Breathing Again

By happy accident, ended up directing tonight and widening the pull of the swirling black vortex. It's like breathing again. I'm about to go into hyperdrive:

Birdie goes up not this weekend but next

English Made Simple starts rehearsals Wednesday of tech for Birdie

Then I have a week off, where I'm going to Steubie-U for with Jules to clear the brain and reconnect (and hopefully pitch musical theatre)

Then I'm back for a week only doing English

But the following week, on Wednesday, I hold auditions for Wallace's Will after which I run to Boston for another English rehearsal

Then I'm into rehearsing two days a week for WW, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, with two more Wednesdays full of going into Boston after WW to rehearse English

Then it's performance week for English while still rehearsing WW

Then it's four more weeks of WW, judging on the Thurs., May 15th, performance on Sun., May 18th

And right into auditions that Tuesday, May 20th (and Wed., May 21st, and first read through Thurs., May 22nd) for Romeo and Juliet.

And I wouldn't have it any other way. YES.

Mood: Fwah
Music: None - although my brain is trying to tell the rest of me that my fingers are cold and I should do something about that
Thought: This directing tonight, getting AJ for English (only need one more guy, Lord! Amen!), acting last night - which was a blast (I directed in class, too, which was fun but not as...well, as the acting). I have acting thoughts. I'm not sure I want to publically blog them - because the subject is so raw for me that after I act I feel - naked, exposed, one big nerve, in need of a soothing word or affirmation or something - it's delicate for me and I need to talk it out with someone, I think. Anywho - but yes, so good to be back and drawing people into my swirling black vortex. Je susire.

Papers to write, a wedding to plan

My wife to murder and Guilder to blame for it. I'm swamped.

Hrm. Can we guess which of the above is real? ;P Papers, papers, everywhere, and not a sec to think. Actually, they're not so bad, but I'll be directing two shows at once again pretty soon so I need to parce out my time well NOW.

Watched Freaks and Geeks Thursday-Friday, which I enjoyed verily yea - although I was very much aware how graced I was not to experience a lot of what was in those shows. The beginning of the relationship between Nick and Lindsey was v. painful though, and brought back squackward moments from college, and frequently I wanted to hit the teachers (more as a teacher and not as a student - I had good teachers throughout - yay PLHS!) for being ridiculously awful. I'm curious, though, do we as a culture still define our groups and subgroups mainly by our music as much as we did in the latter part of the previous century?

Getting a haircut today. That is the sorrow of having a short 'do: more trips to the salon. Poot. C'est ca. Anywho, enough rambling from me!

Mood: Mrwrm
Music: Nada - c'est incroyable, je sais!
Thought: Seriously, I do use other languages a lot. De plus. Aber - mi gusta. Oyveh.

More housekeeping

Just because it's loooooooooong overdue....

A Midsummer Night's Dream page and A Christmas Carol page. Enjoy!

Addendum: The Brigadoon page is available, as is Starry Night Talent Shows.

Addendum Redux: The Twelfth Night page is available. AND...it includes an homage to THE WIG.



And here's an oldie but a goodie video from the great fun fantastic time that was Christmas Carol.



Mood: Stupid.
Music: Ingrid Michaelson on repeat. La joie d'iTunes.
Exuses are: Can't sleep as a result of finally being over a migraine that took up the majority of my day (until 7 pmish). How weird is that?

A little light housekeeping

Took a break from intense reading for tomorrow's classes in order to do a little light housekeeping on the theatre pages. Most significantly, there is now a Much Ado page up and running - woot! Check it out!

Now, once more unto the breach (or books) dear friends....

Mood: Meh - comme si, comme ca - pas mal mais pas fantastique - bof.
Music: 2006 Passion Play - v. soothing
Thought: Must needs get up other pages for older plays. Yea, verily.

JAM makes all well

Since I blog about it so rarely, I thought I'd make a quick note of something wonderful. This morning, I was having a dream that the one-act/scene I was doing for Emerson's directing class was actually a scene from The Office between Jim and Pam. In the dream, we were at some really confusing auditions - all sorts of messy - no order at all, tons of directors trying to grab actors - v. weird. Anywho, so I grab this girl I'd been eyeing as a possible candidate, and I take her over to stage right, sit on a block and say, "OK, read for Pam, I'll read for Jim. And I warn you, I'm going to play hard, so don't be afraid to throw yourself into the scene." So we start, and after a false start, I realize she's just perfect for the part of Pam (even better, I get directing ideas that I know will work because people are watching the scene and I get one moment where people around us mutter an "awww!").

Yay - I've got a dream-Pam. Then I need a Michael to come and interrupt, but I've decided that the character could be female. So I grab another girl, and it turns out to be Mindy who plays Kelly on The Office. I ask her who's her favorite character on The Office to play, and she says, unsurprisingly, Kelly, and I ask, "Well, can you read for Michael?" And she jumps at the opportunity and she's great and I'm going away laughing because how great is it that I got an actual cast member?

It then occurs to me that the girl who read for Pam looks a lot like Pam.... But I'm on a quest for a Jim - only the only fellow who I've got my eye on IS Jim in the flesh. And I look back at my Pam and it is Pam! And I realize that I'm about to direct the cast of The Office - and it's happy JAM JAM JAM!

And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, check out this video (not made by me). Happiness, Miss Piggy.



Mood: Giddily cheery! Huzzah!
Music: "Out of My League" by T. J. McCloud
Thought: So the remedy for post-playwriting appears to be 1) making posters for the plays so that one stops thinking of them as text and more as future shows and 2) a good night's sleep and 3) JAM.

In the words of Sarah: WORD

*grin* But a sleepy grin.

So, I put the final touches on the script this afternoon/evening and sent it off as it is. (There will always be more tweaks, but it is in a good place now.) And then I took me for a meandering drive around old haunts, which I haven't done in a while due to weather/work/etc. Which got me to thinking of:

Post-play vs. Post-playwriting

Well, to be honest, post-anything-major-writing - but it seems worthy enough to record for future reference. After a play, after it's down, there's still this lingering glow, this sense of camaradarie - you take out memories of the show to admire them, like baubles in the hand, curios of the mind. There is that sort of zombiesque wandering around, of course - that "What do I do with myself"-ness - but there is frequently also the warm glow of the play accomplished. Naturally, this is more or less intense depending on how well the show went off and how much one was really invested in the show, but regardless it tends to be a sort of wandering - an airy light wandering - a balloon adrift on foreign currents.

But post-writing - in this most recent case a play - particularly post-writing anything of consequence (as opposed to a paper or a thesis or an article or a short story or goofiness or whatnot) leaves me feeling completely drained. I feel like a marionette with cut strings and loose joints. I feel like an invalid with dry heaves. I feel heavy and empty and hollow-eyed and, yes, zombiesque. I have nothing more to give and yet I cannot take anything in either. There is no cure except to be, NOT to do.

(Consequently, my nine Ingrid Michaelson songs have been played sixteen times each, which if I've done my math right, means for eight hours of this day. Well, this day including last night when I was writing.)

A lot of writers liken writing to giving birth, and I think there's a great deal of truth to that - particularly when it comes to the final HOURS of intense PUSHING - because you can feel that if you stop now you'll never start again, so it's now until it's done or never again, and of course being creative-OCD-ish you push and push and push and get it out of your brain! However, after having a child there's this beautiful newborn to hold and take pictures of (and hand off to one's husband when you need to nap) - and despite crying and nappies and all that, at the end of childbirth is a child with his own life. Is someone tangible.

But at the end of writing, I find that I don't ever want to see what I wrote again for a good long while. Not that I hate what I wrote, but that I need a period of intense separation just to be able to breathe in this time/space/reality and not in that fictional world. I need to remember how to think like myself and not in Terence's or Evie's voice. I need to readjust my eyes to the light of day and not a glowing screen, white paper, lots of caffine, and pigheadedness.

Sure, there's something tangible there - presuming you printed out what you have - but for a play, it's still only a bit completed. Even for a novel, I've found, it doesn't "become it's own person" until it's in real book form and someone else has it. I guess that's it: after "giving birth" to a piece of writing, it's still in your brain - at least until it's performed or published. Then it just exists comfortably side by side with you.

Weird, non?

Anywho, I'm thinking early mass is for me. Yes, precious. Oh, but the sleepy-sleeplessness is all too familiar to both post-play and it's creation.

Mood: Zombiesque but good - recouping - trying not to think in Victorian witticisms
Music: "Around You" from Slow the Rain by Ingrid Michaelson
Thought: So much to do yet. Stupid play to be read (not mine! ;P). Two stupid books to read. Well, one isn't stupid. One is The Empty Space. Here's to hoping the other isn't stupid either. C'est ca. Zombiesque! See what I mean! We'll return you eventually to your regularly scheduled Emily.

There's very little more satisfying

Than writing THE END at the end of a script. First draft of Wallace's Will complete. My bed calls to me. It ended slightly differently than I had anticipated. I feel it still needs tweaks. It's probably good enough to send. When I get it on its feet I'll probably make cuts and adjustments. Dunno. We'll see. Can't wait for the herd of wild women to go careening back and forth across the stage. Tres amusant. At least in my brain. Floppsybottom is my new favorite last name.

Mood: Sleeeepy but VICTORIOUS!
Music: Interior various folk vocals
Thought: Oy. Phew. *flomp*

In the Interest of Doing

Rather than thinking about doing, which is the equivalent of never doing, another in the continuing series that is this terrible, horrible, very bad blog. ;P

I got a callback for Twelfth Night but was very glad not to be cast. It was one of the best "rejections" (if it can be called that - I could tell when I walked in to call-backs and then got the sides for Maria - that this wasn't the show for me; a good show, just not for me) I ever received. Right up there with the rejection notice from some magazine or another that told me how great my story was but how not right it was for their magazine and here are some other magazines that would better fit my story. V. similar experience to that - and it stoked my directorial fires, watching those auditions.

Curiously, or rather not curiously enough, I suppose, I was called back to read for Maria - the maidservant. Not a bad role, but a "fat girl" role. That is, it can be given to a woman of any size. But I'm no good in "fat girl" roles. I can never play them right. It's frustrating. It's like how Kevin Kline is a character actor trapped in a lead actor's body. (Not to say I'm a lead actress - well, I have no idea, really) but that there is a tendency to presume that my shape fits the stereotypical shape of stereotypes. Sigh. But this is the thing: I realized that if/whenever I direct Twelfth Night again, I actually really really really want a woman of size to play Viola. It's actually easier to find a woman of size who can make herself look manly, "big guy"-ish - and it would totally explain why Orsino doesn't look at her and why Viola's all upset at Olivia being this perfect teensy character - and it would fit in with the whole idea of truth vs. appearances. "Disguise, I see thou art a wickedness!" So, if/whenever I direct the show again, I think I know what I'm doing this time!

Am this close to finishing writing Wallace's Will for the one-acts. I just need three more scenes - I can feel what they are - but I'm a little stuck on this third-ultimate (I wonder what the real word is?) scene - the one where Terence is switching characters all over the place. Boooo! I think I need a better set-up. Ah! Yes! If Felton didn't call all the women himself, but he got one and Mrs. Dowdle got another, and Ermengarde stalked him.... Yes. That would work. Sigh. It's like a puzzle, putting this together. If this, then that. Etc. But it's good. I think it will be good. Yes.

We've decided that come Hell or high water, we're going forward with Romeo & Juliet this summer. Mom and I checked out a place this morning, which was very encouraging. We're still looking, and we take turns encouraging each other to persevere (is it my week or yours to doubt this endeavour?), but I *can* see God's hand in this. Howsomever, that comes as well with a LOT of spiritual persecution for yours truly. Please, please, please - even if you're not a praying sort - pray for me. Amen!

I downloaded too many pieces of music last night, including "Keep Breathing" by Ingrid Michaelson which is currently on repeat. "All that I know is I'm breathing/All we can do is keep breathing." A good mantra sometimes! I also got Rufus Wainwright's cover of "Hallelujah" - faboooooooooooo. Le sigh.

Please keep Father Jonathan in prayers, too. He's going to be personal secretary to Cardinal Sean, which means that he'll be travelling the globe with him (wow!) but I can imagine - I know - how difficult all this in-betweenness is for him. It's the in-between that gets to us. The gaping void, the eyes closed as we step off the precipice and - that moment before and between here and there - that is difficult. He is being truly blessed, though. Please do pray for him.

I was a bit under the weather this past week. In part physically, in part precipitationally (as were we all!), certainly emotionally. Very strange week. Forgot to eat for most of Monday (my long day in Boston) which left me very faint and set off a silly next few days. Got a copy of Saved - this awful, awful, AWFUL, disgusting, down-trodding, hopeless, wretched, vomitous play that we have to read for directing class. And I have remembered why, largely, I don't like modern drama (or fiction). BLAUGH! It makes me feel nauseous. I feel, even before reading it, like I'm clutching onto the hem of Beauty's garment, with fraying fingertips, eyes half closed, half fixed on her compassionate face, while evilness and ugliness scrabble at my ankles, with claws like rats' maws and eyes deeper than nevermore. Oh, God! I just want loveliness and truth and beauty and goodness, openness, airiness, space to breathe, warm summer scent, Your Hand in mine, Your strength, Your arm beneath my arms keeping me aloft from the muck and mire of my mind! (Or what my mind becomes when such filth is introduced to it.) But praise God, praise God, praise God.

Oh, I have written a lot more nothing here! Birdie continues well. We conquered the most tricksy of all the songs and there am I happy. There is the possibility of another goodness in that same vicinity next year and there am I happy. We are doing R&J and there am I happy. There are friends at Emerson and good professors and there am I happy. There is beautiful music with haunting lyrics and there am I happy. I am writing a play and nearly done with it and there am I happy. Julie's art exhibit looks gorgeous and there is she (and I!) happy. Yesterday and today were a balmy 40 degrees and there are we all happy! And I'd forgotten how great the 1995 Pride and Prejudice is, and there is much rejoicing. So all is well and all shall be well and all manner of thing will be well - amen!

Mood: Well but clutching
Music: "Keep Breathing"
Thought: I keep coming up as Eleanor Dashwood in "Which Jane Austen Heroine Are You?" Hrm.

There he goes to write that hit song:

"Alone in my principles."

OK, well, I actually am not writing hit songs - at least not most of this week. But I am writing plays. Let me 'splain. No, there is to much. Let me sum up.

Had to drop Puppetry (booo) because work/commute/learning to sew/plays/etc. were too much to handle all and Puppetry, too. Perhaps next year when I'm ostensibly taking fewer courses? Or at least not directing courses? Anywho, I still have my sock puppet to complete if I like at home. I think I see how I need to widen the sides of the mouth and it should work.

Am still searching for a play to direct for class. I've finally decided that I want to do a "realistic drama" - so I've been looking at Chekov and Anouilh mainly. But as much as I'm realizing that I don't hate reading plays (if they're poetic), I do remember that it's difficult for me to believe most "realistic dramas" because their dialogue is so...strange. Weird, I know, for the Shakespeare addict to think normal langauge is strange, but there it is. More frustratingly, however, I keep rewriting the plays in my mind. Both Anouilh's and Sophocles' Antigone(s) I ended up rewriting as I went. And I just read Time Remembered by Anouilh, which resulted in me actually coming home last night and writing a play. Well, most of a play. Exhilerating and weird all at once. I'd love to see someone else direct it.

However, I have finally gotten Sibelius to work, so the first part of this week and the last part of last week were taken up with writing out compositions, most particularly "Life Your Life to the Fullest." However, I'm now stuck at the key change. That's all right. Plenty else to keep me busy.

Had an awesome experience of theatre on Monday as an actress. Last semester, when I got to act in Bob's class I found myself still conscious as a director. So as much as I was "in the moment," I was also wishing that I could watch the moment, the way a director does. But this time, I was just there. However, in this past week's improv, I totally thought that I botched it because the guest teacher (Bethany - who is awesome) who was acting against me ended the improv quickly. (Mr. Dougherty arose in my brain saying, "Keep the improv going! No negative objectives!" I quavered in fear.) But it turns out that she didn't know what else to say, in a good way. As she told me, "I don't shut up! But I just didn't know what else to do!" ...wow... I'm not being specific. Deal. Just know that I was playing a woman who found out about her husband's affair.

So I plucked up the courage yesterday to audition for Twelfth Night. I did Rosalind's speech ("Yes, one, and in this manner") and then sang "I Don't Want a Man at All." I think the speech went well, but I feel I lost them with the song. C'est ca. I'll be directing two plays soon - one for HHS and one for school - and I've yet to write the one or find the other so if I don't make call-backs much less a part for Twelfth Night, that's OK. But I think I've learned something good about straight auditioning. So that's good. Always a new experience, eh?

In talking with Krissytina the other night, I realized how blessed I am to be doing what I love. What a lovely dilemma it is to say, "Well, how many shows can I physically be in?"

So yesterday, I was really in Boston for this high school drama guild one act play festival, of which I saw three out of the five. The last play was especially interesting since it was entirely a movement piece and created by the cast. But while it began with some coherence, all too soon there was soil testing and monkey attacks and vampire doppelgangers and, as one of my fellow students whispered to me: "Did they all escape from a French academy?" Naturally, Bob and Bethany had nothing but praise for them, even though the show could have been twice as strong with some prudent editing (they kept missing the endings - oh, look! An ending! Pppppfffpt! Nope. Missed it). But it was a good afternoon all told. And a lovely day in town.

I'm most of the way through The Stanislavski System for Monday's class and I'm reminded forcibly of my love-disgruntled relationship with the master of modern drama. I keep feeling as much as I say, "Yes yes yes" to 85% of his acting techniques, I also say, "But where does the director fit into all of this?" I think we need a Stanislavski for directors. QED.

This post has been mainly theatre related and not particularly people related. Mea culpe. Julie's birthday is Ash Wednesday. Mom is going mitten-knitting-happy for the great-grandkids on either side. Dad is in Delaware with his family, staying with Grammy who is 91 today. Uncle Tom is staying with him and I'm glad to hear that he's having a great time with his mom and his brother. Peter keeps being full of surprises - like that he went on a trip to BU yesterday. Things like this just calmly dropping into conversation, next to his latest level of Final Fantasy fill-in-the-blank.

I'm glad it's not as cold as it could be. I'm in a funny place after staying up 'til 6 AM writing the play. It's like how I felt after I did the same for the first edit of the Drowning Ophelia film. I need a break from that headspace before I go back in. As Mom said, "It sounds like Satre with a funny bone." I'm lectoring at tonight's mass - we'll see how many people will come on Superbowl Sunday in this year the Pats are playing! I love lectoring. I often feel so very close to God when I'm priveledged to do so. I've been under minor attacks - prayers, as always are good - but I am aware of how many more great and wonderful things there are being done. I've said before, that when God closes a door, He opens a Kingdom. I'm beginning, this semester, to feel like Belle, just beginning to creep about and realize with rising excitement and wonder and "Can this be for me?"-ness as she pokes about the castle. Naturally, shadows will try to keep me far from His wonders. I pray that He will, Cupid with His Psyche, lead me through to perfect joy.

Mood: Curieux. Dream-like. Very French.
Music: Nicholas Nickleby!
Joy of Joys: I've managed to do my Magnificat at least once a day this past month! Yay! One resolution (kinda) working!