Yesterday in my post I was particularly whiny about how much I had to do. I thought I should take a minute to disclose what I’m doing, in case you thought I was suddenly the most in-demand decorator in DC.
Warning: This post only remotely has to do with decorating. You can click away if you want, I won’t be mad. As a matter of fact, I won’t even know!
You may recall last year, if you have been with me that long, that I produced a musical at my daughter’s high school. (Remember all the head shots I drew? That was MURDER.) Well, I am back at it again. I have teamed up with my very talented friend, Kye-Won Kopko, and with the help of Doug Burney, we are bringing You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown to the metro region. Last weekend we auditioned a bunch of talented 10-18 year olds, and now we have a brand new cast of 26.
Here’s the crazy part: The show goes up five weeks!!
Tonight is our parent meeting, and as the producer, it’s my responsibility. I spent a big part of the day creating hand outs and making phone calls. Producing a show is A LOT like decorating. It IS—stop snickering! Putting together a full scale musical, just like a design plan, necessitates vision, organization, planning and executing lots of little parts to create one comprehensive impact. With theater, this requires managing the set construction, acquiring props, dressing the cast and proper promotional positioning. With design, the requirements are similar: space construction, acquiring furnishings and accessories, dressing the windows and floors, and proper positioning of everything.
Hey…I talked about decorating after all!
My restaurant project is sloooww to start. Adding two floors to an existing structure, in a dense urban area–with its prerequisite bureaucracy– provides plenty of opportunity for me to work on my…disposition. Add to that, my client was hospitalized for 10 days with the h1n1. (People–this is real. Get the vaccine!) Then it was my turn for the flu. Thankfully, my family and I all had mild cases.
In the meantime, I have been doing some volunteer graphic design for my daughter’s school. (Remember last spring when I made all those comic book head shots?) I guess in the world of free effort, if you are one type of artist you are expected to cross over to any needed category for the good of the group. Needless to say, I am no graphic artist, and my skills run exclusively from creating this website, but I was tasked anyway with designing the Football Programs that are sold at the home games.
I grew more confident as the season progressed. Coming up with interesting ideas for the cover was the fun part. And I got to do one more since our undefeated season meant a playoff game with home field advantage. Here are the last four:
October 9
Homecoming Program
Battle for the Bridge
Playoffs
I did myself. It was a little surreal.
And a few others: 
I am still here, just buried in musical production. The show opens three weeks from yesterday, but we have spring break thrown in there. Thankfully, as of three days ago, we have a musical director. And if anyone can pull off such a task as teaching 30 kids to sing their parts, and to do it actually in key, it is she.
I am still working on the comic headshots. I think I am getting better, which means some of the first ones will need redone.
WHAT IN THE WORLD DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH DECORATING???
Well, if anyone wants a personal-lifestory-comic book mural, I will be ready!
I have a tendency to take on a lot. My mom used to say, “Don’t bite off more than you can chew!” And yet, somehow, I always end up with so much on my plate.
I won’t lie and say how crazy busy I am with work. Ha! Recession, remember? No, I am busy with my daughter’s play. I allowed myself to be talked into producing the big spring musical. (My daughter attends a Performing Arts high School.) …Because I want it to be a good experience for her, and because I had already produced three musicals a few years ago.
Then I should know how much work it is, right? Well, leave it to me to come up with MORE WORK. I thought it would be really cool if all the headshots looked like comic books…which accounts for that chomping sound that has been coming from the area around my desk nonstop for the last 48 hours…
AND I ONLY HAVE 8 DONE. There are about 35 in the show.
I don’t really want the kids to see them until they are all finished, but I’m going to put them here. It will be interesting to see if they find them, I mean, it IS possible that their parents could be readers, right?
