Adventures in Theatre Making

Quick update:

I’ll be taking over the role of Nurse Kelly in ‘Harvey’ at the start of October. Meaning, I’ll be performing in two plays  (Man of La Mancha & Harvey) in last stretch of the repertory AND be in rehearsal for ‘Ice Maidens’, which opens at the end of October. Looking at the calender, it is quite shocking and exciting that I’ll be in every single performance from October 1st through the end of the year. I am loving my job. 

Prodigal return to NYC: Part II

Nothing more invigorating than slinging half a dozen oysters sauced with lemon and vinegar down your throat. All for only $8 at FISH in the Village. That Includes a glass of chintzy white wine! No finer way to celebrate friendship and fringe theatre. 

e. 

Prodigal NYC return: Part I

Union Square Farmers Market: more crowded than I remember (that goes for the entire city). But I was able to negotiate the pedestrian currents skillfully enough to acquire a bran muffin and a peach. 

Naiveté 

Camaraderie. 

Stalwardness

Benignity

 

Strangely enough, Blake and I spent an informative hour in the Foundation Center researching grants for our respective artistic endeavors. 

 

After that, Blake, Emily, and I spent some time on the street, in a café, and on the ground discussing performance studies, the dissolution of love, and the Apocalypse. They are the sweetest, kindest, most provocative cynics I have ever had the good fortune to befriend. I love them. 

                      

 

 

Blake and I puzzled over what this asked of us. Emily squinted at us.

Sunday evening

Sweaty after the gym, I decided to cool off with hike up to the hop church hill, where the Catholic & Lutheran churches square off atop the highest Lanesboro vista. I howled at the fat happy moon. Just once. I really did. 

 

Tomorrow night after the show I head up to Minneapolis where I will fly out from to NYC early Tuesday morn. Almost a year since I left. A strange pseudo homecoming.  Haunts and jaunts await.

Over The Back Fence

I thought you might enjoy this episode from Commonweal Theatre – Over the Back Fence, the weekly live variety radio show. 

I’m in two sketches on the “Elements” episode, first as a cub scout named Bobby and then as a host on a trivia game. 

…starting around 34:00.

Click this link to check it out: 
Over the Back Fence – July 27 2008

 

Brought to you by the Lanesboro Radio Company: Sundays at 7 p.m. Memorial Day through Labor Day. A live one-hour radio show featuring music, comedy and more.  Broadcast on KFIL Preston 103.1 FM/1060 AM from the new Commonweal Theatre in downtown Lanesboro.

Lanesboro Birthday

I’m a Lovin’ Leo Lion!

I’m a lovin’ leo lion,

a winner without fail,

I’m a lovin’ leo lion,

From my main down to my tail!

A flair for fashion,

affairs of passion

sometimes in secret and pain

I need more sex than most

its just a fact not a boast

and if you love me we’ll do the same!

I’m a lovin’ leo lion,

I’m a lovin’ leo lion,

I’m a lovin’ leo lion.

New Camera

At last, I have a new digital camera. Six years ago on my birthday in a quirky restaurant in Woodside, Californi,a my mother gave me a digital camera to take with my on my year abroad in London. It took many a boho photo of me traipsing about Europe and it truly served me well throughout the years. But we all know that technology progresses exponentially every year and my dutiful camera is now an artifact of a simpler time. 

Now another birthday has rolled around and a spiffy little Cannon Elph camera was delivered to me via the friendly post master here in Lanesboro. From here on out I imagine that my blog will be regularly festooned with self-portraits, corn-portraits, and home-made-guacamole-and-grilled-onion-cheeseburger-portraits. Or the like. 

Thought I would share with you one of my favorite things about The Commonweal Theatre. The new building! A little over a year ago the company said goodbye to the shoe-box sized proscenium stage they had admirably made the most of for nigh on twenty years, and said hello to their beautiful multi-million dollar new home. Here’s what the Commonweal has to say: 

 

 

WELCOME TO OUR NEW THEATRE

The beautiful new Commonweal Theatre opened in July 2007. Located on Lanesboro’s historic main street, the theatre offers patrons a comfortable, intimate experience in a 200-seat house. The exterior façade recreates three charming Lanesboro shop fronts and the interior design, created by Lanesboro artist Karl Unnash, focuses on the natural beauty and history of the region with barn doors acting as bathroom stalls, stone walls mirroring the surrounding bluffs, concrete floors reflecting the building’s prior life as a cheese factory, and seats reclaimed from the original Guthrie Theater.

The new facility offers:

• A state-of-the-art theatre with no seat more than 35 feet from the stage
• Expanded lobby with a concessions area, accessible restrooms and a place to hang coats
• Easily accessible box office
• Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance throughout the building
• Fully outfitted classroom/rehearsal space
• Modern heating and cooling and an allergen-free building

Commonweal Stash 
When we began to consider the look and feel of the public spaces in our new home, we knew ordinary would not suffice. Enter Lanesboro native, Karl Unnash. It just seemed right to entrust this blank canvas to an artist – one with sensibilities similar to the artists of the Commonweal. To our delight, Karl created the Commonweal Stash, an installation that encompasses the foyer, lobby and rest rooms. (You have to see it to believe it!)

Click here to visit Karl’s website – get his own thoughts on the work and take a virtual tour of the space.

 

 

 

 

 

If you can’t come in and see the installation in person, I recommend taking the virtual tour on Karl’s website. Whenever I work front-of-house, I notice that a lot of people puzzle over our donor wall (the illuminated mason jars).  I can see in their faces that they are trying to figure out what they would personally put in a public time-capsule like this. A jar, with your name on it, all lit up in place where hundreds of people view it every day. Its a really good party question……what would you would put in it?

Tuesdays are my weekend

Started my day off with a big mug of coffee and an encouraging morning dose of ‘The Artists Way’, a book/project that is helping me reconnect with my creativity and dare I say, spirituality.

Second matter of business was an invigorating hour at the fitness center, which is helping me be happy and healthy, and dare I say, sane. It feels awfully good to get my heart pumping and sweat pouring. To lift those weights like the best of them. To capitalize on some anger.

Thirdly, Tubing! Down the Root River! The six of us loaded up the cooler, rolled our inner tubes down to the 55 degree water, and the lolled along at a leisurely pace, linking up en route to float en mass. Everyone except me either flipped accidentally or bumped their butts along the bottom. Me, I glided along, perched daintily in my black inner tube in my black bikini, beverage held high above my head to traverse the rapids. A glorious three hour journey down the river, a five minute car ride back to Lanesboro.

Lastly, a barbecued feast hosted by a fellow actor at his 100 year old house in Cresco, Iowa, a 30 mile jaunt from here. Pounds and pounds of pork ribs and chicken breast, hickory smoked since 11am this morning. Field fresh sweet corn. Savory slaw. Daisy Mae Mae’s Peach Pudding with vanilla ice cream. Mid-meal constitutional walks around the neighborhood to make room for more meat. Porch side conversation until the yellow slivered moon crept through the highest branches of the maple tree. The lush darkness of the corn fields and the coolly silhouetted silos on the drive home.

A good day.