I am still here.

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.