"Time Was": Corrina's London Premiere

It's been a long couple of days, but now I can officially say that I have successfully opened my first London show. Many more to come, I'm sure. :)

After working for a bit on Sunday, I retreated back to the hostel and spent most of the remainder of the evening reading (either on the balcony off the kitchen or atop one of the bunk beds by the window in my room). I met my roommate for the night (just the two of us on Sunday, but two other girls joined us last night), who is another student, but from France. We actually ended up having breakfast together this morning: me with my tea and toast, him with his coffee and cigarette. (Add one beret and we would have the most stereotypical Frenchman ever!) Considering that this is my first hostel experience, I'm really enjoying it...the place is simple but it has everything I need, and I feel really comfortable.

Yesterday was a mess...I spent a good chunk of the morning acquiring 90 kilograms of sand for the hourglasses. After my bus and taxi adventures with these six huge bags of sand, I discovered that the play sand I was sent to buy would not work (it is moist because it is intended for sculpting purposes, so it would not run through the hourglass). I bought new sand this morning (fortunately, someone was going to the paint shop next to the hardware store and they drove me), but the question still remains of when the play sand will be returned. I also discovered yesterday that in regards to the hourglasses, "I'll take care of it" means "I'll buy the plastic and Corrina will take care of it"...not exactly what I wanted to hear at that point. I can think outside the box if necessary, but not with a ticking clock and a looming dress rehearsal. I constructed the cones, but still seriously doubted that they would contain the weight...they held up fine, but that was when we realized that we had the wrong type of sand. Rehearsal last night was a nightmare...the kids would not focus and we did not even make our way through the entire show (which, considering it's short length, was pretty ridiculous). To add to our fun, the roof began leaking just as we were about to begin, which meant that we could not use any of the lights for fear of it leaking onto the grid. The canes that I painstakingly painted did not show up (which meant that I spent several hours today covering them in white paper which would show up under blacklight), and and the cones were not in the air for the final sequence. Needless to say, I had a large list prepared for today, all of which I managed to accomplish...with one slight hiccup. Josh, my technician, asked me to copy another technician's prototype and prepare the cones for rigging. At this point, I was already in panic mode about my to-do list, and I simply did not feel that it would be safe for me to prepare a bag of sand to be suspended in the air above the heads of children. I also felt like he was not listening to me and just being generally condescending, which was not the best way to spend my day with all of the preexisting stress. It worked out in the end...two of the other technicians took care of the cones and I could focus on my work (which was fortunate because I barely had enough time for everything as it was). The dress rehearsal went fairly smoothly, and the performance was very well received. I took care of props and did all of the fly effects, while Josh oped. And the hourglass effect at the end did not work. It worked in dress rehearsal, but Josh changed the mechanism and it did not work during the performance. It was out of my hands at that point, which was exactly where it should have been, so I'm not mourning the effect at all...just something to do tomorrow. As stressful as the last two days were, I'm really glad that I had this experience, and I felt great after the show. (The fact that Luke bought me a Stowford Press didn't hurt, either...just what I needed at that point in time!)

In non-BAC news, I finally got to see some of my family last night...though not the relatives you might be expecting to hear about during my England trip. My mom took the train down and met me right after the dress rehearsal (perfect timing, as I was ready to hack my head off at that point), and after much searching, we found Amelia and Drew at their hotel. The four of us went out for dinner, and it was nice to be back with family again. I suppose that the end of the night stood out the most, when we all went our separate ways home...since I've always lived either at home or in the dorms, it was odd not to be either going home with Mom or dropped off by her. I think the realization that I'm basically an adult is slowly sinking in with this experience...