blah blah blah blah musical musical rehearsal driving kawashima konbini hanoura costumes lines choreography props painting rehearsing musical musical aaaaah.
(Yeah, that about sums it up.)
Seriously, it’s been a lot of fun, but I’m really, really glad we’re getting this weekend off…it’s a huge time and energy investment for all of us, but particularly those of us who have to travel long distances. Saturday’s rehearsal was in Kawashima, where we’ve met a few times, and that’s not so bad for those of us out west (though it makes the Deep Southies suffer)–just an hour away–but Sunday’s prop-building fest was down in Hanoura, well over 2 hours from here (but quite close for the Southies for a change). On Saturday I crashed at the apartment of the ALT in Hanoura, Noam, and “killed two birds with one stone” by using it as an opportunity to hang out with and get to know someone I only rarely get to see as well. (You could say that I killed three birds with one stone, because I hitched a ride into Tokushima with Bessie and Julia, and then down to Hanoura with Julia, her husband Ben, and a friend of theirs, and in the process managed to score an awesome-as-always burrito at Sombrero’s, more informally known as Dave’s Taco Stand.)
Well, anyway…it’s good that we get this weekend off, but it’s not exactly going to be restful, since I’ll be in Tokyo with Louise in 3 days’ time! Eh, maybe I can sleep on the shinkansen and hope I don’t miss my stop. We have this weekend off due to the Hadaka Matsuri/Naked Man Festival (they aren’t actually naked, they’re wearing sumo-like loincloths), which some JET guys are participating in and many others (guys and girls) are watching. I figure I can see it next year, though…I’d much rather check out the Ghibli Museum and a classical music concert, myself.
And even during the week it doesn’t end–I essentially have to redesign the musical playbill cover, because I was kind of hoping that I could see a preview of Jamie’s ideas for the poster, since we’d talked about having a kind of unified design motif for the poster and playbill/programme. It turns out that our concepts on this are as different as night and day–the first time I saw the poster was when he mailed me an image of the finished product. I did a rough sketch today of something new that follows the idea that his set up, so hopefully I can follow through with that and get this done next week.
And on the same topic, I’ve started a Flickr set for my musical photos…just from rehearsals thus far, but I’m sure there’ll be dress rehearsal and performance photos as well. NHK won’t be airing the musical in its entirety this year, but hopefully there’ll still be someone there to tape it so that we can see how it turned out. I borrowed a copy of the 2005 musical, A Night Of Fantasy, from Joe–it was a series of three shorter plays, each done regionally. Noam and I watched the first of the three shorts, Goldilocks (done by the city folks), on Sunday, and it was all right; I watched the second two Sunday night, and they were a lot better, particularly (it figures!) the Little Red Riding Hood skit that the Westies did. It’s really got me psyched about getting up on stage.
And with that, I’m off to sleep. I have a Double-Length Class of Doom in the afternoon, but it doesn’t seem so doom-like anymore, now that I know I can throw phonics at them and have them actually pay attention somehow. Good night!