the panto starts next weekend. we’re actually starting with a real audience on wednesday, which is actually our dress rehearsal, but we’ve invited a select few actual audience members to attend as well, so we can gauge our new bits.

it’s probably one of the most changed pantos, compared to the oregon country fair version… we haven’t actually changed the order of when things happen, like we did a few years ago, but we’ve added a whole bunch of new stuff, including two entirely new characters with their own sub-story.

we may also be adding new music — which we haven’t actually gotten yet — which should be interesting.

(ETA 161206) yep, we got a new song during last night’s tech rehearsal… 😕

politically, it keeps getting worse, almost by the hour. drumpf broke several decades of protocol and talked with the president of taiwan, had a twitter tirade over alec baldwin’s impressions of him on saturday night live (alec baldwin responded “release your tax returns and i’ll stop”), has gotten into a dick-measuring contest with china that threatens world war three, and he has appointed clearly and overwhelmingly unqualified people to positions of power which they are going to hold on to far longer than drumpf is going to be president… and that’s not to mention the fact that he has recently settled a lawsuit involving his fraudulent “trump university” for $25 million, still hasn’t released his tax returns (although it is rumoured that he hasn’t paid taxes in almost 30 years), STILL hasn’t said anything nasty about the ignorant, racist, bigoted, xenophobic people who are behind a rising wave of hate crime, that have been supporting him, and is already accepting financial favours from various different kings and potentates in violation of several well-established statutes prohibiting the president from making money by being president. i don’t see how it’s going to get better at all, in the short term, and, over the long term, i don’t anticipate my life getting significantly better than it is today, and i can forsee the distinct possibility of it getting considerably worse before there’s even a hint of it getting better… and i am a “priveledged” straight, white male. 😐

and i haven’t even started complaining about the dakota access pipeline and the surrounding furor involving that, or the “christians'” predictable and boring response to the “war on xmas” this year… although i have been putting OM AC cards in bell-ringers buckets.