Excitement Everywhere!

Yesterday was a grey, icky, blech kind of day. Driving across the bridge, the grey was all around me; over the water on either side of me, as far as the eye could see in front of me, and even in my rear view mirror. But I was nearly across the 10 mike span before I noticed it, because my head was full of color. The music was playing, and all I was thinking about was the opening night show, and the movement, and the costumes and the fire. I was a moving technicolor driving hazard in its most spaced out form.

Opening night KICKED ASS! I love love love being able to say I was part of it, too! It went off without a hitch, both production-wise and costumes. And the crowd really seemed to enjoy it too - there was lots of feedback along the lines of "Best one they've done yet" that filtered back to us. Plus, working with A and M has been a hoot and a holler - I'm going to really miss them once this is all over.

And to add to the whole experience, after the show, Herr Direktor took the cast and crew out for free drinks which was cool in and of itsself (a little booze always helps me practice to be an extrovert,) but made even more exciting by the fact that the bar was ... TA-DAA! Downtown Oakland the night of the riots this past Wednesday! Yep, the bar was about two blocks from the worst of it, although by the time we got there the worst of it was already past. Didn't actually see any rioting at all, but must've past about 40 cop cars, streets were blocked off, cops were out in full riot gear, cans of tear gas (some sort of gas, at least) were still hissing in the streets, and I did see one of those large trailers with all the light bulbs for changing street conditions ("street closed from 12 am to 4 am / use alternate route") knocked over on the middle of a road. Oh, and at least two helicopters hovering over the otherwise deserted streets.

In hindsight, maybe parking my car and walking two blocks to the bar through a riot zone wasn't the smartest thing I could've done, but there was NO WAY I was going to miss opening night drinks with the rest of the cast/crew. NO. WAY.

Didn't work the show last night, but did go into the studio to do some repairs/detail work. Got today off and in theory have tomorrow off as well, but just got a text asking if I can work wardrobe/dressing tomorrow night as well. Not sure. Am enjoying the downtime, and also have not seen my kid a lot during Hell Week. Oooh, but I did learn to applique real Swarovski crystals (they're from Austria, you know!) to costumes. It was a veritable bedazzling party, I tell you! And I could tell you how I did it, but then I'd have to kill you. ;)