a desperate theatre zombie plea

Few words strike fear into the heart of an actor like 'tech week'. The fear is even more intense when you've only had three weeks of full-time rehearsals and your first run through of the show is on your preview night. On the other hand, only actors can know the satisfaction that comes after a particularly stressful (and rough) tech week and preview, knowing that it will only get better from there. Yes, I look like (and feel) an extra off of 'The Walking Dead', but you know what? It's worth it.

Once again here is my plea. PLEASE come see 'The Spitfire Grill'. I will warn you-due to a positive but crazy rehearsal experience and essentially putting an entire show together in three weeks-the first few performances will be especially rough, but I promise there is a diamond underneath just waiting to shine--and boy oh boy it will. Please come and support me, the Empress, and most importantly this AMAZING show. It is our 2012 season opener and we have been all but forgotten. There has been NO marketing and we need butts in the seats. Then we need those butts to go out and tell other butts to come sit in the seats too. We need YOU to help spread the word. Bribe them with 2 for 1 tickets when they use 'coffecups' at the box office or online if you have to. Just PLEASE help! 

More than anything I am worried people will miss this show simply because they didn't know about it. I know you all can't come, but you all can help spread the word. It takes next to no time to send out a mass email (Empress ,Facebook)--people do it for stupid stuff, why not do it for something that's important to a friend? I would do it for you. *oh yeah, I SO went there.

Ok, I promise that's it for the shameless plug, and my next post won't be quite so desperate.

hallowthanksmas

I remember a time-eleven years to be exact-when I would get weird looks for telling people I was prepping my Halloween costume in August. I was Aurora that year-my mom made the pattern for my (blue) dress from scratch using the patterns for a wedding dress, a little kid's Disney Princess pattern, and her brain to make it work. Yes, my mom is that boss.

My my how things have changed. My friend Liss mentioned on Facebook this week she wanted to make a Halloween wreath. I commented that I would like to make one too-because in this age of zombies and gore it's next to impossible to find a cute, whimsical Halloween anything. We decided to go Tuesday after her class.


 Last night I walked into Michaels and was accosted with Christmas-call me crazy, but we haven't even killed the pumpkins yet-so why in the hell are we already counting down to Christmas?!?!! I am SO against celebrating the next holiday before the previous has past I have known to be bugged to the point of violence- my friend posted a Christmas countdown on FB the other day. She was promptly hidden after I told her how WRONG that was-and THAT was at someone I love. True story. I'm sorry. I digress.

What little Halloween stuff we could find behind the Christmas crap had either been picked clean through, was on 40% sale, or final clearance. An entire MONTH before Halloween. Great deals for me and my friend, but talk about putting the horse before the cart!

The lesson I learned is this: people are WAY too eager to get to Christmas, and waiting until September 27th to look for stuff to make a Halloween wreath may seem reasonable, but it is both unwise and like waiting until Christmas Eve to start your shopping. Looks like I was onto something eleven years ago and will need to start planning for Halloween in August--or better yet-July.

What happened to celebrating each holiday and enjoying what each had to offer? Now we just burn through them in eager anticipation of the next. It's sick I tell you, sick.

(I'm still in the market for a plain Halloween wreath that I can make pretty. I still have to try Hobby Lobby and Joann's, but if you see/know of anything, let me know.)

Apparently some ingenious person sells Hallowthanksmas cards and this is the site where I stole borrowed this creative artwork. http://hallowthanksmas.com/

the rapture. it's real

The CDC has finally issued a statement on the impending Zombie Apocalypse. I think it's because the Rapture is supposed to happen tomorrow.

I'm  not kidding about the CDC. See?



*For the record I don't believe any of the Rapture hogwash. It's this decades Y2K, and we all know how THAT one went...
The zombie Apocalypse on the other hand is a different story..

halloween, symphony, and zombies, oh my!

Of course what kind of blogger would I be if I didn’t update you on the weekend’s festivities? Friday was the traditional “dress up for work” day. My co-worker Andrea and I decided to go as Mario and Luigi. We didn’t have a costume contest, but I’m pretty sure we would have won if there had been one:

Along with the costumes each department entered a“haunted” gingerbread house into the competition. Although ours looked great on paper, it didn’t turn out so great in reality. I learned that Royal Icing is NOT a medium I prefer or excel in:

Scott and I were given tickets to the symphony on Saturday night, so rather than spend it waiting for the non-existent trick-or-treaters (P.S- I had THREE) we spent the evening with Haydn's Symphony No. 1, Argentine pianist Ingrid Fliter playing Beethoven's First Piano Concerto, and Shostakovich's Symphony No. 6. Although it was enjoyable we learned we are NOT Symphony goers. Our favorite piece of the evening was definitely Shostakovich's Symphony No. 6. Throw in the spectacle of parking in Downtown Salt Lake and the Freak Show that was Halloween made for a pretty interesting evening.

Our Halloween weekend wrapped up with Scott coercing me into watching ‘Walking Dead’ on AMC. It's definitely an adult show, not everyone's cup o'tea, and should be viewed with discrection. It's based on the graphic novel of the same name, and I’m not going to lie; it was good. So good it’s probably a series I’ll watch from now on. I love that it's not full of the cheap scream tricks most horror movies rely on now, in large part because it’s on basic cable so they actually have to write a smart script that isn't reliant on blood, guts, gore, and nudity to cause fear or tell the story. Most of you know how I feel about horror movies so you probably also know I’m LOVING the fact that I can watch this and not be completely disgusted. I wasn't even creeped out-well until it was time for bed, anyway. I totally had zombie dreams.

Aside from the pros there were a few HUGE cons for me, and they are problems I have with all zombie shows/movies:

1. There's always someone who misses the zombie apocalypse--how do you MISS the zombie apocalypse, let alone SLEEP through it ala our hero in 'Walking Dead', Rick? I would like to think I would NOTICE when my dearly departed started eating my brains.

2. There's always someone who is a late comer to the game-usually the one who SLEPT through everything-and they act as if they don’t know what a zombie is when they start playing said game. HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW!? If I woke up to nothingness, saw a door chained shut that read “DO NOT OPEN DEAD INSIDE”, and something was trying to get through those doors; wouldn’t you put two and two together? I sure would. I would be looking for a weapon-blunt object, knife, gun-ANYTHING that I could kill zombies with. ESPECIALLY when I see half of a zombie trying to pull it self towards me when I come across it heading home.

3. Why do they always head to the large, populated cities (here it's Atlanta) under the guise that there is some sort of Mecca waiting there for them? Wouldn't logic lead one to believe that you are safest where there WEREN'T large concentrations of people? Because my logic leads me to believe that NATURALLY those people have most likely become what you're trying to avoid.

I would love nothing more than to see a smart protagonist in a zombie movie-to see the signs, immediately put two and two together, commence being a bad-ass, instead of playing the clueless, confused, and bumbling characters this genre is full of. The moral of the story is this: I will live through the zombie apocalypse-will you?