Magic

"I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?"

   John Lennon

Hodgepodge of Thoughts for a Rainy Day

1. Where are people going, at 1:30pm that makes them zip past me on the highway in such an all-fired hurry? Really, sir in the fancy red car with an iPhone to your ear, where ya goin?

2. One of the most magical sounds is a five year old child backstage after the show. "WOW!" he shouts as he sees the props lying on the table. He points excitedly at an actor "You are Pinocchio's daddy!". His eyes are wide and curious and his head is practically spinning around at all the things he's never seen.

3. "It's practically impossible to look at a penguin and feel angry." I also feel this way about gummy bears. Life would be so simple if we'd just let it be that way.

4. The realization of your expendability is rather sobering.

5. Rascal Flatt's new song "I Won't Let Go"

6. Finding new friends is thrilling.

7. Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Summer 2011. Can't. Wait.

8. Good feeling: Writing run sheets in crayon. BFA-right here, folks.

Really good feeling: Running a show without the run sheet.

9. How can one person possibly miss so many people all at the same time? I feel like I'm going to explode.

      "No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly convinced of each other's worth."

10. What a piece of work is man. How noble in reason. How infinite in faculties. In form and moving how express and admirable.

11. Lately, thing I want most in the world is just a good old fashioned game of Flippy.

Monday

Tomorrow is Monday.
The real world dreads Monday. The end of the weekend. The start of a new, potentially hellacious week of monotonous work.
Conveniently, I live in the fake world where Monday is a blessed reprieve from a job I don't hate. That's right folks:: Equity Day Off.

So for the first time in three weeks, I get a day off! No Pinocchio show or rehearsals to attend, and no Evita to run at night.
Mondays make me feel connected, though. There's something really wonderful about knowing that for a lot of my friends, tomorrow is their weekend too. New York, Chicago, St. Louis--wherever theatre is happening, Monday is (usually) the day of rest. The day to calm down and run all the errands you don't have time to do during the week. Catch up with the friends that despise the crazy schedule you live for.
It's a small thing...but it's a really cool thing to me...so bring it on Monday...I LOVE YOU!

"Shrinks in NYC must be really busy on Monday."
-a Stage Manager

Blank Stage

There's something ridiculously calming about a blank stage before the preset. I think there's something really premitively beautiful in a space without all the glitz and glamour and furniture. One of my favorite things, though I don't do it often, is sitting in a theatre before the show and taking in the stillness.
I enjoy this because I know what will take place here in just a few hours. The dancers will twirl out in their gorgeous dresses and take over the stage. The lead actress will command the attention of every patron and her antagonist will be a fierce presence on the stage. The furniture will engage in a game of tetris behind all the curtains, unbeknownst to the audience, who are enraptured by the latest song, the last monologue. So I sit sometimes, and enjoy the silence.
Then the sounds of the theatre begin. The spot ops arrive, loud and boisterous-just back from dinner and packed full of caffeine and energy. The sound guy arrives and mic packs are clicking and batteries are being tossed and replaced. The bustle begins, and I wish that I could sit here longer and just listen. I hear the other asm grab a broom and start sweeping. The costume racks roll in as the dressers begin their presets. I hear the clicking of the moving lights as the lighting designer begins his channel check. He's laying on the prop bed or rolling around the stage on a scooter, but he's good at what he does, so I give him that much.
Pretty soon the theatre is no longer that silent sanctuary and the stage is no longer blank. The actors start to warm up and the bustle only heightens. The show begins and that' s that. The stage is filled with glamorous lights and costumes and singing and the magic of theatre takes over. It's beautiful and thrilling and exhilarating.
But the blank stage is beautiful in it's own right, too.