Horsies!

A couple days ago I went riding again with Nick, Ed and Zach. I'm trying to take advantage of the horsies here. I get to go for free as much as I want. Shooter and I got along pretty well. I think I figured out how to make my mind known to him unlike when I was riding Boon last time and he just followed the horse in front of us. Boon also had his ears back the whole time which I assume is the horse version of a sour expression. I assume that (just like with every animal) Shooter was more comfortable because I was more comfortable and in control. I'm riding again today with the costume intern Hannah. Speaking of Hannah, the costume room and band dressing room are next door to each other and there is a foot between the walls and the ceiling. Hannah and I yell things to each other and generally act like children. Last night I caught her singing tunelessly "I'm stitching, stitching. Oh I'm stitching..." She was, in fact, stitching. It was pretty adorable.

Last night in the show we had a screw-up that ended fine, but caused severe terror on my part. Near the beginning of the show I walk down to what they call the "cookie" and I have heard called the tongue in other theaters. It's the little half circle of stage sticking out towards the audience in the middle. I walk down there and play a big solo then wave and run back to the band shack. Marc set me up for the solo a measure early and since usually I am the one that does things like that I just went with him. Then half the band was playing a measure behind the other half and I was 40 feet away from my band and four away from the audience. For a minute I had to just stop playing a look back to try to figure out where we were. Marc does a great impression of me turning to give him a look of slack jawed terror then just going back to playing. It all came out okay though.

Another one of the car show

Just another jog

The hair Affair

I ran three miles through downtown Belfield today. Since there isn't much of Belfield I then continued out of town to the pond and back again. The wind is killing my speed here. I am running so hard and sooooooo slow. I get back from three miles that took me 41 minutes and I sink onto my bed and gulp water like there's no tomorrow.
I look at my phone and it tells me I burned 400 kcal and I want to scream "What about the blinding sun, high humidity and the head wind for half of it!"

Blurry but that's us at the pitch fork steak fondu. We are getting a lot of gigs aside from the musical. It will be good for my bank account! Also it's fun.

Hurrumph!

Coal Diggers with Chad not Zach

Yesterday was our first show with Zach and he did great. Honestly, if we hadn't told the singers it was a different guy they probably wouldn't have noticed if they didn't look at him. We were all very impressed.

I jogged almost 2.8 miles yesterday. It's not so hard to get yourself on the road when it looks like this:

Half way up the hill in a head wind

I woke up at 4am this morning from a full-on nightmare that I was trapped in a pitch-black room with a bunch of wild animals that wanted to eat me. I had to lay there for a while with my eyes open because I was still so freaked out. I haven't done that in a long time.
Then as soon as I woke up later in the morning I had to run to Dickinson (25 minute drive) to get some different fake eyelashes and a spare shoulder rest which they did not have. I arrived back in Belfield with enough time to sit here but not enough time to run or do my laundry. I guess every day can't come out perfect huh?

Antique car show

 From left to right: Chad, Roger, Nick, Ed, ME!, Marc. Chad took this after the show at the meet and greet after his last show with us. He played about a week and a half. He was great fun to play with.
Our new keyboard player is here now. We have had a couple rehearsals with him and he sounds good. Struggling with a few things, but he's had the music for like 5 days. I have no doubt he will get it all down in a week or so. Last night was supposed to be his first show but we got rained out. It was raining so hard that just from running to the car a couple of times I was so wet I put my clothes in the dryer when I got to the stage. My hair was completely soaked and my makeup was running off of my face. I walked into the boys dressing room and wrung my hair out in the trashcan to make a point to all the gay boys about just how unhappy I was at that moment. I wasn't wet like the actors that did a little running in the rain (everyone got pretty damp) I was wet like the stage crew running around on the hill in a monsoon. Bad timing for me I guess, I was out in the worst part of the storm since I left 10 minutes after the cast, and the fact that I was driving so I ran to the car to go back and pick up people.

 Yesterday was a beautiful day of clear perfect blue skies (until 5pm) for the antique car show. The coal diggers played two sets with Steve (front and center). He sings the Johnny Cash stuff in the show and he sounds solid, but not my favorite type of voice. But when we played this set he really had a lot more character. I think in the show he tries to emulate Johnny Cash but can't quite do it simply because of voice types (also I never did like Johnny cash's voice). But we played some buddy holly and some old country stuff and it sounded great. Lots of sass and fun in our sound and his voice. Matt the sound guy said that people were coming up to him after the show at lunch, asking if he ran sound for us then telling him how good we were. It's very flattering to have such an appreciative audience, but I also know that he is hard to miss, he's built like a brick wall at something like 6'3" but also somehow looks like a naughty little kid. It's a charming and memorable combination. He's the A2 -audio 2- which means that he deals with the hardware. So he puts batteries in the wireless packs, runs on stage when they randomly die for no reason in the middle of the show (it happened to Nick) and whatever else he does that has nothing to do with me. Probably including carrying large heavy things. Kay is the sound lady who mixes the Musical. And she does a hell of a job. If you ask for something, it's fixed the next show. She only does the Musical though and Matt has been mixing our fondu sets, the car show, and the Chuck Wagon sets (the singers get to play sets during the day and we accompany) once they start.

Cars and Matt's half-head.

Cars and strangers

Oops

First off there was pretty serious mistype on my part. There were 1,300 people there last Saturday, not 13,000.

Last night we played a up tempo song almost 20 clicks faster then it was supposed to be. I didn't realize until Mark started singing because I don't play on the intro. After that there were tears on my cheeks from trying to stop laughing long enough to play my solos. It was SO FAST. The dancing was one of the funniest things I ever seen. What had happened was Marc didn't advance his metronome to the next tempo after the slow song before Catfish boogie and he got confused and thought it was half time, doubled it and went ahead. Also there are a lot of great pictures being taken of the cast. I thought I would take a minute to compile the ones where something went wrong on someones face.

I laughed so hard about this picture I farted.

The guys look fine, but those ladies have crazy eyes! I think Cari (sitting blond) is my favorite

It's okay Mark, no need to kill anyone

Kayla.... I don't even know what to say.

Dan's stoned

Birthday, lumberjacks and fondu

 Horseback riding was a blast. We get it for free so I will definitely be going again. Carolin (in the batman shirt) goes a lot and I will be joining her for sure. She is a total sweetheart. She said she wore her batman shirt because it was my birthday and she knows how much I love batman. She's the kind of girl you can bond with about how you both get a pile of dirty underwear next to your shower.

There was a lumberjack party at the compound. three people at the party were wearing my shirts because I have so much flannel and plaid. That's Gerry and I wearing my shirts. I'm so happy with all of the people I have here. I feel like I already have a solid little family of people transplanted to North Dakota.








We get our new keyboard player tomorrow. We have a rehearsal before we play fondu and then the show, it will be a long day. Fondu started today. we play a 40 minute instrumental set at 5:20. It should be fun. the stage is long and narrow and they have me standing in front. It kind of feels like I'm heading a parade at a fashion show or something.

Comics

Last night there was a poker game at the compound. $10 buy so I did not do it. Those of us that did not play hung out in the parking lot and had a grand old time. The most memorable moment of the night was a truly fantastic misunderstanding between Dan and I. He had been telling me that we were going to swap comics for the summer (since I brought a box and he did too..... We are two little peas in a nerd-pod) and he had been saying his "survival pack." So I thought his survival pack was his box of comics. I have a couple books and movies I tend to travel with so I thought that was totally normal. There was a lapse in conversation and he turns to me and goes "I have to get something out of my survival pack, want to come see it?" So we run off to his room.
It turns out his survival pack is literally a survival pack. It's a backpack with rope, water purification, knives, blanket etc. He kept pulling things out and I kept expecting a pack of comics to come out next. By the time we got to the med kit and Kevlar rope I was starting to doubt that I was going to see batman;s face come out next. So much nerd happened in those 10 minutes. I got all excited and ran off with him because I wanted to see his comics. He got excited and wanted to show me his apocalypse survival kit. But really we both would have been happy looking at comics or camping gear. I think my favorite part is that it took me half a backpack full of heavy duty survival gear to realize that he probably wouldn't have put his comics at the bottom of it. I think we are forging a great friendship.

For my birthday tomorrow I am going to go horseback riding in the day. Then after the show we are going to have a Batman party. I have Dan to thank for that one of course. I didn't know what to theme my party and he said "What's your favorite TV show?" We looked at each other and said at the same time "Batman: the animated series."

Bully Run

I ran the Bully Run yesterday. I just did the 5k not the 10k. I haven't gotten my time back yet but judging from my watch it was something like 37 or 38 minutes (my best time is about 36 minutes). I felt like I was running painfully slow but I think it was actually just a fast group of runners. And walkers, one of the "walkers" passed me on the first mile. It was so demoralizing. But hey, we all got the largest t-shirts known to man. Mine is a medium and it is hanging off of me. The extra small was nowhere near small enough or the little runner girls.

I'm also suffering from a minor summer cold the last couple of days. Last night I was grumpy and sniffling and just not having it. But I wanted to have fun on a Saturday! So I went to the bar with the gang and just told myself I would not drink much and sleep in this morning. We were standing around on the porch chatting after we got back to the compound and Marc said he was going to bed, then he looked at me and said "And you need to go to bed too, and drink your vitamin C and get your rest." Suddenly I was nine and caught doing something I wasn't supposed to. I might have pouted a little. 

Last night our audience was over 13,000. The amphitheater seats 2,852 people so presumably later in the summer we will have larger audiences. Probably the 4th of July.

Superman

Dan (center) and I put together a little outing to Dickinson for the Superman midnight showing last night. We made a pact before the movie to love it no matter what. Which we did, although I do think it was actually good. There was a long pause after the previews and before the movie (maybe five minutes) and poor Dan (being the giant Superman fan that he is) was starting to panic that the movie wouldn't work. I was reminded of the time the visual but not the audio went out when I went to the Dark Knight and I totally freaked out. So I patted his shoulder and told him it was fine and the movie would start any minute. Basically both of us need a serious check of priorities. But a good time was had by all.

New Friends

We inserted our sit in keyboard player tonight. He is staying for about 10 days and then will need another player for the rest of the summer. The band is tight enough that we could play the show without one in a pinch, but it would definitely sound better to have keyboard. Chad (new guy) has played the musical 9 years previously so he knows his way around, but he did hit a couple bad notes. Mostly he was smart enough to back off if he wasn't comfortable and let one of us cover him. But whatever, he's not Jim so we are ecstatic.

I'm so happy here with these people. Marc and I shared the ultimate bond tonight and made "that's was she said" joke at exactly the same time. I also bonded with a singer Dan because we are both big nerds. It's so nice to have a fellow nerd in the cast. Tonight I freaked out because someone was talking about a guy name Tim Drake. Tim Drake is the second Robin, from Batman. All I got was a bunch of confused musicians staring at me. So when I saw Dan I told him and we freaked out together about how awesome it was.

Everything falling into place

The first "opening night" that was rained out

Last night the show was Amazing! The sheer energy of us all was a cycle that kept everyone pumping through the whole show. Sandy played keys for us since we didn't have a pianist. He is really a joy to work with. Anytime I looked at anyone on the stage I got a grin or a smirk. There a couple of moments in the show where we are just so tight and good it makes me laugh. I'm starting to believe it when people say we are the best band they have had in a while. If anyone needed proof that Jim needed to go that was it. As soon as he was gone we all perked up and played great.
Throughout the day Jim was texting Curt from the bus (presumably) threatening to sue, asking for more money and eventually just sinking to laughably bad insults. My favorite was when he called Curt a "cheat thief" whatever that is. I'm just glad he's gone. That creeper gotta creep somewhere else!
Today I went for a run and then have been just lazing around in the sunshine chatting with one of the singers and eating an egg sandwich. Now I am going to take a well earned nap before we head to town to do it all again.

Relief!

 It is official so I can post it. Our band leader (keyboardist) Jim has been fired for being an insufferable jerk. The five of us were starting to panic that he wouldn't get fired because he is a decent musician and we thought the powers that be would value that over our good spirits. I am not wired to hate people, mostly I like everyone but I have never in my life so obviously hated someone. He yelled at us about things that weren't true, picked fights with us in front of the cast... the list of horrors goes on and on. Sandy will be filling in for him for the next couple of days and then Chad the band leader from last year will play the summer with us.

The crew went out for Mexican this afternoon in celebration. It's a beautiful day, we ate good food and we never have to see Jim ever again. The summer is looking up. The only one missing is Roger since he doesn't live in the compound with us. He lives in Medora where he can be a grouchy old (but very lovable) British man who goes to bed at 9pm. I'm very fond of him. It would be nice to have him with us but he (very reasonably) doesn't want to listen to us kids shouting fart jokes at each other at 1am.


There is no way to describe how stressful it was to have Jim up in our business all the time. I kept just bursting into tears over nothing and then laughing REALLY hard about things. Like when you are 12 and you get embarrassed because you can't stop laughing at a joke? That's been me. (although some things really were that funny, Ed's Chinese laundry moment is one for the books. I've been laughing about it for three days.) Everything was just so tense all the time that it was coming out at weird times. Now we can relax and give a great show to the audience.

Sunday morning

This beautiful Sunday morning we all had to go perform Down to the River to Pray for a church service at the amphitheater. We were all so very tired that we could barely speak. After that we had a catered brunch and then everyone has retired to their room for a nap.

I just don't see myself ever getting tired of this view.

Opening night... again

 I'm so tired I will say everything in more detail later but the gist is: it went as well as it could considering. My wireless box for my in ear monitors broke this afternoon and I was wired for the show so I couldn't get off the band shack like I was supposed to. Our band problem is at such a bad level that if he walks into a room the rest of the band leaves. Literally. He talked to me while I was putting on my makeup for 10 minutes and I didn't say a word. After notes with Sandy where he was so laboriously slow and so annoying I can't even explain I had to go tell the stage manager that I would be wired that night and my eyes just kept leaking. Not because either of those things was really the last straw (they both suck, but things happen in shows, it's not the end of the world), I wasn't really having a meltdown, it's just so emotionally draining to be around someone who is that negative and annoying. Marc proved his friendship and vegetarian solidarity by offering to go with me to eat at our usual crappy place instead of the fancy beef fondu place we got one free night at because I was freaking out that I wouldn't get enough calories to carry me through the show. After he realized I was really unhappy and eating my feelings he got totally on board about eating all this cheese. I was ordering cheese curds and he came over and said "How's nachos? Would you eat nachos? I'll order nachos." I couldn't even talk, I just hugged him. It's a strange thing to be so touched about but we are all under so much stress just because of the show not even counting the emotional insanity that goes into the band right now that every little kind word makes a difference.

I don't want to make it sound like I don't love it here. It's just the band member issue. There have been so many wonderful things that happened today too. Opening night was great! did we do things wrong? Totally, but we pulled it together and it was fine. Dana the chief electrician running around at a bar with 37 balloons floating behind her. Ed getting confused and thinking that the strange back kitchen of a bar was a Chinese laundry (I have no idea). Marc counting off Down to the River to Pray (slow gospel that starts with a long laid back fiddle note) double time. It was amazing. As Sandy put it, basically Marc spazzed out for a second and rest of the band ignored him and started it like normal. Even as I am writing this I am still laughing about it and it happened at 3pm.

Opening Night

Finally, a great picture of my chins! Left to right: ME!, Marc (drums), Nick (guitar), Ed (bass)

We got rained out. If there is rain the show does a "rain show" where there is less dancing and more band feature stuff because we are covered and the dancers would fall and hurt themselves. But we have been so rushed to even do a normal show that we had no rain show plans. So we just got cancelled. So the entire cast and crew of the Medora musical did a "bar crawl" of the two bars in Medora.

Gerry my lovely flamboyant southern gentleman and Trish the..... something director, it escapes me at the moment, but she is really cool!

I really am very happy with the cast and crew. I have had nothing but good happy experiences, with one notable exception. We have all been putting between 10 and 18 hour days so for me to say that everyone is laid back and cool is amazing. Someone should have yelled by now (someone has but I shall talk about that when it has been resolved). I am very fond of Curt the director and Sandy the musical director. Last night sandy took a picture of he and I in the bar together to send to Paul (the guy who got me the job). He read me the text he sent with it and it said "she is perfect and we love her." I was so flattered I was kind of at a loss for words. I think I just screeched "awwwwww!!!!" It should be noted that having Sandy think highly of me is so flattering because he is REALLY good at his job and seems to have his life together. I'm starting to feel a little like he is the older brother I already have two of.

Today we have a luncheon where we sort of meet and great so I got up early and got my hair and face all did up. It's kind of fun being a sort of celebrity here. People love the show and being in it means you are instantly liked. I also for the first time experienced the oil worker phenomenon last night. There are lots of lonely guys so I got chatted up a LOT last night. I foresee this happening all summer. But hey, it's good for my ego (like I need help with that) and I am always out with the boys in the band so I am totally safe.

I am just really happy to be here so far. This was absolutely the right decision for me. Check out the tv ad here:  https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=598983357009

Day 10

8am at the Burning Hills Amphitheater 

 Today we got to the amphitheater at 8am. We left at 10pm. 8-11 was sound for the band. 11-1pm was sound for the singers. We are still nowhere near done. But I will say this, at about 11am I was literally in tears on the gazebo pretending I wasn't having to wipe tears off my face because the sound in my brand new in ear monitors was so bad. I kept saying that there was a lot of crackling in my ears but everyone kept telling me that you have to get used to the in ears and that that was just how it was. finally I was sniffing and wiping tears of my face begging the most patient sound guy in the history of the world to make it stop crackling. I just kept thinking "I can't do this all summer. I can't do this all summer. I can't do this all summer."  It turns out that my wireless receiver needed new batteries. And now it sounds great. my fiddle sounds a little like a toy fiddle but all the levels are correct and everything is clear. And in the house the fiddle sounds good. Sandy also pointed out something which I need to keep in mind whenever I sound check. I play an instrument that involves a lot of feeling as well as hearing. I feel the notes through my my hand and they echo through my jaw. There is no way to recreate that sound in reality outside of my own scull. As Sandy said, fiddle players are chasing a tone that doesn't exist. So while I should pursue a great tone, I need to practice some moderation. Either way, while there is still a tun of work to do on the sound my in ears are now clean and clear, which is what they are for.

 

 That right there is a wireless output box (surely that is the wrong word but it sends sound FROM my fiddle) wrapped in a towel and attached to my fiddle with two rubber bands. It is surprisingly stable. Presumably they will make me something more attractive. But for now this totally works. The wireless receiver clips to my belt and goes into my ears so that I am completely free of cords. Having spent so much time tossing a cord over my shoulder when I pick my fiddle up it is amazingly freeing. It's like driving automatic and slamming your foot on the "clutch." I keep tossing an air-cord over my shoulder.

We have of course continued to have some band drama. It did get pretty epic today. I think I said this last post but I will say it again. The band is having serious issues with one of it's members and I think it is a credit to the rest of us that no one even mentioned they disliked him until he crossed way past the line. We just kept our cool and tried to make the best of it. Now that we had a "band meeting" (drinking after rehearsal because we were all about to go crazy with stress) we are all on the same page. I think we have all been very good about blowing off steam on breaks so that we can behave like the professionals we are when we are in rehearsal. I feel confident that things may change, but we will make it work because we are all motivated to roll with the punches so as to make us a good band, however things come out.

8pm at the Burning Hills Amphitheater

Day 9

Despite what this picture seems to say we are not in fact a demon band. This is the Coal Diggers, sadly without our bass player Ed.

Here's the musical page: http://www.medora.com/do/entertainment/medora-musical/ Hit "meet the cast" to see the bios and head shots. When they took my picture they had me stand with my feet 1.5 feet apart and they took one and said "that's good!" I stupidly believed them even though I was sure that I had done the Man Pose with my chin raised so as to give the most unflattering angle possible. As it turns out I did. Patti told me to let the rehearsals end and then request they change my picture to something flattering. I wouldn't always care but it's on the website and program ALL SUMMER. The program is stuck that way though. It does annoy me, didn't anyone think that I might not like the picture where I was looking sort of aggressively friendly?

As you can tell it was not the greatest day. We had rehearsal in the gym again from 1pm to 10pm with only an hour for dinner. Everyone was feeling tired and FREEZING (they won't turn on the heat in the school and it was 50 degrees all day. It was about 55 in the gym. So no one was having a good time, luckily most of the cast seems to understand that if you don't have a smile and something nice to say just go sit in a corner. No need to bring everyone else down.Unfortunately one of the band members didn't get that memo and I got in a fight at dinner. A fight that very clearly I tried to shut down twice before I finally couldn't hold it in anymore and snapped a few phrases before I walked off. There have only been a few stressful moments with the band and it is becoming clear that this guy is the only crack in our little band unit. On the one hand I was furious and had to screech some really choice comments about him in general to a friend but on the other hand I am aware that if only one person in the band bothers me then that's actually doing pretty well. The rest of us are besties.

On that note I have an 8am call tomorrow morning and we want to get breakfast first so I have to get up at 6am. So I will retire to my bed piled with blankets because my room also does not have heat and it is currently 47 degrees outside. Also my shoulder is killing me and my teeth are a little lose again. Not that I'm really grumpy, BUT I AM.

Day 8

This morning after the Coal Diggers had already gone in to town to have breakfast before a 10:30 call at the theater we were informed that due to weather everything had changed. After a variety of changes and unnecessary trips to Medora we ended up in Fryburg, which is a small town near Belfield that has an unused high-school gym. Patty (who may or may not be spelled Patti) said that the rain storm that we were experiencing was so low that the radar that she watches like a hawk (being the stage manager) couldn't see it.

I dressed for a windy cold day on the hill at the theater in my warmest running shirt, my flannel and my Halloween bandana. I think it is my best outfit of the summer.

the acoustics in the gym were atrocious  and the band didn't have the tight feel that I have gotten accustomed to. We are also facing some issues of who is cuing what, how to cue it and so on. We will pull it together, but right now there are a few problems. But as far as I can tell, not nearly as many as their usually are in the band at this point in rehearsals. 

Day 7

That's what my boots look like from three days of North Dakota mud!

 Today was another beautiful North Dakota day. After a 2.4 mile run (picture above) it was our first day with the cast. So we showed up at 12:30 (early for call) and waited till 3 (when we all thought downbeat was at 2pm) and in the second song my bow exploded. All the hair fell out and I have to use a back up bow for now and send mine off for repair. Basically I had a very well contained meltdown complete with behind-sunglasses-crying. It was not even a little funny. I was stomping my foot and pouting. Luckily over dinner I worked out a game plan for fixing my bow with the stage manager Patty. After that I felt better and stopped pouting. The lame part is that there is nowhere in North Dakota to send it to get fixed so I have to fed ex it back to Kansas or Nashville. So tomorrow morning I call music stores and then Patty the AWESOME stage manager will take it, pack it right, insure it and send it off. After all the hair fell out of my bow I was crazy paranoid and I wouldn't let sun hit my violin for fear that it would crack. So for all of the blinding sunlight today and half of tomorrow I am the girl with the UV protectant (is that a word?) umbrella held carefully over my violin but not my face.

In previous years the band has been over in the corner of the stage with the rhythm section inside a house and only the fiddle, steel and guitar in the open. This year they are building us a gazebo in the middle of the stage. They must have heard I was playing the show this year. Who wouldn't want me center stage?

The theater is fantastic. As cheesy as I assumed it would be I have to say it is shaping up to be pretty good. It is a Country Review which means it is a bit goofy, but you know what? Ain't nothin' wrong with goofy! I think it will be pretty well done. It will sure help when we are not in some random corner they put us in so that we could play until they get our gazebo done.

On that note let me say a giant THANK YOU to all the tech boys and girls who have been working their asses off in the rain to try to get the stage ready. Also I appreciate that when I realized I needed a sweatshirt (since it drops 30 degrees when the sun goes down here) I knew exactly what to do: go find the big tech guy and smile real cute and ask for a sweatshirt. I totally got one. I always love the Tech crew!

Here's to hoping I have no more violin disasters while I'm here!!