At CCP's Pasinaya '09.

Attended the Pasinaya at CCP for the 3rd year in a row last Sunday. After downloading the schedule and checking what I wanted to see, I decided to play everything by ear on the day itself because I suddenly decided to tag along with Lawyn and the Atlantis crowd. I missed Atlantis, hahaha. I had also decided to watch the Atlantis excerpts, even though it was as the same time as the Zsa Zsa Zaturnnah preview. Look at it this way, practically everyone has already seen Zsa Zsa at least once, and this is the first time that Spelling Bee and Spring Awakening will be seen in front of an audience. Heck, no one has seen or totally confirmed who will be in the final Spring cast yet, ahehehe.

When I arrived at CCP, I went directly to the Main Theater lobby and found Paolo at the TP booth. Different troupes were performing folk and ethnic dances in the middle of the huge lobby, and one group caught my eye. I forgot what the dance was called, but it required the girls having palayoks balanced on their heads. In the middle of the dance, there was this one girl who entered balancing a whole stack of palayoks before setting them down on the floor. And one by one, the other girls added their own pots to the stack. Holy kamote, the stack was now twice as tall as any of the dancers, and the lone girl was attempting to balance the entire stack! With only one guy in a bahag as a sort of spotter, she managed to put the whole thing on her head and stand up and dance. And to think that while standing, the stack of pots almost reached the tip of the huge chandeliers dangling right there in the middle of the lobby, hahaha. Huwaw.

Off to Starbucks a little past 1pm, and found some of the cast of Spelling Bee and Spring Awakening already there with Chari. Whee, I missed my baby bro! And he finally remembered to bring the JATD CD without my reminding him, hahaha! Small talk galore until Claire and Lawyn arrived, then everyone waited impatiently for a couple of latecomers (Ava and Robi). Hahaha, despite Chari's annoyance with the latecomers, she was happily concent playing around with her camera.

Finally, when both casts were complete (save for Noel in Spelling Bee because he also had a show for GTF), everyone trooped to the assigned dressing room in the Little Theater. We had the whole 101 to ourselves even though it was assigned to Atlantis at a later time. Chari then rehearsed the blocking with the cast, then rehearsed at least once with the minus one ("I Believe" and "Song of Purple Summer" for Spring Awakening and "Magic Foot" for Spelling Bee). Lawyn was tasked to cue from the tech booth (gave her a teeny bit of cueing tips as well) and Claire was to stay backstage, so I got to stay in the audience area to take photos.

Hmm... why is it that when someone came from a resident company of CCP, they automatically think taga-CCP ka na rin? Hahaha. At uy, chismis yan ha. Close lang naman eh. Assuming kayo na may history agad ha, hahahaha.

By the way, while we were rehearsing, Ryc and Thea's daughters were also there, watching the cast as they sang along with the minus one. One of them managed to pick up the lyrics of the Spring Awakening songs and even attempted to sing along with them (especially in "I Believe"), hahaha! Super adorable for a 6-year-old.

Chari quickly adjusted all the actors blocking onstage a few minutes before the show, and I plopped down on a center seat with the best view to take photos. All in all, it was a pretty good preview show. Hahaha, it was cool to see Gibbs watching while he also could've squeezed in at the Zsa Zsa preview at the Main Theater (which Tad said had a full house).

Ended up with Lawyn, Claire, Mikki, Cheeno and Joaqui at the artist entrance after the show, until we decided to go to Teriyaki Boy to just hang out, talk and eat. Shared a table with Lawyn, Mikki and Joaqui, with Felix, Noel and Johann at the adjacent table. Cheeno ended up with some of the Zsa Zsa cast at the 2nd floor, and Mikki wanted to go as well, but Lawyn guilt-tripped him for a while, saying that he spends practically every day with them, but we let him go after a while anyway, for 10 minutes (ahahaha). Listened to Felix and Noel as they talked about reviews by critical bloggers and newspaper reviews. Chika galore with Lawyn and Joaqui (who I only got introduced to in the middle of conversation, hahaha!), mostly about Spring, and all the funny moments in the office. Man, I missed that darn office. Joaqui was actually amazed that for a company like Atlantis, there were only a handful of people in the office working on everything. When we finally decided to order, we got fascinated by what Felix was eating, so all 3 of us ended up ordering the same thing, which was this tuna and salmon tempura thing with wasabi. Yummy.

Over 20 minutes had passed and Mikki still hadn't gone back, so Lawyn, Joaqui and I headed upstairs. Found Mikki at a table with Eula, Tuxqs, Martha and Cheeno, and we got to join them as well. Hahaha, Tuxqs thought that Lawyn was some older person, because the name sounded old-fashioned daw. And I'm not sure if I heard this right, but did Eula actually think that Tad and I were father and daughter? Ahahahahahahahaha. Que funny. Anyway, chismis revolved around TF's, which company could be on top of this list, curtain calls (HAHAHA! Wagi ang pag walk out ni Tuxqs) and Eula's private disco in her room (complete with eye-batting motion, hahaha!). Stayed there until Lawyn and I had to go to Alabang with Mikki, but Mikki had decided to stay a little longer (hahaha, gee, I wonder why, ahahaha), so Lawyn and I went ahead.

More talk during the ride back to the south, mostly of plans we wanted to do since way back then. Then of course, the usual chika that I've already heard in a different version, but all the new ones added confirmation and new doubt in our minds, hahaha. Picked up Mae at her place then bummed at Cafe Breton in Westgate over ice cream and coffee. Hahaha, more chika, of fangirls and other stuff. And where was Mikki all this time? He did text once that he was on his way, but an hour and a half later, Lawyn called him up and we found out that he was still in Harbour Square, hahaha. Of course, Mikki raved about Eula for the nth time. Yan ang isa pang nasa fan mode, hehe.

I didn't get to attend much of the Pasinaya festivities, but the day was still a blast. Can't wait for the upcoming shows.