With three-show weekends (two shows on Saturday and one on Sunday) everyone spends a lot more time at the theater. I thought it might be fun to give you all a peek at a typical, Now. Here. This. work weekend.

On Saturdays, we try to contribute to a potluck-style brunch in the green room. This past weekend, in honor of the holidays, we had a feast of Peeps, cookies, and kugel. Sensible breakfast foods.

After signing in, the cast hits the dressing room, where I found Jeff taking a snack break and Hunter getting hydrated, while Susan and Heidi were putting on their make-up. Later, Hugh (our sound guy) came in to mic everyone up.

By the time Martha (our Stage Manager) or Tom (our Assistant Stage Manager), call half hour, the green room becomes a pre-show chill zone, where the crew and band talk about books, movies, or run through their preshow checklists. Between conversations, you can hear Heidi, Susan, Hunter, and Jeff doing vocal warm-ups and running lines. When Martha calls five minutes, the green room clears out and everyone heads backstage, in the house, or up in the booth for show time.

After the first show, everyone scatters for the break. Break time is used to fuel up with a late lunch or early dinner,* take a nap, sit around and talk, play a game of Angry Birds, or get some fresh air. However, Susan and I prefer to spend the downtime getting the bejesus scared out of us by trying to watch this without closing our eyes — we’re on episode 9. Don’t tweet any spoilers or we will send The Pig Man after you.

About an hour or so before the second show, everyone comes back and the pre-show process starts all over again. We have a rocking N.H.T. family who are dedicated to making this show awesome six days a week. The photo in this post includes some of the people who make our show/make it run. They do everything from operate the spotlight and move the benches, cubes, and panels, to making sure the costumes look nice, the show sounds good, and, of course, write and act in our play. Working weekends with this group of people feels less like work and more like we’re putting on something fun with our friends. And really, that’s exactly what we’re doing.

*Chipotle should be the official food sponsor of Now. Here. This. I’m pretty sure we keep our local Chipotle in business.

We’ve learned a lot of fascinating science facts while working on N.H.T., but the ones that have always been the most challenging (for me, at least) to wrap my head around have to do with the size of the universe. Every night, I’ve listened to Roger Rees (who provides the voiceovers for our show) say: “the universe/over 150 billion trillion miles wide … ” Trying to process a size larger than a football field makes my brain begin to scramble. However, when Hunter sent us this link, it expanded my thinking without breaking my brain. Spoiler Alert: The site takes you from the size of a proton all the way out to the larger universe as it looked 12.7 billion light years ago. It’s pretty cool. And interactive. And great for procrastinating (not that we condone that behavior).

After that site, I fell down a Googling rabbit hole and stumbled upon this piece, which talks about how scientists have recently hit the +1 billion mark with star identification — they only have between 199-299 billion more to go! The picture above shows the Milky Way galaxy (where we live) and the white box isolates the area where those billion stars were identified.

All of this information got me thinking about what our vast universe runs on, what keeps it going. Energy? The Sun? Chaos? I’m pretty sure it’s this.

Thanks for the intro, HB! Hey, all. AVB here. While Hunter, Susan, Jeff, and Heidi are up on stage during tomorrow’s (Tuesday) post-show discussion, I’ll be jammin’ on my keyboard, live-tweeting the Q&As from the @tweetherethis account. Get into it starting at 8:40p.

Hello NHT blog enjoyers. Please give a warm welcome to Ashley Van Buren. AVB is a beautiful writer and human being. We had the good fortune to pull her into our reindeer games as Assistant Director and doer of everything to help bring the show to life. She was excellent and will be writin’ and sharin’ her awesomeness her on the blog. Getintoit. And we need to step up this blog cause NHT is open y’all!

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So we spent tonight reading through the latest draft of the show. It’s an exciting time.There are so many emotions when you first share words and songs in the air. It can sometimes feel like the pic above. New. Scary. Wide-eyed. But the awesome thing…it’s happening. Something is happening, and in NHTville, that’s always a good thing. I like seeing JB on the keys, and Larry on the others keys. And Susan reading and writing. And Michael B. doing the ‘rithmetic. And Heidi reading and singing. And new recruit Ashley keeping us all sane with her secret weapons. We are prepping for the first day of school on Monday to learn words, steps, and notes. We are picking out the perfect outfit. Getting lunch packed. And looking for pictures like this to post.Yes, it is a lot. But, we want to make a good show for you people, so we gotta do what we gotta do. Our job: good show. Yours: come see show. So grab them tix and we’ll be keeping you posted on all things NHT here and in the lands of Facebook and Twitter. Every happyscaryexcitinghappening moment.

Now. Post. Blogentry.

Yep. Tis true. Tickets for Now. Here. This. are Now. On. Sale. Gobble them up as they are going fast. How do I get tix? Click HERE! Even groundhogs are excited about the show. Even…groundhogs.

Seems appropriate to take a moment to ring in 2012 as it is the birth year for NHT. We look forward to sharing time with you all this spring and all year long! And it also seems appropriate to remember this crazy-ass claymation special, Rudolph’s Shiny New Year. I have vivid memories of a baby (Happy) with giant ears that Rudolph laughed at despite his ridicule as a child, a whale with a clock in it, Benjamin Franklin, a ZZ top looking knight, and a nutty eagle. Makes sense to me. Happy 2012 to you all!

I’ve been catching up on some classic films that I’ve somehow missed in my 40 years and there was this amazing trend in old movies that you don’t see so much anymore.  It’s the MUCH younger little sister.

I was (finally) watching The Philadelphia Story recently and I was somewhat distracted by Tracy’s (Kate Hepburn) little sister, Dinah, played by actress Virginia Weidler (brilliantly, I might add – she was my favorite thing in the movie).  This character seemed to pop up a lot way back when.  The juvenile female lead has this meddling, (sometimes horny) little sister that wants to be involved in the action in any and all ways possible.  In the case of Philly Story, Kate was 33 when she made the film and Ginny was 13.  So, yeah.  Kate could be her mom. Was this a character that audiences could relate to or wanted to see?  Was it common to have the little sister be so involved in her sibling’s love life?

Similarly, in the case of The Birds, Veronica Cartright plays “Cathy Brenner” – little sister to Rod Taylor’s “Mitch.”  Taylor was 33 and Ronnie was 13.  Again. Dad?  Were there a lot of “accidents” back then?  Prolly so.  Veronica liked to get all up in Rod and Tippi’s business, too by the way.  I just saw Cartright in that Bodysnatchers remake from the 70s.  Creepy.  She was inadvertently creepier in The Birds, though.

Like Philly Story, the same boy-crazy little sister character appears in Giant (which I’m halfway through right now – please, no spoilers).  Interestingly, in this film, actress Fran Bennett (who plays Liz’s daughter) was 2 years older than LizzieTee.  Liz was only 24 at the time and there were several baby girls cast to play the little baby version of her daughter.  One of those babies could’ve been Roseanne Barr, who was born in ’52 – that would’ve made her 4 when Giant was filmed.  Sadly, none were Roseanne, though. She’d have to wait until She-Devil to make her film debut.

I never had a little sister.  I always wanted a big sister when I was little because I had a fantasy that she would be awesome and do all my chores for me.  I don’t know that I would’ve wanted the competition from a little sister, though.  Oh sure, we’d probably be best friends now, but I bet those high school years would’ve been tough for me ’cause I woulda been crushing on her boyfriend or something.  Ugh.  That could’ve gotten complicated. So, I’m officially thanking my parents for letting me be the littlest.  Fun fact: Hunter, Susan, Heidi and myself are all the youngest in our families (Michael, too).

Luckily I’m older now, so I know how to handle myself around a little sister. In the tos-nht family, we sometimes refer to Heidi as “little sister” because she’s the youngest of us all.  I should note that Susan is my big sister, but she doesn’t do chores for me.  Heidi’s birthday is next week.  Happy Birthday, Heids! She loves any and all things Justin Bieber – so make sure you leave her a present at her stage door before they have to board up the Addams Family house on the 31st.

Here is a picture of my sisters from 2007:

And here is a link to my favorite Elvis song!

Ok, I am now jumping in the blogging pool. It’s been a while since I’ve posted my opinion about anything and I’m a little scared like just before you jump into a cold swimming pool and your testicles shrink up in anticipation. But I can’t not post this post. Here I go: 1,2,3 Jump!

Come see “Guys and Dolls” at La Guardia High School for the Performing Arts! Here is the link. The school is just behind Lincoln Center, so it’s very convenient to all you opera singers and Juilliard students. It’s only $20 bucks a ticket, which is a steal considering that is about the same amount in the New York school budget. And it features the boundless energy and commitment that you can only find in high school productions.

Hunter and Jeff and I have always been huge fans of high school musical productions. I learned my passion for theater in high school and that is the standard by which I judge everyone’s commitment. When I meet other people in theater I try to determine their answer to this question: “Do you love it like a high school girl loves it?” If the answer is yes, then you are all right in my book.

I have been working with the drama students at La Guardia for a number of years but last year was my first as Music Director. I MD’d their production of Hairspray and all I can say is, if you missed it, you missed a real event. Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman came to a preview and were so impressed they came back to see the actual show. When Marc talked to the students, I could picture him as a high school student sitting at the piano.

So come to see this skit. You’ll see some future stars and some passion and some great costumes and some fantastic singing and a kick ass orchestra!!! And I’ll be at the back of the house crying while another generation of nerds feel the electricity of live musical theater for the first time.