It’s been hard to keep up with my writing, things have been so busy lately. I’m in the middle of tech week for Rocky Horror, and if ever there was a hell week this has been it. There are plenty of good things to remark upon, such as the awesomeness of our set, our costumes and our band, how hard everyone has been working and the general sense of things starting to come together. Those have been competing with frustration with things like problems getting into the theatre on time, microphone difficulty, makeup difficulty, and things not coming together that should be.
Makeup has been particularly onerous for me… I spent around 45 minutes in a makeup chair last night where I was experimented on in ultimately fruitless attempts to make it look like I don’t have eyebrows. Layer upon layer was caked on my face in order to make the stuff covering my eyebrows blend in… after I was summoned out to do The Time Warp and came back with it all quite literally melting off of my face, we finally settled on something less ambitious (albeit still more complicated than any show makeup I’ve ever done previously… this will mark the first time I’ve ever worn guyliner).
It’s pulling together… people coming to our opening on Friday might still get something a little rough around the edges, but they’ll get a good show. I once again urge everyone to buy your tickets and buy them soon. And do come see it! I don’t promote many of my shows and won’t unless I think it’s worth the cost of admission, and this one definitely is.
I also haven’t been using myself in it as a reason to promote it… this role has been nothing but challenging and a huge stretch for me vocally, and there are plenty of better reasons to come see it than because I happen to be in it. That said, I’ve been experiencing a lot of “holy shit, I’m gonna be playing Riff Raff” moments lately, and while I might not be the strongest in the cast you are unlikely to ever again see me in a role as iconic as this one, so it may be worth checking out for that reason.
Holy shit, I’m gonna be playing Riff Raff. I’m going to be doing the role so legendary and singular that the writer of the show had to play it himself. I’ll be doing The Time Warp… the one song that people who’ve never even heard of the show before will still know. More than that, it’s my freaking song.
We open tomorrow, and I’m still struggling to wrap my head around all that. Surely some collossal mistake has been made somewhere?
In other news, a rather whopping chunk of my stress has been devoted to an impending special assessment on my condo. (For the uninitiated, a special assessment is when the homeowner’s association of a condominium complex needs to do some major repair work that can’t be covered by the association’s savings. The cost gets split amongst the owners according to what percentage they own in the form of a one-time assessment.)
I knew there would be an assessment coming when I bought the place. The siding and roofing has been rotting and has been due for replacement since a long time before I became an owner, and it’s now gotten to the point where the homeowner’s association is hemorrhaging money into repairs for damage caused by water intrusion. So this was a known eventuality… the trouble is more in terms of the amount.
I was expecting around $10K, so to be safe I’ve kept $20K set aside. I am very fortunate that with my recent move to ArenaNet I’ve been able to afford to do so, and continue saving past that point over this past year of employment there. Unfortunately the price tag for the entire repair job comes in at over $4 million… split between the 102 owners (not evenly, but based on percentage ownership according to the size of the condo; mine comes to 1.026%), I’m in for a little over forty-two thousand dollars, well over four times what I expected, and almost a quarter of what I originally paid for the place less than two years ago.
Needless to say it’s been the cause of some commotion amongst the residents. There is a lot of worry that we are doing more repair work than is absolutely necessary, and that the condo board hasn’t been very transparent with the process and is attempting to push through their own agenda (basically, fix everything and the kitchen sink in one fell swoop regardless of the cost) with as little interference from the residents as possible.
There is going to be a meeting next week that should be very interesting. There will be a vote, but as I understand it more than 60% of the people have to vote “no” in order for it to be stopped. It will more than likely go through.
I’ll be okay financially, although I will more than likely have to take out another loan from the bank of mom and dad, which I am loathe to do. Others have raised concerns about their own ability to pony up the cash… there will likely be some who are forced to sell or declare bankruptcy and are foreclosed upon, in which case it’ll be the homeowner’s association (and therefore us, the homeowners) that pick up their tab, which is scary… they’ve accounted a 10% contingency fee into the total amount to handle such things but with economic times being what they are, you never know if it’ll be enough.
In any case, at this point I’m pretty much resigned to this happening… when you’re a homeowner, stuff eventually breaks and needs fixing. Hopefully there won’t be any more surprises before this all plays out.
Dan.
Tags: condo, i can't believe i used the word guyliner, money matters, rocky horror