Day 70: Playing in Props (gosh, I'm Hilarious)

This morning I begun more work in storage, as you can tell this is an ongoing/ forever project. I was able to make a little more progress today. I emptied about 3 boxes, did some reorganizing, and put the luggage away, which I think will have to be moved again, because with the huge pipe hanging from the ceiling it was hard to pack and stack. I will again journey into props on Monday. I had such ADD today. Every prop I picked up I wanted to play with. Throughout the morning I was "driving through props", "riding a motorcycle" with my serious Swiss motorcycle goggles, "getting attacked" by The Birds, amongst other things. I was thoroughly enjoying and entertaining myself. I think I'm hilarious, literally laughing about it as I type this. After my playing around, and getting some accomplished I headed back to the office.

Again, I had another ADD moment. I opened the Internet explorer to check the email and got totally distracted by the Royal Wedding coverage and began clicking and reading all about it! I think I have fallen victim to the hype versus me actually being interested in the wedding, although it is very exciting. Back to focus I began checking my emails. Nothing new so I moved onto straightening and Windex-ing concessions. The Liberty is being rented out this weekend and some cleaning needs to be done. Before leaving the box office needs to be straightened as well, so I got a mini jump on that too.

The rest of the day was spent finishing the dishes at concessions, entering new events in Folio, and selling a Flex pass, and tickets to Shanley. I also did other office things like shred and take out the recycle. Concessions and lobby is now all clear and clean for the rental. Originally I had monologue work scheduled today, but with Ms. Denise's busy day we rescheduled for Monday. Secretly I don't mind, it gives me some more time to work :) I have 2 possibly 3 "classes" lined up on Monday. Monologue work with Ms. Denise, voice with Beth, and possible singing voice work with Mr. R.L. All to prepare for my big final! To-do for the weekend, get to work on the PowerPoint for the school district. Ms. Denise has sent me the slides and I should be receiving the pics from Mr. John very soon! Until next week...

Day 69: Feeling Fineee

Yea yea, I'm so unoriginal! But it rhymed and I liked it! Also as you can see I skipped day 68, sorry if you're disappointed, but really there was nothing to report. Day 69 however, was pretty a pretty full day!

The day began bright early, well earlier than normal anyways. I had to be at the office 9:30 instead of 10:00. Which grant it, it was only a half an hour but still, I was not a happy camper. The meeting was for a box office tutorial. Most of the lesson I took notes on what could be fixed and what we needed to address with Martech to make our system more efficient. Most of the stuff Mr. R.L. went over from my other tutorials I was pretty familiar with. Ms. Susan is completely new to the system, Ms. Kris is fairly new and Ms. Denise is almost a pro. We also went over developing a universal language when talking to patrons or referring to the the Folio system. Ms. Denise is putting together some verbiage on that to be sent out to everyone. In the next week, I will be in charge of contacting Martech with our questions.

Our Lesson ended at about 11:30 so I headed to the post office and to grab some lunch. Normal P.O. as always, I'm sure you are sick of me saying the same thing about the post office everyday, but really it is not very exciting! I stopped in at the deli Ms. Denise had recommended called Shelley's. I was pleasantly surprised and very much enjoyed my sammy and cookie it came with :) A quick bite and back to work.

I logged a donation, and went through the seating charts to make some changes. I had failed to block off the front side seats that are not for sale. So I went through all the shows of the season and blocked all of them off! Now, everything is set and ready with the exception of the three special events I'm awaiting ticket prices on.

I did a few more office-y things and then hit the stage for some monologue work. Beth sent me a copy of the voice warm-up so I started with that! I am so glad I have a copy of it. It is very helpful. Once I got through the whole warm-up I began work. I continued the pattern I did the other day, working on one piece at a time for 15 or so minutes and then putting them all together. I was able to get in about an hour and 40 minutes of work. I'm still struggling with voice factors, but I think they are coming along very well.

I spent the rest of the day preparing for MEMPHIS AT THE MOVIES!!!!!! I was reading the blog and watching videos from the show. I even watched the trailer. Yes, obviously I'm more than a little obsessed! And my obsession continues. I was even more in love with the show after seeing it in theatres. Of course, it was very different on screen than seeing it live on stage, but I loved every minute of it! I highly recommend anybody and everyone to go see this if you have the opportunity on stage or in the theatre. I was very surprised they had a intermission though, I actually thought it was very funny, but was happy about because I had about six glasses of water at dinner and was dying! Ms. Denise, Mr. R.L. and Mr. John also seemed to enjoy it. It was so interesting talking with them at intermission. They notice things I would have never noticed. I pay attention to the actors but they pick up on just about every aspect of the show, the costumes, the set, the number of cast, the wigs, the make-up, everything! So for the remainder of the show I tried to tune in to the other aspects to. However, I am still so impressed with Chad Kimball and Montego Glover I found it hard. All in all I love love love Memphis and had an awesome night! For those of you interested in the show check out their website and blog MEMPHIS!!!! enjoy! Until tomorrow...

Day 67: No More Living in Costumes!

Before

Costumes is finished, costumes is finished, costumes is finished!!!! Whoop whoop. The Costumes storage unit is finally complete! And it only took what? A month! But now it is finally finished! The only thing I couldn't file away was a bag of hats. All the hat bins are full to the top, so for now I just set it aside, possibly to be gone through later but who knows :)  I finally moved onto the props unit. Very overwhelmed and very reluctantly I began emptying boxes and putting props away. I got through some dishes and cups, and discovered a broken bowl. I'm not sure what do in that instance so I set it aside and made a mental not to ask Mr. John about it later. I didn't make it through very many boxes, but I am heading back tomorrow or Friday before Ms. Annie joins me next week.

Back at the office I thought I'd get a jump on the PowerPoint presentation, but without more information and photos my attempt was a fail. Hopefully I will be be able to meet with Mr. John and Ms. Denise and get some more information to start putting it together this weekend. I returned to my dining and lodging project. Ms. Danni had added a few more restaurants and I had missed some information on another. I was able to get through it pretty quickly again, and added one more Ms. Denise had suggested.

After

Not too much action in the box office today. Just the usual a few donations to log, and post office run, and some resending of letters from the P.O. run. I also sent a few emails, and manned the phones after Ms. Kris had left and Ms. Denise and Mr. John were in meetings. I was able to get a little more work done on my script for my share, but still needs a lot of work!

It was almost quitting time, but with the stage open I decided to play. I started with going through (as best as I could remember) Beth's voice warm-up we have been doing. That was one of the emails I sent today asking for a copy of the warm-up. I then started work on my monologues and my song. I started with the song and then moved into the monologues in the order they are going to be performed for the share. Each piece I went through probably 5 or more times. Then I went through them all together about 4 times through. After doing them over and over they were just not sitting where I want them. I think it's because I was over thinking it as I was doing them over and over. Hopefully now that I've taken a break I'll be able to get some more work done on them through the rest of the week before meeting with Ms. Denise. After just about an hour and a half of work I headed home for the evening. Until tomorrow...



Day 66: I'm not wearing a coat in Protest

Well not wearing a coat was the worst idea ever! It snowed.....again! And, of course I had to walk over to the Merriweather to do a quick clean up. The day went from sunny, to snowy, to overcast, to sunny again. I wish the weather would just make up it's mind already! Anyways, back to the important things, my day.

I began the day working on a project Ms. Danni needed help on. For the new website we are including a dining and lodging page. The page will consist of local places to eat and stay while attending the theatre. My job was to go through the information Ms. Danni had already gathered and add what was missing. For example each resturant need to have a phone number, address, hours, website if available, and a brief description listed. Here is sample:

The Powerhouse

208.788.9184

411 N. Main St.

Sun – Sat 11:30am-10:00pm, Happy Hour 3:00pm-6:00pm

Located in the heart of downtown Hailey Idaho, Power House Pub and Bike fit studio has everything from the best burgers in the valley to bike supplies and repair. Casual atmosphere

www.powerhouseidaho.com

to avoid having to make up description I usually used he ones found online or took them directly from their websites. I was able to research and get through and add missing information pretty quickly. I then sent it back to Ms. Danni for reviewing!

Once I had finished that project I went over the curriculum I had put together for the middle schoolers with Ms. Denise. Ms. Denise then picked some games from my list and added some others. Hopefully they would go over well with the students :/ I then of course did my normal P.O. run and then back to the office.

I started to do some work on preparing for my share. I went through my blog and picked out the titles that stuck out and thought would be good to use. I have seven I definitely would like to use for the share. Now, the task is taking all the information and what I have learned and put it together in a "script" to share. I also put together a to-do list for myself for the next few days. I feel like I fill my days better and manage my time much better if I have a list to refer to.

It was just about time for class, and I headed to the middle school. I left a bit early so I could return my Grammy's phone call, and meet Ms. Denise who wasn't too far behind. When we arrived we found the room we work in was locked. So we waited outside the office like small children waiting for the principle until we were able to get a key. The students were in the library and we sat until they were finished in there. We were unable to get a key, but the man in charge of the program was able to get one of the school staff to open the door for us. Ms. Denise was cracking me up talking with this group of students and getting to know them. They stuff she learned was very interesting. Once the door was opened the group separated and half came into class and half went onto to another activity.

We began class today with Family Portrait. We separated the students into three groups of four, A,B, and C. Ms. Denise then assigned them the family they were to be. First we had a family of super models, then a family of vampires. next and family of the oldest most popular high school students. We went through the groups about three times and then moved into Tag Photography. Ms. Denise and I kind of made his up as we went along because the directions were not very clear. So the students and we struggled with it, so note to us probably not the best exercise to use until we get clear and concise directions. The most successful exercise was probably the Anything Store once they were able to commit and get into it. In this exercise, there is a shopkeeper and a customer. At the anything store the shopkeeper has anything and everything you would want. The customer comes in and the shopkeeper in turn has to mimic and imitate everything thing he or she does. It is very comical and revealing when the students committed to it and had fun with the exercise. We ended with group sculpture, and the last sculpture we did was last day of the class! They seemed excited.

After teaching I headed to the Merriweather building to do some learning. I was early so I began to do some warming up and working on my monologues. When Beth arrived we went through the full warm-up and then dove into monologue work. Originally Beth had me working on an angry piece, but with time in short supply we had to get to work on the monologues for the share. I felt like I was making good progress, but began to get frustrated towards then end, because it wasn't quite clicking. The rest of the week I'm going to be spending a lot of time in the Merriweather to have my voice, body, and acting all come together! Until tomorrow...

Days 64 & 65: Just a little Beauty and the Beast to get through the Day

I will begin this post by letting you all know it is going to be short and sweet. Mainly because I'm not in much of a blogging mood this minute, but would like to be all caught up for the weekend!

My Thursday and Friday not only consisted of crazy weather, but of legit jam outs on Pandora! I spent most of the days researching for the middle school curriculum for Monday. I think I have all the classes I want to include. I also did my normal errands for the day which included the post office and a run to Jane's. I picked up binders from Jane's which had to be returned because we were able to find them cheaper and from somewhere that delivers :)

My day also consisted of me ironing and jamming to my iPod. All of the stages shirts, 9 in all, had to be ironed and packed away to be put back in storage with the environment. Monday is the day I head back to storage. In case you haven't noticed I feel like I have been putting off my second return all week!

I also put together binders for the box office. Four, to be exact! One for Ms. Denise, Mr. John, Ms. Kris, and Ms. Susan. Next week we are having a box office tutorial, and everyone needs to be prepared.

Thus far today, it has been an uneventful day. On my P.O. run I dropped off season brochures and summer class leaflets at Blaine Manor to be put out, and then headed to the Merriweather. I stopped for a fantastic hot cocoa from Hailey Coffee first though! I started to run through the Night Luster piece we're working on today. Ms. Denise arrived, and I ran through it once, got some notes and then did it again. We also put together an order for my final, which I am very excited to present! My second pass was much better than the first and now I just have to work on getting to that place every time! I stayed and ran through it a few more times before heading back to the office.

I spent the rest of the day logging few checks and manning the phones. This weekend I will be working on my piece for voice, and hopefully on Monday going over that and my monologues with Beth to prepare for the final. Until next week...

Day 63: Interview with THE Joe Lavigne

On my way into work I had to make a quick stop. Ms. Denise had put together a packet for one of the teachers at Woodriver Middle School, and it needed to be dropped off. When I pulled up I was surprised and shocked to see cops outside of the school. Nothing had happened, I think it is an everyday thing. There were two cops and a dog manning the school. Cops at schools kind of scare me, and also makes me wonder why they are needed, especially at a middle school in Hailey, ID. Either way I dropped the envelope and got back on the road!

I arrived at the office a little after ten, and told Ms. Denise about the police. She was also surprised. Good to know it wasn't just me.  My list from yesterday had been modified and was ready and waiting. I started with going through the summer classes brochures and editing the pricing error. I then moved onto entering email addresses into our constant contact data base. I thought it wasn't going to end up being too many addresses, but I was mistaken. All the addresses we had anticipated already being in constant contact were not, and so I began to make my way through the list.

Throughout my list I would switch over to a new job to give my typing fingers a rest. First up as usual, the Post Office. Normal, P.O. run as always, and then back to the office. When I got back to the office I returned to logging email addresses. Also on my list was to interview Mr. Joe. He was working on the new set, but we had planned for sometime in the afternoon. The interview was to put one of the Company's staff in the spotlight, to tie in with the upcoming summer programs, and Mr. Joe was up.

More logging, and then a switch again. I went to cleaning mode and did a little Windex-ing of the pictures around the theatre. Then, gave Ms. Kris a lesson on the Flip. Basic tutorial how to use it, how it works, and how it works with the computer. When I have used the flip I have used it on my Mac so the lesson will continue when I bring my Mac in and I can show Ms. Kris the program I use to put movies together.

Time for the big interview! Mr. Joe was ready to go! Ms. Denise had printed out some questions for me and we began the interview. Here's a peek at the speed round of questions.

Speed Round

1.       Favorite Food? Powerhouse Burger

2.       Song? Into My Arms- Nick cave

3.       Band? Lou Reed

4.       Color? Blue

5.       Time of Day? Afternoon

6.       Movie? Rushmore

7.       Book? Catch-22

8.       Place to eat? Despo’s

9.       Holiday? Thanksgiving

10.   How long have you lived in the Valley? 17 years

Other questions included who is your role model and why, what's your favorite place in the Sun Valley area, and what are some of your responsibilities at Company of Fools? The interview went very well and was very informative. I was able to learn a lot about Mr. Joe, and really enjoyed interviewing him! My favorite answer had to be that his daughter Ava is his role model :)

Back to email logging, and batching out before the day is over. I finally completed the list and made it through all of the emails. Before leaving I quickly batched out, and headed home! Until tomorrow...

Day 62: Planning a Curriculum & Polishing Silver

I again began my day in storage. Things to be done included consolidating shoes and making space on the shelves for the other boxes. As I entered, I was just so overwhelmed with the amount of shoes we have I didn't know where to begin. All the shoes are set up on the shelving units in bins and labeled. I found it difficult to stick exactly to the labels because bins with correct labels were full. For example there is a light women's pumps bin and a dark women's pumps bin. The dark pumps bin is so full there is no way to fit another shoe in there. So I combined some of the remaining darks with the lights, and tweaked the label. I then moved the military boots from the military bin to the lace up boot bin. I did not see the point in having three pairs of shoes in their own bin. I, then replaced the boots, with men's black dress shoes. I now had emptied two bushels and freed up three spots on the shelves. I needed one more spot clear to fit all the boxes on the shelves. So, I relocated the floating purses and placed them in the appropriate bins and had a spot for the last box! next up in storage is the hats, I have just that to do in costumes, and then I'm out of there! (and on to props)

Back at the office Ms. Denise had a list of things to be done for me when I arrived. Some of those things included sending emails, making some calls, and running errands. I began with an email regarding our online sales. Martech had emailed Mr. John to let him know none of our shows were showing up available online. This required a call to my good friend Patrick. Before doing so I went through the shows to make sure everything was set-up correctly. Everything appeared to be in order, so I gave Folio a buzz. However, it wasn't Patrick who I spoke to it was Brian. He went through my system and was unable to find the problem. He then asked me to close Folio and they were going to see what the issue was and give me a call back.

In the meantime, I went to the post office and Copy & Print. Post office, was business as usual. At copy and print I had to special order a leaflet holder for the box office window. Mr. Mike was able to track down the perfect one, and the order should be in soon!

Once I returned, we still had not received a call from Folio. I was beginning to worry it had been almost three hours. I decided to give them a ring and check-in. What I found out was, the data was being sent to the server but not displaying, so there was some sort of glitch in our data. To top it all off, we were the only ones it was happening to. Brian said they had two people working on it and they are in the office for another hour. I was hoping for an update sooner rather than later. Luckily, not too long after I got a call from Joy, another Folio employee. They had figured out the problem! What had happened was one of the start dates for a show was set to the year 2201! This one error on the one show was throwing everything off! Joy changed the date, and everything is now up and running. I guess my quick check, was a little too quick and I missed the error. Thank God for the Folio people, they got us back on track! :) Buy Tickets Now!

Once that was all figured out I began working on a curriculum for next weeks class. I found a lot of exercises that I think would be good for them. Only downside is a lot of them include staying a circle, and I think they will want more freedom. Ms. Denise pulled several books for me to look to too for other exercises. About half-way through my searching I decided to switch gears a little. Also on my list was to polish the medal awarded to the company from the Governor and dust the box it was displayed in. Now it looks shiny and new, very big difference from before. I shifted back to my class planning, and started going through some of the books, I think I will be able to pull at least a few more exercises to complete the day! Until Tomorrow...

Days 60 & 61: A little Spring Cleaning, A little trip to Storage

Friday was surprisingly hectic for a slow day. There was not a lot of duties to be done around the office, but just little things that kept coming up. More so for Ms. Denise than for me, but I could tell she was stressed! Thankfully now everything is just about worked out :) To kill some time on Friday, I began with an office clean-up.

My desk is just a little bit cluttered and could use some organization. I began with my shelving unit. There were a few random items floating about so I went through everything and began figuring out where to put it. Any safety pins or sewing pins went to the costume closet backstage. Anything else random went in my random basket I started. Next Ms. Denise and/or Mr. John are free we will go through those and figure out where they actually go. As of now though we have a tape and stamp shelf, a sticker shelf, tickets shelf, scrap paper shelf, and Flex Pass and rubber band shelf. It looks very organized and put together :)

I did a lot of reading Friday also, getting through more of the Humana Festival and American Theatre. I of course also went for my P.O. run. While on the P.O. run I also dropped the bags from earlier in the week at Barkin' Basement to be donated. Again I dropped six bags, I think it must be the magic storage number.

And now, just another manic Monday, not really but it was a good transition :) I began the day, very late I might add, in storage. I slept in,  and then of course the washer and I had a fight this morning. I just wanted to get my towels in before I left but, ended up having to do a little washer clean-up (if that makes any sense). Needless to say, it set me back a little. I arrived at storage, and was originally planning on diving right into the shoes and hats, but was not feeling as ambitious as I thought I'd be. So, I started going through all the racks and changing out the hangers, wire to plastic. "No wire hangers!" Well, now we don't have any. Once I was finished that, I headed to the office.

Ms. Denise had waiting for me a little project. I was to cut several different words and phrases into strips and place them in the box for  the class later. That didn't take too long, and then onto the mail. Ms. Kris had done my P.O. run for the day, so I had envelopes to be re-done waiting as well. Still do not understand the post office system of forwarding and what not. Either way I went through the envelopes re-addressed and sent out, or set aside to send out later.

It was almost 4 and Ms. Denise and I were closing up shop to head to our class at Woodriver Middle School. Last week Ms. Denise had a bit of a challenging time with the students, and she made me so nervous for this week. Although it did take them some time to settle, which Ms. Denise had prepared me for, they did well with most of the exercises. They all have very different energies and as a group it was difficult for them to be cohesive together. The exercises they seemed to excel in were the Where am I?/ Who am I?, which is like charades, and Use it, and throw it away, where you "use" an object and "throw it away." Ms. Denise wanted to end with group sculpture, but as their group dynamic was not 100% we decided to play the counting game (not real name, and can't think of it) to get them to settle. Basically everyone lies on the floor and spreads out. The object of the game is to count to ten as a group, one number, and one person at a time, sensing the room. Catch is, if you overlap, or say a number the same time as someone else you have to start over. After some failed attempts, they buckled down and made it to 8. A few more tries later, and they made it to ten! Getting them to work together to reach a goal, I feel really focused them and set them up to end with group sculpture. I'm anxious to see what next week brings.

After teaching class, I had a class of my own to get to. I again met with Beth for voice coaching. We went through the warm-up to start. Opening up and warming up all the resonators. You can definitely tell the difference once you have gone through it. I need to get it memorized to have it as a back-pocket warm-up in the future. Next Beth had given me a monologue to work with. It is an angry piece, and it's used to see where the voice is in that emotion, and to work on bringing your real angry voice (real voice) and your acting voice (stage voice) together. I kind of struggled with this. I think one I was feeling a bit self-conscious and two I didn't have it memorized so it wasn't fully in my body. I'm going to do some serious work on it in the next week, and hopefully by next week will have made some progress! Until tomorrow...

Day 59: Hanging in the "Employee Lounge"

When I arrived Ms. Denise an Ms. Kris were using my computer to access Folio. They were going through the Guardians, and deciding when and who to send renewal letters to. My desk being in use I was happy to hang in the employee lounge. Which is actually a table and four chairs set up in the lobby, but has become known has the lounge (gosh, I'm clever :))

While in the lounge I decided to, of course, get some reading done. I have now finished seven out of eleven plays in the Humana Festival book. I then started another and have three and half more to be finished that compilation of plays. I'm very excited to get back into the other ones Ms. Denise pulled for me. I'm also going to try and get some more Shanley to read to prepare for his visit. Speaking of, the event is coming along nicely. Unfortunately though, Bruce and Demi will not be in attendance :( and I tweeted at Demi and everything! Oh well, the busy life of the business calls, really I was just starstruck there was a possibility! :D



The "lounge"



After I was finished lounging out, I headed back to the office. I had 20 more letters to print and send out until the box was finished. And so, that is exactly what I did. Of course now that all the letters are finally finished I headed to the post office to send out the last round! While on route to the P.O. I stopped at Express Printing to drop of the approved proof for printing, and then did my normal P.O. run. I had one more errand to run before returning to the office I had to stop at Jane's for stickers and brochure holders. Got the stickers, but no luck on the holders.

I  discovered when I got back to the office, the yellow stickers I had gotten didn't match the mail outs. The yellow for this printed a little more gold, than the bright yellow I was use to. So, another trip to Jane's was in the works. Until then I read the Sondheim article in American Theatre. It made me totally miss performing and especially Into the Woods. So I then preceded to research Into the Woods to satisfy my need to see a performance, and live through the YouTube video :)

I headed back to Jane's around one to do a sticker switch out. Ms. Denise had suggested clear, but no such luck. I opted for the white ones instead. I then headed to the Merriweather to prepare for my monologue work with Ms. Denise at two. I started with the Laramie piece and went through it several times, and then did the same with the Shakespeare piece. Once I had done that I went back and for the between them, and did some voice exercises. I tried to do what Beth had taught me, but I couldn't exactly remember it, so I did my own rendition. In the midst of my Shakespeare run through Ms. Denise came in and scared me! (not on purpose of course) But, now it was ready to work.

I started with the Laramie piece. After going through it a couple times and getting notes, I have more of a direction to go in the next time we meet. Same with the Shakespeare piece. Ms. Denise said I did really well, and both pieces are great pieces for me. I'm so glad I'm doing well with the pieces. Next week we are going back to my other contemporary piece, and at the end of May we are going to set up my final! I think continuing work with Beth and Ms. Denise will for sure produce great monologues for me in the future :) Future star here. Until tomorrow...

Day 58: Envelopes, Emails, and Express Printing

I again returned to my Flex Pass recommendations letters. Now, I know you are about sick of hearing about them, but  there are 200 letters to be sent out! It takes time and a lot of sealing and stuffing. I have about 50 or so left, and the plan is to get through at least half. So, before my post office run, I did just that!

Also on the agenda stop at Express printing to pick up the proof for the new season brochure. As you can see it looks great! Once it's approved I will return in to Express so printing can begin! We got a few donations in the mail today, which of course were logged as soon as I returned. Luckily no Flex letters came back today. The next letters to be sent out will be our Guardian letters. To prepare for those I got out the paper cutter and cut the inserts out for those.

After the post office, I headed to the Merriweather building. Not without stopping for a peppermint hot cocoa first though :) (happens that Java is right around the corner) I finally have both pieces on their feet. I'm still debating my circumstance for the Laramie piece, as far as sitting or standing goes. 1. A chair is not always available at auditions, and 2. I do not want to use the chair as a "crutch", if you will. Hopefully when I work with Ms. Denise she will have more insight to this dilemma. I'm really loving the Laramie piece, more so than I thought, and I think it will be a great audition piece for me!

I had to run one more errand for the day. Our summer classes inserts were ready and waiting. Mr. John asked if I would go to Copy and Print to pick them up. They also look great. Now that we have those I can put them in the addressed envelopes to be sent out also. A lot of mail had been going out these past few days, but I think it will definitely pay off!

Ms. Denise and Mr. John had a conference call at two, so my duty was to man the phones, and take messages until they were available. Not very many calls came through, but it was a job well done. At about 3 Ms. Denise had another meeting. I was able to sit in on a part of this meeting because it has to do with the PowerPoint project I'll be helping with. It was very informative, and we now know how we should put together the presentation and what it should consist of.

Before closing out the day, I stuffed, sealed, and happily wrote summer classes, on our summer classes send outs, read another play, which by the way was very odd. It's called A Number, and I'm not sure how I felt about it. Mainly I didn't not like that the lines went into each other and were on top of each other. It just made me confused as to which character was speaking. Anyways another day as a fool has come and gone, I'm only here 5 more weeks and need to make the most of it! Until tomorrow...

Day 57: The Return to Storage

I had anticipated starting the day in storage, as ready as I was to get costumes out of the way I was not looking forward to going back. I dressed for the day in my storage attire, partly because we were actually going to storage and partly because I wanted to wear lacrosse shorts and a t-shirt. It wasn't until later that we made our way over.



new logo, and my small child handwriting (on every envelope, thank you very much to my sisters)



I again, returned to my Flex suggestion letters. I keep doing them in waves of 30 to 50. One, to not hog the printer, and two licking all those envelopes leaves a not so pleasant taste in your mouth. After stuffing and sealing several more letters, I made a post office run. Nothing out of the ordinary today, just a quick drop, grab, go, and back to the office!



I had a few other projects throughout the day. First was preparing an email for Ms. Danni on a survey our patrons had taken. Also up, was logging the donations and what not that arrived in the mail. Apparently our Flex Pass letters are working! We have sold 3 Flex passes this week! However, some of the letters are coming back. Firstly because The Valley is a seasonal place, and some of the patrons are only here in the summer. Secondly because of changes in addresses. I do not understand why the post office puts the sticker with the new address on the envelope and sends it back to you. Why can't they just forward it? Now we have re do the envelopes and meter them all over again, wasting time and money. Very silly, if you ask me. As for the patrons who are temporarily away we will re-send their letters in June.

Time for storage had finally arrived. When I first got there I was surprised to find that Mr. Joe had been working in storage also, and put the shoe shelves in. Although, we were not quite ready for that they look great, and cleared up a lot of floor space where the bushels were being kept. We had two more racks to go through, and then some minor details to completely finished with costumes. We were able to eliminate one more rack! Yes! Goal reached! Now that I don't need Mr. John anymore, my next duties to finish out costumes is changing out the hangers and getting she shows and remaining floating boxes organized. If there is time I will be labeling the pans by size also. However, I still have a lot of work to do in props so the pants will have to wait!

 After Mr. John left I continued to bag all the clothes to be taken to the Barkin' Basement. Six seems to be the magical number. This will be my third trip have six bags to give them. After everything was bagged and put back in the unit, I was off for the day! Until tomorrow...

Day 56: Don't Forget to Breathe

Just when I think "what am I going to do with myself today?", the projects start rolling in! I began the day by confirming my coaching with Beth. She has agreed to meet with me and give me voice coaching. Hopefully we will be meeting once a week or once every other until I leave to do work! I'm very excited about this coaching. Knowing my stage voice is something I struggle with, I think these sessions will be very beneficial :) I have now been appointed the duty of running to the post office daily. This way it frees up Ms. Kris to do other tasks, instead of taking up time leaving the theatre to get the mail.

The best time to visit the P.O. (my new favorite abbreviation) is after eleven. That way you know your new mail has arrived. As I entered the P.O. I noticed signs on the windows. For some reason I thought they were quite comical (view attached picture for a laugh). Anyways, I grabbed the mail from our box, sent out the metered mail, and stood in line and sent out a book to one of our board members. The post office was bumping and the line was not expected.

I was only in a rush because I wanted as much time as possible to work on my monologues. My plan was hit the P.O. and head to the Merriweather to work for 30 or 40 minutes. When I arrived at the Merriweather I had closer to 25 minutes, but I took advantage of the time anyways. I now have my Shakespeare piece memorized and on it's feet. I'm still struggling with the Laramie piece, but I think it's more of a memorization thing than anything. Once I get it in my head I should be able to work better with it. I have to get on the ball though, both are to be ready by Thursday!

I returned to the office around 12, and was really eager to get my hands on a copy of The Laramie Project.  We have one at the theatre, only problem is it's way up high and the step stool is in storage. Lucky for me, Ms. Kris was willing to do some desk standing. After she snagged the copy I copied it (to add to a yet to be put together second script binder) :):) and headed back to the office to get some reading done.

By this time Ms. Denise had the second Flex ready for me to print and send out. I was in multi-task mode. Switching between printing and reading. I'd read a few pages, print a few letters. I felt like I wasn't get much done as far as the letters go, but I actually printed more letters than I thought. I have now completed my 19th play since arriving here in January! (go me!) I really enjoyed The Laramie Project despite the story. It was a short play but very dense. Once I finished the play I ran upstairs to gather the letters I printed to be stuffed later. A quick batch out, and I was on my way to voice!

Beth and I discussed 30-40 minutes sessions. We managed to go went way over though. However, being our first session, I think it's safe to say it was expected. :) We started by discussing my voice and what I need to work on . Beth then had me do two of my monologues to see where my voice was at. Basically my normal voice is not my stage voice, and it is important to make them as one. I know I have some serious work to do. When working on your voice it is very easy to forget to breathe. Always always always remember to breathe! Beth went through a warm up with me and by then time we were finished I definitely noticed the change in my voice. I'm eager to continue these sessions with Beth, I know they will be very helpful, and hopefully very impressive! Until tomorrow...

Day 55: Is it really that hard to remember a monologue?

Since I haven't been to Jane's in what feels like years, it was only right that I start my second day back there. Just  few items on the list, envelopes, staples, and hanging file folders. A very quick trip, and I was back in the office. My list was nearly finished, and one job I had was to go to copy and print. Lucky me, they delivered. I now had all all the inserts I needed and could return to envelope stuffing.

I however, spent morning a little different than usual before getting to the envelopes. I am in the midst of working on two monologues. One Shakespearean piece from Midsummer's Night Dream and one contemporary piece from The Laramie Project. I spent my morning doing some character research. I have yet to read either of the plays, but wanted to get some more information.

I started with Shakespeare. I YouTubed many performances to see if any were helpful. I especially enjoyed Helen Mirren's take. Most of the other performance were high school plays. Not to say there's is nothing to get out of them, but it is a very different dynamic. I then moved on to my Laramie research. The company had actually performed the play here about 8 years ago. I was very anxious to read the play in it's entirety after hearing some about it. The story surrounding the play is not a very conventional one for a play. After my research on Laramie, Wyoming, Matthew Shepard, and those involved I was shocked!

For those of you who don't know, The Laramie Project was based on the murder of Matthew Shepard. Shepard, was brutally beaten and tortured because of his sexuality. This was a hate-crime in a small town and received much media and national attention. Some of the performances I watched were very eye-opening, especially the one in which one of the attackers re-tells the story. Now that you have some background, I digress.

I'm very eager to get this monologue up and going. I think it is a good choice for me. Lucky for me I had monologue work right around the corner. We began work with Shakespeare. Funny story, I had the piece memorized in the morning, but by the time 2 o'clock rolled around it was completely gone. Needless to say, I struggled. We then did a read through of the Laramie monologue. Ms. Denise gave me notes on both and I'll have them ready to do more work on Thursday.

To close out the day, I finished up my envelope stuffing. All of my letters going out as Flex Pass recommendations are stuffed with inserts and are just awaiting letters. Once I have the letter they will be stuffed some more, sealed, and sent off! As you can see you now have a peek at our upcoming season, I'm hoping to make it back for at least one of the shows! :) Until Tomorrow...

Day 54: Used and Abused ;)

She's baaaaaackkkkkkkk! And I know how much you have missed my Foolish ways! ;)

First day back and the office and I was ready to work! I of course went up to say hi to Ms. Kris and Mr. John first. I, and then, of course, again got caught up in telling about my trip home. Which was wonderful, and I was so glad to be home. I also got an update on how Fools Day went. It was a great success. Lots of people came and everyone was in good spirits, and are very excited about the new season. I'm so glad it went well, and am just a little upset I missed it.

After my mini catch up I returned to the office to get started on my list waiting for me. :) First up, continue work on the Flex letters to be sent out. Mr. John had the inserts printed and they just needed to be stuffed, sealed, and sent out! I began with the 211 envelopes that already had Flex Pass letters in them and were just waiting for inserts. I got more than halfway through when I ran out of one of the inserts! A quick call to Copy and Print by Mr. John and we should have the rest of the inserts by the top of next week.

Ms. Denise had finally arrived back from her meeting, and I was excited to catch up with her too! She immediately asked if I had made a decision about the summer. After much deliberation, a chat with mom and dad, and a few tears later I had come to a decision. I have decided to go home for the summer. It was a very tough decision to make, but I feel like it is the best for me. I would love to stay, but being home with my family made me realize how much I miss them and I feel like I need to be home and working, and getting ready for my next semester. I still feel like I"m questioning my decision especially after being slightly abused for my decision :) But it also made me feel good. It's good to know the company likes me enough and wants me around this summer to give me a hard time about it. I'm sad to be leaving, but I know it's right for me right now. Hopefully I will be back though! (COF can't get rid of TheIdahoFool they've made that easy)

After a few hits I was back to my list. I began typing up the volunteer guidelines into a Word document to send to Ms. Denise and Ms. Danni. That took some time, but not as long as expected. I think being an intern as improved my typing skills :) I got through it much quicker than anticipated. After that email was sent off I began entering emails into our constant contact system. This system breaks down our patrons into different lists, most commonly used and houses new contacts, the patron list. I added the new emails we had gotten from the Fool's Day door prizes. Now, those new patrons will be kept up to date, and receive the company newsletter.

I then moved onto preparing the ticket box for the upcoming shows. It was slightly confusing because some of the dates overlap. The goal was to have the first three events and/or shows set up and ready to file tickets. Well, Shanley dates overlap with Circle Mirror dates, and Circle Mirror Dates overlap with Heart & Music dates. After some tweaking of the labels had been done, the dates were set and the shows were ready for tickets to be filed under them.

Before heading out for the day, and getting a few more hits, :) I had a two more things on my list that could be completed. Even though we did not have all the inserts I was able to seal and meter the letters that were ready to go out. Sealed, metered, and bundled, they were ready to go! Last thing up, recycle! Always, a classic and easy job. I, however, failed to batch up before I left for Ms. Susan. She comes on Fridays to take care of the bookkeeping, and I failed to do my only job associated with that. Guess, I'm not quite back in the swing of things. I have the next two months to get back in the game :) Until tomorrow...