wizard of awesome

About a month ago, after months of hard work, the Adventures in Oz cast took the stage in front of a sold out crowd at the Temple Theater in Tacoma.  Holy cow, was it an incredible night.  After the first performance where the entire cast was on stage, we all watched the rest of the first act from the wings and I got choked up with pride as I watched every single performer knock it out of the park.  It was seriously one of the most fun nights of my life.  At the time we weren't sure we'd have any prospects of performing the show again, but we've heard back and will be performing the show again in Olympia on September 27th!  We're hoping to be able to perform it in Seattle as well at some point.  I'm so glad we get to perform again.  Everybody worked so hard it'd be a shame to have done only one performance. 
Meanwhile, I'm dreaming up new solo acts.  I just went to the debut show at a new monthly cabaret dinner club and got to see some of my fellow Adventures in Oz ladies do amazing solo performances.  It's a little out of my comfort zone to do a solo performance, but I'm really excited about the prospect of doing one!  I have a couple concepts buzzing around in my head for fun routines...


 

I think the performance actually might be available in DVD form someday soon.  We had a film crew shoot the whole show and I saw the unedited version the other day, so if any of you guys want to know if/when that becomes available I'll keep my ears open for more info (here's a little trailer of the show in the meantime!).
Being a fine arts student I grew up with a pretty negative opinion of all things rhinestone and glitter (the herpes of craft supplies).  I'll tell you what, though, I'm a huge fan of both now.  Bring on the sparkle.  The day of the show my whole body was covered in glitter.  My headpiece had glitter spray paint, my hair had glitter hair spray, my skin had body glitter, my eyelids had glitter, my lips had glitter, my leotard had glitter, and even my fishnets had glitter.  I don't think I've been around that much glitter in my whole life.  I don't even want to think about how much glitter I probably ingested that day.  It was awesome.  I'm pretty casual in my day-to-day life, so spending hours transforming into a glitterbomb fancy lady was amazing.  I'll probably still avoid glitter and rhinestones in my everyday life, but I'm excited for my next opportunity to spend hours glueing rhinestones to a costume.
Another unintended effect of performing as a poppy in the show is that I'm now kind of obsessed with poppies.  I bought a bouquet at the farmer's market on Tuesday mostly because it had poppies in it, and I just got this dress because it was covered in poppies (it's called the "wizard of awesome dress," so I pretty much had to).  I need to get some poppies to plant in my garden too.  Poppies everywhere!


 



top photo by ebony morris :: all other photos/willow's photography
heather schofner photography + gerry collen + lock & key photography