Check Please

   On Wednesday the cast and crew for the Sears Drama Festival put on the show for "Check Please!" We went to our two morning classes and halfway through lunch we met in the auditorium to load our set into the truck. Then we got picked up, mom took James (a friend) and I for ice cream, and we met at Sir John A. MacDonald school for 2:15 and most of us hung out in Tim Hortons for a while. Once we got into the school we were shown our dressing room, and our 2 hour tech rehearsal started. We worked out the lights and we cleared up the rolling on and off of the risers. We used purple tape to strike our set and we showed the overall stage manager the tops and tails of our show. We practiced with a cue on cue and I wore a headset to practice the opening and closing of the curtain. We were all released from the rehearsal at 4:30, and most people went to Swiss Chalet for dinner in the 1 hour we had until we were to be back again in the dressing room getting ready. When I walked into the dressing room that was holding 20-something people and could probably only have about 7 comfortably, the mime had already started her makeup, some were in their costumes, and hairspray was in the air. Once the cast and crew were ready to go, we did some warm-ups, prayed to the theatre gods, and everybody took their places for the beginning of the show, with Olivia and I up in the lighting booth. The stage manager came up and told me I could start the show whenever I wanted....and that's when it started. The show went very well, and some actors added in small things that they hadn't before, that in my opinion, made the show better. The show ended and once Olivia and I got back down to the stage, the last riser was being hauled off, and the water that we used was being mopped up. Everybody was happy with their performance and the adjudicator had positive things to say about it. On Thursday, there was the private adjudication for our show and the other three that occured the night before. I took a notebook and pen to jot down notes as I learned many things from both our show and the others that I will put into use in the future. This Saturday I am going to see the last two shows, and then the awards are supposed to start around 10pm, with a cast karaoke party afterwards. I will miss my drama friends but hopefully our school will participate in the festival in the future, and we will all be a part of it again, or in a musical that might happen next year!