Tall Englishman comes today with Linds-a-lou!!!

Lovelies - the Tall Englishman is flying back from his boys week at St. Martin in the Caribbean today!  Then he's picking up my girlfriend Linds-a-lou and they're both coming to Central P.A. to be with me for my birthday weekend! 

Oh, did I forget to mention that??  Yeah, I'm gonna be 29 on this coming Monday - June 21st! 

The Tall Englishman, Linds-a-lou and all the kids at the Pole of Totems Playhouse are coming to my birthday party on Monday night!  It's an awesome 80's themed Birthday at the Bowling Alley! 

I love that!  And I'm going to dress up in my finest 1980's gear - side pony tail and all!  It's gonna rock!  (and be even better since my lovely friends are going to be there!  Hooray!)

It's made me think of all those 1980's TV shows I loved... Different Strokes, The Facts of Life, Family Ties, and of course.. who can forget... Designing Women.  Keepin' it classy Annie Potts.  Keepin' it classy.

Adventures in Pennsylvania..

Lovelies,  I'm horrible!  I've been here in Pennsylvania for nearly a month and I've only written one blog post: tsk.. tsk...

Well the main reason for writing only one post is that I've been in rehearsals during the day and shows at night for the past 2 weeks!  "Sisters of Swing" opened at The Pole of Totems Theatre on May 29th to lovely reviews.  It was so great to sing and work with  my two new "sisters" (although I did miss my old "sisters" fiercely...). 

So my typical day was as follows:

- Get up at 9am
- Get to the theatre by 10am
- Rehearse from 10 am - 3pm  for the play "45 Seconds from Broadway"
- Go home and nap and/or shower
- Eat dinner or go and get dinner
- Leave for the theatre at 6:30
- Do hair/ make up/ sound check from 6:30 to 8pm
- Show from 8 to 10:30 pm
- Get home at 11-ish.
- Read/ Watch TV/ Catch up on e-mails until midnight.
- Go to sleep between midnight and 1am.

And do it all again the next day!

I've never done summer stock before, where you rehearse for one show while you doing another.  And let me tell you lovelies - IT'S HARD.  Really hard.  But it's worth it.  And I'm grateful that I had a smaller part in 45 Seconds, as I was one of the leads of Sisters and it would've been difficult to have leads in both shows....

Here's what I look like in 45 seconds - we're going from Upper West Side theatre lady...

My body was not happy that I wasn't getting as much sleep as I should have been, but I made it though and now I can try and get over my little summer cold!  But I'm able to sleep in every morning now, and my schedule is much less grueling... which is fun for the days when we only have one show!  Then we can do awesome outings, like go to Gettysburg for the day or visit the Round Barn here in Central Pennsylvania...

I love my job.

Engaged!!!

Lovelies - it's been a while since the Tall Englishman popped the question, but I'm still thrilled that he popped it, nonetheless!

It was the most beautiful, romantic, fun, perfect moment!  One of the happiest days in my life so far, although everyday with the Tall Englishman is one of the happiest days in my life! 

We went on a night time beach walk after one of my shows and as we were walking along the beach we were talking about life, love and how fortunate we were to find each other when we did!  Then he hugged me and the hug took a little longer than I usual.  Then he got down on his knee in the moonlight and proposed to me!  It was the most sweet, thoughtful proposal any girl could ask for! 

I started saying "YES, YES, YES!" even before he got the last part of the sentence out - but I could barely breathe!  It was like someone had knocked the wind out of me!  But in the best way possible!  Then I hugged and kissed the Englishman.  As soon as he put me down (when we hug I come off the ground sometimes) I decided that we were a team and I proposed to HIM!  Got down on my knee and everything!  It was pretty cute - and he said "Yes! I wiggedy will marry you!" 

And HOLY MOTHER OF JEEBUS - the RING!!!  My engagement ring is a whopping 4.8 karats of aquamarine loveliness with about 1 karats worth of diamonds surrounding it!  It's on a beautiful white gold band and I just love it!  It looks antique-y without actually being an antique.

After we went to Bobby's (this little bar on the beach) and had a bottle of bubbly with the crew and band members of Riverside Theatre who just happened to still be out partying!  It was great to share our good news with my co workers right away!  Then we went home, loaded facebook full of awesome engagement pictures and told Sissy S (who was my roomie down in Vero) our good news!

Hooray lovelies!  I can't wait to spend the rest of my life with the Talll Englishman... 

Opening weekend AND Disney World!!!

Lovelies!  I had the best opening weekend of Sisters of Swing!  The Tall Englishman came and gave me the most lovely flowers!  See!

And he came to every evening show that I had opening weekend- on Thursday, Friday AND Saturday!  What a GUY!!! 

During the days we went to the beach, sat and had a mid-afternoon cocktail and went to the awesome ice cream store Cravings in Vero Beach!  I loved it!  Here's some beach play time pics:

Here's a pic of the awesome strawberry ice cream AND the pink piggy sprinkles that I got!

And then we went to Disney World, lovelies!  It was truly magical as it was the tall Englishman's first time there!  Well, I love a good trip to Disney, not gonna lie!  Plus I got to see my friends Lo and Chris who live in Orlando and work at Disney in the entertainment area there!  Such a fun time!  And we stayed at the Port Orleans resort the night before we went to the park!  Was great - we had an excellent dinner in Downtown Disney at the resturaunt Bongos and then headed off to Port Orleans - Riverside. 

Oh, and I may have looked for some shoes online... Manolos...  Can I justify that my wedding "something blue" shoes will be more expensive than my wedding dress??

Preview night tonight!!!

Lovelies - it's Preview night of Sisters of Swing tonight!  I'm so excited!  Last night we did a full dress rehearsal and it was fantastic!  I really loved being back doing the show with Sissy S. and Sissy P.  They are both such fun to play with onstage!  And the folks here at Riverside theatre are just so wonderful!  Such kind, helpful and positive people in the tech area and also in the administration!  I'm so lucky to be working here!

I do miss New York, though.  I miss seeing the Englishman everyday and I am THRILLED that he is coming down to Vero Beach TOMORROW! 

Today I couldn't sleep in, so I went to the little hot tub in our condo complex- and Sissy P. was there!  We had a nice chat and the I came home, took a shower and got ready for the day! 

Then I did a target run and got all sorts of fun things to put in a beach bucket for the Tall Englishman!  I just wanted to have some fun stuff for him to play with - beach toys, some snacks, a couple beach balls and some gum and his favorite gum and soap! 

And tomorrow at this time he'll be here!  I can't wait to hug him!  And it will be opening night tomorrow!  I hope we get as good of reviews as we got in Minnesota... but I hope even more that that audiences will like the show as much as we enjoy performing the show!

Fancy dinners and long rehearsals!

Lovelies, we had the fancy tech dinner on Saturday night at a lovely couples home in beautiful Vero Beach.  The entire cast & crew was invited, as well as the production staff.  And lovelies - it was BEAUTIFUL!!!  This was the view from their second story of their 5,000 square foot home:

And they were just sweet as pie - the Mrs. was such a gracious hostess!  The theatre is lucky to have them as patrons & board members! 

The tech rehearsal ran smoothly on Saturday as well  - we took some silly pics in our costumes!  Here's my "Mama Rose" pic a la Gypsy. 

We also had a great day at the beach and the pool at our little villa on Sunday (our much needed day off!)  I love that I get to work in PARADISE!   We piled in the car and went to South Beach  - of Vero Beach, lovelies.  Not south beach in Miami...  but maybe on a future day off we'll do South Beach in Miami!

Here's the view into our courtyard at our little villa!  I love living with Sissy S.  She's really quite cool and easy to get along with!  I can't believe that we open the show in TWO DAYS!  AND the Tall Englishman will be there for OPENING NIGHT!!!  I miss him so much, lovelies....  I can't wait to see him!

Tech, Tech, Tech...

Lovelies, it's that time again - Tech time.  For those of you theatre lovin' folk, Tech is the time when the lights, sound and costumes are all set up for the show - and the actors have to walk through the whole show while they figure out the right combo of lights, sound cues, etc to make the show perfect.  It's called Cue-To-Cue and it takes a full 10 hours with a 2 hour dinner break - add that and it's 12 hours all together.  I wish we were doing a 10am to 10pm, but here in florida they do a 12am to 12pm.  Which adds up for a LONG day.  Especially when they do it two days in a row. 

I remember doing the cue-to-cue at the Guthrie and being so SO excited about it.  And also in college, and even during my first few professional shows - because this is the time when the show truly comes together.  But I hear so many people hemming and hawing about Tech that it has seeped into my blood and now, like most actors, I scowl a little when I hear that word. 

BUT that said - we had a pertty smooth tech yesterday and it was actually a little enjoyable!  Today we're back at it again and tonight we get to go a a board memeber's house for a home cooked Tech dinner!  (so nice of the theatre to do that for us!  Will be great!) 

My body has decided to wake me up at 8am, so I'm going to try and go back to bed, lovelies.  Hopefully I can sleep until 11 or so before we have another long and productive 12 hour rehearsal.

On, a happy note - check out this awesome pic Sissy S. took of me at the beach yesterday!  After seeing this I didn't feel quite so bad about gaining 10 lbs. since January....  Le sigh.  On another happy note - the englishman is coming to see me in a mere 6 days!  Hooray!