Saturday, June 20, 2009

busy is good

Dear, whoever is reading this - most likely to be me. It has been approximately two months since my last entry...wow, this is starting off like some sort of weird confession... segue, GO!
I've been busy! It's been fantastic, post Persephone Youth Tour, I jumped right into rehearsal for Theatre Ecstasis' production of 'Bad Jazz'. For those of you who did not see it, this is where I would put up the 'Spoiler Alert' but since you didn't see it, nuts to you for your lack of support! I kid because I love... mostly...
Never in my wildest imagination did I picture myself on stage being anally rended while singing 'Any Dream Will Do' from 'Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat' in a Scottish dialect - wait for it - ......with my mother in the audience! Talk about supporting your son in his artsy ventures! Needless to say, but I'm going to say it - it was a wild show. It was really great to work with not only Angela and Josh - who have been acting and producing professionally for about a decade, but with Jules and Janessa - who were a year behind me in University. It was a sort of 'I've been there, I'm going there' kind of feeling. Couldn't ask for a nicer group to spend time with. The icing on the cake though, was getting the chance to work with Jim as a director. I had taken two acting classes with him and two directing classes, but had not actually worked on a show with him before. To be able to do that in the professional world was an eye-opening experience. The amount of detail that can be gleaned from a script and translated in to strong choices and character subtleties is vast when someone as experienced and committed as Jim is at the helm is immense. It was like a master class on good acting....or maybe 'Better' acting - that's an in-joke...
After 'Bad Jazz' closed, I had a week off - where I went to the booming metropolis of Swift Current to spend some time with a good friend and to get the Duck out of Fodge for a while. Never did I expect to be waiting in line to pay cover at a dance club in Swift Current... I kept thinking "aren't I better than this?" the answer is no. haha...
Saskatchewan Playwright's Centre' Spring Festival was how I spent my next week. I got to run the sound and lights for all of the staged readings that took place - not my favourite thing to do, but I got to meet some great directors and see some brand new plays test their legs. Most notably, Mansel Robinson's 'Two Rooms". Heart-breaking. Can't wait to see it on stage for real. Also, a play called 'My Rabbi' by Joel Bernbaum was quite good - and I definitely think I will see it again somewhere.
After a two-year absence, I am thrilled to be back at Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan this summer for 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and 'Antony & Cleopatra'. I am in rehearsal right now and am using this blog to distract me from working on my lines - temporarily.
I'm shooting a movie! I've been asked to play a lead role in a Danish-produced film called 'My Baby the Butterfly' with Zentropa Entertainments. It's going to be about 30 minutes long and be entered in film festivals internationally. I'm really excited to start working on it - we will be shooting during off-days from Shakespeare, so it looks like I'm procrastinating to avoid more than one thing right now.
On that vein, I have two auditions coming up for Persephone Theatre - it would be great to nab one of these ones and spend some time on the main stage.
Last Friday I had laser eye surgery. It was exceptionally bizarre to be awake and aware that someone is cutting a flap off of your eye, zapping you with lasers and then putting the flap back on. Weirder still that you can smell the laser burning your eye tissue... too much? It has been one week, and I no longer need glasses or contact lenses to see - though I still feel like I should be taking them out or off before going to bed.
That's all for now.