Sober Ramblings

I'm feeling much better now. Last week is behind me and the future is out there waiting. 

This week has been a steady stream of good news and happy occurrences. After finally admitting to myself how lonely I was last week I decided that I would be proactive and go out in search of friends. I started with a place I knew I would run into some genuinely good people: church. I went to the church right across the street from my house and of course, had a wonderful time. The service was awesome and I liked the pastor. It is a non-denominational facility based in Baptist beliefs so I felt right at home. Megachurches in general, tend to put me off a bit because it seems that they are trying to hard to "relate to the people" and adorning sermons with unnecessary bells and whistles. I love the theater and all things theatrical, but I felt that when a church had a sound system and a light board, something just wasn't right. Well, I suppose it is time to eat my words because the church I attended on Sunday is the very definition of a contemporary church. With seating for over 4000 people, three projection screens and two cameras filming the entire time, it was exactly like being the audience for a television show, but surprisingly, none of it bothered me. I still got the message and the feeling I want when I go to church and even though there were tons of people there, it was still apparent that I was new and several families and individuals took the time to greet me. It was an undeniably positive experience and I am looking forward to going back next week. In addition to the great service, I was treated to free lunch because I was a first time guest and a member of the church welcoming committee chatted with me about my specific purpose for attending church. We discussed the 20's singles group that meets weekly and the need for volunteers at the church bookstore. I walked away feeling great and with a brand new volunteer opportunity about to start. Monday is my first day at the bookstore and I'm very excited to see what comes of it.  

I got my official letter of employment from the Guthrie for my Child Supervisor position and an employee handbook this week! As the days pass, I keep reminding myself that soon I will be a paid member of the staff at one of the best theaters in the country and I can't believe how lucky I am. I am still having a blast with the show and am really looking forward to moving on into tech work next week. The days are starting to run together and go by very quickly and it is hard to believe that it is almost September. I am cherishing every moment I have at the Guthrie because before long, my time here will be finished. 

Fall is approaching and that used to mean going back to school and classes and friends and homework, but it doesn't mean any of that anymore. Class at Truman started on Thursday and I felt so strange not being in Kirksville. It still feels like summer and I have sort of subconsciously fooled myself into believing that this is just a summer job that will end in a few weeks and honestly, I'm betting that I don't realize how truly finished I am with school until snow starts to fall here (which will probably be very soon, because I am in the Great White North, after all). I don't really miss school except for the social element, because I'm learning a lot now and I don't have homework, but the making new friends thing continues to elude me. Well, one thing at a time. I am also sad that I won't be able to see any of the shows at Truman this year and I would love to go back and support my friends who are still toiling away in the quest for that magical piece of paper that declares that they too are and official Bad Ass. School is behind me and the real world is awesome. 

The State Fair also started yesterday and when I am finished with my volunteer shift at the church on Monday, I am going to spend all day looking at animals and having a blast at the fair! I am in my element at th fair and it will be good to mingle with some goat and cattle people for a few hours. 

Last night, my boss from the genetics lab (whose parents I'm staying with) arrived in Minnesota for a weekend visit. She brought along with her a care package from home that my mom lovingly put together. The contents of said care package: two Bibles, the complete series of Gilmore Girls, some snack crackers, my proof of insurance card for my car, two letters I received after I left home, a purse, four bottles of wine and a rent check. There is nothing better than a hodge-podge of stuff to make you feel great at the end of the week. 

I think that's about it for now. 

Oh wait, I have confirmed that I am addicted to the library. I now have 10 items checked out and a request for three more books. I'm still keeping to my one book per week goal, but that may fall to the wayside as we approach opening. 

I'm sure there will be more to report in a few days.

Lightbulb Head

What a week.

We started staging the show on Tuesday and I am still having a fantastic time in Minnesota. I have slowly started to assert myself in rehearsals and I am steadily gaining more responsibilities which is good news.

That night, I had a message on my phone from my mom letting me know that my 19 year-old neighbor had died suddenly. It had been a long time since I had spent time with him or even seen him because I was away at school and we moved in different circles, but it hit like a ton of bricks. It is terrible when death happens at all, but when it is someone so young, it is exponentially worse. Hearing about his death opened the flood gates to all of the memories of my friend Paige, who died when she was 17. I still miss her and think about her a lot. So, my distress was a combination of being sad about the loss of a young man with so much of his life ahead of him, remembering what it felt like to lose someone so close to me, hurting for his family and knowing that I was in no position to offer any help at all. I wish that I could take all of that pain and absorb it so that no one ever had to feel that terrible.

Wednesday, I got the good news about the job I applied for at the Guthrie. I was hired to be a Child Supervisor for A Christmas Carol and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, so I will be staying in Minnesota until the end of February. I will also be getting paid $10/hr so I won't be completely broke!!! It isn't my first "job" job, but it feels different, more professional, more grown-up.

Today, I sat down to check my e-mail at work and between messages about my reserved library books and a Groupon deal was a short e-mail about Toby, my dad's dog. He had been having health problems and had deteriorated so quickly that my parents were forced to take him in to be put to sleep yesterday. It was the combination of all of the events of the week and the odd juxtaposition of such bad news with fluff e-mails that I lost it. Fortunately, none of the actors were around and I was quickly ushered out of the room and given the day off to recover from my roller coaster of a week. I was driving home and all I wanted was a hug and I had nowhere to turn to get one. Phone calls just don't cut it when you need a shoulder to cry on.

This week has thrown my situation into very harsh perspective. I am in Minnesota working and doing what I love, but that means missing a lot of things. It hit me how lonely I've been over the last few days and how I will probably continue to be lonely for quite awhile.

In addition (if that wasn't enough already), school starts back, or has already started back, this week. This will be the first time that I haven't gone back to school. This is one of those times in my life that I am really scared and I have to constantly remind myself that the things that scare you are the things that are most worth going after. So, I'm just hanging in there today, ready for tomorrow and a new day.

Bad Day, Good Day

A few days ago was my first "bad" day at work. It wasn't anything too terrible, but the day was doomed from the start. I walked into the rehearsal room and learned that the schedule needed to be changed and that added a lot of pressure to the rest of the day and we were recovering from the mistake for the next few hours. Then, I was in charge of a rehearsal room, but didn't have the necessary items to properly run the rehearsal and one of the actors decided not to show up at all. I was panicked because I didn't want to disrupt the other rehearsal, but I had to and I just felt completely incompetent all day long.

The next day was better and on my way home from work I called in to a radio show and won a pair of tickets to a St. Paul Saints game on Friday. I can't go because I have rehearsal, but it's still cool that I won.

I also made a stop by Arc's Value Village in Richfield because I needed some more professional attire and it had to be cheap. I bought two shirts and a belt and made Kylee very proud.

Today, I'm hanging out at the library and I think I'm going to explore some more of what Minnesota has to offer... maybe Minnehaha State Park or Walker Arts Center, or both.

What's Between the Mainstream and the Fringe?

The Minnesota Fringe Festival is the largest non-juried festival in the United States. It lasts for eleven days and features over 160 shows in venues around the Twin Cities. Having never been to a Fringe festival, I decided that since I had been exposed to a lot of mainstream theater, I would be adventurous and see what else the city offered in the way of performance. Tuesday was the first day I was able to go to the festival, so I got on the website and found a show that I thought sounded really promising. The Proper Way to Beat a Dead Horse was a show about how we interact with people that grew from improv work and was conceived and performed by five high school students. All I can say is I wish I hadn't paid $14 to waste an hour of my life. It seemed like nothing was working for these kids. I salute their bravery and passion for theater, but it sucked. The actors were no more than four feet in front of me and I had to strain to hear them. This is also a beef with the coordinators of the festival. They booked a dance/comedy show on the stage directly above the performance I was watching so most of the time the only thing I could hear was stomping and cheering from a crowd that was obviously having a great time. It made me wish I had chosen that show. Approximately 30 minutes in to the hour long performance, the actors seemed to have lost what little semblance of composure they had to start with and they were breaking character left and right and eventually just gave up all together and the show dissolved into nothing but five kids trying to kill time by any means necessary, including pulling someone from the audience into the scene and dumping water on the stage. The rest of the audience was trying to be supportive because every single one of them was either related to or good friends with one or more of the actors. I was alone in my contempt for the show. When the curtain call was finished, I was pissed that I had wasted time and money on these kids who didn't even care enough to stay committed to their show. As I was leaving the theater, I heard them say to their friends, "Sorry that sucked, we'll get you comps for Saturday night." That's all well and good for the people who could see the show done properly, but what about those of us who only had the chance to see it once? I had my hand on the door when the cast said, "Thank you for coming!" and I know they meant me. I just briskly walked out of the show and didn't look back. Needless to say, my first experience tainted my opinion of the festival, but I was determined to give it another chance.

Last night, I went to Theatre in the Round and saw Power Lunch by Alan Ball. It was a cast of four mature actors who did a wonderful job, and thank goodness because if I had seen a second bad show I would have been put off of Fringe festivals for life. The show was very funny and clipped along at a nice pace. I am probably slightly biased because I adore Alan Ball, but the show was good fun and a great way to end the evening. It also restored my faith in the Minnesota Fringe Festival and I will be going back tonight after rehearsal and probably for the rest of the week. Two shows and two very different reactions makes for two incredibly eventful days.

Perhaps along the same lines as my above rantings about the Fringe, I have taken it upon myself to cultivate my telephone skills. I was walking out of the theater on Cedar Ave and had about a 3/4 mile walk back to my car on 8th Street and I had just received a text from my friend Mandy so I decided rather than texting I would  call her. We had a fantastic chat for almost an hour and that one phone call made me realize how much I miss hearing my friends' voices. So the next night I called my friend Sarah and spoke to her for about 30 minutes and then called my friend Andrew and talked to him for over an hour. After I hung up with him, I felt great. It was a feeling of connection that I have been missing in Minnesota because it's taking time to develop friendships and connections here. So, I have added a goal to my list. I am making it my goal to talk on the phone to a different friend every week. Friends, if I have your number, look out for a call!

In other news.... I had an interview yesterday for a paid position at the Guthrie!!! The position is a Child Supervisor for the children who are cast in Guthrie shows and the commitment is from first rehearsal to closing performance. In all likelihood, if I get the position it will be for A Christmas Carol, a show that I am already working on as an intern, but I would get paid for the hours I spend with the kids and I would get to stay until the end of December. In my interview, I noticed that children were also being cast for Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that runs through the end of February and I let them know that I was available and more than willing to sign on for that show as well. I won't know until the end of next week if I got the job for December and then after that for the February show, but I really hope that I get to stay at the Guthrie until the end of February! That would certainly decrease the amount of down time I would have before the start of most summer stock contracts. If  stayed in Minnesota until February, it would mean missing the entire holiday season, but I knew that was a possibility when I moved 8 hours away, so I would just have to catch my family at Easter or St. Patrick's Day. They are very supportive, though and understand that building my career is very important and that this is a crucial time.

That's a lot, so I can't really in good conscience say, that's it. We have come to the end of this post and if you've made it this far, I thank you for your attention.

Just dropping a little knowledge on you at the end. "A young man without ambition is an old man waiting to be."-Steven Brust

Rehearsal Rehearsal Books Books Sleep

I have successfully completed my first two weeks as an intern at the Guthrie! It has been an experience, to say the very least. It has been a whirlwind of prep, shadowing and rehearsals. My first few days were spent getting all of the paperwork ready for the cast and crew and figuring out more specifically what it was I would be doing while I'm here. At my first meeting with the PSM, I got into a discussion about looking for work to supplement the internship and I applied for an extra position at the Guthrie and have an interview for a paid job at the Guthrie tomorrow! Also, on that first day I met some of the other SM team members and secured three shadowing opportunities. I sat in the booth during a run of H.M.S. Pinafore and God of Carnage and quizzed the stage managers about their careers and their education. My third shadowing experience was trailing an ASM backstage on H.M.S. Pinafore and I have to say, that was the coolest! I got to meet several of the actors including Barbara Bryne (Jack's Mother), ride a huge hydraulic turntable and witness other secret kinds of theatre magic.

In my limited time at the Guthrie, I have had a chance to meet with props and scenery department heads, tape out the set and get the rehearsal room ready for a meet and greet and rehearsal. Last week was the beginning of the rehearsal process for Much Ado About Nothing; read-through, script work, character analysis, etc. It has been wonderful to watch such talented professionals work on the show. As far as I'm concerned, here at the Guthrie, there is a very steep learning curve. You are thrown into work and you just have to do it, which I'm finding to be extremely educational. I have become a master at making copies and coffee, but I have also been entrusted with other duties, like distributing the schedule and today I get to run a rehearsal room!

Today is my first Intern Workshop. I have no idea what to expect, but I'm excited to meet the other interns and to learn some new things about getting into the theater profession.

In other Minnesota news, I have no Internet access at my house so I have commute to Wi-Fi hot spots to keep in touch with the rest of the world. Now, I know that it isn't a big deal to drive down the street and sit in a coffee shop for several hours, but on my days off I just like to relax at home. In my lack of connectivity I have reawakened my yen for recreational reading. In the three weeks I have been here I have read 5 books and show no signs of slowing down. That is good news, but I only brought 9 books with me, so you can see where that presents a bit of a problem. Solution: yesterday I went to the Hennepin County Library and got a library card. It was a strange experience because it made me feel like a permanent fixture here rather than a visitor. Real grown-up stuff.

I am still going down the list of touristy things to do in Minnesota and on Saturday, I checked another one off. I visited the Minneapolis Institute of Arts... well, sort of. I arrived at the museum at 4:30, not knowing that they close at 5. I checked my bag and jogged around the museum for 30 minutes and then had to leave. In the short time I was there, I saw works by Calder, O'Keeffe, Gorky, Beckmann and others. I promised myself I would go back and leave myself plenty of time to leisurely enjoy the works of art.