What brings sunshine to my snowy mornings

I know, I know, I know. It's been a week since the inaugural festivities and I owe everyone some inaugural ball updates. It is my sincere hope that that gets done before I bust this joint and leave on a jet plane this weekend.

In the meantime, however, I wanted to share a little ex parte communication I received this morning in my Facebook inbox that I brought a smile to my tired and worn face. (Ex parte, for those of you who don't watch as much Law & Order as I do, occurs when a lawyer takes a motion to the judge without the presence of the other party.)

The electronic audition notice for Full Monty went out a few days ago to the e-mail listserv to everyone and their mom in Baltimore theatre belongs. Since my name was listed as part of the production staff, I wouldn't have been surprised to get a note or two giving me a heads up that certain people would be coming to the audition. I certainly was not expecting something to light up my life like this did, however.

By the by, all names have been changed to protect the innocent.

Subject: hello my favorite sexagenarian!

OK, so I'm going to audition for THE FULL MONTY, and saw your name as vocal director. That doubles the reasons I want to do it (Three main reasons, in no particular order: 1. to work with you again, 2. to work with [insert name of cool director here] again, 3. My lifelong dream to wear tearaway pants). Will you be at auditions? I gotta figure out what to sing....I always do terribly at... auditions.

Speaking of the audition....will we have to show the goods at the audition? I just want to know how much fluffing I will have to do in preparation. HAHAHAHAHA

I laughed so hard I cried. Just when I think I'm sick of theatre (and theatre people more especially), someone reaches out to me and reminds me that there's this group of people in the world with my exact same constitution and sense of humor.

The hardest my brain has had to work since a MUSC 302 exam

I opened A Chorus Line this past weekend, and I must say that I'm so relieved to have opening night over and done with. It's been an extremely rewarding experience, but it's also been an exhausting one.

I work for a small theatre company, and as a result, everyone on staff wears a lot of hats. For the past two or three weeks especially, there have been a few of us running around like chickens with their heads cut off. And that's doing administrative business. Then comes showtime.

So when I got this gig at the good ol' Bawlmer thee-yater, I had a fair amount of experience as a musician, and a fair amount of experience as a theatre performer, but not really much as a music director. I'd watched people conduct before, but I hadn't really done much of it myself. For the past two years, I've been in a music directing trial-by-fire and have finally started getting kind of relatively decent at it. I've also worked with relatively the same personnel, so we've gotten to know each others' styles, strengths and weaknesses.

I'm not sure if I'm a glutton for punishment or just like a challenge, but apparently I waited until this show to pull out all of the stops. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I decided to conduct from the piano while playing 1st keyboard. Let me explain a little something to you that you might not know about good old Downbeats. My degree is in voice. I'm a singer who happened to take piano lessons for 14 years and then major in voice because I realized that I hated practicing piano for hours on end. My skills fell by the wayside in college, and started to get a little better of the past few years as I've been sitting behind a piano rehearsing theatre and teaching private voice lessons. I'm still by no means anywhere near as good as the pianists I hire.

Imagine just waking up in the morning with mittens on your hands and a raging hangover. That's how I play the piano in my most lucid of moments. Somehow, though, high school jazz band taught me to fake my complete unwillingness to play all of the notes on the page, and I can actually manage to play most of the score well enough to get by. That would be all fine and good if I wasn't CONDUCTING. AT. THE. SAME. TIME. I no haz that kind of hand-eye coordination. So this past week, working with new musicians and trying to land a plane while playing the piano drunk and making last minute fixes to the cast, my brain has completely short circuited.

As a result, I don't want to see words or music in print again until Friday. By then, hopefully the grey matter will have returned to semi normal. This will be all of the exercise my head needs from the atrophy it's experiencing not being in school for five years at least.... seriously.

Guess what happens tonight...

We open!

I wasn't sure it was going to happen. We put a show with original Broadway choreography on stage in 6 weeks on five 3-hour rehearsals a week. Earlier in the week, it was looking really rough earlier in the week, but stuff really came together last night at our final dress rehearsal. And now we are ready to open a show for which i'm extremely proud ot have been an integral part of.

And jjust think... once we get this baby opened, I can return to the world of the blogosphere.

Ahhhh youth....

Troy and I went to opening night of this musical called bare. Before I go any further, I want to make clear that should anyone from the Baltimore theatre community actually stumble upon this, the following words are in no way a critique of the actual production of bare in Baltimore. The following is more my commentary on adolescent life as a result of going to see bare this past Friday.

I remember seeing advertisements for this show in a Playbill years ago when I was in NYC on vacation with my mother. It looked interesting, but managed to open and close in New York before I had sufficient time to become intrigued. Then last summer, my friend Jennie (the same one with the great taste in wine) was playing something from it in the car. Again, it sounded vaguely interesting, but not enough to compel me to find out more. Then some sufficient hype was raised this summer in Baltimore when casting began for this project. Many of my friends and other artists with whom I've worked in the past had been cast, so I went to see it. In case you're not familiar, it's a show about these two boys at a Catholic boarding school who are best friends and lovers. The show follows their closeted relationship in the homophobic microcosm that is Catholic boarding school through their senior year.

What I took away from the show was most simply that teenagers are quite possibly the most annoying people on the face of this planet. Don't get me wrong. I know some very cool teenagers. But the fact that they manage to be remotely cool now is just a testament to the fact that they're going to be beyond incredible human beings when they mature into adulthood. To make a broad and sweeping generalization, however, teenagers are melodramatic, manic, self-involved creatures. They think that the world begins and ends by whatever situation they manage to find themselves in at the moment. And many of these situations, however avoidable should they have chosen to use just a hint of judgement, are nowhere close to the be-all end-all of scenarios that will play out in their lives (for the most part, at least).

Watching this show forced me to remember my own experiences in high school. I remember people dropping catch phrases such as, "These are going to be the best times of our lives!" And even then, I vaguely remember rolling my eyes in adolescent cynicism and thinking that there was no way that my life was going to go completely downhill after high school. What I've learned in the past six years since, however, is that every stage of your life is supposed to be the best time of your life. Your twenties are the best time of your life until you reach your thirties. Your thirties are the best time of your life until your forties, and so on and so forth.

And I'm just thankful that I made it through my teenage years. I don't think that they were nearly as tumultuous as for these poor little boys in bare, but they certainly weren't easy. I'm even more thankful that I'm now surrounded by people who love me and are loveable in return, and that I've learned (for the most part) to stop whining and stand up for myself.

PHEW!

Rant completed.

The downside to having steady employment

I have been in the midst of one of the most laborious, interminable tech weeks ever. It was split up into two weeks instead one seven-day straight run because of space constraints, so it really started around Independence Day and just keeps dragging on. We're using a lot of new technology for this show, and at times, it really felt like things weren't going to come together.

Alas, luckily, everything always comes together. We had a pretty tight dress rehearsal last night. Everything fell into place. I went to the pub last night happy instead of yacking and moaning. And tonight is our last dress, and I'm actually looking forward to going to the theatre (which is the way it's supposed to be, right?!). After this weekend, I'll finally have my life back for a few weeks before we start rehearsals for A Chorus Line. The sad part about working so much, however, is that I miss what everyone else does if it runs concurrently. No one in Baltimore has Monday night shows for people in the industry (that I know of, at least). A few theatres have a random Thursday thrown in to cater to theatre professionals who want to support others. But so many things in Baltimore are going up at the same time, and it looks like I'm going to see very little of anything that runs concurrently to my show.

If you're still looking for things to do in Baltimore for the next few weekends (other than Artscape), please support these people:

* Non Stop Realism by Tim Paggi: a new play and part of the Baltimore Playwrights Festival at the brand-spanking new Strand Theatre Company. Runs July 18 thru August 3: Fri/Sat 8 pm, Sun 2 pm

*Seussical at Liberty Showscase Theatre. Runs July 18 thru August 2: Fri/Sat 8 pm.

*Taming of the Shrew at Baltimore Shakespeare Festival. This plays outside in the Meadow at the Evergreen House. You can picnic out and watch Shakespeare under the stars. Runs July 18 thru August 3: Wed/Thur/Fri/Sat 8 pm, Sun 7 pm.

*Urinetown at Cockpit-in-Court Summer Theatre. Runs July 18 thru August 3: Fri/Sat 8 pm, Sun 3 pm.

*The Who's TOMMY at Winters Lane Productions. Runs July 18 thru August 3: Fri/Sat 8 pm, Sun 3 pm. No shows August 25 or 26.

*in this life: four short plays at Vagabond Players and featuring Troy, my brother from another. Runs July 18 thru August 3: Fri/Sat 8 pm, Sun 7 pm.

And if you're in the D.C.-ish area or want to get away from Baltimore for a few hours, two of my friends are on production staff for shows abroad:

*Seussical at St. Mary's Summerstock. Runs July 18 thru July 27 at multiple times. See the Facebook invite.

*Parade at Wildwood Summer Theatre. Runs July 18 thru August 2: Fri/Sat 7:30 pm, Sun 1:30 pm.

As you can see, there's tons of great theatre I'm going to be missing. I doubt the list is exhaustive, so if I missed something, feel free to share it in the comments. Also, if you're working regularly, do you find time to go and support others. If so, how?

Yes We Can!

One of my co-workers walked into my office with a USPS Priority Mail envelope and a grin on her face this morning. "I'm being nosy. Can you open it now and show me what it is?" At first, I was confused, and then I remembered that I ordered this shirt and a car magnet a week or two ago from the Barack Obama store. I was a little upset because they didn't have a Maryland for Obama shirt in their state shirts inventory. But I particularly like this one. Even my anti-Obama co-workers think it's a cool shirt. They do run a little small, and who knows if they'll shrink in the wash, so they should definitely be purchased a size up.



All in all, however, I'm pleased. If I go to AFRAM (which I still hate calling the African-American Heritage Festival) this weekend, I'll definitely be sporting it. The car magnet goes great with Maddie, my blue Mazda pride and joy, and her brand new Imagine license plate.



Also this weekend, if one mayhaps would like to spend some time inside, these are the last chances to see Nunsense and Love, Sex, and the IRS at Cockpit-in-Court, where I worked last summer.

Live blogging the Tonys

So I'm watching the Tonys telecast live at The Hippodrome. I'm a bad
musical theatre junkie. It's my drug of choice, but I don't follow it
like some
die-hards. All that to say I didn't watch the show last year.

8:01 pm The Lion King has seriously been on Broadway forever.

8:05 pm Whoopi looks like a crab.

8:08 pm Lawrence Fishburn has gotten fat.

8:10 pm Rhondi Reed = Harvey Fierstein according to Troy.

8:11 pm You know we're in Baltimore when Jon Waters gets the first bit
of applause in this place.

8:23 pm Laura Linney's dress is hot.

8:25 pm Why is a Counting Crow at the Tonys presenting?

8:28 pm Passing Strange = black people w/ English accents.

8:41 pm In the words of Jack from Will & Grace: "Shut UP, Patti
Lupone!" And I need for people to stop thinking she's the Second Coming.

8:46 pm Whoopi singing Phantom saved me from jumping off the ledge.

8:56 pm In the Heights acceptance speech is a rap. And he's talking
about Sondheim and people think he's funny. I'm perplexed.

8:58 pm The South Pacific revival looks like the Oklahoma revival. All
of these "classic Broadway" shows should be put in a vault for
sociological purposes... not brought back and produced.

9:14 pm The Grease set is trippy looking. Was Grease is the Word even
in the musical? The performance was marginally interesting-looking.

9:24 Troy is incensed that Boyd Gaines won his 4th Tony... for Herbie.
These acceptance speeches are too long.

9:26 pm I like how the audience at the Tonys just laughed at Ariel
saying "What do you call them? Oh! Feet!" That was funny 18 years ago
when the movie originally came out. They all know the punchline.

9:30 pm Megan Mullaly isn't doing a good job at convincing me to see
Young Frankenstein.

9:37 pm Whoopi has too many rosettes on her blouse.

9:45 pm The director from August: Osage County is crying. I need her
to stop.

10:00 pm I need this boy from In the Heights to stop assaulting my
ears. Apparently it's good.......? He looks like Bud Bundy. And
there's an urban pas de deux happening in the background.

10:12 pm August: Osage county wins for best play. They've won
everything already, so that gets a big fat yawn from me.

10:14 pm Finally got played off for that never-ending speech.

10:16 pm Sondheim got a lifetime achievement award and couldn't bother
to show up. I think it's because he's already dead. He got Mandy
Patinkin to read his speech for him.

10:21 pm Completely non-plussed by Move On from Sunday in the Park.

10:28 pm South Pacific. Again. Really? I'm ready to go home.

10:30 pm Lily Tomlin came stalking out on stage making sexy eyes at
me. That's definitely the best thing that's happened on the screen in
at least an hour.

10:34 pm Xanadu looks super camp. But at least I laughed out loud.

10:43 pm RENT is so washed up. The original Bway cast is so old.

10:47 pm Why. The. Hell. Did. Someone. Let. Liza. Minelli. On. Stage.
Wearing. Nothing. But. A. Tuxedo. Jacket. .........?

10:52 pm Livid that Patti won for best actress, but at least she
thanked her voice teacher. ...then again, not sure I'd tell people I
taught Patti to sing.

10:54 pm God bless Whoopi for being the comic relief for the night...
39 Whoopis on stage dressed in Chorus Line regalia. Best thing EVER.

10:59 pm That rap musical won best musical. That's kind of anti-
climactic. And that rapping man is standing on people's shoulders.

Fighting AIDS Baltimore-theatre-style

The show that I'm currently music directing was selected as one of the few Baltimore groups to perform at a Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS benefit at the Hippodrome this Sunday. The event will tie in with the 62nd Annual Tony Awards, which will be telecast on the big screen at 8 pm.

If you're not doing anything, you should come. It's definitely not a shameless plug for the work I'm doing. Come out to support a wonderful organization and see the Tony Awards with people who take theatre super-seriously. The event is only $15 at the door, and there will be food tasting and a silent auction as well if you want to spend some additional coin.

If my camera stops being a douche, I'll post pictures from the event next week. It's bound to have some "heavy hitters" from Baltimore there.

Good morning, Baltimore!

Ben Pillow over on b, the site just wrote this cool piece on selling Baltimore as an awesome city through the Broadway stage. The Baltimore Area Convention and Visitors Association (better known as BACVA) will apparently be running an ad campaign in the Broadway Playbills for both Hairspray and Cry Baby stating "You've seen the musical, now visit the set." Things like this warm my heart, and cancel out that time that Oprah told the entire world that she'd never invest in Baltimore City schools because they were beyond hope. What a bright ray on an otherwise gloomy morning.

Source: Boosters for Baltimore [b, the site]

"Do you find it hard to type on your iPhone when you're %&$#ed up?!"

I'm obsessed with the blog culture. I read blogs all day at work... and evenings on my phone. I am addicted to the intelligent writing and spot-on witticisms that come from some of my favorite online authors. That being said, I'm a horrible blogger. It's one of my dream grown-up work-from-home jobs, and I'm mock-terrified that my dream will never come to fruition because I'm just so freakin' bad at consistently updating a blog. I'm even more mock-petrified at having nothing to say that is of any interest to anyone other than myself. In real life, however, (some) people at least seem to think I'm interesting and funny. So as many of my other posts have started, I'm going to try to get better at posting when I have something of note to actually say.

So I just started rehearsals for TOMMY a few weeks ago. I've unfortunately been taking way less initiative with the production company in the past few months as I went on a mother-daughter holiday to Italy with my crazy-but-loveable mother, a girlfriend, and her less-crazy-but-still-equally-loveable mother. When I got back, I had to hit the ground running at my day job in a new capacity. There are so many things I could possibly say about my day job, but I'm going to take some advice from a blogger that I look up to and not say anything about my day job that I wouldn't say to my boss' face. That leaves very little that I can say about it here. Long story short, I've felt divested from theatre after my brief hiatus and have placed more priority in maintaining professional contacts and personal relationships than getting any non-profit administrative work done. At our first rehearsal a few weeks back, my theatre boss/adoptive sister told me that we got the rights for one of my all time favorite shows and we'd be doing it in the fall instead of Sweeney Todd (and anyone who knows me knows that I have a hate-hate relationship with Sondheim based on some college experiences in my musical theatre classes). So the compound news that we'd be producing one of my dream shows and NOT (at least immediately) producing one of my least favorite shows has placed me in a dream-like trance for the past few weeks. I feel like I'm cheating. On TOMMY. With A Chorus Line. Show infidelity is really bad. It's like an emotional affair. I'm teaching "Pinball Wizard" and in my head I'm humming "Dance 10. Looks 3."

So at any rate, all of this to say that I went out to Brewers last night with my brother from another mother after my rehearsal. He was auditing the BTA auditions at CenterStage and met me immediately afterwards... with a stack of headshots and resumes in hand. We're awful people. We openly acknowledge it. We pored over these headshots and resumes with reckless abandon... judging... criticizing... laughing a little sometimes. That's the one saving grace that we have personality-wise in theatre-- we're allowed to judge people completely subjectively in theatre because it can all be justified and explained away.

As we finally found (out of a stack inches thick) ONE promising candidate for our fall show, I finally finished the Resurrection (the best microbrew ever if you haven't had one) I'd been nursing and we started preparing to go. I pulled out my phone (we call her Tydaisia) unceremoniously and checked Facebook statuses. It has become a tick of mine. I don't even realize I'm doing it. I'm trying to get better, but I might have to go to rehab. These two slightly inebriated (probably Hopkins) guys were sitting at the table next to us, and one of them leaned over and asked me how I liked my phone. We iPhone users are total elitists, by the way. We wink knowingly at fellow iPhone users when we see them on the street, and judge you if we catch you chatting someone up via a Blackberry or a Treo. I gushed, told him I loved it and couldn't imagine life without it. He then asked the most hilariously dim-witted question: "Isn't it, like, hard for you to type when you're #%&$ed up?"

Me: No, I don't really get that way... but if you haven't had your phone for that long, it takes awhile to get used to.
Guy: Yeah, I've only had it a few weeks, and I'm starting to get the hang of it, but when I get hammered, I can't type.

Then Troy (my friend) volunteered that he has large thumbs and finds it hard to type on said iPhone keyboard. Which, thanks Troy, just egged on drunk Hopkins dude #3 from the left even more.

Guy: Yeah, that's it. I just have huge thumbs.

and after a slight pause... "We'll let you guys get back to your drinks."

So we finished up, packed up the stack of headshots and resumes from the night, and I started to pull on my leather jacket. Because it was approximately -12 degrees outside. On May-effing-19th. And as I pulled on my outer layer, aforementioned drunk Hopkins dude #3 from the left grabbed ahold of my leather-clad elbow and said, "Have a good night." And then to Troy, "You take care of that lady, now."

Dude. It was a Monday night. If there's anyone that needs to be taken care of, it's you. I'll call up my friends Amy Winehouse and Lindsay Lohan... they'll take you to rehab with them for summer vacation.

Killing rodents at Spots

Oy.

It's been far too long since I'm updated this thing. I feel like that's the story of this poor abandoned blog. Hopefully one day I'll do better when life isn't as crazy... when I'm not doing five million things at once and my head isn't about to explode.

So yeah, I think I'll probably go to SPOTS tonight to see Mousetrap. Generally straight plays put me to sleep, but as Troy has said multiple times, the only other place we go and feel like we get our money's worth is SPOTS, and I haven't gone to see a show in a month.

Supporting Local Theatre

I tend to get a little worked up when I compare the amount of live theatre I see in this and surrounding areas with the number of members of the local theatre community who generally come out and see the stuff that I've worked on. I'm resigning myself to calm the hoo-haa down, however, and hopefully lead by example.

Last night, I went to see The Great American Trailer Park Musical at SPOTLIGHTERS. It was by far the hardest I have laughed in a long time. It was a borderline slapstick, very tongue-in-cheek look at a mobile home community in Florida. The production refuses to take itself seriously, which is refreshing in the lofty world of theatre, and I encourage anyone who has the chance over the next few days (it closes on Sunday) to make it out to see it. Buy tickets ahead of time as some houses have been selling out.

Another friend of mine recently opened up Last Five Years at The Vagabond Theatre (known to true Jason Robert Brown obsessives as L5Y for short). I haven't had the chance to see it yet, but don't doubt that it's amazing. Even if the production weren't stellar, however, the story is genuine and hits close to home. Wikipedia it. It will make you laugh, cry, and break your heart all in an hour and fifteen minutes. This runs through Thanksgiving, so you have time... but Jason Robert Brown brings people out of the woodwork (Troy and I drove to New Jersey to see L5Y performed last year) and the house is definitely not large, so purchasing advanced tickets is also recommended.

And if you feel like getting out of Charm City for a night and seeing some AEA actors perform, another friend is the first black woman to ever portray Susan in tick, tick... BOOM! at MetroStage. Also running through Thanksgiving weekend, this show is a must-see if you can. And if you're like me and not raking in the big bucks, Thursday and Sunday night shows are cheaper than Friday and Saturday nights.