"'Twas the Night Before Christmas..."

Oh myyyy!!!
It has been a hot second since I updated y'all on this adventure!
The reason being that we having been having a grand ol' time, both within our own little Santa's Village family (including the new recruits from the International Work Exchange program. Hooray for Serbia!) and with our fellow RWS employees at Storyland! A summer in New Hampshire is better when you're in good company. :)

Good company.

We have a "soft" opening tomorrow! For those of you for whom that's a strange term, it means that we have a select group of people who will see our shows tomorrow, but the schedule of performances will reflect what we'll do throughout the summer. Mostly it'll be employees, families of the owners, and such. Our *grand* opening is Saturday, and then on Monday we'll start doing shows according to the schedule we'll [more or less] keep for the rest of the contract. From there on out it's 6 days a week, 10-5. How many shows I do per day is dependent on the day of the week, but I know I'll always have my Tuesdays off, in case you were thinking of visiting. :)

The rehearsals have been such a great pleasure. Tons of love and respect go out to our director/musical director Robbie Eicher, who is not only a delight, but is an incredible human being and one of the best people I've ever had the pleasure to work for. Also, my cast is a seasoned bunch of performers, most of whom have worked for RWs before. Apparently, since this is the first year that RWS has worked through [Actor's] Equity [Association], they wanted to bring their "A-Team" of awesome performers-slash-people who know what the *&$% they're doing on the job. So if there was ever a year to come to Santa's Village, it's this year!! Honestly, this rehearsal process has been great....and I have NEVER said that about a rehearsal process. EVER. I have no doubt that this summer's cast is going to be magnificent. And adorable...!

We just ran all our shows in costume today, and BY THE BEARD OF SANTA CLAUS we are adorable. Just as a teaser, I wear green short-alls at one point that have "NOEL" on the legs in gold fabric. I'M JUST SAYIN'. If it was 1998 and December, I probably would've worn them in real life. Super cute.

I'll post some pictures tomorrow when we're all in full makeup and costumes and excellence. Love to you all!