Interesting Moscow

Hi Friends!
After driving through a snow storm on our way to Moscow, Idaho our week wasn't looking to shall I say bright? The home office has been telling us TAD's that there is something about the month of February that just brings people down. I thought that was a silly notion and refused to believe it. Well, the home office was right. Sometimes life on the road can be kind of a downer. You're in a strange place, in a strange bed and sometimes feel completely alone. For me I don't know if it was the fact that I had just gotten back from an amazing time in Italy or possibly something else but that week seemed a little dreary.

Please don't get me wrong, I know I sound like a Debbie Downer but I really do love my job. I feel truly blessed to have had as many experiences as I have had all the while making new friends and influencing kids to pursue theatre. All of these factors make my job so much fun and I can't believe my contract is about to run up. I definitely want to come back on tour at some point but note to self listen to the home office and don't come during the month of February. Check.

Loretta wasn't feeling well that week so I spent a lot of time by myself exploring. We were in the basement of our Contact's mother's house. Our Contact was/is the owner of the only dance studio in Moscow. One day in my exploring I found in one of the closets in my room a bunch of dance costumes from the 80's. SCORE! It then occured to me that there were a bunch of mirrors in my room. Well that makes sense, when she lived there she had to practice and check her lines. I suddenly felt inspired and that I TOO needed to practice and check my lines. Dancing is always fun esp when you can do it like no one is watching but then again thats fun too. :)

This "theatre" was the coffee place.

One day I just kind of drove around town and stopped at this coffee shop. This was no ordinary coffee shop, this was a Christian coffee shop. How do you know Jen? Was it all the Bibles sitting on the book shelves that covered the walls or was it the Bible verses written one every surface in the room? No friends, I'm much too unobservant to make such an assumption. Haha! I asked the guy what the answer was on the whiteboard on the wall. It was a question about one of Jesus' disciples. I knew the true answer but I didn't think he would tell it to me. No I thought he would say some snide comment or a punchline to some joke but he actually told me the answer which was "faith". Caught off guard by this, I asked if this was a Christian coffee shop and while pointing out the Bibles everywhere he said, "What gave it away?".
(insert slap to forehead)
After a few minutes of talking with this guy I received a free yes FREE chia latte. YUM! February was starting to look better. :)

The school we were actually at was pretty cool but it was HUGE! The community had done some add-ons to the school and I think its one of the biggest schools we'd ever been too. I've never seen so many flights of stairs just to get to the theatre. I did notice a pretty cool painting of a dragon on one of the walls that one of the students had painted. They must've known that there was a dragon in King Arthur's Quest. haha! The picture kind of reminded me of the dragon in Sleeping Beauty. What do you think?

One day I went for a long walk around the neighborhood which was really nice but when I got back, I found out that Loretta was feeling worse. We talked to the home office and they said for Loretta to stay home from rehearsal which meant I was on my own. This is gonna sound like I'm lying but this didn't scare me one bit. I actaully looked forward to this challenge, run a 4 hour rehearsal with 60 kids all by myself? Piece of cake. I even had to run the next day's rehearsal by myself  as well as put up the set and sort costumes by myself. Not a problem.

This might sound a little arrogant but Loretta and I are soo used to this show we can do it with our eyes closed. Granted my eyes weren't closed but this challenge was actually a lot of fun for me. I can honestly say that those two rehearsals were my favorite rehearsals since I started this job. The show was MINE to run. I had so much freedom while running these rehearsals, it was like a breath of fresh air. We had found out earlier in the week that our King Arthur was really good at Celtic dancing and we talked about adding it in the show somehow. Well I did and it was hilarious I must say. The girl even brought in sheet music so the piano player could play it whenever she danced. It was so random but yet so funny! This was also Loretta's week to perform but since she still wasn't feeling well the day of the show I had to do it at the last second. See this was MY show.

If all of that didn't make Moscow interesting then this next thing did. Moscow, Idaho is the city of doppelgangers. No I'm serious. Everyone always says that you have a twin somewhere out in the world, well I'm telling you that they are all in Moscow! I started making a list of how many kids or people there reminded me of someone I knew. I think I got up to about 9. The girl playing King Arthur looked like my friend Courtney who I wrote about earlier in the Fall that was getting married. It was ridiculous how much this girl reminded me of Courtney! She even held herself and spoke like Courtney. Weird.

Our Contact (the dance lady) reminded me of two people. At the time she reminded me of this girl I went to school and did colorguard with named Brittany. However, her personality and the pictures of her (which were all over the house) in the 80's where her hair was teased and big reminded me of my other friend Courtney L. who I did shows with in college! Now Courtney L. actually has brown hair but she's worn so many blonde wigs that I don't count that minor detail. There was a bunch more but those were the two that really blew me away with their similarities.

Moscow started off a little blah but by the end it was a very interesting week. Maybe our next week in Augusta, Mt will be an interesting week too. :)
-Jen