There's a lot of shit coming dangerously close to hitting the fan lately, but I'm not gonna bore you with it. Instead, I'm going to relay to you the assorted pieces of Drah-Mah that I get to watch from the outskirts. Watching it all is so much more entertaining than living it, don'tcha know.
The Husband works at a private school in DC, and the various fine arts folks at both his school and the assorted other private high schools in the DC metropolitan area interact sporadically throughout the year. The theater director at Husband's school, we'll call him "Tim" (mostly because that's really his name), in his various professional interactions with his peers around the Beltway, shared his intentions for the show schedule for the year, culminating in the Spring performance of [Dana cringes in horror] "High School Musical 2." HSM2 is a good money maker. Yes, it's an insipid piece of dreck to theatrically and musically inclined adults, but the kids love it. When the school did HSM a few years ago, they sold out every night and got rave reviews from the under-18 crowd. Doing a popular show like HSM2 allowed that Tim could do some meatier, but less well known, shows earlier in the year. He got a chance to choose some straight plays that gave his older students a chance to really showcase their talents, even though the shows themselves might not have been bringing droves of people to the audience each night.
Imagine Tim's surprise when he finds out that he hasn't gotten the rights to HSM2. Why didn't he get the rights? Because the young upstart director at the school a few exits up the highway liked the idea of doing HSM2 so much that she applied for the rights, and her show would take place first (late April instead of early May), so she got the rights for the geographical area. Despite the fact that she'd been talking about doing "Man of La Mancha," and Tim was actually being very helpful in offering to help with customes and set pieces and such (since their school did that show a few years back) to save her some work and money. Bitch stole our show.
"But, wait," you might be saying. "Doesn't this give Tim the chance to do a show in which the songs and dialog don't make him want to poke hot needles in his ears?" Yes, perhaps, except that it's late enough in the game that a lot of rights have already been spoken for, and we are down to two choices- an affordable show (non-period costumes, small band for the music) for which the talent pool of students doesn't really support him getting the female lead he needs OR a classic show for which he's got what he needs acting/vocally, but will be much more difficult to pay for in terms of costumes, sets, possibly having to hire some musicians...
Personally, I'm on board with either show they do, theater snob that I am, and was not looking forward to HSM2. But I'm making a voodoo doll of Miss Chippy Director, and I might just be hoping that her Troy and her Gabby take "break a leg" literally right before opening night.
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So, we got this new VP a couple months ago, and for some reason, they did not hire or appoint an assistant for him. Instead, they tapped one of the exisiting senior support people. one who has a full time job supporting a senior executive, and added the new VP's support stuff to what she's already got going on. Now, the new VP is heading a new division, made up of groups that used to be under the umbrella of the senior executive that this woman supports. So, in essence, she's supporting pretty much the same big-old group she used to, just with an added boss. And she's done the work for the past two months, but takes whatever opportunity she can find to remind the masses that she has two bosses, and essentially two jobs (since every other VP in the company has his or her own assistant). She's Jewish and has kids, and let me say that she's got the Jewish mother martyrdom down to a science.
Well, this week, the new VP decided that he would have one of the lower level admins in his division take over the day to day support. High level assistant is free to focus on her original boss and her orignial division and is back to only have to do one job for the paycheck she gets. Good for her, right? Oh, no. Now she's passive-aggressively speculating as to whether the lower level admin is going to be able to keep up with all that is required to properly support the VP, and lamenting how difficult the transition will be because so many meetings and projects are already underway. She's worried about being shut out of the professional relationships she's developed in the past few months. She's insulted that folks think that she needed to have her responsibilities stripped away.
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It's fun to laugh at other people's angst, ain't it?
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