musical randomness

The musical is not all hard work there has been much partying and shenanigans that have accompanied our weekend practices and performances! Here are some...

Of course there is karaoke

and funny faces

and cold places
snowy times
and bad rhymes

crazy richie

and crazy spotlights

tweedle dumplings

and men in tights (with crazy little men on their shoulder)

an indian monkey with a southern accent

a contortionist and a clown hidden within

and sometimes perhaps a sense of chagrin!

more tokamachi

Here are some beautiful pics Melissa took of the stage and a candle display. Tokamachi is famous for kimono so there were a group of women all decked out and paraded in the finery!

winter paradise in tokamachi

We had the musical this weekend in the city that had been hit the worst in the earthquake. It was a free show because we are such caring and generous people. Apparently free means not worth attending and not very many people showed up plus it was absolutely freezing in the gym so it didn't end up being the best show on our tour across Niigata. After however we went to the Tokamachi snow festival which is noted as being the best or biggest or something est of Japan. Tokamachi is a small city in the mountains that receives the most snowfall on earth and so a snow festival is a clever way to make snow into money!!! They had tons of beautiful snow sculptures around the city and the festival routes were lighted by snow candle pillars. The stage was a massive castle that was made entirely out of snow (hopefully I can steal a picture of it from someone) and it pretty much snowed the whole time we were there. On the drive to Tokamachi Fiona and I stopped to see how high the snowbanks truly were and took some photo opportunities. These are not large piles made by snow plows but the actual height of the snow everywhere.
Unfortunately cleaning off the car in the morning was a bit of a pain. I was thanking god (and Fujita) for my four wheel drive since I was able to plow through while the others had to dig away every speck of snow.

My car has pretty straight sides and didn't allow much snow to gather. Jimmy was not so fortunate. That is a car under the pile and it had only been there since the night before.

we are famous!!!

The musical has been in the state/provincial paper three times now and I have had numerous people I know calling and messaging to say they have seen me in one of my various aliases! It is actually quite a feat considering last year the musical was pretty obscure and brought in so little money. Here is one article, for a taste of Japanese newspapers, and a moving moment from the musical!!

musical madness once again!

Perhaps against my better judgment I am part of the musical again this year. It is a great way to meet the new ALTs and get out of my town. Our play is cleverly named Alice in Japan (rather than Alice in Wonderland) and once against better judgment I am acting in it. The writing this year is quite clever and the acting on most parts is very good. I hope no one is offended if I say the set leaves much to be desired but there was little to work with. The amount of money we are bringing in this year is amazing! The first performance brought in more money than we did the whole of last year and our last show in Murakami was sold out! I think we are sitting close to the equivalent of $80 000 and we still have five shows left. I wish I had the money to go to Papua New Guinea with the rest of the group because I am sure it will be incredibly rewarding to give that money to the people. Anyhow some pictures of the show...