On deadlines, challenges, and confession

Happy feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, everyone! Because Jules was away this weekend, I found myself cantoring for both the 9 and 11 - yikes. Both for the double-whammy and the earliness of the hour. Esp. for singing. Counteracted peanut-butter toast w/ a huge mug of tea. Huge.Mug. Fortunately, I actually ended up being in good voice - more for the first than the second - partially due to running home betwixt for the end of a quick sets production meeting, partially due to rising humidity, and partly to do w/ a very nice lady sitting up in the choir loft for the 11 for the first half of mass AND SINGING ALONG. IN THE PEW BEHIND ME. Whole choir loft. Right behind me. I'm really wondering if I'm slightly OCD or something....

BUT! The best thing was that Fr. Ignacio comes out at the end of the 11 and as calm as you please sets himself up on the altar to offer confessions! (Cannot WAIT for confessionals to be put in.) So I get to go when I wasn't able to, and I just love that man, living saint, in persona Christi from every pore.

Actually, in listening to the sermons today - Fr. Mike then Fr. Dave - I was struck with a loss for being able to catechise freely. I miss teaching theology.

Went out to see Wanted w/ Brenda on Friday night. Utterly silly movie, but so nice to be w/ Brenda. Exploding peanut butter rats binary names of doom in your cotton shorts and all. Did realize that a) this is how all my boys want to see themselves and b) I don't want R&J to glorify violence like the movie (& so many other things) do.

More importantly, though, Brenda commissioned a play from me: a new adaptation of Cupid and Psyche. V. excited. I think a good portion of it may be in blank verse. Am intertwining it w/ Venus and Adonis...although I think I'm going to go w/ all Greek names. Ten characters so far - evenly split male/female. Outlined two acts today in what I think will be a four act play. Looking to keep it to 1.5-2 hours. Intermission at the rapture of Psyche. Huzzah! Due Sept. 1ish. To be directed by Brenda for Spring '09 Emerson.

I do everything better on a deadline, even cleaning. I'm very "Charlie Brown Book Report" that way.

Mood: Pas mal. A little off-center due to napping and not having enough demands made on me. You wonder why the workaholic routine from below resonates w/ me?
Music: Anna Ternheim's "Girl Lying Down"...but I think I'll change it soon. See the video below.
Thought: I'm sooooooooo loving R&J. Brenda asked me what was the hardest part about directing it (she always gets right to the heart of matters) and I said the having humans in my hands. But I might add that I don't think I realized how much this particular show scared me to even get into. I knew we could do Hamlet (even if I got all super-panickey opening night), but I was very trepidatous about R&J. So...yay Will. Thanks, buddy. Love ya - and you'd SO better keep interceding for us, because theriouthly!
Oh, and: Salome on Youtube is getting all these hits. Weird and cool.

Odds and Ends

My actors need to stop injuring themselves outside of rehearsal. QED.

Fav. routine of last night's SYTYCD. I'm just a sucker for a story.

ETA: This one was the prettiest of last week's.

AND also ETA: How we are NOT doing our death scene, courtesy of Jeremy.

Cast comes off next week! My poor dehydrated fingers rejoice. I've been dreaming for the past few nights about calmly picking off all the skin from my hands and forearms - just coming off in long peels, in thick strips.... I'm beginning to wonder if I'm pulling at my cast in my sleep or something.... Yech.

Brenda is back in town. Oh, thank God! Friends with cars - nuthin' like it.

Am still thinking about this mini-musical.... The Norns or whatever. Wondering if guy is a thief? Steals her shears? Or if a musician, if he wove his life thread into his guitar strings? Or just a guy w/ no strings? Still pondering....

Mood: Creativish
Music: Killing Me Softly by The Fugees - which somehow fits into the Norn thing
Thought: My eating patterns have been way off - oh drama. Messes with your eating, waking, sleeping, thinking.... You've GOT to love it, or get out.

Old Gems

Found this when looking for the first time in nearly five (!) years at my earliest entries here:

Neat Quote to be Put into a Screenplay Sometime: Julie: How horrible would it be if I were to fall over while standing up? Emily: Well, it depends. Is there a man nearby?

Oh, we crack us up! Jules is safely away to the airport (hence I am awake). The sunrise was languid and lovely. The morning fog was caught between the trees and the streets and pouring over the grasses. It was all quite beautiful. Even dear old dopey Boston was beautiful w/ almost no traffic, the early morning sun shining on the hightower windows. I have great hopes for this upcoming semester.

We worked the death scenes a bit - walking through, laughing over Sean Connery, figuring out how floppsy a dead body ought to be or not when you're trying to lift them up - all in all good times. R&J is surprisingly weaseling its way into my heart and has a real shot - I think - at giving Hamlet a run for its money. Have I mentioned lately how much I love Shakespeare and how much I love theatre?

Yeah, so it hit me the a few days ago that I was going to be directing Our Town very soon. Quoi the Quebecquais? Also, my hand hurts in the cast and I say "Boooo, BOOOO!" to it. Boo. Those two thoughts have nothing whatsoever to do w/ each other. Nor does that last sentence. But the third sentence on is all connected. Tangentally, I wish my rambling had the added benefit of making me sleepy b/c theriouthly.

Mood: Happy and optimistic about the day and the play - frustrated at insomnia and restless right flipper hand.
Music: NOT the R&J soundtrack, only b/c I will totally keep playing the play in my head and then I'll NEVER sleep
Thought: Not sure I have another. Other than a wish for greater sanctity and a desire to know what His plans w/ me are. But the former is low-going, and the latter is not in His plan so, b/c of the striving for the first is a moot desire.
Oh, and this song/video: Makes me want to write a play. Not sure about what - but a dark Gothic romance - mostly just for those costumes.



Maybe...the Fates/Norns/Choose-your-mythology are still alive and active in Victorian/Dickensian England, but the youngest of the Fates is sent to cut the lifestring of this one guy and falls in love and doesn't do it and then.... Oh, yes, I know, very Pratchett's Soul Music, very Brunhilda, and a thousand generic versions of the same. But as a one-act Gothic operetta? Huh? Huh?

Yeah...what if he's a - well, musician seems obvious, so I almost don't want to go there - but he must already be tapped into an immortality or at least have SOMETHING mythical or extraordinary about him to make a millenia-young Fate/Norn/Thing consider sparing him.... Does he have something over her? Has she been sparing him all these milennia (or howsomever one spells it)? Boooo...at this rate I'll never sleep again!

What would make Fate not kill someone at his appointed time? Love, as an idea and as a Person, clearly. Also Will, to a certain extent. Is Fate Fated - or is that the whole thing: that Will trumps Fate (to a - significant - degree)? Is it, perhaps, a two-person operetta - Fate coming for this guy - in a world where man is viewed as machine - but he tries to talk his way out of it? Twenty-minute seduction/plea/debate/discussion/plot...w/o being dry, though...or too "As I walk Through the Strawberry Fields of My Father" Swedishesque....

Schlafen, Emily! Schlafen! Jezst! you are no good to anyone tonight, if you fall asleep or fall into worn out hysterics, or stare off into space writing a new play when you already have one to direct! Schlafen! Schnell! Schnell!

If you haven't already

Check out the pictures at Jennie & Cass' blog!

Mood: Hungry
Music: "Across the Universe" as covered by Stephanie Rearick from the R&J soundtrack
A good pic is: The ones on that site! Go go!

A Sonnet a Day

As the proverb does not go.

Within the poet's arsenal of dots
And lines and dashes, none is so fine
(At least to my mind) as the apost-
rophe perchance is. What was once thine
Can become mine with this humble mark
Hung o'er. And what was base, or commonplace,
Is much better than befo'ere. What is a lark
But something stark and easily erased -
Unless fore'er in evenin' air he gains
Anothers' place. But much is this brave glyph
Abused in ev'ry lover's songs' 'n' s'trains;
Foreshort'ning words to those absurd: Terrif',
Fabu', and p'ain. O! Cherish this small sign,
My love! By 'postrophe, my poor heart's thine.

Mood: Better, now that Jules happened. (Very true, Pooh.)
Music: "You Spin Me 'Round" from the Happy Hamlet Warm-Up Playlist
Determination: To betake me on more day trips this summer!

Salome

The plays keep a-comin'! For those interested, Salome by Oscar Wilde.



It's the first major play I ever directed and it taught me a LOT about everythig I know. Prior to this show I was very...careful with my acting, with my directing. Very proper. Too intellectual; not visceral enough. I never wanted to "go there" - wherever "there" may be. But I chose Salome - or it chose me - or rather God through it at me - and my man Oscar interceded, and John the Baptist stormed, and I learned how to direct from the gut as well as from the mind.

It's not a perfect play - no play ever is - but it is the first I recorded, at the insistence of my mother. And when I brought it home for Mum and Dad to see - v. nervous - a college grad w/ a ridiculous major and a lot of debt - my father said to my mother that it would be a sin if I didn't direct for a living. And, well, let's just say that single comment has been the best comment I've ever received or ever will receive. And it's kept me going all these years.

Oh! And this is the play where I learned that if a tragedy is being done right, the audience will be vocal in their response. And that to do a tragedy right means to find those places that are funny.

Mood: Celebratory
Music: Mental Josh Grobin. I'd put in his first CD a week ago, forgotten, turned on the Cd player and was pleasantly surprised. I love it when past me leaves future me presents!
Happiness is: I don't know where I'm going, but I know Who's getting me there.

English Made Simple

Here, the video of English Made Simple (Emerson show). And...I has a cast! Yay! Only my fingers and muscles don't work yet. Booo. Hopefully mobility will return soon! In the meantime, enjoy!



Mood: A little achey, but optimistic
Music: "Creep" as covered by David Cook
Because: It's just that sort of day.

Sonnet Challenge!

On this other board, we're having a poetry challenge. This week it's sonnets. So, suffering from insomnia...like always...here's my first sonnet in nearly a decade! Yay!

The Ides of Innocence

The virgin moved the virgin lip to lip
A simple touch, by simple breath connected,
A moment less momentous than expected;
A sigh, a brush, the first hesitant sip -
Then gone, no more, when once the lines are ended,
The masks removed, the proper names restored,
The blushing lips both blushingly ignored
As gawky, awkward - and oh, so splendid.
We will not come this way again, not here -
The clock has struck, the act is done, and we
Have jokes and ancient tales to reminisce
To ward off lovers' ghosts that may appear
If we should slip upon the memory
Of our own first tender and wasted kisses.

Oh, and English Made Simple - a motion perspective. Full video coming tomorrow/today.



Mood: Bof. Alles gut - and hopefully I'll have a real cast tomorrow!
Music: Regarde below.
Thought: Audience and running more than an act is good. I'm soooo looking forward to acting next semester!

Crux (Bruised, Not Broken)

OK, so it's been the spring/summer of trying out new musical styles, and here's a very very uber superdeduper rough to the point of earlier than draft version of a song that's been plaguing me to get out. I know you can hear some of the transitions that need smoothing, and the accompianment is unavoidably one-handed, but...

...there it is. And it's raw, and I almost don't want any constructive criticism about it yet, because the song still hurts too much. Although I hope the lyrics are suitably universal, for me it's a year's worth of scar tissue from May of last year and being ripped away untimely, pettily, cruelly, unjustly. Sooo...voila.



Mood: Comme si, comme ca - elated about theatre, raw re: the song/last May
Music: Regarde en haute, mais naturallement
Thought: Yet still God sends us certain kind words when they're least anticipated and most needed, and He speaks reconciliation through sermons, and He tricks us into singing for Him at mass when we least expect it, and He's generally wonderful and weird. Amen.

New R&J Poster!

There may be one or two tweaks...but voila! (Click here to see the informational version of the poster.)



Mood: Joyeux
Music: R&J soundtack...currently "Blind" by Lifehouse
Greatness is: Finishing blocking a kick-ass version of the balcony scene last night - conquering the hardest scene in Shakespeare - yeah, baby, yeah! I heart my cast! I heart Sarah & Keith! Woot!

Falling in love all over again

...with dearest, darlingest William of the Shaken Spear! Got an actual fanmail thing today on my Gaudete youtube account, which requested more KOF and more Hamlet, so rewatched bits of those and said "Hai. Not too bad." (I know, I know. Epiphany fish.)

In further news, R&J is coming along dickety-doo, edited English Made Simple last night - yay for 15-minute plays, and best of all my doctor said I don't need surgery after all. Hallelujah! In fact, it looks like I might be cast-free in three-four weeks if things go well - which means typing and piano playing - w/ both hands - for me!

Will post links to new youtube stuff as it's up. Off to bed now. Have so many thoughts about R&J and loyalty, and who knows what, and love and violence, and free will...but I only have one hand and it hurts to type too much. Booooo.

God bless Tanya and GBDC and my kids. Amen!

Mood: Not sleepy yet
Music: Nada - whirring computer, crickets
Best SYTYCD Dance of the Night: Katee & Joshua to, of all songs, "No Air"

Wallace's Will

For those who missed it - an uncut version of WW. Enjoy! (Edited version available soon.)



Mood: Surprisingly lucid
Music: "The Windmills of Your Mind" as covered by Dust in a techno-lite fahbulous way
Thought: OK. Today's lesson? Pain meds are our friends, esp. after days when we think we're strong enough to do w/o them. Thank God for Muppets (Season 2) who distract.