Do I wake or sleep?

Oh sweet Jesus, Pirates is over HALLELUJAH.

Not that I didn't love the experience but it took up an enormous amount of time, even after it opened.  I can play softball and soccer on the weekends again!  I have free time!  YAAAAAAYYY!  This weekend was especially time-suckalicious--we moved the show to the cemetery.  (The first two weekends were at the amphitheater in Frank Sinatra Park, the last was at Hartsimus Cemetery in Jersey City.  They do shows and events like this as a fundraiser for their cemetery--we're doing a couple of performances of Rocky Horror there as well, in October.)  The move sucked up time because I had to have a rehearsal on Wednesday adapting the blocking to the new space, which only about half the cast could attend.  Which meant that I had to get there very early on Saturday, to show the remaining cast members the space.  Then it rained--we held, then started again.  It immediately started raining again, so we held again.  Poor Taylor had to sing "O Is There Not One Maiden Breast" THREE TIMES (we had a hard time finding the place where he'd stopped on the track).  We finally finished the show and the audience loved it--they were really rooting for us by the end!

Sunday I played in my organized soccer league--we had been undefeated but we played one of the best teams in the league and lost.  Not by much (2-0) but still.  Kind of frustrating because we played pretty well, we just didn't convert our chances.  HOWEVER I played probably my best game so far--I was trapping very well, handling the ball, getting around defenders and wow!  I was thrilled, especially when not just once but several times the goalie warned the defenders about me.  Ooooh, I'm dangerous!  Very flattering.

After the game I went into Jersey City to the cemetery for our closing performance.  The show started off very hot and sunny (my hair is crazy-blonde today from all the sun) and then AGAIN during "Oh Is There Not One Maiden Breast" it started pouring.  We huddled under the tents for quite awhile--at least a half-hour, possibly closer to 45 minutes.  Finally it started to clear up and Paul (one of the ensemble pirates) and I were sweeping the bigger puddles off the "stage" and laying down carpet.  But now we had a new problem--Duncan and Michael (our Pirate King) both had to be gone by around 6, and we were well past 5:00 already.  I ended up having to cut two songs from the second act on the fly--thankfully the actors were all good sports about it, and Lauren (our sound designer) could figure out where to pick up.  We still went past 6:00 but Duncan had a ride to the PATH station and I told him to take a cab once he got into the city. It really was a perfect storm of inconvenience--when we started again it was still raining just a bit and Dave told me if it rains any harder than this, I should call the show (he had to leave so I was the House Manager).  But no, it stopped raining completely--which is a good thing, but I was also super-stressed about getting Michael and Duncan out of there in time.  Anyway it all worked out.

After we packed up everything, we all walked over to Dave's apartment for a cast party and I screened The Pirate Movie for the cast.  Melissa and Kristy LOVED it--they were glued to the screen the whole way through.  Dave's friend Christian loves the movie as well and he and I were singing the blow job song ("Pumping and Blowing").  If you're treadin' water and romance is on the slide/Don'tcha ya know you have to swallow/Something more than water/....It's your pride...  Ah, good times.  Such a guilty pleasure that movie is.  Afterward Dave and I were talking about Rocky Horror--we need to set the dates for auditions, they will probably be sometime in late August.  And I ended up being schmoozed by Tawni (who played one of the daughters in Pirates)--she REALLY wants to audition for Magenta.  Um--I'm actually not that crazy about Tawni.  She gave off major attitude during the Pirates rehearsal process (at one point she tried to correct me on my own choreography)--lots of attitude with nothing really to back it up.  (She's going for her MM, really?  From which school?  Because she really does not sound well-trained.)  She has her moments onstage but she's a very sloppy, fidget-y performer and DOES NOT take notes.  And frankly she's kind of lazy onstage--she's more interested in having fun than actually playing a character and being invested in what's going on.  She's complacent, which I detest in performers.  Several weeks ago I put her on my mental "will not cast again" list.  But she was all sweetness and light last night and we actually had a fun conversation about 19th century art music, specifically lieder.  She would be a good fit for Magenta, but I'd have to talk with her first and say "dude.  You'd better clean up your performances and DON'T cop an attitude.  Do not ever try to school me on my own staging."  Also if Kelly Anne comes back (last year's Magenta), she will have the first shot.  Dave and I are going back and forth about whether or not to flat-out offer everyone in the last cast their roles again.  I would be fine with doing so, but for one exception--Stephen who played the Criminologist.  He really misfired, IMO--I love Stephen but did NOT like what he did with that role.  Susan wants to audition and I can't come right out and say "you're in" but of course I'm probably going to cast her.  She's a fierce dancer and looks great in skimpy clothes, and I love working with her, it's a no brainer.  She was interested in choreographing but I really want Robert to do it again, I loved those dances!  So much fun.

I have to say, as much as I loved working with Susan this time, I wish she had been a little bit more on the ball.  I told her "I need you to choreograph this and this and this"--about 4-5 things (not even full numbers) all in all.  And we would get to rehearsal and she would sort of figure it out during rehearsal--girl, I need it AHEAD of time, you need to come with it already blocked for the most part.  In fact you need to show it to me beforehand so I can decide if it'll work.  And she kept saying "my" choreography--uh, no, *I* choreographed nearly all of the show!  This is why I added "musical staging by Clara Barton Green" to the program.  I'm very proud of my dances, I worked my ass off on them!

Anyway it was fun to look forward to Rocky--I NEED some time off (I am exhausted today) but am definitely antici....pating the fall!  And I must say, the extremely positive response we have gotten for Pirates makes me very happy.  It wasn't an ideal show (Michael never really worked as the PK--not sure what his deal is but he was a sinkhole of charisma, really bland.  I tried so hard but he flickered to life only a few times.  Also, Mara is a sweetie but has some major liabilities as a performer--for one thing she needs to look people in the eye!)  but it was a pretty good one, a very light, sweet, delightful show, if I may say so myself.  The cast did a great job and I loved the costumes (Roe did exactly what I wanted with the daughters) and the laughter from the audience was extremely gratifying.  And I know Dave was thrilled.

So I've been taking these adult soccer clinics on Saturday mornings, to help improve my ball skills--and it is working out very well, I am thrilled. My game has gotten better slowly but surely--I can really feel it during the pickup games. In addition to the clinic, I also played two hours of soccer Saturday evening with the full-field guys, and another hour Sunday morning. You definitely feel the heat but as I've been telling my fellow players, I grew up in Virginia. We had practice in heat and humidity worse than this every day in August. And what you always did was you froze a quart or so of water, brought it to practice and left it in your car, and when you had a water break you pulled it out. Voila! Lovely cool just-melted water. Anyway so although I'm sweating quite a bit, I am perfectly able to continue playing throughout the entire two hours or whatever.

Which is great because now that Pirates is winding down, I WILL HAVE FREE TIME IN MY LIFE AGAIN O YEA. Very, very happy about that, July 4 was the one day off I've had in weeks. And the show! Oh, the show is going so well--we had a runthrough yesterday, our first runthrough, and not just once but *several* times I was literally laughing so hard I was crying. They are AWESOME! There's still a ton of cleaning up to do but they're all so funny and they've worked so hard. The dances look great--my favorite is "When the Foeman Bares His Steel" which is SO MUCH FUN. But my new favorite is "Stay Frederic Stay" which Jen and Taylor are KILLING. We've restored the middle section and Mabel's disingenuous attempted seduction of Frederic is effing hilarious. And it's not just me laughing--the cast was in the wings dying as well, and several cast members were cracking up ON stage. Taylor is our Frederic--what a find! He has a gorgeous voice and takes direction so well--and he comes up with funny stuff as well! We all just love him. And I love his silly run offstage when he exits after "Stay Frederic Stay"--I have a couple of Silly Walks in the blocking and he came up with that one. He just looks so goofy.

I have several actors from The Vagina Monologues and they're all 3 killing it as well. Jessica is The Bookworm/Ethel (I gave all the daughters personalities)--the climax of "Climbing Over Rocky Mountain" is just such glorious, exuberant music (the run on the piano right after the Edith & Kate soli and before the final "Let us gaily tread the measure...") that I wanted them all to dance around in different joyous dances. So Kate is doing ballet, Edith and the Baby/Molly are dancing in a ring, etc. I decided The Bookworm would be dancing dorkily--so Jessica is just out there dancing dorkily full-out and selling it for all she's worth. So, so funny! She is just hilarious--so committed, so focused. I keep telling the cast--you MUST commit in comedy. If you pull your punches or if it's too naturalistic, it's not funny. I sometimes feel with the less experienced cast members, I'm serving as much of a coach and teacher as a director, but so many people don't understand how to do comedy. It IS hard; it DOES require certain elements for the alchemy, and discipline and timing. And different kinds of comedy are handled differently--slapstick vs. character-based comedy vs. conceptual comedy. So I will set up a bit or gag, and then when I'm giving them notes I'll say things like "you have to commit--that's what makes it funny." Or "you can't run it all together here, have to break it down a little more here--that's what makes it funny." Some people think you're either funny or you're not--mmm, I disagree, but maybe that's just my work ethic kicking in there (i.e., I want to believe that anyone, if they work hard enough, can be funny). But upbringing and culture have something to do with it. I was lucky enough to be born into a family that LOVES humor, and then I've worked with some really talented actors.

Another thing I love about comedy is how contextual it is in every way. It is structurally--on a single joke basis, you establish and expectation and then violate it. But then within the show itself, it's contextual---once you get the audience on your side, they'll start laughing more quickly as the show goes on. And then finally it's culturally contextual, in a couple of different ways. First, because tastes in comedy can change--this is why we find Jerry Lewis painfully unfunny now, but back in the '50s he really was a genius. But in another way, I LOVE that comedy is all about stealing gags--in Pirates I have cheerfully lifted from Monty Python, Star Trek, The Princess Bride, Airplane! and yes, I had an idea yesterday for a gag I'm stealing from The Empress of Sex! (Hope you don't mind, Duncan! :) I love the idea that I'm connecting with all of those clowns from generations past by recycling their bits, and if I'm lucky someone will use ME as an inspiration!

This week has been literally exhausting. I've had rehearsal every day or night since Saturday, staging the musical numbers, and the weeknight commute in and out of Hoboken is terrible. It's not just the time, it's also carrying the scooter on the train so it doesn't whack people in the shins, and standing on the bus as it jerks around. Also we're rehearsing at the Howe Center which is at the top of a STEEP hill. So, so tired--when I get home all I want to do is collapse. My general routine when I get home is to put on a movie and go over the blocking, cleaning it up in my script. This can take a while as I am a little OCD about notating my blocking neatly. Very glad tonight I get a break--most of the numbers are staged by now, we just have a few left and then the book scenes. Much (though not all) of the heavy lifting is done. Exhausted as I am, I am really enjoying working with this cast--they all seem very positive and friendly. Yay, happy casts! Part of that is Susan, I think--she is one of the friendlist people I've ever known, as she sets a good tone. But also we have Dave and not our horrible incompetent music director we had last time.

We staged Poor Wand'ring One and How Beautifully Blue the Sky last night--one thing I love about Jen as Mabel is how dead-on her comic instincts are. We have so much more rehearsal time this go-around than last time, that I have more leisure in which to add more comic bits. So I ended PWO with Frederic passing out (he's so overcome with joy at Mabel's voice)--she helps him up, and then I had the two of them go upstage and make out really obnoxiously. It is HILARIOUS. They look like the cover of The Postman Always Rings Twice.



I would have loved some tongue action--not actual tongue action but tongues hanging out, a la Jeff Mancuso in Cellular Biology. But they're a little too far upstage for it to read, I think.

Of course this weekend will be just as busy--I have rehearsal tomorrow and Sunday, and then a production meeting Sunday afternoon. And tomorrow morning I am doing an adult soccer clinic to improve my ball-handling skills and then I go from there to rehearsal. SO excited about the soccer clinic! I really want to dribble better.

Tonight going to see The Empress of Sex. Looking forward to not thinking about Pirates for a change!

I'm going away this weekend, to Philadelphia to visit my brother Erik and his family.  They had twins a year and a half ago (Emily and Erik Jr.)--I knitted booties for them and now I get to meet them.  Taking the train down tomorrow night--it should be an easy trip, just 90 minutes.  And I've never really been *to* Philly so this should be fun.  I'd love to catch a game but we'll probably do some historical sites instead.  I haven't seen Erik in FOREVER so I'm really looking forward to it.

I texted Lori a little while ago and haven't heard back from her yet--she is expecting her (second) baby this week, in fact the due date was a few days ago so things may have started already.  I told her she didn't have to text me back (just in case), but just to know I was thinking about her, Kevin and Phoebe.

We had our first production meeting for Pirates (TTC is remounting it) this week.  Guess who my choreographer is?  SUSAN!  Isn't that a great idea?  I'm so thrilled it came to me--she's an awesome choreographer, she's an awesome friend and it helps her out as well!  *And* I have someone at my back whom I trust completely! Win, win, win!  We are having auditions the Tuesday and Wednesday after Labor Day and we go up in mid-July--we're performing at Frank Sinatra Park!

We have tech tonight (no actors called) and then rehearsal from 1-6 tomorrow. And then rehearsal for Michael's reading. It will be my eighth day in a row of Pirates rehearsing. AM EXHAUSTED. All this week I've been getting home and just collapsing. The runthroughs are going very well but I really have very little extra to give, and all I can say is everybody had better be on their game. I'm getting a little annoyed at actors who miss rehearsal, get the blocking and then stop dead in the middle of the scene "I haven't run this yet." Yes, well, you have the blocking, now go and execute it. If you have a question, you need to bring it up beforehand. Don't stop the runthrough for me to explain it to you.

And there is one person to whom I explained the extremely simple choreography for a scene...and then during the runthrough, it all went out the window. SIGH. This choreography is not difficult at ALL, guys, but if you have difficulty with it, PRACTICE IT AT HOME. Over and over, if necessary. Between people being out and people being lazy about the choreography/blocking I've explained some of these things so many times, it's really starting to stress me out.

I love my cast a lot--they're all great and there's a really good feeling with them. I'm just so tired. I can't wait until Sunday--NO rehearsal. I can just lie in bed and read and play with the cats.

The paper is sailing along now--just 1-2 paragraphs more, and it's done and I just have to proof, make sure my citations are in order, and write a bibliography. One HUGE thing off my plate from this Week of Hell.

This then is Abelard’s ideal woman—just “modern” enough that she flouts convention with her erudition and strength of principle, and yet enough of their time that he can put the blame on her, the woman (“since the beginning of the human race, women had brought the noblest men to ruin,” 13) and that she ultimately bows to his wishes. But is this the true Heloise, or does Abelard see her through a glass darkly—the glass of vanity? Did Heloise see herself as a pioneer or was she trying to fulfill medieval expectations for her gender? Her own writings prove most illuminating in this respect.

I gotta namecheck Patient Griselda in there somewhere.

Yeah, this week--UGH. My brother is arriving Wednesday to visit with Bart and me, and to take back Edna Mo. Of course he can't actually take the cat until Sunday, because Bart's place already has one cat-molesting dog and they really can't accomodate another. Of course I understand but--I was *really* hoping she would be gone sooner rather than later. She's just so stressful. Both Anya and I have been vomiting after cleaning up her numerous and myriad messes. She urinates, she defecates, she pukes. It's like we have a feline Linda Blair living with us, except that when she's not like that, she's precious and I adore her. (She give me little head butts to my forehead all the time.) But yeah, we have to keep her in the bathroom when we're gone (read: for most of the day) so she acts out. STRESSFUL.

And trying to write a paper when your laptop has been self-destructing--not fun. Quite a few keys have popped off so I had to buy a new keyboard and plug it into the USB port. I will probably be getting one of those netbooks, but can't even think about that for a few weeks, I'm so busy right now.

We started blocking rehearsals yesterday--it went great! My principals are all terrific, picked up my direction immediately, except for our Pirate King who looks perfect and has a fantastic voice but is a leettle too gesture-y. So I gotta work with him on that. But yeah, so much fun working our way through the script and finding little nuances here and there.

Oh, also, I'm doing a reading of Mark Twain's The Diary of Adam and Eve the first week in November. Michael Clay, my Marley from Christmas Carol '07 and our Friar Laurence from R&J is a parishioner at the First Presbyterian Church down in the Village and asked me to do this with him. And guess who's a parishioner--F. Murray Abraham! I hope he comes to see it.

A little less than two weeks and my brother will be here to take home Edna Mo. We are literally counting the days! We love her but she is a HANDFUL--major elimination issues and of course Tatia hates her (not like that's any kind of isolating factor--Tatia hates every other feline life form). Stuart will be here from next Wednesday to Sunday which leaves me Friday night and all day Saturday to play with him and Bart! (Maybe Sunday--possibly I could fit in a brunch before he leaves).

Friday TTC had a benefit at the space and I sang "Times Like This" from Lucky Stiff. The ending of the first verse actually got a laugh--I thought that song was better-known (I won't spoil it but the end of the first verse is a misdirect which, if done properly, is funny). Anya came with me so she got to meet Peggy and Dave--they're doing Rocky Horror this winter, and Anya would be great in that. She'd be a great Columbia except I'm not sure if she has the tap skills.

We finally got a music director for Pirates--a guy named John Bronston who works at the Duplex and who, as it turns out, I know already. He used to work with the Lady of Copper people way back--I was all "huh! I don't remember you..." But he seems cool and most importantly, didn't have a problem with the cuts I'd made. Saturday I went through the score with a red pen, eliminating the MANY redundant elements--there are SO many repeated verses, repeated choruses, repeated jokes in the Pirates score. And then just random things that come out of nowhere, like "Hail, Poetry!" Buh-bye, poetry. Likewise "Sighing Softly to the River..."--that number will not work in a small studio space like this, a slow, sight-gag number like that is meant for a large proscenium stage. It's cut a lot of the time anyway--I know it was cut in at least one of the productions I've done of Pirates, our Major-General did a patter number from, I think, Ruddigore.

So, so busy right now--I'm in the middle of taking notes for a paper due next week. Heloise, proto-modern woman or conventional medieval Griselda--discuss! Speaking of things medieval, I missed the Fort Tryon Park Renaissance Faire again this year *sad face* Last year I had a good excuse, I was in London--I just forgot about it this year, although possibly I wouldn't have been able to go anyway (because of--MY SCHEDULE. Which is cray-cray right now).

Yesterday Anya and I made pumpkin pie ice cream--we have TONS left over, if anyone wants some please feel free to stop by and take some home. I made it with the old-fashioned recipe which uses eggs so it's really, really rich--we both could barely finish our bowls. As much as I love summer, I love autumn, and after the heat this summer, I am very much looking forward to a productive season. And on that note--

Today I start classes--yay!, can't wait to buckle down and get all academic and immerse myself in times and cultures past. I love school so much. All of you can expect to be treated to breathless updates of Eloise and Abelard's scandalous forbidden romance.

Tonight Dave and I have a meeting about Pirates. And hey! No one commented on that last week, by the way--

Attention! I'm directing The Pirates of Penzance for TTC's inaugural season at Monroe in Hoboken!

Maybe that'll get your attention ;) Anyway, am thrilled and going over the libretto now trying to figure out what I want to do with it. I have some ideas--I'm going to try to give it a slightly more updated, streamlined sensibility without it devolving into the mess that was The Pirate Movie. (I will restrain myself mightily and NOT include "Pumpin' and Blowin'." Although it IS tempting.) Fewer ruffles, more simple hotness, a more knowing quality without its being too campy or winky. More musical theater, less operetta. I just better have some decent actors coming out--you always get amazing vocal talent coming out for Pirates but as someone who's seen and done the show numerous times, I can attest you don't always get decent actors.

I'll post about the US Open later but it was fantastic as always.