Finito

Each morning I get up I die a little. Can barely stand on my feet.

Capstone is done. Performed. Bound. Thank yous to anyone who was a part of last Thursday night's reading--including the audience. Mucho love and gratitude.


Stripes and I during Robin Hood, also the cast of Can't (Hurry) Love

My brain is all shook up. I mean, I'm awake for one. Got a few little tasks I keep trying to do but get sucked into reading Mindy Kaling's blog or something. I'm frightfully restless, and I can't go running because today is the blessed triathalon. I don't want people to get confused when I show up somewhere I'm not supposed to be...running accidentally down the finish line.

I spent all my years believing you, but I just can't get no relief.

Well, Toot Toot.

Me: My Vocab: Cha, Boop, Woof, Toot.
Pookie: You are a chorus of Fantastic Sams beauticians.


Finale of Robin Hood, last weekend

Wasn't super attached to this last show--not by any means. A goofball comedy what do you expect. But, suddenly, it was Saturday afternoon. We were expressing gratitude, Bradley began to choke up after heckling me and my overwhelming and unshuttupable love for theatre, "This department..." and I lost it. Stupid tears. Stupid graduation. Stupid best friends who have been in stupid productions with me for four years stupid moving to stupid LA.

Yes, K-Ci & Jo-Jo...Don't Judge!

Out my GD mind. Losin' it completely. Just finished everything for my capstone and must turn it in before 4 PM for FINAL REVISIONS. Must read over one last time...but so crazy...

I just wrote down "Take work off Friday" because I remembered I wanted to, but I wrote it on a paper that was on my bed. Like...not a good place. I've just bopping around writing notes to myself on all sorts of things that will soon be in the recycling. Just sitting here with my hair stuck up like the end part of a chicken doodling on the piles of books and papers and clothes surrounding me on my island of an unmade bed. I feel like I live in a void. The power went out last week, and I never made my clock work. It just blinks all day long. I stare at it. I do not move.

My halter is falling off. IT'S SO BLESSED HOTT OUTSIDE. I CAN'T BELIEVE I HAVE STRIKE TONIGHT ALL I WANT TO DO IS LOOK AT THE ROSES ON MY NIGHTSTAND, WATCH A BILLION EPISODES OF MAD MEN, AND BE NAKED!

Instead I have to go see a capstone reading, sit in sweltering heat, tear apart the set I just spend eight weeks acting on with my collegiate theatre friends, and then revise a speech and my final newspaper column (missed both deadlines). OhmygodeverythingisendingandIamacrackpot!

Goin' crazy crazy crazy just thinkin' about you lately!

Going nutso in Pookie's office

Made Up

yesterday during rehearsal--a photo proving to a friend snail mail was on its way

Tonight was "dress rehearsal" uno. I use the term lightly because there was much goofing, trippin', yelping (when my hairpiece fell out), stopping, forgetting, etc.

Point: Full hair, make-up, and costume. The middle one is the important one.

As soon as I "put my face on" literally three girls jumped as they approached me saying, "I couldn't even tell it was you." Several men commented, "You look pretty.", and as I just entered my hall three more women said, "You look so nice/pretty/good."

My hair is the same. My clothes are t-shirts and running shorts. It is the GD make-up.

I do look different, and I do use make-up to get made-up. To look prettier. I mean that's the point. But, for some reason...it always strikes me as funny. That little dark pencil marks under my eyes make me look "better", that we can conditioned ourselves to see rosy cheeks and say "Lookin' good."


right now

I want a girl who will laugh for no one else.
When I'm away she puts her make-up on the shelf.

Too Much...Little Too Much

There are some actors who can slip in and out of character, and it doesn't seem to affect them at all. Well, I wish I had that skill. Even when I go through a show and think "No...this time it really won't get to me." It does. It always gets under my skin, into my subconscious, and makes me a nutty buddy.

I've written about this before--how being a 1950s schoolteacher this fall made me distrust men. How being sad sack Laura Wingfield in Glass Menage made me self-pitying. How I definitely felt less beautiful as Ruth Sherwood. Well, Robin Hood is supposed to be a comedy. I'm supposed to be big time comic relief. I scream a bunch and hate the forest. No big.


Rex and I horsing around before rehearsal

Yesterday towards the end of our run-through during the full cast scene in Prince Jon's court I noticed there were more bugs than usual. Not like...swarms, but usually there is one fly on set. I could always count five or six. Bradley was breaking character to slap them down. An actor next to me was squashing these flying critters bigger than gnats, smaller than horseflies with his boots from his spot sitting on a stump.

And then he stood up to reveal the top of the stump...completely crawling with hundreds of buffalo gnats. Fat little bodies and big white wings squirming all over each other, pouring out of the wood and streaming down to the rest of the stage.

I screamed bloody murder. That...is not how I usually react to bugs. I like bugs alright--even many freshly hatched larva indoors. But, Lady Quigley is my brain now, and all I could do was shriek.

That's how I nearly fell,
trading clothes and ringing Pavlov's bell.

The End of the Story

Bradley and I post Lazy Zip, February

Someone once told me he used to read my blog, but he was frustrated most of the time because I only ever tell the first half of stories, and I never finish what I am saying.

I just realized this is true about my auditions a couple weeks ago. I wrote about my audition and hopes, but never offered the satisfying finish. My dreams came true as I was awarded the part of Lady Quigley--Maid Marion's serving wench. The cast is phenomenal, and, yes, I get to be in scenes with both Bradley and Stripes. So, mystery solved if you were wondering.

It's late and this grate won't come down, come down. It's late and this grate won't come down.

Cast-List

Last night were the call-backs for Robin Hood. They were enjoyable. I read for the two crotchety and crude old women parts. That's appropriate. I know the casting has been done, but I'm not sure if the list is up yet.

I'm not nervous because I was not attached to any part. I just want to be a part, and I am fairly certain there would at least be some small role lying around for me in my final quarter here.

Reading cast-lists--one of the most heart-pumping experiences. No one can say people who skip sports for theatre don't know what it's like to have their pulse soar. Walking up to the cast-list can be absolutely numbing. But, strangely enough, it hasn't been for me nearly as often as I would expect. Either my call-back has been super telling (being the only one called to read Rosemary) or I haven't been called back (42nd Street) or I find out by surprise (Bradley telling me before I got to the theatre that I was in his one-act). It's been that way for eight of the parts I have had in college.

But, oh. Not number nine. Wonderful Town. I let myself fall in love with a part. I let myself really want it, and I let it be potentially out of my league. I went to the theatre before my work-out. After my work-out. Before lunch. After lunch. Finally, I heard Rex saying Dir. T said 1 PM. My insides were jack-hammering. I shook. I walked out into the foyer. I heard the list get tacked up. I walked to the computer lab adjacent. I sat down. I stood up. I called my sister and said "I'm too scared. I am." I tried to breath. I walked to the list. I released the the breath I had been holding at the sight of my name and my new character's name. Oh, no better feeling.

I am up early, going for a run. Yes, I will run by the theatre to see if the list is up yet. Mainly, and this is so silly, I hope to act in a scene one final time with Bradley and a first time with Stripes. That's all a girl can really ask for.

the last time Bradley, Stripes, and I were all in a play: Gogol's Government Inspector Fall 2007--also included with Stripes and I, my old roommate Lashes