🎼 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.

❤️

🎼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.

❤️

🎼Say What You Wanna Say, And Let The Words Fall Out, Honestly, I Wanna See You Be Brave…🎶

Hello Gentle Reader!

It has been a great few weeks.

I am having a period of time that I am not fully accustomed to and instead of analyzing it, I am just trying to accept and grow with it.

You know how there are things that you know you can do, but you haven’t had a chance to show people? It feels like I can relax my shoulders more and take bigger breaths for the moment.

For those that haven’t seen the Instagram post, I have been given the opportunity to bring to life the character of John Proctor in Arthur Miller’s classic The Crucible! A dramatic role has been offered to moi? For the last decade and a half I have wanted to have a shot at something serious or even something dark. Aside from the Leading Player in Pippin, I have never had the chance to play with darker moments of shows. Weeelllll, I guess West Side Story… twice… So after I worked for Pear Theatre in their anthology of original works last year, I had a bigger yearning to do something serious because it felt so good to play these characters that felt mature and more solidly grounded (one was an absent father, another was a hurricane survivor trying to rebuild their home with his wife) than what I usually play.

I almost, ALMOST, let my own doubts and fear get to me and keep me from attending the callbacks or round 2 of auditions, for those that aren’t familiar. Not even doubts about my ability to do any of the roles in this play, but doubts about whether it would be a traditionally cast production. The play is about a small town of Puritans in the 1690’s during the Witch Trials near Salem, Massachusetts, so I was debating if it was just going to be a waste of time to go.

I changed my work schedule specifically for this reason so even though one of my doubts was that I would never make it on time to rehearsals, I already had planned for this. Then, I thought about the time that I was offered a really cool role of a Devil by a casting director of a show but had the director say that they were going to split the role into 3 parts and I would play the aspect that was more energetic and movement based. That brought up some bad vibes for a bit but then I thought about how I stood up for myself and agreed that the contract I signed would be broken and I wanted a new one. Since they wouldn’t give me a new contract, they just paid me for the role and released me from the contract as if completed. It was fine by me. I was a little mad at first, but I was paid in full and “won” the “argument.” I didn’t expect to get a check in the mail. LOL. But that was a very important lesson to learn.

But, Dear Reader, I went and did the thing!

And even though I wondered if I made the right choices or strong enough choices to embody the script once I was released from the room, I felt great that I just powered through that fear. I know that I had said a few lines wrong and I think it may have thrown off the actors I was working with. The intent was the same but the wrong cue line is kind of a bummer. So I did feel bad about that. Man, can you imagine? I said “You shall not speak of my wife!” instead of “You shall not speak of Elizabeth!” and the surprise made the other actor not get the part? Oh, I would feel so bad! I hope that didn’t happen.

So, yeah, the thing was done.

The other thing is that I have been working with a vocal coach sporadically. We have a bit of trouble syncing our schedules, but there is a comfortability and a trust that I have with them that makes the sessions feel like all these little light bulbs of knowledge are lighting up. Recently, some shows were announced that I thought, “YES! I want to be a part of that!” So I found an audition song that I think would be fantastic for one of them. My coach usually stops our warm ups at about an A but this song’s ending has a great phrase of just hopping from E to G’s and then popping up higher for the ending. He says “Ok, let’s give this a go” after we worked through any sort of rhythmic or diction issues. So I sing it like I will be singing it at auditions and he just stares at me for a few seconds.

“Where the hell have you been hiding that B? At full voice?!”

He was excited about how easy the E-G phrase was to do and then to blast out that ending made him wide eyed. 😂

He said he is looking forward to the next session because of this new information and we have yet to really dig in to falsetto, so I don’t know how much higher I can actually go.

Kind Reader, I have always been hesitant to say I can sing. I know what I can do, but I feel like my sound is more like a sing in the shower kind of sound. Since I started these sessions, I do feel like I have grown as a vocalist. I still hesitate to say, I’m a singer so I will just say, give me a bucket and I can carry a tune. 😂

With all of this new input and outcomes, I am a little mad at myself for being afraid or for choosing self sabotage (because let’s face it, I did choose it) when I know that these are things that I can do. I started to spiral out thinking about all the chances not taken and what my projects would have looked like and would I have been more confident because of it. However, on the other side of the coin, many of the projects that I did work on are like little treasures to me. Maybe this was the lesson I was supposed to learn?

I guess we will just have to wait and see.

Well, Gentle Reader, I cannot say thank you enough for letting me bend your ear once again. I have already been considering trying a new tactic for helping me associate how I feel about the different characters, but first I have to see if I can match up all of them, then I will let you know how it goes.

Until next time, stay safe and alert and be kind to yourself and those around you.

❤️

🎼Looks Good, Sounds Good, Feels Good Too…🎶

Heeeeeeelllllloooooo Gentle Reader!

My many apologies for my long time away. First came the attempt at learning candle making, then I got cast in a production and now work is all kinds of wonky! BUT the important thing is now the show has begun with last night being the start of a spectacular run.

Yes, you Gorgeous Readers, I have opened another show! I kept meaning to post about it here, but time was just too poorly managed on my part. I can say that with complete honesty. I slept like crap these last 8 weeks and it just got worse 3 weeks ago thanks to work looking into cutting back on it spending. At first it wasn’t about stress. At first. It was more the fact that traffic in the Bay Area has returned to PreCovid Times and people drive worse now than they did back then. My drive to get to rehearsal can take anywhere from 50 minutes to 1 hour and 20 minutes, I think was my record, thanks to an accident. By the time it was the return trip home, the last thing on my mind was writing because I was trying to figure out what meetings I had to prepare for at work the next day.

So writing was put on the back burner. My sincere apologies. I’ve missed y’all.

I hope that you are all well and healthy and you are looking forward to the holiday season!

Speaking of the holiday season, let’s chat about my current project…

No doubt, Lovely Reader, that you have seen this 1986 holiday classic that is played on repeat every single year for 24 hours on Christmas Day.

If you happened to have missed it, somehow. It is the memory of the main character’s Christmas from when he was 8 years old. Filled with moments of hilarity and relatability, this film has something for everyone

Check out this newspaper article featuring Keith Larson. Keith does an outstanding job as The Old Man! I swear sometimes it sounds like the O.G. dad, Darren McGavin. He talks about how as he has gotten older and a family of his own, his relationship with this film has also grown.

If you haven’t seen it, watch it. It takes place in the 1940’s and it is just a simpler time so there are no cell phones, no distractions from screens. It is all about the human connections.

The script for the play version highlights all the best parts of the movie and delivers such heart.

For my experience with this show, it was pure pleasure. In the movie, you never see my “role.” You definitely hear it though. He is little Ralphie all growed up. (Yes, I know that isn’t a real word) and just like the movie, the play is told through the “memories” he shares, moving the story along.

For me the great challenge was getting the style of the syntax correct because while all my lines weren’t quite run-on sentences, they most certainly felt like it. There would be a paragraph of 7 lines that was only 2 actual sentences and some of the grammatical markings weren’t where one would think they should be. So really digging in and trying to sort all of that out was my biggest issue. Not to mention ALL THE LINES!! The sheer amount of them had gotten so that at a point in the early stages of rehearsals, that I began to question my casting. 😂😂

I was sick of hearing myself speak because it felt like I was ALWAYS monologuing. I began to wonder if I would turn out like some of the presenters I see during work functions, droning on and on and losing audience members like a comet loses pieces of itself as it hurtles through space. Sometimes I had pages of things to say and they didn’t really connect to one another so trying to shift the energy so it felt like it was a “scene change” was such an incredible exercise. There is still one that I feel a bit sticky on.

Here is an example: After one of the fantasy scenes with all the kids, Kind Reader, I reenter and talk about how having the Red Ryder BB gun was a must. Then I am supposed to set the tone for a scene about the sexy leg lamp. After a fantastical scene where Ralphie uses his rifle and the built in tools to save his classmates they all run off. The script says: “RALPH: No question about it. I had to have that air rifle. It was an absolute necessity. Meanwhile, night after night, the soft sinuous radiation of the Old Man’s major award lit up Cleveland Street, attracting cruising prides of adolescents.” Logically, I know there is a light shift, but I can’t see it as I am in a follow spot whenever I am on stage. So all I see is that light. I drop the register and volume of my voice and hope that I wait long enough that the light change happens before I go into the light part of the line. At the beginning I am in one frame of mind, caught up in the ideas of what could happen with that rifle and then I have to shift over to sexy time talk with a flip of the dime. 😂 It just feels funky to me. I am sure it looks great, but I, personally, find it feeling funky. It is totally a me thing and I completely trust my director, the amazing Allie Bailey. If it looked off or sounded odd in any way, she would straight up tell me.

Now with this beast of a show open, I can relax and enjoy the holidays myself. Since my family has suffered a lot of hardships with losses over the last few years, I know I need to enjoy our time together now.

Sometimes during the penultimate and the final scenes, I get a little choked up because of how I built the backstory for my character. But that is for another post.

I hope that you are able to come on down and check out this cult Christmas classic presented on a stage with over the top silliness and about a planet sized amount of heart. Besides, look at that little face! Don’t you wanna see the shenanigans this lil fella gets into?

Program Image: Shawna Gonzales as Mother and Matthew Horta as Ralphie Parker

Until next time, Dear Reader, I hope you stay safe, healthy and aware. Make sure to take care of yourself and those around you. I adore you all and look forward to the next time. Thanks for letting me bend your ear.

❤️

🎼Do You See What I See, Do You See What I See…🎶

Hello Dear Reader,

Happy All Of The Things! I hope however you celebrated with your families and friends, it was filled with joy, love, and kindness.

Last week, the family play I worked on had its final bow on Saturday. It was a fun run with a wonderful cast. Looking back, I can say there was a lesson in this production. And it was something I learned from the audience. It was a first for me.

I tried to get very comfortable in the skin of someone that was so unlike me. I mean, I have my little quirks, which could very well be undiagnosed OCD. I am not, however, self absorbed or oblivious to other people. I like to think that I did a decent job inhabiting that life though.

I am always looking for lessons to learn or what I could take away from each project. This time around, with this being the first time back on stage in 2 years, what will I learn, I wondered. 2 years is a long time to not put into practice what you know.

Now my Gentle Reader, you might be thinking “there are/were ways to participate with online performances.” To this, yes, I agree and I tried it. My experience doing an online or Zoom performance, while enjoyable in the meeting of people and working with them, was not as fulfilling as an in-person experience. I felt like I was expending way more energy just trying to maintain this sort of distanced connection with my cast mates. Not only that, I was never sure if I was reading my cast mates’ motivations properly because I couldn’t see their whole body, just whatever their head, neck and shoulders were telling me. It was draining. The people were great, but it was draining. I knew it wasn’t the thing for me. And that’s okay!

This time around, I learned that while I was getting comfy in Michael’s skin, I may have been getting a little careless with it too. As this was my very first time working on a thrust stage, (if you are unfamiliar, it is when the stage sticks out a bit and the audience sits on 3 sides instead of just one as in a traditional theater) I was hyper aware that my motions needed to be clear so no matter where one sat, my actions would be understood. This also means that at any given time, the actors on stage will have their backs to the audience at some point. Man, this was hard. It was an awesome challenge though.

Being comfortable with Michael’s mannerisms and actions were what brought he and I together. As long as I understood my motivations behind my actions, I could use those with everything on the stage if it felt right. And I did change what I interacted with… often! You know how they say the show can never be the same each night because of the various factors, like audience participation (their reactions), accidental (or intentional) walking pattern adjustment, forgotten words, costume malfunction, but mostly because of the first thing? I think I was to blame each night. 🙃

During the rehearsal process, as I mentioned in previous posts, I would always make adjustments based on how it felt. I could never recall exactly what I did because I was trying to simply stay in the moment. This meant that I didn’t have a defined track that is set and is always identical to the night before. There were points that I had to hit, but everything else was kind of fluid.

Early in the run, one of those points was called into question and after I reflected on it, I made an adjustment. There is a point in the show that Michael apologizes to his wife for accusing her of only coming back to him because she wants his money. Right after they reconcile, Michael says with hope of upcoming fatherhood and relief that Jill does love him, not his money, that he hopes they don’t have an “Uncle Bob” baby. Bob happens to be the alcoholic uncle who says inappropriate things. The line doesn’t feel like an announcement to the world but rather a secret hope between the couple. Well, I went with how it feels without thinking about the element of the thrust. This meant that the people behind me wouldn’t be able to clearly hear what I was saying. I actually heard someone ask what was said and it hit me that my intention and motivation may be appropriate but delivery needs to be adjusted so it can be heard by the audience clearly. So this point was adjusted and I made sure that I was louder and more clear with that line through the rest of the run. We didn’t have mics and it was a very intimate setting, meaning the audience was practically on the stage with us.

Later in the run, a great actor friend was in the audience and asked why I was pointing to my brother during a point when Uncle Bob says he has a confession for anyone who is keeping score of our contest. One of the reveals later in the show was that the brother was documenting the whole night. 🤭Oops sorry, SPOILERS! 😂! Well, my action is that I am actually pointing to Mom, but because of how I do it, sort of dismissively nonchalant which ends up looking like a hand imitating a fish out of water, the action was unclear. Also, dependent on where people sit, I will look like I am pointing to a different person on the stage. From that performance on, I made sure to keep the intention but to acknowledge Mom in a more focused manner.

So my Kind Reader, for this lesson, I learned that staying in the moment and understanding motivations and intentions are all important, but when audience perspective is shifted to almost all around you, clarity and focus in those things is even more useful to help deliver a more enjoyable performance for the audience.

As this posts, I shall be enjoying the final Sunday Brunch of the year. I eagerly look forward to the opportunities 2022 will bring and hope that you are too. That being said, until next time, Gentle Reader, I hope you are safe and alert and don’t forget to treat people with kindness. Including yourselves.

❤️