Dongguan and other things...

Friday May 30, 2008, Saturday, May 31, 2008 and Sunday June 1, 2008
Days 13, 14 and 15

Things seem to be falling into a pattern as far as work. So, you ask, what exactly do I do? Well, at each city we get to the crew goes over to the theater to supervise and load-in all our roadboxes and equipment. Wardrobe (Maggie and Val), stage management (Les and Spencer) and I walk all around the theater examining all the dressing rooms in order to assign the rooms in a logical manner. Shanghai was difficult because all the rooms were spread out and Dennis assigned the upstairs “vip” dressing rooms to a lot of people. My room ended up at the bottom of a seriously long set of stairs that led to the stage. On one hand it was great that I was on the same level as wardrobe but it made for lots of trips up and down stairs. In spite of the stairs, I still think it was the best place for that particular theater. In the other 2 theaters there was enough room for me to be next door to Maximo and Karen – the 2 leads that I have to work on the fastest. Karen is the princess in Firebird and Max is the evil green guy, “The Immortal Kastchi” (at least I think that’s how its spelled). Fortunately, Ali and Maria (who switch off as Firebird) don’t dance in the first ballet (Firebird is always the second ballet) come to me at half hour for makeup and hair. When I’m lucky, if Karen isn’t dancing in the first ballet, she will come to me 10 minutes before Ali so I get 2 out of 3 done way ahead of time. Because Rudy and Ramon had passport problems they didn’t come and now Max has to dance in Serenade so he comes to me half way through that ballet. It started out that his makeup (which includes a bald pate, nose and chin appliance) took me 45 minutes….. last night I did it in 20. It really helps when Max puts on the green makeup too while I’m working on other parts of his face. Because it is so hot and humid here, it is difficult to get the glue to set on the appliances so I’m sort of always worried something might come off during the performance. Another minor worry among many. Once Max is done then I run (and I mean run!) to the girl’s dressing room(s) to check on my crew who are pinning and wigging the 8 captured maidens. The princess and maiden wigs are very beautiful and about 4 feet long so they take a special pin prep in order to keep them on. In addition they all have these wiry crowns with jewels on the ends which catch on anything they are near. Occasionally during the performance a maiden will get some of her hair caught in the crown (or even someone else’s hair!) and they end up with this mass of hair on their head. I call that “getting a hair bear”. Sometimes it will happen to Karen which makes her quick change for the happy ending a nightmare.

We have a couple of other dance programs which don’t include wigs so I don’t have anything do so for those shows except style Jing Zhang’s hair for the Introduction to Ballet item. This is a lecture and demonstration of the basics of ballet. Jing and Hao Bo (who are Chinese) stand at a podium and inform the audience about ballet. It is designed for school children and is followed by 2 short bits from Swan Lake and Nutcracker.

Yesterday we were scheduled for one but apparently there was a huge collision on the freeway and the bus of kids were going to be late – we held the curtain for 30 minutes, then had to cut the nutcracker and swan lake bits in order to keep to our work schedule. Apparently the bus never showed up. The coro girls were delighted – wardrobe was happy too since it meant not have to clean those costumes immediately. Let me just say a word about wardrobe – those ladies work tirelessly. So many bits and pieces to keep track of. The dancers are all really fun, nice people but sometimes I think its like herding cats to keep track of them and their stuff. Les also works pretty much 24/7. Amazing dedication and attention to detail.

So what do I do when not in a performance? Well, I sit in my hobbit hole (Bag End) and brush wigs …. And brush wigs….. and brush more wigs…. Each maiden wig can take up to 30 minutes to properly tidy, and that’s without taking it apart (God forbid!) but eventually I get through all of them to keep them clean, tidy and beautiful. I also spent an afternoon last week completely restoring the maiden crowns – some were missing jewels, some bent (they are made of wire) etc. The wigs have extensions on bias tape to make them longer and sometimes the tape will come loose and I have to sew it back together. There are also 2 “decrepit princess” wigs and assorted facial hair – which all needs to be checked, prepped and maintained. So once I get all the stuff ready for the performance, then I have to teach my crew how to pincurl, cap and wig the girls. This often takes hours. I have been extremely fortunate that so far all my girls have been smart, dedicated (sometimes too much so) and fun. They all happily correct my pronunciation and help me learn new words. I think they enjoy teaching me Chinese as much as anything. I am supposed to have 2 girls for each Firebird performance but “class” is such a hit with everyone that I seem to always have an audience of theater workers, other wardrobe people and anyone who walks by. In Hangzhou I was in sort of a main drag so everyone always had to stroll by for a look-see. I don’t mind generally but my brain does sort of shut down towards the end of the day. Once the girls learn the prep, then they are free to practice, practice, practice. I can’t seem to get across the concept that speed counts, not neatness. Oh well, so far we’ve made it but I do spend a few harried minutes in that fast change. The girls dance the first program, we have intermission (20 minutes) and they enter about 12 minutes into the Firebird – so we really have only about 30 minutes for all 8 (or sometimes 9 if Karen dances in the first ballet) to get it all done.

When we load out I have to pack my box as quick as I can because they like to put the wardrobe cases and mine on the first truck. Then we all help out rolling stuff to the trucks until the 2 trucks are locked and loaded. Then we party. We loaded out Dongguan last night and today is a real free day. We travel tomorrow back to Shenzen – which I believe is near Hong Kong for 3 performances.

All in all, I’m having a great time – lots to do, not much to see except the inside of a theater but walking over and back from the hotel is educational. The food in this hotel for breakfast, after the previous 2, is a disappointment so if you sit in the Starbucks next door, sooner or later you will see pretty much everyone of the company. We found a terrific Japanese restaurant (really more of a noodle house, kind of a blend of Japanese and Chinese) to eat at plus an old standby, McDonalds. I had their pork sandwich for dinner yesterday and it was really good.

We leave for city #4 tomorrow.