I have a mere two weeks left in this glorious place known as Door County. I can't believe how quickly this time has flown and yet has seemed to roll along at a perfect pace in the moment.
The past week has been all about changing over from
Sunday in the Park... to
The Game's Afoot and spending time with visiting family and friends. The strike process happened as usual. The final curtain of Sunday came down and our crew began disassembling everything. We had been hearing rumors all week that this changeover was going to be the toughest one of the season. It proved to be just that. We went from a rather sparse set with large moving pieces, lots of flying backdrops and canvases and more props per person than I have ever seen to a lush living room designed like the
Gillette Castle in Connecticut decorated for Christmas.
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| Sunday in the Park... full company shot |
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| The Game's Afoot model |
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| The real deal |
Starting at 6:30pm Sunday and still working up until the moments before our 'opening at 8:00pm Wednesday, our crew furiously worked and barely slept to make the transformation. In the times that the actors have off, like meals and, you know, sleep times, our crew was on set nailing things into place, screwing floorboard pieces down, dressing the set with decor and period gadgets, painting walls, adding brick layers, rehearsing scene transitions... you name it, they did it. And our set is a terrific playground for us.
The Game's Afoot takes place in Connecticut in 1936. Back then, stage actors were of a higher status than we are today and lead a bit more glamorous lives than most of our working-five-part-time-jobs-at-once-to-make-ends-meet lives are today. My character in the play is a rising starlet ingenue actress, recently married. For funsies, I took this photo at our tech photo shoot. Every girl has to have a fainting couch, right? Fun fact- that dress is made of silk and was custom made for me. :-)
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| Aggie Wheeler fainting in the living room |
Now I can't give too much away because that would ruin all the fun, but I can tell you that doing comedy is a serious business. It is more difficult for actors to put on comedy than it is drama. We always have to be on our toes, ready for anything- like random new laughter in places we've never heard it before. You have to take your part so seriously so you don't laugh during the real comedic bits that the entire audience is losing themselves over. This play has been a load of fun to put together and I feel like I am being brought up to the level these players have been at for most of their lives. This show has 8 people in it, one of which is our artistic director, along with the resumes of people I would have only dreamt of seeing in shows let alone being in one with. HAH! It's amazing.
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| Look at this beautiful cast! |
Now my summer vacation begins. I perform six shows a week in the evenings Tuesday through Sunday, but otherwise, my time is alllllll mine. So far, I've gone to
Cave Point and
Whitefish Dunes State Park to tan and hike on this, my day off. I saw some really cool caves and got a little adventurous and did some rock climbing too! The weather was perfect for a beach day on the Michigan side of the peninsula- it is generally a little cooler over there, so 85 felt a bit more manageable.
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I scaled part of this wall to get onto the separate
larger rock in the back left |
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| This one, not so much |
On that note, I will leave you with this, the greatest ice cream up here and the faces that say it all. We were drunk off ice cream afterwards. Until next time!
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