So remember how I was complaining about my director and that other Backstage girl? Well a lot has happened since then.

Lemme start from whenever.

Backstage girl became and extra, the two people I recruited because we needed people backed out so we got two middle schoolers....

One was from last year and she is not the best person to have working with you, but she's a sweet kid. She started getting sick a lot, but it was because she wasn't taking the best care of herself. She wasn't picking up on what she needed to do.

Then we had this one boy who you should never give matches. Let's just say he explained multiple ways to make explosive to me... he was amazing and was only is sixth grade.

But our director... I wanted to murder her with a spiked brick... and during marching band season she helps out, during that time those spikes are poisoned. She's not a good director and was forcing the lead to sing in a higher octave than he actually can. She's impatient too and he idiocy lead to there being a paint spillage Backstage (more on that later.).

We get a girl on lighting who's a senior that what really annoying and.... not her fault fully but she didn't understand that the other girl didn't know her lighting ques yet and asked me a question whenever she got her que but the other girl didn't.

The other girl is this sweet foreign exchange student from Taiwan. She's really nice and Wolf is rather proud that she taught her how to do a first bump.

To top that off Backstage we had a mother and her son who didn't understand what e quite means... he dragged something across stage show night.........

So we managed to break a prop. The crew, not something you'd think about us doing. It was a really unstable archway NHS uses and we had some canes attached to it for the North Pole.

When I say unstable... I mean wobbly and really hard to move. So.... we'll call my good friend Callie so her real name isn't giving out (she's my unofficial stage manager) and I need to put some carpet pads of the bottom of the arch... while we were trying to set the prop down, it falls... Wolf in the middle of it and one of the candy canes on it shatters.

But I got to do a little bit of demolition...

This is the dreaded door!

It was in two shows and we couldn't fit it anywhere Backstage for this one. So we get permission to store it in the band room. Problem is we need to get it off Stage.

The door was too heavy to be carried down the stairs, and we tried multiple was to get it off Stage. The Janitors refused to help us at it down so we got permission to take it apart.

We head down to the tech teachers room and we get two drills. Next thing you know you see me in my marching band sweatshirt, and Callie is an old show shirt walking up the hall, past the band room and cafeteria, up the ramp and walking through the side entrance into the auditorium holding drills and looking like utter badasses.

So glad the principal didn't see us... or hear the drilling in the auditorium... or us jumping for joy when we were done...

That's Callie.

The door is now entombed under the Stage with the paint cans. It ''twas a joyous day indeed.

The actors when then later need our mug that we kept the screws in after they broke the one they needed for the show. So we now keep the screws in a sparkling gold hat, for emergency use.

So we're getting closer to the show, and stuff isn't going well. We got our people three weeks before, and that was hard. They ended up getting special recognition for being "last minuet heroes" on show night.

Meanwhile last year two girls came in, a girl who used to work Crew (and made up for the poor girl who returned this year) and the second night after the girl had gotten sick, a girl who had painted sets and was doing that while we were learning where everything went Care in and was amazing.

These two kids this year came in around normal Crew time.

They do deserve credit, but it's a little disheartening when you do all this work and are there early, and two people who we had to mentor and develop friendships with get all this special recognition when they weren't really last minuet heroes.

Those two girls last year were, they came in on Hell Week and a Show Night.

I really hope that, that didn't sound bitter and jealous... but Lawton was busy getting pissy with her crew and she had us there a week after the actors, which is super early for us. We were slightly spoken down too when we got there because she told a sixth grader to be there the day ty started and this girl knew things, and here we are, experienced Crew having to hear from the director about where stuff goes and not this girl.

The girl helped us a lot even after she became an extra. The show and the lighting start making her feel sick all with some stress. She asked some time off and her mother was emailing our director. Just about the stress. Our director lied to us about the contents of the message and told us this girls mother had said it was the fact that she was also helping out Backstage that contributed to this and she was now banned from doing so.

The girl corrects us, her mother never said anything like that. The Director took it like that and twisted it.

Our sound girl, it was her first day and there was a lot of loud squeaks from the mics, I hear our Director say (just loud enough for the people on stage to hear her, but not at the back) that she didn't know what she was doing. There was some wonky stuff going on and she was trying to get used to the actors and how high and low they needed to be, and the kid playing Buddy was struggling to stay in this octave he was supposed to sing in and this girl had to work with that.

For a certain scene we needed a Christmas tree to light up at an exact moment we couldn't see. We would be seen if we were on stage, well the exchange student would have, and she couldn't see behind or under the curtain to get this right. After the first tries or Director is starting to eat a little frustrated and didn't understand that things like this take time.

I wouldn't be surprised if she muttered shut about s behind our backs too.

I don't care if you're a theater major and worked with kids in Nashville. That doesn't make you automatically a good director.

I don't care if you traveled for a show or two.

And her assistant director, it always seemed like she didn't want to be there and it was painful for her to be there. Everything about her was fake and obvious that is was all fake. Our director at least tried to let the kids have fun (something redeeming about her), and this one really didn't do anything.

She even scolded Callie for wearing her show shirt show night because it was white.

It's tradition to do this for us, and last year our shirts were white, and we didn't get yelled at. She didn't tell us that this was going to be the case.

I should probably talk about some funny things now. But I really needed to get this off my chest. She pulled a lot more shit that she should have and the kids didn't even trust her to help put drama to rest Backstage... us Crew had to help calm the entire situation down with something that had happened in the middle school.

Some people just aren't good people....

But back to the funny stories... I whipped my self in the face with an extension cord on accident.

So in front of the curtain we have this group of trees and a red light up thing which Callie and I spent wwwaaaayyyyy too much time fixing. This is all on stage left. (When you're facing the audience this side is to your left. I still get confused with the directions...) The only plug in is all the way behind the back curtain where we plug and unplug the Christmas tree. So Callie and I get a long extension cord from the janitors to use.

We pretty much have all the lights plugged in, but the issue is we need to bring it all the way Backstage and find a way for the actors to not trip on it.

We have a bunch of wood and old flats leaning up against the stage wall, so we attempt to fish it through. It does not go well.

So I get this Brillent idea to toss the extension cord through the gap in between the wall and the wood. Okay.... not so bad.

I toss the extension cord and it flies backwards.... hitting me in the face...

Callie laughed, Annoying Senior laughed, Exchange Student laughed... I was in shock.

It was kinda painful... then again not as painful as being hit in the face with a soccer going at high speed and it sends your glasses flying across the floor....

It worked the third time because the second time it didn't go through long enough.

But now for the icing on the cake... what gave the chapter it's name...

THE TREE BLUNDER

Its show night, and none of us think the actors are ready. The show is being dedicated to the old director at our school who died very recently and his family was coming to see the show opening night.

Everything is going smoothly. No mistakes... unless you count the little kid running across the stage just as the curtain opens when he could have easily walked behind the back curtain... which you're supposed to do.

So I need to walk out in front of the curtain and place a bench down for a scene where Buddy talks with the Macy's (not Gimbles) Manager.

So here I am trying to go in front of the curtain holding this giant bench. I have to shimmy against the wall... and as I go out I accidentally slam the bench into the trees standing in front of the curtain... and one of my good friend and D&D players accidentally turns the lights on just as t happens...

In front of all of all of the auditorium...

And instead of being a good quiet Ninja... Wolfs response was, "Oh God..." at a decent volume.

So the lighting guy turns off the lights and Callie quickly rushes out and helps me quickly set up the trees and put the candy cane ornaments back on them.

When she goes to take the bench off I hold the curtain open for her and every thing goes smoothly.

We laughed out asses off as quietly as possible and continued on for another brief two scenes before Callie opens the curtain for Walters Office... we had set the trees up wrong and as the curtain opened... and the trees fell over.

We could do absolutely nothing for the rest of the show (thank god there wasn't a lot left).

Yup, I was the one who messed up......

The Middle School Band teacher was in the crowd and first period Monday when I was in band he made a joke about it, and one of my friends who was in the crowd with her mother felt so bad and we ended up talking about it in art.

Oh! I never told you about the paint!

So our director painted the backgrounds on the flats herself. She used the town flats from Cinderella and turned them into the North Pole and made some really simple New York ones with blue and white paint.

Well she stores the dark blue paint upside down... a day before the  show the paint finally spills everywhere back Stage. She didn't actually admit the fact that she was the last one to use the paint and was a little pissy, and was more concerned about the couch we were borrowing than anything else.

It got on my lunch pail, it got on an old bench prop, and our tech teacher had to clean it up.

But to add more insult to injury (because we were the ones who kinda got scolded. We're Backstage. I didn't even seen the initial spill because I was running around trying to find a bathroom that was open, but that can was upside down and we never even touched it. So Crew kinda took a bit of blame at first. The tech teacher wasn't angry though.) the Director scolds is for not telling her that we had a beach prop back there... that's underneath the clothing rack.

We never really thought about it and on occasion would put some stuff on it.

She went on about how we need to think about these things and use what we have... and we already had a bench back she was using.

We didn't think about it because it was never really mentioned. We temporarily used it as a couch in the Hobbs House and would drag it up in front of the curtain and back for a scene.

We were told that we were going to get a couch and didn't worry.

She was scolding us because we didn't tell her. It was almost like we were the bad guys in a situation we had not idea why we were even in it.

You gotta tell us exactly what you want. And then you have to accept if we don't have it.

Dear Miss. Director,

Your show was a mess and ultimately a disgrace. You treated us like shit. The High School Director would have vomited.

You may have your own way of doing things, I get that. But you should inform us more clearly, don't get bitchy with us when we try, and frankly this show was terrible.

A donkey could have done this better.

I'm sorry if I complained a lot. But I needed to get a lot of this off my chest. It doesn't help when my parents (mainly my father) tell me that even if an adult doesn't deserve respect, you just need to keep your mouth shut and eat shit...

This was a really hard show to do because we were always stressed. I remember a particularly bad day after practice and my mother was in a bitchy mood because she had just gotten back from a writers conference in Vermont. She didn't realize how stressed I had become, and I just burst into tears. 

That's rare for me. So you know it's bad.

She pulled over in the car and just hugged and hugged me. We went into Byrne Dairy, got what we needed along with an orange soda for each of us and we had a nice relaxing night.

I like to at least give the director some credit. She wanted to make something special for this one guy... but she didn't have the patience. I sometimes wonder if sometimes she don't realize what she was doing... and there were probably times when she did.

I love working back Stage, but this was hard. We would defiantly sneak eat Backstage. For me it was a little act of rebellion (even though I was terrified of getting in trouble).

It's been really good not having to stay at the school until five every night. Have my dad scold me if I didn't do my homework because I was doing my job and fixing something.

We still had our fun but we had our stress.

I've had since the start of November with no show. It's been lovely.

Yesterday in art we had a sub and this one kid could throw cards. So a senior (the card thrower was a sophomore) got a piece of black paper and set it up. We watched this kid throw cards and the cut straight throw the paper.

The entire class has a little secret because we refuse to tell our actual teacher. And we were just doing busy work.

I got back to playing D&D with a new campaign. I've been able to go home early and enjoy full meeting of art club.

I have more time to practice my clarinet.

I still see the Director first periods in band before she leaves for the Elementary school. She smiles, and to me the show is a distant memory.

The High School Director is supposed to be doing Shakespeare this year and that'll be fun to be Crew for.

Hopefully next year our old director returns with his goofy comedies.

Here's my cat.

Once again sorry for just complaining. Some people have it worse, but when you need to get something off your chest, sometimes you just need to do it.

There's a reason I never really rant here, and it's because I've always been afraid that someone will say, some people have it worse.

That is the truth. But when people need to get something off their chest, you never say that.

Now I'm going to have a nice relaxing day. Bake some Biscotti and I'm making Dinner again tonight. Homemade Mac and cheese.

When I got the idea in the store mother mentioned the box kind... which I turned down.

So, ummm.... bye?