Well boys and girls... this afternoon is my last performance of my play and I am sad and happy and satisfied all at the same time. All in all, I've enjoyed my co-stars and the play. The story line was a little hokey (if you would have seen it you would have known what I am talking about) but it's one of those things that we wished that since we had physical access to the playwright we would have liked to have workshopped the play some, working out the script kinks and all, before staging.
On the positive side, I can't remember the last time I got along with all of the other actors in a play I was performing in. Never mind the technicality that there were only 3 total actors in the play and that the other two people were guys (which for some reason I never have a problem getting along with). But it still counts.
Prior to every performance, we run our lines and, without fail, always side track and make jokes and question lines or actions within the piece. We can never get through a line reading without distraction. Well, thank god for distractions and side comments during line readings, cause I would have never been prepared for the disaster that hit me within my first 2 minutes of begin on stage last night. I have a page of dialogue with someone who is a stranger in my house and then a baby is supposed to cry. My next line is in reaction to the baby crying. Well, the baby didn't cry. What was I to do? Should I say, "Oh, we woke the baby," like my line is supposed to be said even though the audience clearly didn't hear a baby cry or do I just walk off stage and jump a whole page of dialogue or do I sound like an idiot and say something that would sound like an unprovoked comment that seems out of character and makes you wonder why I'm still talking to this person. Naturally, I took the idiot route. "Oh, you know that Bob and I have a baby." Even that didn't cue the actor into saying his line and getting us back on track. He just said, "Oh you just go ahead." Oh SHIT! He was supposed to ask about the baby. FUCK! So I said another off-character thing. "We have a beautiful little girl." Then he said, "Son-of-a-gun, boy or girl?" I nearly wet myself with fear-laughter because he knew, and I knew he knew, and he knew that I knew, that he was off. Damn baby screwing up the scene. There were a few other moments in the play that made my director cringe, but for every screw up in the play last night I can confidently say that we all collectively knew as a group exactly what went wrong and did a good job of taking care of each other and making it look natural. The audience had no idea. Suckers.
There's nothing like performing to get you in the mood to do another play. This has been a really great week for acting related things. Kansas expertly helped me with my resume (and when I say help I mean she took one look at my pitiful excuse of a resume and grabbed it out of my hand and reworked it herself. Thanks, babe! It looks great.) and Shanel took pics of me so I could have a temporary headshot. The session with Shanel was an experience because I know NOTHING about photoshots (my last "session" was my high school graduation photos) and I realized how heavy I have gotten in the past 7 years (that's a lie, I've always been aware of how heavy I have gotten, it just made me cry on the inside when I saw it on film that this is how I present my physical self for auditions. Yuck!). But I'm in a good place to start auditioning. Casting directors, here I come!
On an unrelated note, I got my passport in the mail yesterday. Boy, were they fast! I received it less than 2 weeks after I submitted the application. I'm so excited. My first trip with my new form of government issued identification will be in August when I go to Toronto. Yeah, I know it's not the same as going across the Atlantic, but I'm as pleased as punch to be going somewhere that's not within the continental 48. Yay me!
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