A show is born!

As previously mentioned, I currently have no life of my own. What I do have is a ridiculously fun part in a great play with a wonderful theater group! Here's some photographic evidence of what I've been up to. Four days before opening night, we moved into the Audimax and spent all day building the set. The stage pictures start with building the scaffolding at 10am and show the process through the next ten hours.





Set? Check. Lights? Check. Sleep deprivation? Check. A vast variety of baked goods from my kitchen? Check. Now back to endless hours of rehearsing! Nora, the director, instructs the Mollie, Giles, and Chris characters in the art of rocking out.


Miss Casewell drives Mrs. Boyle out of the comfy chair with loud music and dancing above and I amuse myself by observing Matthias/Chris go about his make-up business before one of our three dress rehearsals below.

Lottie, the make-up designer, makes all the boys look pretty.

Chris and Paravinova before a dress rehearsal. One of those precious moments in life.

Here are some shots I took during a dress rehearsal. (Except when I had someone else take the pictures that I'm in..) Mollie and Giles toast to new endeavors.

Chris Wren energetically philosophizes, much to the bafflement of his hosts.

Mrs. Boyle arrives most disagreeably. BOOOOOOOOO!

The unexpected guest dramatically rushes in out of the storm. BWAHAHAHA!

"Perhaps, I think to myself, I shall freeze to the DEATH! And then I take my little bag, I stagger through the snow... I see before me - big! iron! gates! A habitation! I AM SAVED!"

DING DONG, THE WITCH IS DEAD!

Sargeant Trotter reveals something scandalous.

All the shows have gone wonderfully so far. In fact, each performance has been better than the one before it. Including dress rehearsals, we've had a full show every night for the last week. Today is our day off, but I have to go to see a play in another theater with a class, so it's not actually much of a break at all. I don't mind. It's been so, so, so much fun and I can't wait to do it again every night next week. (The 45 or so minutes of my hair getting curled and face getting painted each night is even starting to feel more relaxing than painful!) Having to be focused in this other world from 5-10pm every day has been a really nice escape from stressful school things, even if it just makes the rest of the hours in the day more difficult.

We've been getting great reviews and publicity in magazines, newspapers, and radio stations; we were even asked to do the weather forecast in character on the big public television station on the night of our premiere. The audiences have been great. Everything is great. Great, great, great. Three Smithies came to the show on Thursday and I enjoyed hearing them laughing in the audience. They even brought me flowers, which made me feel very special particularly because the Germans don't typically do the flower thing. Two more Smithies came lastnight and another big group is going next Friday. All my friends and professors have been so wonderful and supportive, which has really helped me out. (THANK YOU!!!!) How interesting that the first half of my German year was taken over by english theater. That certainly wasn't something I'd imagined happening, but I am happy for it.

Here's a view of the premiere party we had after opening night. Woohoo!

The amount of things I'm actually supposed to accomplish today is a little terrifying, so I'm going to go back to the real world now. Cheers!