tisket a tasket

I bought some coffee yesterday at Starbucks:
"What do you want it ground for?"
"Paper cup."
"Paper cone?"
"No, cup"
"Flat on the bottom?"
"Yes."
I forgot the proper response is "paper basket." I'll just never get it right. And how can Grande mean Medium? I mean...grande...it sounds huge...like the Grand Canyon, which is no medium canyon let me tell you.

Wrap up

It's amazing when you look back how the bad things are forgotten and the good things magnified. What a wonderful week I just had! Out of 8 performances I had 3 that I felt were about as good as I can do and only 2 that were fairly disastrous. I was physically exhausted by the Sunday matinee, the assistant stage manager was late and the audience had to wait 25 minutes before the show could begin. They were not in a good mood. My monologue just kind of laid there, it was ok. But my other scene suddenly came to life that day. For the very first time everything clicked and I really felt as if I was listening and reacting with the other actor instead of just feeding cues. About midway through I could just feel we had the audience in the palm of our hands. The last few lines brought audible gasps, and the applause was natural, buoyant, the real thing. It was our best performance by far and as an added bonus the playwright had chosen that day to attend. He was very pleased, to say the least. He was profuse in his praise. And he sent us all an e-mail yesterday thanking us again and telling us he was inspired to create even better work now that he knew "he could get it into the hands of pros like you." Heh, how lucky he didn't see it Saturday night when we went up on lines and confusedly groped our way through the entire affair.
So, now I start my new acting class tomorrow. I met one of the top improv guys in Boston during this time and am planning on taking some classes from him as soon as I have the time. Now, if I can just figure out how to get by without the day job...

The Green Room

Our little dressing/waiting area, the green room, is a long narrow room adjacent to the stage area. It's actually painted green, and is generally speaking filthy. Fourteen of us are crammed in there, climbing over each other to get back and forth. My propensity for pacing is quite inhibited. The racks for costumes are at the far end, right next to the only window in the room...which is a full window and looks out on the courtyard of this condo/mixed use facility (an old Piano factory which was famous in it's day). If you don't want to get undressed in front of the window, you can move to the center of the room where everyone is lounging around. It's wonderful...we are all bonding in a very silly way. Everyone kept telling me what fun I was going to be having, and I thought I'd be mostly terrified. Which I am. But I did forget about all the fun, the instant camaraderie, the constant jokes, and ready laughter. It can lead to extreme cases of giddiness and did last night, among the younger cast members...and even those of us of a certain age.
It's so strange to re-enter a world you left years and years ago and to re-remember it. Oh well...whatever...I suppose I should start getting over myself at this point.

Go with what you got

I got overly excited by my good rehearsal and decided to add in a lot of stuff. Here we are, last rehearsal before performance and on my own I'm re-working things by the seat of my pants, somehow thinking I can inspiredly pull it all off. I must have given my poor director a heart attack, she sat after me down for a long and very heartfelt, impassioned lecture...sermon...heart to heart on the very nature of acting and performance. I always feel the most abashed when it only slowly dawns on me when I am alone at last at how far from reality my perceptions have deviated. Oh well, live and learn. And then learn again.

Day 2

It's no longer hell week, I had a great rehearsal...great being a relative term. I didn't blank out in either scene, basically. Performed my lengthy monologue in front of an audience for the first time (of fellow actors) and heard crickets chirping for extended periods of time. It was obvious I don't exactly have a hit on my hands...but at this point I don't care, as long as I can get through the damn thing with my psyche left generally intact. The other scene garnered a similar tactful lack of comment. One more night of knowing all my lines, successfully navigating from beginning to end with all of the in between parts connected and I'll be ready to, yes, actually have some fun.

Hell week: Night 1

I'm performing this week, which always brings to mind this interesting question: What in God's name have I gotten myself into?
The first tech rehearsal did not go well. I found myself out on stage in my first piece without even the preparation to get nervous about it first. My mind went blank. I had to call out for lines twice, and in general inspired so little confidence that the director tread cautiously as she gave notes afterwards. Then for my solo piece, which I had been prepping nervously for all day they decided since it was a "lengthy" piece to dispense with it and just set the sound cue's. My director insisted on at least running some scenes, much to everyone's annoyance, and I bounced around from here to there yelling my lines at a fevered pitch.
Tonight is the second tech...no calling out for lines, if I go blank it's ad lib time. Once this is all over I'm sure I'll remember how fun it all is. I keep telling myself that.
I did get a chance to watch some of the other efforts, some good stuff. It should be a fun show altogether.