Post-Thanksgiving musings…

We are still enjoying our Thanksgiving leftovers.  I had a turkey, cranberry sauce, stuffing, mayo sandwich for breakfast yesterday, and leftover mashed potatoes and candied yams for dinner…may do the same today. Still not tired of it…haven’t even tasted the pecan pie yet (P says it tastes like pecan custard pie).

No Black Friday shopping in person, although I did place an order online (half of which has already shipped, oh my!).  We are definitely cutting back this year…our present to ourselves was the gas stove we had to buy last week and my new tires from two months ago.

How ugly and bizarre to be glued to the TV over the whole holiday, watching events unfold in Mumbai.  And now they are saying that all that was accomplished by 10 young men?  And how many times did we hear that it was all over, starting that first night?  And WHY did they let people stand so close to the hotels and the Nariman House?

The above brought back the memory of another Thanksgiving, a long, long time ago, when my husband was a reporter in Maine.  We had just finished Thanksgiving dinner and he got called out to cover a police standoff at a house.  Because of the holiday, I went with him and ended up holding the light while he shot pictures.  It ended up being a mentally ill young man who had barricaded himself into his house by covering the doors and windows and wearing an aluminum foil hat so that “they” couldn’t hear his thoughts.  Incredibly sad.  I was told later that no one likes to hold the light for the camera person because it makes a good target for gunfire!

OK, off to get some work done so that I can watch football with a clear conscience…tomorrow I’ll watch NFL as I prep (ick, gross, ick ick) for my “procedure” Monday morning.

So far, so good…

Two shows down, 5 to go…live theater is such an incredibly fluid thing…no two shows are alike, no two mistakes happen in the same way.  It is always a wonderful feeling to get through a show and realize that the audience takes away ONLY what happened on stage that performance.  The lines might not always have been right, but the gist was there.  And it is such an incredible treat to be working with such talented women…makes it all so much fun.

And, shhhhhhhh….don’t tell anyone, but my husband just stopped on the movie of Steel Magnolias on TV and I am watching a bit of it.  How weird to watch it…

Another opening, another show…

Ohmygosh, it is opening night!  The culmination of a couple of months of hard work…performing in front of an audience is so different from rehearsing in an empty room.  This one has been particularly exciting and fun…working with a cast of 6 wonder women, a wonder woman director and a wonder woman stage manager…well, who could ask for more?

But in some ways, opening night is a stomach-knotter, a breath-stealer…first time with an audience, first time with the theater configured for an audience (we rehearse in a space used for lots of different artistic adventures)…first time you have to be quiet backstage, first time people (hopefully) laugh at lines…on and on it goes…once those stage lights come up, you are on the train which doesn’t stop until the stage lights go out again.  Terrifying and incredibly exciting at the same time.  And each performance is a different train ride…no idea what to expect from one ride to the next.

Whatever happens, this has been a wonderful process…I’d love to cap it off with a series of wonderful performances, but getting there has been great.

Advice from you actors out there, please…

Do you have any tricks or habits to help you learn your lines?

Do you have any tips for combatting stage fright?  Mine is actually late onset stage fright, I didn’t experience it until I was in my 40s.

Wow, what a night…

What a night last night.  P was traveling, so I watched returns with just the two kittens.  I watched until after McCain’s concession speech and Obama’s acceptance speech.  One of my favorite moments was when Obama reminded his kids that a new puppy was coming to the White House with them…wonder what kind of dog they will choose?

I thought that McCain’s speech was good…a bit sad, he seemed so tired and deflated.  I thought Obama’s speech was inspiring and it gave me hope.  He looked quite serious and understated, as if he realized the HUGE responsibility last night’s election places on his shoulders.  I think he seems like a really good man with good intentions.  Let’s see how far intentions can take us.  BRING ON THE CHANGE!

I was also mesmerized watching the celebrating crowds last night…so many black faces with smiles and tears and joy…black faces and white faces side by side (I know my use of black and white is simplistic, I mean it as a generalization).

Completely off topic, but spending so much one-on-two time with the kittens last night revealed a really odd habit…Phoebe is absolutely obsessed by my bras…she seeks them out and chews on them and snuggles with them.  I’m trying really hard to break my habit of leaving a pile of clothes on the end of the bed…she will burrow under a whole pile of clothes to get to that bra!!!  What an odd habit.

Let’s hope that we all realize the opportunity presented to us last night and that we come together to make things better.  A president can’t do it alone, he needs all of us to help.