Summer - Part 2 - camp

Summer - Part 1

If anyone has doubts about global warming, they need only spend a summer at the Pineda Conservatory. The CDC theatre is basically a huge oven. Add the body heat of a hundred hormonal teenagers and an audience of parents and grandparents and, well, we may as well be performing on the surface of the sun. This year we’ve added a third program. Because really, after 100 kiddies you don’t even notice 10 more. We’ve thankfully also expanded our full-time staff to include several of the older children and last year’s fave guest artists, Señor Chris and Mr. Dan. And as usual, we had our share of problem children, late night set-building/painting and nasty fast food. In no particular order, here are some of my fave highlights and WTF moments of the summer.

Two words - Pineda Idol. Where else are you gonna’ hear “Part of Your World” battling it out with a Miley Cyrus tune? And then we had our awesome judges. Thank you Ms. Lori (our middle school program dance teacher) for embodying the emotionally fragile and *alleged* drug-addled histrionics of Paula Abdul. Thank you Holly Curran (former Pineda Conservatory performer and current NYU drama major) for being our sweet and supportive Randy Jackson - only hotter, thinner and whiter. And last but not least, our Simon Cowell, Don Birely (costumer, performer and friend). I knew I could count on Don to give some real criticism. I was only disappointed that he wasn’t able to get at least one kid to break down. I want tears next year! Some definite changes for next summer - a time limit, a semi-final round and bigger hair all around. Come on people, have you not seen Bon Jovi?

Two more words - Leonard Bernstein. What other demented genius would have created theatre dance music in alternating 3/4, 4/4, 5/4 and 3/2 meters? Let’s get real, though, On the Town was Bernstein’s first Broadway score. I think the bastard was playing the I’m-a-serious-composer card and may have been showing off a bit. I mean, really, Lenny needed to change the meter every other measure to propel this story (three horny sailors find three horny sluts) forward? I don’t think so.

Accompanist trauma. You can’t swing a dead cat in the city without smacking at least a dozen accompanists. But just 20 miles southwest of the Big Apple is a piano playing wasteland. How can there be no competent pianists in New Jersey? I can’t fault Mr. B (our original accompanist) for cancelling out on us. I would probably choose my honeymoon over camp as well. Tropical sand, surf and sex or the CDC theatre in July with no air conditioning? Hmmm. Our next choice, a French Julliard Grad recommended by one of our former conductors, Michael Spassov, f*cked us over big time. The night before she was supposed to rehearse with us - three days before our first performance - she cancelled with less than 24-hours notice via voicemail. Classy. Her excuse: she went to the Performing Arts Library (the day before the first rehearsal!?!?) and they didn’t have a copy of the score so she wasn’t comfortable sight-reading. This, of course, was after Frenchie declined Val’s offer to Fedex a copy of the score the previous week. Oh well, karma’s a bitch so I’m sure Frenchie’s up for some big, nasty payback. Perhaps it all worked out for the best anyway, since we ended up with the wonderful Tony Bellomy, who was able to trek out to NJ from the city, sight-read the score fabulously and play the performance with only one rehearsal.

Ice cream wars. Let me fill you in on some back-story. About a week before the first show opened, we were suffering through the heat and humidity painting set pieces in the theatre parking lot when Hamdi the ice cream man showed up in his little white truck. After buying a round of ice cream bars for the family, Juan advised Hamdi to come back during the shows if he wanted to make a guaranteed killing. No air conditioning, hot lights and a building full of sweating bodies - it’s like an ice cream man’s wet dream come true. Anyway, Hamdi took us up on the offer and by midweek was showing up like clockwork before and after the shows and at intermission.

In gratitude for the business, Hamdi graciously offered the conservatory a percentage of all sales. Our symbiotic little relationship was thriving until midweek when an orange ice cream truck showed up, complete with its crazy owner. This biyatch materialized out of nowhere (we had never seen her in the four weeks we had been at the theater) claiming this was “her street” and that Hamdi was illegally selling on her turf. The street bickering finally escalated until crazy orange truck lady called the police. Well, before you can say “Ben & Jerry,” Juan was out on the street trying to divert audience members away from the invading orange truck. On top of that, a police lady was taking down everyone’s names, Trish and Liz (one of the CDC board members who happened to be at the show) were verbally sparring with the crazy ice cream biyatch (let’s call her crictch for short) and we had a formed a human teenage barricade in an attempt to block crictch’s truck from our overheated, ice cream-buying audiences. Oh well, just another average day at Pineda Conservatory.

As it turned out, the theatre is on private property so we can sell whatever the hell we want on it. But even with the police backing us up, crictch just wouldn’t back down. After the police drove off, crictch brazenly pulled her truck up to the front of the theatre in an attempt to steal customers. Crictch should’ve quit while she was ahead. No sooner had we explained the situation to Val, she was out in the street pounding on crictch’s truck and screaming at her for ruining “a non-profit fundraiser for the children.” Life lesson number one: You should never mess with “the children.” Life lesson number two: You should never mess with Val when she’s really angry and protecting “the children.” Needless to say, crictch sped off into the night and we never heard from her again.

That’s the summer in a nutshell. I’ll have to be a more dedicated blogger next year, since there’s just too much other fun, crazy, unbelievable and just plain stupid stuff to try and remember and document now that camps over. I’m definitely looking forward to next year but happy to have a couple of weeks to breathe until our first opera starts rehearsing in the fall.