Ups and Downs

So, last night there was a bit of a party at the village pub to say goodbye to many of the Eastern European ladies who have finished their tenure at EV and are heading off to all corners of the globe. As you can see, people got down.

A few of my coworkers wore wigs to the party, just for the fun of it. Ah, theatre people.


Scandalous.

Stu greets Erika, the newest Edutainer, fresh from NYC and our wig-clad artistic director finds this very amusing.

The party really was nice. Everyone was in good spirits, and I was glad to be able to say goodbye to some great people who had become friends of mine, if only for a short while. Much dancing and merrymaking occurred, and Boogie Howser, a three man band of village-dwellers, played some rawkin' live music.

I had a great time, but late in the evening the artistic director pulled me aside to tell me that we'd be discussing a big schedule change at the next day's meeting, and he just wanted to let me know that the changes were being made for logistical reasons and had nothing to do with my talent or the work that I had been doing. He said he had plenty of plans for using my talents in the future. This did not sound very good, but I thanked him for the warning and told him that whatever the change was, I was sure I'd be able to handle it.

At the meeting today, my bosses unveiled our new schedule which will begin in May. Right now, everything is double-cast and we have scheduled performances and then time for developing new material and rehearsing sort of built into the workday at strange intervals. Under the new schedule, one group of us will only perform for two months, while the other group rehearses for the next two months' shows, understudies the current shows and develops new material for the following two-month period (so if I am on the non-performing shift in May and June I will rehearse for July and August and the material I write will be for September and October). The idea is that we will be able to spend much more time rehearsing and won't be so rushed to write new scripts and music. This should improve the quality of our material and our shows quite a lot.

However, this means that I am now the understudy for the part that I was going to play on the main stage in May and June. Disappointing? You bet! But that's theatre. There are specific technical reasons for why it really does have to be this way. Luckily, I know for certain that I will be going on for about a week in May because the actor who is playing the role will be on vacation. I do look forward to having a proper amount of rehearsal time and to hopefully writing really good material. Also, I will still be performing in the Fairy Show and The Tale of the Genie through the end of April so I should be alright. We'll see how things go...