If you are in anyway put-off by sentiment, grossed out by dreaminess, or if your stomach turns at the very thought of feeling warm and fuzzy inside, I recommend that you skip this post entirely. For the rest of you, grab some crackers because we're about to get real cheesy all up in here. Yeah. That joke.
In all seriousness though, I feel that it's important for me to share this with everyone I have ever met, because I have a feeling that I will look back on these days for years to come with great happiness and appreciation.
You may call me silly, childish, foolish or an idealist. You should then know that I will always be the first to admit that I am still very much a little girl inside, and I wouldn't change that for the world. Grown ups seem so much less enchanted and excited about so many things in life that I cherish.
All prologues aside, you will need a little back story for the proper level of perspective on this tale.
Twelve years ago, just headed into high school, my parents moved here (with the resentful, ungrateful child that I was) from a small college town in central Pennsylvania. Like many teenagers uprooted from their social circle, I was less than pleased. Already not the most social creature for my age, the amount of self-consciousness, teenage angst and general negativity I carried around throughout the next few years did not make me a likely candidate to make many new friends.
The bright light for my new, uncomfortable home, the only time I felt completely lost in a sheer, full, over-whelming happiness and joy was when I got to see shows at the Shakespeare Festival. I had an unusual interest in Shakespeare from a young age and seeing shows at the festival, in the beautiful outdoor amphitheater, was unlike anything I'd ever experienced. It was (watch out, here comes the silly, childish, hopeless romantic) magical.
It was then, at fourteen that I knew I wanted to perform on that stage at some point in my life. Had you known me then, you may have thought that it would have been nearly impossible. I was shy, awkward and couldn't speak in front of a group of people to save my life without getting a severe case of the shakes. Shakespeare's work however, was so mysterious and enticing to me that I awkwardly trudged on.
Years later I studied theater in college, graduated and began working for the Festival through teaching (which was where I got my first training as an actor) and educational outreach tours (still, best job I've ever had, luckiest girl in the world, cannot say enough good things about the work that gets done with the tour).
It was over a decade after I had had my first magical experience in the outdoor amphitheater on a nature reserve when I was offered a role in the season's opening production of Romeo and Juliet. For those of you that don't know, the show that opens the season here has already been running in a theater in Ohio for about a month. Many of the cast members are brought along with the production out west, while others that move onto different projects back east, are replaced with different actors from all over, including some local ones. What that really means from an actors perspective is that we have a considerably shortened rehearsal process (two weeks, as opposed to the usual three) and a LOT to learn.
Walking into any rehearsal space for the first time has a general thrill of it's own but this one has been particularly amazing. The members of the cast that had already been a part of the production not only welcomed us warmly, but were patient, sweet and helpful when it came to incorporating new members of the cast. Not only have I been working with some truly inspiring, talented and genuinely kind people, but many of them I have admired from an audience vantage point for years.
And so, on opening night--an experience so surreal and enchanting--I was waiting in the wings to make the final entrance into Capulet's tomb off stage and looked at the nearly full moon, heard the text I'd read fifteen years earlier that convinced me I wanted to be an actor, and I was overcome with an inexplicable joy and satisfaction, knowing that I had made my first traipse across the boards of a stage that I had longed to walk for many years. Surrounded by actors that I've admired for years that were suddenly co-workers and friends.
Aptly, for the play selection and although I am now well into my twenties, I feel like a fourteen-year-old girl with the biggest crush on this show and all the amazing talent and beauty with whom I am privileged to share it.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Time and Money: Notes on Having Neither.
My mother used to always warn me that I had to make a choice when it came to working (I was very eager to join the workforce at fourteen, when many adults told me I should have fun being a kid). I could have either time or money, but never both. This of course is an adaptation of Ben Franklin's quote, "time is money" which surely was stolen from someone less charismatic than Mr. Franklin. It's a good rule of thumb. For most people. I'm sure there are a few people out there who are independently wealthy and do whatever they choose with their time. That's great. Good for them. I think that would drive me crazy.
Something I was never prepared for though, something that snuck up on me in the last month and a half while I've been attempting to stay out of the restaurant industry and do only things I love for money, something my mother neglected to warn me about (likely because it's fairly rare if you're following a "traditional" life style trajectory, though I consider myself lucky that it's taken this long to catch up with me...) is that there are times when I will possess neither time nor money. Which is my excuse for not updating the blog in over a month.
I did get a glimpse of this in college. When I got cast in a show that rehearsed four hours a night, while enrolled in 16-17 credits and working part time (for often times, very understanding employers). But college was different, or, I should say special. It was a different sort of busy. There was a fall-back net. People give you a certain amount of understanding, sympathy and respect when you're in college, (never mind the beauty of short-term emergency loans) which seems to deteriorate shortly after graduation.
The thing is this: I'm fairly proud of myself. Since loosing my job at the restaurant less than a year ago, I've managed to make my living off of teaching Shakespeare, performing, and a little off knitting, with only three months of unemployment thrown in there. Now, seeing as the touring production I love so well ended the first week in April, I needed something else theater oriented to occupy my time. I was offered the job as stage hand for Red Light Variety Show, which if you haven't heard of, you really should check out. They center largely around burlesque, but also include silk dancing, pole dancing, trapeze awesomeness, tight rope acts and some all around amazing, creative ways to show off their lovely, completely normal, gorgeous bodies. I had a blast. It was a really eye-opening experience, some really inspiring, beautiful, creative, unabashed and amazing acts.
Red Light only lasted for two short weekends, I could have done it for months, easily, even though I was clearly the most modest person in the green room. It was really wonderful to be surrounded by so many people who are so comfortable with being themselves. They were also generous enough to pay me for my time, which was wonderful.
It's not to say I haven't been for want of things lately. I'm barely scraping by. Nothing's been shut off, yet, but white rice has been making itself the daily meal lately. Laundry has been falling by the wayside, seeing as I have neither the time to stick around to do a load, nor the quarters to scrounge together to make it so my clothes aren't looking for a line to dry on (if we had a line, I'd use it, dryers kind of freak me out...). The apartment is a veritable pit, partly because the set designer for the latest project (ESMF) has had no where else to go to construct the set other than our 500 sq. ft. of awesome, and partly because we simply don't have time to tend to it. I don't think we've had toilet paper that wasn't stolen from a public facility in months (I already feel pretty bad about that, so please refrain from chastising me for theft).
The project I began in tandem was a play called Me and My Shadow. This project is a little tricky to explain, so we'll just call it experimental. It was put on with the Creative Improvised Music Festival, so the music/sound design was all played live and improvised. Yes. Super awesome. The space in which we performed was a venue typically associated with concerts, so the stage was relatively small (luckily most of us had performed in the space multiple times, so we were comfortable with the setting). Being in tandem with a music festival, we unfortunately had a condensed run- a mere two days, but we made them count and all had something to be proud of. Particularly the playwright, who is not only one of my dear friends, fellow graduate but now also colleague!
It may appear that I'm rambling and have no real point here, aside from sharing my last month and half with you. I suppose what I really want to share with you is this: this job is hard. It depends a lot on making your own work. From playwright to director to actor to designers (all of whom went into this process not expecting to be paid, only to find out by small miracle and little bit of luck we made our kickstarter goal) we all donated a significant amount of time. I'd also venture to say that 90% of people involved on this project were under 30 (okay, I'm cheating a little and counting the ESMF, but in spirit he really is twenty-two, or younger) and it was, all and all a success. We are all in the midst of paving our own way to make our own work in a town that has a hard time supporting all of the artists it produces. And I am so proud. So proud of my friends, my co-workers, my fellow artists, my now-colleagues. Particularly the playwright, whom I have watched grow, change and completely kick-ass both personally and professionally over the past seven years. This year, like me, she will officially be making her living from doing only things she loves to do: writing and workshoping plays.
And she's not the only one. So will I, so will the ESMF, so will the rest of my tour-mates. And rather randomly, I ran into an old friend that I was in Les Mis with nearly ten years ago at Me and My Shadow. Admit-ably, I've been blog stalking her for a while, but she's now going on to graduate school for acting, which is arguably harder than making your own work (you can blog-stalk her too, if you like: here). All of this in a dwindling economy, which is when most people assume that the arts are falling to shit.
So, how on earth, while lacking all of these things am I finally finding time to update you on my life? Well, through Wednesday, I'm spending time with my fathers side of the family in lovely Cleveland, OH. Some much need catch up time with this side of the family, whom I haven't seen in upwards of ten years. It has been... So relaxing. I get up, knit with my Grandmother for several hours, we go to lunch, I read some Shakespeare, we knit some more. We watch Law and Order, we knit some more. So much awesome.
Although, I will say I was in such a hurry to pack for this flight (I left after closing of Me and My Shadow, meaning I got roughly 3 hours of sleep/packing time) and so between about not wanting to check a bag and being so paranoid about getting stopped at security, I left behind all toiletries. I'm a bit stinky.
And a lot happy.
Something I was never prepared for though, something that snuck up on me in the last month and a half while I've been attempting to stay out of the restaurant industry and do only things I love for money, something my mother neglected to warn me about (likely because it's fairly rare if you're following a "traditional" life style trajectory, though I consider myself lucky that it's taken this long to catch up with me...) is that there are times when I will possess neither time nor money. Which is my excuse for not updating the blog in over a month.
I did get a glimpse of this in college. When I got cast in a show that rehearsed four hours a night, while enrolled in 16-17 credits and working part time (for often times, very understanding employers). But college was different, or, I should say special. It was a different sort of busy. There was a fall-back net. People give you a certain amount of understanding, sympathy and respect when you're in college, (never mind the beauty of short-term emergency loans) which seems to deteriorate shortly after graduation.
The thing is this: I'm fairly proud of myself. Since loosing my job at the restaurant less than a year ago, I've managed to make my living off of teaching Shakespeare, performing, and a little off knitting, with only three months of unemployment thrown in there. Now, seeing as the touring production I love so well ended the first week in April, I needed something else theater oriented to occupy my time. I was offered the job as stage hand for Red Light Variety Show, which if you haven't heard of, you really should check out. They center largely around burlesque, but also include silk dancing, pole dancing, trapeze awesomeness, tight rope acts and some all around amazing, creative ways to show off their lovely, completely normal, gorgeous bodies. I had a blast. It was a really eye-opening experience, some really inspiring, beautiful, creative, unabashed and amazing acts.
Red Light only lasted for two short weekends, I could have done it for months, easily, even though I was clearly the most modest person in the green room. It was really wonderful to be surrounded by so many people who are so comfortable with being themselves. They were also generous enough to pay me for my time, which was wonderful.
It's not to say I haven't been for want of things lately. I'm barely scraping by. Nothing's been shut off, yet, but white rice has been making itself the daily meal lately. Laundry has been falling by the wayside, seeing as I have neither the time to stick around to do a load, nor the quarters to scrounge together to make it so my clothes aren't looking for a line to dry on (if we had a line, I'd use it, dryers kind of freak me out...). The apartment is a veritable pit, partly because the set designer for the latest project (ESMF) has had no where else to go to construct the set other than our 500 sq. ft. of awesome, and partly because we simply don't have time to tend to it. I don't think we've had toilet paper that wasn't stolen from a public facility in months (I already feel pretty bad about that, so please refrain from chastising me for theft).
The project I began in tandem was a play called Me and My Shadow. This project is a little tricky to explain, so we'll just call it experimental. It was put on with the Creative Improvised Music Festival, so the music/sound design was all played live and improvised. Yes. Super awesome. The space in which we performed was a venue typically associated with concerts, so the stage was relatively small (luckily most of us had performed in the space multiple times, so we were comfortable with the setting). Being in tandem with a music festival, we unfortunately had a condensed run- a mere two days, but we made them count and all had something to be proud of. Particularly the playwright, who is not only one of my dear friends, fellow graduate but now also colleague!
It may appear that I'm rambling and have no real point here, aside from sharing my last month and half with you. I suppose what I really want to share with you is this: this job is hard. It depends a lot on making your own work. From playwright to director to actor to designers (all of whom went into this process not expecting to be paid, only to find out by small miracle and little bit of luck we made our kickstarter goal) we all donated a significant amount of time. I'd also venture to say that 90% of people involved on this project were under 30 (okay, I'm cheating a little and counting the ESMF, but in spirit he really is twenty-two, or younger) and it was, all and all a success. We are all in the midst of paving our own way to make our own work in a town that has a hard time supporting all of the artists it produces. And I am so proud. So proud of my friends, my co-workers, my fellow artists, my now-colleagues. Particularly the playwright, whom I have watched grow, change and completely kick-ass both personally and professionally over the past seven years. This year, like me, she will officially be making her living from doing only things she loves to do: writing and workshoping plays.
And she's not the only one. So will I, so will the ESMF, so will the rest of my tour-mates. And rather randomly, I ran into an old friend that I was in Les Mis with nearly ten years ago at Me and My Shadow. Admit-ably, I've been blog stalking her for a while, but she's now going on to graduate school for acting, which is arguably harder than making your own work (you can blog-stalk her too, if you like: here). All of this in a dwindling economy, which is when most people assume that the arts are falling to shit.
So, how on earth, while lacking all of these things am I finally finding time to update you on my life? Well, through Wednesday, I'm spending time with my fathers side of the family in lovely Cleveland, OH. Some much need catch up time with this side of the family, whom I haven't seen in upwards of ten years. It has been... So relaxing. I get up, knit with my Grandmother for several hours, we go to lunch, I read some Shakespeare, we knit some more. We watch Law and Order, we knit some more. So much awesome.
Although, I will say I was in such a hurry to pack for this flight (I left after closing of Me and My Shadow, meaning I got roughly 3 hours of sleep/packing time) and so between about not wanting to check a bag and being so paranoid about getting stopped at security, I left behind all toiletries. I'm a bit stinky.
And a lot happy.
Sunday, March 18, 2012
I wanna be more better reading!
I am not a stupid person. I'm fairly logical, I can do all the math that is required of me in my life (it's not a huge amount, but knitting keeps me on my toes...), I ask questions about almost everything, I can usually tell you which one of those things is not like the other, I see through internet scams and I have a college education.
I am, however, very poorly read. I'm not quite sure if this is a result of the Nation's public school system or if I was just supposed to read all the classics on my own at some point. If the latter is true, then I'm in luck because that is exactly what I am planning on doing. A large part of this whole conundrum is that I've never really liked reading. It's not that I don't like it, I just am not that crazy about it. When I finish a book, there's no tangible product. I can't hold something up and say, "Look what I've been working on. Now it's done!" I can't take a bow and process feedback from my reading performance. I'm also not a particularly good reader. I'm fairly slow, though my SATs and ACTs insisted that my comprehension level is high. That was also a little longer ago than I care to admit and I've recently begun to notice that if you don't do something for a while, you start losing your knack for things.
 |
| If I looked this good reading books, I would do it more often. I get pug face when I read though. |
Below is a list of books. Pretty popular books that most everyone I know has read. Books that I plan to choose twelve of and read one a month for the next year. I'm setting the bar low so I will have little excuse not to clear it. I'll advise you to brace yourselves, some of these titles are must-reads on most everyone's list. Just to add to the shock, know that none of them were required reading for me in school. I never didn't read a book that school required.
The Catcher in the Rye
1984
Pride and Prejudice
Moby Dick
A Separate Peace
Slaughterhouse Five
Atlas Shrugged (Confession- my aunt gave this to me when I graduated high school and I didn't ever touch it)
Lord of the Flies
Ulysses (this probably won't make the final reading list, I hear it's a tough read)
The Great Gatsby
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Grapes of Wrath
Stranger in a Strange Land
The Sun Also Rises
Tropic of Cancer
On the Road
Sophie's Choice
The Bell Jar
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Lolita
The Screwtape Letters
War and Peace (not happening this year, but well-read folks tell me I should read it.)
Madame Bovary
The Bible
That last one, maybe you've heard of it. Obviously I'm not reading this one in one month, but my fundamentalist Christian Uncle has a good point, this book has started more shit and been responsible for more deaths than any other in the world (my words, not his). Probably worth a read. I might try to talk this kid into doing a weird agnostic bible study with me at some point. Plus, the amount of crossword clues I miss because I haven't read it is embarrassing. Granted, it's been pointed out to me that there are very few people in this world (or at the very least, this country) who have actually read the entire book. Why shouldn't I be one of them?
My greatest fear about reading more? I can't knit and read at the same time. Epic fail reading. Epic. Fail.
Also, I may just want an excuse to shop here. It's pretty sweet, but I don't feel like I should wear them if I haven't read them.
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