When you don't blog for a little while, it becomes a habit. Do people really want to hear about what I am doing on a daily basis? From the comments of friends and family complaining about my blog silence, I suppose for some reason they do. So here I am. Blogging.
My life at this time is full. I am working on two different shows. Talking With is a monologue show with North by Northwest Theatre company. There are six of us and we each have our own pieces to memorize and perform. Mine is a bizarre and awesome monologue about a baton twirler who finds religious ecstasy through twirling. I have borrowed batons from Andrea who, of course, took twirling lessons as a tween and my flag twirling skills from marching band are coming into play. Baton twirling and flag twirling are not exactly the same, but they translate enough to make me credible enough for the show. And I am hoping not to look too bad (and exposed) in the twirler costume. Dance tights are my friend. Talking With opens October 9th at the City Theatre in Austin and runs for two weeks. Posted is the publicity shot we took. It is missing Jen Coy who was sick the day of the shoot.
I have also been cast in the Palace Christmas Behemoth, otherwise known as the musical Annie. There are 27 scheduled performances which means that Mary Ellen needed almost three full casts to get them all covered without killing her actors at Christmas-time. So I said what the hell and threw my hat in the ring. If I am ever going to get better at musical auditions I will have to keep doing them. I get so nervous and can't sing my best. I did pretty well this time, though and I will be playing Lily, Rooster's girlfriend (the Bernadette Peters part from the movie). So I will be starting rehearsals for that immediately and anytime I am not needed at Talking With Rehearsals. Annie doesn't open til November 20th, so I have plenty of time after Talking With closes to catch up on the rehearsals I will miss while off doing the other show. I think it will be a fun part. It seems the last few shows I have been cast in have been for character roles. I have to shift my thinking some, because I am used to thinking in terms of the ingenue roles. But it seems my skills as I get older are evolving and I am being challenged to do characters that are quirky; different. I think this can only be a good thing and as I get older can only serve me well. So I am tentatively excited to play the trampy, blowzy, over-the-top Lily St. Regis from Jersey City.
So that is what I am up to. David has good theatre news, too. The list of B. Iden Payne nominations came out last week and David's show, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, was nominated for 4 awards including outstanding cast performance and outstanding production of a musical. In addition, the Austin Circle of Theatres folks asked the cast to perform a number at the awards ceremony! I am so excited for him. I was so proud of his performance in the show last year and I wanted to see it way more that the three times I managed to see. And now he is being recognized for it and it is so well deserved.
Enough for now. If I blog to much my first time back I might make myself sick - having lost my blog tolerance and all that.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Floor project!
The last week and a half has been very full of physical labor. We ripped the carpet out of all but the bedrooms in my house and are installing laminate floors. My house is a complete mess and I have been going to bed totally exhausted, but content. David's parents came this weekend to help get the majority of the floor layed. We had the house mostly prepped when they got here - carpet out, baseboards off, furniture out. We worked in the evenings all week last week to get it done.
And while we had the office empty, we took the opportunity to paint the dirty eggshell walls two shades of vibrant blue, which is getting mixed reviews from the peanut gallery. We like it though. If you are going to make the effort to paint, I say paint big. Andrea came over to help with the painting and Jackson enjoyed helping us paint as well. Though I will say that painting a room bright blue with a four-year-old's help is a lot of work. Especially since we were painting two walls darker blue and two walls lighter blue. Making sure he kept the right color on the right wall was tough. He desperately wanted to mix the colors.
He managed to survive the chaos of the weekend with no furniture by carrying around his little folding chair. Unfortunately, he broke out in ugly hives all over. We think he must be allergic to the cement dust and general yuck that we stirred up by tearing out the carpeting. Benadryl cleared them up mostly but we are keeping an eye on him since the floor isn't quite done and we still have a hallway of cement till the weekend.
The cats wandered around all week wondering what the hell was going on and why we were moving all the furniture they like to sleep on. They were so bewildered and funny. Of course as soon as the first boards in the living room were installed, Sarah cat took up residence on them and stayed there all afternoon as the work progressed.
While David and his parents worked on laying the floor Elaine and I prepped and repainted all the trim baseboards. I had no idea how nasty those things were till we took them off the walls and I got a close look at them. They are going to look so nice with fresh paint and a new floor.
And here are a couple of pics of the floor in the living room and office. They are both still a mess and these pics were taken before we got the baseboards back on. But you can see what a nice job David and his parents did laying the floor. It looks great. I will post finished product pics when we get all finished and the house put back together...in a few weeks...or months...however long it will take to put the chaos to rights.
The last two evenings have been spent putting back baseboards and caulking the gaps and putting some furniture back. We are already so beat from the prep and actual floor laying that we are taking our time and working as we can. We feel pretty productive and proud of how our first major home project is turning out.
And while we had the office empty, we took the opportunity to paint the dirty eggshell walls two shades of vibrant blue, which is getting mixed reviews from the peanut gallery. We like it though. If you are going to make the effort to paint, I say paint big. Andrea came over to help with the painting and Jackson enjoyed helping us paint as well. Though I will say that painting a room bright blue with a four-year-old's help is a lot of work. Especially since we were painting two walls darker blue and two walls lighter blue. Making sure he kept the right color on the right wall was tough. He desperately wanted to mix the colors.
He managed to survive the chaos of the weekend with no furniture by carrying around his little folding chair. Unfortunately, he broke out in ugly hives all over. We think he must be allergic to the cement dust and general yuck that we stirred up by tearing out the carpeting. Benadryl cleared them up mostly but we are keeping an eye on him since the floor isn't quite done and we still have a hallway of cement till the weekend.
The cats wandered around all week wondering what the hell was going on and why we were moving all the furniture they like to sleep on. They were so bewildered and funny. Of course as soon as the first boards in the living room were installed, Sarah cat took up residence on them and stayed there all afternoon as the work progressed.
While David and his parents worked on laying the floor Elaine and I prepped and repainted all the trim baseboards. I had no idea how nasty those things were till we took them off the walls and I got a close look at them. They are going to look so nice with fresh paint and a new floor.
And here are a couple of pics of the floor in the living room and office. They are both still a mess and these pics were taken before we got the baseboards back on. But you can see what a nice job David and his parents did laying the floor. It looks great. I will post finished product pics when we get all finished and the house put back together...in a few weeks...or months...however long it will take to put the chaos to rights.
The last two evenings have been spent putting back baseboards and caulking the gaps and putting some furniture back. We are already so beat from the prep and actual floor laying that we are taking our time and working as we can. We feel pretty productive and proud of how our first major home project is turning out.
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