Category: Beginnings

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Awesome Beginnings Friends Nonfiction

Getting My Planning On

This is a big year for weddings for me – I’ve never been in two in one year. But this October and then this November will find me standing up next to two of my BFFs as they each take major life steps. Feels good. It’s an honor to be asked. I guess they trust and like me!

So today I went with the November bride, and her other bridesmaid, to buy the wedding dress and to pick out our bridesmaid dresses. The other bridesmaid and I each tried on 5 dresses. We ended the trip by picking a wedding dress and bridesmaid dresses, which the bride is going to order from another store, where she got MUCH better customer service.

So now that’s done! OMG that feels awesome.

Then I came home and started paying bills online. Drew mentioned plane tickets, for the October wedding, which is in Connecticut. I checked JetBlue and panicked a little bit when I noticed that the tickets had gone up over the last two days, rather than going down, which I was holding out for them to do. Oh noes!

So I checked Orbitz, and tickets on Virgin America were actually down from two days ago. Not as low as I was holding out for, but I think I can recognize a sign when I see one, so we sat right down and booked SFO-JFK flights. I’ve never flown Virgin before – I’m a JetBlue girl – but I have heard good things, so I’m excited.

And now I can start dreaming about my best friends’ weddings and my New York trip! New York, I’ve missed you!

Categories
Beginnings Memoir Nonfiction Writing

Smartphone, Sweet Smartphone

I recently became the proud owner of a smartphone. Until that fateful day last week, I identified myself as a hardcore texter and an occasional phone conversationalist, but I didn’t have the luxury of Google-mapping my way out of being terribly lost, or being able to check the weather in any part of the world with a single swish of my finger (85 degrees and thunderstorms in New York!).

I’m one week into smartphone ownership, and I’m still deep in the honeymoon phase. That is to say, I like to have it on me at all times, in case someone asks how to say “grapefruit” in French (the answer: “pamplemousse,” although I can’t pronounce it), or someone needs a timer for a quick game of Charades.

Last weekend I used a Fandango gift card, purchased tickets online, and took my confirmation number to the box office. No cash involved; no printing of tickets. That is what I call: a miracle of the times. Super convenient. And yes, it’s fun to be that “linked in.”

One thing I haven’t yet conquered: my fear of taking this brand new, very-expensive-to-replace toy into the bathroom with me. I have heard a thousand stories of people dropping their iPhones and their Androids into the toilet. Why on earth would you take that risk, people? My phone stays on my desk, where it belongs, until I come back from the bathroom, hands clean, and resume playing Words with Friends. (Which, by the way, is completely addicting. I’m sychela. Feel free to start a game with me.)

I want to go on record as saying that I do also manage to accomplish work things on it: for instance, right now I’m involved in a big social networking push as part of my job, so it’s nice to be able to have Twitter and Facebook and “checking in” places at my fingertips…something I couldn’t do on my little old regular cell phone.

But – there’s always a but – but, at the same time, I worry about my newfound dependence on this. I hear of people importing their entire calendar into their phone, their contact lists, their lives. What happens if it disappears? The good folks in charge have provided us with a contingency plan if the phone happens to become lost or stolen: simply sign into your account online, lock the phone, leave a message asking for its safe return, or if all is lost, you can remotely wipe all your data and give up the thing for dead.

But what should happen if the entire world, grown reliant on our handheld devices that are really no more than grown-up GameBoys that can also make phone calls, was suddenly struck by some kind of disaster? Unrelated to phone ownership, I’ve been reading a lot of Young Adult, post-apocalyptic books lately, and they’re always finding themselves in situations with no electricity, or no connectivity, or worse.

For the time being I have to just keep crossing my fingers and praying that an EMP doesn’t explode over the United States. If it does, I assume I’ll have worse problems than not being able to download the latest Angry Birds app. In the meantime I’ll just enjoy this phone, which, by the way, takes better pictures than some of the cameras I have owned in my lifetime.

And there’s probably an app to locate the nearest Costco, so I can stock up on canned food, bottled water, and paper products, just in case.

7/1/11 in the Lake County Record-Bee, available here for a limited time!

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Awesome Beginnings Family Tomato Work

Day 11: Expect more tweets.

My parents stopped by this afternoon. We did some catching up and they took me to my local Verizon store, where we picked up my first ever smartphone. I have now jumped on board the smartphone train! I honestly do think it’ll be really useful for work. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

I see how this smartphone thing could become super addictive, super fast. Anyone want to play Words with Friends?

I mean, look up things for work?

Then we went out to dinner and sat there talking until 10:00. I miss my parents. They are significantly geographically closer to me than they were from 2006-2009. But I guess I still don’t see them enough.

PS. My basil is finally starting to grow. There are tiny tiny little sproutings. I’ll have to see how this goes. It’s very cold and windy right now, I feel sad for the plants stuck outside.

PPS. Just checked my weather app. For some reason the defaults are Cupertino and New York City. Looks like NYC is getting thunderstorms twice this week. I’m strangely jealous – those crazy summer thunderstorms are intense.

Categories
Beginnings Being a girl Dollars

I’m sorry I doubted you

For every girl who has ever smeared mascara on the ceiling of her car, because she’s trying to put it on before the light changes.

Over the weekend I tweeted about getting makeup advice from trannies in a Bare Escentuals in the mall. I implied that, because they were overly made-up, with bright eyeshadows and fake lashes, their advice was no good to me. But one of them has changed my life.

I hesitantly struck up a conversation about eyeshadow, something that has been intriguing me from a distance, and she asked what I wore. I told her I’ve been wearing some BeneFit thing, in pinks and light browns, but that I felt something was missing from my life. She asked if I wore eyeshadow primer. I said I do not.

The Bare Escentuals girls have tried to sell me on primer before. As a rule I’ve been uninterested in it, especially all over my face. I don’t feel like I need or want a thick layer of something on my skin – that’s why I like Bare Escentuals, it’s light and powdery and doesn’t feel cakey. But if I scrub primer all over, doesn’t that kind of defeat the purpose?

The salesgirl slicked some primer along the base of her thumb, where you try all makeup. (Something about doing that makes me feel so grown up and sophis. I love it.) She let it dry for a second, and then buffed a shiny, shiny purpley eyeshadow into it. It popped like you wouldn’t believe.

“How much is that?” I asked, never one to let a good thing pass me by.

Besides, this was girls’ shopping weekend with Megan, and on my list of things to find were a good moisturizer, and eyeshadow. So it’s not like an impulse buy or something.

When I started adding up the costs of the things that I would need to start my own experimenting, I opted for a “starter kit” type of deal – which would include the primer (which I LOVE), a brush (I only had a cheapie Target brush), a neutral color to use as a base, an eyeliner (which I never wear, but maybe I could start? if a tranny would advise me?), and a tiny mascara with a wand so small it’s hard to do my left eye with my right hand. For $23, wouldn’t you have bought it also?

Bare Escentuals, I do love you so. Partly because of just how pretty all the jars are. I am now the proud owner of a small array of BE products, and I am also now one of those girls who puts on makeup at home every day! (Instead of doing it in the car at stoplights on my way to work.)

My next experiment: more eye colors. I’ve been confused about what colors I’m supposed to wear – aren’t blue and green weird? But now I get it. It’s not powder blue and bright green…I need the dark jewel toned stuff.

Makeup, like any 13-year-old girl could tell me, most likely while rolling her eyes, is super fun.

Categories
Awesome Beginnings Being a girl Drew Nonfiction

Female Driver

New Year’s Resolutions I have accomplished:

     – Get off unemployment
     – Get a real job
     – Submit at least one play to the Samuel French OOB Festival
And now!
     – Submit a “guest commentary” piece to my hometown paper

This isn’t my first appearance in the Record-Bee: In 8th grade I was the school “historian,” and wrote a little weekly piece about what was going on at the school.  Around Christmas I apparently got bored of seeing my name in print, and I started writing under the pen name Ginger Brett.  I had completely forgotten about this until I was going through some old stuff and found the clippings.  But if there was any doubt, the writing is undeniably mine…you can take that however you want.

I was the historian again during my senior year of high school, when my most noticeable column was about the end-of-the-year school trip that a bunch of the seniors were taking to Mexico.  I casually and thoughtlessly said something about how the drinking age in Mexico is 18 and I wondered whether the parents of all those students had thought of that yet. The next day I was accosted in the halls by tearful girls from the soccer team saying I ruined their senior trip.  I spent the whole morning waiting to be called to the principal’s office and reprimanded.

Now I realize that those girls may have overreacted, just slightly.

My latest column will hopefully not offend anyone. It will be printed in tomorrow’s paper (yes, I asked my parents to save me one), and it’s already available online.  But for your viewing convenience, it’s also right here.

===

FEMALE DRIVER

“I don’t think I’ve ridden in the car with you driving in a long time,” my husband Drew remarked casually the other day on a middle-of-the-day trip to Target.  And it was true; usually whenever we go anywhere I make him drive.  I like sitting in the passenger seat and commenting on things out the window, and I also like not feeling judged for my driving.  Not that he would do that to me.

But I have seen his foot touch the imaginary brake pedal on his side of the car, plenty of times.

“You’re right,” I said, “it has been a while.”

“I forgot how fast you drive.”

What?!  I don’t drive fast.  I drive the speed limit – particularly in places where the speed limit is 35, it kills me to watch those cars all cruise along at 30, all in their individual lanes, not giving me a chance to go around them.  Don’t they know the light’s going to the change and we’re all going to get stuck behind a 4-wheeler?

I put on my left blinker and try to move over so I can turn, but the crazy driver behind me seems intent on edging me out.  I speed up a little and manage to squeeze in.

“Just promise me,” he said, as we turned into the Target parking lot and were faced with 4 speed bumps, “that one day when you have a car seat and a baby in the back seat, you’ll take the speed bumps more gently.”

“Like this?” I asked, slowing to a complete stop in front of one and then very, very carefully guiding the front wheels over, and then the back wheels, both pairs in perfect harmony, and landing back on the ground with barely a thump.  The way I’ve watched the cars in our apartment complex do it when I’m sitting behind them, urging them to “Go, please, just go!”

“Yeah, like that,” he said.  “That’s actually the way people do it when they care about their car.”

Well, I care about my car!  I have been through a lot with this car – it was my first car, I got it for my senior year of high school, and it’s waited for me all the times I’ve been away: my first year of college when we weren’t allowed to have cars, and the three years we lived in New York when it made zero sense to have a car.  Always patiently waiting behind…and then allowing me to drive it the way I drive it when I come home.

On second thought, maybe it’s not patiently waiting.  Maybe it just keeps thinking (hoping?) that this might be the time I don’t come back.

I love you, car.  And I promise to treat you better.

I fulfill the first part of my promise when I finally – finally! – get around to asking Chuck, my father-in-law, to help me with putting on the new windshield wipers my brother gave me for Christmas, and to change the rear left turn signal, which I’ve noticed has been out.

(For how long?  Surely that’s the reason I’ve noticed drivers reluctant to let me merge left.  They weren’t the unrelenting jerks – I was the non-signaling lane-changer.  Sheepish, I tried extra hard to leave lots of room when I merged, between the moment I figured out the problem and the moment I got the light bulb changed.)

When Chuck pulled out the bulb he turned it toward me so I could see how black it was.  “Been out for a long time, hasn’t it?” he asked.

“Um…”  I’m divided between what’s a worse answer, “Yes, quite a while” or “I have no idea.”  I settle for “I guess so.”

He’s very nonjudgmental though, and the rest of the bulb changing passes without incident.  And now I have 4 functioning blinkers and windshield wipers that actually clear everything off the glass, instead of leaving two streaks across my vision.  Which is nice.

Actually, now that that’s done, it’ll probably stop raining in the Bay Area.  When this week brings spring and sunny weather, you can thank me!  And Chuck of course.

Categories
Awesome Beginnings Being a girl Children Friends Work

Children and art

CHILDREN

I got a call this evening from my 10-months-pregnant friend, and our conversation went like this:

Me: Hey there!
Her: Hey, sorry I missed lunch today.
Me: That’s okay.  Did you have a very good reason?
Her: Yup!
Me: What is it?
Her: A baaaaybeeee!
Me: OMG!
Her: It’s so weird!
Me: AND?
Her: It’s crazy!
Me: AAAAND??
Her: It’s a boy!

I am so stoked for her.  She’s still at the hospital but once she gets home it will be all I can do to not bother her constantly to let me come over…especially as I now drive RIGHT past her house to get to work.

Hopefully she won’t make me wait too long before I meet him.  I want to see him when he’s still very small.  (Not that he was THAT small – almost 9 lbs apparently, yikes.)

I might have teared up a little when she told me.  I wasn’t there throughout her entire pregnancy but the last three months (is that all it’s been? doesn’t seem like it) have been all about this moment.  When I didn’t see her on Facebook or gchat for a couple days I figured that’s what was going on.  Weird that I couldn’t just text her and be like “Are you pushing right now?”  Weird when you have to take some time off from instant gratification.

& ART

On the job front…I can’t believe I’m so happy.  I didn’t expect to be SO. HAPPY.  I love it, I’m just having the best time.  It helps that I remember most stuff so I’m not training from scratch.  But I love the team there now, I love the space we’re in, I love the work I’m doing.  The work days are flying by and everything is interesting.  And I don’t think that’s going to disappear, I think it’ll just get better as I get more situated.

Today I spent large amounts of time on a storyboard for an “audio slideshow” – which we use as a show “trailer” on the website.  So I storyboarded the images and text that will go up there to sell the next show in the season.  It’s great having some creative parts of the job to go along with the sales parts.

I’m not sure what’s different about the job this time around, that I’m a trillion times happier there.  (I have a couple theories though.)  I’m just uber grateful that this worked out the way it did, and that I’m now in this position.  It’s a far better situation than I figured I’d be in, back in the beginning of February as I looked ahead.

Because I don’t start until 10, I’ve been getting up when Drew leaves (at 7:00) and going to the gym.  Because there is no way I’m going to come home at 6:00 and then go to the gym.  No freaking way.  I think I’m going to try going every day next week, and then I could take the weekends off.

So happy today – everything is great!  Makes it easy to be thankful.  All color and light.

Categories
Awesome Beginnings Nonfiction Religion Sentiment Uncategorized Work

Congratulate me, O Friends!

Elton Richards – the pastor out of pasture – broke down prayer for me into four types.  It’s a handy mnemonic: ACTS.  A for adoration (praising God).  C for confession (telling God your sins).  T for thanksgiving (being grateful to God for what you have).  S for supplication (asking God to help you).

–The Year of Living Biblically, A.J. Jacobs

Like most people, I’m pretty good at Supplication.  But I also think that I’m good at Thanksgiving: when it’s an especially pretty day, when I get home safely in the pouring rain, when I get a sweet parking space.  I try to get some Adoration in there too: it often goes hand-in-hand with Thanksgiving.  I don’t do a lot of Confession, but maybe that’s something I should explore.

Last week found me supplicating silently all the time.  Sometimes specific, sometimes just “Please please please.”  When I was being specific I couldn’t quite bring myself to say, “Let me get this job,” but rather, “Give me the confidence and courage to nail this interview” or “Let this job be part of your plan for me,” since even I don’t presume to know what’s best for me and my life.

But on Friday, when I got the job, I was equally as enthusiastic (and speechless), sticking mostly to “Thank you thank you thank you!”  I threw in some “You’re amazing!”s to mix it up.  It’s things like this that make it really obvious that there is a plan for each of us, and that God has a hand always in our lives.

The job in question?  Sales Manager at one of the major Bay Area theatres…incidentally the exact position I held when I worked at this company for four months in 2009.  Which is another story altogether.  But now I’m back, and while they have done some major renovations and overhaul on the building, it sort of feels exactly the same.

So here’s to the first day at a new job  career, and to getting what you need (not always the same as what you want), and to prayers being answered.

And let’s not forget, a (brief) moment of silence for my (brief) subbing career.  Which I enjoyed but was perfectly willing to give up.

Categories
"Other people" Beginnings Children Work

Beiber and fever

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single young man, between the ages of 4 and 14, in possession of a good fortune, must be into singing Justin Beiber songs.

Or so I’ve learned over the last four days, when I have been in a preschool (on Friday) and a middle school (today) and both times have been faced with boys singing “Baby” and “Never Say Never.”  This is surprising to me because in my world, Justin Beiber is low on the radar: I don’t really hear his music on the stations I listen to, and I don’t really pay attention to him except when he pops up in front of my face somewhere.  In my head he’s like an 8-year-old boy, even though I know in real life he’s like 16 and probably doing all kinds of things with girls (yuck).  In my world we don’t really acknowledge Justin Beiber, and we would probably make fun of anyone singing his songs (even though we might get them stuck in our heads sometimes, because they’re adorably catchy, but not in a way that makes them art, or anything).

On Friday this little boy was singing “Baby” while we were walking them over to breakfast, and I thought that was cute.  It was a little weird, but I thought, Eh, he’s four years old.  The rowdy 12-year-old this morning was a different story – I kind of wanted to ask if it was cool of him to be singing those songs.  But whatever.

Other than (and even including) Beiber, the preschoolers were cute.  Here are some stand out moments from the day:

-This little girl (we’ll call her “M”) deciding we were besties, and spending most of the morning cutting out paper hearts for me.

-M holding my hand while walking back from breakfast, and then pointing at this other little girl (who, unfortunately, had flaky skin all over her face and hands, and looked like she needed to be bathed in cortizone-10 or something), and saying
M: Her says bad words.
Me: Does she?
Flaky girl: *looks up at me with big brown eyes* My mommy teaches them to me.

-This super cute little round-faced boy with big nerdy glasses goes, “Everyone says I look like Denzel Washington.”  (I’m thinking, “Not likely.”)
Me: What’s your name?
Kid: Denzel.
Me: …Ah.

-All the kids were dancing to some song where you put your beanbag on your head and dance around! on your shoulder and dance around! on your elbow and dance around! etc.  And this one kid was sitting at the table all slumpy, and I said, “Don’t you want to dance?” and he said, “I wanted to dance, but this song is driving me CRAZY.”  Touché, kid, me too.

-The most memorable thing for me about the day (as of right now) is that they got me SICK.  Which I guess I kind of expected, everyone told me it’s a job hazard, whatever.  On Saturday my throat started hurting and then it’s kind of devolved from there.  I think it’s a sinus thing now.  On Sunday morning I used cough syrup to swallow cough pills.  I’m hitting this thing hard.

I even ran around with them at recess, playing tag and hide and seek.  The next day I questioned whether getting that involved was the right choice: sure it’s good if you’re a babysitter, but should a teacher be playing like that?  I’m not sure which way I lean on this.  The older teachers didn’t play, but the younger ones seemed more willing.  So maybe I’m just right in the middle.  A friend of mine (who has a 4-year-old) says playing with kids is always good, because you’re fostering the right things in them, so I should never be concerned about that.

A Typical Middle Schooler (Picture from Paramount)

After my day with the little kids I kept thinking, High school can’t be harder than this.  But I forgot to account for middle schoolers, the Grendel of the education system.  I was at a middle school today and these are the lessons I learned:

-Middle schoolers are bitches.

-Don’t give them the benefit of the doubt.  Just be strict from the very beginning.  And through the middle.  And then at the end.

-Don’t trust them.  They don’t really have to go to the bathroom.  They’re just going to wander around for 15 minutes and then come back and claim they had “a problem.”

I have to give them a little break, because in two of the Social Studies classes we watched a video on the Silk Road.  It was exactly what you’d expect from an oldschool video that a sub would show; and bonus points on the references to the USSR!  I felt bad that they were supposed to take notes, because even I wasn’t sure what I’d write down, but when one of the kids started complaining super loudly I was like, “This is my second time watching it, how do you think I feel?”

The best teacher today was the young Chinese woman who ruled that class with an iron fist.  They called her evil; I called her magnificent.

But I figured out why HR said that a lot of subs don’t want to go to the preschool: it’s 7:00-3:00: 8 hours, minus lunch.  But I was only at the middle school from 8:30 to 2:30: 6 hours minus lunch!  Sweet!  Still, middle schoolers suck.

However, I had a really good time both days, and I am making great strides in learning.  Just trying to keep track of everything I’m learning.  I’m in two high schools this week and then on Friday I get a break (unless I get a call).  Life hasn’t been boring lately, that’s for sure.

Categories
Beginnings Nonfiction Theatre Work

Bit by bit, putting it together

So this is what’s going on right now, just because I know that sometimes a “this is what’s up” post is necessary.

Seagull goes on, 8 or 9 shows a week.
Meanwhile I’m trying (and failing) to keep up my hours at the Opera.
Meanwhile meanwhile, I have been working on paperwork etc to start substitute teaching for two of the Peninsula school districts.  So I finished that on Tuesday (it was a super busy day, with me at 3 different school locations between 8:30-11:30, and then heading to Redwood City to see my friend Sam while she’s still pregnant).  Tuesday is yesterday.  So this morning at like 8:30, the HR person from one of the districts calls to tell me that my prints cleared and she’s lined up 3 jobs for me.

Wait, wait, though.  Because this is how our interactions have gone so far.

(December)
Me: Hi, I want to sub for you guys.
HR: We don’t really have work right now, maybe after the New Year.

(January)
Me: Hi, I still want to sub.
HR: Great, I’ll call you this week to bring you in.

(Later in January)
Me: Hi, are you going to call me?
HR: Well, we don’t really have a lot of work right now, but I said I’d bring you in, so okay, I guess.
Me: *doesn’t respond to email for a couple days because that doesn’t sound promising*
HR: Are you going to call me or what?
Me: Okay…

(Today)
HR: Hi, I lined up 3 jobs for you next week.
(Later today)
HR: Hi, also for this Friday, at a preschool.
(A little later today, on the phone)
HR: Hi, are you busy now? Want to go on a job?
Me: I’m at work already!

Anyway, that’s that.  So hopefully this is what she means by “not a lot of work” and I can get work at least 3-4 days a week.  Fingers crossed majorly.

So work plus Seagull equals I haven’t been to the gym in a week and I haven’t seen anyone besides Drew or people I work with in almost three weeks.  They just asked me if I want to do this same job on the next show and I’m praying that I won’t have to do that.  But…you know, I’m grateful the opportunity is there.  That’s really, really nice to know.

Other activities in my life:

-Reading Oliver Twist, which is taking so much longer than I’d anticipated.  Maybe because I keep cheating with other books.
-Watching Dexter (we’re only on Season 2 and are creeping through it at a snail’s pace.  But if I had a whole day I think I would tear it up.  It took me about half the first season, but I’m interested now).
-Still attempting to write, which I can totally do backstage on paper.  And today my producer (!) and I submitted 2 short plays to the Samuel French Off-Off-Broadway Play Festival, which is in July.  So, you know, fingers crossed on that too.

All in all though, I’d say I’m pretty happy with 2011 so far.

Categories
Beginnings Theatre Work

Opening Seagull

I’ve never been an opening-night gifts kind of girl, for several reasons.

1) You’re working so hard leading up to opening, there is little time for thinking up and assembling gifts/cards/inside jokes;
2) Opening, while exciting, is still smack in the middle of the job.  So there is less sentimentality and fewer feelings of “OMG I’LL MISS YOU GUYS!!!” than on closing night.
3) Closing, being the end of your job, is also when you sometimes get tips.  So I’m always potentially more excited for closing than opening.  Not that tips usually happen here in this job.  But, you know, they have a couple times.  And that’s cool.  But never on opening.

To be honest, I don’t think I’ve done any kind of full-cast gifts since…Recent Tragic Events in New York.  For Sunlight (my first MTC show, you may recall) I gave the stage manager very specific in-joke gifts.**  But since then, I just haven’t done anything for anyone.  Bad PA?

Seagull was no exception to my “I totally didn’t do anything for opening” tradition.  I got cards from a few people, which is super sweet, especially since as far as the cast goes, I met them last week.  But while the actors were all sporting tiny airplane bottles of vodka and cognac – no one hooked me up!  Bummer.

Opening is cool and all, but I mean…I never dress up for it (just wearing all blacks) and I duck in and out of the party to grab some hors d’oeuvres (pesto ravioli, chicken satay, lots of things on sticks, plus cheesecake and brownie bites, and of course the ever present red-or-white wine), but mostly it’s about doing work.  Then it’s like 11:30 so I just want to go home.  So I sneak out the side door and go.  I’m much more likely to stick around for closing, especially if I’m not planning on being back there in 2 weeks for another job.

The ME did give me a book of crossword puzzles to work on backstage during the show, which was one of the most thoughtful opening night gifts.  And everyone was super nice – even after I dropped and shattered two prop glasses in the lobby, drawing everyone’s attention and full silence.  Thank God for whoever shouted “Opa!” first.

I heard of one (kind of generic, but cool) opening night gift for actors.  You give them a pen, a highlighter, and a pencil, with a card:

To sign your contracts – may they be lucrative;
To highlight your lines – may they be plentiful;
To write down your blocking – may it be downstage center.

Cute, right?  I’m curious about other people’s opening/closing night gift traditions…thoughts?

PS. The show went well (although the tally of broken things got out of hand: a belt, a brooch, a journal, a walking stick, the 2 glasses I broke…).  The audience was a typical loving and supportive opening night audience.  The cast was charming and friendly.  At one point during the show the stage manager asked me to go check on one of the actors when she came offstage, because he had never seen her “shake like that before” during her emotional scene.  The other PA and I were like, “Heath, we’re pretty sure she’s acting.”  But she got a kick out of him checking on her.  So yay, Seagull is open!  And life will go back to normal-ish.

**My gift for the Sunlight stage manager was: an eraser (because she spent the entire rehearsal process trying to keep track of this one pencil she had that still had a tiny stub of an eraser); a chocolate truffle bar from Trader Joe’s (because she kept sneaking into the dressing room to steal bites from the actors); and a squeeze bottle of pickle relish (because one of the actors was constantly dropping the line “with great relish!” and we would wait for it every night of the run).  LOL, by far the best show gift I have ever given.