hale pupule

I might overuse this icon, but it is far and away the most appropriate one tonight, because Michael Dorn is fit as fuck. He first walked out on that stage in a well-fitted suit and tie, and my jaw was in my lap. Then later, he walked out in a waistcoat, shirt, and trousers, and I could not take my eyes off him. There were quite a few beautiful men in the cast of As You Like It tonight -- hooray for the Charles vs. Orlando wrestling scene -- but when Dorn was on stage, I had a hard time looking anywhere else.

The play was well acted, though a little hard to follow because a dozen actors filled over twenty roles, but it was a lot of fun. The venue is an outdoor theater in a Japanese garden on the campus of a huge Veterans Administration facility in Los Angeles, and there were no bad seats. ronfaure wisely chose a seat right next to one of the walkways where the actors entered and exited, so we had a lovely view of everything.

It's almost one in the morning, so I'm off to bed. Good night, all.

So we went to see Hanna Friday night. I liked it, though Phil was iffy. I like sheroes and female warriors, so this was right up my alley. (Eric Bana was some mighty nice eye candy, too.)

Phil worked Saturday night, so I went to see Much Ado about Nothing at a little theater in Santa Ana. It was brilliant! ( Read more... )

And then we went to see Revenge: a Love Story this afternoon with Rose and Bill. (We'd seen Rose as Eleanor in The Lion in Winter twice, and Bill -- our Marley in Scrooge and Marley -- was her Henry in one of those TLiW productions.) ( Read more... )

Off to the courthouse for jury duty tomorrow. If you would be so kind, please keep your fingers crossed for me to stay out of courtrooms all day.

Well, I had a lazy morning. The feet ached enough that I couldn't be arsed to go to the supermarket to buy bay leaves, so I did without. The chicken stock won't suffer; by the time I was through, three carrots, one and a half onions, and several stalks of celery gave their lives to the process. This is gonna be the best chicken and dumplings ever.

I finished Through the Looking Glass this morning, too. Alice's stories are insane, but I really liked her adventures. I'll try to write a coherent review tomorrow.

I did make it to Jerad's memorial and found out lots of really fantastic things about him, which makes me even more upset that I didn't have the opportunity to see him perform and that I didn't have the time to get to know him better. It was a lovely get-together, and over fifty people showed up. I expected to see Phil's friends Scott and Mary, but I also saw Bill and Nell, who are from the play reading group. An unexpected delight was Rose, who played Queen Eleanor in The Lion in Winter twice last year, and she even recognized me! She acted with Jerad once, and they were friends for about ten years.

I'd committed to be the stage manager for a couple of abridged Shakespeare plays with Scott directing, but that project has been put on the shelf. Jerad had performed the Shakespeare one-acts with Scott before, and I think Scott's retiring the project indefinitely because Jerad's gone. Scott and Mary saw something else last night that lit a fire under his butt, so we may do something completely different later this year, but for now, I'm free to spend more time at the Mysterium. I e-mailed Marla to let her know, because I really want to learn as much as I can about all the behind-the-scenes stuff of theater as well as performing again. I think she's going to start me in box office, and I'm perfectly happy to donate my time in exchange for an education. That's how apprenticeships work, right?

I was supposed to go to a church thing tonight, but my entire body is in an uproar for a few different reasons, so I'm giving myself the night off. Phil's there, so there goes my chance to see him today; BOO. (He was at work during the memorial.) I'll put Inception in the DVD player and then reread a Sherlock fanfic I read a few weeks ago that was a crossover. It was really very interesting, but I couldn't remember all the rules from the movie, so this will refresh my memory. If you're interested in a Sherlock BBC/Inception one-shot, here's the fic rec:

Title: I Deduce In My Sleep
Fandoms: Sherlock (BBC) and Inception
Characters/Pairing: Sherlock/John (implied), plus Ariadne, Arthur, and Cobb
Rating: PG-13
Summary: John Watson doesn't quite recognize the agitated man in his dream screaming about idiots, but he knows that he's important somehow.

Happy Saturday night and Sunday morning, y'all. ♥

My flat looks awful and smells worse. The poor cats have been doing their business in a box that hasn't been scooped since Friday morning, I don't have a single clean cereal bowl or drinking glass, and the recycle bin is overflowing. It won't keep me from doing another play eventually, but I will plan better next time. I'll have enough vacation time to take Hell Week off, and I'll hire a cleaning service to dust and mop my floors when everything gets intense.

( Sunday. )

Today, my SED meme is what I've already hinted at: I'm gonna start cleaning so I have a nice, clean flat for Mom and me for the holidays. This morning I'll wash at least half the dirty dishes, scoop the Beastie Boys' box, organize the shopping (I only put the refrigerated stuff away Saturday), and take out all the trash and recycling. Also, I'll put a pound of frozen bread dough in the fridge so I can make myself a pizza for tonight's dinner (and a couple more meals). Then I'm off to work, where I will torture my coworkers with chocolate; I bought a big bag of Ghirardelli squares to share with everyone.

Boy, won't you all be happy when this play is over and I shut up about it!

I tested my memory and spent the last five minutes typing out all my lines for all four of my parts (five scenes) that I'll play for the next three performances, just to make sure I've got the words down. No queues, blocking, or gestures; just lines. Then I went to the script and compared it with what I'd typed, and with only a few insignificant exceptions (using "nearly" when the script says "near," for example), I remembered every line I must speak and got them all correct.

I feel better now. I'm still nervous (which is entirely natural) but not as much as I was half an hour ago. It'll be over in five hours no matter what, so it's up to me to determine if I go home happy or in tears. I have everything I need in me: the lines, the blocking, the gestures, voices, facial expressions, songs, and dance moves.

Patrick Stewart used to perform A Christmas Carol as a one-man show, and he did every part from Scrooge to Tiny Tim. I figure all I have to be is a tenth the actor he is to pull off four of the forty-odd parts in Scrooge and Marley.

I can do this! *\o/*

Mom's home for Da Weekend! She's exhausted and in need of serious quiet therapy, but I'm so happy to see her that I haven't shut up since I got home from the chiropractor. Mom read the first 500-ish words of celebrate_sshg fic and said "More, please." So I told here where it was going and what little I know about how I'll get there. She now knows who Mithridates was and one of the things he's famous for.

Sick-ish today. I thought I'd caught cold, so I called in to work, but now I'm feeling better. I think it was a combination of a bunch of factors: windy (and therefore dusty) weather plus dehydration plus poor nutrition over the last two weeks plus insomnia. Took two naps, cleaned the hobbit hole, watched a few Sherlock Holmes episodes with the lovely Jeremy Brett, and spent quality time with the Beastie Boys. I still feel slightly icky, but loads better than I did this morning. A friend scheduled a hafla for tonight, and I was going to go, but ickiness prevented it. I'll go to the next one if it's after the play is over. Mom and I got takeaway and watched Sherlock instead. She admires Benedict Cumberbatch almost as much as I do, but she doesn't get Martin Freeman's appeal. I'll keep working on that, because HELLO!

Phil made me giggle liek woah today. I told him I wasn't feeling well, and he said he'd keep good thoughts/prayers going for me. "On the airwaves. Prayerwaves." He invented a sniglet! I'd been sitting on the sofa during our conversation, but I giggled so much that I was lying down by the end of the phone call. So now when someone asks for good thoughts or prayers for themselves or their loved ones, I shall put them out on the prayerwaves.

Today was the last day off before nine consecutive days at the Mysterium: five days of rehearsal and then the first four performances. I have my lines down pretty well -- now I just need to make sure I have the order of Christmas carols and remember where and when we sing them. We had another dance practice at the studio on Wednesday, and it was such fun! A bunch of us went out for burgers after, like last week, only we had a bigger crowd the second time around. It takes some time for introverted me to warm up to everyone -- and for some of them to warm up to me -- but after four weeks of rehearsals, everyone is friends with everyone. At this time in six days, I'll be on my way home after my first performance! (Hopefully not wanting to slit my wrists.)

Our understudy for Bob Cratchit is from Boston by way of Brooklyn, and he can't do an English accent to save his life. A bunch of us stood behind the set last night giggling because the line "I would like to drink to the health of the man who employs me, and to whom we owe our support, and that man is Ebenezer Scrooge" came out like "I would like to drink to da helf udda man who employs me, anta whom we owe our supoawt, andat man is Ebuhneezuh Scrooge." I really shouldn't laugh, because we're all struggling, but it was funny anyway. We figure his Bob emigrated from New England back to London when he was in his late teens.

Our Ghost of Christmas Future is going to be awesome. He's played by a teenager who's 6'2" and has mad stilt walking skillz. He's going to be eight and a half feet tall! He enters from the back of a audience, climbs the steps to the stage (Marley will spot/help him), does his thing with Scrooge on the stage, and then stalks off stage right. I've told Mom to warn Squirt (six-year-old niece) so she doesn't freak out.

Must go to bed. My alarm is set for eight hours from now because of a 9 AM rehearsal. And then I have to shop for a wig or hairpiece after, because apparently Victorian women didn't have boy-short hair. Need to fit food shopping in there somewhere, and then Dad's taking me and Mom out to dinner.

Found my lost box of tea bags. ♥

Today, it's an unexpected musical rehearsal. Everyone was supposed to get to the theater by ten to go over the final scene, and six of us were there on time. Since it was pointless to go over the blocking for twenty people when only six were there, we crowded into the director's office and went over the Christmas carols we'll sing in the show. We started out with one soprano, one alto (me), one tenor (Phil, who also played the piano), and one bass, and omgosh, we sounded good. I wasn't too sure on all the notes because they were arranged a little differently than the LDS hymnbook I've used since I was a child, but I squinted over Phil's shoulder and did well enough. Others gradually filtered into the office to sing, so we had a decent crowd of singers by the time Marla dismissed us. And an even larger crowd outside listening to us!

So yay for an impromptu singing rehearsal and making music with some really good singers! Phil overheard Marla talking about me and Phil: "Listen to them! They've spent the last year in the audience when we could have had them on stage!" So that's an additional yay for overhearing lovely things said about us.

Thanks for the meme idea, Scoffy; it's been fun.

Mom isn't home yet, but I'm prepping taco ingredients for when she gets here. I'm off again at 5:30 to spend some time with friends this evening, so I don't have much time with her, and then she's off again in the morning to the doctor and then out to the Jimbos'.

Phil and I went to see a play in January called Sarah Was Mine at the Mysterium Theater in Orange. It's a drama about about love, friendship and finding yourself in a pre-AIDS society, and the performances were fantastic on their opening night. Now the actors are headed to New York for the Fresh Fruit Festival next month, so if you want to see a really good play, it'll be at the Cherry Lane Studio Theatre in Greenwich: http://www.freshfruitfestival.com/calendar.htm

And the festival's website is here: http://www.freshfruitfestival.com/

Bring Kleenex.

I'm very excited for Paul, Mary, and Robert and for the chance they have to perform in New York, which was Joe's (the playwright) dream. Sadly, Joe passed away a month after Sarah Was Mine premiered, but the three actors are carrying on his legacy and will give everything they have to these performances. They'll also be performing in Orange County July 9-11, so if you're in Southern California and you want details, please feel free to ask me!

( Picspam from the original production under the cut: )