rehearsals

Autumn is a good time for rehearsals. The cold, wet, changeable weather makes people want to stay indoors and work. It's so much harder to rehearse in the Spring, or Summer. I spent a very enjoyable few hours this morning polishing up the vocals of the "Emperor's New Threads cast at the Russian Hall. They all sound better than they did last year, as if they all learned to use their voices over the summer. How I envy them, not because they get to sing my songs (!), but because they get to sing at all! I haven't been, lately, and I miss it so much. Ditto playing the squeezebox, but I guess I'll be doing plenty of both soon enough, at the Pumpkin Patch. For those who don't know, I tend to spend much of my Octobers entertaining at the Richmond Country Farms pumpkin patch. You get to wear orange, and a cowboy hat, make up a nickname for yourself (I'm Accordion Allie, natch), sing the same 5 hokey tunes over and over all day, and get maybe 2 short breaks if it's not too busy. It's also tons of fun, did I mention that? Although I think it takes a certain kind of person to enjoy it. A masochist, maybe.
Anyway, the "Emperor" rehearsal was a dream. The cast kept saying "Oh, we're so happy to have you here!" and I kept replying "You guys have no idea how happy I am to be here!" It's a tiny cast of three plus my mom is the stage manager, and Peter and Melody Anderson (the writer/designer and the director respectively), as well as being two of the most talented theatre pros in town, are also two of the sweetest. We broke for lunch at 1:00, and Mel had snuck in and set the big kitchen table in the Russian Hall's kitchen with a fancy tablecloth and candles. She'd brought in delicious mac 'n cheese (it's a running gag in the show), salad and drinks, so we sat around and had a candle-lit lunch and laughed a lot and I thought sometimes working in theatre is every bit as fun and amazing as I thought it would be.
Nose update: it's not a Staph infection, and I have a nifty saline spray to combat the inflammation. Let's hope it goes away soon. It's not so much the sore nose I mind, it's feeling so tired and run-down that bites.