Deadlines, deadlines, dead lines…

It’s really tough when you want to accomplish something and you know there’s a deadline looming in 4 weeks. But even before the deadline hits you push the ball into motion and hope that things turn out the way that you would like them to. But that ball gets popped on the way to it’s destination because it wasn’t pushed sooner. Or so I am told.

I can understand that just fine. I don’t have a problem with that.

The problem that I do have is that I am told that my project, that is potentially small potatoes, isn’t being given enough time to have an impact to benefit those involved. Then come to find out that a major event that is two weeks away is still in planning stages by the same people that popped my ball! I have a bit of an issue reconciling that logic or line of thinking in my noggin.

Clearly the lines of communication seem to have a cut connection.

Snip, snip.

You want me to what? Piece of cake! Oh, at the same time!

Weeellllllll, that’s a whole other story!

I have always wanted to take swing dancing lessons. If I could pick a time to live in other than this one, the Swing Era would have totally been my bag! All these amazing dances to shake a leg to? Not to mention the kick ass music as well. Way, way better than most of what’s out there today.

It turns out that I get to dance a couple of 8 counts with the wonderful Laura Benitez. We got to work on a little sumpin’ sumpin’ during today’s rehearsal. Laura taught me some of the basics of swing and we tried to work on a routine that would be appropriate for the scene. Okay, so the scene is as follows: It’s near the end of Act 1 and Ultima and Tony are trying to save his Uncle Lucas. Lucas had a curse placed on him, and in order to save him, Tony’s spirit goes to a place that’s supposed to be purgatory. While in purgartory, Tony sees his brother, Andrew (Me) and I am dancing with a prostitute who hopefully will have a death mask on or will be represented as another form of El Muerte. At first we’re a little slinky, but when I see her for what she is, I beg to be saved. During our dance, I have a conversation with Tony and I try to escape from her grasp. Do I get away? You’ll have to see the show to find out. And we are just one little piece of this scene.

For tonight’s rehearsal, we had no music to work with, so we are kind of anxious about the song selection. It’s still unclear what we’ll be dancing to. In addition to that small problem, our Tony wasn’t in attendance tonight, so we couldn’t really set the dialogue to the routine either.

I have to admit it was quite the challenge to perform a new routine and deliver lines in a one sided conversation at the same time. After running the scene, Laura and I went to work in the hallways to try and solidify what we’ve got so far. I give it two thumbs up! This scene is going to be pretty intense if we pull it off.

Knowing when to say “Enough.”

Have you ever gotten a plate of food that was just too much for you to handle? Has anyone told you that you had “eyes bigger than your stomach?” How about that “you have bitten off more than you can chew?”

Welp, that’s me in a nutshell. I think of all these things that I want to do, and yet never get to doing them because I always seem to never have enough time. Without whittling out the very little amount of sleep that I already get, what else could I cut in order to get everything done. I can’t cut back on TV because I have already done that.

I always want to help and I jump at the chance when people ask because I truly do want to help. Sometimes I have to wonder though if I am really helping them out. I guess I have to better utilize what little time I have or try to multitask MORE. I don’t think it’s possible to do that though.

The reason that I bring up this whole issue anyway is because as I am reading the book version of “Bless Me, Ulitma” I am learning that there are major events left out of the play that actually help me make sense now that I know about them. I am reading the book in pieces each night before I go to sleep. Granted, it is an easy read, but I only have those few minutes before drifting off to sleep to get some reading in. I confess I have actually been reading it ever since we started rehearsals, and I STILL have about 40 pages to go.

I KNOW that sometimes my eyes are bigger than my “stomach.” I just have to figure out how to tetris it all into MY time schedule. Do you got any suggestions? I’ve got the “To Do List” thing going and while that helps to remind me what needs to be done, unexpected interruptions make it hard to control all the time.

So what do you do? Or are you like me and try to cram everything in all the time and in effect really harvest nothing of true value?

Somebody just throw water on me already, will ya?

What a world! What a world!

Humming along, singing a song…

Today’s rehearsal was supposed to be brief.

We were going to learn some of the songs that are being incorporated into the show during celebratory moments. ‘Cause you know Latin people love to sing!

I was looking forward to it when I woke up this morning, but once I got there, I knew this was going to be way, WAY different than what I was so used to, being a musical theatre performer.

When one works with a musical theatre company and the show has music that one must learn, it’s pretty standard that the singers are given copies of sheet music. This helps to teach the timing, the notes, and the words of the song. I was given words to the song, but these were ones I’d never heard before. Luckily one of my cast mates sent me an mp3 of two of the songs. So as I am listening to these quiet recordings, I begin to realize that the first song doesn’t have the traditional song set up of verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge and chorus. It made my head spin! Also, I couldn’t pronounce some of the words. On top of that, the melody never actually repeats itself so I was feeling a little overwhelmed.

The second song is a little more standard in set up, but getting the timing on some of the held notes without the actual music was difficult. I was again given the words and an mp3, but not everyone sings the song the same way so there were some kinks that needed to be worked out.

The musician that helped out on this rehearsal, while super nice, wasn’t the greatest teacher. Some of the chords that he played on his guitar, didn’t sound like anything that I had ever heard before. I just told myself that it was because of the type of guitar.

I think what I was hoping for was to be told, okay this word right here is held for a count of 8 or each new phrase starts two beats after the last one (that wasn’t ever the case as it was all over the place). I think this was the first time during this process that I didn’t really have fun. But that’s okay. The great thing about this business is that there are a lot of people that are willing to help you if you just ask.

You can surely bet that I will be asking!