Things Are as Real as You Want Them to Be

Time flies when you're super busy both in and outside of work. Since my last update, I spent a whole second week doing the show School Days, because the actress for whom I was understudying went on vacation again. I then had a very hectic week of final rehearsals for my show, George In Storyland, which opened today. I've also done a slew of other noteworthy things between then and now.


I went to see Evil Dead the Musical in Seoul. This is what my feet looked like after the show. The show was in Korean and I wasn't familiar with the music (though I know all of the movies in the Evil Dead trilogy quite well). Aside from having some serious fun, I really felt like I learned from seeing the show. It was probably similar to the experiences of students who know hardly any English and come to English Village and see our shows. I of course understood the physical comedy and enjoyed the funny voices. I loved the musical numbers, but sometimes got bored during scenes with lots of dialog. How neat to be able to put myself in my audiences' shoes and then get them splattered with fake blood.


I also taught line dancing A LOT during the past few weeks. Here are a couple of the cute kids I got to dance with. It was definitely fun, but tiring. Seriously, there is only so much of the Hand Jive and the Bunny Hop that a person can be expected to bare, and I am happy that I won't have to do this activity so often now that I'll be primarily performing for the next three months.


Last Friday the South Africans among us hosted a Braai, or barbecue in celebration of their national day. Above are some folks enjoying the tasty food and lively talk.


Here I am enjoying some yummy South African Shiraz with one of my bosses.


The EV Boyz, the makers of the video I posted a few entries back also performed. I enjoyed their antics as always, and it was cool that they got to perform for their home crowd, because the next night they had two huge shows in Seoul where they sang their crazy songs to benefit a charity that does AIDS relief work in Africa.

Here I am all gussied up for the event with my friend Andrea. For the record, I am wearing the coolest hat in the world. On the side it says "this charming man" in silver lettering and has these neat little button thingies. Only Korea could make a hat like this. The shows were packed and the night was what one might venture to call a blasty blast.


The following day I met up with a random Israeli dude who was in Seoul on business and wanted to do some sight-seeing.


We headed to Changgyeonggung Palace pictured above and checked out its elaborate buildings and its nifty garden. We talked about cool stuff in Israel and our respective travel experiences. It was pretty fun hanging out with a random total stranger who I'm sure I'll never see again. Good times, good adventures.


After that I met up with some friends to grab some tasty Mexican food (a rare treat in these parts). I invite you to click on the picture above and take a closer look at the handsome waiter's name. That's right folks, his name is definitely Bong. Sometimes I just want to hug Korea for its abundance of awesome things that make me laugh.

And, on an entirely different note, here are some pictures from today's triumphant show-opening.

This is Derek. He's all dressed up and ready to play my dad, George.

This is me in my costume for the role of Chelsea, a 12-year-old girl. My smile is not usually this fear-inducing.

Here I am dressed as Allegra, the grumpy Unicorn who becomes cheerful.

And here I am with my friend Brian who plays a cowardly dragon named Milo who becomes brave.

I had fun performing the show. As always, there were plenty of technical glitches, which can get rather discouraging and annoying, but we did the best we could and we had fun. The show is technically very difficult because it involves a veritable plethora of videos. There are times when we talk to videos, sing to videos, and sing with people in videos (I even get to sing with videos of myself as another character!). Thus, I definitely look forward to having the kinks all ironed out. The music in the show is really good and fun to sing.

And that's about it for now, most bodacious readers. Life continues to be full, amusing and productive.