🎼 Where Is It Written What It Is I’m Meant To Be; That I Can’t Dare To Have The Chance To Pick The Fruit of Every Tree…🎶

Hello Dear Reader!

I didn’t have much to say this past year because as you may recall, I was taking some time off.

Over the last 11 months, I went through a major blast of anxiety and my doctor recommended therapy because he said I was suffering from acute depression. With everything that is happening in the world, I feel like it was a normal response to have.

Nothing went as I had planned as far as the theatrical pursuits that I had made goals for. Even my survival job was literally on survival mode. While that ended, they bought my skillset with a contract agreement and I am only giving them a year which ends in August of 26. It has already been a trying time and I don’t know how much longer I want to grow with this place and the inefficient way it runs.

Then, at the end of summer, I had lunch with a dear friend of mine, and she invited me to be a part of a cast that will be performing for a 60th Celebration. The first thing that popped into my head was all the times that I told people “sorry, I can’t. I am taking the year off.” Sadly, I have had to do it more than I really wanted, (you would be surprised how easy it is to say no after a few times.) because this was a promise that I had made to myself, and I am terrible at keeping them when they are for me.

I am not a people pleaser, but when it comes to close friends, I will do things for them, so saying no was a big deal. Initially, I was feeling like I would be missing something but I realized that I needed to complete this goal for me, because I fail all the time when it comes to keeping promises to myself.

This offer was different, however. It was kind of like a giant thank you for 60 years of opportunities given to people to play on stage and bringing different friendships together through this amazing community and it isn’t often that a chance like this comes along.

How could I say no, Gentle Reader?

Additionally, all of my goals for what I wanted to accomplish this year, were frozen. Thank you, Anxiety and Fear. With everything going on in the country, I hated going anywhere. More often than not, I simply went to work then went home. I decided that I didn’t want to risk going to any classes because all the places that I wanted to take them was in other cities and I was too afraid to drive anywhere outside of my 3 mile radius alone.

This was also a major contribution to my depression and furthering my disappointment that I couldn’t keep to the goals/promises that I had set. When I was talking to another friend, I had mentioned that I really didn’t think that I was interested in theatre anymore, which led to a talk about what I was looking for since all I had focused on in the past was this art form.

I didn’t have any answers for her. Once the doc said that this feeling could be part of the depression, things began to make more sense to me. I made some efforts to go out for more walks and journaling more. I have found that I did feel a little better and my interests in just life in general returned and I found my anxiety was lessened.

Maybe, Kind Reader, this is exactly what I needed.

Until our path across again, stay safe and alert. ❤

🎼 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.

❤️

🎼 Time, Time, Time, See What’s Become Of Me… 🎶

Hello Gentle Reader!

Happy holiday season if you celebrate it in any fashion and for those that don’t I hope you are having a fantastic time. I am usually only a Halloween and New Year’s kinda guy, but with my last project, you can say that I am in the Xmas spirit, I suppose.

I have a question for you my Dear Reader. What is the difference between the following line:

“… my very own legendary official Red Ryder carbine action 200 shot range model air rifle, with a compass and this thing which tells time built right into the stock.”

“… MY very own legendary official Red Ryder carbine action 200 shot range model air rifle. With a compass! And this thing… which tells TIME built right into the stock.”

The way that I see it, the first version has the same sort of half committed involvement that the narrator from the film uses. He is invested, but it just feels like he has told this story before to other people so it isn’t novel or new to him anymore. In the second version, I play it so that it feels like actually owning this present is a dream that I don’t want to wake from and the details of the gun that I have been going on and on about are highlighted since they are referred to 99% of the time the air rifle is mentioned. But I think the Time emphasis was me bringing my life experience to the piece.

Christmas Eve was the first day since closing night of A Christmas Story that I could say that line without feeling the burning sensation in my nose and eyes of tears that wanted to be set free.

I can’t exactly say when it happened, but I suspect that it was some time during week 2 of performances that the line above began to morph from the previous to the latter.

I don’t know if I had mentioned it here yet, but I had so much work to do with the script that I read it multiple times a day on the weekends and at least once every day. I listened the the audio version I made while I was in traffic on the way to rehearsal. I listened to it at work when I wasn’t in meetings. All to share this memory for this character.

But what is a memory? It is a snippet of time that you are recalling at a different point in time. Sometimes it is purposely done and other times it could be involuntarily triggered by sound, scent or emotion and situation.

On closing night, I said that line, and before I could continue with the rest of the scene, I had this magnificent surge of love, heartache, stress, fondness and a few other emotions, all at once. I became aware of the symbol of authoritative and parental figures and friends (that my cast mates Shawna and Keith represented) had turned into a focused source of those people in my life that I don’t see, can’t see, won’t see anymore or haven’t seen in a very long time.

It was an overwhelming sensation. Then it circled back to the sadness that this little show of ours had grown to become something so special to me and it was taking the last breaths of life. I took a few moments to try and force my voice back “into character” but as a proponent of “feel your feelings” I delivered the lines “The greatest Christmas gift I had ever received…. Or ever WOULD receive” with that bubble in my throat and powered through “pranging ducks on the wing and getting off spectacular hip shots.” I could only hope that through my quaking voice the audience could understand what I was saying, Kind Reader.

I felt a wee bit foolish but there was nothing I could have done. In far away voices, I could hear the backstage manager and some of the others, waiting to enter the stage for bows, commenting or gasping that this moment was happening.

During the first attempt at creating an audio aid, which I recorded on a whim, I can hear my final speech get a little emotionally shaky. I wish that I had paid more attention to that moment so that I could steel myself of this and present the show to the audience just as we had done the rest of the run.

Even before this show began I have been fighting with the fleeting nature of time and the ideas that some people had about it. And I took on some of their baggage from them and still shoulder. So couple that baggage with the reminiscing of friends and family and a storm was inevitable.

It is a lot of energy to process and keep in check in the space of the 15 seconds that it takes to say that line and I did well every other night. But time will find a way of catching up with you.

With that, let me just shut off this light on 2022 and the wonderful production of A Christmas Story that I was so fortunate to be a part of. Thanks for letting me bend your ear one more time this year, Dear Reader. Take care of yourself and those you care about! Stay safe and alert and I will see you in 2023.