Say, Hey!

Yesterday the AI productions company graciously offered everyone in the cast two free tickets to see a preview of On A Clear Day You Can See Forever. Yup, the one I auditioned for this summer. We had some time to kill before show time so a few of us got some food and a couple drinks. Aside from flying week and lunch time, this was the first "bonding" time we had. I am so pleased with our cast, everyone is so cool and nice and friggin talented.

The show was really lovely. I took my sister's (nee) roommate Brianna and I couldn't have asked for a better date. It was cool for me to see what direction they chose for the role of Melinda. The actress, Jessie Mueller, had an amazing 1940's quality to her voice. It's nice when you can know you did your very best bet they were just looking for something different, something very specific. The whole show was very enjoyable and I loved how they played with the story line to make one of the main characters, Davey, a gay man instead of a woman (the character's name was originally Daisy).

I decided to take it upon myself to try and find a quicker way home. It was unsuccessful. I got off the express train at my stop and decided to hop on the local train to go up one more stop so instead of walking six streets and and avenue, I'd only have to walk two streets and an avenue. As soon as I got onto the sidewalk I knew I was wrong. Turns out there's a pig park between that stop and my destination, and I wasn't about to walk through a park by myself at 11:30 pm in Harlem. And by the way, it was raining. I first had to walk a ways to get my bearings - a couple streets and a couple avenues - and what would have normally taken less than ten minutes (and about five minutes on the route in my mind) took over 25 minutes. But I made it home alive and learned my lesson: trust the people that live here, they know better. Or just study those subway maps.

The real physical work started yesterday. For our warm up we did some obstacle sprints and a lot of arm work. That's not something I'm accustomed to working out. I'll do some tricep dips once in a while or a push up here and there, but nothing like this. Steven said he'd rather us do one push up with perfect form than ten that were shit, so with some of the harder positions I only got to five or six. I plan on eventually becoming strong enough to do it all but... one step at a time.

Today we did more sprinting and some cardio stuff, a lot of stretching, and then worked on glutes. It was difficult but I definitely felt the good kind of burn. This show is going to whip us all into shape in no time. And if the warm ups weren't convincing me, the dancing we did today would have. We started to put our "8 counts" together for what I believe will be the choreography for She's A Rebel. What's tricky is that all of us are doing the same thing only about half of the time. The other half of the time we're doing the same thing as maybe 3 other groups are different things. And on top of this, our little similar groups are going to be all intermingled on stage so it's not like you can look to anyone else to figure out where you are.

So that part was tricky because of the brains part. After that the boys were taken to the music room to work on some boy song while the girls started to learn out part for the opening. A lot of it was similar to what we did at the audition, but there were a few more things added to it and it was about twice as long. This is where it became tricky because of the endurance part. If you haven't seen the show, the girls start off by running onto stage, stopping abruptly, running more, nearly falling, running more, smashing imaginary televisions, running more, and doing it all over again just on the opposite side of the stage. I'd say once we probably ran it twelve times or more. On our last go I was almost afraid that my legs would give out. Luckily, they didn't.

Instead of taking a water break, we went straight on to learning the Letterbomb choreo. That one combines brains and stamina. It's a lot of sharp shoulder movements and jerking out bodies around. I'm kind of glad I have a lower vocal part on this and some of the other songs because it takes a lot of breath support to be belting these things out, and I'm going to need all the breath I can get! Needless to say I was all kindsa' rosy by the time our lunch hour came around.

Our afternoons have been dedicated to music. We plan to have covered all of the music by the end of Friday and do a full sing-through of the show on Saturday. It's really incredible, the music. I've heard the recordings and seen the performances, but when you can hear how everything breaks down with harmonies and dynamics and why we're singing what we're singing, it's really spectacular. Especially with such spectacular voices. You know you're working with professionals when during ensemble parts of songs there isn't one person that stands out (unless of course they have a solo over us), all the voices blend together perfectly. All of you musical theater people know that there's always those one or two people in music rehearsals that like to sing a bit louder or hold a note longer than everyone else. It's such an amazing thing when everyone can trust the music and the direction and know that it will sound beautiful as a whole when we're all doing what we're supposed to be doing. Ahhh. Heavenly sounds.

Tonight after a nice chat with the bf I took a long hot bath to soothe these aching muscles, and I plan on sleeping in to my heart's content tomorrow. Although, knowing there's going to be turkey and all the trimmings, the excitement may just kick my body clock into gear. Have a great holiday everyone!

If you like my blogs about the AI behind the scenes stuff, check out Krystina's and Kelvin's blogs. And I have a facebook fan page. Shameless self promotion. Ok maybe there's a little shame.

Also, if anyone has suggestions of places to eat or things to do... or places to eat.... let me know! I don't have that much time off but when I do I'd like to experience as much of the city (and the food here) as possible!

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.

The Process

Alright, you can consider this much later in the day than the last post, or early early in the morning the next day.

As I mentioned earlier, we had rehearsal from 10-6 today. We started off by finishing the choreography for La Vie Boheme. It is such a fun number, but man oh man are there a lot of things to day! I think everyo ther 2 counts of 8 I'm on the table, then off the table. And I'm probably on my knees more than anyone else in the show (lets not get dirty now, people). It makes so much sense that knee pads were a part of the original costume for Mimi. I don't even want to look at my lower legs right now... it's not pretty.

We also finished Christmas Bells, another crazy number with people doing so many things throughout the whole thing. There's a lot to clean up, and we all have to find the places to just have fun and make it our own, but all in all everything is looking great and sounding even better. I think I mentioned it on twitter but not here - at some times during the process, I find myself taking a look at what's going on all around me and I can't help but smile. I think the first day I almost got a little emotional. This is one of the roles I've always promised myself I would play, and now I'm doing it with a cast and creative team that I love and respect. I want to travel and perform for the rest of my life. It doesn't matter if it even pays great or not. As long as I can survive and I'm happy, I could do this forever.


On another note.... the clouds here are unlike anything I've ever seen. I almost feel like a crazy person when I say this, but they're AMAZING. More 3D than I've ever seen clouds be. The sunsets in LA have been amazing lately because of the fires and the smoke, but we almost get that same hue here in AL, I can't explain it. I don't know why, but it's hazy and golden and wonderful. It's been a little rainy on and off, but more off.

We've decided how my hair is going to be - it's really exciting. I've never seen my hair like this before. There was a though of getting a wig for me, but I was pretty determined to get my hair to behave so the first thing I did when I woke up yesterday was started teasing my hair. I teased it and then curled it, and it was like nothing I've ever seen before. I'll get some pictures, you'll be shocked I'm sure.

We have another long day tomorrow - 2:00 till 10:00. We normally have Mondays totally off but we'll be performing for some AIDS outreach thing at night. At least we'll have all day to relax, and I can let my knees rest! Lord knows they need it....