The Show Goes On

I've been busy! My show, The Snow Queen, opened this past Tuesday on the English Village main stage. Here is a little picture of me recording some vocals for one of our background tracks. The week leading up to opening was full of last minute music-tweaking and lots of scrambling to get everything ready. The opening ended up being even more exciting than anticipated, due to the fact that my friend, co-songwriter, and fellow actor, Stu, fell very ill the evening before and was in danger of loosing consciousness on stage during our tech rehearsal. Since Stu's understudy just happens to be on vacation in the Philippines this week, the situation was looking pretty dire. One of our bosses ended up learning the role in about an hour and going on with us so that the show could open. Needless to say, this fact kept us on our toes. Things turned out okay, in the end. It's getting to the point where nothing that happens in my life is capable of surprising me anymore :)

Generally, it's been a pretty stressful two weeks, what with getting our new shows, game show and Christmas caroling activities up and running. Still, audiences seem to really be enjoying The Snow Queen, and we are working out the kinks and finding small ways to improve the show even further. I am incredibly proud to have written a whole show, a show that is different from a lot of what has been done here at English Village in the past, and to see it come to life. I am also seriously grateful to everyone involved with the project . The whole process was a great learning experience and was sometimes frustrating, but also really, really fun. I put more heart into it than into any project in recent memory and it feels great to care about something that much. I always wanted to write music for shows, but felt too scared to enter into a field where I don't have a lot of expertise. Thus, it's thrilling to be up there on stage, singing the songs that I wrote.

Pictures of the show will be forthcoming, but now to the task at hand, which is to tell you about my Thanksgiving celebration.


As you can see, we had a pretty varied and impressive spread. Since there are a lot of people living here at EV, it was decided that each course of the meal would be served in a different apartment: Appetizers in one place, salads in another, turkey and trimmings in yet another gracious host's home, and finally coffee and desserts at my co-worker, Chad's beautifully-decorated apartment.


People ate, drank, and were merry...


and VERY full!


Here are a few friends sampling the tasty, nutritious curry that I made.


Sadly, I burned my skirt on one of the lovely, atmosphere-enhancing candles at Chad's place. I'm just glad that I didn't burn myself down.


After the eating part of the party ended, the merry-making went into full-swing.

And I mean full swing.

It was a great night, and while I missed my family and thought about them a lot, I felt really grateful to have such a fun surrogate family here across the sea. In the spirit of giving thanks (if a few weeks late), I am grateful for this opportunity and the many awesome experiences it has afforded and continues to afford me and for a wonderful family who is so supportive of me and my need to follow my dreams wherever they take me.