Saturday, July 31, 2010

Chess Success!

It was so nice to get back to the theater last night and see my lovely chessers! We had a fantastic show on Sunday, perhaps even better than what I had written about for Saturday. It may have been a personal best for everyone in the show to date!

This week in between was a busy one for me. Lots and lots of work - we're looking to fill another receptionist position, so we're rearranging to schedule for the end of the month, I've been calling applicants and setting up meetings, and doing my regular work stuff too. I also went to the Red Sox/Angels game (the Sox won! Yay!) with Evan and my roommates and neighbors and friends, went to trivia night for the first time at Q's Billiards, and had an audition. A productive and fun week.

The audition I went on was yesterday morning for Kevin Smith's new horror movie, "Red State". I was auditioning for two small rolls and I think it went fine. One of them was actually supposed to be in her 20's, which was nice. The other one (or two actually, it was for Girl 1 AND Girl 2) is a 17 year old high school kid. Not that I'm unbelievable as a high school student, but when the other people at the audition talk about living with their parents or having their mom drive them there that morning, I feel pretty seasoned. I have no doubt that I'm doing fine at the auditions, I just need to find where I fit. Soon enough we'll figure out where the industry sees me and I'll start booking things, I'm sure of it.

We were called to the theater at 6:30 to do mic check and run a few numbers. Everything seemed to be going along pretty smoothly, and it's always reassuring when you remember your words after nearly a week of no shows. We were all having fun backstage getting ready, and at our half hour i started getting dressed, only to realize I couldn't find my shoes. They're fairly simple black heels, but since I had worn bright pink polka-dotted galoshes there, it was very important to find them or some other alternative. There was a dance show at the theater over the week and our choreographer was in it, so she text'd all the girls to see if anyone had grabbed them by accident. In the meantime, there were some short boots at the theater from a past production of Oklahoma that almost fit and that's what I wore for the first act. It did throw me off a bit. I want to feel very strong and womanly and these shoes didn't allow that. I felt like my acting was a bit off and I did forget some of my words, but hey - it could have been much worse. I'm sure it's better than to have had to go on with the pink rain boots. I didn't even realize until people told me when I got off stage what a huge applause I got after "Nobody's Side".

Luckily one of the dancers had grabbed the shoes, thinking one of her fellow dancers left them behind, and brought them back so I had them for the second act. I felt like that went much more smoothly for me, and we had an amazing audience. We had a woman in the very front row - closer than normal because of the added seats - mouthing every.single.word of every song, which is impressive because most of us in the show couldn't do that. And our musical director pointed out that you know you've got something really good when the audience starts applauding before the song even ends. Josie, one of the cast members, said there were critics in the audience and they absolutely loved the show. I also had a few friends in the audience, people with whom I've worked on projects before, and they thoroughly enjoyed it.

We actually oversold for the night, and even after bringing in more chairs we had to turn a lot of people away that had comp tickets, including another castmate's agent. My manager is coming with a casting director tonight, so I told her to let the people at the box office know who they are just in case we oversell again.

And for those people that got turned away, they'll have six more chances to come see it because we've officially extended the run! Unfortunately not everyone will be able to do the extended shows, so we'll have 2 weeks off to rehearse and put in a few new people, and our extended dates are August 19-21 and 27-29. We're going to record some audio at tonight's show to use as promotional samples on the ticketing websites, and I wouldn't be surprised if we sell out each of the new dates.

After the performance last night a bunch of us went to The Other Side, a piano bar in Silverlake where our pianist plays weekly. People bring their music books or choose songs that he knows how to play and sing along, a kind of live karaoke. I think almost all of us from the show sang at least one song, if not backing up someone else. Sad that we're all really starting to bond when it's the last weekend for some people, but better late than never.

I have a great feeling about tonight, I have at least six people coming to see me and I'm very excited. We've decided to have a cast/crew potluck afterward which I think will be the perfect way to top off a fun/busy/productive week, and send off those that won't be able to continue the extension with us. Our pseudo-closing night is going to be fantastic.

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