Wednesday/Thursday – Day 157/158
January 6, 2013
Today It was back to Penn! I packed my two suitcases and my backpack as efficiently as possible and then it was off to Penn Station NYC, to catch the Bolt Bus ‘home’. On arriving, my first order of business was to get back to campus, which involved schlepping all my luggage down into the subway and then up and out again at the other side. By the time I got out in University City, I was nearly exhausted.
Next, I needed to find somewhere to put my stuff so I headed to the University City Apartments housing office, from whom I would be renting this semester, to arrange to sign the lease and pay my deposit and rent. This turned out to be much more difficult than expected as they didn’t take credit and I was expected to have a very large amount of funds available immediately. This required me to leave my stuff in there care for twenty minutes while I searched for a PNC Bank branch. Getting there I bought a check and returned to the office to fill it out. Next, I schlepped my stuff up about ten blocks to my new apartment, repacked what I needed for a few days into my backpack, and went to rehearsal.
Unfortunately, the next few days of writing there really won’t be much to report. This is due to 10AM to 10PM rehearsals every day for the PGC spring show, so I’ll be keeping it brief.
This rehearsal however I quite enjoyed as it was a good time to see everyone again after break and catch up over a little singing and dancing.
That night I slept on Steph Garace’s couch, as Martin, the individual from whom I was assuming the lease, hadn’t moved out of my apartment yet.
The next day the marathon began, and needless to say it was none to pleasant. Not enough time for meals, frenzied interviews with oldmen and far far too much dancing for my tastes. As most of the songs for the show were as yet unarranged, most of the time was spent staging and learning a few of the big show numbers.
Finally I got to bed around 1AM after getting back to Steph’s at around 11. I could see this was going to be a long process.
Sunday – Day 93
October 31, 2012
Hurricane Sandy is coming! Bolt down the windows and door, keep your children close! This morning also marked the start of PGC hell week and boy was it going to be a whole lot of hell.
I arose early to get a little work down before a lovely breakfast with Dad at ten thirty. Unfortunately it was then we discovered that his flights had been cancelled and together we spent the next two hours trying to get hold of someone at the airlines with the ability to get him from Philly to San Diego in the next three days. At 1PM I had to run to load-in (set up for a show) at the Iron Gate theatre and worked my butt off till 5:05 when we had a forty five minute break. Yup. A long rehearsal. I arrived back at the hotel room to find two things: first, classes at Penn had been cancelled for the next two days and, Dad was no closer to finding a flight out of the city. I grabbed a quick dinner downstairs with him and at 6PM returned to the theater.
A few hours in we were informed that the theatre would be closed for the next two days, thus denying us the 6-12 rehearsal that were planned for every day of the week and that as a result, we would be cancelling our Thursday performance debut! In addition, to compensate for the lost rehearsal tonight ran till one AM. That’s a whopping 13hr rehearsal!
After that I most surely went to sleep pretty promptly.