I will blog about that soon, but I will just say for now I was in Southern Illinois the entire weekend, or driving there or back.  Monday I had my usual busy day.  I tried to blog yesterday but the allergy pills I took for my headache just zonked me out.  I must say, for a new position with higher pay I certainly don’t feel those newfound funds.  I guess another $500 car bill last month and $300 for an eye doctor visit and contacts will do that.  That in addition to the medical insurance I finally purchased and the property tax bill I am trying to save for.  None of this will keep me away this weekend, or keep me from spending money, mind you!  I have plenty for that.

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So what has been going on?  Well, my boss has been taking some time off because her brother was critically injured in a motorcycle accident (or some sort of motorized scooter I’m told, as if that makes a difference.  Last I heard he was in a coma and they were going to take him off the pain medication to see if that would shock his system enough to wake him up.  Yikes.  In addition, her father was admitted to another hospital shortly after, though I forget why.  So I am covering for her as best I can as far as technical things go.  I was on the phone for awhile this morning trying to get a couple of our people in Florida up and running- this while training someone on the handheld computer who is back with us after leaving some months ago before his training was complete.  Oh, and I just learned today another employee of our company was involved in a motorcycle accident, and her father had a medical problem (a heart attack in his case) happen at the same time as well. 😯

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Now I have learned my brother is extremely upset about some damage to the classic Mustang sitting in our garage.  Apparently someone, probably me I suppose, put a ladder in the wrong place and some boxes just happened to fall on the ladder, causing it to fall on the car.  My brother was ranting on the phone yesterday and today with my mother.  One of the unfair things he brought into play were our Christian values, as if we were purposely trying to cover it up.  Really?  Christian values?  How about not making an idol of worldly possessions to a point where you yell at your mother for over a half-hour in three calls (which she had the grace to not just hang up on) and threaten to “disown us” if we don’t fix it?  My nephew, who is the actual owner of the car mind you, has made an assessment of his own that it can’t be fixed for less than many thousands of dollars due to the tiny dent (I couldn’t even find it) being in a bad spot.  He said he won’t make us pay for it, but I asked him to find out some time how much it really would be.  Lovely, we need our roof reshingled and new windows, but now we might have to pay to have a tiny dent fixed.

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So…  In more positive news, I have made an appointment to audition at our local professional theatre.  My day to go is June 12.  I need to get a new headshot done somewhere (hopefully they don’t cost too much) and I need to write a new résumé.  More importantly, I need to come up with a monologue.  I expect I will sing a selection from my usual song from the Secret Garden, Race you to the Top of the Morning, but I’m not sure about the monologue.  Someone has recommended I do something from Oliver! since I played Fagin a few years ago.  A site, musicaltheatreaudition.com, says I should not use an accent unless specifically asked to and I couldn’t imagine playing Fagin without one, so I don’t know.  I do know that since the song is dramatic the monologue should be comedic.  Many other tips involve knowing what one is actually trying out for, but I am trying out for an entire season, and one show is even listed as “unknown musical.”  The song and the monologue have to total no more than three minutes, so I have my work cut out for me- but at least I have a couple of weeks.  Any recommendations anyone?

Another aspect of the first dramatic lead role kinda snuck up on me in the days leading up to the opening.  It just seems that whenever I set out to do something new theatrically or musically I can feel the hand of my guardian angel on my shoulder.  I even make a point to visit Emily’s graveside at these times.  And I have come to the realization that I KNOW she would be really proud of my accomplishments as I am, she would also be advising me to more.  I still think that her voice was coming through as I told Beth that I “need to be BIGGER” although I know that the director was primarily addressing my fellow female actors.  I was not joking.  But all three kept insisting that I did not need to be bigger than I already was.

To that end, I am  beginning a search for a vocal coach in this area.  Not just ANY vocal coach.  They need to be willing to PUSH me, be as demanding as I am on myself.  I have to be able to trust that they will do that!  Any ideas?  I have been without a vocal coach for almost 3 years.  A mentor I have and I am forever grateful for that.  I just need someone to help develop my theatricality even more.  Who knows to where it will end?  Perhaps to get that first big musical lead in community theatre (my next goal) … maybe even BIGGER… AND THEN… BIGGER THAN THAT! And not because someone told me I should or should not but because I told me.  Sounds  like a challenge issued to myself.  However far it takes me is my decision and as a sage once told me… “The Sky’s the Limit!”  Not that I would hesitate to ask for any help would be great.

Here I am watching Julie and Julia and I decided that I needed to do something to keep me blogging everyday. I am thinking about blogging on the movies that I watch, but if anyone else has any other ideas, I would like to hear them. Maybe if I had multiple things to write about, I would be able to keep up with this. I don’t do a lot of interesting things in my life to write about everyday.

So hopefully I will be able to figure out something. Hope to hear some suggestions soon!

Sometimes I get inspiration from my little posts on facebook. Sometimes I get inspiration for little posts on facebook from my blog. This is a bit of both.

A blog post with the above title was started on the 20th of May. Five days later, I think the original thoughts are finally gelling. All from a facebook post I made yesterday.

I don’t know your pain. I only know my own. I can, however, listen when you need it, advise when you want it, and care for you always, because I call you friend.

There it is. The original idea behind this was that I have a number of friends going through some difficult times right now. I was able to listen to their description of pain and sorrow. I offered a bit of advice when asked. And through it all I think I became a better person.

It takes a lot to try to ignore or temper your own sorrows when dealing with the problems of others. Your problems. sorrows, worries are of the utmost importance to you. Nothing can be bigger or more intense than the situation you are in . These are your feelings and are rightfully justified.

That being said, if a person shares their situation with you, their problems are going to be bigger than yours, at least in their eyes. To be a truly caring individual, you need to look past your problems and listen to what your friend needs to share. There are times when this cannot be done. In those times, you should beg the others indulgence and say you are at best willing to listen, but advice would not be the best from you right now. Good friends will be able to understand this. There is never a good time to be in a war of who has the worse problems.

And through all of this, maybe you will be able to see that other peoples problems can be bigger and even more intense than your own. Then we come to true understanding of the people we share our lives with.

And that leads me to one of my favorite movie quotes. From the movie “Harvey”:

Elwood P. Dowd: Harvey and I sit in the bars… have a drink or two… play the juke box. And soon the faces of all the other people they turn toward mine and they smile. And they’re saying, “We don’t know your name, mister, but you’re a very nice fella.” Harvey and I warm ourselves in all these golden moments. We’ve entered as strangers – soon we have friends. And they come over… and they sit with us… and they drink with us… and they talk to us. They tell about the big terrible things they’ve done and the big wonderful things they’ll do. Their hopes, and their regrets, and their loves, and their hates. All very large, because nobody ever brings anything small into a bar. And then I introduce them to Harvey… and he’s bigger and grander than anything they offer me. And when they leave, they leave impressed. The same people seldom come back; but that’s envy, my dear. There’s a little bit of envy in the best of us.

Yes, I realize you may be getting tired of my Nook posts. But I am discovering new things about it all of the time.

The kind folks that do the programming for the Nook gave it a few updates recently. I don’t really play the games, but I did find the web browser useful in scanning my email. Don’t think I will use it to reply to email, but reading it was fine. That is not what I wanted to write about.

This summer Barnes and Noble is running a free e-book promotion. Go to a B-N store with your Nook or some other electronic gear with the free Nook reader installed, and you can get a free e-book. Since I was picking up my daughter in Fort Wayne, I stopped to get the free e-book. And then I noticed there was a coupon on my Nook. I could go up to the coffee bar and get a free 7-layer bar. Not knowing exactly what it was, I went over to find out. It was a chocolate/coconut desert bar. Very tasty. So in addition to more reading than I will ever be able to finish, I get desert with my nook. Who know what it will be next time I am in.

As far as the free book. I haven’t read it yet, I was still reading the Friday Free Ebook. Someday maybe I will buy an ebook, but not yet. 😉

And of course while visiting a B-N store, you can read ebooks for free. They even tell me that your place is saved for the next time you go in.

And I also heard that more libraries are getting into e-book lending. I think I will have a full summer of reading ahead of me.

…the end of my desire to re-watch the run of the show on dvd.  Here I thought the finale would be so ground-breaking, so explanatory, and so intriguing that it would make me want to re-watch the entire show again, just to see how it looked after it was pulled all together.  But I was wrong.  I don’t want to watch it again, and they didn’t pull it together.  In fact, my feelings couldn’t be further from what I had hoped – I want to forget that I was ever hooked on a show called Lost, and I want to forget that a show called Lost ever existed.

The tv show Lost premiered in 2004.  The premise always seemed intriguing – a group of people survive a plane crash only to be faced with unforeseen mysterious challenges that await them on a mystical island.  I meant to watch it during its inaugural season, but I had a new baby in 2004, and tv was not one of my top priorities.  After Lost’s first season ended, however, the water cooler buzz just became too intriguing for me to resist, so my husband and I began to catch ourselves up on the first season, thinking we could always drop the show if we didn’t like it.  But like millions of others, we were hooked – Lost was great.  WAS.  Somewhere along the line, the show lost (haha) quality and many viewers at the same time – I’m thinking this was around the time of the infamous Hollywood Writers’ Guild strike of 2007-8.  Many tv shows went on an indefinite hiatus at that time, some did not return, and some, like Lost, were never the same.  Lost became famous for throwing out a ton of loose ends, new characters and questions each new episode – without ever offering answers or resolutions.  Many viewers lost (ahem) the ability or desire to follow the show, and Lost lost (cough cough) much of its fan following.  And that’s when Darlton (the collective name of the show’s production / writing team Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof) announced an end date to Lost – all of our many questions and loose ends would be concluded at the end of the 2010 season.  And my husband and I, like many other almost-lost Lost fans decided to  stick around.  After all, we reasoned, we had invested all this time already, why not a few more seasons, especially if we were going to get our answers?  We were anxiously awaiting the finale tonight, but unlike the anticipation of true Lost fans, we were just excited that we could have our Tuesday nights back.  Much of the buzz compared Lost to reading a good book – when you get near the end, you think, what am I going to do when this book is over?  It’s so good!  I can certainly identify with the good book analogy, but I would not apply it to Lost – we were just happy it was ending.  So I guess disappointing isn’t really the word I would use to describe the finale.  I was half-expecting no real answers, considering the original bait and switch, but I couldn’t really believe that they could get away with such a thing.  And I am disappointed that I wasted a whopping four and a half hours (count ’em) on this tonight!

The first 2 hours were a re-cap special, which was less helpful than I thought.  The first half of it was the actors reflecting on the show and giving inside info about filming techniques, etc.  I’m thinking, why would they show this before the final episode airs?  It didn’t make sense to me.  Now I’m thinking it was just another way to grease the wheels of Lost fans to overwhelm their tiny minds and brainwash them into being happy with the craptastic finale.  There were also these “Lost Transmissions” – letters from audience members incorporated into scenes of Lost.  They used footage from old episodes of Lost to make it look like Lost characters are actually reading fans’ letters – for example, a scene with computers had a fan’s letter written on a computer screen and the characters reacting to the “letter”.  It was really stupid, and no, I’m not just upset that my letter wasn’t chosen.  I didn’t care enough to write a letter, just as I don’t care enough to stay up really late, pointing out every one of the clues I found that the cast and crew of Lost KNEW their finale would be incredibly awful and disappointing.

So anyway, then the finale episode itself was TWO and a half hours, and NONE of the questions were answered.  NONE.  All of the “true lovers” were paired up, and that provided enough fluff to keep Lost fans preoccupied and happy with the end, or so the producers hoped.  Not the case in this household.  In fact, if you ask me, in many of the interviews with the actors, you can catch hidden statements that they were not happy with the ending and didn’t think the fans would be satisfied.  In fact, Darleton themselves made a series of disclaimers during the re-cap special.  I’m not going to waste more time on Lost by pointing everything out though.  I stayed up until 11:30 to watch this garbage and another 30 minutes writing this, and that’s long enough.  Goodbye Lost – and GOOD RIDDANCE!

Oh yeah, a quick list of the few of many Lost loose ends they failed to tie up, just off the top of my head there are plenty more:

The temple and the guy who was in charge of it.

Sayid and Claire changing, having something dark inside them.

Drug smuggling with the Mary statues on the small plane that crashed – a man named Echo and his brother appearing to Lost survivors – for example, Hurley in the mental hospital.

The Numbers

Walt

Walt’s Comic Books

Whidmore’s connection to the island

Polar Bears

Miles’ father – Dharma guy on Dharma Initiative training videos

The whole show in general – the ending didn’t make sense to me at all

And I have one last thing to  say – the 10 seconds of the water-skiing squirrel on the news after Lost was more entertaining than the Lost finale.  At least my night was redeemed – thank you, water-skiing squirrel!

*An addendum – it was too late last night for me to write about the extremely entertaining Jimmy Kimmel Lost special, so I’ll just share the alternate Lost endings he had on his show – they are very funny and although meant as jokes, any one of them would have been better than the REAL series finale.  Sigh.

I set out to do something different and challenging.  Judging from many of the surprising comments I received after each performance and how I felt about myself after each performance was exhilarating!  Exhausting, yet exhilarating.  Miracles is such a departure from the scene-stealing, character roles audiences have come to admire(?) about me.  I could have done OKLAHOMA!.  Seussical would have been pure fun.  But nothing could have prepared me for the emotional roller coaster of my first three-person cast, lead actor role.  It was so worth it in every way imaginable.  I really think that the greatest part about it was the shock I gave so many audience members.

The synopsis of the story focuses on the teenage, institutionalized, autistic girl named Eve.  Her teacher, Kate, wants to believe that Eve is a savant and “uses” the technique of facilitated communication in order to “convince” Tom that his daughter is in fact writing a book of poetry, is going to be on national TV, and will be an inspiration to millions.  However, is there more to this than meets the eye?

Of course I’m biased, but I thought Tom was the most demanding character of the three.  A middle aged hippie lawyer who lost his wife to cancer while attempting to raise his autistic daughter… in and out of a thousand specialists who questioned his ability to love and care for his daughter even feeling that he is being blamed personally for her condition. He turns his back on God and does not visit his daughter for two years until he receives a call from the school telling him that there had in fact been a “Miracle.”  A really lost soul….a shell of a man… an emotional wreck.

Gone was the buzz that accompanies the comedic scene-stealing character roles.  But there were bits of humor sprinkled here and there.  (“As the hair on your head recedes, the hairs in your nose start growing faster”).  Battles with the teacher.  Destruction of school equipment… boy did THAT feel good every night… thank goodness for Duct tape 😉  I did take a bit of artistic license by introducing a favorite bit of my childhood into the play.

Once again, I have NO IDEA who said that comedy was hard!  One day, I would like to be cast in another BIG dramatic role.  But for now… I need a good, light, fluffy musical or just a fun comedy full of character roles.

But, as I said this afternoon as I called the real star of the show to the stage at curtain call, Beth found this treasure and put it together.  In January at the annual banquet for the Village Players, I knew I wanted to at least audition for the role.  Hopefully, her passion for the piece showed through our performances which were not exactly sell-outs, but for a show like this… the message and the audience reaction to the message needs to come first.  Another rewarding aspect… each audience had at least one person who had been touched by autism.

Yesterday, we had a double show with a party thrown in between the two.  At the matinee, my mentor who just happens to be one of my two best friends was in the audience.  While most of the people in attendance who know me are rather surprised by what I do on stage in Miracles, Chris had no doubt at all.  He and Lisa are BEYOND what I call the best!  Words cannot describe how much they mean to me.  After the afternoon show, Mary was throwing a cast party.  I had to ask if I could bring my ardent supporters along.  I was really happy when they told me that there had been some cancellations to justj and company’s “sold out” dinner theatre.

While at Mary’s, we all got to meet Beth’s seven year old daughter… and believe me, Jordan let us know how old she is!  She is so full of life, precious, and precocious.  I, along with C & L, marveled at how much alike she and a certain newly turned six year old are!  HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SAMMIE!  LOVE YA, KIDDO!

Last night’s performance had a really appreciative audience as well.  I think it is awesome how many people this show has touched and taught.  All theatre cannot be light and fluff.  But, I think it is time for the return of a fun, fluffy musical.  If not light and fluffy, then a serio-musical.  There ARE a few of those floating around, aren’t there?!

Opening night was GREAT!  The audience was both receptive and appreciative of the drama.  I think the storm only added to the mystique.  We were warned in our pre-show pep talk to project more even with our microphones just in case we could not be heard over the elements.  OH, BOY!  I DO GET TO BE BIGGGER AFTER ALL!  I have to say we have improved 1000% since Monday night.  My family, very dear friends, and past co-stars were in the audience.  “Clarence” was especially enthusiastic in his praise.  So many audience members were really surprised by my very dramatic turn.

Speaking of family members… my brother (who is 4 years older than I) was asked if I was his father.  Knowing the culprit, I was only mildly surprised by the tale.  “Uncle Billy” is just a bit on the eccentric side.  I’ve only been acquainted with him since being in It’s a Wonderful Life way back in December.  Of course, he was a “plant” for You Have the Right to Remain Dead. But, we had a good laugh.

After the show, we had a small after party with lots of good, fattening food.  I did, however bring a fruit bowl.  But man am I BEAT! I’m usually up for a late night cast party but this show… while Miraculous… is draining.

You still have three more chances to catch the Miracles.  Tomorrow (2.30 and 7.30) and Sunday (2.30)  at the Huber in Hicksville, Ohio.

And to think just earlier this week I was kicking and screaming.  No longer.  I am soooo excited about this show!  And I know it is going to come across the stage over four performances!  Why would I ever think that the stage would let me down?  It hasn’t yet.  Have I ever let it down? I know we are going to do it justice for Beth who had been pushing to get this profound work on the stage ever since she read it.  It is especially meaningful to her.  If you want to know why Beth is so passionate about it, you will have to come and see Miracles for yourself this weekend at the Huber Opera House in Hicksville (that’s OHIO, not NY).

Following last night’s final dress rehearsal, our director commented that we all need to be bigger… more dramatic.  WHAT?! I NEED TO BE BIGGER? (Never before have I been told that).  No, no, not you.  I was referring more to the ladies.  As we were hanging around the parking lot, I kept reminding Beth of her  statement.  I WILL BE EVEN BIGGER! My two co-stars, director, and producer all laughed and said… Please, don’t!  (Oh… come on.)

Curtain up! Light the lights!
You got nothing to hit but the heights!
We’ll be swell. We’ll be great.
I can tell. Just you wait.
That lucky star I talk about is due!
Honey, everything’s coming up roses for me and for you!