Fanning my attention across multiple shows this week.
…And loving it.
First: Line learning and monolog running, followed by a Monday audition for “Rita.” Today: Sister’s bookwork and character work on “The Maids.” Wednesday brings us “Rita” revisits for callbacks, with Thursday beginning “Maids” blocking. Friday, I getta take a little R&R as I watch me mates do all the heavy lifting, Opening Night of “Spamalot.”
…Brains focused, one day at a time.
Without wanting to jinks myself, this week is for the Repertory scheduling prep to come, if Santa gets me everything I want for Christmas, gig-wise. Hard to remember I was living this life a year ago, starting shows midst running others, or rehearsing a short gig simultaneous with a long gig…passing the characters off like a baton in a long distance race.
Like the process of birth, I think the actor’s brain protects us after such feats, by wiping the exhaustion and frantic pace of schedules immediately from your mind the moment the next season begins.
…It’s like our “sanity safety net.”
…It’s only when you find yourself back on the chalk line again, multiple shows-deep ahead of you, that the memory of what you are about to (or might be about to) undertake, comes crashing down on you again. In real time. Only you’re there now. On the line. There’s no going back. And you wouldn’t want to, even if there was. You WANT this race…so badly you can already taste the sweat and late hour commutes across multiple counties…the endless mugs of hot tea as you pace trenches into your office floor, running lines at lunch. Multiple voices and accents sharing space in your head…multiple genres playing with your emotions at the same time. Its more than just a neat card trick…it takes a hell of a lot of focus, even when its all you do with your day. Throw 40-hour office work weeks on top of it, and there is a reason I have no friends outside this world, no significant other, or children…or even a pet. (Fish aside.)
…Where others might look at that and see missed opportunity, and squandered time, I see a responsible individual, totally self-aware in the fact that art and spending time with the people who do it, are her life’s real work. And not everyone at the end of an exhausted expanse of days can look back with a grin and say, “Well that was a hell of a week! Can’t wait to do it again…”
….And MEAN it.
~D
