🎼 When The Lights Go Down In The City, And The Sun Shines On The Bay…🎶

Hello Gentle Reader!

Well, Sunday marked my final performance for a while, but it was anything but uneventful. 😂 I get to the theatre that afternoon with the mindset that we are going to have a start time of 2pm and I would be back home and in my pajamas relaxing the rest of the night away before chaos week at my survival job. First, I think I have to note that the temperatures were easily in the 100 degree range and possibly hotter. Once you start broiling though, you can’t really tell if it has gotten hotter.

5 minutes to curtain and my casemates get into their places for a reveal that happens shortly after we begin. The “Places” call is made and I head over to spot where I catch a pair of pants that are thrown to me offstage. The curtain speech is made and the main curtain is pulled open and I listen… waiting for my cue to enter.

Up to this point, you could hear this group of people is ready to laugh. They had some good vocalizations while the first actor is giving his exposition speech. I hear my cue “they’d eat the linoleum off the floor if it had a vinaigrette on it”

With that, I am on stage. I get to say, “Maybe his plane is late.” Then slowly, the lights flickered out. Or maybe it felt slow. 2 minutes into the play, the power dies! My cast mate and I stood patiently waiting for a minute or so, in the hopes that it would be a quick little blink of the lights.

And there we stood for what felt like 10 minutes, but was more like a minute in reality. I finally turn to the audience and said, “so how are you doing today?” We had a laugh, but I wanted to keep people in a cheery mood, so I kept talking…

I recall saying “believe it or not, this isn’t the first time I have been in this predicament.” I told them a short story about when I was in White Christmas there was one performance that the lights went out due to winds from an upcoming rainy night that was expected. While we had 2 flood lights at the back of the theatre, they weren’t powerful enough to light the stage safely enough to complete the show. Instead, we offered conversation and the cast gathered on the stage and we sang some carols with the audience. It was really quite a lovely moment to be a part of.

Very kindly, many of the people offered to use their phone lights to keep the stage lit, but I said, you don’t want to drain your battery! Especially if we are in a true power outage.

One of the people asked me to recount the time that I was in Lend Me A Tenor (which was the whole reason why I wanted to be in this show) and how it is to take on the role of Max again. I know I had written about my experience and as I am sure you know, Dear Reader, I am terrible at marketing myself. Instead of saying that I had a whole blog post about it and they could read it on TheActorvist.com, my face hole said “I can’t fully remember the details. But I have a reason why…” then spouted (like some sort of snob) that I was in several shows that year that rolled into each other that it was hard to recall all the details. Only after someone from our stage crew gave us the hook did I think about trying to recount the blog post itself.

UGH!!! I could kick myself. LOL

I feel very lucky that even though it was only a small majority of the audience would come back for the postponed start time, they were a lively bunch. What a way to end a super fun run! The cast and staff were absolutely wonderful and the rehearsal period was short as was the run. It couldn’t have been more perfect. Even with all of our oopsies. 😂 Or would a plural of oopsies be oopsieses?

What out of the ordinary thing has happened to you in a theatre? Did I tell you about the time that someone was breathing oddly and unresponsive during a show? Wait this isn’t about my stories 😳 I want to know more about YOU!

Thank you again, Kind Reader for your time and until next time… Stay safe and alert and take care of yourself and those you care about.

❤️

🎼 4, 3, 2, 1… Earth Below Us, Drifting, Falling, Floating Weightless🎶…

Hello Gentle Reader!!

I hope you are well. With only 3 more performances to go, I find that the idea of having time back to myself is levitating me as I move through space. There is a sense of joy and fear.

Joy for all the things that I want to try and fear because what if I can’t return to this same level? But in the end, I have spent so much time putting off things that I have wanted to learn and finally decided that if not now, when?

In the past, when I “planned” for time off and I would get a call asking to see me, I would oblige with the idea that I was only using auditions to keep skills in check. Then when casting would call, I would have an internal struggle of should I or shouldn’t I. Clearly, in the end I always should-ed.

However, this time around feels different. I feel more mentally in tune, and sure of myself that this is the right thing to do. I have already been asked to consider looking at a show and I politely declined. I am not even going to give myself an opportunity where I would be tempted.

Dear Reader, have you ever put yourself in situations with one mindset only to find that it created an internal struggle? What did you do? In the end, did you keep your original intention? I am curious as to how often we put ourselves in these kind of situations and the outcome becomes something that sticks with you through life because of the experience. I am not so much thinking about how the experience affected, but the idea of that intention you had and whether you discovered something new in that little inner conflict.

I have been wondering how these little battles within myself have changed my perspectives, colored my choices and what that does for my process when I think about the characters I play. Is every little battle in that character evident? How far back do I need to go when I build this backstory and how will that color the world the character sees?

When I am looking at characters, I build a backstory, but this new idea has sprung in my head that has my curiosity just tickled so I have been contemplating how I personally have been informed by this.

In any case, Kind Reader, it is just 6 more hours until I begin the prep for the final weekend of performances. As always, I thank you for spending a few minutes to read my ramblings. I would love to know if you have ever thought about what these mini conflicts do to your view of the world. I always kind of just shrugged it off, but it was pointed out to me that more and more lately, I have had moments where that battle comes up and comes up big.

Until the next time, stay safe and alert and take care of yourself and those you care about.

❤️

🎼Happy In My 2nd Life, Headset On, I Could Be Anything…🎶

Hello Gentle Reader!

Life is quick and fleeting. You blink and a season is gone. You can busy yourself to the point that a whole year has gone by faster than you feel like it should have.

But you already know this. None of this is news… right?

A lot of time at work I am clock watching, just hoping to leave my survival job to be turned loose onto the world to play with whatever idea my brain has an itching for. Sometimes the scratch feels so nice it becomes a passing hobby. Then sometimes that hobby entangles you in its web of intrigue, detail or escape. Then sometimes it can swallow you up and fuel you as you burn the candle at both ends learning, doing, becoming.

And then, when you come up for air, Dear Reader, you find that time has become a stranger to you. Well to me. Nieces and nephews sprout like corn stalks, Mom looks a little more sleepy, Hubby is a little shorter and Dad becomes a little quieter. I wonder to myself, “was I being selfish to follow this passion of mine to the floors of so many different stages? To meet literally hundreds of people? To tell stories to people that may change someone’s heart?”

How could I not see all of these changes to the people that mean the most? So I decided that I was going to actually have my cocoon year that I wrote about a bit ago…

and I was going to include the last quarter of this year as an added bonus!

A glorious 15 month hiatus is in the books for me and it begins very very soon! Already I can feel that this was the correct choice. On Sunday, it was the first night where I didn’t go to bed thinking about what my character’s childhood was like, or how he would react if the stakes were only life and death or his relationship with the donut guy who is only in one scene. I didn’t stop to think when I could find time the next day to study my script.

And I slept through the entire night.

I couldn’t believe it myself. My overactive brain, shut off like it was supposed to and I slept.

When I woke up on Monday morning, I noticed immediately that something was different. Here’s a small confession, Kind Reader, I always wake up a little grumpy. For like the first 30 minutes of the day or my shower which is one of the first things I do. My step was a little peppier. The day felt pleasant, even the sunshine was welcomed when I opened the curtains in the living room.

Some people don’t think I can stay away. And they may be right, but it won’t be to be on the stage. Maybe I will pop in to help friends learn lines or just to support the rehearsal hall one night a week. I am not expecting to fall out of the community, I am just going to refrain from committing to any shows so that I can run away for the weekend if my whims should demand me to. 🤭

In my survival job, we accrue sabbaticals over time, so I am just taking a small sabbatical from theatre while I learn some new tricks and try to do a little exploring. Strengthen my familial bonds and create more familial bonds with my dearest friends since they are already like family. I guess this is my bondage era… wait that came out wrong. 😳

Thanks so much for offering me up a little bit of your time, Gentle Reader. I appreciate you and it. I would love to hear from you about something you are looking forward to. Something I am excited about is the fall season. I think next month I will do a 30 Days of Noir and of course October is 30 Days of Horror. November could be 30 Days of Rom-Coms, but that is still up in the air.

Let me know what you have coming up that you are excited for!? Until next time, stay safe and alert and take care of yourself and those you care about.

❤️

🎼Hot Summer Streets & The Pavements Are Burning, I Sit Around. Trying To Smile, But The Air Is So Heavy & Dry🎶

Hello Gentle Reader,

OMG I have tried to complete the post about Kinky Boots for the last 2 months and by this time, I can’t add any of the photos that I want to now that the writing was finally finished. But then I went back and read it, and it was trash. There was no flow to the post and the thread of thought that I initially had doesn’t work because I literally spent 52 days trying to add to it to get all my thoughts out but it was a jumbled mess.

So I am scrapping that post altogether and just moving forward. 😵

The newest project is a fun little farce that is a great way to wrap up a really fun summer! Although, I have to say that I think unless I am rehearsing in an air conditioned hall/space, I don’t think summer shows are going to be for me going forward. 😄

I thought my big ass was gonna pass out with the heat we were dealing with here. Several days in the triple digits when my optimal functioning temperature has a max high of 75 degrees 🤭 made me feel like a polar bear in the middle of the dessert. All I wanted to find was a fridge to crawl inside.

This next project is Ken Ludwig’s Comedy of Tenors. Not exactly a sequel to the hilarious Lend Me A Tenor, but could be considered as one since 4 of the 7 characters are the same just older. With that being said, please note that one is not dependent on the other. And to make it even better is that this is my 6th team up with director Allie B! I may be more of a nuisance to her at this point. She is probably thinking “Why do I keep bringing this fool into my projects?!” as she shakes a fist to the sky. 😂

Of course, Sweet Reader, I am saying all of this in jest. At this point, she is a dear friend and I enjoy the shorthand that we have accumulated over the course of these projects. Nearly a decade ago, I was lucky enough to play Max in Lend Me however, Allie was not the director of that project. As a matter of fact, I have a post about it. It was a great lesson that I learned doing that show. It was one of those things where I was so sure that my way was the right way but found that I can keep my intentions the same but add different actions and the stage picture would be what the director was aiming for.

That lesson has helped me in so many ways. It has given me the courage to ask for clarification when I need it if something isn’t clear right away so that I don’t build up frustration. Not only does it build and feed the collaborative spirit but it really makes me feel like I am freer to try creative choices. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t but being able to feel the impulse and adjust your intentions to it in the moment really lets me live in the world on stage.

Opening night is just a few sleeps away, Kind Reader and we are getting into costumes and mics the next few rehearsals. I wish I still had the glasses that I wore for this character last time, but alas, the frames bent at some point and I could never get them back to the same shape they were before.

Interestingly enough, that is the same feeling that I get when I think back about Max. Being much older and a little wiser, I know that the way I am revisiting this fellow isn’t quite the same. Granted, the character has also done some growing up. So maybe not having the glasses is a good thing. One can still see that squirrely, tense, ambitious dreamer that he used to be but time has altered the shape of his world a little with a balancing act of artist and husband. It is a very interesting emotional arc that I get to play with and shape and I hope that the way I am playing it will pay off for that beautiful ending that this play has.

Well, Dear Reader, I thank you for once again, taking a few minutes of your life to entertain the ramblings of a vagabond actor looking for ways to make sense of this human experience called life. Before I sign off though, I am curious if any of you have looked back and examined where you are now versus where you were 5 or 10 years ago? Have you grown in the areas that you have wanted to? I hope you have accomplished what you have wanted. I know that Max has some unfinished work. As do I.

Until the next time, stay safe and aware. Take care of yourself and those around you.

🎼You Gotta Get It Right While You Got The Time, Cuz When You Close Your Heart, Then You Close Your Mind…🎶

Hello Gentle Reader!

This a post that isn’t as fully formed as I was hoping as I rushed to get my thoughts in place. The post that was supposed to be uploaded had references to the Golden Globes and with the passing of Lisa Marie Presley, I felt like it wasn’t the right time to post it.💔

I am currently in rehearsal for a staged reading of a new play called La Lechuza or The Owl Witch. It is a really neat opportunity to see a play evolve and morph into a more matured version of itself. I am loving the conversation we are having during our time together.

In a previous post, I had expressed a want to figure out myself to try and find that elusive self love that we are always hearing about. One of the biggest blank spaces I have in regards to my sense of self is culture 🇲🇽 and what it means for me and how I can embrace it and be more comfortable in my milk chocolatey colored outer candy shell.

Last spring/summer, while I was involved with The Pear Theatre’s Pear Slices performances, I had a back and forth email conversation with one of the playwrights, Linda Amayo-Hassan who is writing my current project.

Growing up, I had always known where I should be. The silly tests like “what job would you be suited for” and the like all said the same thing and it was what I had already known. Entertainment. Yet, when I think back at all the shows that I watched, I didn’t see people like me in the roles that weren’t thugs or criminals of some kind, if they were in the show or movie at all. There were a handful of Latinx people on TV, but those were in dramas and I wasn’t keen on those as a kid. I stopped associating with anything that was culturally focused. I thought that I would be looked at as lesser than by theatre directors if I was more proud of it.

In my neighborhood and in schools I attended, so many of the mocha colored kids, like myself, were a part of gangs or misbehaving in some other way. Of course, that just isn’t my personality, Dear Reader. Eventually, I just made it through life believing that culture and race didn’t matter, that you just had to be a good person.

In an old job at Nordstrom, I used to work with this amazing lady name Mebrat. She was from Eritrea, a small country in Northern Africa. I swear that every day, as she watched people coming or going, she would say at least once “I wonder where s/he is from?” Finally, after weeks of this, I asked her why is that so important? Isn’t it more important that the person is kind and compassionate? I didn’t yell this or anything, mind you, Kind Reader, I respected her so much and we had some of my favorite conversations. I was truly curious because that was how my perspective was focused. She told me that she wanted to know what similarities were shared, what did they enjoy about their lives, did they emigrate here, were they second or third or more generation “American.” She was a lot like me, full of curiosity. Where we differed was that she was curious about people and I was curious about things and creating things. Her questions were “who are they?” and mine were “how did they do that?” While she did teach me to be curious about people, it wasn’t to the point that I needed to know where they were from and how that informed their view of the world. 🌍

It wasn’t until as recently as 3 or 4 years when I began to appreciate more movies from other cultures that shared their traditions and joys, and of course the terrible racist events around the country, that are still happening TO THIS DAY, that I began to want to know more about my own. And it sort of showed me a hole that had been falsely covered like some sort of hunting trap that one falls in because they weren’t looking where they were going.

Ms. Amayo-Hassan’s piece in the Pear Slices was about a Puerto Rican family who had lost their home on the island due to Hurricane Katrina, and the lack of help that followed. It was a beautiful piece because even while surrounded by this profound amount of death and loss, the parents still had hope and still were able to make one another smile. In it, the father questions if the government would have stepped in faster if this happened on the mainland. While Puerto Ricans are considered U.S. citizens, this government dragged their feet getting any sort of assistance to the island to help rescue and rebuild. So he wondered if they are really citizens and asks why would they let “their people”suffer? Why would the government not help as it should? While I worked on this short play, I was finding all of these little questions in his motivations, his reactions and his silence. When I first started the play, I took it rather fairly straightforward with the upbeat parts being upbeat and the serious parts being more reserved. Then, as we got to walk through the piece more and more, I was finding things that felt like little betrayals, or small prayers for the dead, or at one point just fury.

Gentle Reader, I slowly began to realize that I had more in common with this character than I thought. I noticed that I was really hitting on some inner hurts that I had inflicted on myself thinking I was merely “American.” Finding all these gems of pain and sadness and betrayal even that Ricardo, the father character, felt helped to fill that hole I was feeling a little.

This new play, La Lechuza, is helping me learn a little more about the culture from my cast mates and I am doing my best to absorb everything that they are saying. It is also helping my pronunciation of the language. I would say this is a pretty good start on the self discovery path. This project is a staged reading for More Más Marami Arts in March, I believe. I will keep you posted as details get finalized.

Well, I hope this wasn’t too much of a jumbled mess of a post. As I mentioned before, it was a bit of a rush job to get this idea mostly formulated. I didn’t know how it was going to go because I know I had to give you a lot of backstory to get to the point. I just hope I got to it. 😂

Thank you, Dear Reader, for joining along in my rambles as I try to figure out my messy brain and all around self so that I can be my best when I step on to the stage. I always appreciate the chance to bend your ear.

Until next time, stay safe and alert. Be kind and take care of yourself and those you care about.