only me....

I don't seem to ever be content. IOLANTHE is all I could EVER hope for in a show. I love everyone in the cast! They are all so funny and kind and talented, and I have a great part, and I'm having a blast! I was so excited to have this be my farewell to non-equity theatre (since, pending one more AFTRA extra job I'll be equity in March and FINALLY get seen at freaking auditions!) But then - they had to go ahead and announce that their next musical was going to be CAROUSEL. Those observant friends of mine, namely Kat, all know I have some very strange need to play Julie Jordan in Carousel. (NOT I repeat NOT CARRIE PIPPERIDGE! If you tell me that, for some reason, I break down in tears. I makes no sense, I know. All the Carries win Tonys and all the Julies fade into oblivion - but I have this intrinsic need to tell Julie's story.) Most people think the musical CAROUSEL is condones spousal abuse, but I don't think that is the story at all. It's about a complex relationship, which isn't Disney! It's real. And people do HORRIBLE things to eachother, and yet, still love each other very much. (Hey everyone - CHUCK AND BLAIR IN GOSSIP GIRL?) Sometimes they only do the horrible things BECAUSE they each other so much. And I think showing that on stage give the audience a chance to contemplate, oh I'm happy I HAVE a Disney life, oh dear I am the abused/abuser and need to change things, or wow - finally someone I can relate to. Apparently this makes me a bad person for thinking this, but I think Julie's song "What's The Use of Wond'rin" basically sums up love. REAL love. Just about better than anything else. "What's the use of Wond'rin if he's good or if he's bad, or if you like the way he wears his, oh what's the use of wond'rin if the ending will be sad, he's your feller and you love him. That's all there is to that." I mean think about it, you have the image in your head of who you're going to fall in love with, but usually - it's someone totally different. Someone who has bad breath, is short, is tall, is fat, is a different race, farts all the time, is a rap producer when you're a pilates instructor, is older, is younger, has a kid, dresses funny, would rather play video games than go to Renaissance Faires, I have seen some pretty crazy couples! But they all love each other! And you can analyze it until the cows comes home - but at the end of the day, they love each other and that's all there is to that. I just love that character. I just love that story. AND DAMN VLOG FOR DOING IT! A)because I was planning to not be equity therefore ineligible for VLOG shows, B) Whenever I want something - and want to so very badly, with ONE exception, it never happens and then I fall into a ball of tears and it's just ---- bad - I don't want to go through that. Esp. not for something as silly as a VLOG production, but I know if I don't get it - I will be a heaping mess. I'm a heaping mess just THINKING about it - and - I should be so much more zen and just say "what's the use of wond'rin if the ending will be sad..." but alas - I'm so much more high strung than that in real life.

Oh - come fat conductor man running to try and be my white knight! I should mention, I let him take me out to tea last week, and we actually had a really wonderful platonic time. I let him take me out to tea because he was NOT cast in IOLANTHE. He is the head producer of VLOG, and everyone was quaking in their boots to tell him he was not cast, and he said it was o.k. since he was going to have so much fun watching me play IOLANTHE. So this man is basically funding my entire theatre career at the moment, the LEAST I could do was oblige him to an afternoon tea. We had a fabulous time talking about England, Shakespeare, Opera, it was kinda like being with a larger and more eccentric Rovert. Conductor man is VERY smart - he is after all a billionaire in the field of computer science, and spends all his money seeing as many theatre and opera productions as possible. So - all these strange things I never get to talk about with friends, I was able to talk about. He even said he'd be willing to finance a workshop production of a bizarre opera for me to direct over the summer. The one condition was it had to be bizarre. Bizarre I can do. At ANY rate, he e-mailed me saying he was going to try and be musical director/conductor for CAROUSEL. (Knowing that I want to play Julie - since that was a HUGE topic over tea - where we both quoted various bits of the musical and oogled over how perfect the writing was.) GAH! DONT GIVE ME HOPE! DONT GIVE ME HOPE that I MIGHT get to be JULIE!

My one saving grave, which I'm highly doubting will happen, is that the Broward Stage decide to cast me and I won't be AROUND for Carousel. It was a very strange audition. We were supposed to sing TWO songs, so I prepared my ballad and my up tempo, my up tempo has the impressive high notes, the ballad was just "in the style" of the two shows they re doing - MAME and MUSIC MAN- lovely but otherwise unimpressive. So I started with the ballad, during which the pianist messed up twice and then STOPPED PLAYING! And then came in where he THOUGHT I was - and was... o.k....kinda... This ballad is NOT by ANY MEANS difficult! WTF? After I sang it, they said thank you come back at 2 for the dance call. I'm like NO!!!! NO!!!!! YOU NEED TO HEAR THE HIGH NOTES!!!! SO YOU CAST ME IN THE ENSEMBLE BECAUSE NO DANCERS CAN SING THOSE HIGH NOTES!!!! GAH! BOOOO! Would have started with the high notes if I had known I'd only get one song! And what was UP with the pianist? I did o.k. because I did my homework and knew the song, but really?

So I go to the dance call, and I'm KICKING MAJOR ASS! but there are only 8 of us and its 9 minutes of REALLLLLY hard dancing in heels on floor that is most definitely NOT a dance floor. So slippery! And I'm not making it up - one girl slipped and sprained her ankle and couldnt do the rest of the audition. BUT I was kicking MAJOR ass until the very end when he said give me 3 fouettes into a double pirouette. If there is ONE THING I do STUPENDOUSLY, other than put my leg over my head, it's fouettes. I don't know what it is, but I have ALWAYS been able to fouette. I can do the super impressive 32 fouettes from swan lake. I'll be in my ridiculous super advanced ballet and all the primas will have dropped out and I keep going and the teacher is like YOU CAN FOUETTE! WOW! But for SOME REASON - I had TWO TRIES! And I Fell out of the first fouette BOTH TIMES! WTF! Shouldnt have been a problem, except this OTHER GIRL DID THEM! GAHHHHHHHHHH! And she is ALSO from FLORIDA and went to School of the Arts! GAAHAHHAHHHH! WHY! OF ALL THE TIMES I mess up FOUETTES! was it RIGHT THEN!? I could have had a paying JOB! GAHGAHGAHGAHGAHGAHGAHGAHGAH! I am SOOOO LIVID with myself! STILL! And it's been almost a week! But it would have made life sooooo PERFECT! TOOO perfect - that was the problem! Started rehearsals december 5th, I could have put in my notice on work study during tech for Iolanthe, been in florida for the heinously cold months, GOTTEN PAID! GAH GAH GAH GAH GAH GAH GAH GAH GAH! STUPID STUPID STUUUUPID Fouettes!

And stupid Ballad! GAH!

So yeah, I'm having the time of my life, and am STILL unsettled. Only me. Only me!

Also, I feel really unprepared for the Playwright Festival thing I'm directing. The play is soooo --- strange... (I didn't get to pick the play, the play was assigned.) The characters seem - so --- hrmmmmm ---- I probably shouldnt even finish this paragraph for diplomacy reasons... I hope I can make it work. Shakespeare it is most definitely not. Take that for what you will...and I can't even bribe my friends to be in it. I finally got my four cast members, but now they are telling me I need someone to read stage directions. No one seems to be available to read my stage directions. (And quite frankly, I'm not sure I blame them. I feel insulting saying, I want you to be in this play....to read the stage directions.) Oh well, I'm sure it will all work itself out in the end...that's the theatre for you!