My favorite form of punctuation is the ellipse. Because so...much can happen betwixt those three little dots...
Friday, October 31, 2008
Opening Night: Part HALLOWEEEEENIE
I'm sitting here trying not to shoot liquid poop fire out of my ass. This translates to being a bit more than some nervous.
The good news is that we ran through the WHOLE SHOW last night with costumes and lights and sound and quick changes and everything WITHOUT STOPPING! Granted, this didn't happen until midnight, but still.
We still have the pesky curtain call to block, but how difficult can it be to come out and bow, right?
During my quick change from ball gown to crazy bloody scientist, I'm supposed to wear this nasty skirt underneath my ballgown that goes underneath my lab coat for the next scene, right? I kind of forgot it last night. I ended up having to run on stage in a mini-lab coat open at the back showing everyone my underpants. Oops. Then we have to go straight to the bathroom after that scene so that we don't get blood on everything and remove all of our bloody clothes. This left me in bra, panties, high heels and the mid-arm length white gloves I wear under my bloody lab gloves for the other scene. I looked like a deranged super hero and of course struck a pose. Then I had to walk all the way across the back stage, through the men's dressing room* and back into my dressing room like that.
Eee hee.
Then I remembered that every one else shows their titties or strips on stage, so this spectacle wasn't really much of a spectacle at all.
Everyone said that was a good look for me.
Still, I really hope I remember that skirt tonight.
And now! Without further ado! Join me, my bloglings, in our ritual of singing the Opening Night Song!
*Incidentally, this is the fist play I've been in since college where the dressing room wasn't unisex.
Labels: opening night
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Sure would be nice to run the show, you know...maybe once before we open...
Today is Thursday.
We open tomorrow.
We have yet to run the show once, just once, without stopping for a major technical foul.
Fuck.
It's ambitious. This is an ambitious show.
People are starting to make large decisions based on the technical issues. For instance, they just struck the table from a scene I'm in since they have to be turning the table into a bed backstage for the next scene. "So, when I say, 'I'll just leave this on the table for you', I'll just....say...What? Leave it on the step for you?" It sucks because there was this really nice moment where I found an 1800s bloody wooden speculum on the lab table and held it up horrified and asked what the hell did they do to you? Goodbye, nice moment.
I have this quick change where I now have to rip OFF the ball gown that I spilled blood all over the other night so that won't happen again, but this change from long white gloves and a ball gown to a bloody lab coat and lab gloves is supposed to take place in the period of about 3 seconds.
I have never felt so unprepared to open a show before.
I mean, usually you do tech all day on a Sunday or a Saturday, right? Then you have at least 4 dress rehearsals before opening night. 4. 4 dress rehearsals where you run through the whole thing with lights and sound and costumes without stopping.
We have had zero of those yet.
Fuck.
Oh well, at least they added a motor to the rotating stage so that our tech crew can help us change clothes and set stuff instead of running like little hamsters to make it rotate.
And I got to see the titty dance last night. They are so brave. No way I could do that.
I'm exhausted.
I hope we get through the show tonight. I really really really do. I would hate for opening night to be our first dress rehearsal... You know?
Fuck.
Ha, the production manager just called to tell me that if I take public transportation, I'll need to make alternate arrangements for this evening because we're going to be rehearsing past the time of the last train.
Oh boy.
This is not the week to quit smoking.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Private thoughts during tech
- Wow, this theatre is way better than the black box
- I wonder when the dancers are going to actually show their tits
- What scene are we on? We cannot still be on the 2nd scene. Are you kidding me?
- Are they really rotating the stage by running on it like little hamsters? They're going to have some crazy leg muscles going on by show 15...
- Oh. OK. Some wire is crossed and that's why all the sound is totally garbled and staticy and incredibly sllllloooooww. It won't be like that for the show. OK. Great. Fine. We'll, just...You know. Dance slower tonight, I guess.
- I look frumpy. I mean, I can totally work the mop cap, but I just look like a stupid frumpy French maid.
- What is that smell?
- I thought we were supposed to pull out the reproductive organs from the carcass, not the heart.
- Holy shit, that tray is so big, how am I supposed to carry that?
- Hmm. There seems to be a multi-layered stage. One such layer rotates. We've been rehearsing on a flat floor. ALL OF MY BLOCKING IS COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!
- Should I pick up my skirt when I go up and down the stairs, or just hope I don't fall?
- I wonder if anyone will play cards with me.
- His costume makes him look like Willy Wonka
- David Sedaris' mom died?
- Are we STILL in Act 1?!
- No, please don't tell me what time it is, I don't want to know.
- We get to play with the entrails tonight, we get to play with the entrails tonight, la la la la la la!
- What is that smell?
- If you're really going to listen to show tunes back here this whole time, I'm going to have to slit your throat.
- Oh my god, those afro wigs are so soft and poofy and just wrong with a blood stain on the crotch of that white ball gown!
- I should take some more photos.
- So, seriously, for this dance, are we going to... I mean, there are stairs and three levels of stage in our way now, do we just.... work around that?
- OK, my hem keeps getting stuck on the hooks on my boots. I'm going to trip.
- Are you having a breakdown yet, lead actor? It's OK. Shhh...
- I'm going to miss the last subway if this goes any later.
- Oh, we're skipping to that scene now? Great! But... I have to know how to do that stuff that I have to do in those other scenes, you know....for the show that we're doing that opens on Friday...
- OK, I just dripped blood all down the front of this ballgown we borrowed from that big important theatre company in town. Oops.
- No, please don't cry, Costume Designer, it's ok. There there.
- If I don't catch the last train, I could just go to the office and sleep the three hours I have until I have to be there in the morning. I mean, today.
- Is it snowing?
- OK, so when we come off stage like this, up to our elbows in blood....where do we um.... Go? With our sticky gloves and such....umm....Help?
- I have no idea how long it is going to take me to change into that costume. I wonder if someone will be back there in the dark to help me with the snaps...
- We open in three days we open in three days we open in three days, holy fuck, how the hell are we going to get all this shit together to open in three days?
Monday, October 27, 2008
Oh and guess what else
I got cast in another play!
I'll have to tell you about it some other time because I need to honor the tech week and opening night festivities of this present one I have up my ass, but I will tell you that it is even WEIRDER than the play I'm currently in. If that were possible.
I really love it when shows overlap like this because you know why? When you come out after the play is over and you're chatting with the audience, what is the first thing they ask you? Inevitably. Every time.
"So, what's next?"
Like I'm a play machine! (This also happens predictably over the holidays whenever I go home.)
Well, THIS time, I have a what's next and I can say, "Why, Mrs. Toodlewhilly. Funny you should ask. As a matter of fact, just the other day I accepted a role in the following production..."
Yay.
Hello and welcome to tech week
We haven't been able to rehearse in the theatre yet. I have no idea what the dressing rooms even look like or how we're going to deal with the rotating part of the stage and we haven't even played with the blood and guts yet or anything.
I do know that I get to wear a mop cap though. I know that.
And my maid costume is entirely unflattering and itchy in that 1800s kind of way. But my ball gown is golden and makes my boobs look nice.
My boobs that no one gets to see, the ONLY pair of boobs in the whole show that the audience doesn't get to see unsheathed. Eee hee! I just love holding onto that mystery. It pleases me.
We cut 14 minutes off of it the last time we ran it. So that means instead of being 5 and a half hours long, it's only 5 hours and 15 minutes.
So many people are coming out of the woodwork to come see it! I think this is because I do the best marketing pitch ever. "Boobs and blood and guts and dancing! How could you NOT come see it?" Ha, but it's not all about that at all and I think some of my boob-loving friends may be a bit disappointed. Henry! Llama and Henry are coming! Llama comes to see my plays all the time, but Henry! He hasn't been to see me in a play in years! Just took some boobs and some blood to get Henry up for a show again. I bet he'll fall asleep for the clothed parts.
17 shows. That's quite a run, people.
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday with the possibility of adding a couple matinees for the next month.
Holy shit.
I can't look at it all in a big nerdy all-consuming blob like that. I have to just think about what I have to do tonight.
Get a tour of the space, the dressing rooms, try on my costumes, get them approved. That's that. Tonight. I can do tonight.
I can't wait until we start playing with the blood. Apparently the sausage casings we're using now are all synthetic, so they won't stink or anything. The prop master told me this like she knew what she was talking about and we should be thankful. I would hate to have seen the first couple versions of the intestines... She had this look in her eye... Like she'd been through a lot. Heh.
There's this part in the play where the scientist smashes the brain of a dead animal open and we're standing right over it and SPLAT! Blood gets on our faces, sort of like a spit take. We've just been miming that part so far. I can't wait to REALLY get splatted. Squirt! Yay. Guts.
Oh, and I saw the costumes for this one dance number the other day and they are these mini-grass skirts with, get this! A ring of banana boners around the top! They boing when they walk. They have a little loin cloth on underneath and the banana boners boing boing boing with every step. I can't wait to see them dance in those suckers. Hilarious. I wish I got to wear a banana boner skirt. Humph. Oh well. I'm the only one that gets to wear a mop cap, so ha! Take that, titty showing, banana boner skirt having, naked people!
What a crazy play.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Celia Plimco and the horrible poop accident of this morning
So, I'm taking both the dogs out this morning because my roommate was away last night and her dog is this little beagle/rottweiler mix who is a chub and spastic. I never thought my dog would be the more well-behaved, but she totally is. Anyhow, it's kind of like walking a windmill when you walk those two. I'm constantly spinning to get untangled and their leashes straight and everyone facing the right way.
We jaunt over to the baseball field across the street, ignoring the "NO DOGS ALLOWED" proclamations as per usual. I'm in a fog from having stayed up til 1AM watching the (UNBELIEVABLE OH MY FUCKING GRACIOUS I CAN'T BELIEVE WE DID THAT WHAT AN AMAZING GAME I WALKED INTO THE PUB AND IT WAS THE 7TH INNING AND THE SCORE WAS 7-0 AND WE CAME BACK AND WON THE SUCKER?!!! This is why I love baseball.) game. They run and flip around and no one poops for a while and I'm enjoying the crunchy ground, but come on already and then Fluff Bucket poops a nice pile and I stand on Beagle Mo's leash, hold Fluff Bucket's leash in one hand, pick up the poop in the other, you know...with a plastic bag. Somehow Beagle Mo slips away and I just know that I'm going to lose my roommate's dog and he's going to get squished by traffic.
I tie up the poop, grab his leash and we're on our way again.
Then I see the smears on the leashes.
Brown smeary poo smears on each of the leashes. I'm dressed for work. Gross. I find a piece of notebook paper, some wayward homework assignment, and do an acceptable yet imperfect job of wiping it off.
We go on our way again.
Beagle Mo finally poops.
I pick that up because I am your friendly neighbor.
On we go into the house and it's breakfast time and while I'm dumping the food into Mo's dish, my hand brushes my thigh and there is a drop in my stomach and a familiar smeary feeling on my hand.
Poo. Raw poo smeared on my work pants.
Gag.
Well, I took my pants off right there in the kitchen, I'll tell you that.
Washed my hands, changed pants and yet...I cannot shake the ghost of the poo all day. Even sitting here, I just know it is somewhere. A bit of poo stuck to my shoe, or entangled in my scarf from when I bent over. Maybe it's more obvious, just smeared down the front of my blazer.
And that is the story of the horrible poop accident of this morning.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Could you please be more demure?
This is my big note from my director. Be more demure. Ha! Yes, I suppose you're right, director. Demure is not one of my strong suits. I'll work on my demure.
It is interesting how "ladylike behavior" has taken a turn since the 1800s. There are still ladies, are there not? It's just that the standard of what makes a lady, or what constitutes their behavior has changed. I would not say that I am very ladylike. At all. Ever.
I hope I can figure out how to be...or how to pretend to be...in the 1800s....soon.
I wonder if there is a way to blush on cue.
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
38
Have I told you how many scenes this sucker is? 38. Two acts, 38 scenes, 3 hours.
Land sakes.
We've run through the thing the last two nights. We don't open until October 31st and we're already running it. Crazy. But it's a ROUGH run. As in running to your spot and shaking your butt with the choreographer standing next to a boom box playing the music saying, "We haven't learned this part of the dance yet" to the cringing designers.
I love that sense when you first put the whole play together in the order it is meant to go in. It's like you're telling the story again for the first time, making the discoveries of How, how it is told.
Once upon a time...
This happened
And then this happened
But before that, this happened
Which explains why this happened 100 years later
And you sit there on the sidelines watching and getting caught up in the story and then a little stage manager voice squeaks, "Scene Change" for the 11th time and no one moves and you look around and it dawns on you. "Oh! That's me! It's my turn to tell my part of the story."
That happens in every play when you put the pieces together for the first time, this forgetting and I just love it. I think it's beautiful. Everyone looks at each other with blank faces, everyone on the same level of experience because it is everyone's first time doing it and you look with your arms at your side and the wrong prop in your hand and these faces make eye contact with crinkled brows and you ask, "Is this me? No. Wait. I thought that was after... No. Yes! OK." And then you trot on stage and try to remember your lines in front of the designers who make you nervous more than anyone else.
I think a hell of a lot of theatre is about forgetting. A hell of a lot about acting anyhow. I mean, you have to forget what you know and have known and been over and over and over a thousand times in rehearsals and allow yourself to comfortably and totally forget so that you can experience it again. For the "first time". There's something to be said for that. Something I'm unable to articulate.
I forget.
But I still know.
But I let myself forget.
And discover again.
Over and over
and over.
It sounds almost what love would be like. Doesn't it?
Friday, October 03, 2008
Buckets of blood
This is a sentence my director said with all seriousness the other night at rehearsal, "So, we'll keep the buckets of blood under the table and you can pull the intestines out of them and wrap them around her arms during this sequence, alright?"
Oh hell yeah.
Then she asked us if we've ever seen that "Black hole son" music video. I hadn't but she described a part in it when their faces melt off and said, "Yeah. Make those faces." Melty faces? After running through the scene a couple times like a cartoon silent movie person, she said, "Does anyone have any questions?" I took the opportunity to tell everyone that I was self conscious about my melty face.
But still.
Buckets of blood, intestines, and melty faces!!! Woo!
I'm so close to Zombie, I can almost taste it.
Last night I met our choreographer and some of the dancers in our dancer chorus and we worked on this dream sequence that starts with a choreographed waltzing routine and then spins out of control into The Bump and then The Hustle.
Oh hell yeah.
I love dancing. I miss dancing. People don't dance anymore. I used to reenact motherfucking balls, yo. I had a corset and a vintage ball gown and we'd dance all night, spinning across the ballroom floor. Yesterday, putting on my character shoes and working on steps again, remembering movements in my body like that, having another body in front of me, it just... I missed it. The choreographer actually thought I was a dancer. Isn't that funny? Good gracious, he was dreamy. And he kept using me to demonstrate for the rest of the class. Those muscles like shining ropes under his tattooed arms in his muscle shirt... Oh me. I'm in love with my choreographer probably.
The music is hard though because it's a nightmare, so our movements are supposed to be in contrast with what we're hearing, so it's this creepy ass garbled waltz and it is very difficult to pick out a one-two-three-and-four from the scary monster warbles in the soundtrack.
I'm so excited about this play though.
Buckets of blood! Waltzing! You guys!
Yay.