This, too, shall pass...

... as my dad always says.  I'm borrowing a friend's computer for now, because the show must go on!  By which I mean, of course, this blog.  So, while things get sorted on the stolen property front, I will handle the situation by doing what I do best - talking about it!

And speaking of shows, the opera ran last week.  It was great success, with full houses and lots of positive reviews in all the major newspapers.  One of the posters: 

 

On Thursday, we went on a "flash mob" (I've never heard this term before; I'm assuming it's British?) meaning we went around major London areas singing bits from the show and giving out flyers for publicity.  We successfully attracted the attention of the police in each of these places, which we attributed to our fabulous musical talent, but which always ended up in our rather hurriedly running away... I wanted to stop and ask about the crime report for my computer, etc. since you have to report things over the phone and not in person (very strange) and which has been difficult since my phone was one of the stolen items, but I rethought this idea when I saw their rather unfriendly facial expressions.  Perhaps over the phone is best.  Anyway, here's a photo of us in front of the Royal Opera House:

And here are some photos from the show - just check out these sets!

Act I with the supercool giant bull

Act II with the swimming pool, which was a massive and rather hazardous set change

Act III with my favorite - the huge sparkly heart!

Backstage - one of my fun 60's poses + Francisco doing the twist;
Rupert in the back there is my on-stage beaux

Before each show, we'd do warm-ups and games with the cast to get revved up, just like we do before American shows, except that in America, we usually do the hokeypokey, whereas here they do the hokeycokey.  When they all said, "Yes quite, let's do the hokeycokey!" Raven (another Pomona student) and I looked at each other and said, "Oh, it's probably just the hokeypokey," we can do that.  And to be fair, it started out about the same way - "You put your right leg in, you put your right leg out" and all that - but took a sudden turn for the worse when everybody grabbed each other and ran into a pile in the middle of the room, Red Rover style, at which point Raven and I looked at each other in fear and said, "Oh, no, this is definitely NOT the hokeypokey."  And they did this over and over; it's a miracle anyone was in a state of health to still appear on stage.
So my fellow Americans, be warned: they take the hokeypokey to a completely different level here.