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Brooklyn Knit Chick

Monday, December 18, 2006

9 show weeks both blow & suck!

Well, it's almost 10:00 pm on Monday, and I'm finally settling in for some TV and blogging. I didn't make it to Chicks with Sticks tonight, but I'll be back after the holidays. Today was just too filled with chores, and the whole day got away.

Last week at Jersey Boys was a nine show week and two understudy rehearsals. That equals . . . working in the theatre Tuesday night, and all day and night Wed - Sunday. Ugh. One great thing that broke up the week and woke us all up was Jarod Spector, our second Frankie, going on for the first time. He was terrific. It was really exciting to see. It's so great to have two actors playing Frankie who each bring such wonderful qualities to the role. I think everyone should see the show twice, but that's just me.

Today was all about paying bills, updating my calling script, answering e-mails, booking airfare (coming home in March for 3 days - YEAH), and packing. I'm moving into a new apartment on Wednesday. I'm VERY excited for a change of scene, but packing up all my stuff again is a drag. God I've brought a ton of clothes I've yet to wear . . . and then there's all my yarn.

As for knitting, making some good progress on my winterwonderland sweater. I'm on the sleeves now. My camera is already packed, so I'll post a picture next time I blog.

Here are some pics from last weeks Chicks with Sticks.

Super cool wash clothes:
close up of super cool wash clothes:

The fabulous beer cozy (being posed as a wine cozy):

unbelievably perfect looking sweater!
Can't wait to see what everyone has knit up after the holidays!

As for me, looking forward to a week long visit from David (yeah!) on Friday. We get two and a half days off for Christmas, so we are heading to Napa. . . some wine tasting, some spa action, some movies and some NOT being in the theatre. I'm also hoping that we'll spend some mornings exploring a bit of San Fran. I've barely left me apartment and the theatre for nearly a month!

Monday, December 11, 2006

"Oh What a Night"

I woke up today at 1:00 pm (for the third time). Last night was the opening night of the Jersey Boys tour in San Francisco. I got home from the opening night party a little after midnight, and was sound asleep by 1:00 am, but then I was wide awake by 3:00 am, back asleep by 4:30 am, then awake by 9:30 am. I had to wake up so I could have coffee with my fabulous General Manager and say goodbye. I hung out with Sally until 11:00am, when she left for the airport, and then I went right back to sleep until 1:00 pm. My sleep schedule is going to be SOOO screwed up.

Last night was fun. The show went pretty well, and the crowd went nuts when the original surviving Four Seasons (Frankie Valli, Tommy DeVito, Bob Gaudio, and their producer Bob Crewe) went out for the curtain call. The party was nice. It was in a great space and the food was pretty swell

(main floor of party)


(balcony of party venue)

The Jersey "Girls" were looking fantastic. Here's me with my girls:


(Melissa Strom, Jackie Seiden, me, Jennifer Evans, and 1/2 of Sandy DeNise)

The Jersey "Boys":


(Devan May, Michael Ingersoll, Erich Bergen, Chris Jones)

Chris and our Jersey cake:


Me and my wonderful General Manager, Sally Campbell Morse, and our PSM Richard Hester:

The obligatory picture of people taking pictures:


Back to my REAL life (my knitting life). I'm on my last skein of yarn on my red scarf. I will be able to mail it off to the red scarf project soon:

The winter wonderland sweater is knitting up fast. If it weren't for this pesky National Tour getting in my way, I would have finished it ages ago.

Only one problem. After I finished the first few cable repeats on the back, I noticed something was wrong. It didn't look like the picture. I was pretty sure the chart was wrong and it indicated all knit for the bottom instead of pearl inside the cable. I went online to look for Vogue corrections, and sure enough . . . damn pattern #8 correction to cable chart. I was too lazy to frog, so I figured, what the hell, it's the back. I'll do it right for the front. Here's the result of the wrong pattern:


Here's the result of the corrected pattern:


Last week's Chicks With Sticks group was a blast. I'm heading back tonight. I will probably be the first time I get out of bed today!

Monday, December 04, 2006

The famed . . .

It's finally here. We think about it, we dream about it, we imagine what it will feel like when it comes, we wonder if it will be as wonderful as we'd hoped. I'm speaking of course, of the day off.

It's been 10 days in a row of 12 - 14 hour days in the theatre. We've had a few bumps along the way. Everything was going pretty smoothly until our invited dress rehearsal. That's the performance you do before your first paid performance. In the afternoon before the dress we were having problems with our lift. That's the elevator that rides scenery and (at the end) the Jersey Boys themselves up from the basement to appear onstage. We got that fixed and felt okay going into the evening invited dress. Before we started our director Des McAnuff got up and gave the typical speech "we may have to stop, blah, blah". Well about 10 minutes into the show we heard a very load noise, and then - we stopped the show. One of our drum turtles fouled. What the hell is a drum turtle you may ask? A turtle is any piece of automated scenery that both tracks and spins. We have two platforms that the drummers ride on that track and spin (hence the name drum turtle). Well, the plexi that covers the lights on the stage got overheated from hours of tech, curled a bit, got caught on the scenery, caused it to jump the track and ultimately to get stuck. It took 20 minutes, 4 carpenters, 3 prop men, 2 sound women to get it fixed. Once we started again the crowd was great. It did mean that our b-roll shoot (video shot of the show used for press purposes) had to go until 1:00 am.

So now we've finished our first weekend of previews. After that first night of glitches, things have been going pretty well. The audiences are mad for this show. After our first preview we had a note session with the actors that lasted until midnight. You can imagine our shock when we left the theatre to find people STILL waiting at the stage door for autographs. Wow.

In the world of knitting, I've managed to make some progress in my cable scarf. I usually go home to have dinner and get a few rows done. Tonight I'm going to go to my first Chicks with Sticks meeting. I'm looking forward to meeting some San Francisco knitters. I'll let you know how I like it.