Kim’s Domain

***This blog was supposed to be posted Sunday, 5/28/05 but I accidently kept it on draft status.***

So I’m in Cleveland.  Never thought I’d have a reason to be here, but here I am.  I’m staying with the Managing Director and his family in Cleveland Heights.  Cleveland Heights is north and east of Cleveland and has all sorts of cute little shopping centers spread throughout it.  And I’m right by a mall with Borders, Home Depot and Office Max; can’t complain.

We had our first production meeting of the season yesterday.  Got to finally meet most of the production staff.  We went over the schedule for the season and got a quick design presentation on all the shows.  Fall of the House of Usher, the show I was least excited about, is actually going to be the coolest.  It’s going to be extremely technical so it will be fun to watch and fun to call.  Well, maybe "fun" isn’t the right word since we’re talking about Phillip Glass, but you get the idea.

This past week was all about meeting the personnel, getting scores copied, chatting with my assistant about scheduling and what I want her to be responsible for in rehearsal, chatting with the director about schedule and how he wants rehearsal run, etc.  I went on a supply run a couple days to get hospitality supplies and office supplies, always a good time.  And the rehearsal room looks beautiful.  Lisa (my assistant) and I spent all day Friday taping out the goundplan and setting up the hospitality and production tables.  My director said it looks nice so we know we did a good job!

I’m very happy with my assistant so far.  She is a late start to theater and stage management, but she’s a natural.  She’s basically taught herself because her school doesn’t actually offer a class, so she’s been stealing ideas from SMs she’s worked with along the way.  We already get along great and I can tell she’ll be a great asset this summer.

That’s all for now.  Tonight I’m going to a quick meet-and-greet with the apprentices to say hello.  Haven’t figured out what exactly I’m going to say to them…probably just the usual about being on time, calling if they’re late, coming to me with any scheduling questions, making sure they use the number of the stage management cell phone to get in touch with me and not my personal cell phone, reminding them about the rehearsal hotline, etc. etc. 

More later.

I tend to be a skeptical person. When someone tells me something is really great or some weird combination of food actually tastes delicious, my first instinct is to doubt them. Sure, it’s great for this person but does that mean I’ll like it?

There is a nasty cold version running around the Chicago area, and in the middle of last week I got it, too. It took down a couple of my singers, people at my mom’s work, it was all over. And I have been suffering. I stopped taking any drugs for colds once I got old enough to figure out that all the drugs do is treat the symtoms and not fight the cold itself. I just took tons of vitamin C and drank lots of water and tea and tried to get as much sleep as possible. Well, that wasn’t working this time. 3 days in a row I woke up feeling awful and having to blow my nose for an hour before I could get on with my life.

Not this morning.

My roommate, my beautiful, wonderful, smart roommate last night told me to try Airborne. I’ve heard many people swear by Airborne, so I bought it right away. I was dismayed when I looked at the package and saw that you’re supposed to use it at the first sign of a cold; I’d had mine for over four days. But I tried it anyway, and this morning I woke up feeling so much better. My head didn’t feel like it was stuffed with phlegm for once. I’m not miraculously cured, but just being able to wake up without feeling like crap makes a huge difference.

So there it is, folks: Airborne gets the STAMP from the skeptic.

So I drove my car to work way more than I intended to last week, and I noticed something. I can count the number of times I’ve seen a hybrid car actually driving on one hand. I’ve seen plenty of them parked places. The thing is, the people who buy hybrid cars are also the ones who will make an effort to take public transportation as much as possible. It’s the people with the big gas guzzlers who really love their cars and drive down the block to the convenience just to get a bag of Doritos who should own the hybrids. Otherwise we’re not really making a dent in the whole global warming-energy crisis problem. Which brings me to emissions standards and why the “F” can’t we get a bill passed? We can make hybrids and hydrogen fuel cells until we’re blue in the face, but if the people who do the most driving aren’t buying them, what will it matter? It irritates the crap out of me that we have such a simple solution staring us in the face to help avoid an environment catastrophe, and the current administration is so in the pocket of the industries that we can’t make it happen. Not only that, but our own citizens are so in love with their stupid huge “I get 15 miles to the gallon, but boy feel that power!” cars that they won’t even consider buying something that will fit in a space reserved for compact cars. Even simple economics doesn’t get through to some people. The fact that they could save money with a car that burns less fuel does’t hold a candle to feeling that acceleration or being able to tower over all the other cars on the road. Not to mention the that with China rapidly growing, increasing car sales and steadily consuming more oil, now is the time to set a standard for the rest of the developing world. Instead, all they have to look up to are our huge utility vehicles. We’ll just have to hope they’re smarter and less beholden to industry interests than we are.

It’s finally over. Tech week, I mean. Or should I say tech week-and-a-half. But I’ll get to that.

The move is still in progress, but at least now I have the time to start sorting through the boxes. I’ve gotten some of my books unpacked, but now I have to find the rest of my boxes of books that are buried under David’s stuff somewhere.

But there’s time for that. Right now I’m enjoying an online chat, with Worldview on the radio and the long overdue warm breeze floating in the window of our office. I love our new apartment. It’s lacking a bit in the closet department, but we can fix that. I’m really looking forward to the trip to Ikea that will happen hopefully this weekend, but possibly not until next weekend if we don’t get unpacked soon enough.

So…actually there’s not much to say about tech. It was a typical tech, just a little longer than some and with some last minute changes that threatened to make people crazy, but in the end weren’t a big deal and improved the show. The hardest part about tech was that I now live at the end of the el line so I have a longer commute.

But the important thing is that at this very moment I am very content.