Carousel Video Archives

Updated:  I’m having issues with the video uploading on WordPress.  I’m trying to get this resolved…Sorry!

I’ve been very busy with Piazza rehearsals and haven’t had a chance to update in a while so I thought I would leave you with some video archive footage.  This one was backstage at a Carousel rehearsal.  I’m guessing it was the final dress because we were talking about how exciting tomorrow will be.  Katie Romano and I are discussing our hair extensions which were, besides fake eyelashes, the coolest thing I discovered and never knew about, while doing Carousel.  When Katie and I bought our extensions at the mall during an early rehearsal, we let the ladies at the kiosk put them in for us and we decided to keep them in when we went to dinner.  The stares we got!  Katie was a great dressing room neighbor.  She made me laugh when I was nervous and kept reminding me not to sweat it when I was hard on myself.  She had a lot of great advice to give.  The perfect companion.  I miss her and all of that cast!

“Don’t worry our horse won!”

After an emotional closing of Carousel last night, after heartfelt cards were received and read, after several bouquets were put into vases and finally, this morning, before climbing into the car for the surprisingly therapeutic break set party, I read through my Facebook updates where I came across our director’s status, which was a quote from a note he received from a cast member.

“Dear Paul, The horses were off and running but now the race is over.  Don’t worry our horse won!”

The quote tore through me and left me sobbing in my car and crying hours later if I thought about it.  The finality of the statement of the race being over, the unquestioning confidence of the wonderful experience that it was combined with the wisdom of not needing to worry, got to me.  Carousel, I’m convinced, was significantly outstanding for several reasons.  Anyone involved will tell you that it was a perfect storm of timing, casting and crew that made this production profoundly moving and unforgettable.  Personally, with each experience that Carousel brought me, from the amount of work, emotional investment and discipline, it begin to almost instantly crumble mountains of fear and doubt that had taken me years to build and left me changed in profound ways.

But the fact that Carousel is now in the past and is going to move further and further away from me, and that I may start to forget things about it, fills me with dread and sadness.  I collect and organize my photos, cards and gifts and nurse my flowers on the coffee table so that they last as long as possible.  I type passages from the script that can be used as audition monologue material while the words are fresh in my mind.  I simultaneously wonder if I’ll feel this way about every show that I do while at the same time fearing that I won’t.  I mourn moving on and fear the bonds I’ve created with so many people will slip away. 

But I know that I must look ahead so that I can continue striving to do what I love.  I can never go back to who I was before Carousel and I would never want to.  And now that I’ve had this experience; now that I have vowed to never give up my dreams, I’m left with a fierce obligation to myself and can never again rest.  I’m left with the wonderful knowing that I’m capable of incredible things.  I know the limits that I can push myself on the stage.  I know that I have unbounded energy, drive and discipline when I’m doing something I love.  I know that I can trust my voice and that, when treated with care, can serve me, can move me, and can move others.

I will cry more about this before I am through, but I will welcome the tears with a smile because I no longer live in the land of fear and regret.  I will soon dry those tears and work towards the next great thing because our horse won!  My horse won!

In between times – part II and Link Love

The in between times that I first wrote about here, are going to be upon me after Carousel closes this weekend.  I’m a little scared about what that will mean for me as this is the first time in a while that this has happened (1.  good, because I had something so big, but so big that 2.  it’s going to come crashing in when it’s done).  However, I’m getting ready for this time by setting goals and the scheduling auditions to help keep me productive.  Such is the life of the performer.  We all go through this, I know, but I’m new at it and need to have tools in place.  Imagine my delight while listening to the Everything Acting podcast on the train in that they were interviewing Lynn Chen, an actor who will be corresponding from the west coast for them.  In the interview, she talked about a podcast she used to host called Actors Off  where they talk and interview actors about what they do in between gigs.  I couldn’t believe my luck in finding this site at this time.  Although the podcast isn’t current any longer, you can still listen to the handful of podcasts in there.  One of the realities of performing (which I not only empathized with but also found comforting in a way) is that we ALL go through this.  From me, just getting my feet wet to stars on the red carpet.  No one is immune.  The podcast should glean some great advice about what to do in between gigs to keep me motivated, educated and healthy so that I am ready for the next big thing.  Enjoy!

Erased but not forgotten

Here we are again, like before, only this time with the script.  Since the scripts are not ours to keep, the time has come for us to return them the day before we close.  In doing so, we must erase every marking from the pages. 

I remember first getting the script and posting this picture of my eagerly holding the new, crisp and untouched script in my hands, hardly waiting before cracking it open to dive in.   It was after our first full read-through, three months ago.

Now, as I open it to start the surprisingly emotionally painful process of erasing my notes, it’s easy to lay the book open on any of my scenes without the book closing back up on itself.  The pages are strewn with excited and urgent blocking, focus and acting notes.  I can see where revised notes lay just atop older notes as we found a better way to move through a scene or discovered a breakthrough that we hadn’t seen before.  The pages are curled in and worn from many hours of opening the script to run my lines, twisting it in my nervous and sweaty hands as I ran the songs and ran the blocking on the stage.  The script was first my gateway, then the hand I held, and finally the hand that let me go to bring its words and directions to life.  

As before, time marches in reverse as I slowly take my notes back off of the pages.  The newest notes from tech rehearsal first, older notes from run through second, with initial blocking notes last. 

Slowly I erase, allowing myself to recall those moments, and then wiping the pages clean so that another person, whose dreams have come true in getting cast in a dream role to open the pages and look upon the pages anew.

Halfway

Well – it was half way when I had planned to write this post but more than half way now that I’m sitting down, just a couple of hours before heading off to a matinée performances (after a night performance last night and a cast party following).  My ailment of the week is heavy-duty allergies with a touch of asthma thrown in.  I have learned in these past performances that, no matter what, the show must go on and you have to buckle down and deal with whatever is thrown at you.  People are depending on you.  I’m still going strong on the non-caffeine “singers lent” along the diary and the chocolate, although I ask if I can smell people’s coffee on occasion or get a whif of chocolate that they might be eating.  A couple of nights ago, people in the cast were passing out espresso beans:  I had to leave the area.  

At the halfway point, I’m caught between not being ready for it to end and looking forward to the next awesome thing that I hope will come along (or that I’ll create for myself).  I’ve made friends and created bonds that I didn’t knew were possible.  I’m grateful, joyous and scared all at the same time.  Emotions are high on all fronts but I can take it.  And I do, willingly.

The wall comes full circle

In my mid to late teens, my dreams of singing started to really solidify.  Singing was the only time where I felt completely alive and unfettered by teen angst.  On a high school field trip to the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, my sophomore year, we were taken to see, ironically, Carousel, which was the first musical I saw on the stage.  Although I had many years of choral singing behind me, but before my first ever solo experience, I wasn’t sure what to expect of this new musical experience as I sat with other loud and fidgety teens.  As the lights dimmed and the music began, I remember not moving for the next three plus hours as the plot took me, and my raging hormones, on an incredible journey through romance and tragedy, through dialogue and voice.  I had never seen or heard anything like it.  I remember something shooting off in my brain like a fireworks display.  If someone were to look me in the eyes at that moment, they would have seen my future.  As the house lights came up, I remember quickly swiping my eyes with my hands to hide the tears that had welled there before anyone saw.  Quiet and transfixed, I listened to the cast as they sat on the stage to answer questions of the students in the audience and calculated how long it would possibly take for me to get to that point of being on that stage, any stage.  It was only a year later that I stood in my first curtain call for Guys and Dolls in the lead when my eyes looked as they looked on that day.  They were the eyes of someone who knew everything that they needed to know to live.  

Going out through the lobby after Carousel, my head swimming, I looked up at the headshot wall.  I looked over the polished faces, beautiful smiles and piercing eyes and suddenly wanted to be up there on that wall with a fierceness that surprised me.  It had nothing to do with the perceived stardom of it.  The wall, to me, was a vivid representation of having arrived at my dream’s door.  I didn’t want to get on the hot and sweaty bus for school with fidgety teens who couldn’t possibly understand what had just happened.  I felt suddenly older in this knowledge and saw myself transported through the years.  I said, out loud, with a certainty not born of many teen girls, that I would be on a wall like that one day.   

I’ve played that image in my head many times through the years.  At almost every theatre I’ve ever walked in to, for performances and even more for auditions, I would always stop to look at the wall.  I would smile to myself and secretly imagine myself there among the talented faces.  

Opening night of Carousel three days ago, wracked with nerves, I walked up the stairs tugging my make-up bags, character shoes and a change of clothes and ran into the stage manager putting up the headshot wall.  My first time on one.  I stopped to watch her slide the last headshots into place and the image of the teen girl flooded me.   I laughed at the irony of it.  The incredible irony.   

Finally on the headshot wall

Opening night

I don’t even know where to begin.  I can’t post a long one today because I’m in the middle of getting ready for tonight.  The experience has been just amazing.  Tonight is the culmination of so much for me.  Not just the work that we started on this production back in late November, but in my shifting course in my life in a drastic way 2 years ago when I breathed a large breath and turned in my resignation with the Philadelphia Opera Company.  The only thing I knew was that it was the right decision and that I had to try.  I had no idea where it would lead me or if I could do it.  This night is for right decisions and how, when you just make them, your life is open to new experiences and amazing people.

Time of my life in pictures

Carousel opens a week from tomorrow.  I’m so excited.  People have asked me if I’m nervous about this.  Nervous?  Well, sure, I guess, a little.  Mostly, I’m excited.  I realized that I had waited for this moment in my life for a long time, but it wasn’t until I stopped waiting and started working towards what I wanted, that it came to me.

Why caffeine withdrawal is not a sacrifice

I didn’t realize how much caffeine I was consuming until A) I started getting severe withdrawal symptoms which I wasn’t aware I would have until B) I went to google and read how high my consumption was and the host of symptoms I would enjoy for the next 4 or 5 days. Coffee isn’t bad for you. It’s full of antioxidants and (in moderation) helps brain function. The caffeine, however dehydrates. And one can’t have that when one is singing one of the leads. So, while I suffer for the next week from what feels exactly like a hangover, I’ll remember that it isn’t a sacrifice. A sacrifice is giving up something of greater value for something of lesser value. Being physically uncomfortable is worth it to have hydrated vocal folds and strong performances in March. A sacrifice would, of course, be the opposite practice of deciding to choose the caffeine at the expense of the voice.

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.