Well, it was a long rehearsal, yesterday. Got home around 8:30, which totally screwed with my plans to practice. It occurred to me (yesterday. I'm not good at thinking ahead) that in the next two weeks, I'm going to be in rehearsal every night from 7:30 on. And I have a recital in two weeks. When the hell am I supposed to practice for that? My solo is really hard! And I'm doing two quartets, and they're not exactly easy, either. Even if I could get to Santa Monica early (and it all depends on traffic), there's no place to practice. Sometimes the director is at the theater early, but if she's there, it means she's working with the actors, and the last thing they need is me pounding away on the Martinu, metronome ticking out to the eighth note (let's not even think about the piccolo stuff I have to work on for flute choir!), while they try to work. That's just not an option. It's a small place, it's not like there's some unused room I could go make a bunch of racket.
I think what I'm gonna have to do is, drive down to SM, hopefully get there by 6:15, park someplace, and practice for 30 minutes in my car, then go grab something to eat... Oh, this is gonna be hard. It means that I have to get out of work on time, I have to get down there in 30 minutes (that in itself is going to be really difficult), and I have to find parking right away, and I have to not feel self-conscious about playing my flute in the car. Oh, yeah: there's that.
However! The show looks awesome. My friends are talented! My part in the booth seems totally doable. It's not 100% new to me anymore, and the whole process is pretty interesting. The production designer sits out in the theater during these tech rehearsal while the actors run through their scenes, figuring out their positions so that he can design the lights. I'm up in the booth, working the board. We wear these goofy headsets so that he can speak to me, I'm sure he could hear me grinding my teeth after awhile (it's what I do when I'm nervous. Nice huh. And did I mention it was a long rehearsal!?), but it made it way easier for him to tell me what to do: when everybody's in place, he directs me which lights to turn up and turn down and I record it onto the light board and note it on my script. Later he'll program in the fades, and the timing. I think I'm kind of in love with this theater: it's tiny, and not all sparkly and new, and it definitely has some rough edges, but finally I feel like I know the people, and that they're really glad I'm around. It's a nice place to be. And it gives me a chance to see my friends Bo, and David, and Paul: I miss hanging with them on a regular basis.
Well... starting tomorrow, Patrick is going to get started painting our kitchen, so I have to go help him empty the cabinets. Then I want a nap. It's been a long, busy weekend.
