...he's there, inside my mind!

no, joke, he really does haunt my mind!  awake or asleep all i hear is phantom medleys over and over!  

you may wonder why I am seeing a half-mutilated opera singer inside my mind?!  easy, thats because I am currently working on the broadway tour of Phantom of the Opera.  We are in the fourth week of a four week run!  I can smell the finish line! 

Because not everyone understands what happens when I work a show I thought I would take this chance to elaborate. When I "work a show" that means I work on the wardrobe crew.   I come in everyday for a 'sewing call' which means I do basic maitenance and repair sewing on the costumes.  Sometimes I do small builds, but mainly it is maintaining the integrity of the costumes, some of which are as old as 16 years, which means thats a lot of wear and tear on some pretty elaborate costumes.  I break for dinner and then it's show time!  During the show I dress two members of the male ensemble, each of which have about eight changes.  Sometimes this entails actually buttoning and dressing the performers (generally during 'quick changes') and sometimes it just means that I lay out their costumes on a chair.  No matter how long the hours (and weekends are really long, because we have four shows in two days), the adrenaline rush of the show is always there.  Once the show starts on stage another show starts backstage.  There are probably twice as many crew members as there are performers for any show and they all perform very coreographed functions backstage, from wire work, to props, to hair and makeup and of course wardrobe.  All of this activeity goes on without the audience ever knowing !  until now that is!  

Anyway, thats what I ve been up to for the past few weeks, there's been no time for anything else, but I have lots of fun stuff to blog about as soon as I get a chance to breath!