by Angie McMahon
This is gonna be a long one cause I haven’t had much time to write so I am gonna just try to sum up this past month.
On Oct 31 at 6pm I got the call from the Artistic Home that they were ready to give me the key. I got in the car and went right over there. I had been waiting all day for the call. When I got there the Artistic Director was waiting with a company member for a ride to come get them. I got the key, excused myself and started to hang my sign in the window:
I wasn’t even gonna wait for the body to be cold, I wasn’t gonna waist one second of marketing time. It was Halloween and I wanted drunk teens to know where we were!
The Next Day was cleaning day. The idea was we would clean everything so we weren’t gonna get dirt on top of dirt. The highlight for me was 1. I shoveled six 33 gallon garbage bins of dirt out of the basement. The walls crumble and the last folks didn’t (at least it looks like to me) shop vac on a regular basis. Also 2. I worked 13 hours straight.
Day two I again worked 13 hours straight, I felt overwhelmed by the task in front of me. I felt like there wasn’t enough I could do to get it ready. The person I had hired to be our technical advisor had to quit on us 4 days into the project because his father got very very ill. I didn’t know how we were gonna pull this off. Most of us don’t know how to build things. But I knew we would figure it out, and I would learn a lot. I did however cry for about two days. It was shortly after this I started to get sick. Really sick. I was wearing myself out so fast. I continued to work long days (all the while being yelled at by my husband and loved ones) until one day (it was a Tuesday cause I was trying to get stuff done while my daughter was in school) and I just broke. I called my husband and told him I was taking the rest of the day off. I went home with my daughter we the two of us napped till 4pm. I got up ate and sat around and did nothing. I couldn’t. My brain turned to pudding. When my husband got home I went back to sleep at about 7pm. But the next day I was fully charged. From there on out I have done more half days or only 6-8 hours. I have walked away feeling ok that this space will never be The Goodman. But it is ours. This past week the space has shaped up and it feels ready. It finally feels like home.
We got our occupancy card on Monday. I ran out and framed it. It hangs on the wall.
I am a bit scatter brained today cause I worked a long day yesterday and hurt my knee. So today I am trying to take it a bit easier today. Focus on the holdiay show that opens next week.
Big projects in the space I feel like a helped make a big dent in. (I don’t want to make it sound like I’m the only person working. Trust me many are pulling long hours like me as well. We are all just too pudding brain to put blogs together right now)
1. I did the carpet wall (thanks Dennis for the help huge, huge job) for sound proofing
2. Faced the window box and stained it (it has since been painted over three times)
3. Made the window display boxes and painted them
4. hung the lobby curtain (if anyone sews let me know right now it is pinned together is a very half ass way)
5. patched BIG holes in stage wall, sanded and painted it
6. Decopge (sp?) the bathroom
7. Scrape and striped and sanded the bathroom door (and stained it went a little stain crazy one day, it has since been re stained red looks awsome BTW thumbs up to farrell for the red stain)
8. painted the kitchen area brown (with lots of help from Auggie)
9. Hung mirrors in Kitchen (lots of mirrors) and new counter top with Anthony
10. Painted floor and green wall in Green room
Those were my biggest projects and I had lots of help with each of them (except facing the window box I did that all by myself thank you very much)
I feel good, tired, and excited. Got the call today that Zoning approved us for the PAV so we gear up for the big inspection day soon. My appointment to pay is on Monday.
So my last show at Cornservatory was on Saturday. I was bouncing off the walls so excited. I didn’t think I would be that excited! Then at the end of the night on stage next to Robert Bucemi saying goodbye to the audience I really did start to cry. Not sure why; happy, sad, exhausted, not sure. Just one tear, just before some drunk bitch started to heckle me. Then I snapped out of it.
I am looking forward to Friday, and sleep.
