But Wait! There’s More...

During intermission, the crew covered Princess Adora and the castle with vines. The castle had no problem staying still, but it must have been tricky for Adora to spend nearly half of the play pretending to be asleep. 

The second half was full of intrigue...

….and shenanigans, especially during a silly skit starring Dandini and a gift box that was regularly tossed around...

…and when the leads picked up water guns and shot them towards the audience.

Eventually Princess Adora was awakened not by Prince Timothy, but rather by Buttons, her loyal lapdog.

There was one final song with the entire cast...

…and then it was time for bows. Dandini shared center stage with the Narrator. The rehearsal went really well, setting the stage for a successful five shows over the weekend. 

It was so nice that Veronica made friends with Lorna and Elske, who are both very talented and sweet.
 

Dandini in Action..

To be honest, I had no idea that Veronica had such a large part until I saw her in action as Dandini.

Dandini was the sidekick to the prince (a male character traditionally played by a female), which was a larger part with a solo. 

Originally the prince was to have a second solo, but Veronica proved herself and they sang together as a duet instead. 

Veronica was expected to play the horn horribly, which she managed to do with style.

As with all pantos, it was silly...

…with random characters showing up such as this giant bear...

…and random slapstick comedy.

Clearly you can tell I was super proud of Veronica as I’ve included an insane number of photos from the show, but actually narrowed down significantly the more than 1,200 shots I took that evening. 

 

Behind-the-Scenes...

As I’ve done several times over the years, I photographed the dress rehearsal on the Thursday night before official performances started on Friday. I hitched a ride with Jenny, the director, arriving quite early. Before getting her make-up, Veronica was fitted with her microphone.

Following panto tradition, the top comedic role was a man crossdressing as a woman, in this case as one of three fairy godmothers. 

The volunteers doing make-up worked so hard! They spent an incredible amount of time on each principal in addition to working on the large number of dancers, plus refreshing make-up at the intermission. 

Little kids have always been drawn to Veronica. 

She enjoyed doing a photoshoot a few weeks later with this nine-year-old who is hoping to become an actress.

Jimmy was in charge of lighting for the show. He actually prefers to do sound, but was happy to help train the next generation of lighting experts. 
 

Panto Rehearsals...

Veronica was excited to be able to participate in this year’s pantomine, which was Sleeping Beauty. She had been attending rehearsals for many months, most of which while wearing a mask. 

She was in charge of the theater group’s Instagram account, which is how I managed to find photos of her during rehearsals. Here she is with the Prince, a male part that is always played by a female. 

While Jimmy and I were attending a special Twofer Tutu Tuesday Hash on 22/2/22, Veronica was also in a tutu. 

Later some of the principals, plus Jimmy who was doing the lighting, showed unity with the Ukraine.  

Some of the cutest posts on Instagram were dating profiles for the principal characters.  

Of course, stage make-up is always very thick to counter being washed out from the bright lights. 

 

Hashing in Zoetermeer...

The following day, Opee stayed home to work, and I headed to Zoetermeer to hash with Hague H3. I know I’ve posted this pedestrian and bike bridge across the freeway before, but couldn’t resist posting more photos since the angle of the sun changes the shots.

Passed these very colorful apartment buildings on my walk to the start of the trail. 

It’s always nice to run in an entirely new area. 

For some insane reason, I followed Double Whopper into this dense brush...

…but eventually gave up and headed back towards the water and eventually circled around to find trail. 

Sadly it wasn’t the only time I got lost (although I was on trail while crossing this bridge) and I missed the beer stop. Regardless, I was happy to be out in nature on a beautiful day. 

This part of Zoetermeer was used to host a giant horticultural show called Floriade in 1992 with some features still there 30 years later. 

 

Hashing in Rotterdam...

Just three days later we were back in Rotterdam again for another pub crawl live laid by Opee. This time we had different run start times and locations for runners and walkers. The runners were rewarded with special homebrew by Webf&%#er celebrating the Dark Side of the Moon.  

As usual, we passed some fun urban art...

…including an Ox-Alien. 

Lucy and Just the Tip enjoyed posing for photos on this great interactive mural. 

We were happy to have a beer stop at Vet & Lazy, the pop-up bar that we had discovered the week before.  

Opee was disappointed that only Lucy actually followed true trail through this Escheresque condo compex (he had better luck with the group that ran through just this past weekend, 7.5 months later). 

We ran through the old port and circled up across from Vessel II, where we had dined just the week before. 

Just the Tip had suggested that we go out afterwards to Tai-Wu, his favorite Chinese restaurant in the Netherlands. Originally we were told there was no space for our group, but More Meat Please, his wife, had a chat with the staff and a table magically was cleared for us. The two of them took care of ordering, all in Chinese. The food just kept flowing and was delicious. I was nervous when the bill came, but that incredible meal with beer and tea was just € 27 each. We all agreed that it was by far the best Chinese food we’d ever had in Holland.