The Age of Progress
"I'm bored," she said.
Learn how to tap-dance," he suggested, without turning around."
- Neil Gaiman (Coraline)
Hello Ladies and Jellyspoons!
Its been a tumultuous few weeks.
I got my show off the ground, A Cre@tion Story for Naomi. Lots of rehearsal and line memorizing and things not going right, and people changing lights on us, and stuff not working, and finally opening night, we set it free. It was a bit wobbly at first, and still is on some days, but we've picked up momentum and it seems to be doing well!
Its an odd little piece, patch-worked together from 2 years of discussion of about 20 people, give or take, who came in to the conversation and left just as suddenly. It encompasses hundreds of different discussions about dreams, and science, and ghost stories and apocalypses, and how creation stories are made out of what humans need most all funneled into an hour long play about a 16 year old girl.
Steve did a wonderful job writing it. I think our process shows, but to good and a little scattered effect. I'm never sure. The play is starting to hit a rhythm and feel good, so maybe we are starting to tie everything together well. The wonderful people who come to see my show keep giving me the, "it was fun" line, which make me feel fantastic, but also a little suspicious.
But hey! I am performing the main role in a fun show about myth written by a bunch of my friends and knit together by the fantastic Steve Spotswood! Its good times!
It definitely stretched me, thats for certain. I really am liking (after the fact, of course) that each role I've had recently has made me go through some growing pains as an actress, and helped me get more tools, and focus my craft (how pretentious does "craft" sound??)
As much as I love theatre, I still go through the "I'd kinda rather be doing something else" feeling. Something else not really being something specific. But I think I'd like to have the freedom to do something else. To no longer have the "I can't, I have rehearsal" plague of all actors. To say "Hmmm... tonight, I feel like ice skating! Or going to the library and browsing! Or knitting in front of the TV." And here I'm going to insert a little musical number to illustrate the point:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGdgThuQ8e0
Just so you get a vision of my ideal weekend. (Plus a few hours of eating dinner with Lee in front of the TV).
I'm also hard at work on my Master's Degree! I'm in a class called The Library in Society, which may be my favorite core class. We've only had one class and we have a 5-7 page research paper due next Monday. I've been hard at work highlighting sources and typing out quotes and outlining every night I don't have a show. And I love it. I love love love research papers. I love reading history books with a focus, gathering information, highlighting relevant passages that perfectly capture what you want to say, and even discovering something new you want to say that is even better than your original thesis. Synapses firing, making connections, sitting in the computer lab for hours, addicted to looking at just one more source.
I'm writing about a librarian named Mary Salome Cutler Fairchild, who is mostly just a footnote in everyone else's history. I'm the first person to really write something totally devoted to her. It makes me what to expand it to a biography. Because there is so little information about her, I'm learning a lot about the time period and the status of women in American in the the late 1800's. Which is not only fascinating just because it is a really amazing time period where women were starting to break out of the home sphere and into public life, but because the next play I am in, I play a woman in America in the 1880's! How life works out, huh?
The Resurrectionist King (also by the fantastic Steve Spotswood) is an exciting project. First, I am no longer playing the cute, innocent, quirky girl with a darker side, which has been my bread and butter for the last.... 20 years of my life. I am playing a young widow whose husband's body was stolen. She is very vulnerable and overwhelmed by conflicting emotions, but it is all under a veneer of Victorian propriety and stiff-upper-lippedness. The Victorian woman must be the perfect hostess, and very self-less, not letting her own feelings interfere with making others feel comfortable. But she has just experienced huge trauma. It will be really fun to find how to play all those notes at just the right moments.
We had our "first read" for it a little early so that Steve could see what he would like to change about the script with the actual cast. I think I play her a little lopsided right now, with a lot of stiff-upper-lippedness in the first half, and then tears and snot in the latter half of the play. It's odd, I didn't think I could do that on cue, but the play is really well-written and it just brings it out. Tom, the director seems great, and will probably help me really control the breakdown to the best effect.
I love period pieces! It makes me want to watch Upstairs Downstairs all over again!
Anyway, lots of stuff going on. Hopefully things will get a little less crazy next week.
I'm still working on my 30x30 list. Somethings I am currently working on, like ice skating (I basically can skate without falling down, and my new ice skates are coming in the mail soon!), and handwriting (my parents gave me a elementary school handwriting book, which is harder than it looks!). They also have said they will pay for a hot air balloon ride, but it is too cold right now, and I'm waiting til spring. Some things I have kinda dropped the ball on, like being constantly in a movement class. Theatre is one thing that prevents me from getting involved in a regularly scheduled one, as well as the fact that I am stymied by choice (dance, yoga, martial arts, or tai chi). I also haven't been to the gym this year b/c when I am not rehearsing or doing a show, I am researching and writing my paper after work). I think the next ones to focus on are crosswords and my family tree.
When I am done my shows I can focus more on the things I want to do!