Insurmountable and achievable

I'm freaked out by my ability to read rather quickly, but hopeless when it comes to full retention of material. I have a good sense of everything I've read for grad school so far. But I'm terrified of being responsible for specifics come September or October (or beyond). And then, having to re-read things, which makes me wonder if I've already wasted time reading them in the first place (this is an overreaction, I know).

A slower, careful read could be the answer, but that will create a backlog of issues as well.

The solution is probably to just shut up and keep working. I'm reading through An Actor Prepares (nearly done). I've read it before, but it's been a while, and the foundation material will make reading the other acting methods shine with clarity.

I realize that I think I'm behind because I'm not able to read this Stanislavski in one or two sittings like I am with a play.

Today, I need to be intentional with time. It's a day off; this is the perfect opportunity to make the pile just that much smaller. It's not even May (but it's close).

And at the same time, the move to Houston is going to be here at any moment.

I'm also not sure how to approach voice work from some of the books on the reading list. I have NEVER worked on a dialect or accent in a technical/formalized way. I'd like to recognize the symbols for IPA sooner rather than later (and figure out the difference between the vowels in "honest" and "father"). My desire to knock off another book on the list (keep trucking along) is put on hold with the voice work, which cannot be learned in a weekend (or even over the course of the summer, to be honest).

And don't get me started on Shakespeare.

Before grad school auditions, I had months to hone and select a nice package of 5 monologues and swim around them with all the luxury of time. Now I have less time and the responsibility is condensed and multiplied ten-fold.

But that's what I want.

The excitement remains. I know that this is exactly what I need. And now it's time to do the work. But  figuring out what I need to drill, or what I can kind of "scrape" together in a thorough fashion is difficult to surmise.

Needless to say, after this 6 week period of "OOOOH, LOOK I'M IN GRAD SCHOOL--HUZZAH!" I'm met with "HOLY CRAP, I'M IN GRAD SCHOOL!"

Ibsen Tour Day 11

Grand Rapids

My phone alarm went off at 6:30 a.m. This is too early for an actor on tour.
But I had some radio interviews to do over the phone for our upcoming performance in Duluth!

This hotel is already awesome. We know that, but the breakfast sends it in the 5 stars (in my book). Grabbed some fresh fruit (like sliced peaches!) a sausage, egg, English muffin sandwhich, coffee, and juice. Then went back to the room to await the phone.

The first interview:
Went okay. If you've never pitched a show on the radio before, you don't have much time. You have to make it sound enticing. I should have practiced my elevator pitch the night before. And then remember I'm out of my natural habitat of sleeping at 7 a.m.

The second interview:
MUCH better.

The third interview:
Went well too. The interviewee even asked me the following;

Why did you go into acting? (Thank goodness I just wrote my statement of purpose...)

Who would you have dinner with (living or dead) and what would you eat?
I said Tina Fey at Pizza Luce. I don't know if she's THE ONE. Ooh Jim Henson would be a good choice. But the deejay chuckled because there is a Pizza Luce at Duluth (I did my research and will eat there in a few days--whether it's weekend brunch or dinner). Pizza Luce has all these artisan pizzas that are so tasty. I think Tina Fey would be a fan.

Because it was so early, I played bum and watched a couple episodes of Battlestar Galactica and fell back asleep.

That afternoon...
we loaded out the set on the stage in this BEAUTIFUL facility: The Reif Center of Grand Rapids. It's just a giant stage with a cool layout of seats. Maybe I'll get a picture up here. The people helping us out were very friendly and everything (this isn't to say that our other help hasn't been so--quite the contrary). But I just get a great vibe about the space.

THE MONSTER BOOK OF MONOLOGUES
Someday I'll describe what this project EXACTLY entails, but I'll save that for another day. Let it be known that I'm on the hunt for about a billion monologues. I've started to categorize the one I have and begin a Word Document called Tim's Monster Book of Monologues. I'm quite pleased with what I have already. When I read plays now, I will hunt for something and not be so picky about it. Anyway, I worked on that today.

THE TV
Jerome, my roommate, and I have been enjoying John Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Stewart's Glen Beck impression is impressive. UK Chef Jamie Oliver was also on The Daily Show and that was fun. I have his Food Revolution Book, and provides some EXCELLENT meals (even for me, a not-really-a-cook).

BAD COP
Is a terrible movie, but Tracy Morgan is in it. We gave it a chance, but it was lame.

I wouldn't say tour is wearing me thin, but I'm less inclined to take a bunch of pictures and things. I'm also preoccupied with grad school duties. But I've got my statement of purpose in, two letters of rec, and my official transcripts. Just waiting on one more (no pressure, Carl).

Tomorrow is a two-show day! (Our first)

Ibsen Tour Day 10

Traveling to Grand Rapids

THE FOOD: Went to the North Grille (or something). They had some of the best hashbrowns I've had in my life. Not too greasy. Yum.

We drove about 2 hours north to Grand Rapids. It was a nice, sunny drive. Midway en route, this giant deer frolicked onto the road. But our great driver, Irene, slowed down, honked and avoided a collision. This was in broad daylight.

THE HOTEL: Is great. For one, it's right next to the birthplace of Judy Garland. It's this cozy Country Inn. They always have coffee and cookies available in the lobby. Swimming pool. Great beds. We're also right next to a Cub Foods and Target. Jerome and I picked up some groceries.

It's a pretty casual day. I tried to get to bed early(ish) because I had 3 back-to-back radio interviews the next day.

THE READS: I read Tennessee Williams's Orpheus Descending in one sitting. One of the hardest things is to start a play that has more than three characters in the very opening scene--especially secondary characters. But I got the hang of it. It's a beautiful, tragic little play that I'd never heard of. I bet I could pull off Val if I learn a little guitar (he's the Orpheus character). Maybe.

Ibsen Tour Day 9

Brainerd/Baxter

Caribou Coffee: Yes. JYO told us about his experience with this invitational callback for Dell’Arte. It seemed exhilarating and terrifying—not unlike my auditions for Houston.

At noon, we all met at the theatre to practice the scene changes (always a tricky thing with new venues and vastly different wing/backstage areas). The theatre is smaller than the historic opera houses we’ve been playing in. I’d say it seats about 300, and it was quite full tonight.

In the afternoon, I did some more work and decided to take a run.

I don’t “run” regularly. It’s something I’m trying to do. I’ve been enjoying running outside on trails. Well, there’s the grand ol’ Paul Bunyan Trail. The route I took wasn’t as scenic as I would have liked, but I kept on running, hoping that I could make a loop back to the hotel.

This was not a wise decision—especially since I had no ID or phone on me. But I have a good sense of direction, and knew that I could always turn around, but I didn’t want to. Yes, I’m stubborn. But I ended up a running for a good 45 minutes and then walking on the ditch back to the hotel for another 15 minutes.

But the weather was beautiful, and I’m alive and will be much smarter about this in the future.

THE FOOD: I dared to walk next door to Country Kitchen because they claimed to have Free Wi-Fi. They claimed that at the Hotel, but it never worked for me. I got this burger basket deal and had a strawberry shake.

THE READS: I finished Moon for the Misbegotten. Great play.

THE SHOW: Went well. Art nearly forgot his gavel for the meeting scene. This wouldn’t be so much of a big deal—except he has a line that says “I always bring a gavel.” So he ran around the entire theater right as we were supposed to enter….

MINI RANT OF THE DAY: The Dairy Queen commercials are AWFUL.

Ibsen Tour Day 8

Baxter/Brainerd

We did load-in at Central Lakes College. We've got this baby down to a system.

After that, many had laundry to do.

(This could quite possibly be the most boring post of all time).

Once that was done, we headed back to the hotel and I did a bunch of work for the theatre.

Then I received an email from the head of my grad school program. He sent us dates, a mondo monologue collection assignment, and the bios and names of my fellow classmates (Hi, if any of you have stumbled across the blog!). This email has hit me more than any other contact has. I guess it's solidified that I'm actually doing this.

From bios alone, we've got some dancers, opera singers, body builders, folks from all over the country and levels of training. They've got a variety of educational backgrounds too (not just theatre).

The Reads: Moon for the Misbegotten by Eugene O'Neill. This is a good one; I can just tell (not to mention, many consider it his best play).

JYO came back from Blue Lake, CA with his fiancee. He had one heckuva travel day: wake up at 4 a.m., drive to San Francisco, hop on a plane to Minneapolis, then drive to Baxter. He had an invitational callback with Dell a'rte International, hoping to get into the grad program. The poor guy is stuffed up and exhausted. But he seems pleased with the weekend.

We've got a show tomorrow night. I'm eager to dive into that again.

Our video guys made a "Day on Tour" video. I can't wait to share it. I hope to show everyone on Friday.
You can probably expect another episode of "On the Road with Jerome and Tim." Maybe we'll make one this afternoon.

Ibsen Day 7

Breakfast: Meh. I don’t know why I have big expectations for continental breakfasts, but I do. I’ve nearly given up on coffee.

Drove a couple hours to Baxter

The Jams: constant searching stations on the radio. I hate commercials. And that new Pink song.

The Reading: A Touch of the Poet  by Eugene O’Neill. Boy, these plays are hard to begin. It’s getting easier, and I think I’m training my play-reading muscles to work more efficiently. I read plays pretty quickly. It’s easy to want to skim, or skirt across the text, but then you miss critical information. Plays don’t have the luxury of painting a setting like novelists do (or movies). Anything a character says informs the action for the next thing.  I know nothing about this play, and although it was a bit of a slog to uncover, I’m enjoying it (and rooting for poor Sara!).

The food: Applebees. Tall Honeyweiss and the Cajun shrimp pasta plate. It was tasty.

The Killing – AMC was plugging the pilot for this new murder mystery show. It piqued my interest. Their marketing is pretty effective. First of all, it’s AMC. So they remind you that this is the station that brings you Mad Men and Walking Dead (which, if you remember, I was just hooked on a couple nights ago). And then they say: Twin Peaks asks who killed Laura Palmer…now you’ll be asking who killed Rosie Lawson?) The cut scenes don’t look all that remarkable in the previews. I don’t recognize any of the actors (which is a good thing, actually).

I’m hooked. Maybe I’m sucker. Maybe it’s because the Internet was down, but I was completely engaged with the mystery, the intrigue, and these characters. They’ve set up the show and relationships in a fine way. No one is blameless in this show. I can already tell. Even the mother of the daughter has something strange about her.

Note: this isn’t a procedural, formulaic crime drama. I get the sense this whole season is going to be about tracking down the killer.

I don’t normally follow any programs as they air on TV, but I’m definitely inclined to do so with The Killing. So here’s my endorsement. We’ll see if it sticks and what others have to say. It’s kind of fun to be a part of the thrill as it’s happening.

Ibsen Day 6

Traveling to Fergus Falls

This is probably one of our busiest days on tour.

We drove to Fergus Falls.

The Jams: NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me – A lot of fun. It reminded me how much I’d like to listen to more podcasts and stuff. Dave Barry (the humor columnist) was on, and it was quite funny. I’m just not trained to sit and listen to podcasts. I can’t have them on when I’m working. I suppose they’re good to play when I’m cleaning or cooking. But I live in a big communal house, so that’s not always the most convenient for interruptions and people going in and out of the house frequently.

We load in to the venue. There are no legs or much of a backstage/wing area. But the stage is quite deep. Anyway, this will be the most different-feeling show from a space/physical sense.

The food: Don Pablo’s – EXCELLENT, authentic Mexican food. The salsa was exquisite. The chips were warm. I had a steak fajita quesadilla. It came with rice, guacamole, and beans. Nom Nom Nom.

Between the food and the show, I chilled out in the hotel, working on work and taking a quick nap.

It was hard because there were kids CONSTANTLY swimming. Our room has a balcony that goes out to the pool/indoor courtyard area. Those kids were noisy. Fun tidbit: the swimming pool was shaped like the state of Minnesota. Regrettably, I never took a picture. You’ll just have to believe me.

Show was weird. I wasn’t energized for whatever reason.

If you recall the trauma of finding my way on stage…it returned. I’ve probably jinxed myself into some kind of complex now. In getting from the “STOCKMANN! Shouting with bricks prologue” I had some difficulty with my citizen costume. When I took that off, my jacket for Hovstad also came on. So I was a bit late getting onstage.

I COULDN’T SEE ANYTHING AGAIN.

I managed not to run into anything, but I couldn’t find the chair to sit down in. time The lights came on. I was supposed to be frozen, but I was in mid-sit. This is when you just mentally “facepalm” and go on with the scene. But it was just grumble-worthy.

I remember scoping out the path from the entrance, to the coat rack, and to the table—it just didn’t work out for me.

Normally, this kind of thing wouldn’t be a huge deal to me, but when it’s the very top of the show…it kind of throws a kink into things.

After the show, we had a talkback (our first one for this show). Those who stayed were ENTHRALLED with the performance (which is reassuring because the house was very mild and small). I had a classmate from college in the audience (which I didn’t realize until the end). AND a theatre teacher from high school was there! I never had her as a director or teacher, but I had many friends who did, and she remembered me (especially after I said I had grown up in Sioux Falls). That was a fun treat. Both the teacher and my classmate LOVED the show.

The Reading: I finished Eugene O’Neill’s trilogy Mourning Becomes Electra. At least one person dies at the end of each play, recalling the Orestia trilogy by Aeschylus (but it’s set in New England during the Civil War).

My favorite part was the second play: The Hunted. For some reason, I was hooked. The first play has a TON of exposition, but it’s essential for the rest of the arc (of course).

Ibsen Day 5

Detroit Lakes

I honestly can’t remember what all went down on this day. They’re starting to blur together; the thrill of tour is fading. We performed the show that evening, I know that much. Since JYO is off for a callback/weekend retreat with Dell a’rte, our director stepped in and played Captain Horster as an understudy.

We arrived at the venue early so we could get Scott into the show and figure out our scene changes. Captain Horster is only at the top of the show and then at the end, so we didn’t have to worry about too many scenes. But he is key for the scene changes.

After that, I walked around downtown (where there’s very little going on), grabbed a coffee and some light supper and worked on the show.

The most notable bit in the show was at the very beginning.

This is how the sequence is supposed to go:

-The company does the dream-chant for Stockmann (the “Enemy”). We all exit with our bricks.

-I immediately take off my citizen coat and hat, exchange it for my Hovstad hat.

-Walk back on stage (in the dark), place my hat on the coat rack, and sit down at the table.

-The blue light comes on, and I’m frozen in the scene (I happen to think it’s quite striking; I don’t know if anyone else would agree, but I think it’s cool. Call me conceited.)

This is how the sequence went:

-The company does the dream-chant for Stockmann (the “Enemy”). We all exit with our bricks.

-I walk back onstage, feel my way for the coat rack, find a hook to place my hat. It was a bit tricky, but I did it.

-I head toward the table and run into one of its legs. I attempt to find my chair. But it’s a scramble. The auditorium is quite large. And I’m sure the stage manager can’t quite tell if I’ve reached my mark. Luckily, I did. But it was a close call (keep this in mind for future blog posts).

For some reason, it hasn’t been an issue getting to my chair. I think there’s always been spillover light from somewhere, but that wasn’t the case tonight.

The show went well though. Scott did a good ol’ job understudying. We went back to the hotel and I watched the first two episodes of Walking Dead. I’m hooked. It’s terrifying and engaging. I don’t need another show to watch. I’m watching Battlestar Galactica on Netflix too. But I’ve heard so much about this one. AMC has it going on, what can I say?

I'm going to steal

Great artists steal.

A lot of people said it. Picasso, Bansky, the characters on Slings and Arrows, Austin Kleon. Me.

I've been perusing the archives of Austin's blog. It's great. This guy blacks out the large portion of New York Times articles, leaving only a few scattered words that form poems. He's got a book out on Amazon called Newspaper Blackout.

Here are a couple of my favorites:
"How To Be An Artist"

"Overheard On The Titanic"

Yesterday, Austin provided a snapshot of a recent presentation: "How To Steal Like An Artist (And 9 Other Things Nobody Told Me). This post spread across Twitter like a zombie invasion.

I follow different art sectors. There's my Literary Peeps and the Theatre Folk (and everything in between). It was really neat to see how it spread across the web (and cross over from medium to medium). And this morning, the head of my soon-to-be acting program sent an email with the link to a bunch of folks.

For some reason, the resonance and sharing has affected me. It's great advice. It's comforting. It makes me want to do more. But it doesn't have to be polished. It can be rough, and no one has to see it.

Going through the archives, I kept thinking, I want to doodle and sketch more! Then, I realized I have about 5 different journals that have scattered notes and doodles. Heck, I even have a little Moleskine notebook that has some sketches. Perhaps I'll aim to be more deliberate about that. We'll see.

My friend Kate spent the whole month of March drawing. (If I had her blog URL handy, I'd post it in a heartbeat, but it gets sent to my Google Reader and...excuses, excuses, I know)

I love surrounding my world with creatives and artists. It's an awesome thing.

Ibsen Tour Day 3 & 4

I'm combining the days because
A) I'm behind.
B) Not much happened.
C) I'm lazy.


But first!
A video:

DAY 3 - We drove to Detroit Lakes.

The Jams - Another Live Lounge mix, a Michael Buble CD, and the Current (J-YO took his iPod cable; he's going to a Dell a'rte International callback in California).

The Reads - I started on two books
Teach Yourself Transatlantic
and the first part in the Mourning Becomes Electra trilogy by Eugene O'Neill

Upon arrival at the hotel, I pretty much just watched Top Chef...the whole day.

DAY 4 - Breakfast was awesome. This hotel has got it goin' on.

The Reads - Finished The Homecoming, which is only the first part of this O'Neill trilogy (it's sad, but if you know O'Neill, then you knew that).

I did a workshop with a couple other castmates at the theatre. It was a small class of 8, and we led a basic acting workshop. As an example for an exercise, I did an improv scene with DH, I was a veterinarian with a cat. DH was a psychologist and his objective was to get my cat. I had some kind of weird separation anxiety with the cat, so it was nearly impossible for me to give the cat up (his name was Sammy). We failed to include any bits about Canada for our location. I guess I was a traveling vet...but the class seemed to like it. Needless to say, it was fun. I haven't done improv in a long time.

Then we had load-out and set up all the props and set for Friday's show.

Got back to the hotel and I did more office work for a while.

OH! I nearly forgot; here's my new makeup kit:

It fits about three things. But that's ok. It's mostly just hair stuff that I have to deal with.


Until next time, keep groovy and don't get upset with too many April Fool's pranks.