After going to UP the other day, I went back to school to check out Cris and Ems' thesis. Ahahaha, in case some of you are wondering, yes, I pulled myself out of the show. I just can't seem to get a grip of the character, plus I thought that rehearsals would conflict with my existing schedule.

Got to spend sometime in the theater before the show, standing next to Dave in front of the lighting console. There was an extra headset there, so I borrowed it and bugged the people backstage. Eika, Rie and Earl were all wearing headsets as well, so we all talked and joked around.

Because Drei had quit at the last minute (the day before, actually), they got one guy to play Tony for Act 1 and Sir Zandro for Act 3. Oh yeah, Cris took my place as Paula.

So anyway, before the show began, I saw with Wed and Arman at the front of house. While I had Arman let people in at open house, Anthony said he could hear someone talking into their lapel. Ack, it was Cris. So I rushed inside and told Dave about it, who in turn told the guy at the tech booth to mute the mics. Malamang dun mo i-turn-off because what if the actors forget to switch on their lapels before the show after switching it off, right, Dave?

The play was... so-so. Sorry, Cris and Ems. I have to be honest. Cris' acting was superb, but has this tendency to get soft at the end. Faith still kept waving her arms all about, flailing it around, indicating that she's turning into a hammy actress. The 1st Tony forgot his lines, so he kept adlibbing, in turn sort of trashing what Nick Joaquin had written. Sir Zandro as the 2nd Tony was better, but it seemed that he had a lot of tension in his body, even more than the character needed. He kept one stance almost all throughout the scene, and he kept looking at the floor.

And the lapels! Gak, I don't know who to blame (hahaha, as if this was my production), but all throughout the show, I could hear people talking backstage because the mics were still on. Isn't it a general rule for actors to keep quiet backstage during a show just in case the mics haven't been muted? And why aren't the mics muted when the actors have exited? Ayan tuloy, I can immediately tell the Cris and Faith had dropped their characters upon exiting because of side comments.

Fashion show was also OK. Because some of the clothes really came from the 40's and 70's (according to Ems), they should've warned the female models about how thin the material is, because some of the girls' underwear showed through clothes under the intense lights. They should've told them to wear slips underneath. Then there was this makeup of one girl that seemed too overdone for her complexion. She looked like she had a sunburn with that foundation, and her skin was really fair.

Ngak, stop being such a critic, Hogi.

Yesterday I had to meet with Rain to talk about new plans for the Joseph restaging. Ann, the president of Sining Tanghalan, had called the other night saying that they were pulling out of the project because the girls needed to be workshopped for an upcoming show in December. Nicco sent me a text message asking where we were, so I told him so.

The 3 of us met up in the SIO, then went to KFC to eat (hahaha, we all haven't eaten, so we decided to have a late lunch). But as we were crossing the street, I started wondering why there weren't any passing vehicles on either side of the road. Then I saw a guy with a video camera and a production crew. Ngak, when we got to the island in the middle of the street, we were told not to cross the street by one of the prod crew (that Rain happened to know from high school). Apparently, they were filming something that had to do with that Berwin (sp?) guy who did card tricks from GMA 7 with all that "Yahoo!" and stuff. Hahahaha. Anyway, when I figured out that they didn't want us to cross the street yet to make a crowd, I immediately did the opposite and walked towards McDo, hahaha. The guys they managed to capture on camera? Rain and Nicco, WAHAHAHAHAHA! I gotta see that when the clip comes out.

When we got to KFC, Nicco showed us a photo of his parents. As it turned out, he was the son of that comical Jose guy in Eat Bulaga. Hahaha, tama ba namang mag-shy away from there and then getting 15 minutes of fame with that one clip.

We were supposed to meet with Nikki as well, but she was taking too long so went back to school first. Hung around in the YFC cubicle. Then Dale appeared, asking Nicco to go with him to look for his younger sibling's course card. Ngak, good luck diving through the huge box of mixed-up course cards. Eventually I had to join them there to help because Nikki was already waiting outside school. Ngak, no sign of the course card, so we gave up.

We decided to go to Nicco's house then to watch The Best of FRIENDS. Rain found Michelle and got her to go with us, and we also got Dale to go as well.

Hung out once again in Nicco's room, watching FRIENDS and talking. We even found his old Playshop yearbook back in 2002 (when he first joined under John and Jun O's class). Hahahaha, I had 3 pictures in that darn yearbook--one with my MT1 Alabang class, 1 with the Playshop Alabang faculty (Myles, Ria, Joy, Icko, Dein, Diane and Mariam), and then another one with the faculty, project director (Tita Luna), assistant PD (Kris) and the administrative assistants (Jamie and Tinay). Aw, senti, hahaha. So for a while, when Rain and Michelle went outside for a yosi break, Nicco told Nikki and me a few stories about his Playshop experience.

When Nicco's brother went to their room to sleep, we moved to the other room. That's when we started talking about the changes we were going to make in the Joseph restaging. I sure hope we can make this show much better than the first one, that's all I have to say.