Well, I'm back in the States! And it honestly feels a little weird. Here's how the last couple days have been.
Sunday began with a quiet few hours at home with my family to eat lunch and spend some time together. After going to town to gather a few things to take back to the States, Katherine, Beatriz, and I headed up to Bromelias for strike. After being there and not really having much to do, Lisa sent me to La Colina, a hotel that we used for our cast party, with "Video Erin," another Canadian volunteer who came down to Costa Rica to make a documentary for Far Corners. When we got to La Colina, I did a quick interview for Erin and talked about my background and what I'm all about, my take on Oliver!, and what Far Corners means to me and what I think it can do for others. It was actually a really fun interview to do because it allowed me to reflect on my experience and on the show while also putting my thoughts into words eloquent enough for a camera.
After the interview I went back upstairs and waited for the party to start. During the cast party we all signed each other's programs, publicity posters, and ate a lot of food. Plus we watched the video from Saturday night's performance together, which was super fun. It was extremely sad, though, because I had to say goodbye to everyone at the end of the party. It was so sad saying goodbye, particularly to Katherine and Dario, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to get to see them again relatively soon - we're talking about them taking a little road trip to Santa Clara over Katherine's spring break! And if that doesn't happen, I'm fairly certain I'll be going back to Costa Rica next summer. After that tearful goodbye, I walked the hour-long commute back to Cementerio to go home. Honestly the walk was good; it gave me some space to get myself put back together a little bit. When I got home I finished packing and then went to bed in good Tico fashion at 9:30.
The next morning I got up at 4:30, got ready, and had my last breakfast of fried plantains and coffee before saying goodbye to my family. At about 6:10 I got in a taxi with all my stuff and got to the bus stop. The bus from Monteverde to San Jose takes about four hours, so I made it to the airport by 10:30. I got through security just fine and bought a couple books - one in English, one in Spanish - to occupy myself until my plane left at about 2:00. I had about a two hour layover in Miami before getting to Texas, and everything went just about according to plan. I got back home at a little after midnight.
My homecoming did not go according to plan, however.
Because four of my best friends popped out from behind a corner and scared me half to death when I walked in the door! The last thing I expected was for Zeke, Brittany, Kellie, and Jillian to be poised and ready to pounce when I came home, but nothing could have made me happier! So instead of going to bed immediately when I got home as I had hoped to do, I stayed up until I had been awake for literally 24 hours hanging out with them and catching up. I love them so much!
Well, I suppose this concludes my blog! Thanks for following along and keeping up with me these last couple of months while I was in Central America! I had a blast and am so happy I went. Can't wait until next year! :)
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Hurricane Oliver!
So, I have not been so good about updating this past week. I have had very little time to myself and even less time to run to an internet café since my computer perished. Basically, here’s what’s been going on.
TECH WEEK AND SHOWS!
It’s insane! We had three days of tech before we opened at 10 AM Thursday morning for school shows. We invited three of the local elementary schools to come watch the show in the mornings on Thursday and Friday, so those shows were nice to have as some additional tech/dress rehearsals. The morning shows both went very well. It was a little difficult since we are presenting a bilingual show and the public school children are not bilingual, but they got the main idea, I think. The weather was also very nice for the morning shows. The evening shows however…
Thursday night was easily one of the most stressful nights I’ve had in a very long time. The Costa Rican sky opened up about thirty minutes before our curtain time, soaking all of our props and our “backstage” area, which is really just an area under a little car-park tent off stage right. The entire backstage was mud and sloshy grossness, so everyone was getting splattered with mud and the stage was absolutely covered in dirt and grime and rain water. It was disgusting. To make matters worse, off stage left doesn’t have anything covering it, so we constantly have to bring someone back there with us with an umbrella to cover us when we exit stage left. It’s really quite an adventure. We had the same weather problem on Friday night, but Thursday night was particularly bad for some other reasons.
About half way through the show, little José Daniel runs up to me saying, "Erin, Erin! My throat hurts really badly. I can´t sing!" So, I get the boy some water and tell him that when he gets home he needs to tell his mom to make him hot tea with lemon and to drink that the next morning, too. As I´m talking to him, he starts tearing up and getting really nervous, so I took him away from the big crowd of people out into the makeshift parking lot and tell him to try and sing his next song for me to see how his voice sounds. He sounded completely normal, but he said that it hurt really badly and fell into my arms sobbing. When I asked him what was wrong, he told me he was afraid that people would laugh at him because his voice sounded bad. I had never seen this kid upset before, but it absolutely broke my heart. I told him that he sounded great, no different than any other day, and that I was so proud of him. It cheered him up for the moment, but he was still a little teary. When he went on for the next song, his voice sounded fine, but he was so nervous that he mixed up the words. The poor kid was so upset all night, and I felt terrible because I couldn´t do anything for him but force him to drink multiple bottles of water.
On top of that, after the song "Be Back Soon" that Darío does with all the little kids, he came off stage absolutely fuming. Darío is a drama queen, but I´d never seen him so angry before. So he grabbed me and pulled me out into the parking lot to vent. He was angry at the little kids for messing up not only the words, the timing, and the dance, but also for acting unprofessionally on stage and looking at him to tell them what to do. Darío spent the last school year in the States, and now has a very different point of view about theatre from everyone else here. He takes it extremely seriously while a lot of other people don´t understand stage etiquette. After a while he calmed down, but there were more problems to be dealt with. For whatever reason, we had a 3 hour call, which means that the kids were in the theater at 4 even though the show didn´t start until 7. Most of them had not eaten dinner, and by about 8:30 or 9 at least seven or eight of them were crying because they were hungry. I am so glad Thursday is over!
By Friday morning, Danny´s voice was feeling much better, but I was still shoving a water bottle into his hand every time he came off stage. Friday night´s show was also much smoother. It still rained a ton, but I wasn´t dealing with nervous, sick, angry, or hungry actors. Quite a relief! Friday between the shows was one of the best times I´ve had here. Katherine and I took off to grab some lunch and then went back to the Bellbird School, which is owned by Heidi and Jean, two moms of kids in the show who are so wonderful and helpful. I love them both dearly. They offered to have us all come by and watch a movie with a bunch of blankets and snacks. When Katherien and I got there, we were the only ones over the age of 12. It was awesome. We watched American Tale (the one with the mice and the song "Somewhere Out There") and ended up taking a nap. There´s a couple really adorable pictures of Danny, me, and Katherine all completely conked out. I´ll have to post those once they show up on Facebook. After a while, Toto, Hellen, Darío, and Beatriz showed up too, and the kids turned on the movie "Enchanted". After a little while, all the little ones and Katherine left to grab dinner at Heidi and Leo´s while Toto, Hellen, Beatriz, Darío, and I stayed back to relax a little bit more. Then we headed over to the theater to get ready for the show!
Tonight is our last show, and tomorrow is my last day in Santa Elena. I cannot believe it´s almost over. Sometimes it feels like any minute I´m going to wake up and it will all have been some crazy dream. But this experience has been so amazing. Can´t wait until next year.
TECH WEEK AND SHOWS!
It’s insane! We had three days of tech before we opened at 10 AM Thursday morning for school shows. We invited three of the local elementary schools to come watch the show in the mornings on Thursday and Friday, so those shows were nice to have as some additional tech/dress rehearsals. The morning shows both went very well. It was a little difficult since we are presenting a bilingual show and the public school children are not bilingual, but they got the main idea, I think. The weather was also very nice for the morning shows. The evening shows however…
Thursday night was easily one of the most stressful nights I’ve had in a very long time. The Costa Rican sky opened up about thirty minutes before our curtain time, soaking all of our props and our “backstage” area, which is really just an area under a little car-park tent off stage right. The entire backstage was mud and sloshy grossness, so everyone was getting splattered with mud and the stage was absolutely covered in dirt and grime and rain water. It was disgusting. To make matters worse, off stage left doesn’t have anything covering it, so we constantly have to bring someone back there with us with an umbrella to cover us when we exit stage left. It’s really quite an adventure. We had the same weather problem on Friday night, but Thursday night was particularly bad for some other reasons.
About half way through the show, little José Daniel runs up to me saying, "Erin, Erin! My throat hurts really badly. I can´t sing!" So, I get the boy some water and tell him that when he gets home he needs to tell his mom to make him hot tea with lemon and to drink that the next morning, too. As I´m talking to him, he starts tearing up and getting really nervous, so I took him away from the big crowd of people out into the makeshift parking lot and tell him to try and sing his next song for me to see how his voice sounds. He sounded completely normal, but he said that it hurt really badly and fell into my arms sobbing. When I asked him what was wrong, he told me he was afraid that people would laugh at him because his voice sounded bad. I had never seen this kid upset before, but it absolutely broke my heart. I told him that he sounded great, no different than any other day, and that I was so proud of him. It cheered him up for the moment, but he was still a little teary. When he went on for the next song, his voice sounded fine, but he was so nervous that he mixed up the words. The poor kid was so upset all night, and I felt terrible because I couldn´t do anything for him but force him to drink multiple bottles of water.
On top of that, after the song "Be Back Soon" that Darío does with all the little kids, he came off stage absolutely fuming. Darío is a drama queen, but I´d never seen him so angry before. So he grabbed me and pulled me out into the parking lot to vent. He was angry at the little kids for messing up not only the words, the timing, and the dance, but also for acting unprofessionally on stage and looking at him to tell them what to do. Darío spent the last school year in the States, and now has a very different point of view about theatre from everyone else here. He takes it extremely seriously while a lot of other people don´t understand stage etiquette. After a while he calmed down, but there were more problems to be dealt with. For whatever reason, we had a 3 hour call, which means that the kids were in the theater at 4 even though the show didn´t start until 7. Most of them had not eaten dinner, and by about 8:30 or 9 at least seven or eight of them were crying because they were hungry. I am so glad Thursday is over!
By Friday morning, Danny´s voice was feeling much better, but I was still shoving a water bottle into his hand every time he came off stage. Friday night´s show was also much smoother. It still rained a ton, but I wasn´t dealing with nervous, sick, angry, or hungry actors. Quite a relief! Friday between the shows was one of the best times I´ve had here. Katherine and I took off to grab some lunch and then went back to the Bellbird School, which is owned by Heidi and Jean, two moms of kids in the show who are so wonderful and helpful. I love them both dearly. They offered to have us all come by and watch a movie with a bunch of blankets and snacks. When Katherien and I got there, we were the only ones over the age of 12. It was awesome. We watched American Tale (the one with the mice and the song "Somewhere Out There") and ended up taking a nap. There´s a couple really adorable pictures of Danny, me, and Katherine all completely conked out. I´ll have to post those once they show up on Facebook. After a while, Toto, Hellen, Darío, and Beatriz showed up too, and the kids turned on the movie "Enchanted". After a little while, all the little ones and Katherine left to grab dinner at Heidi and Leo´s while Toto, Hellen, Beatriz, Darío, and I stayed back to relax a little bit more. Then we headed over to the theater to get ready for the show!
Tonight is our last show, and tomorrow is my last day in Santa Elena. I cannot believe it´s almost over. Sometimes it feels like any minute I´m going to wake up and it will all have been some crazy dream. But this experience has been so amazing. Can´t wait until next year.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Food, Glorious Food!
Yesterday (Saturday) was an extremely long day. I woke up, and it was raining. This is atypical. If it is raining in the morning, you know the weather will be terrible all day. So, that was not exactly a good thing to wake up to. When I got to rehearsal at 10, we began running some scenes that were absolute messes the night before, and we got a lot of work done on them which was nice. Unfortunately, not all of that hard work would translate perfectly for our run later in the day. I also discovered that I was not the only one to be disgruntled by the rain. The Cañitas kids (Darío, José Daniel, and Maricel) had some issues as well. When they tried to leave for rehearsal, their car got stuck in the mud. So they called a cab, which also got stuck! The rain the first few weeks here was nice, but now I´m starting to understand why Ticos hate the rainy season so much...
At about 2 we began our run through and finished at around 4:30. This is very good news - our runs are starting to take less time! However, some of the scenes are still very slow, made worse by the fact that we´re still calling for lines in a few scenes. We are also going to work on making the comedy more over the top and the drama more sincere. There should be lots of character and scene work going on Monday before we begin our run. We´ll see how much success we have in retaining the work we put into it.
After rehearsal everyone headed over to Lisa´s temporary home for dinner before Improv Night. Katherine and I (mostly me, but the help was definitely appreciated) made dinner for about twenty kids. We through together spaghetti and garlic bread in shifts because we didn´t have any pots big enough to handle the massive amounts of food we made. Of course, this incited the belting of "Food, Glorious Food!" over and over and over again. For once during this entire process they actually sang as loudly as we wanted them to. Unfortunately, they were not on a stage and were not in a space with acoustics intended for very loud singing. My head hurt by the time we left.
After dinner it was off to Improv Night! Another successful one! However, we had many more people than we have in the past and many more young ones who aren´t exactly as willing to do random things as some of my older kids. Still, it was a fun evening. Katherine and I are now completely worn out. The more I think of it, I am extremely sad to be leaving in eight days, but I think I will enjoy the time to rest my body and mind.
At about 2 we began our run through and finished at around 4:30. This is very good news - our runs are starting to take less time! However, some of the scenes are still very slow, made worse by the fact that we´re still calling for lines in a few scenes. We are also going to work on making the comedy more over the top and the drama more sincere. There should be lots of character and scene work going on Monday before we begin our run. We´ll see how much success we have in retaining the work we put into it.
After rehearsal everyone headed over to Lisa´s temporary home for dinner before Improv Night. Katherine and I (mostly me, but the help was definitely appreciated) made dinner for about twenty kids. We through together spaghetti and garlic bread in shifts because we didn´t have any pots big enough to handle the massive amounts of food we made. Of course, this incited the belting of "Food, Glorious Food!" over and over and over again. For once during this entire process they actually sang as loudly as we wanted them to. Unfortunately, they were not on a stage and were not in a space with acoustics intended for very loud singing. My head hurt by the time we left.
After dinner it was off to Improv Night! Another successful one! However, we had many more people than we have in the past and many more young ones who aren´t exactly as willing to do random things as some of my older kids. Still, it was a fun evening. Katherine and I are now completely worn out. The more I think of it, I am extremely sad to be leaving in eight days, but I think I will enjoy the time to rest my body and mind.
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