Day Off, Part 2

This is sort of a sad day off, because it's the last day off until every day is a day off.  The awesome project has one more week and then it is over, and there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth, because I think we've all had a lovely time almost universally.

I've spent the last few days trying to analyze why I was behaving so childishly last week. I mean, here I am in the middle of what is a dream project.  What could possibly be wrong?

Neither of my two hypotheses are flattering.

One.  I am finally working on the level I really want to be on, and I am deeply terrified I don't belong here, that I don't have the chops to play triple-A, much less major leagues.  Everyone around me seems to have extensive credits at theatres that have never called me back for anything, much less hired me.  I heard an interview with Matt Stone and Trey Parker the other day in which they talked about when South Park was first successful, they started trying to do everything they ever wanted right away, because they were sure someone would figure out they were frauds and the success would evaporate.  It's an idea I've heard plenty of people express: when will they find me out, and figure out I can't do this.  That's how I feel.  I finally get a chance - what if all that chance reveals is that I am not good enough to get more chances?

Two.  Oh, two is so sad and hard to admit.  I'm playing a middle aged woman in the awesome project.  And the truth is, I actually am a middle-aged woman, more or less. (Some days I can pass for late twenties, but I'm ten years beyond that in reality.)  I have a seriously hard time accepting that I will never, ever be cast to play the pretty one.  Underneath the deep disappointment at not being the pretty one is an eviscerating hatred of myself that I even want to be the pretty one.  Why don't I value being smart or wise or kind or friendly over just being attractive?  I value that in other people, ironically - I prefer the person who is interesting or clever or funny or talented or loving to the person who just looks pretty.   But some part of me believes only the pretty people win, and I am never going to be one of the pretty people.

It's so disappointing.  It's like being asked what you want for a final meal and realizing you want mashed potatoes, or oreos, or something bland that you would never in a million years have wanted for someone else.  Something boring.  Honestly, being pretty seems boring.  But it's what wins!  It's what drives this business I'm in.  It's what sells.

Now that I've thoroughly depressed myself, I'm going to stop thinking about it for a while and go enjoy the awesome project.  I'm not sure what to learn from this - that I've got a lot of growing up to do?  Ugh, how disheartening.

Unfortunate

Soooo...yesterday I was a jerk to a bunch of people, including myself, and that was embarrassing, sad, and disappointing.  Have you ever been in the midst of ruining your own day and realized you just didn't have the mental capacity to behave more like an adult?  You were completely aware you were acting like a bratty child, but you were powerless to choose any other course?

Well, it's possible none of you have ever had that experience because you're all incredibly well-adjusted and mature and your personal and professional life is a series of successes and you always feel completely secure and at home no matter what the situation.  If that's you, please don't bother trying to befriend me, as I will not be able to rise permanently to your level, and the effort of pretending I can will cause a psychic break from which neither of us may recover.

Today I feel foolish, naturally, and also irritated with myself.  With the best will in the world to become a better, more healthy, more focused, more peaceful, stronger person, I seem instead to slide farther and farther away from even the few good points I once possessed.

But you know what helps?  Friends, and bacon.  Also getting your mind off it, which is why this post is going to abruptly shift to something entirely different, right...now.

I love the awesome project - I wish it would last for months.  But since it has to end, and it has to end soon, here is a list of things I will look forward to doing when it ends.

• Running (I may have some time for this next week, but it doesn't look super likely)
• Teaching Shakespeare via skype
• Going to the main city library and staying all day reading plays and poetry and trashy romance novels
• Meeting my friend's new baby
• Snow fort?  A girl can dream.  I never had enough snow as a kid for one.
• Traveling to see my family
• A whole day in bed, reading, maybe getting up to drink some tea or soup
• A movie!  An actual movie in the theatre - maybe some theatre switching after the initial movie to see a different movie

This list is not as outside the box as I had hoped - it sounds slightly boring and forced.  Here's a new list of completely random thoughts that might make me laugh if I ever came back to read them:

• Grapefruit paint!  It looks bright and smells fresh!
• Reindeer meat.  If you sold it, would children cry?  Would they consent to eat it?
• Why can't we all have friend green beans instead of french fries?  I would prefer them.  They'd still be fried, so it's not as if it would be healthy.
• If we have shoe stretchers, why can't we have sofa stretchers?  I need one of my sofas to be just a little bit longer.
• A portable nap couch.  Someone make a portable, inflatable couch to nap on - I will buy one immediately.  Right this second.
• Earworm protectors.  There should be songs that counteract the effect of an earwormy kind of song - like heartburn medicine soothes the inflamed stomach.  

Ok, the nap sounds too good.  Nap.  Mine.  Then a show.  Yay!  A show!

Looking down the barrel

Last night, I just wasn't good enough.  I wasn't dreadful, I wasn't horrific, I was just bland and unexciting and wimpy.  The equivalent would be if I were weightlifting and suddenly realized I could only lift half of what I had expected to lift.  What happened to those muscles?  How did I lose them?

I am prone to deep insecurity and often paralyzed with self-doubt, but this is different.

Dispassionately, objectively, I wasn't any good at my audition last night.  I don't feel despair, because knowing that, there's the chance I could work at getting better.  I've been quite lazy, overall, so it's no surprise I can't execute the way I want to or believed I once could.  Perhaps my awareness of my lack of ability is really due to the fact that I'm working on a top level right now, with the best in the field, and whatever ability I have in that realm is significantly less than those around me.  I mean, I'm a single threat - a double threat at most on my very best magical days, and I'm surrounded by people who can belt high notes and kick their faces and emote all day and land the laugh lines.  Most of them have been doing all of that for years.  In contrast, I'm a newbie.

I'll admit that it doesn't feel good, however.  I don't feel bitter today, which I suppose is progress for me, but I feel disappointed in myself.  I have come up against my own estimation and found it is inaccurate.

How exactly does one work one's way back from that?  Because that's what I need to do, and I'm not convinced I know how.  I'm on the precipice of failing myself permanently, and I plan to work very hard to avoid that fall.  The fear grows nonetheless.

In other news, I plan to enjoy the two amazing shows I get to do today entirely, fully, completely.  Because regardless of last night, someone trusted me enough to put me into a project that really is at the top of what our community can do.  Is it enough for me to play background old ladies the rest of my life?  No.  Do I currently have the chops to do anything bigger?  It doesn't seem so.

Ok.  To work.  I don't know how to do this, but I'm guessing doing something is going to get me a lot closer than doing nothing.

Showing up

Perversely, in the midst of the awesome project, where I'm working amongst people who are clearly at the top if their game, I feel the most talentless.

And now, on our day off, there's an audition.  And I'm making myself go.  Making myself.  As in, I must go.  Because it is at least 70% likely that I will not be good enough to catch their attention.  But if I don't go, I absolutely won't.

But today, it's hard. I just...fine.  I won't procrastinate going by writing this.  I'll just go and report back later if I bombed.  Or even got in.  Ugh.

Hello, rejection, remember me?  I know, I know, you've been saving a spot for me.  Be right there.

***

Well, that could have gone better.  For once, I'm being completely straight and honest (not self-pitying or falsely modest) when I say, I just plain wasn't good enough tonight.  I wouldn't cast me.  Sometimes I do pretty well.  This was not one of those times.  I feel out of practice.

To say the least.

DAY OFF

I don't want to wish any of the awesome project away, really, I don't.  But by god, this first real, true day off in three weeks is welcome.  My head feels like cotton wool, and I didn't get out of bed until about 1 pm.  I need some recuperation time.

Yesterday was fine, double shows again, but at least then I wasn't hung over - I was still tired, because we've been going going going without a pause, but I tried not to eat too much or add anything into my body that would make it feel worse.  It's a fun show, especially with enormous audiences, and they really have a great time watching it.  Reviews have been very positive as well, even if they aren't quite as rabidly enthusiastic as for this theatre's holiday show.  Still, I think so far we can be counted as a success, and it's a ball.

The one down side other than the commute is that now that we're actually open, we only run the awesome project two more weeks.  That's it.  Which seems like a shame.

I want to write more beautifully than this, but the cotton wool just won't cooperate this morning.  Maybe tomorrow.

Today:  no coffee, no sugar, no chocolate, no alcohol, no caffeine of any kind.  Nothing goes into this body except protein, fruits, and vegetables.  Not that I won't have those things again, I just want to be extremely good to myself today.

Urgh

It was opening night.   I was a little nervous.

I drank a lot more than I meant to.  My husband had a drink waiting for me after, and then another right as I finished that one, and then another.  And there might have been some other substances before the night ended.

It was lovely.  There's unexpected drama that I'm not entirely sorted out on - rumors of married people sleeping together (they could be, but then again, maybe they weren't?  Confusing...), the explanation of some behind the scenes stress, the outpouring of love between mostly drunk people.

I'm fuzzy, and there's definitely a hangover here, but I think it will be ok for the 4 pm show today.  But the 8 pm show - oog.

Note to self:  drink slower, and go to sleep the first time it occurs to you, closer to 2 pm than to 4 pm.  Especially when you're staying in a hotel and need to be out of it by 11 am.

I had a great time last night, though, and this really is a fun group of people.

Well, that was something

Two shows today.  No rehearsal time, and before the matinee, we'd never done the show all the way through without stopping.

Eeep!

It got real tense around that theatre today.  Everything and everyone is ok - well, not quite, there's a busted knee and a few set pieces that need some repair.  There are wonky sound issues and mushy exits and odd transitions, but we still managed to go all the way through two whole shows today, and got standing ovations after both.  Nice.

Tomorrow we have a few hours to practice a few things before a third show.  I look forward to all of it.

The weirdest thing is that by the time we finally get good at this, this awesome project will be over.  Wow.

Lucky

Y'all.  The orchestra came in today.

THE NINETEEN PIECE ORCHESTRA.

THE AWESOME, AMAZING NINETEEN PIECE ORCHESTRA.

It's....I just...I wish I had words for how awesome it is to sing with a first rate nineteen piece orchestra in the pit under your feet.  It's incredible.  The word "lucky" has been overused by me in these few weeks, but I don't know how else to quantify this experience.

I just have no idea what day it is anymore.

Look, this job has irritations.  People can act like divas, you have to deal with a lot of rejection and correction, hours can be long for very little stage time, wigs can be particularly painful to wear for ten hours of tech at a time,  and no matter how you cut it, at some point you will be judged by a director or an audience, and either you'll be funny or beautiful or moving or whatever it is the play needs you to be, or you won't.  Falling short of telling the story always feels like the worst failure of all time.  It can be a knife edge to try to explain the world to other people - when you succeed, it's like surfing the emotions of a crowd, you're buoyed by their engagement, but when you lose them, it's you alone on the tug-of-war against the entire audience, the confusion or the boredom or the displeasure like a broiling heat coming off of them.

It can be lonely and desperate.  It can play on your worst fears, it can tear you apart.

But.  Then, one day, you stand up on an enormous stage in beautifully tailored clothes, and an orchestra plays a beautiful glissando, and you disappear inside a story that's really fun to tell, alongside people who also enjoy telling it.

I don't know what else to call it.  I feel lucky.

Blurring

The days are blurring together.  This is the trickiest part of a rehearsal process like this, where you have 12 hour days in the theatre and are teching every tiny moment but have no idea how the show works as a whole.  It's taken us six days to tech both acts of this behemoth, and now we have 5 hours tomorrow and about 5 hours Tuesday to run it enough for it to make sense at all.  The days are running together and there's no time to make a note about what we've changed in these six days, so you're relying on sense memory to get you from point to point, and at this stage, sense memory is not reliable.

So you sort of jump and hope it sorts itself out on the way down.  It's nerve-wracking, but also enjoyable in its way.

Funny details:

• Part of the deck gave way today - we were standing offstage when part of what we were standing on basically caved in.  It was exceptionally startling!  As another actor put it - when you're standing about dressed like you belong on the Titanic and something starts to sink under you, you get nervous.
• One of my fellow actors has now ended the last three nights by asking everyone in the dressing room what the weather is like outside...that's right, asking the other 8-9 of us who have been on stage with her in the theatre with no windows what its like outside.  I find this hilarious, and continue to respond, "How would we know?"
• Our music director/conductor is terrific (one of the best actors in town as well as an amazing musician) and he has a talent for the apt musical allusion - which he will make by simply beginning to play some related song on the piano.  For instance, when our director headed out to climb to the balcony, he played "Up On the Roof."  That's a terrible example, but most of his snippets make me laugh as soon as I recognize them.  I just can't think of the funnier ones right now.

It's still an amazing way to make a living, this is just the slightly tedious part.  Though even as I say that, I know the tedious part has been pretty awesome, too.  I'm just tired.  Tomorrow we have a few hours off, and I have so much I need to get done and yet there's no way I will get even 3 of my 7 things done.  Bleah.  These past few days I have had to toss all my new year's resolutions aside - I'll try to reboot them, but these past few days have just had to be about the theatre.

And that's ok.  In fact, it's wonderful.  God, I hope I can say that over and over and over again as time goes on.  Let me keep being one of the lucky ones, I won't forget what it was like to be unlucky.

Ok.  Tired.  Must go to bed.

Point To J

I got inadvertently schooled by a cast mate today, who shall remain nameless, but who is supercool.  (Honestly, I could spend my entire life trying to be a better version of myself, complete with therapy, surgery, and personal trainers, and never get to be a tenth as cool as this guy.  Mini-swoon.)

Someone in our cast likes to make endless repetitive versions of the same joke, and I've noted it to a few other cast members so that I could have some people to shoot looks at when the joke comes up, again.  It comes up a lot.  I noticed that I was starting to get a little too into being irritated about this endless joke, so I set myself a limit - 15 more times I could notice it and make any kind of comment on it, and then I just plain had to stop.  Because it would drive me nuts, and I don't have enough brain cells to waste on something like that.

I've been counting down from 15 (I'm currently on #9 after a day and a half), and I happened to mention it to the supercool J, who very gently and matter-of-factly said, "Well, he's nervous.  It's just a verbal tic because he's trying to combat the nerves.  He's a total vet but he doesn't usually do this kind of work."

He's right, of course, and though he did not say it in any kind of reproachful way, I could see how my noticing of it was either my own pettiness or just the answering nervousness in myself being irritated by having to see evidence of itself.  This isn't my comfort zone either, tripping around these dancers who can fly and these recent college grads who are on a trajectory towards Broadway and these veterans who simply flow from Equity paycheck to Equity paycheck.  We're on an enormous stage and we have to fill it up.  The room is full of the best people in the city.  I find the whole thing utterly overwhelming and I'm only slightly more important than furniture in this show, so I can only imagine the pressure on any actor that has to drive the plot along.

So, point to J, who has made me appropriately ashamed of myself.  We all do what we need to do to get through, and sometimes it's make a mild, easy, well-known, trope of a joke over and over, like a touchstone, to remind ourselves that we are the same despite the changing circumstances.

I'm going to try to let the count go - if I finish it, at the very least I'll shift to noticing whether or not I'm scared to death myself of this awesome project.  9 more times, then I have to let it go either way, but at maybe those 9 times can teach me something.

SQUEAL.....

We started tech for the awesome project, which means we finally moved rehearsals into the theatre.

It's gorgeous.  It's enormous.  The freaking prop bookcases are about 22 feet tall.  REALLY.  It's a huge, beautiful, glamorous, awesome, stunning, amazing theatre.  1800 people can sit and watch a show at one time, and the decor is red and gold and fanciful and overwhelming.  The ceiling is dark blue with starry detail.  Backstage is full of people who know exactly how to use this space to its fullest.

Everyone has a mic.  All 35 of us.  Everyone has a wig.  Everyone has a sheaf of detailed and beautifully made costumes.   The set piece for the fountain has a hawk carved out of foam board - the crew named it "Stubby".  The pit will have a 19 piece orchestra.

This is an enormous undertaking.  I guarantee this is exactly what teching a Broadway show is like, only everyone on this crew is of the absolute highest quality without being even vaguely diva-like.  (Which is probably true in some Broadway houses for some Broadway shows, but I wouldn't guarantee it.)

I have become a cog in this machine.  And I love it.  It's magic time, y'all.

Not proud

I feel a little better.  I got some rest and I'm sitting in a coffee shop in the suburbs looking for a little perspective and getting it.  For instance - I am the skinniest and youngest woman in this coffee shop right now.  The most attractive woman is probably this foxy 70+ year-old woman with dyed red hair and oval ceramic earrings.  She's got big blue eyes and a sweatshirt that says "Snow Happiness" and she's lovely.

I don't have any makeup on, and I felt exposed and lacking a few minutes ago, in the hallway to the rehearsal room while everyone arrived.  In that group of people I am on the other end of the scale - nearly everyone is younger, and nearly everyone is skinnier.  These are facts that might not effect me the same way if we didn't face a dance mirror for the entirety of our eight hour work day.

Even if I were alone rehearsing in front of a dance mirror for 8 hours a day, my ego would definitely take a hit.  My flaws definitely overwhelm any good points when I look into a mirror. But the added bonus of seeing my flaws up against the good points of others is excruciating.

I don't know how to combat this problem.  Again, I don't want to think about this, I don't want it to ruin the phenomenally good time I am having.  These are good people.  I want to like them all, not just see in them all I cannot be.

The coffee shop is helping.  Age is relative.  Beauty is relative.  Being a real person will someday come in handy as an actor, I hope.  Vanity is my fatal flaw.  Let's see if I am capable of transcending it.

Tougher

Today we started putting this play together properly.  Bits and pieces are starting to be parts of a whole instead of just pieces.

But sadly we had a super early call and I don't feel very good right now.

I'm starting to get jealous of everyone who is more talented than I am, and I don't want to.  I don't want to think about that, don't want to deal in comparisons.  Still, it starts to creep up on me.

The thing is, this is a really really talented group of people.

Ok, maybe just time for a little rest.

You know what? Drunk.

I'm not actually drunk, but I drank alcohol at the top of today and the end of today, and I feel a little woozy.  I have work to do tonight, too, ugh.

Today we moved to a new rehearsal hall.  The building is an old Elks Lodge, apparently, condemned until very recently.  The theatre seems to have bought it and will very gradually be restoring it piece by piece to make use of its ballrooms as rehearsal spaces, its downstairs bar area for parties, and its hotel-like rooms for nights when people get snowed in out in the suburbs or when stage management have insane hours during tech week.

All of those uses are far in the future.  What we had today was rehearsal in a third floor ruined ballroom.  It was beautiful.  The room is white plaster with lovely architectural detail and a few massive water stains that have wrinkled and discolored the wall so those spots looks like faded dried white roses.  It snowed today, and this space has huge picture windows looking north and south with nice views of the river.  It was like being inside a snowglobe, with all the town's Christmas lights still on display.

I just...my heart will break when it all ends.  A ruined ballroom, y'all.

Asking

I'm tired, but I want to keep posting these notes as we move through rehearsals, to give myself a map of what it feels like to be in exactly the place I'd like to be.  So I want to write something but it will likely be short and poorly constructed.  Thanks for your patience.

Today I had the third occasion to engage someone I thought I wouldn't like and discover I genuinely do like them, or at least I genuinely laid the foundations to like them.  This show has a coterie of dancers, and their beautiful bodies doing flips and jetes makes me feel all of my imperfections.  The ways they can move!  It's incredible.  And sitting watching them, knowing I'll be playing a fairly lumpen older woman, it makes me sad for avenues I didn't go down.  Not that I ever would have been a dancer, no, I haven't the frame for it, but I wish I were more flexible, certainly, that I could fake my way through more dance auditions.  I pick up choreography ok, I just look awkward doing it.  But I love dancing, so having these nubile springy people around to remind me of how foolish I look is difficult.  Thus there are quite a few dancers in the show I initially assumed I would never get along with - or even less negatively, I assumed wouldn't have anything in common with these folks.

I'm wrong.  They're all lovely, of course, and seem perfectly willing to chat and be affectionate.  It's weird - I wasn't even aware of it, but I just assumed none of them have any interest in someone whose body isn't perfectly bendy and elastic.  Which is a ludicrous concept once I examine it.

Anyway, so far I genuinely like nearly everyone.  How lucky is that?!  Today there was even the faint suggestion that we are all tired of this one running joke one of the actors makes - which is great, because nothing brings people together like a common cause, and I think we all still like the actor, we could just do without the joke.

Oh, and our stage manager had on the most rocking black high heeled boots I've ever seen today.  Rowr.

Whoa, kid

I just got schooled by a twelve year old.  He just got back from Broadway to be in my awesome project, or as certain performers tend to term it for no reason I can ascertain, "The Broadway" (where "the" is pronounced "thu" - imagine super skinny dancers drawling out  - thu Broaadwaay).  

This kid is hilarious.  He's already played the role he's playing in the awesome project once before so he's got it memorized, and as much fun as he just had on Broadway, he claims he thinks he might stop acting once he gets into high school, because he'll need to concentrate on his schoolwork, since he'd like to be a lawyer or in business.

But he totally loves it right now.  You should hear him talk about the curtain rising and the set getting a laugh at the top of the second act.  He's a pro beyond pro.

He is completely and totally self-possessed.  Working at the top of the field.  And convinced he'll get out before real-life really starts.

Don't misunderstand me - he may do absolutely that, and good for him.  But it's funny to chat with a ten year old who has already achieved what you can barely dream about, and plans to chuck it when he gets to your age.  Not that I feel bad.  He's charming, this kid, and his success makes me glad for him. He's got his head on straight, and he's funny!

I like him.  I look forward to seeing him on thu Broaaadwaaay.

Arbitrary Markers

Because anyone can be on the internet saying anything, it starts to feel like everyone is on the internet saying everything, and with a depressing consistency of message.  I've read between ten and fifty people who found a way to sum up their year 2012 with a list of events and many more who made some  sort of "Oh, 2012 wasn't very nice, let's make this one better!" comment.

I'm admitting here I have little patience for that.  Most of the events of our lives are uncontrollable, and thus we can rarely make something better.  Bad stuff is going to go down, good stuff is going to amaze us, and both on a timeline we cannot force.  You can get yourself ready for joy or sorrow, but you can't always make one or the other to happen.  You can only behave in the best possible way when an event occurs.  Or, let's be fair, if you don't behave well, you can make an attempt to learn from that.

Someone in my family is going to die.  Maybe it will be a long time, maybe it will be this year, I don't know.  And I will be a complete and utter mess when it happens.  I cannot avoid it or make it pretty or effect it in any way.  I am absolutely guaranteed this will happen.  The only way I won't experience this sadness will be if I die first.  (Which would be a bummer.  There's lots of cool parts of being alive, and I'm still hoping to figure a few new ones out.)

The only part of that experience I can control will be my own actions.  Note that I don't say I can control my emotions - I won't be able to do that.  I only have power over what I do, and even then, I'll slip and do/say some things I wish I could stop myself from doing, but the grief will be too powerful.

Having come to an arbitrary marker in time that offers perspective, the way a highway overlook offers a view, I just want to note what it feels like to be doing what I love, and take that mindset forward into the days of 2013 when I might not be doing what I love.  Would I also like to find a way to be healthier, skinnier, more successful, more productive?  Absolutely.  But unexpected events are going to come my way, and I'll be reacting to them, possibly poorly, but hopefully with some measure of grace.

I can't make 2013 better or worse, but I can enjoy the good and endure the bad.  Here's hoping for luck to do both of those.

Quotes for a new year

"When you are comfortable, you are not learning."

Ok.  Time to get uncomfortable.