Hectic Weekend

Last weekend was a hectic one, and I haven't really gotten over it. Hence, to be real honest, I'm actually not in the mood to blog anything now. However, since some people want to read more about our performance last Saturday, I've decided to write a little...

Last Saturday we performed "Bloodshed In The Imperial Palace" at Chong Pang Community Club. We had actually planned to stage this show in March, but due to some unforeseen circumstances, this performance had been postponed and delayed numerous times. This is the first show (but second run) in which I was totally in charged of designing the stage set, as well as making the required stage scenes. However, due to my other troupe commitments, I had no time to help move props into the performance venue, and nothing was setup on stage, even until Friday night, the eve of the performance. My troupe leader was angry with me for not informing anyone about my stage set designs and ideas, but the fact is nobody bother to ask me what I need for the stage, when it was already officially known that I'm in charged of designing the stage. I did not want to argue, so I suggest to go to the community club earlier so that I could do last minute rigging. Luckily some other members helped me with some of the bulky props, or else I could never finish setting up the stage, let only finish my makeup!

The show was quite a success, I would say, although I was not too happy with my performance. I had a bad headache due to the tight "water sash" which I had secured around my head. Well, I believe you have to pay a price if you want to look good on stage, and I thought that was one of my best stage portrayal so far. Too bad I did not have time to take any photograph of me in makeup and costume then!

Our show ended at around 11pm, and we were ordered to go back to Konghuay to help unpack our stuffs. On the bus, everyone was back to their nonsense again, as you can see below:

Juan forcing Art to put on a "dan" wig; Art said that she'd never do that even for $2000!

Amai doing a chocolate commercial

If you think that's all for the weekend, you're wrong! For some of us, we had to reach Konghuay by 11am the following day to rehearse for our Heritage Board performance this coming Sunday. The rehearsal was supposed to be from 11am to 1pm, but it was one of the most unsuccessful rehearsals I've ever attended, as we were interrupted multiple times because of nitty gritty things. I was very fed-up, as it was a completely waste of time. I am in charged of making the MIDI sing-along demo for this show, and it was still far from being complete. Yet, some people jsut don't seemed a bit bothered at not being able to syncronise their actions to my music.


"Mai" In Blue

My controversial portrayal in "Coutesan Yu Tang Chun"

Rehearsal for Heritage Board's programme was just one of the activities in the Konghuay for yesterday. In the afternoon, we were scheduled to have a photoshoot for our latest show "Courtesan Yu Tang Chun". This show has been revamped from the traditional Hokkien opera of the same title, and we'll be bringing this show to Taiwan to perform, our second trip since 1990. I personally do not like photoshoots because they can be very tiring, especially if taken in a big group. Sometimes, making up alone can drain me of all energy already! But then again, we try to lighten our spirits by having a little fun among ourselves.

The photoshoot took too much time, and it ate into our rehearsal time, which was supposed to start at 7.30pm. Yesterday night, we were originally scheduled to run through the whole of "Courtesan Yu Tang Chun", but we ended up only rehearsing the prologue and scene three of the show. These 2 scenes had been rewritten to incorporate some dance, and is one of the highlights to the latest rendition of this show. This is how one of the dance segments is supposed looked like:

And this is what happened during one of the "trial runs" of the same dance!