten great reviews. Here's one: http://blogs.houstonpress.com/artattack/2012/03/below_the_belt_a_corporate_fan.php#more
I was nervous, but in that good pre-show way. I knew it would be fine, I just wanted to be sure it would actually be fine. That doesn't make any sense, but maybe you get it.
Everybody listens to me. I'm the fucking STAGE MANAGER.
And I will remain a stage manager until I feel that I can no longer do it. Which means until the end of time.

Bedroom

After this I'll be doing Lover's Quarrel at KVPAC. WHAT?!?!? Not CPH?!?

Yes. I need to expand a bit. Plus, my theatre teacher was cast and he seems like he'd be awesome to work with. The only difference is that I won't be an SM; I'll just be doing general tech stuff.

And also general tech stuff for an upcoming show at CPH.

And I'm now a "Technical Assistant" at CPH.  I'll be helping out the Houston Russian Ballet in May.
$25/hour bitches!

The floor. It glows too. 

And I spoke a person who seems important at CPH and who told me that she "directs a lot" and said that she "liked my resume" (resume? what? what resume? you mean my bio in the program?) and would like for me to be her SM for her show. NEXT YEAR. I have a fucking job lined up for NEXT FUCKING YEAR.

And now, here I am. In the booth overlooking weeks of time and effort. Just waiting for the last show to start. And knowing it will be great.

Tomorrow we strike everything except the paint on the floor (which I think should stay there until forever because it's fucking amazing) and then it will really be over. In about 3 hours, 6 weeks of work will be gone.


So, my first show was great. It was everything that I wanted out of my first SM experience.

Panoramic of the entire set

go.

Go. That's the magic word. It's the one word that nobody else is allowed to say during the run of the show.

It's my word.

I've finally started calling cues. Essentially, I tell the light and sound guys when to do the lights and sound. My first time was on Wednesday. I was terrified. But it went surprisingly well. I got pointers from Director and Lights, and I welcomed everything they had to say. Thursday went great. It also helps that I have two board ops who know what their doing because, truth be told, I don't have a fucking clue.

But I like to think that all this means that I'm on my way to something. Just something. I hadn't set foot in a theatre for so long, and this just feels...right. Solid. Even though theatre is everchanging, it all feels consistent. The inconsistency is consistent.

I think Director has been telling everybody about me. Not to sound arrogant, or like I talk I myself up all the time. If anything, when it comes to something I could possibly be good at, I generally sell myself short. Anyway, I've 2 offers to be an SM. One is for Director's wife, the other is for someone at CPH. Wife's play is 10 minutes farther away; gas is past $3.50. CPH is far enough to be honest. And I know CPH, but Wife's play, Extremities, seems so good. I don't even know what the other one is. Or maybe I shouldn't do either and should just find a paying job.

We'll see.

Standby Publish.....and.......GO.

what i really do.

I can't translate this to Latin. And I have to.

I think I've taken on the added role of Prop Master for the show, and I have to type love letters and company forms. And Director wants for the words to be in Latin. Because that's just how things are done. And I was running behind on my rehearsal reports.

But I did find this awesome font.

Other than that, the show is going fantastic. Thanks for asking.

Everybody is doing this thing, but there weren't any for Stage Managers, so I made one myself. I'm proud.

And that's the gist of it. 

School is.......going. Just going. I really just want to have a good GPA and transfer out of here. I think I've settled on UH. Settled. But they have an SM program. How can I ignore that? 

The UH SM degree plan says I have to take Tai Chi? The fuck is that about? 

Anyway. I think I'll just apply to UH, get in, and then audition a semester later. Because none of their shit makes any sense. 

This post really doesn't have a point. I just felt the need to update. 

tackle box.

I fully intended to follow the pattern established last week when I did two posts in the same day. One on school, the other on the show. But I have nothing to say about school.

I mean, what haven't you heard, or said yourself, that I would just repeat? Exactly.

But nobody does theatre. So I'll talk about that.

In my last post I mentioned my beloved tackle box. I think I have to further explain, but it's pretty weird to imagine a non-fisherman, 20 year old girl just carrying around a tackle box of seemingly random shit.

It's even weirder if you don't know what a tackle box is.

Inventory:
-12 binder clips
-2 pink erasers
-24 pack of pencils (2 already out, sharpened, and used)
-2 glue sticks
-a bag of red, yellow, and blue rubber bands
-5 highlighters (pink, yellow, green, blue, orange)
-tape
-utility knife
-scissors
-pencil sharpener
-an excessive amount of post-it notes

I should also have tissues, a first aid kit, a small sewing kit, spike tape, measuring tape, chalk, aspirin, safety pins, glow tape, paper clips, breath mints, pain killers, a flashlight, a stop watch and probably more pencil and post-it notes.

I always have this tackle box open and ready during rehearsal. I only ever reach into it twice: the first time to get out post-it notes and a pencil, the second time to get out the highlighter that I forgot to get out with the pencil and post-it notes. Other than that, it just sits there; most of the items haven't been touched. Except for by accident when I get out the post-it notes or sharpener.

I'm waiting for the day Director asks me to get something, and I don't have it.

below the belt.

This week marked my first 2 rehearsals with the director and cast of "Below the Belt". It's also the first time I've been a stage manager.

I've been an Assistant Stage Manager before, a few years back, but the work between the 2 positions is ridiculous.

I'm the youngest. And the only girl. It's all older men that I'm working with. It's kind of weird. I have yet to meet someone in their 20s at Country Playhouse. It's not a big issue, but it would be nice to talk about school or something with someone who's still in school.

But let me tell you about the job.

I do a lot of shit.

I take notes on blocking (the actor's movements). I take notes on props, set, costumes, as they're given. Eventually I'll be taking notes on lights and sound, and then taking down all the cues. And it a pretty light heavy show. I have to do rehearsal reports daily. This contains the day's planned schedule, what actually happened, the schedule for the next rehearsal, all the notes on props, set, costume, etc. Any miscellaneous information that doesn't fit under any of the aforementioned categories. And other stuff I'm sure, but I haven't gotten that far yet. I have never done any of this before. I'm just sort of pulling my limited past experience and winging it.

I don't even think that the director is aware that I'm pretty much totally inexperienced, but I guess that just means that I'm doing a good job.

I'm lost when it comes to blocking. It's written down in my script, but I need transfer it the floor plan. And I have no clue what to do. Any advice would be appreciated.

And I've never called cues before.

Country Playhouse is a 35-40 minute drive away from my house, down I-10. It's far. I got lost the first time I drove there. It wasn't a big deal, but still, I like to at least pretend to appear professional. Punctuality is apart of that.

Gas is an issue. It's an even bigger issue when you don't have any money.

I have this tackle box now. Yes, like the ones that fishermen have. It's full of supplies, and it still isn't enough.  I just got the important stuff, pencils, pens, sticky notes. Sticky notes are important. A utility knife. I'm not entirely sure why I got one, but when I looked at a list of stuff in a stage manager kit, that was there. And it was $5 at Wal-Mart.

So, now I'm really a stage manager. Everyone is very nice and happy and excited that I took the position. They way they make it seem is that they were worried that they weren't going to get an SM at all.

And then they got me.

new semester.

Textbooks. Why is it that professors always want students to have their textbook by the second week? Don't they understand that we're broke? Don't they understand that financial aid doesn't start coming through until February? And then it takes weeks afterwards before you actually get the check, or what have you, in the mail. So no, 6 teachers of mine, I don't have ANY textbooks. Simply because I'm jobless and depend on financial aid for such things.

My schedule, as seen in my previous post, is shit.

I have breaks that are too long, and one case where there isn't enough time to get form one class to the other. Plus I have 6 class. SIX. 17 hours. I'm still regretting this decision.

Especially now that I'm doing this stage manager gig.

My professors. I used ratemyprofessor.com, and naturally 4 out of 6 of my profs weren't on the site. So, really I just lucked out big time. They all seem fine. I have 3 legit blow off classes. It's harder to fail than it is to pass. Which also makes it incredibly easy to fail if you don't do any of the work, or show up to any of the classes.

Allow me to describe my class and professors.

SOCI 1301. Sociology. The study of people and how they interact with each other and society as a whole. This is the class I signed up for at the last minute. It's the source of my 17 hour regret. He taught at Penn State once. So there's that. He treats it like a college course. Which means not taking role. That's how he treats us like the adults that we are. It's interesting. I figure I'll be good at it because I've been watching people for years.

SPCH 1311. Speech. And that's it. It's kind of like SOCI in that we learn all these things about communication, verbal and non. She's totally clueless as to what the lingo for this generation is like. We told her what "swoll" meant. And we'll do speeches and stuff. I hate public speaking. The class is required for Ass. of Arts.

KINE 1111. Kinesiology. A fancy term for gym. We work out every class. She's real cool, laid back.

GOVT 2301. Government. It's the basics. And I'm taking this class during an election year. So it will simultaneously suck and be awesome. He's kind of quite and a bit awkward, but he actually makes it kind of interesting. And the class likes to talk a lot for an 8:30 am class. Maybe I'll vote.

DRAM 1310. Theatre. It's awesome. He's awesome. I'm kind of biased. All the test are online and not timed. Too easy.

COSC 1401. Computers. The class in 2.5 hours long. That's 1.5 hours too long. It's the basics. The first project was a 3 slide minimum powerpoint. Seriously? He super awkward. Definitely a computer guy. But he mentioned CatDog once, so he's alright.

That's it. Feel free to skip over that part.