Monday, June 29, 2009

Tech Week

So yesterday started tech week on Sunday. Which is why I've not been posting. We've had four 12 hour days in the past week, last Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and this past Sunday. Friday was pay day which made things a bit better and Saturday was our day off. The week kinda blurs together with how much work we've been doing as all three shows have their first dress rehearsal this week. Meaning the actors need to have all of the costumes ready to wear by then. We're still working on things, but that's the way things go some times. I've gotten to work on all sorts of things from pants to waistcoats to dresses and tulle monstrosities... i mean skirts... there are seriously 15 yards of tulle in these petticoats. They look gorgeous, until you have to deal with on. It just goes every where it shouldn't be. The show I'm assigned too isn't quite as crazy as La Travita with all the waist coats and things, but it's set in the 1930's so most of it was bought for the men and only a few things where built for the women. Bias cut dresses and things can be difficult but not as long to make as a fully tailored 1850's suit. Travita is based on the same story as the movie Moulin Rouge, only the penniless writter isn't penniless and she's not quite a whore. More like a girl with a Sugar Daddy, who she isn't married to and never will be. We went to a production seminar today about it, where the director, costume/scenic designer and lighting designer talked about the when, where and how of the Opera. Apparenlty Cenerentola's is this Thursday. Everyone in the costume shop who went brought an hours worth of hand stitching with them or their lunch so that we weren't really loosing the time.

This saturday though was pretty fun, it was a Taste of Utica. A big group of us went, it had about 20 different resturants, a few wineries and a beer company. There were a number of tastey places. From sushi to barbeque to icecream. I'll post pictures as soon as I've labeled them all. After than we drove into New Hartford to a real honest to god mall, where a few of us who went all played girls shopping. It was quite the relaxing day all in all. My days are all off though as we started work on Sunday.

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Loooooong Week.

This has been a crazy busy week. With first dress ( and therefore completed costumes due) for the first of the three shows due next Sunday we're all in a bit of paniced rush mode. My show isn't up for first dress until a week from Wednesday, but still crazy, as most of the pieces are bias cut 30's dresses with lots of fiddly bits on them. The shop had it's first 12 hour day this past Thursday, which wasn't bad except for the fact that it was terribly horribly long. And wet. It rained that whole day so we couldn't even eat outside. Really I haven't been up to much more than going to work and coming home to read and sleep. Friday night a few of us costume shop girls decided to have a hair dying/ pizza eating/ beer drinking/ movie watching night. Morgan, Shannon, Alana and I all went over to Liz's house in town and did just that. It was a good night, fun to bond with the new girls I'm working with. Last night was dinner in Oneonta and a run to the nearest Walmart for things you can't get at the grocery store with Shannon and Liz. But not the same Liz that I went out with today.

Today was the Cooperstown Beverage tour that we started at 11 this morning, of which there are photos of up. I promise you can see them. It's four stops. Maura, Morgan, Liz, Holly, Alana and I all went in Morgan's van for the expedition. The Bear Pond Winery was the farthest from us, so our first stop. They only have local wines, though not all they sell are just theirs. I only tried theirs in the tasting though, and it was alot of fun. We stayed their for lunch and then headed out to the Cooperstown Brewery. Two wrong turns later, we found it. They people there were suuuuuuper nice. I think it helped that the tour guide/Brewmaster's assistant/bottle line mechanic was about our age leading a tour of 6 good looking ladies. It was a pretty small place, apparently they brew two beers a week and once a year they make root beer. From there we headed to the Ommegang brewery, which was faaaaaancy compaired to Cooperstown. Not as small town friendly, but I was more fond of the beer. Granted, I'd had some of it before. This one little brewery ships out across the nation, but it IS three times the size of Cooperstown. The tour started a mintue right before we got there, so we joined it. It was super high tech. The tour had a bunch of people in it, so it was harder to get the tastings done. Then on to the last place from there, which was Fly Creek Cider Mill. It was SO COOL! It was a big two story building that was full of all sorts of apple things. Apple pie, apple butter, apple friters, apple cider (hard and not), apple wine, apple cheese, apple EVERYTHING. As this was our last stop this is where we got our Beverage Trail glasses, which you get for getting stamps at all the places on a little brochsure thing. With this done we headed back to get Liz home for softball practice and did boring grocery errands. Tomorrow starts another long hectic, but happily, work filled week.

I should be able to post photos of the things I've been working on later next week, but no promises. We've got two more 12 hour days next week, tuesday and thursday. Yay. But we'll get it all done. Happy Fathers day to those of you who are fathers. Congrats agan James on passing then FE. :D G'night to everyone else.

Monday, June 15, 2009

First weekend in Cooperstown

Friday was a mostly uneventful day. I ended up helping weed our new costume shop flower garden in the morning, and we found wild strawberries! So now half of what was to be flower garden is going to be tiny strawberry patch as well. Erica, one of the drapers, found a strawberry on one of the tiny plants and I helped her figure out which were strawberry plants and which were weeds. We had an hour and a half for lunch as well, so that we could go into town and either cash or deposit our checks as we got paid. The afternoon we spent setting up for fittings that were going to happen on Saturday and we were sent home. We went to the Otsego Hotel, which is the fanciest hotel in Cooperstown. Probably one of the fanciest I've been in outside of Disney. There is a giant porch with cocktail waitresses that serve you while you sit in giant white rocking chairs and look out over the lake. Soooooo relaxing and pretty. The weather here is gorgeous most days (short of the normal summer afternoon rains), so it was just perfect sitting out there. We walked over to the tiniest dinner ever to get dinner before heading home.

Saturday Morgan and I slept late, dyed each other's hair then ran small errands. They were grand trips to the Bank of America ( the only one is a few towns over) and the grocery store. Actually between those two we did stop in at the small arts and crafts fair in Richfeild Springs, which was very cute and everything you'd find at any local crafts fair. Quilts, woodcarvings, small jewlery makers. Apparently fantastic barbeque that I did not get a chance to partake in. I don't have any photos of it though, as I was not expecting our errands to include it. Morgan and I got invited to a party near by that we went to. It was alot of fun, though my favorite part was the ball pit. Yes, a ball pit. It was a kiddy swimming pool filled with balls straight from the Mickey D's play ground. It was fantastic. :D I got to meet a few more of the grad students that are from school, who were very cool. Mostly Techincal Director students, who live in the scene shop, and that being no where near the costume shop, explains why I didn't know them. Everyone there was really friendly and fun.

Sunday we slept even later, having stayed out way too late the previous night. Not having much to do we did laundry. Though finding the laundrimat was quite a challenge. Morgan and I did though, and are fully stocked with clean clothes. I made dinner for the two of us and that was the extent of our day. I've been chruning through books pretty quick here, as there is typically an hour or three spent reading in the room o'Morgan and Adri. Now it's time for a late dinner, so signing off.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

Midweek

Tonight's a quiet night, as half of Summer Camp Opera is off at the local bar/Chinese food restaurant for karaoke night. I'm a bit under the weather, so I'm not up for hearing people scream the lyrics of old bad songs in the tiny bar. Though it was quite fun on Tuesday night when we went after work. Good Chinese food too.

There isn't much work to be done at the moment, we're mostly doing house keeping stuff. Organizing, restock, etc. Not the most interesting, but that's fine. Tuesday was our first real day of work, and we got to go early as it was Ice Cream Social day! That's right! the Costume shop held an Ice Cream social for the whole Opera. Even had lactose free ice cream for the lactarded and all fruit popsicles for the Vegans. It was pretty fun. After wards we all went home for a breif second then out to the bar/chinese food. We stayed out for a while, though when we got there it was just the costume shop girls and Safety John. By 9 half the Opera had taken over the tiny tiny bar. We almost got lost getting home, but got back fine. Though just after we got home, the girl we were trying to follow stopped back by and got Morgan out of the room while I was checking my email. Neither of us had our keys. Ooh super fun lock outs. Thankfully our RA guy was still up and let us in no problem.

Wednesday didn't have to be into the costume shop until 2 pm, but had fire estinguisher training and terribly over acted videos about back health and slip protection. Morgan, another girl Holly and I went in to Cooperstown to wonder around a bit. The photos are still on my camera from that, but the photos from before are now all online (they were before, but a bit of a mix up happened.) We went home after that for naps and lunch then headed in to work. It was mostly spent cataloging stock. Nothing terribly exciting. Morgan went to watch the Opera softball game, but I stayed in having a headache. The Opera plays in a company league against the local companies like the hospital, sports store, etc. Apparently we're attrocious, but the crowd it always pretty rowdy.

Today was the first real full day of work, as there had been fittings done yesterday. Those didn't take most of the morning, so I was sent out to the warehouse to do more organizing. We came back for lunch and I stayed behind to clean up the wardrobe house instead of going out there again. Again not exciting, but fine. Now it's after dinner and I'm gunna curl up with a book and be a sicky.

Monday, June 8, 2009

Cooperstown!

We have arrived! :D

Morgan and I actually got in last night, but yeah. We ended up leaving New Jersey yesterday about 2 pm, got lost just at the start, trying to find a Costco to stock up at before getting to New York. Low and behold our directions took us to their offices, not the store. I was headachey at this point from getting into New Jersey from Brooklyn. I was not in the mood to be lost. So I canceled any further expeditions and we got on our way. It really was a better decision, as there was a strange Blue Law in the county of New Jersey we were in that would have kept us from buying anything other than food and gas on Sunday. From there the trip was uneventful until we were getting off the New York Through Way, we got off at the wrong spot. We ended up at a Dunkin' Doughnuts, where apparently we were not the only people who got lost trying to get to Cooperstown. Turns out we'd just taken the wrong exit and got turned around.

We found the Opera just as the office was closing, but managed to get in and get our keys and such before they left. Morgan and I's room is pretty nice, alot bigger than I was expecting and quite comfortable for us to share. We got in, unloaded then headed to the nearest super store, which took us 45 minutes each way, but excitingly we get cellphone service out there! Really, just ten minutes out of here, we get cellphone service. I think we are in a valley that blocks out service. It's amazingly pretty here. Just lots and lots of rolling hills with small farm houses and forest.

Today was the first day of work, which was pretty much entirely orientations and safety workshops. Morgan and I actually walked the 3/4 of a mile to the Opera from our room. Found out the Safety guy is from school, a Techincal Directing student. He's pretty cool. We went on a tour of the Opera campus too, which was very cool. I'm going to have to get pictures later, I'd forgotten my camera today. Morgan and I had lunch today with a few other people out on the lake, which is beautiful! There is a tentitive plan for canoeing this weekend. But really that's all the interesting I've got for you guys. G'night.

Saturday, June 6, 2009

NYC

I've not been able to get at a computer really for the last few days, but I am in fact in Brooklyn staying with Cassie. It's been a really fun couple of days.

I got into the city on Thursday, Morgan and I rode the bus in from New Jersey. We hung out in Port Authority until Cassie was able to meet us. Straight from Port Authority we went back out to Brooklyn to drop off my bag. Cassie shares a two bedroom apartment with her boy and two other roommates, one of which lives in the living room behind a curtain. All the rooms though were bigger than I was expecting and it's a pretty nice apartment over all. And I'm not just saying that 'cause Cassie'll read then when I'm gone. It started raining that day, but it didn't deter us. We went to Mood Fabric and marveled at all of the fabrics. Seriously we spent probably 4 hours in there. Then we wondered around the Fashion district, popping in and out of wholesale stores who happened to have sample sales. Cassie took us out to the Lower East side, a place called Spice. It was some of the tastiest Thai I'd ever eaten. There were plans after to meet up with two of Cassie's friends, two German guys, who ended up being three German boys out trolling for girls. Matt, Cassie's boyfriend, met up with us at the Subway station before we got to the bar, which ended up being Off the Wagon. The most stereotypically college kid big city bar evar. The music was good, the beer was astromonically expensive for anything other than Bud and it was all so loud you couldn't hear a damn thing from even the person you were standing shoulder to shoulder with. All of us ended up leaving and heading to the Belgan Beer Bar, a much quieter bar that I had seen on our way over to Off the Wagon. The beer was pretty pricey there too, but it ended up being a much nicer place. At one point we thought le German boys had left us so Cassie had me drink down my beer quick. But it turned out they were just sitting outside in the beer garden, so we joined them and had another round. Cassie, Morgan, Matt and I didn't end up leaving Manhattan until midnight and due to a miscommunication one of the german boys, Sasha, followed us down into the Subway thinking that we were going back to Brooklyn to drink more, when infact we were all dead tired. It got straightened out before he got on the train, so he was (hopefully?) able to meet back up with the other two, Bjorn and Andreas, before they got too far away.

The next morning Morgan and I had to get up SUPER early. Like 6:45 am. We had to be at the subway station heading back to Manhattan by 7:30 am to meet up with Russ and go with him to Timberlake Studios. We actually made it there without getting terribly turned around and before Russ did. The studio was much smaller than I thought it was going to be, but they had studio cats, who were super friendly. Sara Timberlake was really interesting to listen and talk to, she went through how she got jobs, the process of taking designs and turning them into mock ups, then about fittings and the like. She let us at one point get into small groups and describe what we thought would go into the making of these designs. It was all very cool. After the workshop Morgan headed back out to NJ to go back to her home town to catch up with high school friends and I followed Russ's group to lunch. Cassie had an interview at 1:30 only a few blocks up from where the second workshop, this one a make up workshop, was being held. The group I was tagging along with was a local to home high school group, the director of which I knew from last summer's job at the REP. Apparently they go on a yearly Tony's trip. But the make up designer they had come in to the Geiger studios and show them how to do different make up tricks like old age and fanstasy was Angelina Avallone. She's the make up designer for most every show on Broadway right now. I stayed for her workshop as it ended up finishing near when Cassie was done with her interveiw. At this point, as interesting as Angelina was I was near falling asleep in my chair and needing to go back to Brooklyn. So Cassie and I met up, trudged through the rain and came back to Brooklyn so that she could change out of interview clothes and I could just rest a bit. Getting back to Brooklyn, Matt came home and we decided to to out to dinner. Which I have learned is a trek. It took us an hour to get to anywhere that sounded decent. They don't have a car, so subway is the only mode of travel, and we had to switch trains to get down to the place. It was FANSTATIC food, but far out.

Today we slept late, then Cassie and I went out to the Renegade Crafts Festival in Queens. Another hour long subway ride, but this one was worth it. It was a very very cool crafts fair. AND! It was goreous out. The rain that had been drizziling down for the past few days cleared up and it was sunny and warm the whole time. When we'd seen the whole crafts fair and picked up various trinkets we headed into Union Square to meet up with Matt and sit a bit. After meeting up with Matt we ventured down to Chinatown as I'd had a bit of interest in getting one of the famed fake bags from the Chinese vendors. I found a really nice one that is, to me, pretty indistingishable from a real thing. Now we're getting ready to head down to the produce market to get food for dinner and cook for ourselves in the apartment. Cassie and Matt are getting ready to move to a new apartment in Astoria which they are really excited about, but leaves you short sometimes in the grocery department.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

and at a resting point.

So Morgan and I made it to New Jersey this evening. We left North Carolina this morning, and took our sweet time going down the road. We took pictures today, which I'll probably post tomorrow night. For lunch we decided to get a little adventurous and not just stop at the nearest fast food place. We instead when into the city of Alexandria and had lunch on the warf in the old down town portion of the city. It was a gorgeous day out and we ended up eating at a pretty fancy resturant. Though our waiter did give us an awesome tip on how to get around DC the quickest heading up north. He was still a shade hung over, which was funny for us. The food was great, but we needed to get going as we were trying to get me into the city tonight. Which failed, 'cause it'd have been way too late for me to comfortably ridden the bus into the city and played tourist all the way to Cassie's apartment. As I'm pretty sure Mom or any number of people would have killed me for doing that. But I'm being antisocial, so post ends here. Photos tomorrow I promise.

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

NEW YORK! :D :D :D

So! I return to the lovely interwub's blogocircle with a new adventure. New York! As you probably know I'm working at an Opera in upstate NY for their summer stock as an intern. I'm joined there by Jill a recent grad student from our program and Morgan and fellow costume undergrad. Morgan is actually one of the girls I knew in and before going to London. :3 we've had pretty much every theatre class together since our freshman year. Today is actually the first day of our two-ish day road trip up. We left FL this morning around 9ish and are currently staying in NC for the night. Morgan and I took turns driving and made pretty good time, it was a uneventful drive thankfully. We actually stopped in Lumberton, NC to get dinner so that I could get my most favorite BBQ evar. Num Num pulled pork. We had planned to possibly stay with a friend in Raleigh, but as that ended up being way too off course it didn't end up happening. Tomorrow we head to the NYC/NJ area. She's got family in NJ and Cassie (the roommate from London mentioned copiously below) lives in NYC and I'll be staying with her for a few days. :D And that's all I've really got for the night.