NaBloPoMo #21: The weight of the world on the shoulders of little girls

I've got pumpkin bread and muffins in the oven tonight at 1:45 am, but I can't say I've got a blog post in my head. On day 21 of the challenge though, I'm not going to quit, so I'm just going to tell you what I'm thinking about.

When I was a little girl growing up in a small town in Iowa, I dreamed about the things I would do when I was old enough to get away and go to the big city. I have to admit, my dreams were vague, because I didn't even know anybody who had done those things I thought were out there, and what did I know of the world anyway except what I'd seen on TV and in the movies? I just knew there was something better, and I was going to experience it. Which means satisfying that little girl's dreams is more a matter of retrospective thinking than a fulfillment of any actual plan she had other than getting out and going .... somewhere.

This weekend -- and it's only half over -- has been one of those weekends when I can say to that now imaginary little girl, "Hey, I'm doing it. I'm doing those things you dreamed about doing. What do you think of us now?"

Maybe those things I offer her in retrospect aren't exactly what was on her mind. She wanted to go to college -- something that she was actively discouraged from doing -- and now she has a master's degree that isn't really worth much except the pride she takes in it. She was going to have a career, and so far .... well, she didn't really know what it would be like to be a military wife and mother, which is not considered a career, so that dream was deferred. But she knew there was music and theatre and food and people who loved books and music and theatre. And those things ..... we're doing pretty good with those things.

Last night I took Coraline to her first real, full-length play. We saw James and the Giant Peach at the school for the arts where I taught creative writing for a while. She loved it, especially when she got to meet some of the kids who were in the play out in the lobby afterwards. Then we came home, popped some popcorn and watched Monsters Inc. Hey, when I was a little girl we had 3 channels in black and white. Even watching a DVD is kind of cool to Little Reticula. Then this morning we got up and ate chocolate-banana pancakes with Elvira when she came to pick up Coraline.

The actual cast we saw

In the afternoon, I went with 3 girlfriends to see the touring show of Menopause, the Musical. It was hilarious, relevant (to many of us), uplifting, kind of depressing sometimes, but still uplifting -- if you think fucking hot flashes, night sweats, foggy brains, weight gain, and  all that other shit is funny, that is. We did. We laughed out loud for most of the performance, and then a couple of us even got on stage at the end. (Don't worry. We were invited.) Good times.

After the play, 3 of us went to a coffee shop to wait for the nearby Thai restaurant to open. The shop wasn't really open, but the owner let us come in while they were getting ready for a private party there later in the evening, and she made us hot chocolate and coffee.

Once we were seated at our little table on the balcony at the Thai restaurant, we ate coconut milk soup and spring rolls, tangy mango salad, warm, salty edamame, and sauteed vegetables with tofu. Zero heat, thank you. We drank hot sake and tea. We told stories, and laughed some more.

Finally, after a stop off at home to let my dog out and eat a couple of designer cupcakes, 2 of us went on to a local night market where we ate absinthe cotton candy, sampled Haitian chocolate, shared a piece of frozen banana chocolate pie, and visited with various friends who were there either shopping or selling.

In spite of the rain and plunging temperatures, it was a practically perfect day, and now I'm sitting in my kitchen surrounded by the smell of pumpkin bread, drinking a glass of chardonnay and writing my words that some people will even read. I'm a fucking writer, you guys! Little Reticula is thrilled. This! This is what she knew was out there in the world. Theatre, music, great friends, food adventures .... 

And then I started thinking .... I grew up in a poor family (money-wise), in a relatively poor town, in the middle of corn country. I had no reason to believe I'd ever leave there. In fact, I was told I never would, and that I might as well stop acting like I was better than everybody else and find that farm boy I was going to marry, because that was my future. Well, I did marry a farm boy, but he didn't want to stay on the farm any more than I did. So there.

We have so many choices in this country even when it seems like we don't have any. If we can dream, we can choose where to live based on whether the temperature is hot or cold or a mixture; whether the climate is humid or dry; whether the population is dense or sparse, urban or suburban or rural; near the mountains, desert, valleys, oceans, farms, tundra, or rivers; near people of our own ideology -- liberal, conservative, hands-off. In my own family one sister lives in a college town and works as a manager of a plant that makes electronic components, one brother lives in Minneapolis and the other in Alaska, and my youngest sister stayed close to home. That's just my one little family. When you consider that 319 million people live in this country and they all have dreams and aspirations ..... The possibilities are staggering.

What a privilege. What a blessing. I'm ashamed I don't give thanks every day for all that I have. I take it for granted too often.

I can't imagine what it's like to be a child who lives here .... 

.... What does she dream of doing when she grows up? What does she even dream for the next day? The next hour?

I wish I had the one perfect right answer. I don't. I understand why people want to help. I understand why people are scared to help. Don't hate. I live in the gray areas where we're all in this fucking mess together. There are no easy answers in a world that has become so very small, with problems that are so overwhelmingly large.

When I was a little girl dreaming about the big world that was out there, I couldn't have known there was also .... this.

30 Days Hath September ....

I was an extra for one show out of a 3-weekend local production of 45 Seconds from Broadway today. That means I waited in the green room for 2 1/2 hours so I could sit at a table in a pretend restaurant on stage, eat pound cake drizzled with Hershey's syrup, drink tepid tea, pretend to talk with the woman I was sitting with, and ignore the rest of the action on stage. I was fucking brilliant. I'm not sure about the people who had actual lines. I wasn't allowed to look at them, so I didn't listen to them either lest I should inadvertently giggle.

While I waited in the green room, I sat on a couch and talked with the two people I brought with me to do the scene. One is a fellow blogger wannabe. She was inspired to blog after we met at a party, but alas, she's only posted once. Her perfectionism has paralyzed her ability to publish.

So as we sat there we talked about how she has several posts written, but she just can't seem to finish them and post them to her blog. I felt her pain. I have a bunch of those posts .... OK, I haven't actually written them. I've just written copious notes and a rough draft  obsessed about thought about some shit I want to write about someday. Usually when I was in the shower, where I do my best plotting thinking.

As we talked I was feeling so flattered that she'd started a blog just because I have one that I heard these words coming out of my mouth: "Hey, you know what helps me is making a commitment to write every day for a month. Then I don't have any choice about writing because I have readers who will jump up my generous ass if I don't keep my promise. If you'll write every day in September, I will too."

Inside my head a voice was shouting, Shut the fuck up, you large stupid idiot! What the fuck are you committing us to now? You promised we would go to bed earlier and get up earlier. And don't you remember the official NaBloPoMo (National Blog Post Month) is in November. That's, like, only 2 months away. What the fuck were you thinking? You'd better hope she says no .... Do you even fucking remember we're going to Chicago in less than a week? Are you going to spend your time in Chicago writing blog posts? OMMFG! You're such an asshole. If she says yes ... "

She said yes. I'm sure this is what a fellow feels like after he gets drunk and proposes and she says yes and he's aaaaalllll fucking in now because there's no going back from proposals and promises to blog and genital warts.

So I'm going to post something here every day in September. You'll probably see lots of vaginas. No, literally, I'm going to show you vaginas. And maybe a couple of rants on .... well, I'll have wait for those to come to me. I'm over Miley Cyrus, so you can open your eyes. 

Mostly I'll probably write about vaginas, because that seems to be a popular topic.

(I just want to take a parenthetical moment here to thank all of my readers who introduce me to their friends as "Reticula ... she writes about vaginas a lot." Very flattering. I have no idea why I never get laid.)

And dating. I promise to get back to the sordid saga of 10 Dates, 10 Men™. You might want to fasten your seatbelt check your gag reflex at the door double up on your Xanax when you see those posts coming. I've got some screen captures that will cause me you to slide into a deep, Mercury-in-retrograde black hole of depression. And I've got a story about 1 of 10 that I should have told months ago. Let's just say for now that it ends with him discovering I have no soul. Big fucking deal, right? What has your soul ever done for you? At least my vagina smells like rain.

To kick off the month, I'm going to give you a gift. I don't really encourage you to read any of the other bazillion bloggers out there, but I do encourage you to read Sunny Haralson's freshly minted book Beauty Tips for the Bereaved on your Kindle.

That's not really a gift, you say? Bullshit. Until Labor Day at midnight, that book is free. So it is a fucking gift because I told you about it and I said so. (I don't get paid for anything I write here, so this is not an ad.)

Anyway, I'm sure the book will be a crazy ride just like her blog. I've been anticipating it for months now. So read it, because it takes balls and many hours and days and nights to write a fucking book and she did it.

One down. Only 29 to go. What the fuck was I thinking?

Chicago or Bust: The Next Generation

Hit the links to see the first two posts in this series if you're interested: Chicago or Bust: Part 1 and Chicago or Bust: Part 2.

 Sometimes parents pass their shit on to their kids whether they want to or not. For example, Elvira got in trouble at church for rolling her eyes at her Sunday school teachers. When somebody came to complain to me about it, I rolled my eyes and said, "You're kidding me. That's the sword you want to fall on with a teenager?" And Drake has to pick up anything that's not glued or nailed down and fiddle with it just like his dad. (This is a truly annoying habit -- far more heinous than eye-rolling.)

One thing I did not want my kids to inherit from me was this awful performance phobia, and they haven't. Both of them suffered only normal nerves before recitals, plays, festivals, and other performances. If anything, they were strangely confident.

Drake performed in his first play when he was only seven, and he even had a solo. It was Benjamin Britten's opera of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which is an exceptionally challenging piece of literature. On opening night, I was more nervous than he was, even though we'd rehearsed together so much I could have stepped in and sung any of the parts. Even after one of the other fairies threw a big piece of glitter in his eye, he just kept on singing until he was supposed to exit the stage. What a relief! Even if I couldn't get on stage myself (at that time), I could live vicariously through my children.

Later Drake performed in many plays at a local community theater that offered a teen program. I wasn't a stage mom though. I mostly drove him, dropped him off, and picked him up. He was so good at memorizing I rarely even ran lines with him. Obviously he hadn't inherited my phobia.

But something happened one afternoon when he was about 13 or 14 that brought home to me just how easily my stupid phobia could still affect one of my kids.

I drove Drake to an audition that was especially important to him. It was one of the teen/adult plays the theater put on sometimes, and the roles were harder to get. He had prepared his monologue; he was ready and confident. I dropped him off and waited in the parking lot because they were auditioning by appointment.

When he came out he was upset.  He said he'd gone up on the stage and when he was asked to perform his monologue, he couldn't remember the first words. I asked if he'd started where he did remember, and he said he couldn't remember any of it. He stood up there and tried for a while but his mind was blank. He finally told the director he couldn't remember it, and he left without really auditioning.

I pulled out of the parking lot as we were talking and headed home. We'd gone about a mile when he said, "Mom, I remember my monologue now. I want to go back.

I said, "You can't do that. You had your appointment time and it's over."
"I want to try," he said. "I really want to be in this play."
"I'm sure it doesn't work that way. You get a chance to audition and then it's over," I said, because I was such a big fucking expert. I kept driving.
"I don't see how it could hurt to ask the director."
Jeez. This kid was not giving up. I was already thinking about what I needed to fix for dinner. "Drake, give it up. That's not how it works. Other people are signed up for the rest of the appointments. You had your chance. There will be other plays." I was almost to the interstate. I turned up the radio to discourage him from talking about it any more.
"But I want to be in this one. And I know I can do my monologue now. Why not go back?"
"I said no....."

It hit me then. The reason I hadn't turned around and gone back wasn't because it was unreasonable to do so. The director was a guy Drake had worked with several times before. He was a mentor and a friend. The worst he could do would be to say no. We weren't on the interstate yet. Turning around was easy. Even if he did audition, it would take maybe 20 minutes or half an hour to do it.

No, the reason I wasn't turning around was because I hadn't gone back after my audition all those years ago and asked to try again. And I hadn't gone back the next year. Or the next. And nobody had encouraged me to take another run at it, helped me conquer it while the phobia was an weak, helpless infant.

I felt like I'd been kicked in the head. 

I pulled my van into a u-turn and headed back toward the theater. "You're right. It can't hurt to try," I said.

I pulled into the parking lot, let him out, and parked the van again. While I waited I thought about how close I had come to making my fears his problem, how easy it is to feed kids learned helplessness one little dose at a time until it becomes a way of life, and how close I had come to forcing it on Drake. I replayed that audition I'd failed all those years ago when I was about the same age, and how I'd gone home and nobody asked me how it went.

I tried to imagine a different outcome. What if somebody had suggested I go back across the street to the high school and ask for another chance? Or what if somebody had urged me to try out again the next year, and helped me practice for it so I was better prepared? What other things might I have done that I was afraid of if I'd gone back and tried again?

I gave myself a mental kick in the ass for coming so close to repeating my own past.

After about 20 minutes, Drake opened the van door and crawled in. "Did they let you audition?" I asked, hoping for a yes.

"Yep. I remembered my monologue this time. I think I did a good job. We can call tomorrow for the cast list."
"I'm really proud of you," I said. "It took guts to go back and ask for another chance to audition."
He shrugged. "Not really. I just wanted to be in this play. He could have said no, but he didn't."
"No, it did. A lot of people would have given up. I would have given up."
"That's not the way you raised me, Mom." He always thought I was a much better mom than I ever was.

I headed home a second time. For Drake it was over. He'd done his best at the audition, and now he'd wait like he'd done before for other plays. He had replaced his "failure" with the outcome he wanted. I was crazy proud of him.

As for me .... I felt like I'd just avoided landing in a big, steaming pile of stinky parental shit -- the kind you don't want to drag your kid into with you. I couldn't stop thinking about how easy it would have been for Drake to give up, and worse, how easy it would have been for me to force him to give up. All I had to do was turn onto the interstate and keep driving until we were home. That simple.

The next day he called the theater for the cast list and found out he'd been cast in the play. The failed audition was ...... what failed audition?

Chicago or Bust: Part 2

You can read Chicago or Bust: Part 1 here.

My friends were already at the theater when I arrived. At each exit on the highway, I had felt my hands wanting to turn the wheel, pull off, turn around, go home. I sang my song to drown out the monster whispering in my ear: Turn around. I've done it before and I'll do it again. You will fail tonight. You will fucking fail and I will win. 

I just sang the stupid song again and told myself all I needed to do was get through it. I didn't need to get a part. Just getting through it would be enough. Just showing up. That's what I told myself.

At the same time, I believed every word the monster told me .... but I didn't turn around. I didn't take the easy exits that would lead to home and safety. I drove to the theater, pulled into the lot, parked, sat for a while. Finally I turned off my van and walked in.

My friends were waiting. They'd already filled out their paperwork, turned in their résumés. I don't have a résumé, but I filled out the paperwork: name, age, experience, part desired. My hand didn't shake. I was too tense to shake. My friends waited. They knew I was ready to flee. They tried to reassure me.

I handed the clipboard in and joked with the friend who was running the sign-in table -- something about Girl Scouts. I've learned not to let it show, the panic.

Finally we went into the audition room. I felt like the Cowardly Lion being escorted by the scarecrow and the tinman into the hall of the great and powerful Wizard of Oz. Only I didn't feel as brave as the lion.

I've been in that room many times. I've even auditioned in that room several times and had fun doing it. I felt like I'd never been there before.

We sat in the second row; my friends flanked me. A sweet young man from the Doubt workshop turned around, excited to see me again. He said, "I  can't wait to see you audition. You're going to be so great!"

I said, "No! Please, no, I'm not going to be great. I've never done this. I'm just going to try to get through it tonight." Usually flattery feels so good.

He looked shocked and then he laughed, like he thought I was teasing. He said, "But you're so good, so experienced. You've done this a lot. You have to have done this a lot ....."

I think he said more. He was excited, complimentary. All I could hear was the monster laughing and rubbing his hands in glee. It just got better! Someone with high expectations! You're going to fail in front of people who expect you to rock this shit. This is even better than making you fail in front of  haters. God I love my job!

The room was set up with rows of chairs near the entrance, a table perpendicular where the director and choreographer sat, and the accompanist at a piano across from us. A big space was left in the  middle of the room for the auditioners to face the  table.

I looked around and saw a few other people I knew, said hi. Acted like everybody else, I think.

And then the auditions started. I'd never even been to an audition like this one before, so I made sure to watch what the experienced people did up there.

The first guy was a guy I was in Wit with. A terribly talented young man who gave a great audition. And then another singer auditioned ... and another. I realized my song wasn't enough, wasn't right. I should have chosen something that would show acting too. More pressure.

I whispered that I should probably leave now. I said I was way out of my league. My friends said to stay. They said I would be fine. I wanted them to agree, to say I should leave. I wasn't fine. I really did think I was out of my league. That wasn't the monster talking. It was true.

By the time the fifth person auditioned, I had turned around a dozen times, making sure the doorway was clear  in case I decided to walk out. I reminded myself I could just leave. It wouldn't matter to anybody except me, and then I wouldn't fail. Again.

And yet I stayed and watched and clapped and smiled, because I may suck at musical auditions, but I really can act like I'm not having a big, ugly panic attack. It seemed to me that almost everybody who auditioned was really good. A couple of people were obviously weak, but they seemed to know what they were doing in spite of their vocal weaknesses.

Finally the director called my name. I forced myself out of my chair .... forced myself to walk to the center of the room. I said my name even though the director knows me and is even a Facebook friend, because that's what everybody else had done. I said I'd be singing "Cry Me a River." The monster had me by the throat, but I asked the accompanist for a B and told her I'd sing a capella.

I opened my mouth and the words started to come out, but not like I'd practiced. Maybe it was the monster laughing so loudly in my ears, but I couldn't hear myself even though I knew I was singing. Weak. Very weak. I pumped it up, tried to take control, tried to level my breath ... looked at the director and tried to perform the song like I had in front of the mirror at home.

In a fairy tale Ursula would give me back my voice and I would sing like a red-headed mermaid or some shit like that. The director would leap to his feet and say, "Auditions for Mama are over! I've found my mama!" In real life, the monster doesn't have to let go. It can fuck you up and there's no happy ending.

I want to say I beat the monster back and took control, but that would be a lie. I want to write this as something funny that happened last week that I can laugh off now, but I can't. Sorry. I have to be honest.

 It was bad. I was pitchy, weak, unsupported by a single, solid breath. I have no idea what my body was doing. I probably looked like a terrified 10-year-old who's been forced to sing in front of the parents at the school Christmas program.

The director was taking notes while I sang. I was pretty sure he was writing "Never let this woman audition for me again. This is painful. Oh my poor ears. Please make her shut the fuck up." I would never talk to another person the way I talk to myself.

The only positive thing that happened was that I got through it. I sang the fucking song to the end. It was the wrong song for that audition, and I sucked, but I got through it.

This time it wasn't enough to get through it. I walked back to my seat in a bitter fog of shame. I wanted to walk straight out the door, but I'd gotten that far and I'm not a bad sport. I sat down and just tried to breath. I didn't want to look at anybody and see the disappointment I was feeling reflected on their faces, the expectations shattered. So I clapped and smiled for the other brave people who auditioned like it didn't matter.

Finally it was over and we took a short break. I talked and laughed with friends who were there either to audition or just to watch. Ran to the bathroom. Tried to act like I hadn't just stepped on my weenie in front of 30 people.

And then came the dancing. Did I say I was out of my league? I was so out of my fucking league! Fortunately I wasn't the only one.

The choreographer did just what I expected. She taught us a dance and then expected us to perform it up to speed with music from the play. A reasonable expectation.

She was good. She broke it down by beats of 4, then 8. Then she put it together with the previous 8 beats until we had a short routine. A fun, Fosse-like routine that I wish I could do just for fun.

We went over and over it. I could only sort of do the steps even at slow speed. My brain knew what I should be doing; my body didn't respond though. It was like I was telling my feet to cross over, heel out, sink down .... I was watching Annette do it in front of me ..... and yet my feet took seconds to respond so I was thinking about the next step before my feet had done the last one .... and I kept running into my friend who was on my left because she really was dancing.

I apologized to her a couple of days later. She blew it off. I insisted. I said if that had been anybody but me, we both would have been complaining over a game of pool about what a fucking clumsy ass bitch I was and wondering why the fuck I thought I belonged at those auditions in the first place .... It's true.

I felt like the donkey in donkey basketball.

In all, the dance probably took 20 seconds at full speed. It was the hardest workout I've done in years. It was like riding 30 miles on my bike in the space of 20 minutes.

I can dance, but I'm not a dancer. Yes, I've danced on stage, but this was some kind of Fosse shit -- that shit that looks so easy until you try to do it? It was that kind of dancing.

I had every opportunity to learn that dance. She taught it to us in the big group as we collided and laughed and sweated and grunted. She broke the big group into 2 groups and taught it to us again while the other half rested. Then she called us up in groups of 5, went over it a couple more times, and then sat to watch us do it alone for her.

Did I say this shit was exhausting? People decades younger than me were holding their knees and crying. OK, maybe not crying. But they wanted to; I could tell. They'd already sweat their tears out.

Annette danced with every group, every time, except the 5 or 6 times she sat to watch.  She worked harder than any of us and I'm not sure she was even sweating. I'd chalk it up to youth, but I think she's about my age.

Anyway, I got through the dance audition and felt pretty proud satisfied that I learned as much of it as I did, in spite of looking like a donkey. It was hard. Anybody who watched from the sidelines and judged should have gotten their asses out there and tried it. (Get it? Donkeys? Asses? Nevermind.)

Some of the younger girls really did get it, and by the time they auditioned in their small groups, they looked so graceful and confident doing that bitch of a dance, I wanted to cheer for them. 

Am I starting to sound lighthearted about the audition? The dancing helped take my mind off the earlier disaster for a while. Learning the choreography was grueling and took total concentration. The hard workout burned off some of the adrenaline. I felt like an idiot, but I wasn't alone out there stomping and stumbling through the routine.

Finally it was over. I wanted to go home and crawl into bed wrapped in my failure. I didn't. I went with my friends across the street to a smoky little dive that has a couple of pool tables. We drank and played pool, laughed and got a little rowdy for a couple of hours.

Written on a bar napkin that night.

Finally I went home to face the monster's ridicule. Yeah. It was almost as bad as the fucking audition.

Nobody bullies me like I do -- though some try.

The next morning a friend who is one of the most -- maybe the most -- respected directors in community theater here texted to ask how the audition went. I wanted to tell him I kicked ass, but all I said was that I got through it. The next day he texted to see if I'd been called back. I said I didn't expect to and no, I wasn't called back. He said at least it was a good experience. I said I was trying to believe that. I was so glad he hadn't seen it.

As far as I was concerned the monster won. Again. Maybe not such a resounding defeat as when I was 14, but I didn't even do well enough to call it a draw.

Sometimes when I face this phobia down, I feel successful, invigorated, ready to go back for more; I know I've landed a heavy blow. Other times, even getting through is still a failure. I know next time it will be just as bad. Sometimes -- like the Chicago audition -- success is as imperceptible to me as it is to others.

So why do it? Why go through it? I don't fucking know. I'm not Liza and I'm not Barbra and I'm not Meryl. It doesn't take much for me to get in over my head -- which I do regularly. And it's not like I'm saving lives. I'm not repairing cleft palates, or rescuing children from burning buildings, or designing the next Google.

Nothing in the world would change if I took a permanent seat in the audience.

I can't explain it. I just keep battering away at that fucking phobia.

The reason I didn't write this last week right after the audition is simply because I was depressed. I couldn't sleep; I was teary. I kept replaying the audition over and over and over, and feeling the same shame and humiliation. I gave up. Oh, I was pitiful, I was.

If you had asked me last week, I would have said I was done with theater. I would have said I'd never audition again -- not even a cold reading, which I love. And I would have meant it. I'm sick of being a fucking failure.

I ask the question again: Why do I that to myself? Why set myself up to fail again ... and again. I don't have to put myself in a position to be a loser. Plenty of people didn't have the nerve to stand up there and audition that night. People came just to watch. I don't have to be one of the few who gets up there and takes the risk. Why would I, when I know I'm just going to humiliate myself? I'm not a masochist. Why would I do that?

I don't like being in the phobia funk and I wanted out of it. I went over to Elvira's and played with Coraline. Baby smiles heal like nothing else. I went out with various friends, although I didn't take the mic at karaoke. Chicken Grrl and I booked a couple of paying gigs over the weekend. I kissed a cowboy. Plays end, but life goes on.

This week I went to a rehearsal for a reading and discussion of The Laramie Project a group of us are doing Friday. Yeah, I know. I said no more theater for me .... but I'd already made a commitment. I mean .... I couldn't let down my friends, right?

And I started thinking about what went wrong at that audition. What I didn't know going in that led to my failure. What I could have done different, better. Not that I'd ever do it again, of course. I'm finished with theater .... well, maybe not all theater. Maybe just musical theater. But what if I'd sung a different song ....chosen a lower key .... asked someone with more experience to coach me .....

Damn it.

to be continued .... 

Chicago or Bust: Part 1

When I don't write here for a week or more, it's usually because I'm avoiding the next post I want need to write. I've been avoiding this one since Monday night when I auditioned for Chicago at a local community theater.

I've been avoiding it because I would like to write here only about my successes. I want to shine a light on my wonderfulness and self worship at the feet of my own grandiosity ..... or something like that. So let me try it out, just for a second. I auditioned for Chicago and I kicked ass, baby. I sang like Barbra and danced like Liza. The director cast me in every fucking part and now it's a one-woman show all about me. I mean all that jazz is all about ME.

Yeah. It's too late to start lying here now. The real story ..... 

I decided to go to the audition for a four reasons:

1. Peer pressure: several friends wanted me to go and audition with them.

2. The director: I thought the director would be looking for younger actors, so I didn't even expect to get a part, but I would love to work with him sometime.

3. The choreographer: a couple of people who had worked with the choreographer, Annette, said it would be worth doing the audition just to get a chance to do that much of her choreography. I've seen plays she's choreographed and she's impressive. I'm still a newbie to the theatre world, but even I can tell she's earned her rep.

4. Performance phobia: I've sung on stage many times, a couple for theatre. I've worked through it until I'm pretty comfortable up there. But the singing audition .... my heart is starting to race just writing about it .... the singing audition is the tyrannosaurus rex .... the King Kong .... the monster under the fucking bed of this phobia. Just the thought of doing it makes my stomach clench, my throat close, my brain search frantically for a place to run, to hide. I've been battling the monster for years, and the only way to beat it is to do the thing that feeds it. To try to go back and remake history .... not that I can. This is one of the last things that can fully awaken the monster now, because the singing/dancing audition ... that is where it all began.

I was fourteen, about to enter my freshman year of high school, and the one thing I wanted to do in high school more than anything else -- even basketball, even dating! -- was swing choir. I wanted to sing and dance and compete and OMG it was the coolest thing I could imagine being in swing choir. I just had to get past the auditions. Easy peasy.

Toward the end of summer the high school music teacher held a couple of practice sessions to teach us the music and choreography for the two songs we would sing in front of a panel of judges: several choir directors from other schools and our music teacher. I went to the rehearsals, learned the songs from the older girls who were already in swing choir (girls I'd admired from afar), practiced at home in front of my mirror. I loved the songs and I loved the dances and I felt so cool doing them. I was ready. I was going to be in swing choir!

On that hot Sunday afternoon in late August I put on my best dress and walked across the street to the high school, certain I had both the songs and the dancing nailed

I found the choir room and waited in a dark hallway with the other kids who were auditioning. I don't remember much about that. I'd never been in that part of the school before. We didn't watch each other audition, just waited for our turns to go in when we were called. Finally I was told to go in.

Each audition had 4 participants: SATB. I was an alto then (because I could read music), so I danced with a bass, a guy who had graduated already, but was in swing choir when he was in high school. The intimidation started. This guy would never even have talked to me and here he was waiting to dance with me in this audition. A senior soprano danced with some other younger boy. I don't remember who. I wish I didn't remember any of it.

The judges sat on the choir risers with clipboards on their laps. The accompanist started playing ..... the dancing started .... and it was nothing like what we'd practiced. I mean, the steps were the same, but it was much faster, much snappier .... it was terrifying. I felt like I was being dragged behind a car. I think I did the dancing though -- not well, but I did it. I think.

What I didn't do was sing. My mouth shaped the words, but nothing came out. Not during the first song. Not during the second song. Not one fucking note came out of my mouth. I kept trying to force air through my throat, but it felt like it was closed. Not even a squeak came out. My partner sang and danced like he was a Solid Gold dancer. I ..... I just failed.

I don't even want to describe how humiliated I was when I left. I went home. Nobody asked me how it went and I didn't say anything. I'm not sure I ever told anybody until I was an adult, years later. I never tried out for swing choir again. I was never in the annual school play, because they were all musicals. I hid in the alto section of the choir and even dropped that when I was a senior.

And that is how a phobia is born.

I've already written about how I've forced myself to come back from that day, so I'll fast forward to Monday night. I almost chickened out about 450 times. By Saturday I was telling people I probably wasn't going to audition after all. My friends encouraged me to just go. They said I'd be fine. They said I could do it. They couldn't feel the cold, paralyzing terror I was carrying in my stomach, in my ears, in my throat. They couldn't hear the voice that said I could do it, but only in the shower, only where nobody could hear. They couldn't hear the voice of the monster that said it was just waiting to send me back to high school to learn my lesson again.

But I practiced a couple of songs anyway. Ones I've known for years. I practiced even though I was pretty sure I wasn't going to go. Even though I was sure I would get up there and .... you know. But I practiced. I've been at this a lot of years. I could either face the monster down .... again .... or retreat. I wasn't sure I could do it this time.

The day before the audition, in an act of what seems like extreme hypocrisy, I listened to new friend who had never auditioned for a play before sing her song, and I even gave her a few pointers. I confessed that I was very nervous and had never done this kind of audition before. She's seen me perform in other venues though; I don't think she believed how serious I was.

I didn't tell her I was already going into it with a big, fat L on my forehead. I knew though. I knew and the fucking monster knew.

To be continued.....

Is that Cookie Monster under my skirt?

Yesterday we danced and sang through our last performance of Scrooge! And now comes the inevitable post-play letdown. I'm going to miss the sweet hugs from the little girls in the cast, the crazy girl talk in the dressing room, the many cookie innuendos--both intended and not*--the outings after rehearsals and performances.** I could have done one more weekend of shows before I got tired of it, but that would have meant a matinee on Christmas day. Even Scrooge wouldn't approve of that.

It's such a privilege to perform in a play. Again I'm grateful for the new friends I made and for the friendships that deepened over the weeks. Again, I've come away with my heart full of cookies love for this amazing community that has taken me in over the past year. Oh, I sound so smoochy and mushy and moist, don't I? Bah! Humbug! I need to write about something that will lighten my heart. I need to......I know! I'll share a little behind the scenes secret, with photos .... of my ass.

Theater is all about magic. It's smoke and mirrors and tape and paint and screws. Sets are made out of paper or plywood and painted to look like real buildings and walls. Props may not be what they appear to be. For "Master Harold" ... and the boys, Harold had to throw a brandy bottle and break it. Of course the theater board wouldn't let him throw a real bottle, and stage bottles made of sugar "glass" are expensive, so we used a plastic bottle painted brown and a crash bucket (a lidded 5-gallon bucket half full of broken glass). The actor was supposed to throw the bottle through a doorway that led offstage. Somebody was supposed to catch the bottle while I made a glass-breaking sound with the crash bucket. It took several nights of experimentation to get it right. The first night the cork popped out and brown paint sprayed all over the floor and me. The next night, one of our fixes included white glue in the bottle, and the same thing happened only with glue. The night after that, I got a mouthful of kitty litter, white glue and brown paint when the bottle exploded in my face. The final night, the bottle simply dropped to the floor and imploded, like a giant hand had crushed it. But every night the audience heard that bottle break after the actor threw it into a wall.

It's a lot of illusion. The blood isn't real, nor is the booze in our cups. Sometimes our costumes are taped or pinned on; some we buy at Goodwill or a Halloween store or drag out of a grandmother's attic. We wear wigs and makeup to change our age or to make us look sick or crazy or dead.  And some of us are wearing things under our costumes nobody in the audience would ever imagine. Fortunately for you, my dear readers, I snapped off a few photos backstage of people's crotches to show you what you're missing when you're sitting in front of the stage.

Here's what Scrooge wore under his nightgown--and under his business suit in the first few acts of the play. Marley seems to like what he sees.

I promised I wouldn't show his face, but he didn't trust me. Or he just likes to pull his gown up over his head. I'm not sure.

One of the problems actors, especially women, struggle with is finding a secure place to put the battery packs for their mics. I didn't have to worry about a mic for this show, because I'm a loudmouth redhead used to talking to the back of a big room full of college students. And I was singing soprano with two other women. When we hit the long, high B flat at the end of the curtain call, dogs from the outlying suburbs showed up howling at the door of the theater and had to be beaten off with sticks. I definitely didn't need a mic. But most of the other women did. Some hooked them to the back of their bras; others put them on their waistbands. But the most secure place to put one is ..... Why don't I just show you with photos.

Wearing to to the side

Packin' it vertical in the red-light distric

The audience never knew these proper Dickensian ladies were packing electronics in their crotches, unless they looked close enough and caught a glimpse of a red light winking from between modest thighs under a light-colored gown. They also didn't know what I was wearing under my plain, brown skirt.

One of my fellow lady cast members didn't want my crotch to feel left out, so she bought me something I could wear under my skirt, something that would make my crotch glow with good will and cookies!

Me want cookie!

This is the one and only photo of my ass you'll ever see. Ever. ***

I could give many more examples of the behind-the-scenes magic of the theater, but I don't want to give away too many secrets. I would hate to think you're looking at the actors' crotches throughout the entire performance ruin your next play by causing you to wonder what's real and what's not up there on the stage. Because the truth is, it's all real--both what goes on in front of the audience and what goes on behind the stage. We all see what we want to see, and we all want to believe in happy endings.

So my suggestion is this: If you want a happy ending, forget the Christmas pudding and the stuffed roast goose, and don't look too hard behind the curtain. Just eat cookies! Cookies!


* I have so many cookie stories from this show. And yet, here I am still waiting for my cookie. I'm sure I'll get it someday. Some people are just slower than others, and they have to take the long, rocky path to get where they're going. I can wait.
** Frankly, the eating out and partying afterwards is making me fat. No amount of singing and dancing will work off bar food several nights a week. And a few of my fellow cast members gifted me with cookies. Real cookies. The kind you bake and eat. I'll be forcing myself to the gym next week to work those off my ass.
*** There's no telling what I might do for a cookie though.

Nov 14: First the Gin and Pool, Then the Audition

As I sit here in my office waiting for students to bring me their final portfolios, I’m preparing for an audition early this evening,  studying my lines and music for Scrooge because we’re supposed to be off-book this week, and writing my NaBloPoMo blog post just in case I don’t get home in time tonight to write it.  That’s a long first sentence, but it’s not as long as I expect this day will be. I’ll leave here late this afternoon with two bags full of portfolios, each potentially holding three revised papers to grade. I probably won’t look at any of them today because….

Did I mention I have an audition?!?! I love auditions. Sometimes I don’t even care if I get a part, I just love going in, seeing who else is there, and cold-reading from a script with random other actors. It’s so much fun.

The audition tonight is one I hope does lead to a part though. One of my Octette Bridge Club sisters and I have been eagerly waiting for this play to come up on the schedule. She’s beat me out for two parts in the past year, so I’m glad this time we’re auditioning for different characters—although I wish we could play sisters again.

The play is Dearly Beloved, a story about a disastrous wedding that takes place in a small town in Texas. At the heart are three middle-aged sisters who used to travel as a gospel group called The Sermonettes. I really want to play the oldest sister, Honey, who is described as “50 going on 30.” I mean I really want to play Honey. There are two parts I yearn for this season, Honey and Grace Hoylard in Bus Stop, which doesn’t go into production until spring. You could say they’re on my theatre bucket list. *

We have Scrooge rehearsals every weeknight at 7:00 now, so I had to contact a friend at the theater that's doing Dearly Beloved, who contacted the director, who said he would read me early at 6:00. I’ve never done that before, asked for a special time to read. I plan to talk in my Texas accent all day so I don’t accidentally slip into the cockney accent from Scrooge. I also have to sing some gospel. I’ll probably do “Amazing Grace.” What else?

I have another reason for wanting to work on Dearly Beloved. I’ve done two plays this fall at the theater where we’re doing Scrooge now, and Bus Stop is also at that theater, so I’d like to get back over to the theater where we did Octette and work  play there again for a few weeks. I love the people there too, and they have a beautiful new facility. And finally, it’s back in the suburb where I lived for so many years. It’s still home.

I’m a little nervous about this audition because I want Honey--I really want her--and because of that Texas accent, and because I'll be reading by myself. So there’s one final thing I’m going to do to prepare for my audition.

The pool table that will go in my next house, not the one at the tavern.

  

Catty corner across the street from the theater is a little tavern. It’s a dive, but they’ve got two pool tables in the back and you never know what might come up on the jukebox. It’s the kind of place where the patrons still smoke, in spite of the state anti-smoking law. (I could do without that, but it’s that kind of place.) And the bartender always remembers me and what I drink. I used to go there sometimes before Octette rehearsals to hang out and play pool. I still have my pool cue in the back of my van, just in case I land in an impromptu game.

I've met a few interesting characters at that tavern, but I don’t intend to make any instant friends tonight.  I’m just going to wander over there and shoot a couple of games of practice pool to prepare me for the audition …. to get my red-neck on. I don’t suppose it will hurt to go into this audition smelling like gin and cigarette smoke. I’m pretty sure that’s what Honey would do. More about her if I get the part.

* I surely do hope I didn’t jinx myself by writing about wanting this part. I worry about that whole jinxing thing, because I’ve got an evil fairy godmother who likes to fuck with me if she thinks I want something too much.

Nov 6: Last Show and Strike

This afternoon's matinee was the final performance of "Master Harold"...and the boys. The audience gave standing ovations all three shows, and I wasn't surprised. These actors had to handle a difficult script (lots of lines and several monologues) and perform a couple of unexpected, cruel acts on stage. Here are three snippets that stood out this weekend, now that I don't have to worry about spoilers.

1. We had a small audience at our final dress rehearsal. Although we're often still polishing even at the final rehearsal, the performance feels so much different in front of an audience than it does in an empty house, we almost always invite friends. Halfway through the play, the actor who played Sam, the South African man who stands in as a surrogate father to Hally (Master Harold), had to show his bare ass during one scene. Right before, Hally, in a fit of meanness, tells the two men a racist joke* his father tells him. And Sam responds by pulling down his pants and showing Hally his ass for about 90 seconds. It's not a funny scene, nor does the audience expect it to happen. I did though .... except Thursday night when Sam's new boxer shorts fell straight to the floor and suddenly he was showing more than just his ass. I was in the stage right wing facing him, trying desperately not to burst out laughing. A wardrobe malfunction, indeed. Sorry, I didn't take a photo. No flash photography allowed.**

As I said, the bare-ass scene wasn't funny. All of our audiences laughed at certain parts of the show that were endearing or silly, but overall this play is tense and serious. And yet last night's audience--and I have to admit, at least 17 of them were friends of mine who may have sipped some wine with dinner--got so into the play, they actually laughed, and a few clapped and cheered, when Sam showed Hally his ass. I think it was rather disconcerting for the actor who played Sam to bare his ass and hear people start laughing and cheering. It's a nice ass but none of us expected that.

2. One of the most shocking scenes in "Master Harold"...and the boys happens shortly after the ass-bearing when Hally quietly says, "Sam," and then walks across the stage and spits in his face. The actor who played Hally struggled with having to actually spit in Sam's face, but it's in the script and it's important to the story arc and tension. So the final week of rehearsals he had to stop faking it and really spit. We joked about how he would desperately save up saliva so he could get a good loogie. Every time we were able to see a good spray of spit hit Sam's face, but at last night's show he spit the biggest glob ever. It left big white blobs of saliva dripping in Sam's hair and gleaming under the hot lights.

After the show, Hally the actor and I were laughing about how awful that spit looked (and yet how perfect). The conversation went something like this:

H: Oh my god, I couldn't believe how big that loogie was. It looked like I jizzed in Sam's hair. I can't believe it looked like jizz shot from my mouth.

Me: Can't all gay men jizz from their mouths?

H: Yes, of course we can. We jizz from both heads.

Me: Your next Facebook status update: I just jizzed from my mouth.

H: I don't think I want to explain that to my boyfriend. He doesn't know yet.

(Section censored and deleted.)

I learn something new every day.

3. In another scene, Hally throws a bottle of brandy into the kitchen, which is only indicated by a door with a set-back wall on the set. Because he wasn't allowed to throw and break a real glass bottle,  we had to come up with an alternative. The easiest and best solution is to buy sugar bottles, but they cost almost $30 each, we needed at least four, and we didn't have a budget for this play. Anything we bought, the director paid for. So the director painted the inside of a plastic bottle brown and glued a cork in it, and the props person made a crash bucket: a lidded 5-gallon bucket full of glass. I was to make the crash sound when Hally threw the bottle, and we enlisted The Diplomat to help me back stage and catch the bottle.

The first time we tried the bottle throw, it hit the wall and ricocheted several times around my head. I was ducking and bobbing while I dumped the crash bucket. The bottle finally skidded along the floor, lost its cork and sprayed brown paint all over the floor. Not a huge fail, but not quite right either.

So The Diplomat went to work on it for Friday night's show. He tried to find something to add weight to the bottom, and finally ended up putting in some thick glue, and then gluing the cork back in. This time when Hally threw the bottle, it hit the curtain, the cork came out and thick white glue sprayed everywhere. Nope.

I said now that the glue was in there, we needed something to soak it up and keep it there. We didn't have sand, so I asked The Diplomat to bring in some kitty litter. He rigged it with the litter and glued the cork in again. It had just the right heft. We were sure we'd nailed it this time. Saturday night when Hally threw the bottle, it hit the wall, the cork came out and kitty litter shot out into my face. This time it hurt! And got in my mouth. I actually swallowed some. I've done a lot of crazy shit in my life, but this is the first time I've swallowed kitty litter. Another fail. And I started to get the feeling that bottle was fucking with me.

I don't know what The Diplomat did to the bottle today. I didn't ask. It was on the stage, plugged with a cork when I did the final check. This time the scene started, I carefully picked up the crash bucket and waited, cringing and squinting, just out of sight of the audience. It was the final performance so all the actors had upped the intensity of their performances. Hally delivered his line and I watched his shadow arm wind up ....... He threw the bottle hard, I tossed the crash bucket over, and the bottle fell just inside the kitchen door, crumpled as if a huge hand had crushed it. It didn't hit a damn thing this time, just plopped to the ground defeated. The Diplomat and I covered our mouths and ran into the back laughing. Win!

Strike: After the final performance, we don't just gather up our belongings and drag our tired asses home. No, we still have to strike the stage. That means we have to take down the entire set: walls, doors, lights, furniture, props, everything. Most of the props go in the "box," the big garage behind the theater. It's packed with furniture and props from years of plays. Almost anything that could be used for a play is stored in there: books, utensils, tables, couches, wall art, dishes, coffee pots, a big old cash register, stairs, an old wicker wheelchair (that we borrowed for Octette). It looks like an episode of Hoarders, minus the rat shit. The wall sections go into another big shed so they can be painted or wallpapered and used again.

Everybody stays and helps. Depending on the set it can take half an hour or several hours. Ours took  a little less than two. And when we were done, the stage looked like we hadn't even been there. All those weeks of rehearsals and after three short shows, it was all over.

There's always a feeling of let-down for a few days after a show ends. And yet, I've got a blocking rehearsal for Scrooge tomorrow night right there on the same stage. I'm moving on again .... but I'm going to miss those guys. Master Harold and The Men.

* "It's not fair, is it, Hally?....What, chum?....A nigger's arse." Hally explains that it's a pun because "fair means both light in colour and to be just and decent."
** Another pun! Get it?