Vanished into the Mists....Like Brigadoon....

My show, Brigadoon, is over. It has vanished into the annoying mists that caused the entire cast to choke and sputter backstage. It was a wonderful final performance. I got to play the part of Maggie and dance the final ballets. Ballet has become a part of my life again, and I’m reluctant to let it go. I finally feel like a real dancer, unlike I have ever felt before in my life. I owe that sense of accomplishment to the choreographer, director, and fellow dancers who all supported my endeavors to get back on my toes. I am proud of what I have done, and I will treasure that experience always.


I have met many wonderful people through this show, and have been reunited with others that I haven’t worked with in a year, or years. One of the best parts about theatre is that it is a family. I’ve discovered that theatre is a place for misfits. Ah yes, sad, but true. We are all very quirky people who have found that even though we have our own lives outside of the stage, we work best together, and that we relate to one another. We just fit. Even people who I felt were so different from me at the begging of the show, and I thought would never be close to me, have become just that. Theatre teaches one to look past a person’s looks and all outward personas, and to just focus on the individual at his or her very core. That’s what I love about it. I am so different from so many of them, just as they are so different from me and each other, yet, we accept that, we accept the quirks, and realize that those differences are what make us FIT.

I love my theatre family, and last night, I was reunited with some friends who I haven’t seen or worked with since I first started theatre many years ago. I looked around me at one point in the evening, and saw that I was surrounded by several members of the very first cast that I ever worked with. All at once, I was back in “Ah, Wilderness” and was 17 again, experiencing love and theatre for the first time. They say that your first time for anything is something that you can never recapture. That might be true, but sometimes, you can get awfully darn close.

Together, we relived memories, shared stories, encouraged each other, caught up on current events in our lives, gave gifts, hugged, sang show tunes, and took dozens of pictures. It’s always hard to leave these people, but I’ve got an autograph book full of messages, a camera full of photos, a mind full of memories, and a heart full of love for the actors.

To Everyone Who Came to See Brigadoon Last Night! THANK YOU!!!

Last night was without a doubt the best show of Brigadoon that we have had yet! For the first time, I felt confident about my ballet numbers, and they went off without a hitch. The best part was that several of my best friends were there. It means so much to me when friends come to see the show. My one friend, who I wrote about yesterday, drove two and a half hours to come visit us and see the show. He’s a great guy, and a perfect gentleman. When he saw that I would have a long walk in the dark to get back to my car, he insisted on walking back with me. Not a lot of guys would do that nowadays. Even though I know I’m perfectly safe walking to my car, it’s nice to know someone’s looking out for me.

Earlier in the evening, I had been outside the theatre, standing in utter darkness during the intermission, trying to send a text message (because there is no cell phone service in the theatre), and I saw someone walk by the alleyway. He looked incredibly like a boy that I’ve done several shows with. He had the right profile, the right walk and carriage. I knew it had to be him. He passed by three times before I got up the courage to call to him. Of course, I couldn’t go over there to him. I was in a full-length gown, wearing enough makeup to be mistaken as a “lady of the evening.” He came over, and we talked during intermission. He’s the type of person that I always hate to let go. We’ve become close, and I really value him. It meant a lot to me that he came out to see me and his other theatre friends a second time. I mean…tickets aren’t cheap.

With everyone who was there last night, it was delightful to see so many other familiar faces in the crowd. After the show, I looked around at everyone who was grouped outside the theatre, and I have done a show with nearly every one of them sometime in the past. Theatre is like a family, and often, a show becomes like a great big family reunion, or rather, several reunions.

Of course in every family, there are little dysfunctions… I saw that the guy who had played opposite me last summer had come. As he was standing in a circle, talking to some of the actors, I came over and said hello. He barely glanced at me, said “hi” and turned away. I bet his shoulder is still icy from that one. I don’t know what was wrong, we hadn’t had a fight. I suppose that it might have been because his girlfriend was standing right there with him… Sometimes relationships change people.

All in all, it was a great night. Now I’m ready to head to work, drive way too fast trying to get to the theatre in time, and do it all again tonight. Wish me a broken leg!

Count that day lost...

Today is the last day of the work week for me, but is also the day I’ve been dreading. I’m currently in the play, Brigadoon at a local theatre, and tonight we are putting on a benefit performance. I order to actually be on stage in time, I’m going to have to do my hair and makeup before I leave work, which means I will leave work looking like a cross between a drag queen and a geisha. Once I get to the theatre, I will have just enough time to throw on my tights, shoes, and costume, and run onto the stage. I’m a little nervous about that because I’m the type of actress who likes to rehearse before every performance. If I don’t, I do not feel ready.

Even so, I kind of like the feeling of living a “fast-paced” life, so to speak. Ever since I was in my first show in 2007, I haven’t stopped acting, and always do three shows a year. I love it. I also love the fact that it keeps me busy. I don’t like being idle for too long. I sometimes even have trouble slowing down long enough to get the rest that my body needs. I guess that my desire to fill my days up with as much work and productivity as I can stems back to when I was a child. I had an autograph book that I was trying to fill. When I asked my great grandmother to write something, this is what she wrote, “Count that day lost when the low descending sun views from thy hand no worthy action done.” That struck such a chord with me, and I realized how important each day is, and how each one is a gift that shouldn’t be “lost.”

When I was a little older, I started to have some heart problems. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong, but I continually had violent heart palpitations. To discover the reason behind the palpitations, the doctors had me wear a heart monitor for the entire month of June. I was scared. I didn’t know if I was going to lose my life in one of the attacks, and no one could give me a straight answer as to what was wrong. I was frightened enough that I began to realized how temporary life really is. In just a moment, it can be snuffed out. I started living my life the way my great grandmother had taught me.

In retrospect, I really had no reason to be worried. My heart is strong, and I only had a small allergy to caffeine, which was easily remedied by abstaining from chocolate and other caffeinated edibles (trust me, it got easier as I went along). Even so, I felt like I learned an important principle: every day is a new opportunity to do something worthwhile. I guess my great grandmother ought to know…she’s had over ninety years’ worth of days filled with her goodness…and she’s still going strong.

"All the world is a stage..." unless you're my ex...

As an actress, I love being in the spotlight. It just feels right to me. I am at ease and comfortable performing in front of dozens, if not hundreds of people. It’s a second nature to me. Even though I am comfortable in this environment, some people are not so inclined. Take my ex boyfriend, Dean, as an example. When we dated, he had always come to my shows and supported me, but swore up and down that acting was something that he simply couldn’t do. I was fine with this, because I understood how he felt. Acting isn’t for everybody, and I would never want to force someone to do something that they find uncomfortable.
Well, something must have changed for him. I broke up with him many months ago, and ever since then, he’s been suddenly interested in theatre. It was so sudden after our break up, that I found it suspicious. Now, he is taking an acting class at the college we both attend. I still find his motives questionable, especially after he once hinted that he was interested in theatre to “meet new people,” and joked about dating some of my friends. I tried not to let this bother me, but to some extent, it does. The local theatre scene is my sanctuary. Theatre is my place to relax, and be myself through being someone else. Let’s face it, actors are highly possessive people! This is our spot, our place, our refuge from the rest of the world; our place to be with others of “our kind.” Now I felt my sanctuary was about to be invaded.
Every year since I’ve taken the acting class at my college, I’ve gone back semester after semester to join the class for the first few weeks in order to brush up on my Improv skills. I adore improv games, and the teacher always begins her class with improv exercises. This semester was going to be no different, except this time, I had an added incentive to go; to watch Dean perform. He had always been so quiet, so withdrawn into himself, that I found it hard to believe that he had actually enrolled in a theatre class, and an acting one at that. I knew that he would be horrified to see me in his class. He probably thought that he was safe from seeing me there, since I had already taken it years ago. Little did he know that news travels fast on campus, and that I had many friends in the class.
Although Dean sat in the very back of the class, and constantly made sure that if I was on stage left, he was on stage right, and vice versa, he did a very good job of playing it cool, and never looking in my direction. Amanda, our acting teacher knows me well from years of taking theatre classes and performing in her shows, so she asked me to introduce and lead the improv games. I was only too happy to oblige. There is nothing more fun than a good game of Freeze to get you going in the afternoon!
This particular game is played by two people who are instructed to act out a certain scene, and are supposed to make as large of body movements as possible. When the next actor in line to play, sees a movement that he likes, he (or the teacher, if he’s taking too long) will yell “freeze!” and will take the place of one of the two actors, standing in the same position that the other actor had been standing. Using this body movement, it is up to him to start the a totally different scene. If an actor simply cannot come up with a scene, or is struggling, the teacher will yell, “Bonk!” in a game show sort of way, in order to end the scene and keep things moving. It’s not a hard game, but can be intimidating the first time.
When it came to Dean’s turn, even I was surprised. I even felt a bit bad for him. It was painful. He didn’t know what to do, and just stood there, thinking. When he did try to start a scene, he embarrassed himself, and ended up stopping and thinking out loud about what he would try next. I must not have been the only one embarrassed for him, because before the teacher had a chance to yell “bonk!” to stop the scene, six students yelled it for her. The rest of the games weren’t as bad, but I think Dean felt enough like a fool during the first game to last for the rest of the class.
I had come to the class hoping to see him make a fool out of himself, and I wasn’t disappointed, but deep down to the heart of me, I felt sort of bad for him. Sure, he hadn’t treated me very kindly after the break up, and still refused to speak to me when we ran into each other, but he was a human being, and didn’t deserve any extra humiliation from me. Besides, he was doing a fine job of humiliating himself on his own.