And another one

This is the Chicago Sun Times review. I don't think they require you to register like the Trib does so you can just go click on the link yourself. I'm very excited about these two reviews being so good because of two reasons.

1. Neither of them mentioned anything technical. This is always a wonderful sign. The stage management team is much happier when ignored in reviews. It means things went right!

2. As I was in charge of all script changes, keeping them organized, and making sure the actors said the right things, I take a little joy from the good review of Gregg and Jack, two wonderful writers who were great to work with.

So, as the reviews show, the performances this weekend went really well! There were a few tech problems but if the critics didn't notice them, I don't really care. We did a good job covering for them. I spent most of the first act yesterday tightening all the chairs we had. That was fun until I accidently dropped the key (a hex tool) down the fly rail. Miraculously we were able to retrieve it but I felt a little stupid.

Opening night was officially Saturday night and an odd thing happened for me. I wasn't excited, nervous, happy, sad, anticipatory, or anything! This is a bad sign because of some advice my voice teacher gave me a long time ago. She told me once that if you ever don't feel the butterflies before a performance, then you should take it as a sign you're not doing something right or that theater is not for you. I've always respected those words a lot because up to now I've never had a problem with feeling butterflies. But even as I write this and as I read all the reviews this morning, it is almost as if this weekend was just a normal weekend where I sat around doing nothing.

I'm trying not to interpret too much in this but I am going to take into consideration some more recent advice a good friend gave me. When I was telling her how I was really upset with the way I was being treated by my director and SM in this show and how it was making me bitter, just as the producer problems with SLM made me bitter, she suggested that maybe I should take a little break from stage managing this year and pick it up again senior year. This would also give me more time to explore directing and start the political theater company. It's a really good idea and I'm seriously considering it. It wouldn't really hurt my resume at all because I have good reference and have lots of experience now. So yeah, that's the update on that.

In other news, I got more theater tickets for BEHIV today! I now have two theaters, the Court Theater and American Theater Co. which have promised me as many tickets to previews for our clients as we need! All we have to do is call up ahead of time and tell them how many we are bringing! This is really exciting to me because it is something I can still work on this fall for BEHIV as a volunteer without having to find time to go to the office a lot. It's mostly a phone and email thing. This project means a lot to me because as you all know, I believe theater can change lives and maybe even the world. So by bringing theater to people who are struggling with a devastating and socially unaccepted (in many cases) disease is, in my opinion, doing something valuable for their lives. The thing I've learned over my years of volunteer work is that nothing you do as a volunteer for good organizations is too small. At the Red Cross I greeted people and helped them check in. I haven't been able to give a lot of my own blood but at least I made those people without abnormally high pulses feel comfortable. I'm not writing this to toot my own horn. I've just heard a lot of people complain about how they feel like they aren't doing anything important when they volunteer sometimes. When we were in Jonestown, Mississippi for Spring Break, some people complained that because of the poor organization of Habitat in Jonestown, it didn't feel like we were doing as much as we should be. But we made so many people happy that week, we showed them that our generation does have hope, and painting a few walls means a lot to the people who have to look at those walls everyday! That's why I smile at the panhandlers who may truly be creeps everyday. Because maybe they would use money for alcohol and drugs but a smile doesn't really have any side effects.

That's my philosophy and that's the update on my life.

Ciao!