Last Wednesday, I went to my first college fair. As a member of the Alumni Recruitment Committee for two years, I've conducted informational interviews with prospective students who have already applied to my alma mater, but this was my first time at a college fair. I was not having a very good day. I'd not had enough caffeine, so I had a little headache, and I didn't get dinner because I came straight from work. I also didn't really know where I was going. I had directions from the interwebs, but didn't know where to park (with my special "college rep" parking pass) when I arrived. I was able to find the school easily because it was enormous, and I turned into the parking lot in the front, figuring I could ask the police officer there which way to go. In my haste, I completely didn't see that his car was blocking the inward lane, so when I pulled in (making extra sure no one was crossing the street or anywhere close to driving out the out lane), I drove left around his car. He asked me to pull over and show my license (which at the time I thought was a security checkpoint for the college fair--I didn't know!), and it wasn't until he said, "You don't get it do you?" that I figured out what he was talking about. Thankfully, he didn't ticket me, but he was very rude. He insulted my intelligence, insinuated that I didn't actually have a license. When I told him I was representing my college at the fair, he asked, "You don't teach Drivers Ed, do you?" In retrospect, I can see I made a mistake, and once I realized that, I apologized, but this man laid into me about how someone could have been killed because I drove on the wrong side of the road. And I understand that it being a college fair, he probably had been dealing with 16- and 17-year-old drivers and took it out on me. But had he bothered to ask, he would have found that I have a pristine driving record, that I got 100% correct on the test when I got my IL license, and that I am more than aware of poor driving choices leading to death. So that encounter, after a rushed day and a headache, and then I had to find a parking spot in the neighborhood, and carry my heavy bag of brochures across the street and be a friendly representative of UR. Luckily, the fair itself wasn't bad.
On Friday, I went to see Kristen Bell's new movie Forgetting Sarah Marshall with my friends Kim, Lauren, Derrick, Neil, and Lisa. And afterward, we went out for dinner and I had red beans and rice which reminded me of Jack and the Ragin Cajun. Sigh.
Yesterday was my last day working on The Ballad of Emmett Till. They start tech tomorrow, and will have enough people on crew to move all the furniture I've been hauling in the rehearsal room. As always, I'm sad to see the end, but in this case, I can stop by tech this week or previews next week, and I've signed up for tickets for opening night, so not only will I get to see everyone again, I will actually get to sit in the audience and watch a show I worked on. I've never been able to do that before. I'm also really thankful for the experience of working at the Goodman, even for such a brief time. I was able to see how the stage managers work in the room, and how they pack up to move downstairs for tech (similar but different to the way Pablo does at ATL). I didn't see very much of their paperwork because there wasn't a need, but what I did see was interesting.
Working on this show has been emotionally trying. If you google Emmett Till, you'll find out why (if you don't already know). On Thursday, the playwright had arranged for Emmett's cousin Wheeler (who was there when Till was abducted), and a woman named Heluise (who is only talked about by Emmett in the play and who still has a letter Emmett wrote her in 1955) to join the company for lunch, and even though I'm not as emotionally invested in the story, it was still incredible to hear real people talking about a boy we've put onstage who hasn't been around in 53 years. In general, the atmosphere in the rehearsal room has been remarkably light, considering the subject matter, and the cast all get along and chatter in a friendly way, but in the run yesterday, the director asked them all to focus because it would be their last run-thru before tech, and also to give the designers a better feel for the play. It was hard. One of the white members in the cast broke down after the scene in the shed, and 4 other cast members rushed to his side. There is such a wonderful sense of family among this cast, and I'm sad to leave that, but glad it's there because they are going to need to lean on each other to get through the run of this show. That's not to say the whole show is sad, there are some tremendously funny parts. I can't wait to see it on opening.
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