Every wink of an eye, some new grace will be born.

Yesterday I walked by a veteran resident actor and casually offered a "Hey, how you doin?" He responded kindly and then heard him make an aside to nobody in particular, "Just another day at work at the ASC." That is when I remembered that I was wearing a wife-beater and a fluffy blue skirt.

Myself in said blue skirt, Eugene Douglass, Ronald Peet and Rick Blunt. Ren Run Preppin.

After two and a half weeks of falling in love with Winter's Tale, Antigon-izing, sheep-shearing, dirty dancing and some serious magical redemption, we are already moving on to a new play, new director and new characters. A MidSummer Night's Dream, ever heard of it?

Yesterday was our MidSummer Renaissance Run prep day. A Renaissance Run is when we perform the play on the first day of rehearsal for an audience without a director and only a day's amount of ensemble preperation. We seek out our own props and costume pieces, create our own music, and organically try to make some sort of logical blocking happen. This is more relative to how actors in Shakespeare's day would have worked.

It is a very valuable tool because you start the rehearsal process having already lived the play once together, you are already off-book and already have a feeling for the arc of the story. It also is your chance to show the director some ideas, strengths and gives you the freedom for some laughs and creativity that may not necessarily fit into the final vision of the production, but allows you to explore with live feedback.

It is exciting and a little bit nerve wracking, I will say that there is not much better motivation to be off book on the first day of rehearsal than knowing you are going to be performing that play for a live audience, some of whom may be the determining factor whether you may have a job next year.
It is very interesting comparing this Ren Run prep day to our first. 7 of us were completely new to the company, Kevin had performed with the troupe about six years ago, Jake and Denice (one of our super-powered married couples) and the Notorious RKB, Rick Blunt were returning veterans. We listened to what they said, we did the scene, we moved on.

This time around, we are all getting a lot more comfortable with each other and are starting to find and feel our value in the company. So there was a lot more discussion of how we felt about everything. There were also many more interesting ideas contributed. It was like we had so much creativity jumping out of everybody, but not enough time and not a single filter to channel it all thru. Within the first couple of hours we were way ahead of schedule, and with a couple hours left, we felt behind schedule.

But as our wise colleague, Bridget, said: This is the point in the relationship where this happens. We enjoy the honeymoon and then start to learn how to actually communicate and put up boundaries. (I may or may not have changed what she actually said... something like that, anyhoo.)

 We got thru everyting, sometimes twice or three times actually, but when 7pm hit, my brain felt like mush, and my thighs remembered what it was like in the Caliban days. We chased the rehearsal with some homeade ice cream ('Split Banana', heh heh.) and then a rendezvous at the Beer Garden to meet our new director, Kate Powers. (Who seems awesome.)

This art is so bizarre because as much as you work on something, there is always something more you feel like you could or should have done, some major or minor detail that you may just not have been thinking about or didn't touch on as often as you could have. And you just have to learn to be content with that, accept that the process is the art, and the product is what it is each time you do it. That's part of what makes it beautiful, but is a hard lesson to learn in zen. If you don't allow yourself to feel good about your work because you are always harping on that one detail, you are depriving yourself of much. Simultaneously, if you don't continue to seek out that one detail, how do you continue to grow? Just know when to let it rest.

And rather than continue with what will probably become my next post, I am going to let it rest. For it is my day off, and I yearn for a mocha.

I miss and love all of you that I cannot see everday.

A Professional Kid.

It's hard to remember to lay the m & m's down when you are sprinting thru the jungle.

My intention was to record and track my steps along this journey so that I may not only share my experiences with others, but so that I, myself, in my wrinkly flapdom, may remember what it was like to step out into the world and embrace a dream.

I have already missed many breathtaking leaps, but there are some pictures remaining. I am forever in debt to Judd Farris for making that sacred pilgremage from Austin to San Marcos to Nashville to Louisville to Blowing Rock to Staunton with me. Four of the most deleriously amazing days of my life.

So for a quick catchup. We did Love's Labour's Lost in Zilker Park in Austin with the greatest cast ever. Poker games, basketball, many a kirby lane outting and washers tournaments. I said goodbye to many friends that left Austin before me: Travis, Kathleen, Catlin and Emily. Had two wisdom teeth removed and hernia surgery. Beautiful going away flippity-flop jaunts where I had to bid adieu to many of the people who have shaped who I am.

Got rid of most of the shit I have ever owned, thwacked ourselves thru a 4 day road trip, and now I live in Staunton, VA in an old house with three other dude actors and some centipedes.

I rehearse nine hours a day, six days a week. I'm playing three roles, and learning two dance numbers. I'm playing bass, guitar, melodica and beat-box respectively in 9 of our 11 Winter's Tale set songs, and I go to dat fricking YMCA. Beer, coffee, water, Rick Blunt's musings, Daniel Steven's world news reports, stretching and Chapelle Show have been my warm hugs at the end of the day.

I feel the need to write things interesting, funny or entertaining. But I think from here on out, just the truth should be enough. Where this blog was my creative outlet from the drudge of the service industry, it is now my chance to just be boring. An outlet from the entertainment industry. But 'entertainment industry' sounds more like an LA kind of idea. This does not feel simply like a job. It feels like I have truly found my calling, and I am like a kid again. But a professional kid.

How cool is it that I get paid for this?

We have plunged into Winter's Tale. We have three other plays, countless songs and dances and thousands of miles to travel. I only walk a few blocks to and from work, and haven't finished work on one play yet. It is already exhausting. We. Are. In. Conditioning.
 Long days, millions of things to learn and remember constantly. You may hear one comment or instruction in passing while you are on the way to do something else followed by four other challenges to solve, and it is absolutely expected that you make that little thing happen. Communication is essential.

It is important to focus, but it is is also important not to get obsessed. Heaviness and lightness must be a switch that you can flick at a second's notice. You must know when to crack a joke and when to shut up and listen. You must learn how people work, what they need, you must learn how they play, what they like.

The people here are warm, focused and ridiculously talented (if not flippin' BRILLIANT). This is really everything I hoped it would be and more. The anticipation of something big is scary, but once you throw yourself into it... sans anything stupid like amateur bear wrestling... it turns out to be magical.

I miss my friends, breakfast tacos, and places that are open past 10pm. But in conclusion:

I really hope that I get to do something like this the rest of my life.

...but this is what I say after three weeks, over ten months left to go.

(Please excuse all syntax and grammatical errors, I be a movin' man and English will have to catch up later.)