Home Sweet Home

After three years in Chicago, and having been away for two months, it now feels like home. And I'm so happy to be here.

During the last part of summer my crew (which sadly went from 3 to 2) and I seemed to drag. I wanted to be a strong leader, but I was tired and had to force myself out of bed in the morning, as did they. Baby, the last musical at Summer Stock, was the smallest of all the casts at sixteen, with six principals. The story did call to elapse obviously over 9 months, so there were a lot of costume changes. The only pieces we really built were pregnant bellies. We did some stenciling to make punk rock jackets and school logos and lots of altering of X-large garments into Maternity. In comparison to our 10-hour-+ days on all the preceding musicals, we averaged about 5-6 hours on this one. As dress rehearsal approached I somehow felt guilty about not working more as the director and his assistant would begin rehearsal at 9am and block well past midnight.

But it turns out that it was just a low stress show compared to the others. The day before dress and opening I played two hours of tennis and went hiking for four, which left me almost unable to stress during rehearsal because I was so physically exhausted (nice trick for high-stress days). I packed up my car with half of the stuff I brought out of my studio. My new apartment in Chicago would be half the size of the one I moved out of in the spring, and I needed room for the puppet. Yes, I did indeed haul the Fruma Sarah back with me across the Canadian Border and again across the border through Detroit. She was so scary and fun, I couldn't leave her in somebodies tent Up North to grow mold and drown in snow flooding.

After tieing up loose ends with the theater company, I hit the road. Montreal was my first stop, only four hours out of town. When I arrived at my hotel, I was exhausted, I remembered how much I hated hotels, but more, how unready I was to navigate a new city. I thought it would be exciting and I would get to practice my French, but actually I developed a nasty cold, got some Pho soup to take back to my hotel room, cried, and went to sleep. All summer I had lived and worked with people who shared my interests and goals. I missed my friends in Chicago, but I never felt lonely like I thought I would. So anxious to escape Summer Stock, I forgot to plan enough time to drive 18 hours home. The day after Montreal, I drove and drove, then sat in rush hour traffic in Toronto. And then drove and drove. The best thing about the trip with Canadian radio; I got a lenghty biography of Jesse Owens in French, Canadian Olympic victory updates, and tried to decipher the quick-tongued francophone news casters.

After a short family visit in L.A., which was wonderfully relaxing, I am back in Chi-Town at full speed. My next project is for a Latin-American dance company with one of my favorite choreographers. The work references the history and diaspora of the Sephardi community. Researching has been an interesting journey back millenia. The costumes will bear references to 13Th-Century Islamic dress, but as they are for a modern dance company, are abbreviated, of course.