New Favourite Building.

I caught a glimpse of this magnificent grey granite building on Friday whilst walking up East Broad. I noticed it first reflected back from the glass wall of the Children's Hospital.

 It wasn't until Saturday as I crossed through the Capitol grounds
from the other side that I realised what it was.

Old City Hall. 

 Built in 1894, in use right up to the '70s.  195 foot clock-tower.

Gothic Revival in style ....  Stunning. 

On always having a camera handy*:

This morning I walked down to Shockoe Slip, discovering new murals en route - hurrah!
I'd read about Very Richmond, a store based in the James Center Atrium so went to have a look at their Local Goods. (I forgot what one was, confusing it with an Arboretum. Definition, accurate: it's one bright glass-roofed building, nestling beside the hotel.)
 
As I left the building via the Great Turning Basin, I realised Richmond had gained one or two (or more likely fifty) new visitors for the festive season:
 

Or,*Spontaneous Reindeer Discovery.

So cute & expressive.... 

                

Following the 'Grand Illumination' on Friday evening, they're going to be even more shiny.
(Someone cancel the show, I've got reindeer to admire!)

I walked back up through the Capitol grounds.
I hadn't realised before that they were so accessible
to the public with open gates & places to sit and walk around outside. Literally my mind went canine as
I thought:  

Open!
Benches!
Leaves! 

 Prior to this year, I'd already wished that I could experience a Virginian fall. I'd thought it'd look & be pretty gorgeous. I certainly haven't been disappointed by my Richmond experience. It's definitely more my scene than battling with the heat & humidity of summer.
I think I'd quite happily hold onto this season with its bright blue skies & crisp mornings & all those lovely swooshy crunchy leaves. Bliss.
 

Black Friday Perambulations.

I took the parallel road on Friday to the Court End district to pay a visit to the Richmond Valentine History Center on East Clay. It was a gift shop-only call as the weather was too good to be looking round exhibits indoors. I did discover that they have a costume & textile collection however so I imagine I'll be heading back there sometime. 

From East Clay to find out where East Marshall leads to. 

Egypt, actually.

Somewhat amused by this pragmatic equine greeter
at the nearby Museum of the Confederacy.

Cigarettes this way, y'all...

 Around the corner, the building which Lynn had pointed out to me:

 

Monument Church stands as a memorial to 72 people who died in the 1811 fire at Richmond Theatre. The current octagonal building was completed in 1814, serving as an Episcopal church intil 1965 and later on, as a chapel for the Medical College of Virginia.

Thankful.

I had the loveliest of days yesterday. Beautiful weather. Time with friends. Good conversation. So much hospitality shown. (Turkey photos & reflections to follow in due course.)

Today is akin to Boxing Day sales in the form of "Black Friday". Some of the stores re-opened from 10pm yesterday. Google wishes for me to outsmart the Black Friday frenzy by shopping online. I think I'll go one better. I'll go flip the laundry at the theatre in readiness for tonight & walk down to Shockoe, away from the stores. 

I'm the only one of the roommates to also have Friday daytime off. It's been such a short working week for me: two days out of five, not bad! The others are still busy with prepping for today's Tech on Madeline. Producers sort of swallowed up all the manpower so it feels like something of a scramble to get ready now. It'll happen.

Sue's Thank You

We got pins!

(In a cute little silver box - in a silver voile bag - in a gift bag.)

And only last week we were wondering where all the dressmaking pins had got to because no-one seemed to have any more than anyone else. That puzzle remains but the problem's now solved with a fresh stash of new pins. Hurrah!

Truly it's the little things in life;
the most practical presents which we love the most.

 


 And a full shop focus on Madeleine's now. 
  Marcia & I were making muffs happen:

(I overheard the comment, "because Chase (director) doesn't know what to do with their hands."
                  Well, that works out well then...)

Tomorrow post-matinee we get to shoot a commercial for the show.  

 

From 1st Dress to Opening Weekend:

I've talked a bit about show preparations in Tech Week but wanted to write some more.

The Friday before, my head was ready to explode. I'd been present at 98% of the fittings, had then turned all that information into notes & from the notes, drawn up the plots. The final hurdle after three days of typing to make sure every individual change for each of the twenty-four was rendering me cross-eyed & unable to see what was on paper in front of me. Plus having had the cast swap around with characters, trying to keep track of who was who & where now ... but we got there.
   I'd also discovered VaRep's way of working. The Ensemble do their own pre-sets. We were only to pre-set for the principals. I had a minor fit at Lauren, who's been released from Paint to be my second dresser. Uh-oh.
  For K&I, I pre-set for every single female's change; total control. My head was saying, but these are Actors! Can we trust them? Will they do it? What happens if they don't?! Will it be my fault if they've forgotten & they've nothing to wear? Eeek.


I have only one pair of hands so Marcia became my temporary double in First Dress to provide me with a second pair & oversee the QCs. Likewise Sarah worked alongside Lauren to help her along the way & learn which actor was which.
    We'd had our meeting & had designated places to change to the cast. That all sort of got overturned as the cast know their own timings for off-stage & back on better than anyone. What exists in theory on paper.... So places were switched about, from SL to SR and vice-versa. People turning up in Quick Change when you least expect them, which more than once begged the question of, 'why are you here?!' 
  So there was some chaos & some carnage as we encountered the real-time timings of costume changes alongside set changes and the orchestra's music. But the Rep has a magic word for those moments. "Hold!" And we pause, locate the problem, redress the problem & make it work faster. Sometimes the QC a few feet away was still too far so a change was moved to between the Blacks just off-stage as change times were that brief; literally a few beats & back on. But each time we held for a costume change, by the second time we ran, it then worked faster. Success.
  Tech & Orchestra took a while longer to fix some of theirs. When it came to the musical number 'Keep It Gay', we held. (In fact, we kept it gay for a really long time. By the end, we were so gay, if not probably actually gayer than Gay.)

  But the most remarkable element for me was how the actors became [wordy moment alert!] paraclete. One of my favourite Greek words, it means "to get alongside" & help out, partner up. That's exactly what they did. Like Elliot said, 'paying it forward'. By Act II, the two leads tend to exit, change & re-enter together. Hence when I was already changing our lead guy, Jason, one of the spare guys would step in to dress Scotty for me.
   I began to see how practices which appeared unconventional to me (or my backstage experiences to date) can also pay off. And the pre-sets? They worked. Credit where credit is due, this is a pretty well-organised cast. They know the system. They remember.
  When it became busier in Act II, I took back control of my QC room at Stage Left, allotting space to the six or seven people trying to change within. It works; we've got a routine going now. No more clambering on top of each other to reach the rack & unhanger their costume. The costumes are already hung on pegs & ready to go.

   I made a cameo appearance in the Third Dress, much to the delight of Wendy and Patti (Dir.) and Emily-Above. There's a wig which comes off SL & needs to re-enter SR. But ahead of the show-within-a-show of "Springtime..", we also lose the Crossover onstage. (There's no way to get from one side to the other without being seen.) I went behind the flat to reach Joel on his ladder holding the flat up. Joel suggested I chuck it. I went for the overhand throw. The wig soared .... and plopped down, in the visible gap of the 'open door', centre stage. I stomped mid-stage & lobbed it grumpily to SR. Oh how they all laughed! Grr.
   But we've got a system going now! I throw it across the floor to Joel. Joel throws it over the open door to Tommy. Tommy throws it SR to Lauren. After the show, the wig gets a rigorous tidy .... The ridiculousness of Theatre.


A week in, it feels like we've been running this for months already. I've already got my dresser's plot pretty much memorised & the changes are choreographed & worked out. Jason has re-settled into the role & is much calmer to work with. The track-backs (when an item goes on stage & you need to collect it to re-set for later use) have been figured out. Things have stopped vanishing on me because I know where they end up now!
    I spent two dress rehearsals chasing three hats around backstage. Jason would exit SR wearing his hat to change at the same time as the office set was moved forward to open the scene, requiring a prop hat to already be hanging for his re-entrance as 'asleep in the office'. These are things we have figured out now! There are ways & there are means for that sort of illusion & an extra-special Hat Tracking spreadsheet can work wonders. Costume Geekery.
   

It's times like this - when the show runs smoothly, when the changes happen with time to spare and I remember how much I actually enjoy dressing; the whole interaction between cast & crew. 

   I still don't think Producers is a two dresser show
but it's a show which can run on two dressers
~ along with a bunch of helping hands.

________

 
Some words acquired & shared:

Vom.  A theatre word. I'm sticking with "passageway" because...

Vomitorium: 
A passage situated below or behind a tier of seats in an amphitheatre.
Derives from the verb vomeo, vomere, vomitum, "to spew forth." 

Lovely.         

Words shared:  Pinny.  Flagging. Squiffy. Cooker.

Ashland: An escape from the City.

It wasn't so much like I needed to escape but Beth's visit gave me some fresh surroundings for a day & that was good. She'd come to town for a girls weekend, to meet up with her two college roommates, Kathy (now in DC) & Pat, who lives up by Hanover County. Beth was keen to include me into her weekend alongside visiting her family so my not having to work a Saturday matinee made the prospective day even better. Finding a bus over to the Mechanicsville area was not the easiest so she drove downtown to collect me.

Pat's a crafty lady like myself & she'd eyed up Heavenly Creations, an arts & crafts fair hosted by St. James the Less, as a fun thing for us to do. 
   But lunch was calling so she drove us through the Randloph-Macon campus, pointing out the college dorms & older buildings of interest. 
   We parked up by Ashland's train station to eat lunch at Homemades by Suzannes. The train tracks just run through the campus - no railings, no nothing.  

Another one of those sunny autumnal days when you're best off dressed in both scarf & sunglasses.

My time with Lauren
must be taking effect...

 

I now see scenic paint & flats wherever I look.
It was a good cafe interior! 

Meow.

 

After lunch we walked back over to the visitor's centre, housed in the train station.

Potted local history lesson for Pops.

I'd noticed the arty lettering as we drove by earlier.
It's part of a statewide artwork initiative.

http://www.virginia.org/LOVE/

Onto the arts & crafts. The church show was fun. Quite a bit of variety in what was available to buy: jewellery, sea glass, fairy tale furniture, gourds, local paintings, felt dogs, moisturising candles. A good mix. I helped Beth shop for earrings for Amy, her daughter then she wanted to buy me something for my birthday. 
   I held out stubbornly at first whilst she asked for my opinion on what to buy me. She'd already included me in her reunion weekend & treated me to lunch out, I didn't want for anything else. Then she got the stall-holders on side whilst presenting me with a 'don't you want me to be happy?' argument. I surrendered: I picked out some silver loop earrings with a wee pink gem and some bottletop magnets that had caught my eye, steampunk watch cogs & bingo numbers. (We couldn't find an 'N 30' so 'N 35' had to make do.) 

On the way back we happened to catch another fair. This one was even cooler:
the Barnyard Junkies Holiday Market
as organised by 'a trio of antique-loving, craft-creating friends'. 

   The outdoor stalls featured a lot of furniture, hardbacks turned into bags & totem china bird-feeders made from cups & saucers. 

  I loved the feel of the Indoors outside against the backdrop of trees. It put me
in mind of Kaufman's displaced settee on the beach in Eternal Sunshine, so it felt a bit like stumbling onto a Kaufman or a Gondry filmset. As though an Alice-in-Wonderland tea party was about to take effect. Just stunning. 

The items for sale were even more eclectic. A bit of a rummage through a museum. Vintage weighing-scales. Heavy metal skeleton keys. A random stirrup iron?! As well as craftier affairs like cute scrap fabric cuffs, which I totally want to make sometime. Glass painting. Quirky ceramics.
  Our last part of the neighbourhood tour saw Pat take us to drive around a nearby residential estate. The houses there are so colourful! Red & yellow. Spearmint green. Sugar pink. Quite the range.

As an early-birthday day out, it was a lot of fun to go browsing, enjoy all the vintage
and the craftiness & have some time with Beth & her friends.