Wall Art #9: Miss Sidewalk.

Smiling at the passerbys since '95.

Bye, Bye Roomie.

The intern collective is steadily dividing into two groups: those who are heading on their merry way elsewhere & those staying for the summer (& beyond): me, Emily & Tommy. 
Lauren headed North this week back to the wee town of Naples to start her summer work.

Joey supplied (i.e.: scavenged/salvaged) some artwork to decorate up our apartment.

 So we did.

Saturday night, post-show, post-show-laundry, we had a gathering at our house.
It was late & tired but looking round the kitchen at the faces of those who'd come to say goodbye & celebrate Lauren's time in Richmond had me feeling so warm & blessed. 

People whom we'd never met, never knew of this time last year, 

people who'd befriended & worked & laughed & played out with us all these last eight months.  Friends. Our theatre community. Our RVA family.

Lauren's artwork still gracing the kitchen.

 It was a good send-off.   :)

  ________________

Morning after, being the first & only one up so far, I was officially being Woodyied; nae choice in the matter.  (Ach, the tender kisses & cuddles she'll administer & content purring when her daddy's not around & her surrogate father's unavailable! Nice kitty...)

"Reading" the Sunday Papers with Woody... 

Which is to say, that we played a game of cat hiding in her "cave" & pouncing on the newspaper pokey stick. 

Kept her entertained & within the bounds of mischief for 

a while anyhow. 

 

Ginny's Weekend Highlights:

Penguin in the Park ... White azaleas are the best!
... Celebrating Bourbon Cru release at Hardywood.  

AG, Revisited

i) Advanced Geography

 - It's in Wisconsin. Oops.

So we went out to Comfort for Lauren's leaving lunch. I ate catfish, blackened Southern-style, for the first time. I also forgot where Milwaukee was; a fact I used to know. 
   I realised then that the lessons/fact-gathering which began in earnest last December had ceased somewhat. Carpenter Hans noted that drinking craft beer could well be considered a lesson in US geography. But still.

The next morning I got to redress the neglected balance thanks to History's How The States Got Their Shapes. Perfect!  
Doug taught me that "Appalachia" is locally pronounced "apple-atcha". No long 'ay'. I taught myself about the Midwest & the Plain States & learnt a few more capital names along the way:

Beautifully drawn.
(I did have to revise Idaho according to the 5cm
(not to scale) part which meets Canadia-land.)

Midwest:  

Minnesota. Wisconsin. Michigan.

Iowa - Illinois - Indiana - Ohio

             Missouri 

        MN. - WI. - MI.  St.Paul and Madison, I knew already.
The capital of Michigan is Lansing; it was Detroit originally - up until 1847.

IA (Des Moines) ~ IL (Springfield) ~ IN (Indianapolis) ~ OH (Columbus)
MO (Jefferson City)

  ....   
1) Iowa = The Music Man. 
2) Chicago is not a capital; Indiana's makes perfect sense.

3) Missouri, Mizou-rah to the locals. 
4) Kansas City is not in Kansas but in MO. (I think that's kind of rude when Oklahoma City is very much in Oklahoma.) (Also the Midwest goes all the way to the North but stops short of the South proper, which seems sort of odd but is, nonetheless.)

Plain States: 

North Dakota. + Minnesota.

South Dakota.  + Iowa. 

Nebraska (NE). + Missouri.

                     Kansas. 

 _________________________

ii)

 Meanwhile, back in the Park:

Bridges are fun!

last week's azaleas were now in full bloom ...

 

 

 

 




whilst elsewhere the buds were beginning to come through:

 

&  the fountain was On!

Gotta watch out for those wriggly
inchworm-winchworms
whilst walking the Loop!

 

Lifted!

Tech Week kind of took my resolve & broke it, 
re-forming it into a different drink to the norm.

It's all the rage.

    Colleagues have been raving about this one ever since I arrived. The aroma of RfC fills the Ass.Tech.Pro.Man's office, it being Wendy's #1 drink of choice. Lift is but a stone's throw from the Rep's front door & yet... I still find buying coffee-to-go kind of frivolous. $2, $4 a time? It's as near to walk home & put the kettle on! 

   So I've been holding out, meaning to treat myself sometime or waiting for when I really needed that extra kick. (It doesn't come decaff; I tried that one already.) Then Pay Day combined with Tech Week & by then, I was ready to falter from the decaff bandwagon & refuel. A bag of pre-ground makes for a far better investment. And boy, did it taste & smell good... 

Mm-mm.

In which Alcohol really IS the Answer.

That is to say,

So the other day, I was so excited about splattering paint, right?

That's all well & good when it lands & dries in its rightfully-intended proper place. 

The thing with this particular play is that we have paint for effect on costumes from Scene 1 through Scene 5. Then we have the priming ballet (as Mr. Director named it) of Scene 3 with real paint, red acrylic, as the two men get to work on a canvas in realtime. 

"Red"  Scene iii
~ Photo by Jay Paul.

Then there's the "suicide" paintwash of Scene 5, where Rothko sits with hands in a bucket. Scene V's paint was developed especially in order to wash out, being mostly finger-paint & which does so remarkably well. Scene III's paint - not so much & it was getting everywhere. 

No use crying over spilt paint? Oh how I beg to differ! It certainly made me want to cry by the end of Second Dress. Our two men are so Lovely but the word of the moment is most definitely Method. So when that paint & those costumes first met, the Method won out & paint was splashed in artistic abandon. As such, there was no knowing where the Evil Acrylic was going to end up next. 
   Turning up in places it should never have even had sight of: the inside of a Sc.V collar, the lining of a Sc.I jacket. Then there was the brand new $80 "Traveler" pants of Scene 5: we'd bought those as they were 100% Polyester so entirely wash-worthy (yes! way better than the woollen ones of before) & Scotch-guarded & anti-crease/wrinkle ... But not anti-acrylic, it seems. 
________


It's been mentioned to me a few times that "it's just a ninety-minute show" - so shorter than a musical, just the 2 men, not that much of a workload. Sure, along with 45mins prep & 45mins strike for props & a whole lot of laundry to be taken care of...
   There was a wee bit of conflict in pre-production which hadn't helped either. The long & short of it being that we, the Rep, have produced one play whilst co-producing a musical. The musical emerged as a little bit of a monster & proven somewhat attention-seeking for time, energy, resources & publicity. My two boys have been tired & stressed 'beyond relief' from it, poor loves. Admittedly by holding forth on the mainstage, it should work to shift more seats to subscribers than the black box but still.  
   Work on the one show has sometimes been side-tracked by the other. I'm happy to build for both because I'm after all the building experience I can get but that for me is where the buck stops. If I'm running crew for the other, I've got to be keeping those white shirts white. That's my job.

Bleach. Detergent. Shout. Oxy-clean. Alcohol.  
__________

Sarah's wisdom - as she saw my face when we tried to problem-solve post-tech as to how on earth I'd be leaving the theatre before midnight each night, having scrubbed the remaining hours away. Soap & water hadn't worked on the red, nor the Shout; so far - nothing. - Sarah's wisdom was to say, "Second dress is always the worst."
   She was right. Sunday through Tuesday was for problem-solving of the obvious & immediate. But by Tuesday, things you thought you had down & fixed became superseded by a whole new set of problems. There's a lot of dual exiting to different places. Thankfully I have the Joey/Katie QC sensation to be my second set of hands backstage. Then the lack of structure & knowledge as to how to handle the laundry, what to focus on first, how best to keep the costumes clean & ready for a new show. 
 
I went home that night, opened a beer & hit up Google. 
I decided we were going to be smarter than the Red.    

"How does Red make me feel? What does Red mean to me?"   

With "tragedy in every brushstroke" ?

Distraught ... 

.... Determined!

Next morning I was back in with my List. Those pants were gonna be cleaned up & back in the show. We couldn't afford to be buying new clothes after every single performance.

How to get acrylic paint out of clothing?

Pine-sol.
Windex.
WD-40.
Alcohol.
Goof Off.
Krud Kutter. 

Plus a handy toothbrush & a whole lot of vigorous scrubbing.  

 
Wednesday's Tech was better. By Preview Thursday (with fauxpening drinks), the Joey/Katie + Myself were On It. 

Sarah's post-show thoughts that night: 

Tonight was the 3rd dress rehearsal for my newest show "Red" and I have to say it is a fantastic show! And it isn't as messy as it was 2 days ago, so hopefully my wardrobe gal won't go postal on me!

 
(I thought "going Postal" was sort of being AWOL - as well as a Pratchett novel. Turns out it's more about going violent on your work colleagues. No wonder she was relieved.) 
__________


The paint studio actually backs on & into the Rep's paint shop behind Theatre Gym, a false wall within the shop itself acting as the Vestibule. These walls don't have ears so I kind of miss the wings. We're learning to hear the play, to know timings for the QCs but it's literally a conversation, an unfolding relationship & a lot of red paint.

"Red"
~ Photo by Jay Paul.

It's happening. It's still messy at times but it's so much better than it was last Tuesday. 

I've got a laundering system in place now, plus the new tiger cat Tiger nail brush I purchased to scrub my troubles further away! 

OF #9 ... I thought given the antics of Sc 3, 
'Pirouette' was well-chosen indeed!

Red: Before & After  

                 (woo, for Lauren, Paint & Props!) & a lot of lovely audience feedback too. 

Also Richmond Family Magazine: 

"Sarah Grady’s costume work felt so authentic that I found myself wondering whether the cast engaged in an all-night painting party to acquire the perfect paint splatter accents. " 

#win 

  

Post from Joc which made me smile:  

 ____________

Words taught: 

Skanky.
Trollied.
Stropping (misheard initially as "Strumping", not quite so wenchly!)
Surname - "Last Name" being so much more the norm.  
The Gay Gordon after which Joey & I promenaded around the parking lot.  :)

Words learnt: 

Shiftstick, for when you drive & change gears manually with a gearstick.
I commented on my never having driven an automatic, "Oh, you're so European!" was the response.   

A Weekend's Worth

.... The trick this weekend was to make Saturday count for both Saturday & Sunday as - no rest for the wicked - Sunday was Double Tech Day. As such, we succeeded!

First off though, Friday, which was a little on the crazy side. It's been a tough week for America. The fires in West, Texas; the explosion in Boston, subsequent shooting at MIT & car chase; the lock-down of Watertown with reports coming in on the hour as the manhunt took place throughout the neighbourhood. 
  We went out to the Tavern amidst warnings of Tornado Watch. The storm looked to be headed south past Richmond. We did have flickering lights over the dinner table in the restaurant & a dramatic rain shower, that's all. At in'ermission, catching up on the news:  second suspect found & arrested; relief.  

Saturday. The final fully free one from Now up until August. 

Making it Happen & making it Good:  

Sunshine outside of "Yellow Umbrella"

which effectively means al fresco eating is due later.

Vive la Grill!

Shucking away Saturday ....
An oysterful afternoon treat.

Sunny skies.

        
I read Red...                       
                    sunbathed ...

                       snoozed ...

once again grateful for the grass
in my adoptive backyard. 

(7's rooftop doesn't quite compare even with its glorious views of surrounding buildings, garbage cans & the drone of exiting cars. Funnily enough.)

A walk in the park to find - at last - the long-promised azaleas in full bloom! 

Spring is surely one heck of a capricious creature - only last week they were still but buds.
This Saturday though, beautiful & vibrant: pink, purple, red, white. 

 

  I'm going to dramatically refer to this one as "Saturday's 'Last Supper'".
~ Irish trout revisited along with my Scottish Fraoch find!

We fence-hopped later to join the neighbours around their fire pit, 

dessert first via marshmallows on sticks;
embers later on called for 'homegrown' hot dogs. 


Talk of lightning bugs (fireflies), 
wriggly inchworms spotted earlier, weaving their webs everywhere
as well as the very topical cicadas ("sə-ˈkā-də") 
- not to be confused with, nor probably eaten in, quesadillas!

(Incidentally, we had Tom Kitt's first cousin with us by the campfire. 
He wrote the music for Next to Normal, which The Manly Man is running sound for. 
Hence he was sure to check out just how loud Kitt had intended it to be played. 
The answer? Loud.)

Mmm, lovely evening, lovely day.

And now,  Tech, Tech, Tech...