Tech week for three shows

The first week of March was CRAZY this year. Not only were we doing all of our normal every day things, but there were also THREE theatre shows opening that weekend. 

Twin Falls has an incredible theatre scene. There are three theatre companies for adults, Magic Valley Rep, Dilettantes, and Twin Falls Theatre Collective. There are two youth companies, Ovation, and Jump Company. (And that's not counting all the theatre that happens in Hayburn, Burley, and Oakley or all the high school and middle school theatre programs)

So there were three shows opening on the first weekend in March and trying to figure out how to see them all made me feel like I was stuck in some sort of theatre themed logic problem. 

Here's what I was navigating with just the show dates.

• Aladdin was being put on by Jump Company. It ran Thursday through Saturday. 
• Annie was being put on by Dilettantes. It ran Thursday through Sunday. 
• Anastasia was being put on by Magic Valley Rep. It started on Friday and ran for three weekends.

Here were some further complications I had to take into consideration.

• Brandon was going to be in Boise for training on Thursday.
• 4th Wall Night for Annie would be Saturday night.
• My sister Lindsey would be in Utah and invited us to a family dinner at my sister Emily's house on Sunday.  
• We would be out of town for the last weekend of Anastasia's run. 
• I wanted to be at as many Jump Company performances as possible because I'm the bookkeeper for the organization and I wanted to keep track of the cash deposits. 

The end result was a very busy weekend, but it was full of good things. So here's the run down. 

On Monday Brandon took the day off of work so he could work on the Anastasia set all day. He didn't have to be at the theatre until 8:30 so he was around in the morning. I teased him by saying, "please don't sit in the chair in front of the fridge."

That's because back when he was out of work at the end of 2024 he was constantly in the way as the kids and I tried used the kitchen to eat breakfast and pack our lunches. 

And guess who STILL hasn't learned? He was still in the way. He tried putting away the box where we keep the kids' lunch stuff before Veronica made her lunch. He was using the stove when I needed to use it. And he SAT IN FRONT OF THE FRIDGE. Our marriage has survived many things. But having Brandon home after 7:00 is probably not one of them. 

Anyway, I took Veronica and Derrick to school and then went to work. I was there until it was time to get Derrick after school. Brandon went to the theatre and was there for a solid 12 hours. He was there until 8:30. The rehearsal had started and he was still finishing things up. 

But the good news is that everything was DONE. 

And then one of the cast members didn't realize that one of the wheels on the train car was locked and they pushed too hard and broke the wheel off. So Brandon had to go back on Tuesday to fix that. The broken wheel had gouged through the many layers of paint on the stage. Brandon told me that it made it all the way to the blue "Little Mermaid" layer. 

Tuesday was a busy morning for me. Veronica had a dentist appointment, Derrick had a dentist appointment, and I was meeting with our accountant about our taxes. And all that ended up giving me a ton of anxiety. 

First up was Veronica's dentist appointment. It was just a cleaning and exam so it should have been pretty routine. But one of her x-rays made it look like her wisdom teeth were about ready to pop out. Veronica's mouth has always been about 3 years ahead of a normal kid her age so even though she's 12 it's not impossible to imagine that she'd need her wisdom teeth out. 

And my brain took that to mean that if Veronica needed her wisdom teeth out then ALL the kids were probably ready to have their wisdom teeth out. So I was feeling a lot of worry about that during the appointment. 

Thankfully the dentist came in and looked at the x-rays and said, "no, she still has a few years. It's just the angle of the x-ray. So that way a relief. 

I took Veronica to school and then came home and picked up Derrick. (It had been easier to just have him stay home rather than take him to school and then have to get him later.) He was going to the dentist to have a cavity filled. 

This was Derrick's first ever filling and I had no idea how he'd react. He was also a little nervous (mostly because his entire knowledge of dental work is based on Mr Bean and Three Stooges skits.) So all during the appointment I was kind of waiting for him to freak out. 

He ended up doing great. They used laughing gas on his so he was calm and he never even noticed when they gave him a shot. He was a little weirded out by how numb his cheek was, but he was mostly fine with it. 

I dropped him off at school and went home to make my lunch and to throw some laundry in the washer. 

My friend Suzy ended up walking by my house right as I pulled up so we talked for a while and my laundry never happened. But it was fun to see her. 

Then I went to my accountant's office. I was nervous about this because Brandon and I were both working a lot last year and I'd had a raise at the beginning of the year. I wasn't sure what things would look like. But we ended up with a refund. So whew. 

After all that worry all that morning it was so nice to go to work and do boring routine things like entering payments. 

That evening Charlotte and Lydia went to Toy Town so Charlotte could buy another dragon. Here are her dragons and Lydia's dragons lined up in order. 

Wednesday was the first Bible Study Session for the month. We were studying Jonah. (If you are wondering why we didn't do Obediah - it's because Obediah is short and so I moved that book to the summer when we will only meet once a month.)

On my birthday my friend Ivan gave me this weird wooden puzzle toy. Inside is a little man. I decided that this was Jonah and the creature was the whale. So I used Jonah as a visual aid in the lesson.

I've enjoyed studying Jonah, but in some ways it's almost too familiar. There's a lot written about Jonah. It doesn't feel like I'm discovering completely new things the way it has felt to study Amos and Joel. I've actually started working on Micah because the first Wednesday in April comes up so quickly after Spring Break. I've had a lot more fun with Micah because it's new territory. 

After bible study I picked Veronica up from school for therapy. Then I took her back to school. 

And then I came home and RELAXED. I watched half of the America's Next Top Model documentary on Netflix. It was funny.

For some reason that is now completely forgotten, Brandon had to go back to the theatre for another set repair or something. But he wasn't there long. He came home and picked up Derrick and they went to the temple to do baptisms for the dead for the teachers quorum activity. 

The girls were going to go to the church for their activity, but by 7:00 it was dark and rainy. And home was cozy and warm. So the girls stayed home and I read Harry Potter to Veronica. 

At some point Brandon got a text from Chris Ayers about whether or not he was available to help build the set for Jump Company's production of Prince of Egypt this summer. We were still recovering from the Anastasia set. I was like, "Um NO!" And even after we through about it more it was still a no. Brandon is committed to doing the Seussical set this fall. We really don't need another set. 

But Chris's text had some weird wording. He said, "I know you are already helping with Romeo and Juliet."  This was the first we'd heard of that. 

Later I checked Magic Valley Rep's website and saw that Brandon was listed as the set builder for Romeo and Juliet. I was like, "oh dear."  We are still trying to get that cleared up. I know that they are already planning to just use the opera seating set as part of the balcony scene. So hopefully that's what they mean. Hopefully.

On Thursday Brandon went to a training in Boise. He wouldn't be home until later that evening - this was pretty typical for a Thursday because he's usually in Burley on Thurday evenings. So none of us really noticed that he was gone. (Also he's been at the theatre so much that its actually strange when he is home in the evening.)

I had my usual big Thursday of checking in with all my clients. I was so proud of Andrea because she caught to billing errors and figured out how to fix one of them. She's doing so well!

Oh and here's a fun thing about Andrea. On Wednesday Veronica and I were talking about how she wasn't going to do Newsies during the summer. She'd been really excited to do Newsies, but then we found out rehearsals were from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM the whole month of July. That did not sound fun to 12 year old Veronica. So on Wednesday I'd told Veronica, you know what? "We should just do Seussical together." We both thought that sounded fun. 

So on Thursday Andrea said something like, "Capri is probably not doing Newsies, I told her we should do Seussical together."

I said, "That's what I told Veronica!  We should do Seussical! It would be so fun if you and I were in it with our daughters."

I'm like so committed to this idea now. I would LOVE to do a play with Andrea. It's like my bright shiny thought giving me something to look forward to. 

Anyway, then I went to work at Aspen Grove and picked kids up and took Veronica to theatre and STILL wasn't done with my day. 

It was opening night for Aladdin. And I wanted to be there to keep track of the cash. Fortunately, the show was at our local middle school. So I went over there and talked with a few people. Andrea was there and it was fun to see her again. (Seriously, how were we not friends before this. Our daughters were in Willy Wonka together!) 

The show was directed by my friend Tim. I somehow find myself involved in everything Tim does. We were in Cinderella together. He Emcee's the curtain call awards while I run the trophy table back stage. I helped him with all his costume changes for The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. And now I was hanging around as the book keeper on the opening night of his Jump show. 

Tim always has some sort of food to eat before a show. He was eating McDonalds and came and sat with me on a bench near the ticket area. He'll be directing Young Frankenstein this fall. He was asking me about whether or not Brandon could build the set. I was like, "Actually, Brandon wants to be in Young Frankenstein."

Tim had to go put his director's headset on and I had to go get Veronica from theatre so we never really finished that conversation. 

I picked up Veronica and then went back to get the cash from cash ticket sales. Everyone was learning that I'm REALLY OCD about cash. Normally they just kept the cash all together and did one deposit at the end of the weekend. I was like, "What?" I've been trained with daily deposits. Daily deposits picked up by armored vehicles. So this was new for me. But over the weekend I realized that maybe they were okay to hang onto the money that way. 

I went home and was so happy to finally get into my sweat pants. 

Brandon came home a little later. Then he went to the Orpheum at the end of their dress rehearsal. He wanted to know if anything broke and needed to be fixed. Our friend Laura who is the stage manager was really happy to see him. Nothing was broken, she was just feeling overwhelmed. She asked him to do some touch up painting. He came back after work on Friday and took care of that in time for everything to be dry by the time the play opened at 7:00. 

Friday was actually a pretty normal day. I went to work in the morning and grocery shopping after work. Veronica made pizza for dinner. 

At 7:00 Brandon and I went to the College to see Annie. The parking lot was really really full. The theatre is in the same building as the concert hall where I used to play with the symphony. There was some event going on in the concert hall so the building was really busy. When I picked up my tickets they said that there was actually a THIRD event happening in the building. And there was some sort of basketball championship happening in the athletic building nearby. I was like, "oh that's why the parking lot was so full."

Brandon and I felt like we were in a completely different city when we sat down in the audience. When we go to shows at the Orpheum we usually know at least a few people in the audience. But we didn't know ANYONE. We'd known Dusty who had looked over our tickets, and Brandon recognized someone from work. But other than that we were surrounded by strangers. 

But the cast didn't have strangers. We knew a lot of the cast. Our friend Uriah who had played Sky Masterson and Lancelot was Rooster. His wife Sarah was one of the servants in the Warbucks house and was also one of the "Lovely Boylan Sisters" from the radio segment. Actually we knew all the Boylan sisters. Our fiends Natalie and Olyvia were the other two.  Sarah and Uriah's kids were orphans. Our friend Laney was an orphan too. The Orphans were double cast so Natalie's daughter was an orphan on another night. 

If we'd been there on another night we would have known Annie, but that role was double cast and we didn't know this Annie. The other Annie was a girl named Elenore. She'd been in Cinderella with me.  Coincidentally Elenore's sister Lydia was actually starring as Jasmine in the Jump company show. I don't know how their mom survived. I struggled just to see the shows. I didn't have any family members in them. 

And I've saved the best role for last. Daddy Warbucks was played by my friend Paul. AKA the Blind Knight from Cinderella. AKA my dance partner who would have walked off the stage if I'd let him. 

He did amazing as Daddy Warbucks. His bald cap gave him issues for most of the shows, but by the final day he and the makeup artist figured it out. So here's the "good" version of the bald cap.

The show was really cute and sweet. They did an excellent job. The cast was huge. They had a lot of ensemble people who just showed up in one scene. Like FDR's cabinet members were only in one scene. (I think most of them were played by the Dilettante board of directors.) My favorite part was the radio show. I could have watched a whole play with just that radio show. They had a guy wearing a mask and he was like, "I'm radio's only masked announcer."  And it was so funny because - it's radio. It doesn't matter if he's wearing a mask. At another part they had the singer pretend to tap dance. But they were just moving tap shoes around on a table by the microphone. 

My other favorite part was one of the cutest little orphans. She was like 3 years old, but was dancing with the bigger girls. She was slightly out of step, but it was adorable because she was so small. I could have watched a whole show staring her. 

At the end of the show we went out to say hello to all the cast members. The place was packed. I could see people talking to Paul and I assumed he was loving the attention. Paul is one of those people who is always joking. He'd seemed to have a wonderful time on stage and so I assumed he was having a good time receiving all the praise. 

I was standing off to the side of him. The people he was talking to left and he turned and saw me. He seemed to crumple with relief. He came over and gave me a big side hug. He said, "I needed you on stage tonight. I realized I've never done a show without someone on stage guiding me where to go."

I'd honestly never seen Paul so humble. But as I thought about working with him in Cinderella his humility made a lot of sense. Paul was so FUNNY as the blind night. He blundered around the stage and crashed into objects and people with abandon. But when it came to learning our little dance he was really concerned about getting it right. We'd done extra practicing so he could learn what he was supposed to do so that he could goof it up later. Underneath all the joking and silliness was a guy who really wanted to do things right. And I respected that a lot. 

So here he was after a big night of staring in a big show and he was feeling the weight of all the mistakes he thought he made. I assured him that he was great. I didn't notice any mistakes. (That's the truth.)  He was happy to hear that. Brandon was done talking with whoever he'd been talking to and came over to tell Paul how great he'd been. Paul was happy to hear that from Brandon as well. They had been in Sweeny Todd together and so Paul respected Brandon's opinion too.

Anyway, we finished telling everyone how well they had done and then went home.  

On Saturday it was so nice to sleep in. We made sure to keep up with the laundry, but there wasn't much we had to do to get the house put back together. 

The kids all wanted to see the new Pixar Movie Hoppers. I didn't really want to see it or pay for it. I told the kids that if they wanted to pay for it they could go see it. So at 11:30 Lydia drove the kids to the movie theatre. I drove separately and met them there because none of them knew how to buy a movie ticket. I'm glad I went because the only place to pay for tickets with cash was the concessions area and the kids would not have figured that out. 

So I helped the kids with buying their tickets and then they went to see the movie. They loved it. 

I drove over to A Taste of Thai and met up with Chandler, Jori, and Kori for lunch. Chandler's family was all skiing and she was taking the day to organize their toy room. (AKA throw away all the junky toys while the kids were out of the house.) She'd asked who wanted to meet up for lunch that morning so she could have a break in her project. It was a fun lunch and I'm glad I was able to make it.  

At 1:45 I met up with Brandon at the Jr High so we could watch the matinee of Aladdin. We wanted to see this show in particular because it's when the understudies performed and we knew a few of them. Ivan's daughter Katherine was the Genie. And Candice's daughter Kylie was Jasmine. My friend Annie's son was Aladdin. They did great and the whole cast did great. 

It's interesting how the different theatre groups have different results. Ovation is what Veronica is in. They are more interested in teaching acting skills and building confidence rather than putting on an amazing professional quality show. Ovation often has 2 or 3 casts who each put on the show on a different weekend. They do good shows, but sometimes you'll have a weaker main character since they have to cast the show based on who is in the class. 

Jump on the other hand is all about putting on a high quality show. They will only have one cast and they will only do the show over one weekend. All their main roles are solid and well cast because they have their pick of who to cast. Their shows are always impeccable. 

All of that is to say that Aladdin was really fun to watch. 

We had a lot of friends in the audience. We sat with Ivan's family. Kerri, Nate, and Peyton were a few rows ahead of them. Andrea and Tim were on the other side of the auditorium. Candice and Bryan were there. Julia was there because Finn N and her other two kids were in the show. Chris and Karin were there. It was fun to talk to everyone during intermission and after the show. 

When we got home I was like, "Wow, I'm really tired."  And then I realized that my social battery was super depleted. I'd gone to lunch and then saw a play with a bunch of friends. 

So I went and took a nap. 

Later I went back over to the Middle School and picked up the cash for Friday, and both Saturday shows. 

And then I got ready for the 4th Wall event that was happening that night. 

4th Wall had some changes for 2026. Up until now the plan had been to do an event on the last Saturday night for every musical. In 2025 that meant there was an event for Big Fish, Cinderella, She Loves Me, Godspell, Sweeny Todd, Hello Girls, and White Christmas. And some people thought that maybe that was a big too much. 

Brandon and I did not think that. I LOVED that 4th Wall was like a guaranteed fancy date night.

But there were people who felt it had lost it's specialness. 

So this year they changed it to be only once per musical per theatre company. So Annie for Dilettantes,  Come From Away for Twin Falls Theatre Collective, and Frozen for Magic Valley Rep. 

And I guess that decision worked because even though it made very little sense for Brandon and I to try to go to this event that went until Midnight when we ALSO planned to drive to Utah the next morning, we made sure to go.

The theme for this one was Opening Night New York. I wore a long black dress that I've worn before, but this time I felt like it needed gloves. I bought them at the costume shop downtown.

I did my makeup really dramatic and I put my hair in a fancy bun. 

I'm sick of feeling like I look really fancy and then having my mental image crushed by a bad picture in the terrible lighting at Redhawk so Brandon and I only took one picture and we took it with his phone. So I still haven't seen it. Nor have I seen any of the pictures anyone else took. So maybe I'll put those pictures on my next post. 

Annie didn't start until 7:30 and that 4th Wall started rather late as well. I mean it already starts late at 10:00, but this one really didn't get going until like 10:30.  Brandon and I were some of the first people there. And for a while we were some of the best dressed. Somehow some of the Dilettante people didn't get the memo about this being a FANCY event. There were people there in jeans!

After how cute and festive our White Christmas 4th Wall had been this event was feeling really different. But eventually more people arrived wearing fancy clothes. 

Brandon and I ordered while the place was still empty so we had our food pretty quick. We had chocolate cake and fried pickles. It's good we were splitting that cake because it was super rich. 

The vibes were still halfway off throughout the night. We'd sat at a big table and hoped to have people join us. But then it filled up with ensemble members from Annie who I didn't know at all. Usually I have a way into the conversation because Brandon has been in a show with someone or I've seen them in a show, but I'd never seen these people before in my life. 

And so rather than try to make small talk I just joined Ivan at the table he was sharing with our friend Brooke. That was more fun. 

Brandon was going around talking to everyone. He's everyone's favorite guy. People ADORE him. (With good reason.) He really thrives on the validation. At work he's just another cog in the machine (who helps fix the machines) but in the theatre community he's the guy who can fix or build anything. He's the guy that other guys can joke with, that the girls can confide in. On one night he'll stand in the parking lot and listen to a girl vent about her ex-boyfriend. And on another night he'll jumpstart someone's car. Everyone wants Brandon involved in their show. He doesn't cause drama off stage. He just wants to have fun with his friends. He's just the best. 

Because the night got off to a late start they didn't even announce best dressed guy and gal until like 11:45. (Usually that's done around 11:00.) I was like, "Oh we need to go home."

So we started making out way to the exit. Sarah who organizes these events was walking by and I hadn't really said hi to her yet. She gave me the biggest hug. I'm not a hugger unless I'm around theatre people. And then I LOVE hugs. She pressed her cheek into mine and said something like, "Thanks for coming."  And, you know what? They aren't lying when they call it Community Theatre. Because I felt so much comradery with Sarah. I'm so happy she is part of my life. 

We went home and were in bed pretty quick. The kids had already put themselves to bed. (Bless them.)

In the morning we got up around 9:00. All the kids ate and sort of got dressed. Then we got in the car and started driving to Utah. Lydia drove the whole way and we didn't have to stop at all on the 2.5 hour drive. It was really nice. 

We arrived at my sister Emily's house at 12:40. About 5 seconds after we pulled up Lindsey arrived too. She'd brought my parents too. 

We all went inside. Emily had lots of soups cooking and we had those for lunch. Mostly we just sat around and talked. Here's a view of the livingroom. 

And another one. A lot of the teenagers were drawing. 

Around 5:00 I pulled out the silly soda's that I'd bought at Magic Rock City. 

I'd also bought little cups. Brandon helped me pout a little bit of soda into each cup. Then the kids tried them. I'd bought these drinks in anticipation for how fun it would be to watch the big teenage boys like Rocky and Asher react to drinking Ghost Pepper flavored soda. But it was also really funny to watch little Juniper drink the sodas. (I don't think she drank the Ghost pepper one though.)  She liked the nice ones like Cookie Dough and Birthday Cake. 

Derrick had been asleep for most of the time we were at Emily's he woke up later and I let him try some of the left over soda. 

I had a great time hanging out with Lindsey. I was telling people, "My sister came all the way from Texas. The least I can do it drive three hours to see her." It was worth it to spend some time with her. 

This trip was also really chill. Last time she was in town with her kids was over Christmas in 2024 and there had been a lot going on with that. This time it was just dinner on a random Sunday in March. 

I also liked that we hadn't had to pack anything. Yes it was a little hard to drive down and back in a day, but not having to pack a suitcase really helped offset that. 

Around 7:00 it was time to head back to Twin Falls. I drove this time. We had to stop twice. Once for gas and once for the bathroom. But we were home soon after 10:00. 

Then it was off to bed. Our next week was going to be rough because daylight saving time had just started. But at least it wasn't tech week and we didn't have to figure out how to attend a bunch of theatre events. 

Thanks for reading.