10 out of 12

Actors speak about rehearsals in a specific type of jargon: 7 out of 8, straight 5, and the infamous 10 out of 12. This means we are working for 7 hours of an 8 hour day (with an hour break) and so on...the 10 out of 12 is reserved for "tech week". This is when we add all the technical elements like lights, sound (microphones), and move into a theater space as opposed to the rehearsal room that might have been used for rehearsals. We had our 10 out of 12 today, and it went super smoothly! Since this is the third remounting of this production, all the lighting cues had been set already, so we just had to run the show starting and stopping when we hit a place that needed fixing. Typically, there will be something called a "cue to cue" which is where you go through the show and run each individual lighting cue with the line right before it to make sure the people calling the show have everything squared away and the lights look good, are focused, are lighting the right parts of the stage, etc, etc. That is usually the tedious part of teching a show, but since our lighting cues were already perfected...today was pretty darn easy!

It was exhausting, however...as being on your feet and acting like a 6 year old for 10 hours can be. And we did a run of the show at 8:30pm...woo! After tech, Ashley, Patrick, and I went to the local Walmart (we're the hyper/adventurous types...Walmart here we come!) And when we presented our IDs to the cashier (someone actually checks IDs with credit cards? Weird midwestern custom...) we got the response "Oh, you're from Virginia? Hokies, ain't it? Bucaneers? Cavaliers?" I had to inform our cashier, Danny, that we were neither Hokies or Cavaliers, but actors from DC. We were punchy and slap happy, so we were entertaining to Danny apparently...He was excited to hear his picture would be published on the internet tonight in my blog (although he had no idea what a blog was) As we left his checkout line, he said with a large grin "People from Virginia are cool!"

We are the good will ambassadors of the east coast. Indianapolis: our job here is done.