Thank god for Monday

Because work isn't nearly as hectic as my weekend. Poker is further down, so if you want to read about that, scroll, baby, scroll.

As some of you know, I'm heavily involved with the North Carolina Theatre Conference, the statewide leadership, service and advocacy organization for theatre in NC. Like President of the Board involved. Well, this weekend was our annual Fall Gathering, which loosely translates into the following:

2 - College theatre productions entered into the American College Theatre Festival
5 - Community theatre production entered into the American Association of Community Theatres festival
16 - High school plays entered into the State HS Play fest.
250+ College kids auditioning for 100 slots at the Southeastern Theatre Conference auditions, where they'll try to get summer stock jobs
100+ High School kids auditioning for college scholarships
20+ Colleges with displays recruiting students

and not much fucking sleep.

I ran the lighting board for all sixteen high school plays, with no cues pre-programmed due to a snafu at the venue. So I ran a couple hundred light cues live for shows that I'd never seen before in a facility that I'd never worked before on a console I'd only used twice before with 16 different stage managers, some of whom had no idea what they were doing, none of whom were born when I did my first play, and all of whom had a different method of calling cues. It was the most challenging thing I've done lighting-wise since I lit the Count Basie Orchestra on an unfamiliar console with only two hours of prep time. But I was getting paid for that, and this was free.

It's also some of the most rewarding work I do each year, working with these kids. The enthusiasm they bring to these events is incredible, and I can only wish that I had teachers like they have when I was a kid.

I also got to have dinner with a 4-time Tony Award winning costume designer, which was pretty neat. William Ivey Long was our Keynote speaker, and he was very charming. As Pres., I sat at the front table with William, and got to chat with him a little. Suzy of course couldn't come, because she was working as a dresser for Amadeus, which was a bummer. But it was cool chatting with someone who has such a huge theatrical experience and has worked with all of the biggest names in the business.

If you don't want to google him, he did costumes for Hairspray, Chicago, The Producers and Nine, among 50 others. He's a pretty big deal. His brother is a theatre consultant that I've worked with on several projects, and William still comes down to the summer theatre at The Lost Colony in Manteo, NC each summer. His parents started the theatre program at Winthrop, where I went to school, so we chatted a little about Rock Hill and the school and all that. It was pretty neat.

Sunday after our board meeting wrapping up the gathering (by the way, does anyone want to move to NC to be the Executive Director of a theatre organization? We're losing our ED at the end of the year and need to hire.) I went to see Amadeus, and was very impressed with Suzy's work on the costumes. The set was good, lighting was okay, and the acting was good. I wanted them to push it a little more, but they were good and solid. Probably a 6-7 on a scale of 10, but a solid 8.5 for the company that produced it, which is usually a little spotty. It was nice to see them exceed their normal production and performance values.

Last night marked the return of my home game! Since I've been gone or booked on weekends for a month, no home game for me. But last night we crammed 11 people around my table and got in a good 5 hours of play before I ran everyone home. I bought in a BUNCH, but finished the night only down $50, which was pretty good. It was a ridiculous game, with a $3 preflop raise ($.25/.50 blinds) routinely getting 4-5 callers. My highlight of the night was when I managed to call both hands in an all-in when Brian went in with the Hammer and Suzy picked him off with Big Slick. That was about all that I managed to put together that was good, but I didn't lose too much. Been hitting the 6-max NL100 Cap games and liking them pretty well, I have a post brewing about why I like them, but it's not soup yet. Talk to you later.

Tags: NCTC, William Ivey Long, Poker, Full Tilt