Friday was the dress rehearsal for the benefit concert at Our Mother of Good Counsel. Joe and I met up with Patty at her house, and together with his mother, Helen, who has been visiting from New Jersey for about a month, we carpooled over to the church in Hollywood. Katrina, our fourth player, had to work that day, so she met us there.
The rehearsal went pretty well, and once we got used to the acoustics (flutes 1 and 4 were only a few feet away from each other, but somehow couldn't hear each other very well), it was just a matter of running our pieces and working out the details.
Afterwards, Patty, Joe, his mom and I went to dinner at Palermo's on Vermont (Katrina had to go home). I've been there before and was really excited to go again. Joe's mom has accompanied him to all our rehearsals, and I've enjoyed getting to know her. She's a very nice lady; the two of them together are very sweet, and he kept us laughing. We all had the lentil soup, and it was very good - even Helen said it was almost as good as her own. And I became a huge fan of lentil soup. Patty and I had ravioli, Joe and his mother had spaghetti, and we all shared some pizza rosa, which was amazing.
On Sunday, Patrick had to head out to Santa Monica early to spend the day with his mom and his brother and his family, and after he left, I got a call from my dad, who had taken my mom to the emergency room. My mom was having a lot of back pain, they'd been there for awhile, didn't really know what the story was, but the nurse suspected it was a kidney stone. I had to get going, and wouldn't have a lot of phone access, so I was a bit thrown off. It wasn't what I wanted to be thinking about on the ride up to Culver City.
The other thing that was really unfortunate about this weekend was, we had found out on Friday that a young man who had been a student of both Joe and Patty at Culver City Middle School about ten years ago had died. It was a shock to them both, and was really very sad. Patty and I carpooled to the church, and I didn't know if I should mention to her about my mom. I didn't want to make a big deal out of it, but at the same time, I was worried. Then again, she was upset about her former student, and I wanted us to be able to concentrate on the concert. I was nervous, and worried, and it wasn't a good combination. I did tell her, and made sure to call my dad before the concert and to let him know that I wouldn't be able to call until we were finished. Once we got to the church, though, things got better. Joe did his super job, as usual, of getting us all to relax, and it turned out that quite a few tickets had been sold. I sort of had to put my head down and just play, and it worked.
We sounded really good - I was proud of our performance. Everyone said we sounded good, and enjoyed the selections. Patty, as always, did a good job of choosing music that flowed well. So, after all the rehearsing, it worked out well. Afterwards, I stopped at my mom and dad's on the way home. I guess it was a kidney stone, but my mom was still uncomfortable. I ate dinner with my brother and hung out with them for awhile.
On Monday, I started tech rehearsals with City Garage for BAD PENNY, which opens this
Friday. The cast has been rehearsing for several weeks, and I was a little surprised to walk in and find out that we would be using slides during this show. I've done about 6 shows in a row in the booth, and none of them used slides - and you know me with new things: I kind of panic. But that first night, Charles let me get used to the audio and light cues and he ran the slides for me. It was a good idea, because it allowed me to feel comfortable with the show and the cues without having to freak out about the machine, especially because, due to my concert, I missed the cue-to-cue, where they set the cues for the audio and sound cues. It's always a nice chance for me to get re-accustomed to the machinery. The slide machine is a bit scary, though. It's kind of old, I guess, and temperamental - there is a specific order to everything you do and every click of every switch has to come at the right time. But as we run things, I get more comfortable, and as always, I'm even more excited about the show than I was before I saw it. They've done a good job.
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