Chrisje has a hobby.
No, she has multiple hobbies, but there’s one in particular I’m going to talk about today. Like so many people, we all need something that we can do to relieve ourselves from day-to-day worries and all other stuff. Some people play sports, others read or do something with music, I get rid of anything (mentally speaking, not literally) in our renovation, and so on and so forth.
Not Chrisje. No no no, she has another outlet. One that’s not given to many. One I couldn’t do myself, even if my life would depend on it.
I’m talking about acting (bet you didn’t see that one coming, did you?).
“Why are you writing this on a blog that’s supposed to be dealing with all things renovation-related?” I hear you thinking. A multitude of reasons, which we’ll come to in a moment.
The past
Chrisje has been acting from waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before we even met. In her college years she performed in various plays. Once a year, three year in a row (at least that I know of by now) there was this student play. Once she even won an award for best actress that year (across all student acting guilds). It’s something in her veins, something I’ll probably never understand (a better question would be “what do you understand”).
It came as no surprise once we had bought our house she went looking for a local amateur acting guild. And found one. It’s called “De Gemaskerde Hand”, Dutch for “The Masked Hand” (even if you don’t speak a word Dutch, you might have guessed that one).
A year ago
They usually do one play each year. Last year they did two, but they combined them on the same evening, thus creating one play out of the two with a break in the middle (you know what I mean, don’t you). And then performed that set for eight times. Chrisje acted in one of them, so being the good boyfriend (we weren’t married yet back then) as I am, I occasionally swung by a rehearsal.
And then it started. Suddenly I was in charge of their website. Not much of a deal, keeping a site up-to-date, as it’s a pretty static site, only needing minor adjustments every now and then.
Then the rehearsals for this years production started. I still don’t know how or why, but suddenly I found myself going to a lot more rehearsals than last year. Which of course landed me in the tech department now. That should teach me for being overly interested in anything geeky.
Today
We now both are part of this amateur acting guild (Chrisje on-stage and I off-stage).
Noticed how I nicely evaded saying anything about when it’s all going down? I bet you were already wondering. Tomorrow is the final rehearsal. Saturday is the premiere. Then for two weeks on Friday and Saturday, they perform.
And then we all go to rest to start it all all over again in September or October (yes that double “all” is on purpose).
Which leads me to the whole point of this post. We haven’t been home one single evening this week. Until now. So the house has to wait. A week. Or two. Maybe.
The play
It’s also a little bit of plain selfish advertising. The play itself is about a psychologist. She has this self-help group, organizing nightly sessions for those in need. Maybe there’s a hidden agenda. Maybe there isn’t. It’s one of those sessions we are going to see in action. For this one, there’s five participants. One couple, two ladies and one gentleman. Where crazy meets crazier. And then the games begin. And the paranoia…
I’ve seen it over and over again already, and it’s an interesting play. I believe it will be a success, especially after seeing the progress made during this last week. Only time can tell for sure.
By the way, for those of you interested: there are still some seats left. Not for the premiere or next Friday (those are sold out), but for the other three days. Just in case.
And if you do grab one of those tickets, be sure to come over and say “Hi”.