On to the next show...

Whew - I'm pretty exhausted. I've been working quite a bit in the theatre, only non-acting duties:

--box office shifts
--some office work for education and development
--house managing
--cleaning
--tracking line notes for the opening of A MIDNIGHT DREARY, which is a world premiere play about Edgar Allan Poe (it opens tonight, Halloween).

Doing line notes requires me to be on book and keeping track of what the actors say. If they flub anything, I note it. If they switch words or sentences around, I make a note. I certainly make a note if they call for line. I only did this for three runs (1 tech run and 1 dress rehearsals). It's tricky. I had an electronic copy and was glued to my computer for a good two hours. Meanwhile, ghouls and nightmares appear on stage. Spectres of Poe's work is projected on the stage. The lights are great. Nearly the entire show is underscored. It's very spectacle-heavy, but I can't quite comment on the effect of the show. But it feels like I know so many of the lines already. Anyway, I'm eager to see the show without having to worry about anything else.

I'm pumped for the opening night party tonight. I don't have a costume or anything, but I'll probably get all schnazzy.

Yesterday, I had a short choreography rehearsal for The 1940's Radio Hour. There's not a ton of dancing, but some. Biff and Connie sing this great duet together. A dance break is part of it. There was the smallest, TINY, bit of a dip that we do and I completely dropped my dance partner. I don't have a single excuse other than we were just marking it. She started to dip, and I wasn't ready to support her. Needless to say, Connie slid agonizingly slow out of my arms and on to the floor. She wasn't hurt, but now she and the rest of the cast has plenty of fodder that I can never live down for the rest of my life....

Afterwards, we worked on music. I should've warmed up. That's one strange thing about this professional world. You don't have a voice teacher or someone leading the group in vocal warmups. I'm going to have to be way more diligent about getting the voice back up to speed.

We have a read-through/sing-through of the show tomorrow. It's the first script rehearsal.

I also hear there's going to be lots of Viewpoints exercises. I've read bits and pieces about Viewpoints from Anne Bogart's book, but I've never implemented it or done any of them before. I'll let you know how it goes.

(Man, I have GOT to get off book with these songs...deadlines are creeping up on me...)

So Long, Jimmy

We closed The Rainmaker on Saturday. It was a generous, full house. It was a great final performance, I think. I continued to discover new things. The entire cast and crew bought into the show from the day we started work on it. It continued to blossom throughout the run (around 70 performance, or so). I'll miss it.

I'm not going to miss the plateful of mashed potatoes though.
I don't even think I'll be able to eat them at Thanksgiving.

But I do have a month to recover.

"You Look Foolish"

That's a line from The Rainmaker. Jimmy says it to his Pop. I absolutely LOVE saying it every performance, because it's hilarious and full of irony (Jimmy's wearing a huge bass drum while he asks his Pop to clean up the whitewash on his shirt).

ANYWAY....

Here's a bit of an interview with Sally Wingert, a delightful actress in the Twin Cities (italics are my emphasis).

AVC: What do you do as an artist to make the right conditions for art?

SW: I try to be really open, I try not to shut down things that are said. I try to listen more than I talk, which is a very hard thing for me. I try to put away my fear of being foolish and looking stupid because you almost invariably experience both on your way to art. And I try to get a good night's sleep.

You can read the whole interview here.

Away We Go! (A great film, by the way)

Things are a bit stressful at the company right now. We're working on four shows (performing two, rehearsing one, and pre-production on another). I'm only involved with two of those, so I've got more of a break than others. But the stress can spread. Additionally, we're nearing the end of our summer/fall rep. This means people are snatching up tickets like hot cakes. We were sold out for The Odd Couple (tonight's show) on Monday. I think this is a record-breaker of some kind. Around 7500 people have seen this show. Last year (a five-show season) had just under 20,000 people attend our theatre. This show is going to have almost HALF of our our audience this year...well...that's how it's looking so far.

In any case, the artistic director mentioned something that his screen saver says: "we're all on the same team." We're all here to make excellent theatre. We've got different ideas of how that's best done, but the results point to the same end. I mean, we live, eat, work, play, sleep theatre. It was inspiring, actually. It was a nice little reminder.

Only five performances of The Rainmaker remain. My aim is to have the best show on the final night. I've always had that idea in the back of my mind. It's been a continual arc (with some blips, some small, some not-so-small), and I'm immensely proud of all the work that everyone has done on this show. It's grown into something quite beautiful. A week never passes when some stranger says this is the best show they've seen at the theatre. It's hard to take in just what that means--especially when these are season ticket holders and donors. They've seen them all, and keep coming back. I'm grateful The Rainmaker has had so much success. It's going to be bittersweet to finish it off (that sounds like I'm going to kill it or something).

In other news, I just finished playing the trumpet for an hour or so. I probably played too long, but I'm trying to build up endurance. The tone quality comes back relatively quickly. I haven't played trumpet in over a year. But I'm playing it in The 1940's Radio Hour right after Thanksgiving. It's a canned show, which means we've got a recording of the music to sing to every performance. There's no live music. Well, the one exception is when Biff (my role) brings out his horn for "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy." Today I transposed the trumpet solo in the middle. It's a bit tricky and requires a lot of lip slurring (multiple notes can be played with any one valve combination--so I have to change the note with my lips and air).

Finally, on Monday, I'm part of a staged reading that will be taped. It's called Mettle of Honor--a historical play about Dr. Mary Edwards Walker. She's the only woman to have received the Congressional Medal of Honor. It's basically all voice acting, but I'm playing a variety of characters: her husband, a couple soldiers, a Yankee Killer, and a sideshow barker (and a dog...who barks...). They require different voices (especially since we're just using stands and changing hats every once in a while to distinguish scenes). I don't consider myself to be a voice/dialect person. But I'm working on it. The sideshow barker is fun. I usually just accept that with my baby face, I'll be an ingenue type for a while. This small project allows for some stretching, and it appears to be going well.

I think tonight (I have the night off!) I'll look over some scripts and start narrowing my monologue options, maybe even start crafting some first drafts of cuttings. We'll see how that pans out. Some tv shows on Hulu are tempting.

The list piles. The more I consider what I've got on my plate, the more I realize just hoe much is going on. Many of the projects are in the near or distant future--nothing is too immediate. If I'm wise, I'll start tackling some of the bigger things now.

Oh the weather outside is frightful...

I had to go to the basement of the house today. That's where all the storage is. In the storage are hats and scarves and blankets. Alas, I'm in Minnesota, so go figure.
It snowed almost all day. It's let up by now, and I hear the sun will be out tomorrow. It'll be all melted (most of it has already). It was optimal snowball snow.

Shoot, I need to find my gloves.

Plenty of leaves are green.

Flowers are still out...lilting, but they're still there.




This morning, I woke up at 5:30. This is early. This is supremely early for me. I usually roll out of bed around 9 or 10...or 11. I had to tag along for a pre-show workshop for some students. The school was an hour away, and their first period begins at 7:50...I just shudder at the prospect of having early American Lit that early in the day.

Anyway, another actor and I gave them a bit of a jumpstart on The Rainmaker, explaining the world of this drought in the late 1930s and just how much of a big deal it is for Lizzie to get married--not only for her happiness and comfort, but for economic reasons too (of course, Jimmy, my character, thinks the world's going to blow up, so he just wants everyone to be as happy as they can before the big BANG!).

The actor (who plays Starbuck) is in charge of a lot of educational elements with the theatre. Afterwards, we talked about how we can be more effective. We both agree that getting them on their feet doing some of those goofy acting warmups isn't a bad idea. That also gives a small taste of what it may be like to participate in our summer conservatory.

The students will see the show on Friday morning (which will start at 10 am, that's quite an early call...) I hope our little talk was helpful or provided a TINY bit of context that will orient the stakes.


[Above is the view from my window this morning]


I spent the rest of the day calling a lot of community education departments in the area. Each school district has an office for community ed. We're hoping to advertise our workshops for students and teachers (and the conservatory). I left a lot of phone messages and quickly got over my phone anxiety. It usually takes a couple trials to figure out how best to say what I'm trying to say. But trust me, I've made plenty of strange voice messages where I just end up fumbling over my words. Ah well.


I'm starting to feel a bit under the weather. I've been pumping lots of Emergen-C and water. I bought a bunch of soup and orange juice. I'll be getting to bed earlier than normal (and it feels like midnight already, but it's only 9 pm). Tomorrow is a long day at the restaurant.

In other news, I'm starting to dive into grad school audition work. Doing some re-research and looking over scripts and monologue possibilities. I've got some good leads that are pretty exciting.

Get Outta My Head

Due to a rather erratic schedule, I pick up serving shifts whenever I can at the restaurant. Today is the theatre company's day off, but I ended up working 7 hours as a server. It was kind of trying. A swell of customers all seem to walk in at the same time. I was serving senior citizens all day, and they had a lot of special orders and needs. For the most part, I enjoy serving. It's fast-paced and has quite a bit of variety. But the thing that is most difficult is when someone throws a kink into your groove. I start to get sloppy and end up having multiple tasks and orders to juggle at the same time. I've got to get better at completing something and then moving on to the next thing. Of course, not everyone realizes that. Then I've got a couple who wants to chat, and I'm happy to chat with them. Another random guy is asking about real estate businesses in the area.

That's the one thing I HATE about living in a small town. I'm expected to know everything about the goings on in the town. It never fails when I'm walking down the streets, working the box office, or waiting tables. I rarely know the answers and I feel embarrassed when I don't. Pretty soon, I won't be able to use the excuse that "I'm new here."

Anyway (I'm getting into an extended analogy, so bear with me).
As I was saying, if something interrupts the flow of what I'm doing at the restaurant, I can get off track and start going a little batty. I have to remember not to snap at people (not that I do, but I started to play those conversations in my head while making more decaf coffee) and to take extra breaths. My being frazzled or annoyed is not going to help the other tables that have been plenty amiable.

This gets me thinking about performing. We've recently had some audience issues. Some people put their feet on the stage. One man was just standing in the vom for ten minutes. People text. People cough a lot. People talk constantly, as if they're watching tv. It's all very irritating. This isn't to say that I'm ungrateful or wish people would never cough. Some of it can't be helped. I'm inclined to believe that many people have reasons for their actions that are completely justified in their minds (that's what's so great about acting). Sometimes, we have slipups. My phone has gone off in too many classes to count. I appreciate audiences so much. I truly do. But there have been some performances of late that have caused all the guys in the dressing room to say: "what is going on out there?!"

One particular show I had my head in about thirty different places, and it resulted in a strange performance that I could not stop thinking about while I was performing.

I realize that I'm a very "heady" actor. I approach things too intellectually sometimes. I become aware that I'm not quite "there" in the middle of a performance, and I start to freeze up. I cannot expect that it's impossible to alleviate those feelings and thoughts. What I do hope is that I can quickly transfer to what's at stake on stage. I give myself a mental slap in the face, but that doesn't seem to work all the time. This doesn't happen with great frequency. I expect it is bound to happen every now and again, especially after doing 50+ performances of something. Still, it's worrisome. I hope I can whisk away the whole, "you're not living as your character right now, so just do it." Because it's not that easy to convince yourself that.

In the morning, I can tell myself: "you should be up and eating breakfast so you won't be late for work." But until I actually roll out of bed, inaction is what's happening--and that's not very eventful.

A Four-Day Breakdown

Monday
Had a kinda rough day. There was just a lot of stuff going on: a restaurant shift, long music rehearsal, a set changeover, and then an understudy performance.

Tuesday
Great day off. Got third season of 30 Rock, bought some books at Savers, saw Inglorious Basterds. That movie was insane. I loved it, but it was intense. So much dramatic irony. Every scene was laced with subtext and nuance (and the occasional burst of Tarantino violence and all-around wackiness).

Wednesday
Opened up the box office at the theatre and spent a long time taking messages and replying to them. Lots of numbers, addresses, dates to keep track of. I manage to get through all the phone messages, but hardly touched the e-mail reservations. Ah well, you can only do so much in two hours.

After that, I went up to the offices and did some Twittering for the company. I also looked up a lot of National Foundations for potential grants. There's a lot to slog through. I've got a long list to sort. I should be finished by tomorrow.

Went on a bike ride, watched a bit of 30 Rock, saw Glee (which is a show that is...well, maybe that's another blog post), and closed out the night with Top Chef.

Thursday
I've got a 10 AM MATINEE for The Odd Couple (final understudy assignment, unless anything freaky happens with the actors playing Speed and Roy). It's a student matinee and it's early.

Later, we've got a company-wide theatre clean, company class, changeover, and The Rainmaker - it's a full day, so I should get to bed earlier than usual.

Peace!