in limbo

This is the time in the work process that is like being in limbo. It is not the "jump in the line, shimmy under the pole with a drink in your hand" kind of limbo.

It is the other kind, being held in suspension with a huge jigsaw puzzle of work to do and some of the pieces have fallen off the table and one is under the sofa. That is the one piece that is usually the key to joining large sections of your puzzle together.

My particular puzzle pieces are the overall workload, the budget, the designer availability, the actor availability (pre-contract) and keeping all the sewers on my team busy with meaningful work. We can only move forward so far with pattern-making and toiles before we have to have all of the pieces in our hands for it to come together.

In other words, the piece under the sofa is a fitting. I need to do some fittings!

Fittings at this point in time depend on an actor willing to come in before their contract starts at a time when the designer happens to be here and then we can get going.

Next week, luckily one show starts rehearsal and the designer will be here for two days and happily two actors in another show are willing to come in while the designer is here from New York. That should get us out of limbo.

In other news:

Happy birthday! One of our colleagues turned 70! and since she was not in the building, we had a little sing through the telephone moment that I recorded for her.

Speaking of birthdays, there are quite a few colleagues who turn a significant number this year, myself included. I think we are going to form a club with a clever name and pick a day to celebrate our collective birthdays. Someone suggested calling it the 'ought club. Works for me.

Sad news too this past week. Our circle of theatrical tailoring colleagues is quite small and we had shocking news of the sudden death of a very talented tailor who many of us have worked with for many many years.

Our world just got smaller.