all's well

Well a lot has happened in the five months that I have gone missing from the Blogosphere! I shall keep it brief here and start posting regularly with more details...

First off, I was indeed accepted in to Solofest 2010 at the Filling Station. The Bark & the Tree was selected as one of the festival openers on Friday night, along with Linda Rodeck’s Action Improv piece. We had a great house of close to 50 people. Linda’s piece was brilliant. It was a mode of working that I had never seen used as solo performance. It is truly compelling work. All the plays through out the festival were fantastic.

The premier of my solo piece was very well received. I was so involved in the process of getting it finished, rehearsed and produced that it was a bit of a wild ride to the last. The first performance felt emotionally connected and informed, the second show, the following week at the end of the fest, felt like a runaway train. The staging by Eb Lottimer was active and served the piece well and greatly helped the mission of getting the play up and running.

I later performed the play in Taos, to two sold out houses of friends and Art of the Song listeners at the Metta Theatre. Bruce MacIntosh creates a lovely intimate room for performance that is beautifully suited to solo performance work. It was there that the truth of the play began to show its self. After a delicious week of rehearsal, all by myself in this delightful theater, the text became more grounded and home-like.

And it was there that I took the risk of Stillness. Stillness on stage can be terrifying for both the actor and the audience. If the actor is not completely engaged in their thought process during the Stillness, the audience will become unsure, believing ultimately that something is amiss. As a performer, I chose to go for The Stillness because in some instances I simply had to stop, think about where I was, and how I felt about it. I owed it to the play somehow, to take time with the events and give them air. The fearsome thing is that it become too self involved, tipping the balance into a wallow of self reflection.

Feedback relayed that the pace was just right, that the silence allowed the audience to catch up and dig in a little deeper. Whew.

more news... I am shooting a pilot for ABC Family this week, playing Coach Lee, coach of the tennis team in The Lying Game, a new TV series based on a book by Sara Shepard featuring Helen Slater. ;-)

Gusty Winds May Exist

Its amazing to me how easy it is to slip into the feeling that once you are blown off course, you have a long road back. Glory hallelujah. I discovered that isn't true. Getting blown off course is sometimes be an important part of the process. Its taken 18 years to understand and accept that.

I am so excited to say that I have a 28 page script in hand!

The main gift of this process has been to allow myself the freedom to be a creative without the pressure of thinking that I need to be something or somewhere else.

I am ready to begin the rehearsal process. I also need to find a lighting designer, and start picking music. Meeting today with Lynn Miller to start the process of how to stage, and where to apply for performance gigs.

I am now a playwright of sorts. What a great feeling.

victorious

What is it about setting a schedule, getting into a routine and then having a trip come up that creates a disruption in the pattern? Its seems to be more the norm than having an unencumbered schedule.

But I am victorious. Even with a travel day and visiting with my mother, I have gotten three new pages written. I like writing on planes, so I swapped Tuesday for Wednesday and wrote more.

I remembered some images from a stab at a memoir a few years ago. So I have stripped it for parts and am including the more arresting rhythmical language in the solo piece. And tonight I am sending to two friends.

Very tired... but wanted to be sure to get something up here before the week got away.

Being on the east coast feels really good. I love Upstate New York. So glad to be here for a bit.

Resting my eyes now...

One of these things is not like the other...

Our solo work class started on Monday with a great small group of people. So interesting that it all happened organically. Glad to have the input of Lynn Miller and my classmates to support the work.

Today is a really good day. I have been writing from within today. An improvement over obsessing on the externals and the obstacles. A day of focus feeling my way into the script with music and poetry. I found a song that has some particularly poignant lyrics around the loyalty theme called A Nobleman's Wedding and learned it... playing and singing brought me to a very grounded place, as music always will.

There is a line in the song that references "Never come between the bark and the tree." Its such a powerful image. We know that when the bark is separated from the tree, the tree will die. So I have been playing with the idea. That must be how an deported Irish citizen, deported by a foreign government from their own ancestral land must have felt. As if they had been separated from all that protected and supported them. Perhaps that is how Eva felt... that she had separated the bark from the tree when she told Kevin to turn down the plea agreement in favor of 7 years transportation to a penal colony in Van Dieman's Land. I know that neither of them were ever the same again.

When the writing slowed up I started a list of how Eva and I are similar and how we are different. Surprised to find that we are very much the same, and very very different in ways I wouldn't have expected.

Also made some plans for my trip to NYC and have an appointment to visit with Marilynn Scott Murphy, of Professional Artists, the agent I was with when I lived & worked there. It was like yesterday, and I have been gone 10 years. Need to process that a little... okay... a lot.

Feeling really good about the work even though I know I have a long way to go. That's what its about isn't it? Having faith in the project and putting in the hours?

Visualize Good Housekeeping's gold medallion here...

Why is it so difficult to allow time for the creative process? Is it that I am afraid of what I will hear when I get quiet enough to listen to what my inner voice is saying? Is it that I feel guilty taking time away from my company that sorely needs me to show up and figure out ways of making money for it (and consequently me and John...) Or is it that I am truly an unmotivated person with no real ideas about what to write?

All of the above and I think the latter statement is the voice that I am afraid to hear when I get quiet. As my beloved sister says - the fear of being No Talent Scum. When she says that, I want to tackle her and hold my hand over her mouth, or plug my ears and scream "LALALALALA i'm not listen to you"... It feels like an afront to all that is holy in the Law of Attraction. "No," I cry..."you are inviting "No Talent" and certainly "Scum" into this sacred studio space!" I enter into a downward spiral of demands that lead to less and less worthy behaviors, that must be met for my plummeting self-esteem in its dark journey to feel vindicated...See I was right... I really am Not Good. In turn I spend more time in the company of folks that love to dig around in the muck with nothing much good to say. (though today I had lunch with Three Wonderful Women and feel very upheld!)

These episodes are usually triggered by a moment when I am confronted with my own frailty. Today I acknowledge that I am feeling really fragile. In being an artist there is an inherent need for approval yet I must also be capable of spending hours upon hours alone in my studio doing what it is that I have stated I am... Actress & writer. The only approval I need is my own. Yes, I am writing this show. Yes, I do not feel up to the task. Yes, my story is meaningful, even if only for me... yes, yes and yes again.

It is 3:30 pm on Tuesday. My beloved stepson left this morning, and there were calls that I should have not taken and a lunch I could have postponed to a non-Eva day...

So at this late hour in the day, I sit down and at least got this much down. I am available for these next three hours. And unlike my need for a Seal of Approval saying how picture perfect I am, I shall write for a while untamed.

*** updated at 7:00 pm ... Three pages written... feeling pretty darn good about it too...***

seeking perfection in an imperfect art form...

We just finished the second week of our run with The Love Song of J Robert Oppenheimer. Its really cool to feel it maturing and relaxing into a groove. We all know where the changes are, there is no more sense of low grade panic backstage. Its been replaced with a sense of timing and flow.
There's a thing that happens in the theater now ... the air gets a dense feeling to it, as if it has a texture. Every performance is different... carrying with it the emotions and feelings of each cast member.

For that reason, I think its an imperfect art form. Doesn't seem to be possible to "Do It Right." You can say the words in the right order, get on stage at the same time every night, always do the blocking and the physical business that has been planned, but its never the same. Its always evolving, opening and closing, deepening and moving on... That's what makes it so exciting. The dynamic between two performers is always compelling and always a bit different. As much as I want to hit the same notes every night, they are always colored with a slightly different hue, depending on what I have going on... The beauty is, its seems to add depth to the characters.

I have gotten over my fears of total and abject failure. The key was trust. Trusting that I am growing and developing the character, with in the parameters of the directors vision, but growing none the less.

Wondering what is going to happen after closing... no show lined up... probably need a break... do I want one... nope.

Okay a vow is a vow...

Hello and oh my god... June 17 was so long ago. I remember somewhere in the distant past a vow to blog at least once a week... so I renew my pledge and get on with it...

Rehearsals were nothing short of illuminating. I am not the same person I was the last time I did a show. What's different? I am married, 50 years old, a business owner, a producer with a track record. All these things taken separately are enough to cause a lot of change in a person's way of showing up in the world. Combined and thrown into an old art form, all hell breaks loose.

I learned so much about myself and am happy to report that I am really glad to be acting again. There were moments, many of them, when the rehearsal schedule was going awry in an un-airconditioned theater, without the benefit of AEA union pay (my first show having left the union), that I thought I would really rather have spent the summer in the mountains relaxing.

Now that we are open I am so glad to be digging in... I play Katherine Anne Porter between the ages of 40 & 60 when she is in the belly of life so to speak. I also play several other characters from her life and the fictionalized versions of them that she used in her extraordinary short stories.

If you are in ABQ, do come out to see us... here's a link to a mention on the albuqueruqeARTS blog Impromptu

More later... for sure.

Spaghetti western revelations

An odd old voice came up in class last night. At the end of each month we tape our scenes and they get uploaded to The Natural Act website. (I’ll post a link when this month is ready) I was just sitting there, enjoying watching scenes, inspired by my colleagues in class bringing out their best work when I was ambushed by a host of negative messages from some deep, dark, distant place. “You’re not pretty enough for this business and genetically it’s only going to get worse” “who are you kidding? You’re 50!” and the best one “you’re really setting yourself up for a major disappointment.”

Hmmm I say. I had eaten a huge plate of spaghetti and meatballs for lunch because it was really cold and I couldn’t get warm. Sitting there hours later feeling the result of wheat sensitivity, and blood sugars crashing about me, I had the where with all to not respond. I mean these are the voices that had been with me a decade and a half ago, when I was 12 pounds lighter, 15 years younger and seeming light years away from any sense of truth about myself. So, I got up to do my scene with the miraculous Linda Martin feeling old, fat, out of place and more than slightly brain damaged. The amazing thing is, I got up to do my scene. I enjoyed the work and in a matter of time was pretty much swept away by the joy of the moment.

Part of my training as an actor was to get sober. 16 years ago I had to choose between a life of any kind and a downward spiral into a special place reserved for those who are not able to believe in the good things people tell them, or the wonder of the world around them or the potential of amazing transformation that lies with in us all. It still shocks me that all these years later, those voices can still muster the energy to attempt to lay waste to my foundation. But they are old and weak and feeble and no match for my joy... what a relief. I had some protein when I got home and fell asleep with John watching Law & Order. Got up and went for a really good long run... take that demon, voices...

Class tonight, audition tomorrow and a workshop ...

Life is good here in the Albuquerque acting community. There is always a great class to jump into or a workshop. I am really happy about being called back for Mother Road Theater's production of Life During Wartime. Its cool for me as if I recall correctly from the initial audition, the role calls for a lot of sensuality. While not an issue in life, playing the sexy girl or the sensuous one has not been my natural drift. I am usually called for the underdog or the teacher, counselor, lawyer. So this will be really fun. Its something that I have been working on in my classes with Price Hall and Eb Lottimer. Who'd a thought that I would be able to reconnect to all this, and add in the leading lady roles at 50? Certainly not me and I am happy to be releasing old identities and allowing the new possibilities to flourish.

In class last week we had to bring songs. It was amazing to see the vulnerability and courage that non-singers and singers had going on. Jim Corona brought Drift Away and we all were transported. Every person in the class gave their all and I realized, that's why I do this. That's what I love about this craft.