So I'm looking ahead to this upcoming concert. It's funny how things seem so very far away on Thursday, and then a certain Monday rolls around and you can see the avalanche barreling towards you. My calendar doesn't look full but I feel it in my veins, that adrenalin rush around the corner as I start to prepare for December.
Brecht closed this weekend. It was a joyous occasion for all and I was especially joyous to finish up there and walk away for a while. The final performance was sheer perfection after a rough matinee that afternoon. It's so terrific to see a group of teenagers in rare form - they were nervous but cool, wandering off on their own, going over lines, breathing together in a circle before filing downstairs to the theater. Several days ago, on opening night, I introduced them to a theater tradition passed on to me by Mary Rotella. We played the hokey-pokey before stepping onstage. I don't know what it is about that ridiculous song that brings a cast together, but it works every time. We picked four body parts before each show. Everyone's favorite (especially if you're 15) is hips. Most memorable was the afternoon performance when the dressing room was moved into the smallest room in creation and we stood outside in the hallway and whispered the song so the approaching audience wouldn't hear it shouted from above.
I received fond gifts from my students. Cards, a gift certificate (!!) and a bottle of wine called "The 7 Deadly Zins" ("very funny...you didn't purchase this yourselves now did you?"), and fought back a little well-up as I watched them slip into the backstage area before we started. I was reminded of my college years performing in an ill-conceived black box, where the performers would enter the stage area from behind the audience AFTER the house lights had gone down. All holding hands, we would be led onto the stage and into the wings by a stage manager with a blue-tinted flashlight. The blue lights backstage always give me a twinge in the stomach...nerves from a bygone era in my life.
So, that's over. I am left with some great pictures, and a downward pointing directional sign that simply says, "Hell," a part of the set from our "Anger" section. Haven't decided where in my house it goes best yet.
The picture is, of course, the back of my postcard. It's a self-portrait, taken at my parent's house a year and a half ago. I'm not ready for the show to go up yet, but John is helping and I think I'll be there in a month. I still have to travel to Hungary, shoot a dance video, finish choreographing a solo piece to Johnny Cash, solidify my piece with a 6-year-old spitfire, and make some changes with my duet. It's a lot, and I am being brought back to my work with Cerulean in Chicago, lo those many years ago, when I ran around town with my friend, Lynne, printing off tickets, sending out press packets, calling newspapers, shoving postcards in people's faces and hoping beyond hope that I got everything done, that I did everything I could to promote.
And so I am promoting here as well. If you're in the San Diego area, come see it!!! The website is linked at the right. I can't verify that you'll like it, but I can verify that I put everything I had into it. It's the only way I know how to work.
Off that subject . . . in other news, election day is tomorrow and I'm still not sure what I want to do about most of these propositions and some of the people I'm supposed to vote for or against. There's too much on the ballot for me to possibly take in properly and I always get into the little cubicle and have a brief moment of "Oh, the hell with it!" before I settle in and take it seriously. I wish I really felt like I made a difference.
It's hot as Hades here and I find myself longing for a real fall and winter. I think I'm truly a Northern girl at heart (as John is a Northern boy). Every time we get Santa Ana winds here I get stopped up and miserable and feel like punching anyone who gets in my way.
John and I have been pricing pet steps to put by our bed so Lucius, my middle aged, somewhat crippled cat, can get up on the bed (and off the bed) without seriously injuring himself. Expensive little buggers those stairs. How can a square of foam cost $140?? I am baffled at how much we spend to make these little quadrupeds happy (while causing myself oodles of sticker shock and stress).
That's all for the moment. More shameless plugs and inconsequential musings later....
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