#little mermaid vagueblogging 2k19

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

- day one of hell week for little mermaid

- this is the 4th-7th grade group, and usually they’re pretty good but mostly sell on cuteness alone, so I went in expecting like. a moderately successful rehearsal 

- oh boy

- a mess(tm)

- they ran the opening number literally 20 times because no body...fucking...knew it

- the dialogue, the lyrics, the blocking, the choreography...nothing. help.

- at one point they were asked to ‘raise your hands if you know all the words’ so of course every kid raises their hands bc they don’t wanna look bad and then the assistant director yelled ‘PROVE IT!!!’ lmao

- Triton’s costume is....beyond iconic but the wig was making the poor kid nauseous so he took it off halfway through

- but guys I need you to understand he’s walking around in a very sharp suit that is absolutely covered in sequins and glitter and the coattails in the back merge into a fish tail. I was loosing my mind when he came out asjdfsakjksja

- for some reason the girl playing Ariel isn’t allowed to do her own ‘aaaah aaaah Aaaahs!’ ???? Idk why but the girl doing it offstage missed every single cue presented to her lol

- why is Eric SHOUTING ALL THE TIME

- how can Scuttle possibly fly when she’s already busy carrying the entire goddamn show

- they ran Under The Sea like 10 times but! solid number! thank God

- lmao whenever the Angry Triton sound effect went off my absolutely useless percy jackson trash brain would just go ‘tHE GODS ARE REAL! LIKE THE GRE-’ lmao

- first day and already a mic has been irreparably broken! woohoo! that’s totally not an omen! :^)

- please tell me why she’s making this poor 11 year old white boy do a Jamaican accent. please

- oh my God so. the tail situation right. normally when I see pictures from stage shows of little mermaids they just have long skirts! makes sense! and the mergirls DO have long skirts here but like...they attached a wristlet to the end of the tails, so when they move their arms it looks like the tail is swishing, cute, okay- except then...their legs become Glaringly Visible lmao

- the scene after Ariel saved Eric and she’s supposed to be in the surf while he’s on a rock or whatever, when his crew comes and she has to split she literally fucking....stepped over him to get back in the water and her legs were clear view I was screaming 

- tell me why one of the better singers in the cast is playing Grimsby 

- the wigs are all....really good? where am I?

- Ursula...iconic

- although...doesn’t she have a song in the beginning of act two? did they cut that? did I imagine that? what’s happening

- the piano kept. not working.

- it wasn’t even the piano’s mic like he would just hit the keys and there wouldn’t be any sound even though it was all set up! fun!

- when I entered the building I heard a chorus of panicked children screaming ‘ROLLER SKATES?!?!?!’ so. guess the seagulls aren’t up for that idea lmao

- also omg the poor kids playing jellyfish are literally just holding clear umbrellas...like that’s the whole costume sjdfjgjdf

- the girls playing the eels have been decked out in purple and green Christmas lights, and their makeup looks awesome...tony awards I need to make a nomination 

- the guy who does the lights,,,,just literally did not show up. hello.

- but uh overall? they got a lot farther into the show than sunday rehearsals usually do so yay!!! hopefully it all comes together by opening night!! (but they always sell out anyway so they’ll be fine lol)

- stay positoovity

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

- the last rehearsal actually went mostly well!

- the lights guy just....didn’t show up. and when the director went to call him his number had mysteriously been deleted from her phone. so, that happened.

- but even tho half the show was run in darkness the kids pulled thru!!

- Ursula broke her leg omfg

- they had to re-work a lot of blocking for her crutches but she’s still great!!! when she came out in her first scene she threw in a line like ‘when they chased me out of the kingdom I lost a tentacle!’ or something and then proceeded to crack herself up about that line for a full minute lmao

- the mic switches got....worse, somehow. fun

- oooooh my God one girl just fucking left in the middle of rehearsal and instead of returning her mic she just left it in her bag so we had to panic and search the dressing room it was a whole situation

- Flounder’s mic was STILL glitching and STILL giving me in the heights flashbacks and there’s uh! nothing we can really do! so we took it off her and gave it to the kid playing Carlotta, which isn’t fair to that girl at all but she doesn’t have a big song!!! ugh!!!

- screaming cause apparently the teen interns(tm) complained that the kids were being rude to them but from where like everyone else is standing the kids are fairly polite and trying their best while the interns wont’s stop chatting and gossiping and standing in everyone’s way the whole time

- they got a new dress for Ariel when Triton turns her human and it looks almost EXACTLY like the one in the movie, I wanted to cry- you know the sparkly one?? I’m obsessed with it

- poor Ariel is STILL reminding everyone of their lines omg

- Flounder accidentally yelled ‘you BITCH’ instead of ‘you WITCH’ lmao

- cell block tango was blaring from the boys dressing room every time I went backstage

- so many of these costumes are like. leotards connected to dresses or shirts for no clear reason. do you know how hard that makes my life

- had it explained to me why and how I need to express more slytherin pride

- going backstage is truly a nightmare because most of these kids are at that peak age where they need to start wearing deodorant but haven’t yet and I just. have had a migraine all week lmao

- the kid playing Eric is adorable but the more and more I’m forced to watch this show the more tired I get with the fact the character is truly a dumbass...thinking of becoming a Prince Eric Hate Blog, mutuals give me some feedback or suggestions please

-Triton’s finally not tripping over his throne anymore!!! also they got him a new wig so he’s not suffocating- sequined suit is still the most iconic thing I’ve ever seen

- Kiss the Girl is getting better every time they run it!!

- they finally caved and just recorded the girl who’s supposed to do Ariel’s voice because she kept missing her cues....except now the sound guy keeps missing the cues sjdfjsdfjsfd

- also. also. I know how my director works. I get it. but how fucking pissed off would you be. as the child or the child’s parent. if you opened that script and saw ‘ariel’s VOICE’ instead of ‘ariel’??? kjsdfsdfj

- but overall a decent last rehearsal!!! I think the show will go well on Friday!!!

- well, I hope. don’t wanna jinx it lmao

- hopefully the audience will see that its a....wonderful thing

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

- opening night went really well!!

- wasn’t the most reactive audience we’ve ever had but a lot of applause and the show was sold out!

- one of the mersisters was very nervous so during the two hours before we opened she just wandered around singing rent to herself, which, relatable 

- the lighting guy showed up!! but he missed like. a few blackout cues and it was pretty awkward

- Ursula stole the show, predictably 

- Scuttle did great but she’s insisting she messed up one part but if she did it was completely unnoticeable 

- Ariel did so good! she seemed nervous before we opened but she was great

- the mersisters came out for She’s In Love and one mic just wasn’t working at all and two were making like....a mystery noise

- I am not being dramatic when I say I’ve never heard a mic make that noise before??? I thought someone had accidentally hit a sound effect for waves or something??? but no, it was the mics???

- Sebastian got a ton of applause for Under The Sea

- the whole final battle with Ursula kinda got messed up because we discovered we didn’t have a recording for the ‘ahhhh ahhh ahhh’s for that part and there wasn’t time to make a new one but the girl missed her cue and it threw everyone off tragically but they held it together

- skjdhskdj I asked one of the teen interns(tm) how Mamma Mia rehearsals have been going and she said ‘do you want the nice answer or the truthful answer’ sjdhgdk apparently that cast still isn’t off book and they only have one rehearsal left before their hellweek. amazing.

- me, getting backstage at intermission to do mic swaps and realizing all the princesses put their costumes on already even though last rehearsal I asked them not to: longing for death

- also we accidentally put Carlotta’s mic on the Chef which wouldn’t be too much of a problem except we specifically gave Carlotta the broken mic because she doesn’t sing. whoops

- there was a little tiny girl sitting in front of me with her mom and every time the lights went down she asked where Ariel went omg it was so cute

- instead of doing like ‘energy’ or something to hype up before curtain all the kids lost their minds singing ‘head-shoulders-knees-and-toes’ lmao

- but overall it was a good show!!! hopefully it will run even more smoothly tomorrow, Saturday shows are usually the best ones 

- so I guess we’re hoping for....smooth sailing 

lol

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

- last nights show went pretty well!!

- there was one moment when the soundboard started getting too much feedback and made that Big Noise- you know the one- but the operator caught it too late so it got really loud and he had to shut everything off really quickly, and then when he did poor Grimbsy was clearly confused and finished his song like “….ₘₐᵧ ₐₜ ₗₐₛₜ 𝒸ₕₒₒₛₑ ₐ ᵩᵤₑₑₙ??“ lmao the audience cracked up at him

- when we were backstage putting mics on the kids a little girl in a crab outfit walked up, violently smacked a boy with a pool noodle, and when he looked at her in confusion she just walked away without comment. it was the funniest fucking thing ever we were literally in tears laughing

- I put the CORRECT mics on the chef and Carlotta last night and yet they were still insisting I was wrong at the soundboard even though....this is what we decided on and what works, oh my God

- oh my God. can I just. yell for a second

- so. I mentioned there’s a girl who isn’t Ariel doing the ahhh ahh ahhhhhs right. and that we ended up recording it

- well. we don’t have a recording for the one that happens during Eric proposing and the one when Ariel gets her voice back. and opening night neither of them happened

- So I went to talk to the girl and she’s like....Ariel was supposed to do that live???

- HELLO.

- So I talked to Ariel and she’s like ‘yeah I can do it for the scene where I get my voice back I guess??’ even though she didn’t really know the part, true champ

- but she can’t do the one at the proposal obviously because she’s still mute, so I asked the Ariel’s Voice girl and she was like ‘oh that one, Ursula is supposed to do that?’

- WHAT.

- so I go talk to Ursula and she’s like ‘we tried that one time but then we went back to having the other girl do it’

- KILL ME??

- so I went back to the voice girl and I’m like. listen. you need to just buck up and do it. but she’s insisting she was never taught the part so she can’t and we should just use one of the recordings. but like. we don’t have a fucking recording for this part. it’s in a different key. please anyone common sense

- so the show has literally started by this point and I’m still dashing around between the girls and the soundboard guy trying to come up with a solution here since NO ONE KNOWS THEIR VOICE PART APPARENTLY

- I’m like begging this girl to just look up the part on youtube and teach it to herself during intermission jsdkfdsj

- we finally got to the dreaded scene and she did it although she came it late but like. was this all really neseccery. did I really need to deal with that?

- ugh

- *literally just the first couple notes of Under The Sea play*

- * the entire audience* 

 - I had to help figure out how to use the smoke machine and then the show happened with NO smoke machine so I asked the directors daughter what happened and she was like idk I plugged it in but it didn’t work and we looked and she plugged it in...with a blatantly broken extension cord plug...like it was clearly broken....fire hazard broken....miss please don’t kill our 10 year olds

- also I was watching her trying to reassemble the set and it was funny because the wood to foam ratio was not adding up no matter what she did and she couldn’t get the drill to work jsdksdk I hope she got a good nights sleep lmao

- final show this afternoon! let’s see how it goes lmao

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

- day three and we got a full run-thru!!!

- this is...shocking but very good

- the scenes where Eric falls over board and Ursula dies are still EXTREMELY messy but they’re really the only like. big problems?

- they ran Under the Sea for solely for the choreography so many times...and they made the kid playing Sebastian sing every time even though he barely dances....what a trooper where’s his Tony award??? hello???

- poor Ariel is still reminding everyone what their lines are

- I have literally...never seen a noisier cast. why wont they shut up backstage. why

- during mic checks none of the kids wanted to sing so they were messing around but then one girl sang her part from She’s In Love, and her voice is insane so when she finished the assistant director sang back to her to the tune of the song, “here’s my wig!” while literally tossing up Ariel’s wig skjdskj

- for some reason Triton's trident has like....ivy? on it? and I want answers

- there’s another new sound guy I’m working with and he’s going slowly but surely insane- by the end of rehearsal he was singing along to Under The Sea in a Kermit the Frog voice 

- Flounder’s mic was....a situation

- but you know who’s mic was worse? who’s mic was unexplainably worse? fucking Ariel’s

- every time she so much as moved her mic SCREAMED like oh my God what is going on!!! we checked it!!! cant figure it out!!! that’s fun!!! not like she’s the main character or anything!!!

- She’s In Love like....can’t decide if it wants to be a good number or not

- like it always starts so strong and the girl playing Flounder has such a cute voice so it fits in but right when they have that big harmony at the end it just. dies. why

- Poor Unfortunate Souls is really good!!! but the stage version is so...slow. every time I hear it I’m like ‘Jonas Brothers Where Art Thou’

- tragically had to explain to people that I’m an adult in my 20s again

- every day switching the mics from the mersisters to the human princesses gets sloppier so like....can’t wait for the actual show! (^:

- the set CONTINUES to be broken by actors...by the last show it might look like Pippin lmao

- the guy working the lights went the fuck off today

- there was like a ten minute long drama of trying to find the backstage mic and it’s like....follow the wire

- I can’t remember anything else rn because I had a pretty killer headache for most of the rehearsal but like. tomorrows the final one before opening night...cross your fingers guys

- or else we’re just....a bunch of Poor Unfortunate Souls lmao

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

- day 2. Hmm.

- so, good news, they technically got through act two! bad news, we didn't start from th3 first scene of act 2 so like....it took them 3 and a half hours to do half an act

- 3 and a half hours becaus even tho rehearsal starts at like 4....noth happened at all until well after 6. Fun.

- demon face pressed itself thru the screen 20 feet off the floor. Fun.

- Ariel finally has a grotto!! Except its more like a bookshelf, but, still, yay!

- we're exploring some new wig options for Triton

- there was some dude taking headshota of the kids all night and the flashing was this close to either turning me into the incredible hulk or inducing a seizure

- someone....mysteriously rearranged all the soundboard wires. Fun

- had to tell a small child that I was not going to shove a microphone wire in her ass

- kiss the girl was....messy!

- they literally said they never ran the whole thing before. Help.

- Eric broke a piece of the set

- I have literally never heard a noisier cast in my life?? They wouldn't shut up at all backstage it was bad

- Flounder has apparently never heard of a cue before

- lmao theres a scene where she's like 'dont be a guppy, dont be a guppy' and all I could think about was that vine thats like 'I AM NOT AFRAID. I AM NOT A PUSSY'

- 'where the hell is Sebastian's head?' 'The chef got him'

- oh my God listen okay. I understand its live theater. But seeing a boy who is taller than literally all his castmates playing a crab is so fucking funny. He runs in being chased by the chef and all I can think about is the debate in pokemon about if Mr. Mime is just a dude? And then after Ursula grabs Ariel he runs out and says something and like. He's standing next to Eric. Eric looks at him as he's talking. And just....doesn't react? To this human sized talking crab in his home? Its so fucking funny

- the mics...were acting up. I'm STILL traumatized by everything that happened during In The Heights. Every time someone's voice cut out my heart stopped for a moment lmao

- listen. the kids are adorable and sweet and I love them. but. why are they so dumb when I'm putting the mics on them??? Lmao they just stand stiff as a board and I'm like. I need you to move. I need you to hold your hair. I shouldn't have to physically grab you and turn you in my direction. They freeze up like rabbits playing statues lmao

- but ALSO you'd think maybe? It's them trying to be careful with the mics? And yet every time I'm handed a mic it's being dangled in mid air and the wire is on the floor. Stop my heart wont you

- Ariel won't stop pulling at and messing with her wig and it's messing with her mic and I told her politey to not do that and she said yes she understands and then immediately went back to messing with her wig

- also this poor girl was whispering EVERYONES lines to them!! omg!

- if I have 50 batteries in my pocket and I get electrocuted multiple times in one night am I in...danger?

- Ursula's death was so funny omfg

- the lightning guys showed up today!! woo!

- 'So everything's fine once Triton got his trident? Greek gods solve all the problems?' 'The Greek gods have never solved a single problem in their lives' ☠☠

- like a backup piano guy came for the second leg of rehearsal and he was a tiny old man and the second the director started talking to the kids he bounced lmao he all but ran past me carrying a large hamilton book and was saying 'I want my bed I want my bed I Want To Be Home' and honestly? Mood

- looking like a dumbass trying to do something as simple as tape wires down? My brand

- but overall. I have hope that tomorrow they'll get a full run through!! Fingers crossed

- hide ur kids hide ur tridents

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

- it’s over!!!

- oh my God. so.

- like, ultimately good show, the kids were great

- but who wants to help me murder an elderly keyboardist 

- the usual music director couldn’t be there today, and they knew that from the start, so this other dude has been here all week rehearsing so he could run the show today, so we thought it’d be fine

- he was. so terrible. wrong notes all over the place. the kids were mostly able to deal with it but were visibly confused and annoyed. but the absolute worst. the worst offense. was ‘One Step Closer’. he just.....played a random fucking tune. literally no one knew what the hell was going on. he was playing quietly too so at first we were like ‘oh shit did the piano mic die’ but NO- this man literally just fucking, ruined the entire song. none of the back up dancers knew when to come on because they couldn’t hear their sound cue. everyone was just standing on stage confused for like a full five minutes, it was awkward and painful to watch- poor Eric couldn’t figure out what to do or when to sing, he barely got half the lyrics out. the kid looked like he was gonna cry!!! it’s his only song in the show!!!! I was backstage later and he was laying on the floor looking miserable while his friends were standing around him omfg

- and LET ME TELL YOU WHAT MISS ARIEL DID

- SHE FUCKING

- I was trying to fix her mic at intermission and this kid would NOT calm down, and when she heard the 50/50 raffle music, despite being TOLD it was the raffle, she assumed she was missing her cue so she takes off running

- I was still holding her mic

- you know when you have a dog on a leash and it takes off real fast and drags you behind it

- that, except the leash costs $500

- FUCK

- so then I tried to get it back on her properly and I get back to the soundbooth. the act starts. her mic is hanging off her goddamn face because she fucked up the tape

- and there’s like...no fucking time to catch her properly between scenes in act 2 so I was just back there the whole time trying to grab her but THIS BITCJH RUNS SO FAST

- I FINALLY got her when she was doing her costume change right before she actually gets her voice back- get back to the soundbooth, she talks, HER MICROPHONE ISNT FUCKING WORKING!!!

- IT JSUT!!!!! STOPPED!!!!

- we thought okay fuck maybe the connections too loose or it got muted during her costume change but when I got it after the show- not loose, not muted, full batteries, SO LITERALLY WHAT WAS WRONG HELLO!!!!

- so she did the whole last scene with no mic despite all my dramatic efforts....I swear that girl must’ve invoked the Scottish Play like what the FUCK

- I’m still so stressed I just wanna yell sldksjdklf

- remember how I told you that we specifically gave Carlotta a broken mic because she doesn’t sing but opening night it was accidentally put on the Chef so last night I put it on the Carlotta and gave the Chef the functioning one like we were supposed to but then both the other sound guys got inexplicably mad because they were convinced the Chef always had the broken mic and wouldn’t accept that I was right

- remember this saga

- they fucking gave Carlotta the Chef’s mic today

- I couldn’t even find it in me to argue. but it was so fucking stupid

- the Chef started her song and they were panicking because no one could fucking hear her even though she was turned all the way up. they couldn’t figure it out!

- HUH. IT’S ALMOST LIKE SHE WAS WEARING A FUCKING BROKEN MICROPHONE. HOW STRANGE. HOW BIZARRE. IF ONLY THERE HAD BEEN SOME WAY AROUND THAT.

- IGSKDFJKGSWDJFADSLJ

- Triton introduced me to his vlog and Sebastian asked me to sign his playbill....I’m getting famous, guys!

- the trident literally broke in half and was being held together with duct tape

- there were kids playing Harry Potter with some of the brooms laying around and a couple kids had them like, doubled up, so one kid would be on top of two broom sticks and they’d both run together.....a Nimbus 2000 Built For Two(tm). amazing idea

- a girl I went to hs with showed up with her baby and my rabies simply could not take it 

- the fog machine worked today!!! without being a fire hazard! thank God

- like tbh...there could have been more smoke but. I’ll take it lmao

- one dressing room was blasting Mamma Mia and the other dressing room was blasting Spring Awakening lmao

- a girl said she thought Waterloo was a stupid song, I literally actually gasped out loud. in the other dressing room, one girl had never heard of SA and all the other kids were very offended by her lack of taste lmao

- *Ursula comes out on stage* * immediate deafening applause* 

- BY THE WAY all week I’ve been going crazy because Something about the eels reminded me of something else but I couldn’t place it but today I realized. 

- they

- they fucking

- they look like the skeletons from the David S. Pumpkins sketch

- I screamed

- right before we opened doors when the kids are supposed to be behind the curtain and quiet, all you could here was 63 tiny voices screeching “I’M OFF THE DEEP END, WATCH AS I DIVE IN-”. they did the whole fucking song, guys. the other sound guy was completely scandalized that so many little kids had seen an R rated movie lmao

- also tell me why they all harmonized on that song better than any of the songs in little mermaid? lmao

- but overall I mean! this was a show that certainly happened!

- the kids were all great though but. I’m glad its over and done with lmao I’m so tired.

- hopefully for mamma mia we’ll have a hot crustacean band(tm) that knows wth they’re doing

- but yeah....we’re in luck down in the muck that lm is over lol

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

waiiiittt are you doing the little mermaids musical??? cause my school is as well, ahhhh im playing Adella 😊💜💜

yeah! I help out with mics for the company I performed in all through high school, and the 4th-7th grade group is putting it on, they’re adorable. congrats on the part!!! ‘she’s in love’ is my fav song off the soundtrack! :)

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

For the musical, duh.

I was gonna make a witty rebuttal to this, asking what kind of musical needs an exorcism to succeed, but as I sit here in this theater, gazing upon the stage, a fucking demonic face just pressed through the back drop screen, before my very own eyes, and I cannot for the life of me think of what caused that to happen, I am going to scream, what did you do to this innocent musical being performed by 10 year olds? Who are you, anon? What are your powers? I'm shaking