Monday, February 21

Las Meninas
The rehearsals for Las Meninas are going well. We have blocked the entire show, and run each act separately... and we don't open for another month.

I've been going on as an understudy for all or part of most rehearsals. I'm understudying Acting Professoressa in her two roles as The Queen Mother & The Mother Superior. Because of her teaching schedule, when we rehearse from 11-4 or 12-5, she has to leave at 1:30, and I'm her for the rest of the day. Also, she's been off on recruitment (auditioning students for the incoming class of 2014... oh my!), so I've been playing her roles while she was out of town. At this point, I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say that I've been in her roles more than she has.

On the one hand, that's great: understudies don't generally get this much rehearsal, and I'm further along in learning the lines/blocking than I would be otherwise. But on the other hand, it's tough: because I'm playing my own character AND her two characters, I get confused a lot. I keep missing one entrance as the Mother Superior because I'm already on stage as my own role, a Lady-in-Waiting. (My understudy can't attend most rehearsals because she's in classes). I feel like I'm letting everyone down.

Wifey, Thrill, and Two-Shots-Up all have HUGE roles in this show, and they're rocking them. As the Artistic Director (who is directing this show) said, Las Meninas is the show this season where there are students in the main roles, and the Equity cast is supporting the students. It's neat to see. I'm super proud of them.


Boeing Boeing
The show has been a lot of fun. We only perform it about once a week, which is tough (quite a memory exercise). But I love it when we do perform it. Our audiences have been terrific, and we've been sold out or close to it for every performance we've had, which is awesome.

I have 5 assisted changes during the show, which I am making with the assistance of two lovely ladies named Deborah and Michelle. Deborah is our costume crew, and Michelle is wigs/hair/makeup. All of my changes involves hats/headpieces/wigs getting put on or taken off, so Michelle does that while Deborah helps me with costume pieces/accessories/shoes/props. It's kind of crazy. But the funny thing is, when I tell people who have seen the show that I have 5 assisted changes, they can't think of any of them! A couple of those changes are SUPER FAST, but the stuff happening on stage is so dynamic that the audience doesn't realize that I just changed out of my (incredibly complex) air hostess uniform and into a nightgown in 20 seconds.


Donor Brunch
The 3rd-Years had our annual brunch with donors this past weekend. It was lovely. It's amazing to be in a room with that many people who love and support you.

I mentioned to them that I'm working on moving to London, and I need a way to do it and be legally able to work. If anyone reading this has any suggestions or ideas, please let me know.


Showcase
We have chosen our scenes for our New York Showcase in April, and have started rehearsing them. I'm doing a scene with Two-Shots-Up and a scene with Thrill, both of which are comedic. I'm happy with what I ended up with.


The Thrill of the Chase
We did a free staged reading of a play my boyfriend wrote while he was visiting me from London. We had a great turn-out, especially considering that we did mostly word-of-mouth advertising. The reading was fantastic (and I'm not just saying that because I was in it). People seemed to be really affected by the piece (which is dark and twisted), and I'm STILL getting comments from them about it, and how glad they were that we did it. I'm glad we did it, too. :)


The Love Late Night
The 4th Annual Love Late Night was a huge success. I did a monologue that I wrote myself. D-Train and 1st-Year SB did a scene that my boyfriend wrote. We had a great time.