8 AM Magic at the Cal Shakes Conservatory.

Hey all, Kristin here. Home at a decent hour from Cal Shakes' Five-Week Conservatory in Lafayette. Tomorrow we are putting on five Shakespeare shows, so the interns have been "all-hands-on-deck" for the past week. I have been staying late to help with lighting (and by helping, I mean handing over my crescent wrench and standing on ladders). I have slept scarce hours in the past week and it's starting to show. So needless to say, waking up is hard.

Today was a once, twice, three times a-wakey day. Three alarms, three snooze buttons and three valiant attempts to rouse myself. I hopped on the BART at the ungodly hour of 8 AM, ready to pass out and wondering how I was going to make it through the long day ahead.

I caught the shuttle to the Bentley school from the BART station. When I walked onto that bus and sleepily said hello to Richard, I was greeted with a flood of salutations.

"Hi, Kristin!"
"Good morning, Kristin!"
"Ahhh, Kristin!!!"

I whipped around to find half of my kids sitting on the shuttle! They greeted me with bright eyes, smiling faces and waving hands. And even though I fell asleep on the way to Bentley, it totally made my day. Joyful greetings are way better than coffee. OK, maybe not better. But still pretty fantastic.

For the past four weeks, I've been stage managing Romeo and Juliet with the oldest group of actors. My kids are in high school and completely amazing. I feel so blessed to be able to pop over to Lafayette for a couple hours every day and get to watch 16 kids take remarkable strides as performers and as people. The talent, energy and commitment they dish out every day is unbelievable.

Tomorrow is our big show day. I am so proud of them and so excited to see what they give to that audience. It's a little odd for me, because though it is the last day, I'll be seeing most of them next week.

SHAMELESS PLUG! Cal Shakes will be represented at the San Francisco Theater Festival with our conservatory's production of Romeo and Juliet! It ain't over 'til it's over, baby!

So, moral of this blog entry: I love my kids. Tomorrow's going to be epic. Lack of sleep results in disjointed blog entries.


XoXo - Kristin Loughry, SM Intern.