Keeping Score

With the book and vocal score clutched in my arm, I make the trek to return them to their rightful owners.  On my walk, I remembered the last time I had these items in my arms; the score not yet opened nor marked with my many notes that would soon pepper the pages.  Walking away the first time, I was excited about the upcoming audition and still fighting off the doubt.   I crack the pages last night for the last time, to erase the pencil markings I had put in upon transferring them to my own personal score that I had since acquired.  I see the layers of markings, from the first nervous ones for the first auditions to the excited ones that followed as I prepared the role.   I see the measures and can now hear the music fill my head, seeing the scenes that are now a part of me, giving rise to the experiences that I have had and giving promise to those yet to come.  I erase and rewind time with my pencil and I find that it hurts.  I’ve grown attached to the score and the experience that it entailed.  I love this all too much I say quietly to myself.  So much so that when I place the old score and book on the counter, I look down to fiddle with my library card for far too long, pretending to put it in my wallet when what I am really doing is fighting off a swell.  As I leave the building, surprised by this reaction, I say again that I love it all too much.  But, while crossing the busy street, I decide that this is the story of my life and to love it too much is the only way to live.

Fitness/Rehearsal Challenge revisited

The costume designer wrapped the skirt around my waist, as I feel her tug it tighter than before and re-pin it.  I look at her apologetically, “I’m still going down, it will probably be an inch by Opening Night,” I say.

I’ve made a rather delightful discovery about musical theatre rehearsals that are different from the classical/choral rehearsals that I’d been doing.  I’m up, I’m constantly moving around, and I’m even breaking a sweat.  This, plus keeping up with my normal exercise routine has resulted in losing another couple of pounds.  Some other changes I’ve been able to make to date have been peppering my normal running routine with the 30-Day Shred (I’m doing Level 2 and 3 back to back.  Thank you, Jillian, for handing me my butt twice a week.).  Since beginning the challenge, documented here, along with Maren over on her site, I’ve lost a total of almost 20 pounds.  The challenge was/is a way for us to commit to eating healthy and keeping up an exercise routine in the face of demanding rehearsal schedules.  Singers/performers know how challenging this can be.  Maren has been varying her exercise routines over the last few months to include several different things (keep the body guessing) and is now doing a squat and sit-up challenge that looks sort of scary.  You can follow her tweets about that here.

On another note, Carousel tickets have gone on sale!  The last of the memorization deadlines arrives on Valentines Day and then we are off-book!  Exciting!

Granny pays a visit

Sitting in the living room, I can feel the air changing around me as I turn to look out the window just in time to see the leaves starting to sway and hit the front window.  Distant sounds of thunder roll as the scent fills my nose; slightly acidic, warm, musty and thick with rain.  The front screen door starts tapping as air whips around the framework.  I watch her briskly walk past me to secure the latch.  “It’s coming!” her excited voice announces as she smiles, looking up at the sky.  She looks at me and I at her and the words I was thinking escape her lips.  ”Let’s go out back!” and away we go; through the kitchen, out the screen door, through the garage, out a second door and to the back porch, overlooking a large green yard with two trees, one swaying bravely, the other, indifferent to the approaching onslaught, dead from too many intimate encounters with lightning.  Together we stand and watch the black clouds roll in, the light of day dimming down, turning the midday to dusk.  Tree tops dance as the rain arrives.  I grab hold of her, excited and trying to be brave but a little scared.  Texas summer storms never gently saunter in to meet you.  They boil for what seems like forever and then explode at your doorstep.  As the lightning starts to flash without pause, I hear her say, ”Oh, isn’t it beautiful?”  Sometimes, I would be torn between staying  inside alone with the sound of the loud drops on the roof, like jelly beans being thrown down, or running outside to be at the safety of her side.  On the occasions when I did stay inside for the duration, I would peek at her through the kitchen window and hear her voice over the noise, “Oh, you should see this, Amy – it’s incredible!”  without a hint of worry about anything in the world.  On this day, I ventured out to face it with her, eyes wide open and laughing nervously.

My eyes shoot open and I’m met with the clock.  Just after midnight.  I can still smell it and I tightly close my eyes, trying desperately not to forget.  When my brain decides to conjure up a dream with her in it, I savour it.  I try to sit with it for a minute before I allow anything else to enter in.  I remember how passionate she was and how she taught me her mantra in life.  “Oh, you should see this, Amy – it’s incredible!” And it is.  The best dreams are the ones where I not only hear her but when she looks at me as she did in this one.  I remember this as I whisper “granny,” close my eyes and drift off again.

The malaise of the mainstream musical

I just finished reading  a 2-page article in the New York Times about how Broadway is scaling down their sets, lighting and other makings of the musical “extravaganza” due to budget frugality.  What surprised me  (and what prompted me to pen my rant here) was the fact that no one spoke of how talent, plot, and good musical composition would more than make up for the lack of flashy lights and sets.  How one didn’t need to worry because those things would make up for it.  In fact, those issues weren’t mentioned at all – were not even referenced in the entire article.  Are producers afraid that people won’t come if there aren’t flashy lights and sets?  Are they right?  

It seems to me that the cart is before the horse and that the Catch 22 looms.  Maybe producers feel that musicals are to be created for the sole purpose of mainstream entertainment, thus immediately thrusting them into an incredible budget and competition with mediums such as movies, television or the Playstation.  Should theatre (i.e. musical theatre) be solely produced for mainstream entertainment?  Or, (and this is the scarier scenario), is this what the public comes to expect because it’s what they are given?  Just last year, as I eagerly awaited the curtain to rise on Guys and Dolls, I was dismayed to find people in the audience, (in sweats!) eating candy as if they were in a movie theatre, and texting back and forth for the rest of the production.  I looked down at my evening dress and felt immediately out of sorts.  Broadway has changed and I didn’t get the memo.

I remember, at 15, being more moved by Les Miserable  (where the only special effects [back then] were cool flying flags and a huge wind machine) than by Starlight Express.  I have to believe that people demand more.  I wonder if people walk out of Jerry Springer, the Musical, feeling a little empty and cheated inside or if they throw up in their mouth a little at the thought of Greenday’s American Idiot, the Musical, hitting the Great White Way.  Theatres all over the country, including the ones speckled about Broadway are pulling out the revivals among everything else.  Why?  Hopefully because they know that people WILL go see them for the thrill of the romantic plot and the sweeping orchestration.

Marketing your Milestones

Milestones in my singing journey is my lifeblood.  It’s those wonderful moments when I am, again, alive with confidence and flush with learning.  I’m trying something new this time in that I’m creating a mini-marketing campaign to hopefully help me get my foot snuggly in the door of casting directors.  I just looked at a postcard proof for a mailer I’ll be sending out to said casting directors in the coming weeks.  I’m banking on the fact that they receive a LOT of headshots and resumes so I thought it would be more helpful to first send them a postcard about the performance so that they can A) see that I’m gaining stage experience, which they will tell you that you need, B) what the experience is and C) give them the opportunity to come see what I can do for 2 hours.  In essence, a live resume.  When opening the postcard layout, I will admit that a part of me felt presumptuous.  But if I don’t believe I have something to offer them, why would they respond to me?  Marketing oneself and networking is extremely important to help the career so I’m hoping that this will be a good start!  

In other news, my friend Abigail Wright has launched a very cool blog, Skydiving for Pearls, a brilliant name, in my opinion.  I’ve also added her to the blogroll.  I’m already learning a lot about pros by just going over there and immersing myself in her writing.  You should go over there and immerse yourself too!

Marriage of Figaro, a few years ago

In between discipline

“What is discipline? Why, it’s standing the gaff – standing it, not submitting to it. It’s accepting the facts of life-of your own life, as they happen to be. It isn’t being conquered by them. It’s not making masters of them, but servants to the underlying things you want.” – The Real Adventure, Henry Kitchell Webster

You would think after my many years of going to the gym that I would really understand this (and apply it) to singing as well.  This quote, which I read this morning on the train (and only a few pages in of a very interesting and incredibly romantic novel), really stuck with me and I’ve chewed on it ever since.  With singing (i.e. practicing), I noticed a very troublesome element with me.  When I’m doing a role (like now), I am a whirlwind of practice, preparation and diligence; almost to a fault because I forget to eat, find it hard to sleep (for I’m running scenes and lines in my head) and everything else around me gets put aside.  This is good, of course, as I’m extremely prepared and engrossed.  What is not good is what I do the rest of the time – the time between the excitement of a role, a performance, a gig.  I find it hard to stay focused, to practice as much, etc.  I even tried to (ir)rationalize this by simply stating that I needed to always have great jobs on the horizon so that I would always be practicing.  Good one!  That would be great…..but no.  When I really need to dig in to myself to get motivated, more than ever, is when I am in between.  When I don’t have the promise of a rewarding outcome on the horizon.  It is not lost on me that this, obviously, works, as I needed to do this before the role I’m preparing now because there was nothing in the way of musical theatre on my horizon beyond a landscape of auditions (that is practice too!  I know!).  And that the preparing that I have done might have (shock!) helped to get the role I have now.  Me, who frets more than the frettiest fretter, sometimes (even during this exhilarating time in my life), will peek to a few months beyond, when the role will be on my resumé as “recent experience” (which, is great to finally have!) and wonder what I will do to fill the in between.    Well….I don’t “wonder” as that is my being lazy.  I will, first, realize all that I’ve gained (and have yet to gain) with this experience and realize I’m different from I was so few months ago.  That “recent experience” on a resume is an understatement.  The very fact that I got the role will lead me to more motivation to do what I need to do to repeat the experience and to more validation that if I apply myself, it will pay off, because it has and it will again.

So…THIS is why.

Last night, I had one of those rehearsals that reminded me of why I go to so many auditions and take so much time to update resumes, take classes, send follow-up letters, network, and leaving the opera entirely to pursue a career path with no clear indication if I will succeed. 

If you are familiar with Carousel, than you know about the 8 minute bench scene where, if you add the dialogue without music before that, runs about 10 minutes.  During that time, I am traversing the most exhilarating acting arc ever accompanied by beautiful music that leads us through some amazing dialogue along the way.  I might as well be on the Concord.  Can I bring a character from having just a crush to being in love in a matter of minutes?  I think that I can.

This ”Mach Speed” process is as fun as I remembered it being so many years ago when I first caught the bug.  It reminded me of a scene from Top Gun where Goose says to Maverick, “You know you are only happy when you are going Mach speed with your hair on fire.”  I gathered my things and, walking to my car I whispered, “it is so worth it, it is so worth it, it is so worth it.”

Last scene in Oklahoma! when I first caught the bug.

Let the games begin

I played the final voice memo on my Nano and said the lines to the end of the scene and looked down to realize that it was the last scene. Script in one hand and the Nano in the other, I did the classic arms in the air salute. One of my favorite moments (from what I remember from yesrs ago) in the rehearsal process is when I finally get the lines memorized. For me, lines have to be memorized way in advance so that I can then have time to do rehearsals off book (long before we have to be off book) because there will be a stretch of time where I think I’m off book in my living room like I am tonight but will lose some of that in rehearsal because I am moving and reacting to someone else and, well….acting. I need time to not only memorize but have them down cold.

Then, the real fun begins.

Like learning a new language, the words become more than words and lines become more than lines. Where the script jumps from the page and into your head and under your skin.

I love that part and I want to get there as soon as possible so that the magic begins.

Link love catches some air

I am finally (and officially) a part of Heather Poole’s Laviator Club as of today and I ‘m thrilled!  I posted about submitting my photos after a flight to LA, and was eagerly awaiting Heather’s posting.  You’ll have to scroll down the looong list of laviators to find me, but I’m the only one holding up my headshot.  If you are an aviation geek like I am (and I mean geek in the kindest way, I promise), then you already know what I’m talking about.  If not, head on over to Heather’s website and take a look.  Singers travel frequently.  I am also a closet nervous flyer so I thought this would be an interesting side subject on this website.  Other things aviation include a movie (I’m sure you have heard of it) called Up in the Air , for which I’m eagerly awaiting the iTUNES release, a very cool podcast called, The Crew Lounge, which gives you an inside perspective in flying which, as a passenger, will be enlightening, and, if you are a frequent flyer, a podcast that gives you the inside look on making the most of your miles, upgrades, etc., from the guys that do it best.

Carousel Progress:  Lines Memorization – 60%, Music – 90%, Staging – 10%, Utter Excitement – 100%

Brunch in Pasadena

Jump

I listen to music for many reasons.  I put on the hardcore stuff to get me over the final hump in a 5K run.  I relax to it when I’m feeling stressed out or put it on to motivate me and get me pumped up.  My taste in music is all over the map from classical to R&B, to some rap songs, to musical theatre, to rock and so on, depending on my mood.  There is one song from Madonna that I’ve been playing on the DROID lately for motivation as of late.

I know, I KNOW.  Some people ….well ok… aLOT of people, including my husband, do not like Madonna.  I’m not a huge honkin fan either, not a fan’s fan.  But there ARE some songs that I like – mostly for the composition – less for the lyrics.  The song I’ve been listening to a lot lately is “Jump” (and I don’t mean the awful, jump-the-shark, “Jump” that Van Halen came out with.  Let’s just forget that entire album ever happened, shall we?).

It’s hard to find a song without explicit lyrics or boring composition that has something descent to say.  This is one of them in my opinion.  It’s not completely void of ideas that I don’t hold, but it’s pretty straight forward in the message.  Get off your butt, don’t be scared and just go for it.   I’ve put the words down below.  In this business, (i.e. the singing business), you need motivation from all different angles.  From friends, family, colleagues, and from music itself.  So, if you feel scared about taking a risk for something that you love, pop in this song and give it a whirl.

There’s only so much you can learn in one place.
The more that I wait, the more time that I waste.

I haven’t got much time to waste, it’s time to make my way.
I’m not afraid of what I’ll face, but I’m afraid to stay.
I’m going down my own road and I can make it alone.
I’ll work and I’ll fight till I find a place of my own.

Are you ready to jump, get ready to jump.
Don’t ever look back, oh baby.
Yes, I’m ready to jump, get ready to jump.
Just take my hands, get ready to jump.

Well, learned my lessons from the start, my sisters and me.
The only thing you can depend on is your family.
Life’s going to drop you down like the limbs of a tree.
It sways and it swings and it bends until it makes you see.

Are you ready to jump, get ready to jump.
Don’t ever look back, oh baby.
Yes, I’m ready to jump, get ready to jump.
Just take my hands, get ready to… are you ready?

etc….I can make it alone….

Photo taken by Melissa Summers at www.suburbanbliss.net