Making the most of it

What was I just saying about having bits of business to do to make yourself noticed in a show? A theater friend & I went to see a Birdie friend of mine in Dearly Departed last night and I saw a perfect example of this. Delightful, a character who is on stage for quite a bit, has all of 2 words to say in the entire show. However. I don't know whether this was in the script or was a product of the director's or performer's imagination, but Delightful was played as slovenly and food-obsessed.

When we first see her, she's sitting very sloppily, stuffing her face w/ Cheese Nips. But not just eating them; at one point she was positioning them under her upper lip to resemble fangs, then making growling, biting and clawing motions. During the funeral scene, she had an ice cream bar to eat and at one point brought the show to a screeching halt while Delightful experienced a prolonged and apparently quite painful brain freeze. At the bows, she easily got the biggest appaluse.

Which was not to say that the rest of the cast were less talented. There were a few thankless roles, but I thought everyone did a good job. My friend was very believable in her role (funny how Lucille rather resembled Mrs. Macafee; both peace-makers), and I thought the cast worked very well together.

On the road again

Found out about a week ago that work is sending me on the road again. Only for about a month this time, but the timing could be better. Mid-October into November means I had to drop out of Christmas Revels, after only 2 rehearsals - wah! I've already told them I'm willing to help w/ costumes, make-up or some such thing so I don't have to go thru total withdrawal, but it's a pity this project couldn't have waited until January. (Will the world ever learn to arrange itself for my convenience?)

But when I e-mailed the Revels powers that be that I'd have to pull out of the cast, I was amazed at the response. I had showed up at one more rehearsal because I hadn't gotten a response to my e-mail and wanted to be sure the director had gotten the word. Well! Not only did I get an apology when I showed up, but the MD e-mailed that night to apologize and encourage me not to give up on the group, the chorus manager e-mailed me, the stage manager called me at work on Monday to apologize and say a few kind words, and my "husband" called and left a message on our answering machine. A friend of mine in the group had told me that the group was more like family than theater, but I guess I thought that her experience with them in time of need was because she'd done so many shows with them. But when a newbie gets that kind of response, I can't help but realize just how right she was!

One of the challenges of being in the chorus

Driving home this afternoon, I was pondering life, the universe and everything. Didn't come up with "42", but did realize a pseudo-logical connection between a performer's insecurity and the hunger for bigger, better roles. It's all about being noticed - when you're the 3rd lovesick maiden from the left, 2nd row back, and all of you are dressed in aesthetic pastel gowns, about the only people who'll notice you are the audience members who know you. If you're the character whose only function is to answer the phone in 2 or 3 scenes and tell the ingenue "It's him again", you're likely to feel more like a piece of the set than a member of the cast.

On the other hand, if you've got lines, or a big scene, a solo or a bit of special "business", the audience is likely to notice. Mae Peterson is remarkably nasty to Rosie; it was fun to hear the audience gasp at some of the vicious digs she made. ("What does Rosie need a job for? In a year or two she'll be on Social Security.") When I played Pitti-Sing, I could be more of an individual than when I've been a chorister. No worries about pulling focus; as long as I shared it with the other leads on stage, I was "legal".

I've almost never gotten comments on my performance when I've been a chorister or had a minor role (although "Sr. Mary Velcro" was a lot of fun!), and then it's been along the lines of "you moved well in the choreographies" or "you were always so engaged in the action". Which is certainly complimentary, but my performer's ego wants more. It's greedy - it wants to hear how funny or moving or just plain wonderful my performance was. ;)

And the fewer people you share a curtain call with (20-person chorus? the other 2 members of the household staff? you & your chief foil?), the more likely you are to get a hand from the audience. Lee Adams had it right - "the sound that says love: applause!"

iTunes don't know from Mozart

I've been loading some CDs into my iPod and was amused to see that iTunes assigned my Mozart chamber music to the Electronica/Dance genre! Wooing the Lorelei got an Unclassifiable for a genre. Can't wait to see what it does with my Hungarian folk, Bonnie Raitt, doo wop...

Was that Elvis?

Earlier this week, I was driving down the highway, minding my own business, when I happened to glance over and realize that the driver next to me was sporting a perfect "early Elvis" do - pompadour, sideburns, the works. An impersonator on his way to a gig? I'll never know...

Back to being a TW

Today was the first (marathon!) rehearsal for the Christmas Revels' chorus members, so the Chief is back to being a Theater Widower, poor thing. His day got off to a rather early start, too. I woke up at 4:30 this morning w/ a migraine, which despite meds was still with me as I was trying to get ready to be at rehearsal for a 9 a.m. call. TW, bless his heart, offered to drive me, which offer I immediately accepted. (Driving w/ a migraine, even one that's finally backing off, is not fun, and not a very good idea.) So instead of taking his time over his morning coffee and the Business section, he got dressed and ferried me to rehearsal, then packed up all his toys, um, power tools before coming to fetch me home again in the afternoon.

However, this rehearsal schedule isn't nearly as bad as most I've had - Wednesday nights and one or two weekend rehearsals a month (unlike Birdie, when everyone was called every Saturday, Sunday or both), and no rehearsals at all over Thanksgiving week.

Of course, once I start my bellydance class next Monday and change my voice lesson to Tuesday, only one weeknight rehearsal won't seem quite such a light schedule to TW - I'll still be running out on him for one thing or another.

Today's rehearsal would have been a lot better had I felt better, but I still enjoyed it. Looks like we'll have a cast of 80+ once you add up the adults, teens, children, musicians, Morris dancers, and any other folks I'm forgetting at the moment. I sure am glad I don't have to ride herd on this horde! We never got around to doing any dancing today, but we did do a lot of singing (I can't believe how well most of these folks sight-read!) and were divvied up into "families". I'm a henwife (i.e., I keep chickens) married to a farmer and we have a lovely daughter who takes our eggs and wheat to market. (My husband sells the barley & hops directly to the tapster.) Many families, probably including ours, will get at least one young child once the director finishes her casting decisions.

Sounds like we're going to get our costumes comparatively early in the rehearsal process - we get our first "dress" rehearsal a week or two before Tech Week so we can see just how much they affect our movement. Even though I'll have a fairly plain costume - brocade's just not right for feeding or plucking the chickens - I'm still looking forward to seeing what I'll get to wear, as it sounds like our costumer is striving for as much authenticity as budget and modern skeletons will allow.

Ahhh!

After much thought, and with the help of some of the Chief's deployment money, we just replaced the french doors in the kitchen with spiffy new Pella version - better weather seal, more solid, the Chief decided we'd splash out on the in-glass blinds, but best of all - screen doors! (Ignore the power tools populating the fringes of the first picture.)

I came home from rehearsal this afternoon to find the front & back doors wide open (we didn't want to the leave the old kitchen doors open - no screens). SO nice to have both back doors open, and the screen is such a fine mesh that you don't notice it. At least not yet; I'm sure that'll change once we've had it a while and it starts filling with insects, tree trash, and such.

Today was a lovely day, the first that's felt cool enough to be fall rather than late summer. We ended up eating dinner in the kitchen, with the breezes circulating around us; worth every penny we spent on those doors! (Now if we could just loosen the spring on the screen doors so they don't whack us every time we go in or out.)

Oh, and those boxes out on the deck? The Chief made those today to help us climb into our very tall bed in our new bedroom out at the cabin. He used bits of 2x4s and 2x8s left over from redoing the deck, so those things are solid as rocks, and almost as heavy!

My kinda quiz

Finally, a quiz I can believe in. :D I don't disagree with my results, but do wonder if my answer to the last question might have skewed them. Looking at the other possible results, I'd say I also have a lot of cabaret and folkloric dancer in me.

What Kind of Belly Dancer are You?

You are a Classic Belly Dancer. Your idol is Samia Gamal, and you long for the days of the Cairo greats. You're saving up for your first Madame Abla, and after that it will only be a matter of time before you star in your first Cecil B. DeMille style epic choreography. Your one regret is that the photographer they hired for your student recital wouldn't shoot you in black and white.

Take this quiz!

Cabin progress - slow but getting there

Well, so much for installing that window a/c - turns out the little slider things on either side are the wrong shape for our windows, the unit is too wide for the other sash windows we have, and apparently you need a completely different style for sliders (windows that open from one side to the other instead of bottom to top). The unit is now back at its original store, where they took it back w/ very little fuss. "What was wrong with it; didn't it work?" "Don't know; it was the wrong shape for our windows so we never even plugged it in."

We pulled into the driveway Friday evening to find a deer downhill of the driveway, probably nibbling on some of my poor ferns. At any rate, it took off at speed as we pulled in; I'm always amazed at how quickly they can disappear!

I was right that the flower on my impatiens wouldn't last, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that it's got another bud. Maybe the deer will let it bloom before they eat it. Of the plants I put in, only the pachysandra seems to be doing well. Some of the euonymus couldn't take the drought, the deer devoured the lilies of the valley and keep munching the new fern fronds, but the pachy just hangs in there. Come October, I'll probably go back for more of the stuff, now that I know how well it does despite the clay, rocks, deer and other adverse growing conditions.

The weather was lovely (though we still desperately need rain!), The Chief managed to find someone to come clean out the gutters (our ladder's not tall enough) and I finally got the last of the towel bars installed. Well, except for the handtowel-size one we bought when we took the a/c unit back. That one needs a very tiny - perhaps 1/8" - hex wrench for the set screw. We'll have to buy one, just for this job, and I think it's gonna take some finding. After all, who uses hex wrenches that tiny (except perhaps railroad modelers or dollhouse makers)? Why on earth couldn't that manufacturer have gone w/ a normal set screw; we have a flathead screwdriver that served quite nicely for the other towel bars' set screws.

We saw that the contractor hadn't made much progress upstairs since the previous weekend; replaced the dry wall where they had to open up the wall to remove the old shower and bring in the new one, plastered a coupla places (and got plaster all over the shower stall), filled the hole where the old, broken heater had been removed, and that's it. However, even the patched, not-yet-primed walls look better than the old, yellowed, crooked wallpaper that used to be there.

That's going to be the moose bathroom. The Chief recently developed this interest in moose things. One of his Christmas presents was a pair of moose-print flannel pajama pants. When we were in Cabela's over Christmas, he bought a stuffed moose, a moose toothbrush holder (holes in the antlers), and a switchplate w/ a moose in one corner. I was subsequently able to find him another switchplate and outlet covers in the same design for his birthday. He also bought a smaller stuffed moose while we were in Montreal. So this bathroom will have the moose outlet & switchplate covers, a wallpaper border at about chair-rail height with moose & bears on it and the moose toothbrush holder, and we're trying to find a moose shower curtain that doesn't cost an arm & a leg.

Not a recommended way to bond w/ the neighbors

The Chief got home from work yesterday, all psyched to finish painting the deck, to find that the neighbors' old, enormous Bradford pear had dropped a huge branch on said deck. So off he went to buy a scissor-shaped chainsaw sorta thing, then spent most of the daylight cutting up branches. The Chief managed to reach H from next door, who came over to help and to fill his pick-up w/ branches. They got everything cut up last night, but the branches didn't all fit into the pick-up bed, so H came back today to finish up.

Miraculously, the only damage was to the flower boxes (the wire brackets were badly bent but the Chief managed to get them almost back to their original shape) and the 6 pots of portulaca sitting on the railing. All of the portulaca were knocked clean out of their pots - I found one dangling, pot-less and upside down, from one of the branches of the downed limb. Poor things - I took the 5 I could find and planted them in the patch out front; with luck, they'll recover. The Chief found the last portulaca this afternoon, tangled in the cut-up branches, and stuck it in one of the flower boxes with the geraniums.

Good thing we get along w/ the neighbors!

Nice (and cheap) while it lasted

It's the height of August - we knew it couldn't last. Tonight after dinner we closed up all the windows which have been open since Saturday and turned the a/c back on to kill the worst of the humidity. The forecast for tomorrow takes us back into August weather - hot & humid. We'll be spending this weekend at the cabin; installing the window a/c unit we bought last time will definitely happen before bedtime tomorrow night!

Easing back into things

Having nothing to rehearse or perform from May until mid-September has been tough, so I'm finally doing something I've been meaning to do for quite some time: A few weeks ago I started a bellydance workout class to help build up my stamina a little preparatory to rejoining my last teacher's advanced class after a hiatus of over 10 (!) years.

We were barely halfway thru my first class when I remembered how very much fun middle eastern dancing is and realized how much I'd missed it. The Chief's been encouraging me to keep at it, seeing how much fun I'm having, but he doesn't realize how dangerous that could be. This hobby can eat even more time than theater - first it's class one night a week, then the occasional weekend workshop, then saving up for a weeklong dance camp, plus any time spent rehearsing and performing with a troupe, going to see other dancers perform... It's not cheap, either - in addition to the classes, the workshops can run into some money, especially those out of town (meals & lodging), not to mention the cost of costuming, props, dinner at those restaurants which have dancers, and of course music.

That could be a big expense - right now nearly all my stuff's on vinyl. I'm not eager to buy all those albums all over again! On the other hand, if I duplicate my vinyl & cassette collection on CD, I can load it all into my iPod, and I can also use iTunes to make my performance compilations - MUCH easier than taping my albums onto cassette, then recording select bits of each onto a performance tape, and it's bound to be less time-consuming. And of course CDs have the timings of each cut - no more guessing whether all those "about 3 minutes"es will add up to something too long for a 'gram, or longer than the time alloted for my slot in the workshop show. Fortunately, I've still got a stock of performance tapes to keep me going while I duplicate (and add to) my collection.

I also realize that when I was doing this fairly seriously (classes, out-of-town workshops, bellygrams, the occasional restaurant gig), I was single and unattached. This time I've got a husband to come home to, who might want me to choose my dance workshops based on other things to do in the area (such as antique shops or historic homes to visit). Or maybe he'll find a weeklong woodworking class that runs concurrent with a dance camp I'm interested in. I can just see it; each of us loading up our respective togs and toys, exchanging goodbye kisses and telling each other "Have fun at camp, sweetie - see you next week!" :D

Yes, definitely August

... because the local one-act festivals are in full swing. The Chief and I went to one last night; we know the director of one of this weekend's pieces and both performers in another. The weather was already starting to moderate, the traffic wasn't too bad, and we ran into one of my friends in the parking lot & persuaded her to join us for dinner. The evening was a success overall; the Chinese restaurant was up to its usual standards, we liked 2 of the 4 pieces offered last night, and both of them involved the people we knew.

Is this August?!?

After 2 or 3 weeks straight of temps in the 90s, we got a gift - the temperature only got up to the low 80s, the humidity was negligible, and the insects were dining elsewhere, so we turned off the a/c and threw open the windows. This never happens in mid-August!

After feeling too drained by the heat & humidity all week to do much more after work than eat dinner & go to bed, we were very domestic today. While the Chief ripped out rotten deck boards, scrubbed some of the support structure w/ sealant, then installed & painted new boards, I ran a few loads of laundry, dumped the pics from my memory card into the computer, used the lawn sprinkler to water a few of the larger plants (the lilacs & azaleas looked so pathetic, poor things!), even started the sheers for the cabin foyer.

"Two contrasting deaths"

I subscribe to a couple of theatrical listservs in addition to getting theater-related notices from people I've done shows with. They're usually relatively run-of-the-mill, the bulk of them being announcements of performances or auditions, or the need for tech people or additional male cast members. Today I got an audition notice, though, that's the most unusual I've seen to date: a local company will be auditioning for 3 Grand Guignol one-acts and are asking prospective cast members to "prepare two contrasting deaths (props are allowed but please, nothing that will make a mess or stain)"!

Hmm; I could see a baritone bringing a tenor, soprano and "kindly chorus" as his props (probably should include an accompanist, too) and doing Jack Point's final scene from Yeomen of the Guard as one of his 2 deaths. Odds are good there wouldn't be too many others doing that one. Perhaps said baritone could also do the "Die, thou!" scene from Sorcerer...

With leap year coming up...

A very important word, especially for those born on "Leap Day" (Feb. 29th):

bissextile (by-SEKS-til) adjective Of or pertaining to the leap year or the extra day in the leap year.noun Leap year.[From Latin bisextilis annus (leap year), from Latin bissextus (February29: leap day), from bi- (two) + sextus (sixth), from the fact that thesixth day before the Calends of March (February 24) appeared twice everyleap year.]

Today's word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=bissextile+year

Catching up

Didn't last long at the cabin last week - too hot! The Chief went to visit his mother, who'd had another fall, but we were getting furniture delivered Friday evening, so off to the cabin I went. Temps in the 90s, high humidity, and no a/c - whew! I woke up Saturday w/ a migraine, my imitrex was back home, and at 7 a.m. the indoor temperature was already up to 80, so I did the bare minimum to close up (i.e., packed up the trash & locked the doors) and fled home to the air conditioning.

This weekend we both went out to the cabin, to weather that was much nicer than last weekend's - highs only in the 80s and much more reasonable humidity. We did go out & buy a window unit for the bedroom and a small fan for the guest room, though. I was delighted to find a bright-pink surprise, in the form of a "volunteer" impatiens that was certainly not blooming last weekend. The flower is fuchsia and the plant is only a few feet from the driveway - no missing it! I can only assume that the seed was in the pot of lilies-of-the-valley near which it's now blooming. I don't know how long the impatiens will last, as everyone tells me that deer find them very tasty, but I still enjoyed seeing it there.

We also had our contractor back out for a chat. He's going to redo the upstairs bathroom (replace the vanity, shower, drywall, paint & put up a border) and remove the dead a/c cum heating unit in the upstairs bedroom, remove the (ugly, crooked) wallpaper, and paint the bedroom. With any luck at all, that job will be finished by the time my parents come visit in about a month.

Decided not to buy a car right now after all. Between the latest cabin improvement project and the fact that the Chief wants to redo the front bathroom at home, I've got lots of incentive to hang on to my paid-for car another year or so.

At a restaurant near you...

Much too hot to cook, so I tried a new Middle Eastern cafe nearby. Got there to find a drummer & oud player setting up, and a dancer arrived as I was partway through my meal, so I started eating more slowly. There was a family seated nearby with 3 small children; the oldest looked to be no more than 4. The 2 older ones, the 4-year-old and her perhaps 3-yr-old sister, were fascinated - the dancer, her sparkly costume w/ its dangly bits, the music, all had them bouncing in their seats. Even the baby in his high chair was entranced when the dancer stopped briefly near his side of the table.

It's a very small cafe - only 10 or 12 tables at most - and the dancer really only had perhaps 5 or 6 square feet near the front door in which to perform. The family w/ the little ones was seated at the tables right next to the musicians. So close, in fact, that at one point, when the dancer made a sweeping, bowing hip circle, the older girl reached out and tried to grab or at least flick the dangling fringe on the dancer's costume, which swung tantalizingly at the child's eye level. I'm sure the dancer had to be wondering what we were all laughing at!

As the dancer wound into the final section of her routine, her drum solo, the 2 little girls couldn't contain themselves any longer; they jumped to their feet and started to approach, dancing all the while! The older one was doing about as well as you'd expect from a 4-year-old, but her sister really seemed to have the hip thing down! As soon as the dancer turned and spotted them, she reached out and pulled them into the dance, tried to get the older one to do a few moves, while the younger one stuck with what she knew. It was adorable, and the audience loved it. (And I'll bet the parents were wishing for a camera!)

The dancer wasn't bad, given the circumstances. Forget traveling steps, floor patterns, working the room - she was pretty much stuck in a small space. I was therefore pretty impressed when she actually managed to swing a cane in those close quarters without hitting anyone or inadvertently clearing a table. She mixed both cabaret and folkloric styles, but seemed to have more fun w/ the latter. I'd love to see what she can do when she has some room to work.

Her costume was mostly what I'm used to, except that it included a belt that tied loosely at her waist, beaded, jeweled & tasseled to match the rest of her costume. At first I thought her hip work wasn't all that sharp, until I realized that the belt was playing up what her torso was doing and distracting from her hips. A shame - once I realized the distractor, I could see she had some nice hipwork. I hope she has a friend to tell her that belt commits what in theater is the cardinal offense of "pulling focus".

And to think I'd almost opted for carry-out!

Nice to have him home

What a sweetie! I was planning to go see Assassins this past weekend only because 4 Birdie cast members were in it. The Chief decided to pass, given the premise and that he's no more a fan of Sondheim than I am. Friday night, however, he decided to go with me after all. "Let's make a night of it and go out to dinner first." The show was well done, but I wasn't surprised to learn it only ran about 3 months on Broadway. The Chief didn't think much of the show at all - not the story, not the music. Fortunately, my friends did well so I didn't have to tell any "lobby lies", and the Middle Eastern restaurant right around the corner was very good. We plan to go back several times to try all the other things on the menu that sounded good.

Another perq to having him home again - he picked up a few groceries for me after work today.

Silly spam!

Just got some spam with this entertaining subject line: Long live your august personage as soon as you have assumed the throne. Until that time, I suppose, you could walk in front of a bus and they wouldn't turn a hair.