Walla-Walla Wallingford.

So today we performed at the John Hancock Center in Boston for a sold out crowd who really loved the show. And we performed for Pat and Spring. Thankfully, Spring also really enjoyed the show, coming backstage within seconds of the curtain coming down to thank us and tell us what a good job we had done. Pat moseyed backstage about half an hour later, waved distractedly at us, and left after telling Levitt the show was "okay". Don't despair, gentle readers, that's a rave. It's yet another reason why I have no great desire to work for these people again. I can't stand the whole hiding-the-way-you-actually-think bullshit. If Spring is actually the type of person who is very expressive and enjoys the product we put out there and is the type who wants to encourage us with positive feedback, as it has seemed she is the last two shows she's seen, then why the stone-faced mummy performance at any rehearsal or run-thru she comes to? Why the whole ice bitch persona where we're not allowed to speak to her and she won't deign to speak to us? And what the hell is with Pat? I mean, at least she's consistent, in so far as she never seems to be happy with anything we do, but why be so stern and insist on not reacting in any way shape or form as if you were an actual audience member? She makes a conscious choice not to react to anything unless she can react with disapproval, and personally, I think it stinks. I understand needing a critical eye, and looking at things in a way that a layperson wouldn't think to, but that doesn't mean you can't show SOME enjoyment of what it is you helped put up on stage. It's really sad, because it's so not necessary. You could get far better performances out of your actors if you showed yourself to be human. Otherwise you get what you got today, which was a group of people where many of the performers were nervous and constantly worrying about what Pat and Spring were going to say about the show because they're always so hard to please. Poor Alice was feeling like she was going to throw up before the show because she was scared of what the two of them would think of her. It's ludicrous. And to be honest, I'm tired of it. I'm tired of it from Chamber, and I'm tired of it from high-level theatres in Chicago where the people you audition for refuse to crack a smile or laugh or show any reaction to your audition because that's what they feel is necessary in order to have a completely objective experience. Bullshit. And I'm REALLY tired of it from pretentious low-level theatres that feel that's a way people will take them seriously. No, it's a way to make actors hate auditioning for you. And it makes you all look like pricks who are too full of yourself to act like a normal human being. I understand not wanting to be made a part of a person's audition, insofar as you have to act WITH them, but for the love of all that's holy, if something's funny, then LAUGH! No-one's going to respect you less. In fact, they may respect you more, because why would you respect someone who won't laugh at something that's obviously funny? 

BUT the show went well, despite the nerves, and the crowd loved it. The crew was phenomenal, and aside from the fact that it was a bitch to get the truck to the dock, mainly when we had to load out because you had to back in across traffic, everything went very smoothly. I then drove the truck from Boston to Wallingford, CT, where we are staying in a Fairfield Inn in the middle of absolutely nothing. At least nothing within walking distance. We did end up hitting a mall about 15 minutes away, which was cool. I didn't do much there besides people watch, which was hilarious, since it seemed to be THE hangout for everyone who had just gotten out of school. So I sat there drinking my sugar-free mocha, watching middle and high school students cavort through the mall. And could someone please tell me when I walked into the time warp and ended up back in 1986? Dear lord. And the truly sad part is they aren't even taking any fashions from the 80's that could be considered cool. I mean Easter egg colors and leg warmers? I always like seeing the Hot Topic kids, with their all black and too-long pants with the chains and fake suspenders hanging all over them and the piercings and me thinking back to high school when I saw all that same stuff. It's nice to know Goth never changes. Speaking of Hot Topic, thee was live music in the one in this mall. Don't ask me why.As I passed by there was a guy in there playing guitar very sincerely. I'm sure he was serenading the customers with the greatest hits from the Twilight soundtrack. Someone has to put a stop to this whole TWilight thing. It's vampires as written by a MORMON, people! You know, like the Osmonds? We are talking about vampires who a) don't kill humans (except for the really hot evil ones) b) have lame powers like HOTNESS (I kid you not, gentle readers, that is an actual vampire special ability i the Twilight world. That and COMPASSION) and c) SPARKLE when the sun hits them. Okay, I might be able to accept the fact that in this world, there are vampires who are trying to coexist with humans, and I may even be able to get my head around the fact that instead of the ability to change into a bat or control someone's mind, they have the ability to look really really attractive (especially that sexy muscular muscled muscleboy Edward.) But I draw the line at vampires who, instead of being destroyed by th sun's rays and left a smoking pile of ash, instead become walking disco balls! That, people , is just too much. And I won't even dignify the atrocious quality of the writing by making mention of it here except of course to point out the quality of the writing is atrocious. Oh, and may I also state that from time immemorial, vampires=sex. Period, end of sentence. Everything about them is a seduction--from making you let them into your place to the whole act of sucking the blood, to the underlying metaphor of it. Vampires have always been about sex. These vampires, not so much. Of course, we get the human girl thinking about it, in the most I've never actually done it Mormon way possible, but there's ISN'T any. And we can't even get the thrill of the substitute sexuality of the biting, since of course, Edward is all lovey-dovey about the simpering little piece of human meat he's attached himself to to even take a nibble. Oy. This is why you can't allow women to take over well-loved and time-honored legends. They turn them into castrated, soulless love stories that drip with schmaltz. It's like when that woman rewrote the whole Arthur legend and turned it into First Knight, with Richard Gere and Sean Connery and Julia Ormond. Not a shred of the old Arthur legend remained, just the crappy love triangle, which was stripped of any real emotion because the relationships involving the three of them had been watered down to these completely trite and overused clichéd motivations. It was pathetic. And that's what this woman has done to the whole vampire genre. You want to make the vampires have ral emotion for the humans, fine. You want to explore the possibility of love between the undead and the living, then fine (although, as I have been informed, they're not really undead in this particular imagining...) But don't make them lame pansy creatures. It's far more engaging if something that has been, by nature, cruel and UNCARING finds itself feeling these emotions for what has been its prey. But this yutz has been noble and upright about not sucking on humans since before he met her, so what's the big deal? Where's the struggle? You want to write a sloppy teen romance, then go for it. But leave the vampires alone.

Anywho, that's my two cents. I can guarantee you all there will be no post tomorrow night because we will all be at a family reunion/St. Patrick's Day bash with Flo's family, so I will be in no shape to blog. But I will let you all know how it goes on Sunday at some time. Right now I'm heading off to try to find some way to get over all the completely spontaneous ranting I just did. But remember--Pond in 2012--He'll Keep Vampires Sexy!