sometimes more feet than shoes.
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| concrete trenches sometimes more feet than shoes. |
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Wednesday, July 28, 2004 The gentle sucking sound I have a problem. I assume everyone is like me in my attitude towards theatre. My expectations are that other people will follow the same basic tenets I do regarding shutting the hell up backstage, listening to the director, giving proper focus, thanking the stage manager, and a hundred other things that I have spent my working life thinking everyone just knew. They don't. I get frustrated. I get mildly homicidal urges. I sometimes yell, or sometimes I am cruel. Why can't everyone do it my way, I wonder? I must not be the only one, though. On the way to the matinee today, the musical director asked the four actors in the car "So, how do you all think the show went last night?" Later, Gay Character Man said that for the next thirty seconds we all looked like Medusa after seeing her reflection. | posted by christopher | 7:05 PM Tuesday, July 27, 2004 Stock blues So here I am, about to open my summer stock extravaganza. I've seen 42 deer of various sizes. I've drunk beer and bourbon late into the evenings, playing pool and darts and talking about all manner of things. I swam in the swimming hole. Now all I have to do is be in a good show. But that's not really going to happen. At least not any time soon. I'd like to spill indetail, but I really need to shut my eyes for a few minutes before heading out to the theatre full of consumptive, noisy children. Sigh. I live for the day when I can talk all about the good show I'm in. | posted by christopher | 6:24 PM Friday, July 23, 2004 Kids and dogs. Conventional theatrical wisdom advises never work with children or animals. When one is doing a play that requires kids (say, oh to pull something out of my head, "The Sound of Music) one must make the best of it. When one is doing summer stock, one must really make the best of it. After a full day of rehearsal with the kids in this show, I had a headache the size of the Catskills. One of the kids decided to spend his break pounding on the piano, getting "carried away" (his words). And they aren't exactly prodigies. The youngest kid, I have a little bit of a crush on her (in a totally non-creepy, Jesus she's a five year old kind of way) with her freckled face and her little kid absent "r" (sample line: "Why don't I feel bettew?") and her scary old pro attitude. She's louder singing alone than all the other kids singing combined. Saw four more deer today. Grand total: 34. | posted by christopher | 12:57 AM Thursday, July 22, 2004 Schedule 10am-12pm Rehearse 12pm-1:30pm Lunch 2pm Costume fitting 2:20pm Bike ride down amazing forest country roads, through protected forest land and bald eagle habitat to resevoir lake. 3:30pm-4pm Swim in lake, sun on rock. 5:30pm Dinner at theatre, three different kinds of pasta. 6pm-11:30pm Relax, shower, run lines, practice guitar (for the show), play darts, shoot pool, have a snort of scotch. 12am Bonfire, play with potato gun* Drink beer. 1:30am Help pull directors car out of ditch. He landed there trying to avoid hitting a deer**. 2:10am Blog, brush, bed. * That is, a gun that actually shoots giant hunks of potato. The fuel is hairspray, the trigger is an electronic spark, like the kind used to ignite gas grills. ** Summer Stock Deer Sightings: 3 today, 10 yesterday. Grand total: 30 | posted by christopher | 2:25 AM Tuesday, July 20, 2004 90 Miles from NYC I should have asked about internet service before coming to this gig. Turns out there's a DSL line and a wireless router here. Go figure. Unfortunately, it's on the first floor while I, cozy as I am, reside on the third floor a little too far from the signal. I'm going to sneak into the office tomorrow and put the router on a high shelf. So far the gig is absolutely grand. I have great house, meals provided, doing a good show. The Equity actors are all pros, and the resident company of slaves, er, interns, are green but talented, the management sympathetic. Even the children (yes, I'm sharing the stage with children) are good natured and cute, if not totally brimming with stage presence and experience. The surroundings are fantastic. It's a forest, literally. I've seen fifteen deer since my arrival last Wednesday. Today, after spending quality time back in the city with the Best Girl, I went for a bike ride. I have my golf clubs with me for the eventual game or two. The lawn at the residence is big enough for me to practice my swing, up to about a seven iron. Summer stock is kind of like summer camp for theatre folk. You're usually in the woods or in the boondocks or in the sticks. Everything is old and musty and in slight disrepair. You have to go with the mind set that it's about your work and being out of the city. Embrace the rustic, realize that it's not exactly a stepping stone to broadway, and you're bound to have a good time. I wish that the disastrous Scotland Theatre Excursion of 2003 could have been as good as this almost as much as I wish the Best Girl could be gigging here with me. | posted by christopher | 6:41 PM Wednesday, July 14, 2004 Here I go On a bus, and into the woods. These's probably little to no internet access where I'm going, so reports are going to be spotty at best. Have a lovely couple of weeks, everyone, and I'll report back later. | posted by christopher | 1:02 PM Tuesday, July 13, 2004 7/13/04 To Do: Museum of Natural History, see some frogs Fahrenheit 9/11 Sushi | posted by christopher | 11:30 AM Monday, July 12, 2004 I cry a little On Wednesday I get on a bus and go up to my Catskills Summerstock Gig. After that, I fly out to the Big Midwestern Theatre Gig. One week back in the city in between. Gone 'til October. Today was my last shift at the stupid table waiting day job. last week, there was a small parade of people with whom I work(ed) who said goodbyes, gave me hugs, wished me luck, blah blah blah. Today was a slow shift, I served a few people, cleaned up, counted my money, had a beer (because it's free) and walked out the door. Strangly anticlimactic. Here I am, going off to do a couple of theatre jobs, beating the odds and being a working actor in NYC, and no one seems to be noticing. Not that I want huge amounts of praise and awe; just a little bit. | posted by christopher | 6:59 PM Friday, July 09, 2004 The dog ate my homework Everyone who believes This story raise your hands. The only excuse better than this would be that the records were destroyed when the Pentagon was attacked on September 11th. And he's leading the fight aganst terror, so get off his back already! The world's better with Saddam gone. | posted by christopher | 10:21 AM Wednesday, July 07, 2004 Senioritis I realized, while shuttling hot wings and beer to my many patrons this evening, that I have one week left of the table waiting job before I go off to the Catskills and the Big Midwest Theatre Gig. Huzzah! I realize I've been thinking of these two jobs as a "break," but the reality is (and should be) that table waiting has been the break; the thing I do while I can not do the thing I want to do. BG pointed out that I'll be gone for a semester, or a quarter of the year, almost. Back at the bar, it's awfully hard to care about these people, this work, this place, this food, this job. I have to still, not only because the Puritan work ethic of a Repressed New England upbringing demands it, but because I don't get good tips without kissing a hundred asses. But it sure is wearing thin, and it is making me foul. In a week I won't care. In a week my biggest problem will be how to manage eleven weeks of separation from my Best Girl. | posted by christopher | 1:34 AM Thursday, July 01, 2004 The first reason I've found to like Yankees fans Apparently Tricky Dick Cheney stopped by the House that Ruth Built and was met with a less than kind reaction from the fans. | posted by christopher | 11:05 AM |
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