Addendum

There are a few things you can't see in the Cinderella photo below.

1) I drew in a unibrow for my character Gladiola, the younger stepsister. It didn't quite meet in the middle but it got closer everytime we did the show.

2) I performed the show with a lisp. "sThinderella!"

3) That's a wig.

Photo test

I keep trying to put photos on here. Thought I'd try again. This should be me in Cinderella, playing a stepsister trying on the shoe. Ironically, the girl playing Cinderella has the same shoe size as I do, so her shoe does actually fit. I have to "Act" as if it does not. It's hard work, these shows!

It turns out that although it is hard to get up early to do the children's shows, they are SO MUCH FUN!

Restoration

Thanks for the comments, concern, emails, and presents contributed to the Save Elsbeth From Despair Campaign. I am happy to report that after Two Entire Days Off with my parents feeding me and being highly entertaining, my body has packed up and refused to cooperate, but my mind is much clearer and more cheerful.

I can appreciate my fellow actors, make small talk, crack jokes, and go back to enjoying myself instead of being Ms. Grumpy Pants. Today I sat in my corner while everyone else put on gobs of makeup and hummed a little tune of thanks that I don't have to be in Cats. Hurrah! I was able to purge a lot of the anger the other night making the list in the last post, so for everyone who has expressed concern, keep in mind that if I can vent my anger and bitterness here, usually I can leave it behind me.

My Mom and Dad came to visit, which was a fantastic aid to soul repair. First, they are the cutest ever, especially after 41 years of marriage and 10 days of a road trip. All sorts of petty arguments to be witnessed there, let me tell you. But they so clearly can't do without each other, that it is sort of sweet. They had great family stories (I've been missing weddings and births galore), they make good companions, and while they don't always agree with everything I say, they always love me. My mother made a birthday cake and brought it across five states in a cooler that had to be re-iced every day.

Also, my mother takes great pride in being s Southerner outside of the South, and often chats away with perfect strangers in a bid, she says, to make sure everyone in the country thinks Southerners are kooky. We had a hit and miss success with this: the tour guide from the Martin Van Buren house was from Georgia, and did all sorts of things to impress fellow compatriots - unlocking the orginal 1797 dutch door, letting my mother take pictures, offering to email photos. However, my mother's friendliness in a shop later led the woman inside to unburden herself. I could tell you all about this shopkeeper's marriage, divorce, recent car wreck, etc.

I won't.

We also went exploring in the beautiful countryside. It is nice to spend time with my parents and remember that I have certain beliefs because I was raised by them. I would happily spend a fortune to buy an antique sleigh bedstead like the ones we saw in Martin Van Buren's house but an expensive Coach bag or jewelry would be a waste of money on me.

Now I just need a good night's sleep and a few very small healthy meals, and I might be a person again, instead of a complete bore.

Oh, and my Dad had a great addition to my list when someone says, hey, you're not in Cats:

"Sorry, I've already been in one kid's show."

Meorow.

Just to clear up any confusion, I'm considering getting a tattoo (you win, SteveMatt) on my forehead that says:

NO, I'M NOT IN CATS

I am NOT in the musical Cats that is currently showing at this theatre where I'm working. I'm attempting to have a good attitude about it. I was sad back in Junewhen I discovered I wasn't cast in it, for a couple of reasons. My parents won't get to see me in a show here (they can only visit during Cats, having missed the three nice roles I was given in the first three shows). I feel pretty stupid sitting in the pit, just singing along with the people who are actually in the play. I feel pretty useless.

I having been trying to master these negative demons (see last post) and look on the bright side:

1) I don't have to wear the Cats costume, a cotton unitard under a spandex unitard painted with stripes and with strips of knitted "fur" snapped into place at intervals, and a wig of synthetic hair in odd colors.

2) It's much more fun to watch Cats than actually have to dance it myself. I'd be certain I'm pull a muscle from trying too hard.

2a) It's very fun to watch my co-workers in Cats - they are really pretty amazing.

3) Come on, it's Cats!! How ridiculous is it that they're doing Cats?!?! Thank god I'm not in it! There's no plot and the music is derivative (if frighteningly catchy)!

And various other justifications to make myself feel better for not being in it.

But, people, really, people, do I HAVE to endure the patron comments? Do people who see the whole season HAVE to make conversation with me about how I'm not in the show? Don'tcha think it could be a sore point? Maybe you could go lightly? Be a little tactful?

Apparently not. As I said in the last post, our photographer's already had a go at me. But one's not enough!!! After I responded to his "so, you're nothing" comment by saying that might not be the most tactful way of putting it, he greets me now, probably permanently, with a new nickname, "Hey, it's Nothin'!"

And now the folks who work in our Friday/Saturday coffeehouse are on the bandwagon. A nice older gentleman stops me and says, "So, you didn't get a part in this one at all, then?"

*sigh*

"Oh. My. God! You are right, sir! I have been just offstage in a unitard for the last THREE nights of the show and I just could not figure out why I never heard a cue to enter!"

or, maybe

"No, actually, I play ALLL the cats in the show, different makeup every time, you know, but they wanted to give credit to some other people, make them feel needed."

Or

"I have been wondering why my butt hurts - ooooo, I see, it's because I spend the show SITTING on it!"

or

"Sorry, no, I WAS in the show, but I made everyone else look bad, so they took me out for the good of the whole."

Or even

"It was against copyright law for me to be in it. Oops. Shouldn't have said anything. Oh, no - you hear that siren!? I shouldn't have told you!" *in a flash of smoke, she disappears*


But in the end, all I've got is:

NO!! ALL RIGHT? NO! I AM NOT IN THE SHOW. APPARENTLY I AM A TERRIBLE DANCER AND THE DIRECTOR WOULD RATHER NEVER SEE ME DANCE AGAIN. YOU HAPPY NOW? WHY NOT ASK ME HOW MUCH I WEIGH OR IF I EVER GET MY EYEBROWS PLUCKED? WHY NOT ASK WHY I'M NOT MARRIED SINCE I'M SO OLD ALREADY? I GET IT! I'M NOT IN THE SHOW! I NOTICED! I'VE BEEN SITTING IN THE CORNER TRYING TO BE SMALL ENOUGH THAT YOU WON'T EVEN SEE ME AT ALL, IS THAT ENOUGH?

*Sigh* Days like today, I think about packing it in. Maybe people will start reading my blog in droves, and I'll become a cultural phenomenon and I'll get a book deal out of it. Damn that Julie/Julia Project, creating false hopes.

There's always the lottery for that.

CATS!!!!

Well, I'll be damned. As of tomorrow, we really will open a production of Cats. I am stunned it has come together so well, although my vantage point is somewhat limited. I am not in the show at all, but an ever-changing group of people are singing off-stage at any given time. "Pit-singers", we're called, but we are not actually in the pit at all - there's no room. We're set up in the lobby, where we have: 1) a microphone to sing into - the sound guy mixes us in with the rest of the audio, 2) a monitor so we can hear what's going on onstage, 3) a tv screen with a view of our music director to watch for tempos and cues, and 4) a tv screen with a view of the stage.

When the stage lights are on, all the colors get washed out and everyone on stage looks like a white blob, so it's hard to tell how well the show is actually going, but you can get a feel for it. We've been teching the show for two days (Tuesday from 2pm to 1:30 am, today from 1pm to 5pm before an 8 pm show), and until this evening, we had never run it all the way through without stopping. I thought it might be a train wreck, but it was pretty amazing, at least as far as the white blobs go.

It leaves me with mixed feelings. Yeah, it would have been nice to be in the show. It feels awkward, being here as an actor but apparently being a poor enough dancer that they couldn't find any place to use me in the show. Well, I think the decision also involved the postage stamp that is the stage and how only a certain number of people fit on it when dancing, as well as the ornate and extensive costumes in the show and the impossibility of the shop making even more than they had calculated. But also, I'm not a very good dancer.

So, I've wallowed in a little self-pity about that over the last week or so. Yesterday and today I found the silver lining, which is that I DO finally get a moment to breathe. I have been reading David Copperfield during tech. I did my laundry during the dinner break. I don't have to wear a fuzzy, furry, knitted costume in 90 degree weather. I don't have to apply intense, complicated makeup to look like a cat.

Of course, I get comments like this (from the theatre's photographer): "So, you really are nothing in the show, hunh?"

I can weigh that against the fact that a couple of people tonight said they missed seeing me in this show after the last three, so those kind of comments equal out.

I guess it doesn't matter. I am NOT in the show, no matter whether I feel happy about it or depressed, so I will, as far as possible, choose to be happy.

The really fun part has been the opportunity to sit outside of the show and watch it, and to watch so many of my great co-workers being amazing in it. I may wish I could have been in it somewhere, but it is great to see some people who have been in the background playing small roles suddenly spring into a full life. I have a renewed respect for everyone I work with. Even a couple of people I had secretly decided were terrible have suddenly become incredible with a leotard and some fancy makeup. They are, god forgive me, in it to win it. I'd love to be part of it, but for the moment, I will take the extra rest that comes with singing a handful of numbers and helping with a few quick changes. It is partly a relief to relax into being unimportant.

And hey, I'll have more time to write posts! And they'll be about Cats!

A Glass of Whine

Sometimes, I have discovered, a drink really DOES make it all right. Stunning, isn't it? I have been in a tailspin recently, as we're rehearsing Cats, which (see below) I am not in. I expected to at least get some time off, but it was not to be. I am assigned to understudy someone, so I have been at all the rehearsals anyway. Except that I am in the current kids show.

I'm not sure I can even describe the isanity that is trying to rehearsal and put on a children's show on TOP of the 8 show per week and rehearse the next one scehdule. But I can tell you that we lose a series of dinner breaks because we're having rehearsal. The theatre then buys us pizza as recompense. Then you get the run up: on Thursday, you miss rehearsal from 1pm to 4pm to do all your technical stuff. Then that evening, after a three hour performance, you slap on your kids show costumes and do your dress rehearsal - a dress rehearsal that doesn't usually begin until midnight. THEN, when you finally finish the dress and gets notes, and drag home to bed, you have to get up and be at the theatre at 10 am for an 11 am show. You then rehearse from 12:30 to 6, and go into your hour call for the Friday show, which ends by about 11 pm. Then on Saturday, you do the kid's show again, rehearse 12:30 to 4, and go straight to call for the first of your two shows on a Saturday - a 5pm and an 8:30pm. So Saturday you're called at 10 am and you're there until midnight, a day full of fourteen hours of rehearsing and performing. Then what is funny is that on Sunday, when you finally don't have a kid's show, you actually still have rehearsal at 10 am, and your day runs all the way through strike, which for actors lasts until 1 am.

You can try the math any way you want, but it's not really possible to get enough sleep on that schedule to make it possible to get through a rehearsal of Cats.

Last night I got back to the incredibly hot house at about 1:30 am (we have no air conditioning, and we've had a series of 90 degree days - it's hot), someone had made margaritas for a birthday girl (not me, I didn't tell anyone when it was my birthday, a stupid move, let me confess), and offered me one.

I had been on the phone the entire trip home, crying about how I lack any kind of talent and no one likes me and I should just give everything up because what I've learned is I am incapable of being entertaining. "Oh," I sniffled at last, as I came up to the steps, "They made margaritas."

The wise boyfriend, a better drinker than I, said, "Go drink one. Now. Get off the phone and go drink a big one. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

An hour later, things were looking rosy, and indeed, I newly loved everyone in the house, especially the birthday girl who had me polish off her drink, too.

Apparently, much of my anguish over the years comes from not drinking often enough. And the lovely boyfriend may be right after all - this may be the summer I learn to drink.

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Well, Fiddler is done and packed away, and we are on to Funny Girl. The Funny Girl in question has come in just to do this one show, and is a peach of a nice person, open and kind and very excited to be doing the role. Also, she can tap her face off, which is not as usable in the show as one might wish, but she and her tap partner do a really jaw-dropping tap challenge in the second act, in a number called Rat-tat-tat-tat (appropriate, no?). I have been sharing a dressing room with two people who are long-time favorites at the theatre, and have felt very solidly out of place between their endless stories of the past and bizarre rituals and stretching-back-to-high-school history together. I'm thrilled the funny girl is moving in - she has also been at this theatre before, but she never makes me feel like "One of these things is not like the other...." She just treats me like a person.

The dressing room is a volatile place for me, because I do feel I don't belong there. It's the "star" dressing room, and was made into a sort of in-club that I don't have any interest in being associated with - I'd rather be mixed in with all the rest of the "first-year" girls, in what I have come to think of as my place. Sure, I did have a couple of big roles and could use the space for a show or two, but now I really would like to be with my own kind.

It's interesting - the politics here are probably going to get out of hand soon. I hesitate to write about this, because I'm working so hard to keep my opinion to myself. If I were discovered hanging it out on the internet, it would be unfortunate. I think one of these girls acts like a high schooler, instead of an adult several years out of college. She's created a group that she clearly sees as the in-group (those in the know), out of the people who have been at the theatre in past years. They save each other seats at dinner, they go out to dinner together, etc. My perception (possibly wrong) is that the high schooler needs to control this group and who does and doesn't belong, to make up for her lack of success in other areas of her life. You've all spent time with personalities like this - the small person who throws their weight around to prove how important they are.

Up to now, this in-group concept has had little effect, because those of us in the out-group, with a very very few exceptions, have pretty much ignored it and gotten on with hanging out with each other.

But here comes trouble: with Cats rehearsals beginning, we add two more people who have been here before, people who will land firmly in the "in"-group. Which will make that group much bigger and I have a bad bad feeling will change the dynamic into more of a tug-of-war.

To me, you'd get more out of a summer if you could start afresh with the new company each time, build new memories, use the fresh blood to give you new ideas. But then, I try not to shore up how I feel about myself by making other people feel smaller - that just seems a waste of time. (Not to sound high and mighty - I'm certain I've done that in my time, but I TRY not to.)

So, I'm afraid of the new group dynamic on its way. In the meantime, I plan to enjoy Funny Girl and my new warm and gracious dressing room companion, and then hopefully I can keep my head down and my mouth shut through Cats. Maybe then I can escape the summer alive!