Just a couple of random thoughts.
I saw Monsters Vs Aliens in 3D today at the mall. I liked it. It wasn’t the best, but it had moments that made me laugh…AND…3D!
Today after our show Deanna and I went to blue lagoon. It is Monday, March 30th. The band was playing some jazzy/bluesy version of The First Noel. I can’t figure out why. Close to easter? Good enough for Christmas songs?
One fun thing about being friends with actors is getting to not miss them while at sea. “What are you talking about, Rance??” I get to see friends in commercials and other stuff. Last year it was mostly Molly and TJ in Sonic commercials, and there have been some of those this year. We’ve also had the added bonus of seeing Molly in a Cheerios commercial, Sayjal and Katie in a Sonic commercial, Thomas in a preview for his upcoming movie (Splinterheads, I think) and in a Netflix commercial…but best of all was Joey in the news on Headline News AND CNN. He plays Rod Blagojevic (I’m not spelling that right) in a play produced by Second City. Well, Rod recently hosted a radio show for a morning and had Joey on for an interview. Because of the news following Illinois’ ex-governor on that day, Joey was on major networks! Well done, all.
Lastly, the only decent thing to watch late at night seems to be Cartoon Network. That being said, the very late night stuff is gear specifically towards pot smokers in that none of it really makes sense. Ridiculous and dumb…yet better than anything on the other channels.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Friday, March 27, 2009
3/27/09: Day 153: Sea Day
Well…I guess it has been a week. Not really much to write about here. I just thought to myself “Hey, it has been awhile since I have written anything.”
I downloaded some old PC games and a DOS emulator recently and have been playing Bard’s Tale 1. I remember playing it when I was a kid. It has been a good time killer.
Other than that I have been playing around with my flash. I’m wayyyy more of a natural light photographer. If I can’t do natural light I prefer my strobes. I just never liked an on camera flash. Something about using it clicked in my brain recently and I’ve been playing around with angles and other variables. Once I apply these angles to something more than tests I’ll post a photo or two.
I’m watching CNN. It is all coverage of the flooding in Fargo mostly, but there was a little tid bit where some country blamed people with white skin and blue eyes for the economic downfall. So…sorry about that y’all. My bad.
I downloaded some old PC games and a DOS emulator recently and have been playing Bard’s Tale 1. I remember playing it when I was a kid. It has been a good time killer.
Other than that I have been playing around with my flash. I’m wayyyy more of a natural light photographer. If I can’t do natural light I prefer my strobes. I just never liked an on camera flash. Something about using it clicked in my brain recently and I’ve been playing around with angles and other variables. Once I apply these angles to something more than tests I’ll post a photo or two.
I’m watching CNN. It is all coverage of the flooding in Fargo mostly, but there was a little tid bit where some country blamed people with white skin and blue eyes for the economic downfall. So…sorry about that y’all. My bad.
Friday, March 20, 2009
3/20/09: Day 146: Sea Day
We’re on our way back to New York. Can you believe we only have less than a month until we go back to Europe? Well, you should…because it is true.
Today I am inspired to write because of the crew channels. All of the crew cabins get an extra 3 channels that usually show movies and TV series repeated for the whole day. Recently the person in charge of scheduling these changed and we lost some variety. For instance, it used to be that one of the movie channels might have an action movie and the other would have comedy or drama. So, different genres going on. Keep that in mind.
First: Hell’s Kitchen. We watched the finale of season 1 of Hell’s Kitchen today. The person I thought would win was the winner. This is a great show and apparently on season 5 in the real world. It is mostly good because of chef Gordon Ramsey who puts up with nothing in his kitchen and always bitches out everyone during service. It is unedited on the DVD version, but we’re curious how it was aired on any TV station…there would have been a lot of beeps.
Now…the movie debacles. Yesterday started the new regime of “same-genre-day” or so it seems. Yesterday our two movie choices were Beverly Hills Chihuahua (which is an awful piece of crap movie…if you like this movie you also probably like wearing dog crap as jewelry and makeup) and Madagascar 2: Back 2 Africa (an animated movie with a slew of celebrity voices). Both very similar in that they both have talking animals and are gear towards kids. I actually liked Madagascar 2…it had some funny bits all throughout the movie.
Today? Well our two movie choices today are a Baliwood film about two guys in Miami who pretend they are gay to get a good apartment in a “women only” building (modern Bosom Buddies), and Mama Mia. The Baliwood movie is slightly less musical, but equally in the realm of “chick movie.”
Hopefully we’ll get some diversity back.
It is pretty rocky today. Jen and Larrance sometimes said they were required to close their porthole. If you’re reading: how did you know when it was rough enough to close it?
Today I am inspired to write because of the crew channels. All of the crew cabins get an extra 3 channels that usually show movies and TV series repeated for the whole day. Recently the person in charge of scheduling these changed and we lost some variety. For instance, it used to be that one of the movie channels might have an action movie and the other would have comedy or drama. So, different genres going on. Keep that in mind.
First: Hell’s Kitchen. We watched the finale of season 1 of Hell’s Kitchen today. The person I thought would win was the winner. This is a great show and apparently on season 5 in the real world. It is mostly good because of chef Gordon Ramsey who puts up with nothing in his kitchen and always bitches out everyone during service. It is unedited on the DVD version, but we’re curious how it was aired on any TV station…there would have been a lot of beeps.
Now…the movie debacles. Yesterday started the new regime of “same-genre-day” or so it seems. Yesterday our two movie choices were Beverly Hills Chihuahua (which is an awful piece of crap movie…if you like this movie you also probably like wearing dog crap as jewelry and makeup) and Madagascar 2: Back 2 Africa (an animated movie with a slew of celebrity voices). Both very similar in that they both have talking animals and are gear towards kids. I actually liked Madagascar 2…it had some funny bits all throughout the movie.
Today? Well our two movie choices today are a Baliwood film about two guys in Miami who pretend they are gay to get a good apartment in a “women only” building (modern Bosom Buddies), and Mama Mia. The Baliwood movie is slightly less musical, but equally in the realm of “chick movie.”
Hopefully we’ll get some diversity back.
It is pretty rocky today. Jen and Larrance sometimes said they were required to close their porthole. If you’re reading: how did you know when it was rough enough to close it?
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
3/18/09: Day 144: Nassau
One gross!
Really, I have no idea what new has been going on. I bought a nice little PC in Florida on Monday. It seems like we’re always looking for internet. My laptop is old (going on 5 years!) and heavy, low on space, and a little slow. Carrying it around usually means that I am in port strictly for internet. I say that because I am very unlikely to walk around town with the weight on my back.
Well, my new computer is about the sizes of a Harry Potter hardback, and I’m talking about book 1 or 2…not the thicker ones. Plus, it has 3G. I got it for $99 at Radioshack when I signed up for the AT&T 3G network. It will work great in New York, and FL, and where ever I am when we’re home. It will just be useless…as far as 3G is concerned…in Europe. BUT, it has wireless too. So…Win Win.
The only problem is that the 3G has a 5gig/month download limit and I already caught Deanna on it in Florida. RED HANDED!
Everything else is fine. I text dared some CSz folks the other day. I don’t know if I explained text daring before. We started this one day on a drive back from a remote. Unfortunately, it usually means that at least one person is clueless. Not that it is at that person’s expense…it just seems to them that everyone is behaving oddly/”like improvisers.”
I usually try to combine my dares so that the single dares are harder, For instance, one time Martin had a bag of M&Ms. I dared Tamara to steal the bag unnoticed. When she succeeded I dared Martin to constantly offer Josh M&Ms. Also I had dared Josh to only refer to Martin as “brutha.” Once I see those in effect I dare Tamara to sneak the M&Ms back unnoticed. So Martin is trying to find his M&Ms to offer them to Josh. Josh is saying stuff like “It is okay. I’m not hungry, brutha.” And Tamara is trying to distract Martin so she can put the M&Ms back.
In Florida I did the following (since I wasn’t sure who was around who), just to give you an idea of how my mind works:
Sam: Dare: Work “Order up! Ding ding!” in to 5 of your next 7 sentences
Tara: Dare: Yell “1, 2, 3, FART CONTEST!” and look like you’re trying really hard to win
Rich: Dare: Ask a stranger where the nearest 5 & Dime is. If they don’t know say “what’s the date…THE YEAR!?”
Martin: Dare: Turn around 180 degrees, point and exclaim “Pretty sneaky, Sis!” regardless of whether there is a person there or not.
Those are all pretty close to what I texted. Sam was the only one who dared back “Use something as a toothpick and comment to a stranger about how well it works.”
It’s more fun if you’re actually there to watch the dares.
Really, I have no idea what new has been going on. I bought a nice little PC in Florida on Monday. It seems like we’re always looking for internet. My laptop is old (going on 5 years!) and heavy, low on space, and a little slow. Carrying it around usually means that I am in port strictly for internet. I say that because I am very unlikely to walk around town with the weight on my back.
Well, my new computer is about the sizes of a Harry Potter hardback, and I’m talking about book 1 or 2…not the thicker ones. Plus, it has 3G. I got it for $99 at Radioshack when I signed up for the AT&T 3G network. It will work great in New York, and FL, and where ever I am when we’re home. It will just be useless…as far as 3G is concerned…in Europe. BUT, it has wireless too. So…Win Win.
The only problem is that the 3G has a 5gig/month download limit and I already caught Deanna on it in Florida. RED HANDED!
Everything else is fine. I text dared some CSz folks the other day. I don’t know if I explained text daring before. We started this one day on a drive back from a remote. Unfortunately, it usually means that at least one person is clueless. Not that it is at that person’s expense…it just seems to them that everyone is behaving oddly/”like improvisers.”
I usually try to combine my dares so that the single dares are harder, For instance, one time Martin had a bag of M&Ms. I dared Tamara to steal the bag unnoticed. When she succeeded I dared Martin to constantly offer Josh M&Ms. Also I had dared Josh to only refer to Martin as “brutha.” Once I see those in effect I dare Tamara to sneak the M&Ms back unnoticed. So Martin is trying to find his M&Ms to offer them to Josh. Josh is saying stuff like “It is okay. I’m not hungry, brutha.” And Tamara is trying to distract Martin so she can put the M&Ms back.
In Florida I did the following (since I wasn’t sure who was around who), just to give you an idea of how my mind works:
Sam: Dare: Work “Order up! Ding ding!” in to 5 of your next 7 sentences
Tara: Dare: Yell “1, 2, 3, FART CONTEST!” and look like you’re trying really hard to win
Rich: Dare: Ask a stranger where the nearest 5 & Dime is. If they don’t know say “what’s the date…THE YEAR!?”
Martin: Dare: Turn around 180 degrees, point and exclaim “Pretty sneaky, Sis!” regardless of whether there is a person there or not.
Those are all pretty close to what I texted. Sam was the only one who dared back “Use something as a toothpick and comment to a stranger about how well it works.”
It’s more fun if you’re actually there to watch the dares.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
3/12/09: Day 138: Freeport
Today we went to a crew safety drill that we probably didn’t need to go to. They have them every cruise, but we get excused from a majority. We go once a month. This time there was a confusing sign in the hall that said all supernumeraries were supposed to meet in the Spinnaker lounge at 9:50…but we didn’t get our usual sheet of paper delivered to our cabin with our names on the list. Regardless, we were there.
Like two weeks ago, they wanted us to be passengers…but this time they wanted us to act more like passengers. Instead of going to the sections he gave us we were told that we were supposed to ask crew where “G” was and see if they could assist us. Then the safety director said “Is there anyone here who is unable to walk?” in a loaded way. I said “Do you need someone who can’t walk?” To which he replied, “I think YOU can not walk.”
So, I had to wait. The alarm sounded and no one left the lounge. The safety leader for that section came in and told us all that we needed to go to our sections. I said I needed a wheel chair, and so did another guy. After awhile two teams of four collected us in wheel chairs and took us to safety. It was kind of fun. A nice little way to mix things up.
Later in the day we met for an improv rehearsal. It is way different preparing for improv now. Everyone is on way different pages since we don’t all have the common thread of ImprovAcadia. This week Ric is making the lineups and has picked some games that I love and some I’ve never heard of. Both are nice.
Seems like time is flying now. Before I know it April 18th will be here and we’ll be on our way back to Europe!
Like two weeks ago, they wanted us to be passengers…but this time they wanted us to act more like passengers. Instead of going to the sections he gave us we were told that we were supposed to ask crew where “G” was and see if they could assist us. Then the safety director said “Is there anyone here who is unable to walk?” in a loaded way. I said “Do you need someone who can’t walk?” To which he replied, “I think YOU can not walk.”
So, I had to wait. The alarm sounded and no one left the lounge. The safety leader for that section came in and told us all that we needed to go to our sections. I said I needed a wheel chair, and so did another guy. After awhile two teams of four collected us in wheel chairs and took us to safety. It was kind of fun. A nice little way to mix things up.
Later in the day we met for an improv rehearsal. It is way different preparing for improv now. Everyone is on way different pages since we don’t all have the common thread of ImprovAcadia. This week Ric is making the lineups and has picked some games that I love and some I’ve never heard of. Both are nice.
Seems like time is flying now. Before I know it April 18th will be here and we’ll be on our way back to Europe!
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
3/11/09: Day 137: Nassau
College crowd for sure on this cruise. Our first show on Port Canaveral day was lightly attended, but the second was packed. This crowd is all about partying, but they’re not annoying partiers so much.
Tonight we did our improv show and had a good turn out, which is nice because we’re in port until 11:30 and there is a Senior Frogs outside that had a lot of our passengers in it. Deanna, Maria, and I decided to get food in Magenta afterwards. As we were waiting for our table two ladies said we did a good job and asked for a photo. One of the ladies said “I guess we’re your junkies now.” She later cleared up that she meant “groupies” but it was nice being a drug for a few minutes.
Right about that same time I noticed some college girls at a table looking at us…and then a guy they were with asked if they could eat with us and said he was a theater major. So, we all ate together. A nice little dinner with the passengers.
Now I’m stuffed.
Tonight we did our improv show and had a good turn out, which is nice because we’re in port until 11:30 and there is a Senior Frogs outside that had a lot of our passengers in it. Deanna, Maria, and I decided to get food in Magenta afterwards. As we were waiting for our table two ladies said we did a good job and asked for a photo. One of the ladies said “I guess we’re your junkies now.” She later cleared up that she meant “groupies” but it was nice being a drug for a few minutes.
Right about that same time I noticed some college girls at a table looking at us…and then a guy they were with asked if they could eat with us and said he was a theater major. So, we all ate together. A nice little dinner with the passengers.
Now I’m stuffed.
Sunday, March 08, 2009
3/8/09: Day 134: Cruise Guide
First of all…I cant believe it is day 134. I remember reading other cruisers blogs to try to get an idea of what things were like. Some of those blogs were well into the hundreds of days as well.
I don’t know if anyone else reads this thing, but on the off-hand chance that there is someone out there who just got hired for these ships and they found my blog, here is a list of important things to bring.
-A Power Strip with surge protection. You have a limited number of outlets, and on some ships the power runs a little hot…more on that under Clock.
-An Atomic LED Clock. None of the rooms have a clock. I recommend an atomic alarm clock, BUT make sure it can adjust to the time zone you’re cruising in. For instance, during day light savings we can get ours to go one hour further than EST…which is great for the Caribbean run. Other than that we’re limited to the four US time zones. Our clock is useless in Europe. HOWEVER, if you don’t have an atomic clock or a battery powered clock the chances are high (at least on our ship) that your clock will run fast because of the “hot power” on the ship. Ric mentioned his clock being of within a day or two I think.
-Magnets. Over the course of your stay you might have important running orders, postcards from friends, pictures of family, etc. All of the walls in your room are magnetic. We’ve found that Office Depot/Staples sells little powerful magnets that look like push pins. These are great for holding something to the wall AND hanging light things like necklaces on. Just to give you an idea of what is hanging in our room via magnets: cast poster, cruise itinerary calendar, sleep mask, running order, Obama poster, all of Deanna’s necklaces, Valentine’s Day card, cast photo…I even have an open bag of potato chips that I’ve folded closed and held to the wall with a strong magnet.
-Storage helpers. I found a cheap, magnetic high school locker accessory on sale at Staples that has been perfect. It sticks to the metal walls. It has a dry erase front with a pen clipped to the outside. The front opens up to reveal a small, mirrored storage (where we keep our name tags. And there are three hooks on the bottom for hanging things…like scissors. We also bought a “shoe organizer”…the kind that hangs on a door. We have all kinds of random stuff in the pockets…none of which are shoes.
-Hamper. Something to put your clothes in. We have a spring loaded collapsible hamper, but a bag will do as well.
Those are the major ones. Another tip is that if you over pack there is the option of buying a cheap suitcase and filling it with the stuff you don’t need. FedEx can ship a suitcase (without being boxed up) for about $25 or so.
I don’t know if anyone else reads this thing, but on the off-hand chance that there is someone out there who just got hired for these ships and they found my blog, here is a list of important things to bring.
-A Power Strip with surge protection. You have a limited number of outlets, and on some ships the power runs a little hot…more on that under Clock.
-An Atomic LED Clock. None of the rooms have a clock. I recommend an atomic alarm clock, BUT make sure it can adjust to the time zone you’re cruising in. For instance, during day light savings we can get ours to go one hour further than EST…which is great for the Caribbean run. Other than that we’re limited to the four US time zones. Our clock is useless in Europe. HOWEVER, if you don’t have an atomic clock or a battery powered clock the chances are high (at least on our ship) that your clock will run fast because of the “hot power” on the ship. Ric mentioned his clock being of within a day or two I think.
-Magnets. Over the course of your stay you might have important running orders, postcards from friends, pictures of family, etc. All of the walls in your room are magnetic. We’ve found that Office Depot/Staples sells little powerful magnets that look like push pins. These are great for holding something to the wall AND hanging light things like necklaces on. Just to give you an idea of what is hanging in our room via magnets: cast poster, cruise itinerary calendar, sleep mask, running order, Obama poster, all of Deanna’s necklaces, Valentine’s Day card, cast photo…I even have an open bag of potato chips that I’ve folded closed and held to the wall with a strong magnet.
-Storage helpers. I found a cheap, magnetic high school locker accessory on sale at Staples that has been perfect. It sticks to the metal walls. It has a dry erase front with a pen clipped to the outside. The front opens up to reveal a small, mirrored storage (where we keep our name tags. And there are three hooks on the bottom for hanging things…like scissors. We also bought a “shoe organizer”…the kind that hangs on a door. We have all kinds of random stuff in the pockets…none of which are shoes.
-Hamper. Something to put your clothes in. We have a spring loaded collapsible hamper, but a bag will do as well.
Those are the major ones. Another tip is that if you over pack there is the option of buying a cheap suitcase and filling it with the stuff you don’t need. FedEx can ship a suitcase (without being boxed up) for about $25 or so.
3/8/09: Day 134: Sea Day
Our first “normal” week on this contract…no daily rehearsals. Normally I do laundry every first sea day, but I didn’t get the chance last week. I managed to do a couple of random loads, but if I miss that first sea day I run into the rest of the crew trying to do theirs. So, today I have a LOT of laundry in the washer. This also gives me 48 minutes to write and hopefully work on my Spanish.
This morning I woke up just a little before 11:00am like usual and told Deanna I was going up to get breakfast. Usually if I get to the main buffet right before 11:00 I can still get an omelet and some oatmeal…and if I miss that I can definitely go to the outdoor café as they serve breakfast later. When I got to the buffet right at 11:00 the ropes were up…what? They weren’t letting people in? But one of the officers moved the ropes and let people in. I figured someone had made a mistake. But…no breakfast stuff was there. To the great outdoors!
I got there and they still had breakfast but looked like they were close to shutting down too. I naturally assumed that they had started some policy of ending breakfast sooner. While in line for omelets there were two fratish dudes in front of me talking to each other. Both trying to seem cool to each other without going overboard. The first guy mid-conversation said to his omelet chef “Can you put some cheese on that bad boy?” A very subtle interjection of cool.
After all of this I got back to the room and told the story of the early closing breakfast. All she said was “do you know why they closed early?” That snapped an important piece of my memory into place. We were supposed to set our clocks ahead last night. Whoops!
Breakfast is normal, everyone. Nothing to worry about.
This morning I woke up just a little before 11:00am like usual and told Deanna I was going up to get breakfast. Usually if I get to the main buffet right before 11:00 I can still get an omelet and some oatmeal…and if I miss that I can definitely go to the outdoor café as they serve breakfast later. When I got to the buffet right at 11:00 the ropes were up…what? They weren’t letting people in? But one of the officers moved the ropes and let people in. I figured someone had made a mistake. But…no breakfast stuff was there. To the great outdoors!
I got there and they still had breakfast but looked like they were close to shutting down too. I naturally assumed that they had started some policy of ending breakfast sooner. While in line for omelets there were two fratish dudes in front of me talking to each other. Both trying to seem cool to each other without going overboard. The first guy mid-conversation said to his omelet chef “Can you put some cheese on that bad boy?” A very subtle interjection of cool.
After all of this I got back to the room and told the story of the early closing breakfast. All she said was “do you know why they closed early?” That snapped an important piece of my memory into place. We were supposed to set our clocks ahead last night. Whoops!
Breakfast is normal, everyone. Nothing to worry about.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
3/7/09: Day 133: New York
Today we had a full crew emigration. For passengers you go through emigration when you get back from a cruise, but for crew we’re always on the ship so it happens the week after you get on, the day you get off, or close to when you are about to cross to another country as your port. We’re about a month away from going back to Barcelona, so it was everybody. This is good and bad. It meant that all the new sign-ons and the people leaving that day had to be there at 8:30. Originally all entertainers were supposed to be there at 10:30, but they switched it to all US Citizens there at 8:45. There is less hassle with US citizens in a US port.
The major downfall of this is that no one can leave the ship until everyone has gone through…and there are always people who forget or don’t even know it is happening. So, instead of getting off around 10-10:30 we couldn’t get off the ship until about 12:30. We did get to hear announcement of “will [one crew member’s name] please report to emigration immediately”…so everyone waiting to get off knew exactly who was the cause of it.
So, it was a short day in New York, but it was 70 degrees! Amazing, considering it was 21 with 10 inches of snow on last Sunday or Monday.
The major downfall of this is that no one can leave the ship until everyone has gone through…and there are always people who forget or don’t even know it is happening. So, instead of getting off around 10-10:30 we couldn’t get off the ship until about 12:30. We did get to hear announcement of “will [one crew member’s name] please report to emigration immediately”…so everyone waiting to get off knew exactly who was the cause of it.
So, it was a short day in New York, but it was 70 degrees! Amazing, considering it was 21 with 10 inches of snow on last Sunday or Monday.
Friday, March 06, 2009
3/6/09: Day 132: Sea Day
Here’s how long it’s been since I’ve written anything…it took me about 4 tries to type “Sea Day” in the title (and two tries to type it right there).
Our shows went over well. We didn’t get a chance to rehearse it fully with costumes and lights until the day of the shows, so considering that we did awesome. This show seems more free flowing without the dream songs. The dream songs were impressive, but also very technical in many aspects that aren’t in our current show. I can’t wait to do our show again.
We also did our first improv set. This time around is different than usual because we don’t have the luxury of all having worked together in Maine in a short form environment. Three of us have worked together before and the other two have focused more on longform in their careers so there are the minor kinks of remembering a game they’ve played before. I am in charge of the improv running orders this week and have been going over them in rehearsals. We’ve had rehearsals of one sort or another every day…right in the middle of gym time. So, I have probably lost 12 pounds knowing my metabolism.
Deanna and I have been living in a crew cabin on deck 4. I’m adjusting, but this place has many flaws. I’m sure our last room had many flaws that we were just used to as well. Our current room doesn’t have heat, just AC. I don’t think any of them have heat. We can go from room temperature to colder-than-room-temperature, but not warmer. This is only problematic on New York day when the door to the outside world (on our deck) is open all day for loading and unloading luggage. This was never mentioned to us by Jen and Larrance…probably because they are made of ice and get heat strokes when the temp reaches 68 (burn!).
Another thing that was never mentioned…because they probably always had the AC on…is that if you shut the AC off it doesn’t make it all the way off. The cold stops, but there is a very high pitched just loud enough to be annoying whistle. I can hear it very well. Deanna can only hear it in certain places in the room. It doesn’t bother me during the day, but I can’t sleep with it. So I turn the AC off during the day and turn the AC up to “noise stops” level for bed. I’m sure this will be less of a problem once we’re in warmer weather.
All we have been able to do this week is get off in Nassau. The producer and director wanted to see Atlantis and we all headed over there. This was the night after our day of rehearsals and shows. I felt kind of bad because I was beat…as was everybody…and it kind of seemed like they were looking for us to show them around the city. If you’ve read my other Nassau blogs you know I have been to Atlantis and the cyber café. Deanna and I kind of sent them on their way to explore.
Today we will have a work shop and our final improv show. Next week will be back to more normal stuff.
Our shows went over well. We didn’t get a chance to rehearse it fully with costumes and lights until the day of the shows, so considering that we did awesome. This show seems more free flowing without the dream songs. The dream songs were impressive, but also very technical in many aspects that aren’t in our current show. I can’t wait to do our show again.
We also did our first improv set. This time around is different than usual because we don’t have the luxury of all having worked together in Maine in a short form environment. Three of us have worked together before and the other two have focused more on longform in their careers so there are the minor kinks of remembering a game they’ve played before. I am in charge of the improv running orders this week and have been going over them in rehearsals. We’ve had rehearsals of one sort or another every day…right in the middle of gym time. So, I have probably lost 12 pounds knowing my metabolism.
Deanna and I have been living in a crew cabin on deck 4. I’m adjusting, but this place has many flaws. I’m sure our last room had many flaws that we were just used to as well. Our current room doesn’t have heat, just AC. I don’t think any of them have heat. We can go from room temperature to colder-than-room-temperature, but not warmer. This is only problematic on New York day when the door to the outside world (on our deck) is open all day for loading and unloading luggage. This was never mentioned to us by Jen and Larrance…probably because they are made of ice and get heat strokes when the temp reaches 68 (burn!).
Another thing that was never mentioned…because they probably always had the AC on…is that if you shut the AC off it doesn’t make it all the way off. The cold stops, but there is a very high pitched just loud enough to be annoying whistle. I can hear it very well. Deanna can only hear it in certain places in the room. It doesn’t bother me during the day, but I can’t sleep with it. So I turn the AC off during the day and turn the AC up to “noise stops” level for bed. I’m sure this will be less of a problem once we’re in warmer weather.
All we have been able to do this week is get off in Nassau. The producer and director wanted to see Atlantis and we all headed over there. This was the night after our day of rehearsals and shows. I felt kind of bad because I was beat…as was everybody…and it kind of seemed like they were looking for us to show them around the city. If you’ve read my other Nassau blogs you know I have been to Atlantis and the cyber café. Deanna and I kind of sent them on their way to explore.
Today we will have a work shop and our final improv show. Next week will be back to more normal stuff.
Monday, March 02, 2009
3/2/09: Day 128: Port Canaveral
All is well. We have our new cast and have been rehearsing heavily on the last two days. Normally the whole cast gets 3 days together in Chicago, so when a portion of the cast is already on the ship it means more work ON the ship.
It is a great group dynamic so far. It has been fun to watch scenes that I was in in the last show and see different takes and acting choices.
Tomorrow is our show night. We’ll be rehearsing a lot tomorrow. After that, improv rehearsals. We’ve always sort of had the luxury of “all working together before” when it was Deanna, Jen, Larrance and I. With 2/3 of the cast on the same page…usually more…it is easier to prepare for the improv set. Now that a lot of us have never worked together we’ll have to work a little more. Exciting!
It is a great group dynamic so far. It has been fun to watch scenes that I was in in the last show and see different takes and acting choices.
Tomorrow is our show night. We’ll be rehearsing a lot tomorrow. After that, improv rehearsals. We’ve always sort of had the luxury of “all working together before” when it was Deanna, Jen, Larrance and I. With 2/3 of the cast on the same page…usually more…it is easier to prepare for the improv set. Now that a lot of us have never worked together we’ll have to work a little more. Exciting!
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