Long time no see!

Trying to blog and work, and go to school and get everything done is rough.
But two shows and a recital have blown by without so much as a peep on this blog!

Porgy and Bess was a HUGE hit - it was a massive production and for as little budget as we had, we made those folks look good.

This show was a challenge, not only because there were over 80 people in the cast, many of whom were double cast, but primarily because we had a chorus of 40 singers from KSU.  Most of these students had never sung outside of a choir so they were dealing with a lot of new things, but even with that disclaimer, some of these kids were just so BADLY behaved it made our heads spin! Food everywhere, sloppy personal habits, people LEAVING in the middle of a show just because they felt like it - all the bad habits you pray a cast doesn't have, this group had in droves, though a handful of them were wonderfully behaved.

The next project was my DMA Lecture recital!!
Yeah, about as exciting as it sounds.  It went well, my teacher was pleased and it is over.  One more step towards finalizing this degree!

Then we had Brundibár - a wonderful show about children triumphing over the evil organ grinder with the help of their animal friends.  Done by children, for children, to sold out houses for all four performances.  But, 50 children.....  Thank heavens no one changed costumes!!
This was a great show for me - I'm not the best or the fastest seamstress around but I do have one skill that surpasses everyone in the shop.  I knit.  So for this show, Susan D-W wanted the costumes, particularly those of the Cat, Dog and Sparrow to have a very homemade look and she thought it would be great if I could knit them!  We talked about how we wanted the animal costumes to look, and then I got to go off and create them, along with pieces for the Ice Cream seller and a knitted mustache for Brundibár himself. 

One of our cats and the original Brundibar Cat, Holocaust survivor Ella Weissberger.

As great as the animals turned out (look at those EARS!!) my biggest accomplishment was creating a pattern for the Ice Cream sellers hat that looked like two scoops of ice cream with whipped cream and a cherry!

It got rave reviews and one friend squee'ed over it so much I made a second one for her niece!


Now I'm on break, preparing for auditions, NATS and a fundraising recital, plus my long-awaited roadtrip to Oregon with the dogs.  Dogs plural you say?  Why yes!  A few weeks ago after much begging and pleading plus some dumb luck, my husband and I adopted a second corgi from a rescue group in Tennessee. 
Meet Sir Winston Piccolo!

He and Eva the Diva are getting along fairly well.  He's not as happy about being photographed as Eva, but he tolerates a lot for daily meals, snuggles and peanut butter.

The next project through the shop is Pirates of Penzance for the UK Undergraduate Opera - which should be a hilarious and only slightly stressful show (most of the costumes are borrowed or already made, thank goodness).  More updates to come as we move on!