Tonight is opening night for The Constant Wife. I can't wait for it to be done, so that I can get my life back... I've been so tired all week. Bleh.
Oh boy, so here's just how bloody fun the opening weekend for Arms and the Man was...
I have a very small speaking role in the show, not long into Act 1. However, there are several gunshots that are heard offstage in that act. I'm responsible for most of them, but one of them happens with me on stage, so we have one of the other actors (who doesn't appear until Act 2) take over that and the one prior so that I've got time to change into my costume (which is just a giant coat on top of my usual theatre blacks).
Well... the first gunshot (which is the cue for the actor to come up) didn't work. At all. Two clicks, nothing. So, the scene continues (or, rather, starts), but the actor isn't coming up, and I can't go and get him, since I need to stay in place for the forthcoming gunshot. After sending one of the other actors down for him, he finally gets up there... and has the gun when my headset goes off to tell me to fire the gun, so there's another missed gunshot.
However, at this point, I'm severely behind on getting into costume (putting on a rather large coat with a billion buttons, plus a confusing belt). I'm hearing my cue come up, but I can't get any of the damn buttons to fasten, or, if I can at least get that done, they're mismatched. Finally, I hear my cue, so I just fasten a single button in the middle and hold my coat closed (I made it look like I was just mad or something... not particularly difficult).
The rest of the show went fine, though I was in a foul mood over how it had started.
Another bit of fun: Andrea, who plays the lead, is none too modest downstairs in the green room. Now, I'm all for it; recently single and very heterosexual, I'm not about to tell an attractive girl that she has to cover up, and neither were any of the other guys. However, one of the other actresses (whose husband is in the show), rose a stink about it. The thing is, however... she raised the problem to every other actor in the cast, before finally talking to Andrea (in an extremely bitchy tone, from what I hear) and then mentioning it to me in passing (which I dismissed as fairly trivial, until I saw that Andrea was extremely upset by it). Apparently, one of the actresses' concerns was that her husband would see Andrea.
Lame. Doubly so when you consider the fact that the actress in question is in her mid-40s. Sorry, but prudish insecurity-projections really should stop by the time you're that age.
And, to add insult to injury, I didn't get to eat with the cast after the show; by the time I got to the restaurant after locking up and changing, they'd closed the kitchen. Grrr.
More drama backstage! This time, I was the one who got in trouble (with the same prude actress). You see, Andrea has to wear a corset in the show, and being the gentleman that I am, I graciously offered to help her with it. Well, I'm standing in the green room, and then Andrea comes to the doorway of the dressing room, with the corset wrapped around her (covering her breasts, mind you; all you could see was cleavage and her navel), asking me to help her, which I of course do. Prude Actress spazzes out, saying that we have to come into the dressing room and close the door, which we do.
Fast-forward to after the show. I'm locking up, and my stage manager tells me that I'm now no longer allowed in the women's dressing room.
Now, for those that have short memories, please scroll up and notice that I was told to come into the dressing room, by the same actress who then bitched about it. This is also the same actress who, the day before when I apologized for accidently barging in while calling time (in my defense, the guys and girls dressing rooms are the opposite of what I'm used to), said "no problem" about it.
Sunday was, dead audience aside, fairly uneventful.
Oh wait, I forgot. Andrea broke a glass piece of the set during Act 1. Oh yes, good times. Completely screwed up my scene change (not faulting her, just bitching about it), which was doubly unfortunate because I had a new stagehand who was planning on just following my lead.
I might be forgetting a few things, but I'm pretty sure that that just about covers everything.
So, I've still go one more show in Arms and the Man's opening weekend, but so far... bleh.
Quick summation, I hate:
Grr.
On the plus side... hey, I'm getting back into the swing of this whole "blogging" things the kids are so hot-to-trot about. "Hip" and "with it", thy name art Eric.
So I got a call from Bob, the director of Lady's Not For Burning, Monday evening. He had some bad news: the theatre company had decided to drop the show. Apparently they were just having too much trouble getting the entire show off the ground.
I have to say, I'm really upset by this. I was really looking forward to doing the show; my character was perfect for me, and the [partial] cast was quite cool. I was looking forward to getting to know both Cassie and Valerie a bit better (and, believe it or not, I'm not talking about getting laid!), and I was looking forward to getting back onstage.
I had been keeping this part of the year clear of any commitments so that I could do the show; now I've got nothing scheduled for the next month and a half. :\
They're thinking of just postponing the show until next year; if they do that, then all of us that were cast will get first pick of the roles. That's great, but still, I was looking forward to it now, not then. :)
In the interim, Courtney and Bryan are talking about the five of us (them, me, Cassie, and Valerie) perhaps doing a small show to fill the void; no clue what the show might be, since they haven't talked to Cassie or Valerie yet.
And, of course, I've already gotten asked to work on a show this weekend and next. I can't do it, though; gas prices are just too high. I told the director this, and she said she might be calling me back with an offer to help with the gas money. I love being so damn good at my job. :)
So I auditioned for The Lady's Not For Burning today. I must say, I did a freaking fantastic job. The director has been after me for one particular role for quite some time now, but I managed to only read him once the entire audition. I ended up reading for a total of four different roles (three if you don't include the one guy I read briefly at the end of the audition). I nailed every character, as far as I'm concerned.
As is usual in theatre auditions, there were more women than men, so the guys were jumping from partner to partner, myself included. This was fine by me, as I got to read with my friend Kelleye (who I hope gets a part; I thought she read well, but I only saw her once or twice). The thing that me really happy, though, as that one of the girls there (who was incredibly cute; she had the most beautiful blue eyes... uh, anyway...) specifically asked to read with me. This wasn't a casual "hey, can you go over this scene with me" type question; this was a grab-my-arm-and-look-me-in-the-eye request. How could I say no? To make things even better, she apologized for asking me (Why? Who knows?), saying that she just really wanted a good actor to read against. When a cute girl is saying that you're a good actor... well, it just gets you all warm and fuzzy inside. :)
Auditions will continue tomorrow, and I'll be going just so they have more bodies to read against the women. The director was telling me that he's still not even half-way to casting the show; however, he could be swamped tomorrow, so no point in worrying about it now. Hell, maybe Cassie will show up again tomorrow. ;)
Meaker VI had asked what Medea was about, but I never got around to explaining it.
Medea is a classical Greek tragedy, documenting a bit of the life of Jason (of "Jason and the Argonauts") and Medea, his wife. To sum it up, Jason ditches Medea for some kings daughter (bad idea, dude), and Medea is sent into exile along with their two sons. Over the course of the day, Medea gets fairly brutal and viscious revenge on Jason. Hint: It's called a tragedy for a reason. ;)
It was performed in masks, which is how classical Greek theatre was done back when it was modern Greek theatre. It was a fairly small cast; Medea (played by my friend Trish), a three-person chorus, the two kids, and one actor (my friend Erik) that played the 5 remaining characters in the show (including Jason). I was in charge of helping Erik in and out of his five different costumes and masks. He had a standard toga under everything, and then he had different overlays on top of that. Each had a different style: one was purple, for the king; one was green, for another rule that was friends with Medea; the slave was a simple rag-like piece of cloth worn around the neck; and the Nurse had a giant plain wrap that made Erik look like an old woman. Jason's costume was fairly unique; he wore a fairly cool but plain black leather wrap, covering his chest, shoulders (not his arms), and halfway down his legs; the bottom of his toga was tucked into his shorts so that it didn't go extend below the wrap, and his toga "sleeves" were hidden under the wrap, while his black t-shirt underneath had it's sleeves rolled out to match the wrap.
We performed it outside at the Parthenon (the picture on that page is the side of the building we performed on) on the steps. Artistically, it doesn't get much better; performing Greek tragedy at a recreation of an ancient Greek building is wonderful. From a technical standpoint, however, it was a nightmare. We had to strike the lights and props every single night, which meant that we had to set them up the next day. The weather could cancel us whenever it damn well felt like it (it never did, though it did start raining not more than five minutes after our first show wrapped up). And the noise... ugh. The next time I hear a loud booming car with it's speakers on full blast will be too soon.
All in all, it was a fun show, though I'l admit that my heart wasn't in it. Thankfully all the cool people involved made it worth it. :)
So today we had a "test performance" of a sort for the play that I'm doing, Little Women. To say that this has been a trying show would be a bit of an understatement. But first, some back-story!
I signed on to do the show as the ASM; for those that don't know, that stands for assistant stage manager. However, once I showed up to a rehearsal, lo and behold, there isn't a stage manager. Okay, crap. That means that I have (technically) a lot more responsibilities than I was planning on. The show itself is suffering from a couple of bad actors (and shaky line knowledge from a few other people, though most of the shaky-line folk are good enough actors to play it off well). Because I've had to shift gears from ASM to SM, I've been on book, which means that I've been horribly unprepared backstage (can't feed the actors their lines and figure out what goes where at the same, oddly enough).
So all week, I've been on book for the actors. Yesterday was the first time ever that I was back stage to sort out props.. and, as per usual, there were a few missing/temporarily lost props here and there (and actors who don't know what to do with their props). That's perfectly normal for a rehearsal where we have props for the first time. However, this week's rehearsals were our only rehearsals before today's two performances (at a school), and opening night is tomorrow. As a result, last night was very stressful, and I feel really bad about missing stuff here and there.
But at the same time... I've been a bit deceived about what my role would be, I'm working under very tight conditions, last night was the first time I'd ever been backstage for this production, the first time I'd ever had any of the props, and the first time I'd ever seen the show all the way through (actually, it was the first time it had been run all the way through, ever). To expect me to know where everything is supposed to be, or what everyone should do, is ludicrous. Anyone who may be disappointed or upset with the job is welcome to kiss my ass.
Anyway, now that you have the back-story, on with the rest...
So all week, the actors have been shaky on their lines, their blocking, their cues... all in all, frustrating stuff. Last night just outright sucked, with tensions running very high among the cast (everyone pretty much just wanted to kill everyone else); as a result, I didn't have especially high hopes for today's two performances. Then the show started... or at least, tried. It had such a rocky start, with lines getting dropped and missed cues. But, after that first scene, it went well. Eerily well.
We got through the first performance, then ate pizza backstage. You could almost see the tension being drained away from the actors' faces. They were joking around backstage, laughing and having a ball like they didn't have a care in the world, which was such a pleasant change of pace from just a few hours prior. They eventually ran just through their lines, hamming it up and ad-libbing wherever they felt like (which is always a sign of relaxation).
The second show was fine, except for the fact that the janitor didn't know the show was going on and just walked right across the stage. Grrrrr.
Anyway, I'm just glad that the ball is finally rolling on this. I have no doubt that there will be finger-pointing, though; this is a fairly political bunch, from what I've gathered. I really couldn't care less if anyone points it at me; I've been doing the best job I can, and given the circumstances, I refuse to take any responsibility for anything that may be awry. Oh well, I'm just going to try to get through this without any finger-pointing, since it's ultimately nothing but unproductive.
Up front, I may or may not have mentioned this already: I've got two shows coming up between now and the end of the year. Suicide? I know. Little Women is first, opening the 19th (which means all next week I'll be working on it). The second is Hellcab, which opens on December 3rd (and closes on the 18th). Now, with that out of the way, I can get on with what prompted me to add this entry.
I was planning on going to a Hellcab rehearsal tonight. To be perfectly honest, the only reason I was planning on doing so was to ask out one of the actresses in the show (in my opinion, she's utterly gorgeous). However, rehearsal got cancelled at the last moment, since the director was feeling sick. Well... crap. Next time I'd be able to even come to a Hellcab rehearsal would be the 22nd or, if not then, the 29th. Wha.
Just now, I got an email from the director of Little Women, saying that tomorrow's rehearsal (which I was going to be attending) has been cancelled. Dammit. I'm scheduling my social life around these damn rehearsals, and they're falling out from under me. It's doubly-frustrating when I can't even get in touch with any of my friends (Holly and Olivia, check your damn messages once and a while!), and with my Xbox being dead... grr.
I'm ASM for Philadelphia Story, which will be going up on the 10th. So far, I've been to a grand total of 2 rehearsals, one of which I had to be on book for (which I hate). The show looks like it won't suck; I'm not sold that it'll be great, since I haven't seen it all, but dammit, the scene changes are going to kick ass. :)
I also auditioned for Tartuffe today. I wasn't really planning on it, but got talked into it by the director (who is also in Philadelphia Story). I came away from the audition really hoping that I get cast... but if I don't, that means a few less 100-mile days when it comes to driving, so that isn't half bad. :)
Anyway, with the play going up, it means I won't have time for Empire updates for a few weeks. I'll update the Lair this Monday, but that'll be it for a short while.
Yes, the show is finally over. We had a good crowd; healthy size, and they were really responsive. My grandma and dad came and after the show the four of us went to dinner. My friends Multi-Bob and Erik also came, though I didn't get to hang out with them after the show. Oh well, I'll be seeing them on Tuesday.
Not much else to say other than that. Courtney and I are both looking forward to having our lives back, and spending time just relaxing, rather than working on a show. After a slight bit of relaxation, we're going to jump right into getting her moved in (I'll be clearing out her room, she'll be packing up her stuff). Hopefully by this weekend Sarah (my old roommate) will get her crap out of the spare bedroom so that I can get my crap out of there and into my storage space.
Well, last night's show went pretty well. We had a large crowd, and they really seemed to like it. They were very vocal through the entire show, which made us feel a lot better about it (and, likewise, it caused us to go just a bit faster). Courtney had a friend come last night, so after the show we hung out with her and her step-mom (who is only a bit older than she is, so it wasn't awkward or anything). Quite fun.
Not too much to say about tonight's show... it was decent, we had a good crowd, but nothing really stands out in my mind about it. Oh, except for the fact that I'm tired of one of the stagehands checking my out every time he sees me. He's just creepy.
We had our brush up rehearsal tonight. Quite a fun night; we know the show by now (surprise surprise) so we were able to do whatever the hell we wanted to with our lines. My scenes with Vera flew by, since we were both talking as quickly as possible, Chris cracked jokes and added small responses in ever scene, and Courtney and I "extended" the Tomorrow Tomorrow scene by quite a bit (we're supposed to kiss briefly on stage, but we decided to keep going for a good couple of minutes...). Whee!
Oh, and I'm feeling a bit better today.
Sunday's performance had our smallest crowd yet. Not too surprising, saying as it was a Sunday and all. After the show, Courtney and I went to this awesome Chinese buffet with Chris and got stuffed with food. We were total lazy asses for the rest of the evening. It was great. :)
Last night's show kinda sucked, too. Audience was smallish, and fairly unresponsive. On the plus side, my sister came last night, along with her not-quite-boyfriend and a friend of hers. However, they (the two other than sis) wanted to go or do something or whatever after the show, so we weren't able to hang out. I was fairly pissed about that; I haven't gotten to hang out with her in a long time, and she, Multi-Bob, Holly, and I used to hang out every night during Cherry Orchard. I guess I just miss hanging out with them is all.
Oh well, the night wasn't a loss. After all, I got to spend it watching a movie with the Empress, and hey, that right there is a damn good evening. :)
Ugh, last night's performance sucked. The audience was just completely unresponsive; as a result, backstage, it felt like we were in the friggin' morgue. However, after the show, the audience was more than willing to tell us what a wonderful job we had done, and my friend who came last night (Sis will be there tonight, instead of being there last night) said that it was one of the best shows he'd seen at the Center in a long time. *shrug*
Oh, and it turns out that Courtney's parents disliked the show, but thought everyone did a good job. Suits me just fine. And her parents like me. Huzzah!
Opening night went off without a hitch. No major screw-ups, and only a few of the minor ones were mine. ;)
Courtney looked astonishing in both her outfits.
Courtney's parents were rather neutral. Dunno what they thought, and neither does she.
*shrug*
Tonight should be fun, though; hopefully my sister will be coming and she can finally meet Courtney. Afterwards, hopefully the three of us can hang out. Haven't hung out with her in ages... Maybe some other folk will come tonight, and we can have a big ol' party with just the few of us. That'd be great.
Well, tonight is opening night for A Month in the Country.
Am I nervous? You bet!
I'm not so worried about my lines; last night we had a run thru and I didn't screw anything up too badly. And I'm not worried about anyone else; almost without exception, everyone is doing a fantastic job. I'm just nervous.
And in completely unrelated news, I'll be meeting Courtney's dad tonight.
But I can't figure out why I'm nervous. Not at all. ;)
So this past Saturday (yesterday) I got to spend all my time making a poster-ish image for the show that I'm doing props for. I'm fairly happy with it, considering the fact that the image quality for the people pictures was very low. I had to use paths to mask them out, otherwise I ended up with really crappy edges. I also had to create a game piece from scratch, because the picture they gave me was too small and too low quality.
That's what I get for not taking the pictures myself, I suppose, or for being at the "photoshoot" to art direct. Oh well.
Here is the picture. The game piece looks kinda fake, yeah, but at the same time, this will be getting shrunk down from that size, and for all I know, copied at Kinko's over and over, so I don't know if anyone will even notice.
As I've mentioned, I'm doing a new show. Here is my favorite line in the show. One of the two women who are in love with me says it, talking about me:
"Yes, yes, yes, he's such an attractive, vital, vigorous young man, and in that meadow yesterday his wild, reckless youth was wonderful, irresistible-"
Oh hell yes, I love my character. :)
Haven't posted anything since mid-day Wednesday, so here's what all has happened:
Wednesday Evening
Cowboy Mouth kicks so much ass, its almost illegal. I had dinner with my friends David, Lynda, and Erik at Chez Jose, and then Erik and I went to the show. An hour and a half after we get there, they finally take the stage. In that time, my friend Multi-Bob shows up, and my friend Chris (who I hadn't talked to in a while, so I hadn't actually invited him) happened to be there with one of his friends, so we all watched the show together, although Erik had to leave after only 20 minutes.
The show itself was awesome. Two full hours, which is a major test of endurance (both for the band and for the audience). They're so energetic, it's insane. The show ended with Fred (the drummer/lead singer) inviting the opening band up on stage, as well as a friend of theirs on guitar (which meant there were ten people up there), while Fred walked around on the bar, singing/talking at us. That whole jam had to last 15 minutes or so... so very, very cool. I ended up talking to Sis for well over an hour after the show, which was good too.
Thursday
We had a damn good audience for Cherry Orchard, especially considering the fact that it was a Thursday show, which usually has crappy audiences. Nothing special, although I did get a super-cool gift from Sis and Holly: a framed pic of them at the beach, which is where they were earlier in the week (they were driving back on my birthday), a birthday card, and a funny glass mug illustrating the male brain. Its so accurate, its scary. :)
Friday
Uh... to be honest, I don't remember much about Friday.
Oh wait, yeah, we had the cast party for Cherry Orchard on Friday! Good times, good times... I found out that I'm the Twister champion in the cast, even beating my sister, and that I can dance a little too much like Shakira if I want to. :)
Saturday
The last day of the show. We had a rehearsal at 1 for the understudy, since one of the actresses couldn't make it. That meant that I was stuck in Nashville for the entire day, since it wasn't worth it to drive back to the 'boro just to drive back to Nashville, and then drive back to Murfreesboro again. As a result, I was back at the theatre at 4, and the show didn't start until 7:30. Since I had the keys to the theatre, it was cool; I just tossed a couple of new CDs on the CD player and laid down on the bed that was on stage and relaxed. It was great. :)
We had a huge thunderstorm that day, too, which knocked out the lights; they fought with them for over half an hour before finally getting everything working. Ugh. We had a huge audience that night, too.
We had to strike the set Saturday evening, though; that was a lot of work. I didn't get done until 2, and I called Sis on the way home, and ended up talking to her for yet another hour. I swear, we're making up for lost time when it comes to our chats...
Sunday
I got to sleep late. Hell yes.
I had a read-through for the new show I'm in, though, at 3, so I couldn't relax all day. I like the show, and especially my character; I get to have two different girls fall in love with me, everyone talks about how great I am, I have only a few lines, and I'm barely on stage, but I'm still integral to the show. It's great. :)
The only thing that I'm upset about is that Sis couldn't get a part in the show. She talked to the director a little too late; he'd already cast the role. That sucks; I was really looking forward to working with her again. The role she was up for was the young ward (who is one of the two women who fall in love with me), so we would have gotten to act together; our chemistry kicks ass in real life, so I'm sure it would have translated very well. Oh well, life goes on.
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Anyway, that wraps it up. This has been a much longer entry than I was planning on writing. :)
Here is a review of the play I'm doing. I'm quite happy about it because even the scene changes (which is one of the things I'm in charge of) are mentioned favorably. Usually they aren't even mentioned at all. ;)
Its play time again!
For those that don't know, I've been active in theatre for the better part of the past 9 years. I started out as an actor, but lately I've settled comfortably into the role of tech (running the light board, which I hate, or doing backstage work, which I love). I'm also known as a total nazi when given authority over the backstage; I can't help it if I take my job seriously. :)
Anyway, I'm doing another show, Cherry Orchard, which is being produced by Act One (like that means anything to anyone outside the Nashville area). I've finally started going to rehearsals, so my spare time in the evenings is getting consumed by the show. We open on March 5th, and close the 20th. I'm ASM (Assistant Stage Manager) this time around, which means I get to be a nazi. Huzzah!
I also get to work with some friends, too. The director I've known for a while, and my friend Multi-Bob is in the show as well. I'm also working with another Eric, who I already knew as a friend-of-a-few-friends. Then there are the two lovely ladies of the show, Olivia and Holly, who are both very cool (but then again, I'm rather biased; cute girls who laugh at my jokes are always very cool). All in all, I'm happy to be doing the show; not only does it get me out of the apartment more than I normally would, but making good friends is always a good thing. :)