The premiere is tonight!

Ok, well, I promised a bunch of time ago to come and post pictures.. and in my heart of hearts it was my intention, but I was just so pooped from rehearsals, had the photography team tournament, and then my dad entering the hospital all at once... just turned out to be a bit overwhelming for me.. and yes, top that off with a bit of procrastination and well.. nothing got done.

So, we had 9 days of rehearsals, my feet were again sore everynight. We never finished before 11pm, but it was still amazing. Lots of hard work, lots of fun.

I got a lot of pictures, not all high quality as you are working with odd conditions, the lighting on stage changes in an instant and in the wings.. you are standing in the dark and really don't have lots of time to change your settings.

I did mangage to get some front views.. which makes me more than happy. Suzanne is our stage director and she is quite strict, most of the time... if you are not where you should be at a certain moment, if you are being noisy, or touching the props or whatever, you will get a stern and not too kind warning. She is an amazingly warm person, however, and the intense fire that she can throw out only has to do with her passion and her wanting the show to work perfectly. As I said, she is like this most of the time, but I guess she likes me.. cause she lets me take pictures, while she shuffles others to be quiet out into the corridor. During one of our practices, she even pulled me through the wings on the side near the edge of the stage (where she hates if you even move the curtains) and brought me really close in front of the orchestra to take pictures. She was with me and I'm looking and taking pics and all of a sudden I see the peasants are in and I'm not there... ooops! See normally, I would get yelled at for missing my entry, but here.. I looked at her.. and she looked at me, and we just burst out laughing, both of us. In a way, I'm really glad as these are pictures I would not be able to get otherwise.

so without further ado, here are some of the pictures, I've compressed them and made them pretty small so you could get to see as many as possible.

This is Stéphane (our director) with Suzanne behind him, tying a pirate scarf on him, and Valérie, the set and costume designer:


This is taken from the wings. Captain Proton, with the pretty lieutenant, who for the life of her, can't take her hands off of him, the narrator and Marcel, the robot:


Here are the dancers doing their monster dance. They are the cutest little things. One of the girls had her birthday last week.. she just turned 14! We sang her Happy Birthday backed by orchestra.. it was pretty cool!


Here is the bard ... he sings all the time and behind him the King's messenger:


Here you see the Pretty thief, the bard and the magician. They are in a dungeon where they are looking for gold etc., The bard has closed the torch.. and the thief calls on the magician (who is a meager level-one magician) to bring them light. Since he's not a great magician, he only is able to provide enough light to light up their individual faces when the sing. This song is very singsong.. dance in the forest type of song.. Tra la, lala, lala, we like adventure type of song.


And the magician and in the pretty thief in the dungeon.. same scene:



Here is our magician. His costume is awesome.. and his hat has an owl on it.. the hat must be at least 16-18 inches high if not more:



Our pretty thief... quite an hat that is!:


Again the pretty thief:



This is a pic from the 3rd act. Bob the terrible on the pirate ship.. the dancing girls are, of course, mermaids and you can see Captain Proton .. he's a prisoner on the ship:


Again, a mermaid.. It's so funny to look at them standing in the wings .. because their tails are on the side of their legs.. so you always have the impression they have their feet heels together and sticking straight out to the sides:




and more mermaids:


The captives on the pirate ship, Eve, Captain Proton, etc.:


This is Bob the terrible.. as Robert.. in the first act. He is the first to come out and explains how he met Eve in school.. how he liked her but she did not want to have anything to do with him as he was a computer pirate. He's a gorgeous hunk of a man, a nice one too. He is a singer and is putting together a cd. His real name is Ronald Loiselle and perhaps one day you will hear about him.. He plays guitar and composes and has a very beautiful warm voice. In the last act.. he comes out and talks to Eve... comes into the wings for about 30 seconds and becomes Bob, the terrible and becomes a pirate. It goes very quickly..people helping him put on his boots and eye patch, his coat. Suzanne always laughs because she says there is never a problem to get Bob dressed, there are always at least 6 girls willing to give a helping hand. ;-)



This is Suzanne, our stage director. She's hamming it up a little bit. She was looking for one of the girls to chastise her for having brought everything you see in that bag as makeup. If everyone did that, the costumes would not fit in the wardrobes:


A couple pirates, having a good beer:


Bob the terrible as Robert.. taken in the wings.. this is how dark it is.. there is just a tiny blue light so we don't trip over ourselves:


This is not part of the show, it's Cynthia, the pretty lieutenant, posturing for me! :


Group photo of our dancing monsters:


During a break, a percussionist, playing the bongos:


Captain Proton and the Robot:


This is one of the scenes that I have the most pictures of, as soon as Bob does his tiny opening speech, this is how the piece starts.. the blue on Linda's face is pretty intense. That bracelet is made up of several garage door openers..hence the blue light:


Sire Languedoc and his gang. They had to fix the hat cause it was gouging into his brow. He looks fantastic.


Searching for the Sire:


Again, the sire:


and again:


Here there is a lot of insulting going on between the worlds of the past and future:


Some more insulting:


and even more:




Eve and the centurions: They have amazing helmuts.. with huge brushes atop .. they would be great to clean ceiling fans! :




Eve has appeared and wonders where she is!:


Eve, being saluted by Proton and Languedoc decide that the insults should stop,
and that we proclaim Eve as our creator.


Amazing what you can do with some hockey equipment:


Bob, the terrible:


He sure likes the mermaids.. can you blame him? :


Vincent grew his beard all year just for this.. he looks very authentic, don't you think.. Here, he is pushing around Captain Proton.. who you may have noticed is wearing his legoland helmut which will pretty much be worn by everyone in the future.. lol! :


Jean François and Languedoc on the pirate ship:


The captives has released themselves and have decided that perhaps, Bob should walk the plank:


Bob tells Eve, that he does not want to go back, real life just doesn't do it for him, he wants to live here, forever:


Asked if this is possible, the magician tells Eve that yes, but that someone else must go back to real life with her.. (the same number that came must go back.. must be some sort of Star Trek physics, lol ;-) ):



Eve grants Bob the right to stay forever on the pirate ship:


Well, that's it for today.

I know this seems a bit confusing so I'll try and give you a quick synopsis of what the storyline is:

Bob starts off the story telling us how he fell in love iwth Eve, but she wants nothing to do with him.. AH! Women!! he declares.. and the first act starts:

It's the future.. and Captain Proton and his robot are making sure that the people of the future are safe and and he saves the pretty lieutenant.

then.. all of a sudden, it's the past.. medieval times.. you meet languedoc and his bard, musician and thief .. they are going through dungeons and adventures picking pu gold and treasure.

--suddenly both worlds, past and future collide.. they don't understand what's going on .. so they get the magician to conjure up the planets.. and to make some foolhardy potion made with pulled teeth, and other yucky ingredients.. as they believe that only a god could have made such a thing happen.

The magic works and we meet Eve.. who tells us she is not a God but a computer programmer.. and that we are not real.. but part of games she whas created.

We then find out that all of this has happened because, Bob.. very hurt by Eve's refusal to have anything to do with him has hacked into Eve's programs and mixed both worlds together.. but somehow the non-existant characters from inside the computer have real lives there.. and have been able to bring both Bob and Eve into their worlds.

When told that we don't exist.. we rebel and reclaim our right to live, to sing and to laugh.

now Bob will have his own adventure.. but Eve feels bad for all of us..as she is our creator and promises to make our wishes come true... that she will program them.

Bob doesn't want to go back to real life.. he likes it here.. so Eve will bring back the Robot, who has many ideas of what he'd like to be.. psychoanalyst, or maybe a cuisinart.. during practices Marcel would joke and say vibrator etc., .. it would crack everyone up!

In the end.. everyone is happy, we are all free.. and we will live in Eve's gardens. The narrator will run for politics, the magician will be a wood worker, Captain proton no longer wants to use his weapons and the thief will no longer steal anything but Captain Proton's heart.


So.. tonight.. the premiere.. as we say in French! "Merde"! .. it's supposed to bring good luck!