Oooh, a quiz! Lunchtime blog it is... (Stolen from Jon)

1. What is something that people say to you that always gets on your nerves?
'Haitch' always annoys me... as does 'I'm fed up of it' (which should be 'I'm fed up WITH it')... my father has turned me into a grammar geek!

2. Name something you have in common with all your siblings.
My face? And being fairly musical, I suppose.

3. Whats the last thing you said to someone & to who?
"Cool" to my colleague Sherrell, just now!

4. If someone who didn't know you had to guess your name, what hint would give them?
You can't guess my name - it's impossible. Like Rumplestiltskin.

6. Have you ever called 999?
No, thank goodness.

7. Do you own an iPod?
Yes and it's just been updated with some exciting new software so I love it even more than I did before :)

8. Do any of your friends have children?
Yes - in fact Tarbit's baby has been born very recently :)

9. What CD is currently in your CD player?
Ragtime (that Tim bought me in New York - yay!)

10. Do you prefer regular or chocolate milk?
Chocolate, obviously.

11. Has anyone told you a secret this week?
Not that I know of!

12. When was the last time you had Starbucks?
I can't remember! This means it has been too long.

13. Can you whistle?
Yes

14. Are you currently wanting any piercings or tattoos?
No!

15. Do you get along better with men or women?
Men, I think.

16. Do you sleep on your side, stomach, or back?
Side. Stops me snoring :p

19. Which of your friends lives closest to you?
Ben lives just round the corner, but of my close friends I have no idea - they all live in swanky West London. Grr.

20. What did you do yesterday?
I worked all day, went home, then went to deb's and he made dinner :)

21. What concerts are you looking forward to?
Hmm I don't really go to concerts... but I'm looking forward to the Singalonga Sound of Music at my theatre in June!

22. Whats bothering you right now?
Not a lot - I am a happy bunny :)

23. Next vacation you're going on?
Hopefully to Paris in April for a weekend.

24. Last time you had butterflies in your stomach?
Yesterday

25. What did you dream last night?
I can't remember :(

26. Does your phone ring in the middle of the night often?
Very rarely - occasionally Duncan phones me at stupid o'clock, or someone drunken does!

27. What gets in your way when your sleeping?
What could get in my way? I'm in a bed! I suppose my hot water bottle might occasionally be in an awkward place.

28. What are you doing tomorrow?
Working and then rehearsing for State Fair.

29. What is something you've learned about yourself recently?
I am better at controlling my emotions than I used to be, and I am capable of more than I could ever have guessed!

30. Do you like anyone?
I like a lot of people... be more specific!

31. Do you know anyone who's married?
Yes

33. Who was the last person to make you cry?
Xander because he left work and left me all alone...!

34. What are you doing?
Sitting at my desk, typing this...duh.

35. When was the last time you cried?
Last week probably. I cry a lot - I'm a girl.

36. What is one thing you miss about your past?
I miss the freedom and independence of being at uni, I suppose, but other than that not much.

37. Are you jealous of anyone?
Not of anyone in particular, i'm only ever jealous of specific things about people rather than the people themselves.

38. Is anyone jealous of you?
How would I know?

40. Who was the last person you drove with?
Richard gave me a lift home from rehearsals last week, I think.

41. What are you looking forward to?
The long weekend for Easter this week! :)

42. How are you today?
A little tired, but on good form otherwise.

44. Are you currently single?
Yes...

46. Do you have a best friend?
I have a number of close friends whom I love dearly :)

47. Do you regret anything that you have done in your life?
No regrets - as long as you learn from things I don't see why you should have.

48. Have you ever been in the emergency room?
Probably only with my brother when he bit through his lip many years ago.

50. If you could change anything about your past, what would you change?
See above! Nothing.

51. Have you ever felt like killing somebody??
Not actually killing them. That would be scary.

TFI Friday

Lyrics of the Day:

"Hello, George...
Where did you go, George?
I know you're near, George.
I caught your eyes, George.
I want your ear, George.
I've a surprise, George...

Everybody loves Louis,
Louis' simple and kind.
Everybody loves Louis,
Louis' lovable
Seems we never know, do we,
Who we're going to find?
And Louis the baker is not what I had in mind.
But...

Louis' really an artist
Louis' cakes are an art.
Louis isn't the smartest-
Louis' popular.
Everybody loves Louis,
Louis bakes from the heart...

The bread, George.
I mean the bread, George.
And then in bed, George...
I mean he kneads me-
I mean like dough, George...
Hello, George...

Louis' always so pleasant,
Louis' always so fair.
Louis makes you feel present,
Louis' generous.
That's the thing about Louis
Louis always is "there."
Louis' thoughts are not hard to follow,
Louis' art is not hard to swallow.

Not that Louis' perfection-
That's what makes him ideal.
Hardly anything worth objection
Louis drinks a bit,
Louis blinks a bit.
Louis makes a connection,
That's the thing that you feel...
We lose things.
And then we choose things.
And there are Louis's
And there are Georges-
Well, Louis's
And George.
But George has George,
And I need-
Someone-
Louis-

Everybody loves Louis,
Him as well as his cakes.
Everybody loves Louis,
Me included, George.
Not afraid to be gooey,
Louis sells what he makes.
Everybody gets along him.
That's the trouble, nothing's wrong with him.

Louis has to bake his way,
George can only bake his...
Oh, Louis it is!"

- "Everybody Loves Louis" from Sunday in the Park With George, Stephen Sondheim

It is payday and I am going shopping. :-D
Lxx

Lyrics of the day

"I noticed tonight that the world has been turning
While I've been stuck here dithering around
Though I know I said I'd wait around till you need me
But I have to go, I hate to let you down
But I can't stop now
I've got troubles of my own
Cause I'm short on time
I'm lonely
And I'm too tired to talk

I noticed tonight that the world has been turning
While I've been stuck here withering away
Though I know I said I wouldn't leave you behind
But I have to go, it breaks my heart to say

That I can't stop now
I've got troubles of my own
Cause I'm short on time
I'm lonely
And I'm too tired to talk

To no one back home
I've got troubles of my own
And I can't slow down
For no one in town
And I can't stop now

And I can't slow down
For no one in town
And I can't stop now
For no one"

- Keane, Can't Stop Now from the album Hopes and Fears (2004)

This afternoon I am going to see Mr. Chris Allen in his end-of-term show, Company at Arts Ed in Chiswick, then I'm coming all the way back across London to go to State Fair rehearsals! Rehearsal last night was both good fun AND productive - exactly as it should be - and we now have all parts cast! (The only two people we haven't yet blocked in are only in one scene each, so we're nearly there now.)

At the weekend I went to Sam Tai (from work)'s 30th Birthday Masquerade party at Bar Soho with Xander - and he was the only person I knew other than the birthda girl! We still had fun eating lollies and sticking the stars that were strewn over the tables to each others' faces, however, and I got to see Kate (Roscoe) after she had finished work which was lovely. Then I had 5 hours of rehearsals on Sunday (including a run of the show) which went pretty well.

This week at work is hard. Having got through all the piles of stuff Xander left last week, and not even having time to think right up until 5.30 on Friday, this week I'm left with bigger projects, more complicated tasks, and a lot of responsibilities at once. Contracts, inductions, hires, scheduling, professional programme paperwork... roll on April when I'll have Jeremy to help out! Am remaining duck-like: calm and unruffled on the surface, and paddling like mad underneath. ("Keep paddling, like the clappers you keep paddling, with your flappers while seeming to be dreaming and calm..." - Honk!)

Am looking forward to my afternoon off today and my weekend of fun starting with Sarah Green's 21st on Friday night in Leamington!
Lxx

Argh not enough time for blogging...

Ok - quick lunchtime blog to assuage my guilt for not having blogged in about a week. So here's everything I can think of, in a nutshell.

Xander and I went to see Hairspray on Thursday, which was BRILLIANT. We also went for sushi first and then had champagne and ice creams in the interval at the theatre. Decadent all round! (see facebook for photos...) Hairspray is probably the most fun show I've seen, despite the fact that we had 4 understudies (Tracey, Velma, Female authority figure and Male authority figure) - they were excellent! Especially the girl playing Tracey (who is a walking cover). Just so much fun, and a really nice outing for Xander's departure. We then had drinks in the bar at the theatre on Friday afternoon, after a team admin lunch at Nando's (mmm, Nando's...) where I finally got to meet Claire Birch, who used to be the Administrator here at the broadway, and who also knows my mum from working at Theatre 503 (awesome fringey theatre that focuses a lot on New writing - check it out!)

At the weekend I did a bit of shopping (including in Topshop at Oxford Circus - error.) and went to Lessy's 6th birthday party. She's actually 24 but her birthday's on the 29th of Feb! Since she was only 6, the fancy dress theme was 'what you wanted to be when you were 6'... having the choice of Ballerina or Princess (I wasn't a very realistic child) I was brave and went as a ballerina! My pictures still to come on facebook, but Abby has put some up already. Chris came with me (as a science teacher) and we drank some very good cocktails and had a very jolly time. So jolly in fact, that we got a bit over-excited on the tube coming home... there are videos on facebook! :S

On Sunday I was at State Fair rehearsals, which went well despite some people being missing - we blocked most of the bits we hadn't yet finished, and then got through a run of the whole of act one and about half of act two, which I was very pleased with given that it's still a month until the show! Plus the cast had remembered almost everything they've learnt so far (in terms of blocking at least!) so that made me happy. We'll need to concentrate on getting the kids into some more chorus scenes, tidying up some of the dance routines (the Fairtones and some of the more recent small group songs) and working on harmonies this week, but I'd like to do at least one run on Sunday, if not two.

Now that Xander has left I'm very busy at work, but I managed to squeeze in a trip to see Nadim play Rolf in the Sound of Music last night with Damian and Chris Peake - Nadim was really excellent (made me feel very proud!) and it was Summer Strallen's press night, so almost the whole cast of Hollyoaks were there to support! Very exciting for star-spotting (Bonnie Langford was there too!)

Must dash - got a tour of the theatre to give. More soon
Lxx

Weekend happenings...

I've had a lovely relaxed weekend, which was definitely the plan after being out almost 24/7 last weekend! My new DVDs arrived on Friday so I spent much of the evening watching episodes of Peep Show and drinking tea :) marvellous!

Anyway, on to more interesting things (the image of me sitting on the sofa watching the telly can only be fascinating for a very brief moment, if at all). I hung out in Soho on Saturday, first eating sushi and going for coffee with Mark for a catch-up (I think I may have been sitting next to a famous in Cafe Nero but I couldn't work out who she was...) and then for a few drinks with Chris, which coincided nicely with the end of the Wales-Italy rugby match. In the evening I went over to Greenwich to see a film at the 02 with Duncan - we watched Be Kind Rewind which was surprisingly heartwarming as well as funny, I'd definitely reccommend it for a chilled-out afternoon.

Most of Sunday was spent rehearsing for State Fair, unfortunately not entirely successfully as we were missing a lot of people this week, for various reasons. I managed to block one new scene and song, and to go over a few dances with the chorus, but with so many people missing, however good it looked on Sunday, when the others return it's bound to revert to being uncertain as people have to alter their positions and try to remember the steps at the same time! Annoyingly poor Alison (who's in charge of costume) arrived not long after we'd sent most of the cast home, hoping to measure everyone! I think most people should be back next week, but it's getting very frustrating as we get closer to the show that we can't progress, as we're having to re-rehearse the same things over and over, either because people were missing or we haven't got the people we need to do new things.

The most exciting thing that will be happening this week (apart from me giving lots of venue tours to the interview candidates we've got coming in for the next 3 days) is that Xander and I are going to see Hairspray on Thursday night!!!! We've been wanting to go for ages, so we're using his leaving as an excuse to make the (rather expensive) trip, preceeded by some sushi. Wooo! Also on Saturday it's Alessia's birthday party in Ealing, the fancy dress theme of which is 'What you wanted to be when you were 6' because Alessia's birthday is on the 29th of February, which means technically she's only 6 this year! I'm keeping my costume a secret (partly because I've got a choice of 3 things I remember wanting to be, and partly because I'm going to see how brave I feel...) so you'll have to wait for the pictures on Facebook!

Other than that nothing much exciting is happening at the moment, but I'll make sure I write a decent review of Hairspray on Friday.
Check out www.howstuffworks.com if you get bored, it's really interesting!
Lxx

Continued ...!

Gosh, well these are going to be long posts it seems, at least until I've caught up with myself a bit. So where was I?

Ah, theBROADWAY, Barking. Well due to the aforementioned lack of staff, I've been very busy with recruitment and I've also been seconded to the Marketing Department to help with press cuttings and suchlike. So technically I now have 2 jobs! This means I've been full-time since the beginning of January - not a huge shift, since I've only gone from 30 hours a week to 40 hours a week, but surprisingly tiring nonetheless. However, the marketing tasks will only last until we get a new Press and Marketing Officer (the application deadline for which was last week) so after that I'll have the full 40 hours to devote to my new Administrator work. I'll also have to teach our new administrator all about how we operate, when they are appointed, so I won't be bored that's for sure!

The last time I blogged (until the most recent post, that is!) I'd just given my first hire tour of the the theatre and was generally still quite a newbie at the Broadway. Since then I have settled in well and taken on plenty of responsibilities, as well as getting to know people, which has been really nice. Our Christmas panto, Cinderella, was a particularly fun period, as I got to know some of the cast and crew, and the atmosphere in the theatre was always buzzing! One of the best things about working here has been getting on so well with Xander, who has been a constant encouragement, getting me to take on new things and learn as much as possible, as well as being fun to be around, and knowing when to tell me to improve on what I've done. Plus he's a big Musical Theatre geek (!) so we've been on several fun outings and can chat about various geeky musical theatre topics [e.g. who has been the best Elphaba in Wicked...] As such, I'm gutted that he's leaving! Sitting at my desk just won't be the same without him sitting opposite, grooving away to Legally Blonde (or similar) on his headphones...

Speaking of theatre I've seen plenty of shows recently (or until I started working on State Fair, which has taken up quite a bit of my time) - including Wicked, La Cage Aux Folles, Uncle Vanya (the press night at the new Rose Theatre) Avenue Q (again), Bill Bailey (the Tinselworm tour, in Birmingham with Rob) and a whole weekend of Sweeney Todd! (The show at Warwick Arts centre AND the film, plus a few choice morsels of soundtracks...) I've also spent weekends in various places including Nottingham (visiting Sam and Geoff) and Cardiff (visitng my gran), and most recently I went to see Strictly Come Dancing Live at the o2 thanks to Duncan who's a cameraman on the tour! Amazing. So all in all, I've been pretty busy!

The Musical of Musicals/Throwaway project has been coming on slowly but surely (as you may be able to see from the blog - http://themusicalofmusicals.blogspot.com ) but has slowed down somewhat with Tim away in New York for the whole of this month. Steph is still beetling away with venue applications and work on the other Throwaway show, but we have at least got confirmation that we can have the rights to the Musical of Musicals for Edniburgh, money permitting. We're working on fundraising ideas to this end! We did apply for funding from the Lord Rootes foundation at Warwick but didn't get it, which wasn't really surprising since Throwaway were given the entire £5000 only 3 years ago. Onwards and upwards, as they say...

Well I think that just about gets me to a point where I've caught up with myself. It's all daily mundanity from here on in...!
Will blog more about State Fair and other exciting artsy happenings soon.
Lxx

Prompted by Xander...

...I realised I haven't blogged for ages, and that this would be a good way of keeping track of my latest directing job, State Fair for Forest Musical Productions, based in Loughton. So I'm back on the blogging scene! To begin with a plug, it's on at the Kenneth More Theatre in Ilford, from the 2nd to the 5th April, and tickets are on-sale now, so please come to see it!! I got the job thanks to Mike McLean, who teaches singing to several of Forest's members, and who reccommended me after hearing they were in need of a director. I started a few weeks ago in January, doing 2 evening rehearsals a week, and from this week onwards we're also rehearsing on Sunday afternoons. The musical director, Ben, just by coincidence, was the assistant MD on our pantomime at theBROADWAY! (More news from theBROADWAY later...)

State Fair is a Rogers and Hammerstein musical based on the 1945 film of the same name, for which they wrote the songs. Set (as the title suggests) at the Iowa ststae fair in 1946, it centres around the Frake family - Abel, a farmer and prize boar breeder, Melissa, his wife, Wayne, their son, and Melissa their impressionable daughter. I won't spoil what little there is of the plot, but it's safe to say that it follows the traditional Rogers and Hammerstein format and despite some obstacles, the family end up happy with their respective outcomes of the Fair!

Working with an amateur dramatic society is a little different from previous experiences I've had in that the committee (not all of whom are involved in the show in any way, but some of whom make up the production team) had final say on all the casting after the first round of auditions - i.e. we did the first auditions for people who are regular members and who have been in productions before, and then we were going to have second auditions but nobody could make them, so I had to let the committee decide who would play the other parts (having expressed some preference having met the company at singing rehearsals). In short - a bit odd.

However, the system also has its advantages, in that they've done a lot of productions in the past, and subsequently know what they're doing production-wise! Plus they have some money, (some of which they're going to spend on paying me) so asking for things like props is not the ordeal that it can be with a student society! The production team are usually way ahead of any requests that I have, and the cast members are generally very hard-working (possibly in part because they pay to be involved!) - they practise in rehearsals when i'm not using them, and they write everything down! This makes me very happy. All of which generally makes for an easy rehearsal process (thus far, at least) and good working relationships :)

So where are we up to with the whole thing? I've been rehearsing some big crowd scenes and most of the family's scenes (minus a few characters who have yet to be cast...) and Ben has been hard at work making cuts, teaching harmonies in the chorus numbers, playing underscoring for my rehearsals and songs for the choreographers. The choreographers (Karen and Lauren) have been equally hard at work teaching and creating, and they'll be continuing work on some of the big chorus numbers on Sunday. Ben and I are moving on to concentrate on the principles and their solos and scenes.
The props mistress is hard at work sourcing jars, a camera, tent poles and around 30 balloons, among other things, and the fliers are now printed and in circulation. Costumes are roughly plotted and are being sourced, partly from ebay (real vintage!) and partly from a costumiers. I need to have a few more discussions about the set, but it's coming together nicely in my head, at least, and after that I'll start to make a list of LX/sound cues and a microphone plot. AND we're ahead of our rehearsal schedule! I'm just waiting for something to go horribly wrong, now...

Pictures and maybe some videos from rehearsals to follow when I get them uploaded from my phone ;)


In other news: Heather is back to stay at the Buddle Charity Home for Impoverished Theatricals for this month, which is very nice - she's working at the Cochrane. I'm working hard at the Broadway, because my boss is leaving at the end of the month! This means, however, that I get promoted to 'Administrator' and I get a new colleague on roughly my level who will be in charge of office management and such, and I get to be in charge of the fun stuff like professional programme admin, hires, the pantomime (yay!) and human resources. And at least I get to keep Xander as a friend! (Can you tell I'm trying to look on the bright side?!) We've also had some staffing issues which means we're a bit stretched at present (no executive director, only one front of house supervisor, no press and marketing officer...) but we're recruiting like mad things so hopefully most of these should be resolved soon!

I have to head off now, but more soon on the rest of what I've been doing with my life...
Lxx