If...

Opera America started last night. Opera companies from all over the world send representatives to the convention to talk about issues in all aspects of their field. I've never been to one of the conventions before but this year it happened to be taking place in Miami, so I'm taking full advantage. Thus far it's been interesting to meet people, see old bosses and friends, and listen in on what everyone thinks and feels about the advancement of opera as an American art form.

I've got more thoughts on that...mainly brought up by opening speeches by Osvaldo Golijov (brilliant Argentinian composer) and Dana Gioia (of the sad, struggling NEA), but my thoughts aren't fully formulated. As the weekend continues things will start to gel. After a rambling conversation with my husband this afternoon I'm realizing that I have an awful lot to say.

This post is a lesson on following the path as it presents itself...a more personal reflection on the influences that help us end up where we are/where we needed to be all along.

At one time I actually planned on going into Performing Arts Administration. I've always been interested in the administrative side, but my performing always came first. My favorite class in college was the one that taught us how to market ourselves, send out press releases, rally audience support and fundraiser. When I was the Associate Artistic Director for a small dance company in Chicago, I loved attending the board meetings, the strategic planning and putting together fundraising events. I always figured it would be my fallback.

So much so, in fact, that when my performing career started to struggle a bit, I nearly walked away from it to pursue an administrative career. It was the spring of 2000. I graduated from college two years earlier and had been freelancing with not much luck. I'd had a couple of gigs here and there but was starting to get massively frustrated with the audition process. Three times in a row I'd gotten down to the final three and then been sent on my merry way at the end of the evening. I was really questioning my future as a performer. I started looking at universities with Arts Administration degrees and was studying for my GRE. I'd settled on first choices at Goucher College and American University. I was serious about this.

In class at the Dance Center of Columbia College one day, I noticed a posting for a dance audition for the opera "Akhnaten" at Chicago Opera Theater. It fit in my schedule and, though I had really nearly given up on the prospect of doing a professional gig every again, I thought "Why not?" I had started to look at auditions as free class. How sad.

As I was dressing for the audition that morning, I made myself a pact. I told myself if I didn't get this job, then I would send my graduate applications out the next morning and make a final, clean break from this performing career that had left me so frustrated.

The audition was fun, full of friends, and I was so happy with myself for having an alternative plan that I'm sure I was dancing with more confidence than usual when being judged. We finished our last pass across the floor of heel-first pique turns, clapped for Daniel Pelzig, the choreographer who ran a great class, and I grabbed my stuff and trotted down the stairs, pleased with finally feeling like I had some purpose.

The artistic administrator of Chicago Opera Theater came running after me. "Miss Stickann, wait!" I turned at the bottom of the stairs. I thought I'd forgotten to hand him my head shot.

"Miss Stickann, Mr. Pelzig, the choreographer, would like to speak with you."

I walked carefully back up the stairs. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up. I remember feeling less exulted at that moment and more scared. I felt like I was in trouble even though I knew that was an absurd reaction. Danny was sitting on the floor changing out of his dance sneakers. I sat down next to him on the edge of the raised dance floor and he proceeded to tell me he was in need of a dance captain and wondered if I would be interested.

It's funny how good news can sometimes seem bad or strange when thrown at you without warning. I started to question myself. I was so prepared to send in my applications that I hadn't even considered getting this job. He was looking at me with a raised eyebrow. I think my mouth was hanging open.

I said yes and it changed my life.

Not only did this man's question ultimately give me a five-year successful performing career that took me to San Diego where I met my husband while performing, and gave me my New York debut, but it also opened up my career in opera where I am currently learning and growing on an hourly basis. I am so priveleged to call Danny a friend now, but he has also been a colleague on some of the most artistically amazing and satisfying projects I've ever worked on. I am incredibly lucky, and I owe him my career.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had gotten all the way down the stairs at that audition, walked out the door, and never heard from Daniel Pelzig or Chicago Opera Theater again. My applications would have gone in the mailbox but after that I have no answer. At this point in my understanding of my true niche in this world of the arts, I'd like to think that I would have found my way to opera and directing anyway, but I really don't know.

In a world where so often the "right path" is muddy, hard to see, and covered in brambles, I thank god for the path that presents itself clearly, without question.

Ode To My Family

So I went to my parent's Flickr site the other day because I talked to my mother on the phone and she told me they just finished shearing their alpacas and she had pictures up.

Yes, my parents have an alpaca farm called Sycamore Creek Farm. It's their retirement and they are in love with it. I could not have handled growing up on a farm but for them it's right. I know this because of the picture at the left. I haven't seen my parents look this radiant in years, especially my father, who's positively glowing in this photo.

It makes me miss them all the more...

Time is the Enemy

So I've been looking back on my meager posts lately.

They all seem a little disgruntled. A little rushed. A little mournful.

And perhaps that does sum up where I'm at, but I'm noticing that they don't particularly capture what I was hoping to capture when I started this blog a year and a half ago. I wanted to really explore what this life was, what it was to live and work in the performing arts, what it was to be in this rootless job, the intricacies of putting up a show and dealing with a life that is dictated almost entirely by what you do.

It's hard to talk about all of these things without detail, and perhaps my life would have been made infinitely easier had I started this blog as an anonymous writer. But then again, my goal was never to (as my documentarian husband says) "expose the seedy underbelly of the opera business," it was to document process in all of its joys and difficulties. Because, truly, the process is the only thing that makes art worth DOING . . . for me that is.

I've become somewhat nervous to talk about difficult projects which really defeats the purpose of this blog. You can take as much from the difficult moments as you can from the joyous ones, sometimes more. Suffice to say, "Samson et Dalila" has been a difficult process, and for the same reason that most operas will claim when they are struggling to open well:

TIME.

Opera production suffers from a quickening disease. The productions are huge and lavish but the rehearsal time is painfully small. Big budgets conflicting with meager cash flow dictate that rehearsal and technical schedules be reduced to their absolute minimum. It's a frustrating truth that looms darkly over many, many productions, and it is felt in every company I've ever worked for.

Most productions go up in three weeks or less. A month of prep/rehearsal time is luxurious. This is not so in straight or musical theater. Directors who come to opera from that tradition are shocked and dismayed to get their first production calendar. Dancers work months on a ten-minute piece, musical theater gets an extensive preview period wherein they can tweak a piece until it's been drilled to near perfection. Opera starts on a Tuesday morning , and three weeks or less later the critics are there with their light pens and tiny notebooks, ready to judge.
The trick as a director/maestro/lighting designer etc, is to organize your time so effectively that you can fit everything in. Some people would say you can't be a perfectionist in this business, which I don't really agree with. I think that perfectionism works here as long as its always coupled with a severe organization (this is where my OCD ends up working for me). Everyone working on an opera has to walk in the door knowing exactly what they want and exactly what they're doing or frustrations will ensue and multiply.

For "Samson," it was tech time that was fighting. This is a difficult technical show with collapsing temples, pyro effects and a two-minute scene change that defies belief. We're finally getting there, but I am constantly amazed at how much has to be achieved in so little time.

It's the time factor that will keep most opera from ever truly achieving the slickness that we see in Broadway shows (and I'm not sure that opera should really ever go there even if it could). Don't get me wrong, to be granted more time is a luxury that any of us in the business would grab at and clamp onto like an alligator's jaws should it ever be held out towards us, but I have to say that I thrive on the race. I love that feeling after a meet-and-greet or first production meeting, as if we've all set ourselves down on a giant toboggan and then pushed ourselves over the side of an impossibly high, icy mountain. There's no stopping it once it starts. We're going to hit every tree and rock on the way down, and we're only going to get faster and faster and faster as we go. But if we reach the bottom without capsizing, then the rush, the adrenalin, the cold in our faces is the most exhilirating feeling I know.

The moment that orchestra tune rises out of the pit on opening night, no matter how many times I've banged my head against the wall, walked out of a rehearsal searching blindly for a scotch rocks, buried my head in my hands as a tech rehearsal grinds to a halt for one reason or other, I know the curtain will rise and a show (our show) will be on the other side.

It's the reason I can't even fathom doing anything else.

Time to Go Home

My relationship with my husband right now consists of snapping open my little phone and dialing his cell phone number. After a while, conversations get harder on the phone. You need the one-on-one contact to truly express how you're feeling, to bring up new subjects, to have a real conversation.

It's time to go home. I can't be totally rootless anymore.

These are always the hardest times because the show is open and my only true work is every three days when I go to the theater to mind the show. All of that empty time can cause meltdowns which I have to work to keep from happening.

This is when I start pulling out upcoming projects to work on. I finally got my Gluck/Berlioz score from Glimmerglass so I've cracked that open, I'm working on a couple of independent projects that will hopefully manifest themselves into dance films like "Utazo," but they're in the most basic of planning stages right now.

I've also finally had the time to sit in on some more "Anna Karenina" rehearsals. I'm very excited to see it once all of the pieces have been put together, but I love watching it in the rough stages too. It's the reason I'm an artist instead of only an art supporter: the process is much more fascinating to me than the product.

Opera America is next weekend as well. I'm looking forward to that keeping me busy for a few days as well.

Busy, busy, busy. It's all about keeping busy.

Horrific

I spent an amazing morning driving around the Florida Keys. The weather was cool, perfect. The water was a brilliant torquoise. The air was clean and the breeze calming. It was an impeccable way to calm down after a long tech process and I sat on the edge of the world for a while, staring up at the deep blue sky and smelling the sea air.

Meanwhile, the students and faculty of Virginia Tech were suffering from a horrific massacre, the worst in U.S. history.

I came back from my drive and have since been glued to the television. I am sickened by the events. I don't understand how the dorm shootings could have happened at 7:15 and kids could have shown up for class two hours later having no idea that anything happened. I don't understand how classes anywhere on campus were allowed to begin until the school had been locked down and the shooter found...there are so many questions I have but the big one always comes back to "Why?"

My deepest sympathies go out to anyone involved in this tragedy.

I've been left speechless entirely too much lately.

Reflection

I was putting away some laundry tonight and I passed the bathroom door, looked at myself in the mirror and saw someone I didn't recognize.

This person had wrinkles around her mouth and eyes, a few gray hairs popping out of her bangs and a little sag under her chin. She looked older, tired, a little world-weary. I did a double take; a very theatrical back up to look again - to stare.

I mean, I knew it was me, but I just couldn't believe it for a second. Sometimes I forget that I'm not a 95-pound bunhead anymore. I don't feel older than that girl. I dont' feel older than her at all.

Put It In Your Pocket

I saw the biggest meteor I've ever seen tonight as I drove home on the Dixie Highway. I was in the middle of downtown Miami, having just gotten off Interstate 95, so no stars were visible. Right in front of me this thick, white streak of light fell straight down from the top of my vision, burning brightly until it hit the horizon. I was almost ready to see an explosion at the other end, it fell so far and looked so massive.

John says it's good luck. I made a brief wish, so we'll see how that turns out.

I was coming back from observing "Anna Karenina" rehearsals in the echo-y Peacock Room at CCPA. This incredible new work by David Carlson (with a libretto by the late Colin Graham) is having its world premiere here during Opera America in two weeks. I've watched a couple of their rehearsals during this time I have off before remounting here in Miami. I always find it interesting to watch other directors work, especially on new work. I love the old standards, but watching a rehearsal where the composer is actually sitting in the room, where dialogue changes as the show goes up, where singers and conductors are creating roles for the very first time, well...that's just juicy and wonderful. I long to have the opportunity to work on a world premiere myself.

And in a more cynical light, there's something satisfying about sitting in on a rehearsal in which you have no responsibility whatsoever.

That all changes tomorrow morning.

Death and Taxes (or Death from Taxes)

I just mailed off my taxes. I stood in line at the post office behind a women who makes her living selling crap on eBay, listening to the two women behind me talk incessantly about a new improv comedy show that sounds absolutely nauseating and paid the extra money to have a return receipt since I don't trust the U.S. Postal Service as far as I can throw them.

I secretly hoped that my California state taxes would get lost since, no matter how many times I went over the forms and added up my deductions, I owe money to the state of California. They charged me income tax on every penny I made even though more than half of it was earned outside of the state. I'm getting the tiniest of tiny refunds from the Federal Government, but anything is better than having to write out a check.

And so I dropped the weighty envelopes off, tipped my sunglasses back down over my eyes, and brushed my hands off decidedly as I walked up to my little rental car and found a man in black printing out a parking ticket on his little machine as he read off the license plate number. Not only do I owe money to the state of California for working outside of the state last year, but now I owe the city of Coral Gables $18 for spending 2 and 1/2 minutes longer in the post office than my meter allowed.

I had the urge to throw a tantrum right there. I wanted to throw down my purse, rip the ticket out of the little beady-eyed man's hands and rip it up, toss it in his face, kick the tire of my sad little Kia, but I refrained. I maintainted my dignity and only huffed and puffed once I'd driven off.

Oh, the humanity.

A Few Days Off

The weather's been beautiful in Southern Florida. The humidity dropped to nearly nothing and the temperature has been warm but comfortable with a cool breeze. Like the most perfect day in San Diego, Miami's been experiencing weather perfection. Granted, they're in the middle of a horrible drought, but I was still soaking it up over the weekend.


It's funny how blue skies and cool breezes can make everything seem okay. This was a really tough opening for several reasons and I needed a few days off. I walked on the beach, did some shopping on Lincoln Road, sat al fresco and wrote in my journal while sipping coffee, and people watched in Coral Gables.

I actually forgot that I don't particularly enjoy walking on East coast beaches. The sand is gritty and full of broken up shells that cut into my feet. Miami beaches are littered with junk, bottle caps, straw wrappers etc, which makes the sand unattractive as well. I took a brisk walk for about ten blocks until I got past the cove at 27th street, filled with fishermen standing on huge rocks and sunbathers hiding in the little open, sandy areas around them, then I went back up to the board walk and went a few more blocks before turning back. I actually like the board walk because the surface still has give but my speed is better and I'm not worried about getting sand in between my toes.

It's funny. I really have this need to live near water but have barely any interest in hanging out on it or on the beaches surrounding it. I think I could never be a beach bum because I feel like it isn't productive enough. I'm too high strung to wile away the hours sitting in the sand and staring at the sun.

Things start up again on Thursday when I go into the Ziff Theater at the Carnival Center in Miami to begin the tech process over again for a different venue. This one should be a bit easier because we know the pitfalls and the theater space is more accomodating to the size of the set. We have a brush-up technical rehearsal for the cast on Friday night. Our director's coming back since there were so many elements that were impossible to do in Broward. For her, the technical process was never really completed so the show will actually be truly opening in her vision for the first time in Miami.

Saturday was our closing in Broward County and I feel like it was a pretty tight show. The temple crash is starting to really do its thing, the singers looked good and the dancers were beautiful as always. I am in awe of them dancing on a rough surface and leaping around on a rake. I remember how difficult it was to look natural while trying not to stub my toe and fall on my face on impossible opera sets.

I only briefly wished I could have been up there dancing. Then I had another mocha and sat back behind the tech table in the dark...happily behind the scenes.

Sad Day for Opera

Colin Graham
1931-2007

I heard news today that Colin Graham, celebrated stage director, librettist and artistic director of Opera Theatre St. Louis, passed away this morning.

Though I cannot say I knew him at all but for a few brief meetings this summer, I am saddened for my friends and colleagues who knew him well, and for the opera world at large, who has lost a giant.

As my friend said this afternoon, there are no more words.

Things I Take As Fact

Denyce Graves is an incredibly beautiful, graceful stage creature.

We open tomorrow.

I go home to my husband in a month.

Banana oatmeal cookies made from scratch cure all frustrations and sadness, if only for a moment.

The performing arts are neither easy or glamorous. Especially not glamorous . . . or easy.