My favorite form of punctuation is the ellipse. Because so...much can happen betwixt those three little dots...
Friday, January 30, 2009
Opening Night Part 73
I'm excited about this show. I wish I could see it. I feel like there's not another show quite like it and that makes me happy. I'm mostly excited to see how people are going to react to it. Are they going to laugh? Are they going to be offended? Are they going to be grossed out? Are they going to think it's stupid? Are they going to think it's vulgar? Are they going to walk out (besides the one staged walk out in the script)? I like doing theatre that takes risks like this. It's scary as hell though. I mean, if the consensus is that it sucks and that is what our opening night audiences say and say to their friends, then... It's going to be a looong 4 week run. 18 shows. Two shows every Saturday. That's a bunch of performin, yo. I can't remember the last time I did two shows on a Saturday. That will be interesting to get used to.
I painted my toes purple last night. That helped. Purple is the color of the show because our costume designer says that purple makes people uncomfortable because it is one of the few colors not found in nature. Though I've seen purple sunsets and purple twilights and purple leaves before, so I'm not sure if that's quite right, but I appreciate the sentiment.
My vomit on stage looks so realistic! I was suspicious because it is just cold cream of wheat, but you guys? It looks so good once it splatters on the floor. And I have to come out and look like I don't have my mouth full of cold cream of wheat which is really challenging. Have you ever tried to pretend like everything is normal with a mouth full of cold cream of wheat? I challenge you. But I've figured out how to make that pre-barf tummy gurble and then the gag and splatter splatter splatter splatter. I hope it gets on the front row of the audience's shoes. I think it just might. It just might. And it's great because I puke in the second to last scene, so my vomit stays on stage for the rest of the show and everyone has to dodge it during the curtain call. Yay.
We still don't have enough dildos for everyone. We need three, but we've been sharing. So, I get this dildo right after the scene where the "director" fucks this guy up the ass and makes him sing a song from that composer who wrote Cats. He runs to the dressing room and takes the dildo out of his pants and then we go on for the next scene and it is still all warm when I strap it on. Sigh. I get him back though I point at him with it and wipe his own pants condensation on his cheek. Hee hee. I guess that brand of dildo was sold out and back ordered and that's why we have to share.
Our dead dogs don't look nearly as dead as I hoped they would either, but it doesn't matter. I mean, we have a labeled prop table on stage.
Gracious, there's this part where a giant light falls from the ceiling and clatters on the stage and I swear if I was in the audience, I would poop my pants.
I hope people like it. Or hate it. Either way, that's something.
So, join me, my bloglings. Let us raise our voices in familiar chorus as we sing...
The Muppet Song
Oh, and tell me to break something.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Tech rehearsal rehearsal
Hello and welcome to tech week.
Man, after doing a play with a rotating set and a cast of dancers and a million costume changes that lasted 2 and a half hours, this tech with 6 actors for a play that runs 90 minutes seemed like a ... Like a... I'm not going to say "piece of cake". Like a... Not "walk in the park" either. Damnit! Why aren't there better nice things in that expression? Like a... Paper cut in comparison.
It's so weird. Our set is a set. You know, because it's a play about rehearsing and putting on a play. So, I walk in and think that the fake director's table is the real director's table and then I realize that's where I have to sit on stage. Ha. Verisimilitude. The lighting is incredible because that's all we have. We have these giant floor to ceiling lighting structures on either side of the stage. We're doing it tennis court style so the audience can look at herself.
My costume for my playwright character is a hoot. Maybe a hoot and a half. It's just so silly. I look like a Far Side character. I have this flowing purple shirt with bell sleeves and embroidery and this furry purple sweater beret-type hat and a bright turquoise and purple turn-around hippie stick skirt and purple horn-rimmed glasses with rhinestones and fluorescent lemon flip flops. Ha! I look especially hilarious coupled with my dead dog that I bring on stage in scene 13.
Tonight, I get a cup of vomit. I'm not sure what is going to be in the vomit, but I hope it tastes decent enough to hold in my mouth before I go on stage and puke it out.
This play is so fucked up. I forgot how brilliant it was until last night when all the design elements were coming together. I mean, we were at tech rehearsal, REHEARSING a tech rehearsal. In the play, there's a tech rehearsal where everything goes wrong. We were living the ACTUAL tech rehearsal and the lines the actor playing the director is saying are, "Louder! I want the music louder! Stop stop stop, can you hear me, Stage Manager?" And then the actual director says, "Stop stop! The music isn't loud enough. Stage manager, can you fix that?" And he's totally serious, but he's looking in the mirror of himself right there on stage.
And it's hilarious. Because it is comedy. And we laugh at ourselves because Art is very funny. The process is very funny. It's important to be able to laugh at yourselves when you're being so earnestly arty.
Even better is that when the (actual, not my character) playwright was "Americanizing" the script to take out all of the British references, my director got him to change the name of the stage manager character in the play to the name of the actual stage manager that we have.
So, in those moments where he's yelling at the stage manager in the booth, he's actually, really yelling at her. In the booth. Her.
Yay.
I still have a bunch of stuff I want to figure out with my characters and I have to wear this sequin feather thing in my hair for my artistic director lady and it keeps getting stuck and hurts really bad when I pull it out and yanks clumps of hair with it and that dress looks kind of lumpy on me and I have to figure out how to do that super quick change and of course the vomit stuff and you can see straight through that one skirt and I can't believe I forgot that one line last night, but other than that... Yeah. We open Friday.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Emergency Contact
I'm drinking my roommate's sister's beer. Because that's the kind of roommate I am. She said I could.
My roommate's sister lives down the street and she's over here every other night with her dog. They have various reality TV shows that they watch together. They make dinner and laugh and make fun of each other and sometimes she just spends the night.
It makes me hate them. It makes me miss my sisters so much. I wish my sisters could be my neighbors some day. Or at least one of them. I don't see either of them moving here any time soon though.
I was talking on the phone to my Gramma about family and how she feels so fortunate to have family around to help her out, my aunt and uncle and cousin, Grandaddy. Especially since she's going blind and all.
I'm certainly not old and I certainly don't need anyone to take care of me. I'm the bear who belongs to herself. Still... I think about that though. Having people near-by that have that obligation should I slip on an icy sidewalk and split my skull open or something. You know? I have very good friends here, don't get me wrong, but... None of them are obligated to come to the hospital and take care of me if I have to have surgery or something.
I take being healthy for granted.
Everyone else in my family has that. It's something I don't like to think about, that isolation from them by distance. It's scary as hell.
There are stories of people falling down dead and no one finding them for weeks.
I guess my roommate would find me. Or her sister.
That pisses me off.
You know when you have to list emergency contacts for jobs and such? My closest emergency contacts are a days drive away. That can't be safe.
Writing this post is automatic exemption from some major medical happening happening in case you were wondering.
Monday, January 12, 2009
"And then they all came all over my face"*
I suck. Poor under-nourished bumbershoot. Shhh...there there.
Rehearsals are consuming me. They're every day except Saturday pretty much. Yesterday's rehearsal was from 3-10.
It's such an odd process too with this one because it is so very meta. I mean, we have prop scripts. It totally fucks with your brain. I love it though, it's brilliant... by theatre standards, as a theatre person, but... I don't know if anyone else will think it's brilliant.
I convinced my director to let me puke on stage. I'm supposed to puke twice anyhow, it's this theme, but the last time I puke, I just come on and barf and leave, so I said, "Hey, that means I could fill my mouth with some oatmeal or something in the dressing room and come out and barf it up on stage, right? I mean, the stage is going to be covered in blood and dead dogs and syringes and he's already pulled his liver out at that point, so what's a little barf?" Yay. I get to barf actual real barf on stage. I mean, spit out oatmeal or cream of wheat or something. But still!
I love that there are two dead dogs in the play too. And we end up getting into these conversations where... The first dead dog is supposed to be a prop dead dog for the play within the play, right? But then one of my characters, the playwright, trys to commit suicide by overdosing on aspirin (first puke) and she goes on this downward spiral and brings in another dead dog toward the end. So, clearly both of these dead dogs are props in the real play that we're rehearsing, but I asked if it's a real dead dog that I bring in. A "real" dead dog. I mean, see how that messes with your brain? It's so tricky! And the guy playing the director is such a gay man diva and our real director is such a big gay man and sometimes he's saying lines from the play when the "director" is rehearsing the "actors", but we're the actual actors as ourselves and he's not playing a director, he is the director and it's just mad.
Plus, the scene where the director fucks this boy up the ass while making him sing "Any dream will do" from Joseph is so violently disturbing, I about can't stand it.
Yesterday we realized we're going to need another dildo. We have 2. I strap one on. One gets sucked in another scene, but we realized we probably shouldn't be sharing dildos since they're going to be down people's pants and all, so we should probably get another one for the "Any dream will do" scene.
What a fucked up play I'm in.
*A line from the play.
Sunday, January 04, 2009
The first post on my NEW COMPUTER
It's so shiny. Though I had trouble getting some of the stickers off. Why do they put so many stickers on there? Pisses me off.
The little man who sold it to me was trying to sell me some extra bells and whistles and maintenance packages and asked me, "So, do you do a lot of web surfing?" Umm... What kind of question is that? No. I never surf the web. I intend on using this computer for other things. I mean, how did he expect someone to answer that? Instead I said, "Mostly I'm going to use the web to look at porn." Then he laughed and I laughed and the laugh kind of died out to one of those collective sighs and after the silence I said, "No seriously. I watch a lot of porn." Then he asked me if I wanted some kind of protection in case of fire or water damage. Ha!
I never watch porn, but somehow I feel obligated to do so now that I have my own computer. Not sure why that is. Just seems like the thing to do. So far I've just watched a lot of cartoons. There's a lot of cartoons on the Internet, you guys! Tons!
I have a webcam too. I've never had a webcam before. It's up there looking at me. I haven't used it yet. Not sure who to use it with. What a strange thing. It's like...from the FUTURE.
Anyhow, yay obligatory new computer blog post. Maybe I'll think of more exciting things to write about since I'll have it accessible now when I more feel like writing. Don't hold your breath though.