Merry Widow is finally over and I can start getting six hours of sleep a night instead of four. Yeah! Performances were well-received and the houses, though not sold out, were full. Our Widow, Christina Rohm, pretty much kicked everyone’s ass on the stage. She sang gorgeously and was the only one of the “professional” singers that gave a full, sincere character portrayal. Not that I’m dumping on the other leads, but she was the only one who seemed to back up an over-the-top comedic performance with real emotional honesty - not an easy task given our admittedly skimpy rehearsal schedule. Carmen’s coming up in four months and already the phone’s ringing like crazy for tickets. What’s up with that? I guess sex and murder really do speak to the American public, at least in NJ. Hmmm, what does that say about Jersey?

Driving back from High School Musical rehearsal last night, I realized that my commute back and forth to the theatre was nearly equal to the length of the actual rehearsal time. I thought to myself, “Am I just a dedicated artist, committed to enriching our young people through the arts, or just plain stupid?” And no need to comment, it was rhetorical. I know what most of you jaded biyatches are going to say anyway.

Speaking of HSM, it’s hard to believe that we’ve been rehearsing for nearly 3 months and we’re still behind with staging and music. Who would have thought that a ninety-minute piece of substandard (though I have to admit there are some insanely catchy tunes) music theatre could take so long to get on its feet? We still have a couple of weeks, so I’m staying positive.

I know my last couple of blog entries have been bitch and moan sessions, but my schedule does lighten up a little - very little - now that Widow’s dead and buried. But now comes the dreaded (cue ominous underscoring) Holiday Season!! Eeeeeek!!! Sitting at the Outback Steakhouse Sunday night (yeah, classy, I know) after we - meaning the Pineda’s and a handful of loyal opera company folk (thanks Glasser-Bakers, Loves and Chris Grimm) - struck the Widow set, we heard the familiar jingle of sleigh bells and a sickly-sweet, generic soprano start singing, “…have yourself a merry little etc.…” I threw up a little in my mouth. And bloomin’ onion does not go down well the second time. I mean, really?! It’s the first week of November! Can we at least get through the horror of Thanksgiving first? I ended up getting pounded with Holiday Spirit the next night, too, having been stuck running a rehearsal for the Caroling company I’ve worked with for the past several years. Nothing like two hours of non-stop a capella Christmas Caroling to bring out the Scrooge in you.

Anyway, a busy week continues with weekend HSM rehearsals and a list of shows we (the Pineda's!) must go see. And I don’t mean the NYC variety (although Trish and I are seeing What’s That Smell tonight), but the do-your-penance variety. One necessary evil of having so many talented students spread out over many different schools is that you can’t discriminate as to which productions you’re going to see. If you make it to one school’s production, you have to at least make an effort to go to see all the other ones. Of course, it doesn’t help that schools seem to schedule all their shows on the same two weekends! So it looks like it’ll be Museum at Westfield High on Saturday and Forum at Somerset County on Sunday afternoon. Peace out, homies.