Mum took this photo of me next to the giant Christmas tree at the Arts Centre¹ the day before graduation. I am short.

1. It used to be the University of Canterbury, she remembers having classes here [↩]

100% DONE!

The first show was pretty un-eventful. The only person I knew in the audience was someone who’s involved with a another theatre company I am part of.

The second show on Friday night was one of the best ones. We’re not entirely sure WHY, but the audience was just really responsive and did what we wanted them to do – and quite a bit that we didn’t! As part of the show there’s a scene where rolled up sheets of paper (“baddy stoppers”!) are thrown at the elf who is thought to be the villain who stole Santa Claus. Once all the kids had thrown theirs, one guy in the audience (who we later realised was the partner of someone in the cast) decided it would be a brilliant idea to pick up the cardboard box the baddy stoppers had been stored in, and biff THAT at poor old Oddly Elf! Luckily, it only hit his hat, and didn’t really hurt him, but it certainly threw us for a few seconds! “Where the heck did THAT just come from!?”

Saturday morning was “a good one” too. Both my parents, Lorraine, and Jenny and her brother came, and all really enjoyed it. I think they’re all pretty big kids at heart! During this show, a couple of small children wandered around the auditorium and onto the front of the stage. Overall it wasn’t that big a deal, but once our chase scene started, with everybody running around chasing after the Toy Sales Representative (in a huge loop around the stage, out the exit into the foyer, out the door onto the footpath, along the footpath (sometimes being waved/honked at by cars driving past!), up the driveway in the theatre carpark, back in the fire exit backstage, and onto the stage again – ideally in less than a minute! And. To top things off; my costume included heels!), who is revealed to be the real villain, one little kid got in the way. As I was running towards the exit, I saw him step out in front of me! I tried to slow down and go around him, but I couldn’t stop in time, so I ended up knocking him over! He didn’t even cry, he just fell straight backwards and stared up at me totally shocked! Of course I stopped to try to help, but then his mum quickly came down the aisle and picked him up, and I kept on running. I felt SO bad! I apologised to them in the foyer afterwards, but the mother insisted it was fine and that her son shouldn’t have been in the way, which is kind of true I suppose, but still, I felt terrible.

Saturday afternoon wasn’t so great, Just before I went to go onstage, I felt this strange twinge in my right ankle. I’d been wearing quite high heels as part of my costume, so I thought that was what had caused it, and thought it would be fine once the show was over and I took them off. Over the course of the show it got progressively worse, and I actually ducked out of the chase scene because I was worried it might give out on me! Unfortunately this was also the show Luke came to see, so although I did go and say hi to him at the end, I wasn’t able to talk to him for as long as I would have liked, since I really wanted to go home to put some ice on it!

This morning my ankle (which had been absolutely huge last night!) had gone down a lot and I was able to walk fairly normally. I was pretty lucky! This morning’s show wasn’t terribly memorable either, quite a small house with only a few kids.

The last show this afternoon was probably the best show. Four of my friends from another theatre company were there, and when I spoke to them afterwards they said they really enjoyed it. This show was also the first time in YEARS (actually maybe even EVER) that I completely lost it, broke character, and started laughing on stage! What happened wasn’t even really that funny (one of the elves coming on stage singing the Banana Boat Song), but as soon as I looked up and saw the man who played the Detective laughing, I started too and could not have stopped if my life had depended on it! EPIC FAIL @ me!

It is him.

Srsly. These were the three BEST photos my family got of me before graduation today. Apparently I am incapable of smiling nicely!

To go from bad to worse, I also forgot to take a photo of myself with my parents, or with Jenny, who also graduated today. I had my camera with me the WHOLE morning. It appears that I did not, however, have my brain!

*for those people reading my blog for the first time today – I am not usually this crabby. I promise. I’m actually quite a cheerful person!