I should have written last weekend. My plan was to sit down and blog as soon as I got home on Saturday night after the show, but for some reason or another, I didn't.
Our rehearsal on Wednesday night went very well. I got to meet the two new people and see the rest of my lovely cast again. I'm not sure if the AC was broken or wasn't on, or it was just too hot for it to even help, but we didn't do costumes because it was nearly sweltering. I appreciate when a director makes sure that there is no marking during a put in rehearsal with new people, especially with it is both their first and last with the whole cast before going up in front of a whole audience. I know if I was being thrown into a mix that was already established I would feel much more comfortable if the whole cast was putting as much into it as I was. So that's just what we did! After humming the tunes a few times a week for almost three weeks, it felt really good to let it all out once again. Everyone sounded better than ever too!
We had a good sized audience for out re-opening on Thursday, with several reviewers in the audience. Since then, we've had some more fantastic reviews pop up. We got a "WOW" from Steven Stanley at stagescenela.com, Kevin Taft showed his love of the show and our performance on frontiersweb, LA Weekly gave us a nice shout out, and today when I picked up a copy of Backstage, I saw my name printed in it for the first time. That, for me, is huge! They chose it as one of their "Critic's Pick" selections and really couldn't say enough wonderful things about it. I know I wasn't the only one who wished they had seen what we'd done at the rehearsal on Wednesday instead, but obviously we still had enough spark to impress.
This may sound weird, but I feel like there's only so many times you can say "thank you" before you start getting a little freaked out. Is it just me? It's not like I don't mean it every time I say it, that I'm not thankful that people appreciate something I'm a part of... I guess I'm just not used to all of it! The more "thank you"'s I say, the more I kind of want to go to my room and snuggle up with a sudoku book or some other logic puzzle. On my more introspective days, I'd rather play with logic puzzles or watch terrible reality television about fat people than interact with real live people. Sad, and probably wrong, but true.
Anyway.... My roommate Tom and his friend, plus my friends Quiggs and Sebastion saw the show on Friday and it seemed like they really liked it! *Back to the thank you's for a second, it's much easier to say it more to people I know that people I don't know. So there's that* I was so happy they came, and that they could take advantage of the discount tickets (we're now sold out of those for this weekend). After the show nearly everyone from the cast and crew headed over to The Other Side again for even more singing and good times.
Saturday's performance was a weird one. Perhaps it was from the extra singing the night before, but my voice was a little scratchy. Also, I've been looking at what audience members say about the show on goldstar.com, and one person commented that "the actress playing Florence could have varied her expression more, she wore a mostly pained one throughout". With all of the positive things people have said I shouldn't have let that get to me, but nevertheless it was on my mind. In my second song, I have to hold out a D for about 5 bars at the end. Before this show, I probably would have laughed at the though of belting a D for any length of time. Needless to say, even though I've done it many times now, I still take a huge breath and mentally cross my fingers every night before it happens. This particular night was not my best go at it. Probably my worst.
If you'll remember, during the first part of the run my manager wasn't able to get in to see the show because the website had some sort of glitch and oversold seats, so we had to give priority to they paying patrons. Luckily the problem was fixed and she got in just fine on Saturday night. So here I was, starting out my show on a not so great note (literally) on the night that my manager was in the audience. And on top of that... no one clapped. Not a single smack of the hands after that off note. This happens sometimes, you'll just have a dead audience that sees "in concert" and doesn't know how to treat it. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure they clapped after the first song, but that's happened before because the second pretty much is just the second part of the first. But this, complete lack of applause after the most terrifying note I've ever sang, really threw me for a loop.
Much to my relief, when I got backstage I saw I had a text message from my manager from just after the show started, saying she was stuck in traffic. I let myself believe that it meant she hadn't witnessed that weird weird moment, and I kicked myself back into gear. I feel like I had a couple other not-so-great notes, but only a few, and I felt that I had more control as the show progressed. The cast took a few press photos before we were able to go out and greet people. Unfortunately the casting director that was supposed to come with my manager wasn't able to make it, but she said she was very proud of me and she liked it a lot. She actually saw the original production in London, and she was pleasantly surprised by this production. Even with all the strange stuff that happened in that particular show, I'm also proud of what I got to show her. It's the first time she's ever seen me perform live, and she was impressed! That's all I could have asked for.
While writing all this, I got word from her that I have an audition for an episodic tomorrow morning, and we also have a meeting with a commercial agent in a little over a month. I've been hoping to get a commercial agent because, do you have any idea how much money you can make for a national commercial? A lot. So I'm happy very happy and excited about this meeting.
That's all the updating I can handle for now, hopefully I'll feel up to it again in just a few days!!
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