The Color Purple

(Auditorium, about 3:00pm. Janelle, Kelley, and I are going over "business" with the kids before starting rehearsal.)

A kid: When do tickets go on sale?
Me: At the door. We don't advance sales, since there's no chance of selling out.
Kids: What do you mean?
Me: Our auditorium seats 1500, guys. A good night for us is 500 people. 700-800 is a great night.
Kids: We can do better.
Me (about to argue, then reconsidering): Why not? Go ahead, make this the first show we sell out.
Kids: (cheers and applause) Yay!
Me: (Making a rash decision) In fact, if you sell out... no, I'll do you one better, if you sell out the three center sections and the middle balcony, I'll dye my hair purple.
Kids: (louder cheers) Yay!
A kid: No, blue!
Another kid: No, green!
Yet Another kid: You should shave your head!
Me: Hey, I made the terms. I choose purple.
A kid: The kind that washes out the next day?
Janelle: She'll keep it for at least a week.
Me: (aside) Gee, thanks, Janelle.
Janelle: (laughs)
Me: (teasingly) Anyway, I don't have to worry. We never sell out.
A kid: Yet. You mean "yet".

Here's hoping I have purple hair for Easter!

Spread a Little Sunshine

We had our first attempt at a run-through/tech rehearsal today. The good news is that some things are really clicking well - thanks to a long painting session on Friday (7 hours!) the set is almost finished. The lights are getting there, the props are almost done, and the mics are working fairly well for us. On the other hand, some of my leads don't know their lines yet, the chorus is lackluster and look either bored or scared on stage, and the dances are far simpler than we'd like, simply because it too the cast far too long to get down the basic moves. Ah well, come hell or high water, the show opens in a week.

Janelle has reached a laissez-faire stage and encourages me to do the same. Kelley is really stressed. I'm not sure if this is because I asked her to help with the props, so she has a lot more of a lad for this show, or if she is just disappointed in how the dances turned out. I tend to bounce back and forth across the spectrum that stretches between their emotions. On one hand, I know how the students perform is virtually out of my control. They'll either do the extra work it'll take this week, or they won't. Then again, I found out last week that 1) Channel 2 news will be covering our show for their morning broadcast (at 5:-freakin'-56am!) AND we have over 1700 elementary school students coming to the Tuesday shows AND one principal volunteered to pay for buses for their ENTIRE SCHOOL to come. So, given that kind of publicity, I feel like I owe it to those audiences and to our reputation to have the best possible performances. And they're not there yet.

Spring fever is hitting, though. It's sunny, it's warm, and I just want to walk and walk and walk outside. Not yet, though. I shall live in the auditorium for a bit longer.


In the meantime, I find this game suits my dazed mindset wonderfully.

Sitting Becalmed

DWAs, a state-mandated writing test, were this week. My instructions to my English class included what to do following the exam:
"You can do what you like as long as you 1) stay in your seat and 2) stay quiet."

After finished, one of my students lowered himself to the floor, making sure he followed my instructions the whole way down:


News on other fronts:

The musical's going fine. I'm stressed, but no more than usual for this time of the show. I spent Saturday shopping for the set. Six gallons of paint (various shades of brown and green), two sets of venetian blinds, a bamboo curtain, and many, many paint rollers later and we're off to a week of painting. Venetian blinds, you say? Yes, inspiration struck. I am going to make them into giant blades of swamp grass.










I hope.

Books

I'm enjoying a much-needed three day weekend right now. In fact, I've been trying to recall the last time I had a three-day weekend and I didn't go out of town, and I honestly can't recall. After a heinous end-of-the-week, though, it's been lovely to have some time to myself.

Yesterday, Janelle and I went to the temple, then rescued Donavon from his dad and went to lunch at Cafe Rio. I ran some errands, then joined Janelle, Brent, and Donavon for "Casino Royale" at the dollar movies. I had seen it over Christmas, which worked out well because I got to take Donavon out to the hallway to get him to sleep while Janelle got to watch a movie. Nice.

Today was spent getting things done. I've accomplished four loads of laundry, some housekeeping, tax work (and realized I'm missing a 1099 form - drat!), a few errands, and some reading. I had the chance to curl up in my reading chair (avec chat, of course) and finish "The Moonstone". Speaking of books, in my browsing tonight I stumbled across this:

The instructions were
"Look at the list of books below.
* Bold the ones you’ve read
* Italicize the ones you want to read
* Leave unchanged the ones that you aren’t interested in.
* If you are reading this, tag, you’re it!"

However, since there really isn't a book on this list that I wouldn't read, I shall only mark the ones that I have read. I'm not sure where this list originated, but I like tracking what I have read, so here goes:

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown)
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austin)
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien)
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien)
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien)
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling)
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown)
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling)
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden)
16. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Rowling)
17. Fall on Your Knees (Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King)
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling)
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte)
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien)
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis)
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck)
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom)
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks)
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho)
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella)
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom)
45. Bible
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy)
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas)
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck)
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb)
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver)
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens)
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens)
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling)
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough)
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolsoy)
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice)
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares)
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
69. Les Miserables (Hugo)
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding)
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez)
73. Shogun (James Clavell)
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje)
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
76. The Summer Tree (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White)
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen)
86. Watership Down(Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding)
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck)
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum)
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch)
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

There are some missing, and some that seem odd in this company, but book-worshipping is fine in all forms to me.