We're Actors. We're the Opposite of People.

When You Walk Through a Storm Hold Your Head Up High

2012-03-06T18:18:00.004-08:00

Yup, I have things to do, so yup, I'm going to obsess on the Internet.

I am working to try and find joy and gratitude amongst anxiety and fear. I am super good at anxiety and fear. I am also good at swearing, eating cheeseburgers, watching 'Survivor', resentment, remembering painful memories, hatred, and walking on my heels. I am not great at being happy. I am very happy. I am extremely honoured and glad to be a part of this show. But I'm also mostly scared.

Everyone tells me actors learn to live with fear, and honestly, I'm not sure that I can do that. I have so much to fear: my solitude, my failure, bear attacks....I don't know if I can handle my career being compromised mostly of it.

Maybe I'm really brave, because bravery is having fear and doing it anyway, and I, on occasion, do things. Or I at least try to do them.

I'm doing it. Or trying. I really am. But I am hoping that this fear goes away: both on this project and in general. And I don't know if I can make peace with it if it does not.

A lot of this fear, for this project, is about doubt. The play is tricky, so I don't always know what I'm doing. I'm green, so I don't always know what I'm doing. And so I have doubt. About myself. And my future. And my abilities. UGGGHHHHHHGHGGHGHGHGGHGHGHGHGH. What a sick profession!

I am writing a play that I'm not in (which, honestly right now seems so dumb, because I feel like I'll never be cast in anything ever, so I have to start writing some good shit for myself), and the first 40 pages of it were read last night and that was scary, but good. I thought I was out of love with the play, and while it's not my usual thing (no trap doors! no musical numbers! WHERE ARE THE FIREWORKS?), I think there might be maybe a tiny bit of almost potential. It was helpful to just hear it. Yup. Do the work. It sets you free. It's so much better than the anxiety. But the anxiety is so much easier, in a weirdish way.

I'm effing sick of those 'Keep Calm and Carry On' variations, but..that's what I'm going to do.

You Got to Have a Dream, If You Don't Have a Dream, How You Gonna Have a Dream Come True?

2012-03-01T17:28:00.003-08:00

So I'm having, as usual, an enormous amount of anxiety about all things. That I'm not good enough, that I'm ruining everything, that no one likes me and that this is the last thing I'll ever do. Blah blah blah, Anxiety and Apple Juice, the Jessica Moss Story.

I'm definitely a very small fish in a very big pond, and on one hand that's amazing, because I am learning so much, and I have to step up and hopefully being scared and being pushed is going to make me a better actor. And that's the goal, I want to be an actor, and I want to be a good actor, if that's at all possible, so

But it's also pretty nervewracking....as we know I turn everything into anxiety, so I have been just a little anxiety factory for the last few days. Does this get easier? Can I handle it if it doesn't?

However...there was a moment today where I looked at the room I went in and went, 'Shiiiiiiiit'. And I was kind of like this on the inside:

(Obviously, this was supposed to look joyful and eeeee, and just looks like I am having a fit).

Because, like, I'm lucky! And this really is a dream that I had and I'm getting to do it, and maybe that will mean in the end my dream is broken, but I've had a lot of dreams that didn't come true at all, so maybe I'll just try and be happy that this one did, even if not the way I thought it would. Or whatever.

I'm working on it. Happiness is hard for me, ok? I'm much better at cowering and tears.

Confidence, confidence, fake it until you make it, don't let them see you sweat, breathe. Right? Maybe I should pay someone to yell inspirational slogans at me for a while. No, I would almost certainly burst immediately into tears if that happened. It would be a disaster. I don't like loud voices unless they're mine, and I'd be sure to misread the situation as conflict and either flee from it like a bunny or charge into it horns first like a bull.

Trying to be simpler and at the same time interesting, and open and at the same time confident, and myself and at the same time better than myself. Maybe I should give all that up and just do shit, but....I haven't figured that out yet.

It's only day 3.

And Though Scary is Exciting, Nice is Different Than Good

2012-02-28T14:42:00.005-08:00

OH GOOD MORE PICTURES OF ME!

YOU DON'T HAVE TO WORRY BECAUSE I FOUND MY CAMERA BATTERY CHARGER SO THERE WILL BE MORE GRATUITOUS AND UNFLATTERING PICTURES OF ME AT ALL TIMES!

Also, I survived my first day!

In this picture, am I listening to Destiny's Child's 'Survivor' on my headphones, as I go into this adventure? I most certainly am! Did it help me survive? It most certainly did!

I was so thrilled to a) have a working camera again, and b) be starting this, that I documented my walk to the theatre.

It probably didn't need to be documented. Although, hat store!!!

So scary but so exciting. Man, working is a lot better than sitting around feeling like a jerk.

I spent a lot of time before this started being scared, so I'm working on the excitement now. Also working on being 'good' rather than 'nice'. I hate nice! Good thing I am not nice!

I'm totally consumed with the worry that I'll never work again....it's very demoralizing. I feel that it is preventing me from thinking that I'm an actor. So stupid.... And there are extremely talented and experienced actors in the room, and they also talk about periods of 'not work' and feeling that they are off people's radars, and, man, that sucks. I honestly don't know if I have years and years of that in me. I love the work, but the 'not work' is just so incredibly awful.

Enough of that. I'm working for a brief period of time, let's just remember that in case I never do again.

There's a lot to learn in the room and I am overwhelmed by it. How these amazing actors (actually, people that I grew up wanting to BE, and now am in a show with) attack and question the script, are so open, are so brave. It's all stuff I know I want to do, it's just, for whatever reason, hard and scary to do it. I'm intimidated, but it's also really incredibly cool.

Also, this: http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/02/27/purpose-work-love/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+brainpickings%2Frss+%28 Brain+Pickings%29

Better Run Along Home and Avoid the Collision

2012-02-27T09:59:00.004-08:00

Tomorrow I start a project that is the scariest thing I've done since the last project.

They're scary in different ways. I'm just an actor in this one, which is both more exposing and less exposing than being the actor and playwright, I'm finding. This is probably on a bigger scale than almost anything I've done. Maybe Tout Comme Elle was similar, but there were lots of other people in that one, to insulate me.

I'm scared of everything, because I am whatever the opposite of the honey badger is. I give an enormous shit about EVERYTHING and live in perpetual fear.

So I'm basically ill with nerves, as we could all predict. I have a general malaise and a very specific tummy ache.

Starting new things is still really terrifying, and I don't know, at this point, if that's going away. I feel now that I've done things a few times there's more pressure, because you want to keep climbing, and because I've had the opportunity to do a few professional plays, I always feel like if I mess up, someone's going to pop up and snatch that away. In the beginning of all the things I do I feel like its' probably the last time I'll ever do it. And having had the taste of doing it once will mean that I can never forget it and will have to wear a wedding dress and skulk hallways mourning my potential for the rest of my days (should I read more Dickens? Probably).

I think that's a contributing factor in my general bad attitude and all-consuming sadness, probably? Who knows. I am not a doctor. I can barely read.

But seriously, if it doesn't go away, that would be terrible. Does that feeling mean that I'm in the wrong career? Maybe my complete lack of talent means I'm in the wrong career....hm.

Anyway, I'm really really nervous and hoping that I'll be not terrible, but it is still a really cool thing I will be able to say I got to do and that is super exciting and great, if I could pay more attention to that it would far outweigh the nerves, but I am just in that nervy place right now.

I'm super excited to have some structure for my day and I'm hoping that it will make me an efficiency/productivity machine. There are quite a few projects that I just want to have HAPPEN FOR GOD'S SAKE, and because no one is interested in giving me money or space to do them, or helping me with them, I have to do them all by myself. So efficiency and productivity are needed, and I am hoping that being a busy bee will encourage them along.

Ha ha ha, that was a good one, I will of course, continue to watch Survivor and New Girl all day long and leave the succeeding and interacting with real people to my fantasy self, who is doing awesome, thanks for asking.

Just One Look Sets the Screen Aflame

2012-02-23T09:04:00.002-08:00

Inspiration.

Awe. Art.

This is a trailer FOR A PLAY that is from Vancouver, coming to Toronto via Canadian Stage, called Tear the Curtain!

Obviously all of this is right up my alley and I'm knocked out by this:

The Songs Were Rotten, The Book Was Stinkin'

2012-02-21T10:44:00.001-08:00

I saw some 'art' recently, in the form of theatre, and I really didn't like it.

I am a very tough critic and I'm very easily bored, so it's common for me to not like things. Also, I am played by Jack Lemmon in 'Grumpy Old Men', so I just shuffle around in sweaters hating on everything. It's the best, because I was once in 'The Apartment', which is like....maybe my favorite movie ever? It's no 'Jurassic Park' but it's up there. It's perfection.

Anyway, I like 'The Apartment' and I like 'Jurassic Park' but I often don't like theatre and maybe that's because I'm a crank and maybe it's because I have terrible taste and maybe it's because I'm jealous and confused and want to like my own theatre best so I have to hate everyone else's? I don't think so. I like things on occasion, and I am capable of loving things.

So we know it is not biological.

Seeing bad art makes me feel like I'm an empty plastic bottle being stepped on. By that, I mean it gives me these faces:

I get all crinkly and unfit for recycling.

It's frustrating, especially when I'm not working, so feeling as if I'll never work again....

But this dovetails nicely with my discovery of more and more people who did not like my show, Modern Love. Maybe because I've been able to process things from that experience a bit, and maybe because it has been a while so people don't feel they need to say flattering things anymore, because as time goes by we can all be a lot more honest with each other. But anyway. There are lots of people out there who don't like what I do, and if I keep doing things, I'm sure there will only be more of them.

Honestly, because I'm incredibly sensitive and paranoid (just two of the many reasons I would be a very good Russian spy), I never really thought that anyone liked it, and it's ultimately impossible for anyone to love it in the way that I do or in the way I want them to, which is totally and completely, because it came from my brain, and no one else has that. But then there are people who flat out didn't like it. And also there are reviews that are positive but still manage to harp on little things, or mention what they didn't like prominently, even when they're trying to encourage people to do my show. And of course that bad stuff sticks to me like glue, and becomes the overwhelming flavour.

'Too much Modern and not enough Love', is my least favorite quote. Or my least favorite.

So I sometimes don't like things, and other people don't like things, and sometimes the things that others don't like are things that I made. And that hurts, but .... I do go around shouting my opinion sometimes, so other people will too....

It's so hard to talk about the work that I see and to feel like I have a right to have an opinion on it, because, who am I? It's really hard to make work, and if someone did that, even if I didn't like it, don't I have to respect the fact that they did it?

I think so. At least a little.

The other thing to think is that I try to avoid saying negative comments directly about shows on here, because it will have an impact on my career. And people who are brave enough to write reviews like that, they are taking a risk that they might pay for. I'd like to be a better person, but if we are telling the truth, I will likely not be too favourable to someone who said something about me I did not appreciate. Especially if they said it in front of my best friend, the internet. So maybe those people are brave risk takers, which I have to admire. Even if we don't see eye to eye.

Bastards. Kidding!

I don't know how to balance these feelings, and I especially don't know how to express them, but I bet you they're worth thinking about.

I have been not on Facebook which I am sure is good for my growth and my neverending quest to become an interesting and mysterious person, but not so good for my 'How should I fill this time?' problem, or my 'Maybe I should have friends and leave the house' plan. And that's all that's up.

We Did What We Had To Do

2012-02-20T09:11:00.000-08:00

Um, maybe I should learn my lines, right?

Or work on the project that I have the grant for....

Or work on the project that I have to do for writers circle....

Or even work on the projects that are buzzing around my head and are the things I actually want to be writing.

Or maybe I should just read The Hunger Games real quick.

THE HUNGER GAMES THE HUNGER GAMES OH MY GOD THE HUNGER GAMES.

I have a week of 'free time', because I am in grade four and still have 'free time'. Rehearsals start in a week, and let's just be honest, I am incredibly ill with nerves about it. I guess that is partly why I am not doing anything, because doing anything reminds me of how much more there is to do and how amazingly unprepared I am for all of it. The other reason I haven't worked on it is that there are lots of really wonderful things to do on the internet that involving the leaving of reality and the embracing of musical theatre.

So instead, I have mostly been listening to this on repeat:

(I prefer the original cast version, where Priscilla Lopez sings this and it is magic. But that wasn't on YouTube because everything is balls).

I HAVE TO DO THINGS AND I DON'T KNOW HOWWWWW.

LET'S JUST TALK ABOUT OUR FEEEEELINGS AND ART THAT WE WANT TO MAKE, AND IF WE TALK ABOUT IT ENOUGH WE CAN PUT OFF HAVING TO MAKE IT.

I think the reason that I am so put off by that impulse is because I have it incredibly strongly. It is equally repulsive and seductive. Doing nothing is the worst, but it is also the best.

As much as I'm aware that I am the only one responsible for my wrathful success or my miserable failure, it's a completely unmotivating prospect to actually change anything about it.

Thankfully, I just went to writers' club circle thing, and I have to present next time, which means in the next two weeks I have to start scary rehearsals and move forward with my show, and then it will be judged. So I have lots of scary stuff. Hopefully that motivates me to DO stuff.

I will! I promise!

And I promise that I'll get my camera and take more unflattering pictures of me and then this blog will be less boring because my ugly mug will be all over it, for your perusal and judgement.

Hold Your Hats and Hallelujah

2012-02-16T18:32:00.000-08:00

MY BLOG IS BACK!

For all of you who do not care:

My blog disappeared a month ago. I have no idea why, because I am not King of the Internet. Let it be known, if I were King of the Internet, there would be 24 hour streaming of Paul Rudd movies and TV episodes constantly, musicals on demand, and several sites devoted to casting me in plays and finding me a husband.

I think these things actually already exist and are called YouTube and eHarmony.

ENOUGH OF THAT. Jessica, focus. Yes. It disappeared because the Internet is a spiteful master, though one that I pledge myself to body and soul. Really, no one cares about how I emailed this website several times and cried about it and in the end it was something about my google account? Whatever. I'm back. It's Britney, bitch.

I didn't blog about Modern Love, which was a strange experience in so many ways and something that taught me a lot about theatre, but also left me with so so so so so many questions about theatre that I feel I might be farther back than I ever, ever was. Maybe I'll get around to pondering them on this thing because ALL I DO IS TALK ABOUT MYSELF ON THE INTERNET ALL DAY LONG! It's the funnest!!!!!!

But really, right now I am in a pit of despair over acting and writing, and don't know what to do and who cares. You'll get to hear all about it right here!!!!!

MY BLOG IS BACK!!!!!!

Then Goes Tromping Around Wearing Boots Like Gaston!

2011-12-24T15:02:00.001-08:00

This blog post is positively bursting with masculinity! Appropriate, of course, because I am an extremely masculine person. I do use antlers in all of my decorating.

And this entry will mark the last of my 'Beauty and the Beast' titled entries, which became kind of a pain and I'm glad I won't feel the need to tie my titles to the show anymore. I always think that will make things easier, and then I get really bored. Also, 'Beauty and the Beast' the musical is not a triumph of lyricism. However, I saved my favourite line from my favourite song for this last one.

Anyway, a million years ago when I last wrote something, I talked about the most fun I had ever had in a theatre. This is what it was:

Epic Nerf battle!

The crew at STC has developed a kind of obsession with Nerf merchandise (Nerfandise?), and they all have their own guns, which, being technical wizards, they souped up and made amazing, and with which, they shoot each other.

This might all have started with Natalie, above, who is a lovely girl until she gets behind the nerf.

They are all very proficient at using these weapons, and they have some pretty amazing ones, and a wide variety of different attack tactics (attacktics?). At some point they started doing battles when the theatre was shut down, because the theatre, of course, offers lots of vantage points, hiding spots, ways to kill and ways to be killed.

Our cast, being a fun loving and murderous bunch, got in on it. AND I GAVE EVERYONE NICKNAMES.

James aka Papa Bear

Stu aka Philip Seymour Hoffman: The Revenge

John aka Lonesome Polecat

Helen aka The Finnisher

Because, as you will see, the only thing I have to offer sports are my gift of puns. I called the whole thing 'Nerf, Wind, and Fire'. Which I think is an amazing name, and trademarked by me.

We got equipped and charged up and put on safety goggles and borrowed guns and ran around all evening long.

To kill the suspense: I was of course the worst, as I am the worst at everything, particularly something that involves running AND aim AND confidence AND terror AND not panicking AND surprise attacks. My complete inability to play any sport was well proven in the absolute disastrous performance I gave.

However....I played. And I am counting that as a victory. And it was very fun. Another victory.

Actual victories? Zero.

But man, it was a good time. Amazing to think of the entire theatre as a playground was so exciting. And it took team bonding to a whole new level...a level where we shot each other.

And, because I hate losing, I got myself a Nerf gun and am going to practice, and go back, and dominate. Such is my plan.

AND, BECAUSE THIS IS THE MOST TESTOSTERONEY POST EVER, MEET THE MOST TESTOSTERONED PERSON I HAVE EVER CREATED: BRAWNY. Second trailer for Modern Love, y'all!

Those Who Don't Try Never Look Foolish

2011-12-18T07:40:00.000-08:00

Almost done. Kind of crazy.

I’ve had a series of not great shows….just messing up little things, or not being as truthful or as funny or as something as I try to be. Weird to have those deja vu moments, especially because on this contract you do the show so many times. Lately I've been doing things I've never done before. I'll sit backstage and realize I'm not wearing the gloves I'm supposed to be wearing. Or that I closed doors in an opposite order for the first time ever. I don't think any of it has happened or mattered onstage, but it's still weird. Makes me feel like I'm a bad actor, or a lazy actor, or something. It’s never enough, I guess, the way to think about things is that there’s always room to grow, there’s always more to do and find, but then when you go down that road, and you make a mistake, it’s hard to not feel terrible about yourself.

Anyway.

I really hate that Star Wars phrase, ‘Do or do not do. There is no try’. I think there is a hell of a lot of try. I try a lot. I do things to, but often times I try and they don’t work out. Sometimes I try too hard and because of that they don’t work out.

I feel myself trying and maybe that’s a negative for me as an actor, because the best people make it look effortless and I think for me, everything feels like, and looks like, a lot of work. For all of the mistakes I am making, for all of the things I didn't do with this character, or this show, or any other show, I still feel like I tried. Maybe it wasn't enough? Maybe there is just always more? Even with this show, I feel I could go back and mine a million more things, and this isn't even a script I love. Maybe that's the difference between 'do' and 'try' and until I stop thinking of myself as 'trying' (HA! Both senses of the word!), I won't be 'doing'. But I don't know. I don't fully believe that. I think the tries are good. You push the tries and they don't work out and some of them do but they don't work everytime so you try them different or better and somewhere in all of that is the doing. But then the doing isn't perfect and the doing isn't something you can hold on to, and maybe that's the goal.

Maybe this is a ‘give it time thing’. But I am not known for my patience.

We’ve been having such a good time in Sudbury that the last week has flown by. I’m getting sad about things being over, but I know that more things will start up. Sigh sigh sigh. Besides, it's not over yet, we have one more show, which, as Geoffrey Tennant would say, is one more chance to get it right.

I don't like goodbyes and I don't like loose endings.

Oy vey. Farewell to Sudbury, one more time.

And in my next post, I will write about THE MOST FUN I EVER HAD IN A THEATRE EVER.

Have You Seen the Way They Kiss in the Movies? Isn't it Delectable....

2011-12-12T20:50:00.001-08:00

So have to be asleep so long ago because so have to get up so early for so many shows, BUT.

THIS:

And It's All in Perfect Taste, That You Can Bet

2011-12-05T13:45:00.000-08:00

You guys, show openings are so much fun!

I do a lot of shows (like, not a LOT, I am not successful or anything, but I have seen some shows go up in my day), and so often it's just such a panic there is no time to celebrate. Or because everyone does shows all the time, openings are just not that big a deal. I had kind of forgotten that they were a big deal, to be honest.

But for this one we were really ready and waiting for an audience, so there was time to be excited and to CELEBRATE.

AND TIME FOR PEOPLE TO WRITE ME PRAISE.

Hooray for praise!

It was just wonderful to be reminded that a show is a lot of work for a lot of people, and the work doesn't end when the audience comes, but it goes into a new phase. We become a team because we work in concentrated bursts together again and again, but we also become a much bigger team, because it now includes an audience. So the atmosphere felt very festive and full of sugar, MY GOD SO MUCH SUGAR, and the opening crowd was really kind and generous like a Natalie Merchant song.

I work independently so much that there isn't a team doing things like organizing a reception for opening and making cards for the cast. Such a pleasure to work for places with their own space and traditions and people that make it go tickety boo.

Again, these costumes are designed by Charlotte Robertson, and she should design all of your costumes for you forever.

The sisters start out poor and in dull tones.

And then they get amped up by the magic of dolla dolla dolla dolla dolla billz, y'all.

We start the school shows tomorrow, and they're early morning. It's a bit bizarre to have a face full of make up and to be charging in to a show at 9:30 a.m. But, I mean, the alternative is working for a living, so..... I said the other day that the school shows were hard and someone quickly reminded me that corporate 9 to 5 is harder and he is of course right and I am a hole of ass. I'm actually really excited for the school groups to come in. There's a rigour and a fatigue that comes along with doing shows that early, and that often, but I'm looking forward to starting it. Plus, kids with no parents around are really fun.

CAST! What a good lookin' group!

And Modern Love opens in a month and I'm having a coronary episode over it, thankyousomuchforasking.

Tie Your Napkin Round Your Neck, Cherie, and We Provide the Rest

2011-12-02T21:38:00.000-08:00

Ok, let's open this sucker up.

Preview audiences are coming in and it's wonderful. I'm reminded that the play is fun, my work is fun, my character is lots and lots and lots of fun and I'm lucky. So exciting to have people in the house. I see the other half of the show, and the work becomes about something other than just worrying about yourself.

There's a lot of magic in the show, fireworks and costumes and scares and romance, which is so not usually my thing but I'm being transported back to being a kid and not knowing how these things were down and how truly magical that was. It's nice to be part of something that provides that.

Audiences here were so appreciative last year, I'm really excited for more to come see.

All these amazing costumes are designed by Charlotte Robertson at STC, who is so good at her job I can't even speak.

Let's hope opening night goes as well! Because we're not whole without a soul to wait upon!

Home Should Be Where the Heart Is

2011-12-02T09:48:00.000-08:00

And of course, with December first, comes snowfall first.

Pretty, maybe?

But I am less than impressed.

It's both wonderful and terrible to do a show away from home. It's wonderful because the pressures of Toronto kind of disappear. It's too bad to miss plays and auditions, but it's also a bit of a relief, in a sick way. I can't care about the petty stuff that goes on there as much just because I'm not there. And you get to live in a different place, be a bit of a tourist, focus on just the play, because you don't really have a life here (this is possibly the best part), meet new people, work with old friends (because I love the crew here so impossibly much), so all of those things are fun and adventure and whee!

But I'm missing home a lot this time. I miss my friends and my bed and knowing how to do things. It's hard when the grocery store is a thirty five minute walk from my house, so I only have the food I have. I don't know where things are, so it's hard to do things. The snow makes things harder. Part of that is the nature of Sudbury, and part of it is the nature of being in a new place. A really amazing audition came up, and I had to send a tape instead of going, and I'm never as good on tape as I am in person, so I feel I lost it, and that, like, really sucks. I'm working on the thing that, obviously, I am rejected way more than I am accepted, but it still hurts every time, and sometimes it hurts a lot. Weird to miss out on work because you ARE working. Frustrating, that one.

So funny, what actors do. It's exciting, especially when it takes you to amazing new places (so many of my friends are touring fringe shows this summer, and I'm jealous that they'll get to the West Coast). But I know people who have been out of suitcases forever, and I'm not sure I'd like that for more than a short period of time. I want to do as much regional and far away stuff now, while I have the energy and the enthusiasm to see things and places, because.....there's also something to be said for working at home.

Which I get to do for the next few things, so I'm lucky. Very lucky. To be bouncing back and forth between Toronto and not Toronto, to bounce from comedy to drama, from ensemble work and supporting roles to bigger stuff. Back and forth. That's good for me. Keeps me from the streets.

I guess the goal is to find a home in all these things, in the work, no matter what the work is. Gah. What an asshole thing to say. But sometimes, because I'm an asshole, I think I've even done it. And then the work turns on me and throws me away, or I can't find a way in, and I've never been less comfortable, less at home, than I am with the work, this crazy work, this work that I don't even know what the work is, a lot of it is just stuff I do, stuff I try. Again. Find a home amongst all of this? Is this possible? I think it is, and it sounds wonderful.

Anyway. In my continuing series of having amazing hair in shows:

The Braidy bunch!

New, And a Bit Alarming

2011-11-24T17:38:00.000-08:00

Hi!

As we know, I am in the bustling metropolis of Sudbury. Sandra Shamas, one of my inspirations as a funny girl from the Land of the Timber Wolf, Home of the Beaver, has this to say of Sudbury:

'Sudbury! Where the men are men! And the women....are MEN!'

This is of course untrue, I have met some beautiful and sweet women in Sudbury. But it is very funny. Actually, when I first came up here last year, Sandra Shamas was in my ear the whole time. I just love.

ANYWAY. Because I'm in Sudbury, it means I can't have 'traditional' rehearsals for Modern Love (Jan 5 -15 at Next Stage Festival, get your tickets here, NOW, no pressure, except serious and real pressure, please come and see my show). But you all know what I say to Tradition!

I say, 'WHO MUST KNOW THE WAY TO MAKE A PROPER HOME, A QUIET HOME, A KOSHER HOME?' and then I say all the other words to that song, because I know them all and it is the best.

BUT. I digress. What do we do when we can't rehearse our Next Stage show in traditional ways? We thumb our nose at all traditions not involving Tevye, and we have Skype rehearsals!

Director Eric Double!

Skype rehearsals are great because I don't have to leave my room. I actually don't even have to leave my bed. They are not great because you frequently cut out and they aren't rehearsals, they are just chats, and check ins. But still....technology is amazing, eh? New, and a bit alarming (that's the title of the post!).

Things are moving along for Modern Love, on both the creative and the production sides. It's soon. That's scary. There's still so so so much more to do. I'm excited but it seems a bit too much at times. I'm lucky that there is a really great team working on the show. I wish I wasn't so far away from them. It's hard to feel like stuff is still moving forward when I'm not there to be doing it with everyone else. But this is how it goes.

Doing Beauty and the Beast is going very well, the sets and costumes are gorgeous because the crew at STC is the best. THE BEST. But it's making me hunger for more stuff, because it's the first thing I've done in a while, and because I have a supporting part in this one, and don't get to do any of the big production stuff, like interact with the set or sword fight, or anything like that. I'm hungry. For Shakespeare, for some reason. And just for more work. Hopefully I can channel this into the shit ton of work I have for Modern Love.

And of course, like all of our rehearsals, it ended with a prayer to Our Lord and Saviour that our play be blessed.

Hey, girl!

And, just because he is one of my biggest theatrical inspirations, today is the 20th anniversary of Freddie Mercury's death. So:

That Girl is Strange, No Question

2011-11-21T14:49:00.001-08:00

So I only really have two parts in this play, but they are so different and varied that I thought I should explain them to you. Both of you.

In this version of Beauty and the Beast, Beauty has a mean sister and a dumb sister. Being both mean and dumb, it is of course difficult to guess which one I am. But I'm the dumb one! Her name is Rougi and she hasn't a clue.

Those things in my mouth are pins, not obscenities or bile. While in real life I spew both obscenities and bile at a constant rate, Rougi spews neither because she is good, and fictional. The best line about Rougi is that 'her heart is large, and she will grow into it'. I love that. She is just a little piece of pie. At the beginning, the whole family is poor, so Rougi has to sew up her sister's dresses. Hence the pins. I picture her as very rosy-cheeked, which is good, because it is what I am.

And then, after their father meets the Beast, they are rich! Rougi is still dumb but now she has A FANTASTIC HAT.

Which of course means that I am happy because we all know I am only interested in theatre for gay men and fancy hats. The hat is really terrific, too, my horrible picture does it no justice. She also has a dress, that I drew sparkly diamonds on. I'm sure there are other repercussions for Rougi and her family as a result of their new found wealth, but I have mostly been interested in the hat.

And really that's it, but then, in the Beast's castle, I also am a faceless ghoul. So that looks like this:

But underneath my mysterious cloak, I'm pretty sure I look like this:

That's blood coming out of my mouth and green stuff out of my nose. Those are horns on my head....look, I don't want to explain the whole damn drawing, ok?

So those are the parts I play. I agree, it is time for another multi-character show, the past several I've only been playing like one part, what is up with that?? Luckily Modern Love looms on the horizon and will provide enough characters to make me even more nuts for a small period of time.

And as has become the custom, with a twist:

Little Town, It's a Quiet Village....

2011-11-18T17:06:00.000-08:00

Enjoy the natural beauty of Sudbury.

AND THEN GO TO WACKY WINGS AND ENJOY THIS:

NATURAL BEAUTY OF SUDBURY.

We are rehearsing and we are rehearsing. We are already doing mostly runs, and things are happening very quickly. It's good. There's a lot of stuff that will change with our set (our pretty amazing looking set) and costumes and there's sword fights and music and stuff like that. So there's lots to do still, but it feels like the show has come together in the blink of an eye. It's wonderful and exhausting to work this way, to have three weeks dedicated to a show, instead of a few evenings a week for months. The ability to focus is such a privilege (this also happens when you get paid). It feels intense, like zero to 60, but we all know that I have a sick love of pressure anyway. I'm tired, but it's a good tired. And I still have lots left in the tank.

I have a very small and silly part, which means I am doing my regular thing of making faces and being loud. Which is mostly what I like to do. I've been doing so much ensemble work lately and that's such a good way to learn, and especially with Modern Love coming up, it's nice to have others around and be a part of a team rather than worrying about carrying the show (which I will start doing for Modern Love soon, natch). I'm worrying a lot that people don't like me and that I'm doing a bad job, which is pretty much par for the course with me, as we have discovered on this delightful journey of insecurity I call my blog, but I think I'm at the point where even if I feel that way, I can still keep pushing. I think I am at this point. I don't feel like it shuts me down. This would be pretty great, because I'll probably always feel bad about myself, but if I can always work, then I have ways to try and feel good about myself.

I miss being at home and having my people near me, and I miss being comfortable. I love the crew here so much but I still don't feel at home in Sudbury itself. I forget where the grocery store is, I don't know how to do things....that's tiring. It's a huge challenge in travelling to work, which I want to do so much more of, but definitely takes its toll. Sigh. I feel so grateful to be here but there is always an adjustment period.

The cold is coming and I want to hide.

Oh, should we watch more Disney Beauty and the Beast clips as I have been doing every night since I got here YES I THINK SO.

For who could ever learn to love.....a beast???

Tale as Old as Time

2011-11-15T18:42:00.000-08:00

I'm up in the Great Canadian North, the Paris of the Tundra, Sudbury, at a wonderful wonderful place called Sudbury Theatre Centre, where I'm doing 'Beauty and the Beast' (I'm not playing either).

That means I'm walking around singing this:

And we can all look forward to five weeks of me singing that. AND ONLY THAT.

So exciting to be working again. It's been a while since I have done a show so I'm just remembering how exciting it is to read and ask questions and do the work. Fuck I love the work. It's just the best. Can you believe I get paid for this on occasion? Remarkable. First table reads, and a crew which is like a big new group of friends, and getting to dress up and prance around? Yes please. Love it. There's so much more to say but really it just comes down to the fact that I am very lucky whenever anyone lets me be on a stage.

AND THE BIG NEWS I HAVE IS THAT TICKETS TO 'MODERN LOVE' AT THE NEXT STAGE FESTIVAL ARE ON SALE SO PLEASE INVITE 900 OF YOUR CLOSEST FRIENDS AND BUY BUY BUY. YOU CAN DO IT HERE.

Every Movie's a Circus

2011-11-13T17:52:00.000-08:00

This is what happened today.

I'm really too tired to explain, but trust me, the sugar glass was a smashing success.

I just.....there are no words.

What a team.

Photo credits: the lovely Julia Nish-Lapidus and the exquisite Laura Ellis.

If You Seek Perfection in Sugar Confection...

2011-11-12T11:44:00.000-08:00

Because my blog is nothing if not edifying, allow me to tell you the story of the day that I made sugar glass. This is, of course, another entry in my long series of 'Ridiculous Experiments I have Done in the Name of Theatre'. The only longer series I have is 'Half Drunk Bottles of Liquor I Bring to My Friends' Houses in Order to Appear Like a Good, Generous Houseguest, but That Really Make Me Seem More Like a Hobo'. That series is possibly unending, although I don't know if anything ever will top the half-full Dasani bottle of mysterious purple ooze that I christened 'A Flaming Moe', and forced on my friend Morgan one time.

ONWARDS.

I learned it, like all things, from the Internet. God bless the Internet! It taught me how to love again.

You too can learn:

You start with simple household ingredients:

Except, like everything, simple household ingredients aren't usually in your household. I found the Cream of Tartar pretty easily, but white corn syrup had to be sourced from Bulk Barn, purveyors of all my favourite things. Oh, God Bless Bulk Barn. Anyway. You can also apparently find white corn syrup in Korean grocery stores. Anyway, that hurdle accomplished, you will feel proud of yourself until the next thing goes wrong.

Now, you may be thinking that these ingredients look suspiciously like baking, which is something that I love to do, the results of which I frequently force on my friends. You are also likely thinking, 'Jessica, you love nothing more than when your passions for baking and theatre converge and you are given the chance to make some sort of dramatic delicacy!' This is true, and could be well documented in a series of photos, but it will not be because I am tired. HOWEVER. As I will quickly learn, this really has more to do with science than it does baking.

NOW DON'T GET ME WRONG, I LOVE SCIENCE. But I'm not very good at it. Things I am good at include burning the house down, ignoring instructions, and improperly measuring ingredients, but I don't see how those have anything to do with my failure at the scientific arts (Fact: They are not arts, and scientists don't like it when you call them that. They also don't like when you always try to do a creative spin on science presentations, such as puppeteering a dolphin and singing a song you made up to 'Under the Sea', called 'How Dolphins Speak'. I learned these when I had to take science, up til grade 13. I was enthusiastic, but a less than stellar practitioner).

You also prepare a mold. When you are preparing a mold, you should also prepare to ruin your mother's baking sheet.

So, you pour all these things in a pot and it looks like this:

Then you slowly heat it and it will look like this:

It is at this stage that you are legally entitled to tap your fingers together and murmur, 'Yes, yes, my pretty. Bubble away....soon'.

It is also at this stage that, no matter how badly you want to, you should no longer put your tongue in the mixture. However, if the French are storming your castle, you are at the right stage to pour it as they climb up your flying buttresses. Make sure to feather them too!

And when it looks like this:

You pour it into your mold.

Where you quickly turn it into a work of art.

Look how pretty!

I guess somewhere along this process, you can take an offramp and end up somewhere in Candyland, which is a hell of a lot more fun than Scienceville, and I'm guessing you get things like these:

Which are beautiful, but we all know actually taste pretty terrible, and are all probably stuck together, in the shape of an old lady's candy dish, where they have been languishing since the Diefenbaker administration.

I'm actually totally surprised and pleased that it worked as well as it did. But it tasted terrible. Ugh.

And tomorrow I will do something very exciting with it! Seriously! Or else it will be a dismal failure and I will regret writing this!

Stay tuned....

Name the Stars and Know Their Dark Returning

2011-11-09T08:52:00.001-08:00

Photo credits: Kyle Purcell

Time is doing this weird little trick on me right now. I will feel very in control and that there is time for everything and that I'm doing ok and then out of nowhere I will be overwhelmed with total and absolute panic about how there's no way it will all be done and how I have been wasting every moment up 'til now.

I guess this is also how I feel about my work and my career and everything: ok and positive, I slowly build these good feelings, and then quickly, spiralling into terror.

It's all good. Right?

Kind of weird to be working on a project on this timeline. I'm going back to Sudbury in a few days so I won't be able to rehearse Modern Love. We're going to have a pretty intense period of rehearsal in the two weeks before it goes up (which is standard), but it's also the holidays, so things need to be juggled around, you know, the Lord. It means that we had to get started early, which was great, but now I'm kind of charged up about the show, and things have been percolating for a while and I'm thinking about it and wanting to work on it....and I'm gone.

Gone in a blur.

It's weird to feel like I'm leaving a project that is so important to me right when it's prime time to work on it. And I'm not leaving it. There is so much tech that can be worked on without me, there is a ton of promo stuff that needs to start and I can help with that from wherever, and we've been rehearsing with the goal of giving me a frame work that I can refine and practice on my own. A lot of stuff is drilling, just going over specific movements again and again, and I can do that wherever.

But....we'll make it work. What I'm finding is that we are making it up as we go along, because we just have to cope. All of that sounds as if we don't have answers and we don't know what we're doing, but I kind of feel like we don't, and that's the way it is. It's not a bad thing. Everything is an experiment.

I was complaining to someone the other day and, LIKE A JERK, I said, 'Why can't everything just be easy?' And my friend looked at me as if I was the biggest asshole ever and said, 'Why should things be easy? And if they were, wouldn't you find ways to make them difficult anyway?'

Touche.

So we cope because things are never easy and they're never going to be easy and that's it. I'm going to Sudbury at a totally inopportune time, and that's just the way it is. And we don't know how to solve problems, but we will. Maybe it isn't possible to put together a show when your only actor has to be away for a chunk of time but WE'LL FIND OUT. Maybe it isn't possible to write a good play in which a major character is a computer screen that types out his lines, but WE'LL FIND OUT.

It's all just a big question, and maybe that's the attitude I should have as an artist, maybe it will encourage me to take bigger risks and make better art and take criticism as another exploration rather than something to shut me down. If all of this not knowing and wondering can make me open up, shut up like a telescope, as Alice says, and not fall to pieces, well....that would be something.

We Have So Much in Common, It's a Phenomenon

2011-11-07T12:20:00.000-08:00

Have you been here?

The Fringe Creation Lab. It's the best. I spent the weekend there, mostly workshopping a little something with these guys, watching a friend work on a new piece and giving some feedback, a bit of Modern Loving there tomorrow, and today a Next Stage meeting with all the other companies.

I love this place! Every time I go there are friends! One time I was rehearsing and next door were these guys, another time it was these guys. You get to rehearse for ridiculously low rates, and when you get bored of your play, you can go and rehearse the play next door! And then you walk down the streets and run into other artists going there for whatever reason!

It's a pretty incredible blessing for all the emerging companies that don't have a home and can't afford a ton of expensive rehearsal space. It makes the idea of playing around possible. It's cheap enough that you can go and workshop a piece in the very beginning stages of development, you can do a little showcase for friends and get feedback. Plus the rooms are beautiful and the staff is great so it is fun just to be there.

At our meeting today, the Next Stage staff talked to us about how much they want the various companies to band together, to help each other with resources and promotion, and people immediately started offering suggestions, started making connections and reaching out. It's a pretty amazing way to look at things: that instead of a group of companies that are all fighting for an audience, we are all parts of one festival and we can be stronger as one force.

ISN'T THAT A BEAUTIFUL IDEA?

Because I am a mean and petty person, and I guess because I don't have a company, or even an agent, and I am fighting for myself, I feel so competitive a lot of the time. I want to be able to be happy for others' success stories, but I worry they come at the expense of my own career. It's a ridiculous and really unhelpful way to think. I think there's a way to keep the competitive edge, but to feel that I'm not fighting against other artists, we are fighting to get more people to go to all of our shows, fighting the government to keep funding us, fighting to get new exciting work everywhere. It's much more fun to think of things that way, but it's very hard as well. I'm working on making this switch. Constantly. Oy.

This weekend made me feel like I was a part of something, which, truthfully, is really why I do theatre to begin with.

How to Select Whom to Lunch With

2011-10-21T19:52:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, you just need someone to tell you you aren't crazy.

Or that you are.

I write by myself, and even though I have a team that does other things on the show, when I write, it's me and my computer. It's usually 3 a.m. and I've already seen the Seinfeld episode they're rerunning, because it's the same one that was on at 1 a.m. when I was trying to not write then, there is no one to talk to and at some point, I forget that there is anyone else to help me.

But there are people.

And if those people are willing to help you on a Friday night in the new Fringe Creation Lab, all the better.

Just hearing it and thinking about it with not my brain makes it seem like maybe it won't be so bad, or if it is, that it isn't the end of the world.

But really, it will be awesome. Because this is the team:

In the Rain, the Pavement Shines Like Silver

2011-10-17T11:59:00.001-07:00

Late night shoot!

Actually, not late night at all. Oy, it is getting dark early. I started dreading winter in June, and its coming. I love fall so so much and I am totally into the crisp weather we're having, with the trees all beautiful and the days either being gray and making me feel like being cozy in bed, or bright and blue and lovely. But winter, but winter, no!!!!

Anyway.

Adventures in downtown Toronto with Kyle the Wonderboy Genius Purcell and his Amazing Apparatus of Whizbang Wizardry. This kid is ridiculous. In the best way.

And with the kindest of all human beans, Eric Double. Also the best kind of ridiculous.

I'm pretty terrible at having my picture taken (evidence: this entire blog), and for some reason I have been doing photo shoots, for various promotional reasons, and I am not very good at 'taking direction', or 'emoting with my face', or 'standing in the same position', or 'looking like a human'. I'm sure all this bodes very well for my acting 'career'. But having my picture taken is very different than being on a stage and it scares me. What if the camera takes my soul?!?

Or worse, what if I have red eye?

Photo credit: Eric Double (Your pleasure, Double your fun)

But, Kyle has come up with a very very cool concept and so we took the first steps to making it happen. These steps had to happen downtown on a Sunday evening, and they had to impede the steps of others, as I had to stand in traffic a lot. And try not to ruin the pictures with my face.

And it only rained a tiny bit.

Hopefully it will turn into a promo video and that will turn into a viral hit and that will turn into bums in seats and that will turn into profit. That's my business model, and I'm sticking to it.

Because the show is about the Intrawebs, we're trying to use them to help us advertise. This is old hat: now, almost every independent show has a trailer to promote it. But it's valuable. And fun! We're trying to come up with some other cool, new stuff. So that people will see the show. Gahhhhh. What's the word for when you are equal parts nervous and excited? Nervcited? Exervous? Cristunity?

Clip, Clip Here, Clip, Clip There

2011-10-17T11:23:00.000-07:00

New drafts all the time.

New edits all the time.

Though even at its longest it will only be 60 minutes, my script, I feel, is now of substantial girth. Like, it looks like a thing. A thing! It's not 'a couple of pages'. It is a draft. Or a script.

So much gone in to it, so much more still needs to go in. And come out. So many changes to make and think about. So many questions. Tiny little things have big ramifications. Huge changes happen organically.

It's ok, it's ok, it will all get done and it will be the best that I can do, and that's all I can do with it. Although I am notorious for not thinking that our best is good enough....urgh. I hate the phrase 'good enough'. I want everything to be AMMMMAAAAZING.

Although maybe then we'd get bored with amazing. That's kind of where our technology is at, it it amazing and we are bored. Like how Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa, plans meals with more subtle dishes to balance bold flavors, there has to be good work and great work and amazing work and not so good, great, amazing work.

I hope what I'm making right now is good...at least good.

It's exciting, I'm coming up to a deadline and the script feels, finally, that it is nearing a point of some kind of completion. I will continue to tinker, but I'll become more of an actor, not have to generate new material all the time. I guess that's sad, but it means the writer in me is free to do new things, which I can't wait for, as writing this just has sent me spiralling into more, and more, and more that I want to create about. And it will start to become a production. New challenges. Things are brewing. Fun.

In other news, I've been incredibly fortunate to see a great deal of excellent Toronto theatre lately. The Maids, The Ugly One, His Greatness, Sex, Religion and Other Hang Ups, In the Next Room, all are somewhere between interesting and transcendent, and just a huge variety of different kinds of show. There's so much more I want to see playing right now and opening soon. It's a pretty great month in Toronto theatre. Inspiring. Hopeful.

Circling the Apartment, Logging Miles

2011-10-06T17:58:00.000-07:00

I’m trying to write.

No, really, I am, I swear!

It looks like this.

And like this:

Sometimes like this:

And often like this:

Because I get bored with writing, and when I get bored, that’s right, MUPPET FASHION PARADE!

The best thing about the Muppet doppelganger is if the writing is bad, you can blame the play on her.

Here’s a list of things that are vaguely related to writing (BUT ARE CLEVERLY NOT WRITING!) that I do so that I can convince myself that I am writing, but I am very much not):

1) Make a long list of people to invite to my show so that my career will take off. While generally connected to the Toronto theatre community, in certain flights of fancy, the list can include such luminaries as Julie Taymor, the Ghost of Christmas Past, and Pope Pius XII.

(There is a sub heading to this category, and that is the list of fictional characters who would get this piece. This includes, but is not limited to Holden Caulfield, Esther Greenwood, Timon from The Lion King, and, once again, the Ghost of Christmas Past).

2) Look up festivals, shows, events where I could remount my as-now-unwritten show. Aggressively pursue such opportunities, all of which require a complete script to enter. Shows in places that allow me to travel to exotic locales are preferred (Hello, Avignon Theatre Festival!)

3) Make track lists of

a. Songs to use as pre show music

b. Songs to use in the show

c. Songs that various characters would like

d. Songs that I will write to, when I am, in future, writing.

e. Songs that are just great to dance to, cause, like, great songs, gotta dance!

4)Make up fantasy sequences of taking my bows (Several. Extended.)

5) Make up fantasy sequences of post-show euphoria in which various gentlemen callers ask for my hands, artistic directors flock around me, writers burst forth from the walls to offer to write amazing new parts for me, and everyone in my life gets along and we all drink and laugh with open mouths together forever. Taxes are abolished and death flees from our joyous party, as there could never be an end to such merriment and artistic ass-kickery.

6) Make up fantasy sequences of post-show euphoria in which my enemies come to the show , wherein I stun them, not only with my amazing show and now-amazing life, but with my incredible recreation of Destiny’s Child ‘Survivor’, which I sing to them, in three part harmony, by myself. Back up dancers appear as if from no where to assist me in finger-wagging. Enemies vanish in clouds of ignominy.

You know I'm not gon' diss you on the Internet...'cause my momma taught me better than that.

7) Muppet fashion parade (previously discussed).

Oh, and 8) Blog about all this.

And the Devil Will Drag You Under With a Soul So Heavy You'll Never Float

2011-10-03T01:18:00.000-07:00

So the reason that I went to New York, when I really shouldn't be spending such gross amounts of money on extravagant trips or ANYTHING, is to see a play that I had heard would change my life. So I went to see it.

It is called Sleep No More, and it is a pretty amazing experience.

Brief Encounter remains the best play I've ever seen in my life, and the best experience I have ever had in a theatre. But that's partially because this is not a play, and this is not in a theatre. This is one of the weirdest, most challenging and exciting interactions I have ever had with a piece of theatre, or a piece of art. I had problems with it, large problems that, were I not in this kind of strange milieu, were I sitting in a theatre watching it, would have meant that I didn't like the show. But the whole experience (I keep using that word and I'm going to use it a lot, but I think that's all I've got for this one, vocabulary wise), was so amazing and transcendent and wonderful in so many ways that my problems are really insignificant in light of the project in its entirety.

And it was so impressive a project that I saw it twice.

I KNOW, I KNOW, BUT I DON'T HAVE TO JUSTIFY ANYTHING TO YOU!

Here is my brother and I before Sleep No More, two normal theatre goers not entirely sure what we would see:

AND HERE IS US AFTER:

Amazeballs. If you look carefully, you can see our minds are actually blown.

I think it's best to go in to the show not knowing specifics, which is not how I went in, but now I think might be a good idea. So I'm going to give some specifics, but won't encourage you to do what I did, or to do anything, if you do decide to go. It's your own journey. You create your own version of the show, and I think that's the way to see it. You're going to miss shit, and the shit you miss is going to be awesome. But you're going to see shit, too, and the shit you see will also be awesome. You have to strangely accept this, which is hard for me, and a large part of why I had to go see it a second time: I felt like I had failed as an audience member and not done a good enough job of seeing things. Looking back, though, that's just my own hysteria and neuroses. So I'm not telling you what to do, should you go. I'm not that kind of guy, you know?

Ok. So you go here:

Which is a very large warehouse compound in Chelsea, apparently three separate buildings that used to be nightclubs.

You get in a line with other people and no one tells you anything but everyone in line is talking about it, and everyone in line is already having some kind of feeling about it. We are a combination of excited, scared, unsure, hyperactive, skeptical. Everyone's talking about what we're going into and absolutely nothing has happened yet.

You go in and are given your ticket, which is a playing card, and a mask, which you put on and will wear for the entirety of the show.

Already the show is cooler and sexier than I will ever be and, while walking through a pitch dark, narrow corridor I will feel slightly saddened by this fact.

And then you are let loose in this massive, multi-story, enormous building to chase after characters as they do a kind of extrapolation from Macbeth.

And....it's great.

There's a lot about the show that was just so inspiring. The scope of it is enormous. Five huge floors, each with room after room. Space is transformed to create a graveyard indoors, or a dead forest maze that comes off of an asylum. There are rooms full of bathtubs, and rooms full of taxidermy. Ancient ruins and woodsy cabins. Banquet halls and clubs and bars. You go through room after room and get lost. The first time I was there, I completely missed the entire top floor. It's so big....imagine being able to be lost in a set. I was. For hours.

I don't know how you think to do a show this big. I don't know how you then get enough people to say 'yes', in terms of money, and time, and work that needs to go into it. I don't know how you make theatre this big happen, but it's amazing. I feel like in the work that I do, I'm conditioned to find problems before I can find possibilities. So often I'll have an idea that makes me light up, and when I tell someone, the first thing they want to say is, 'Now, it's going to be very hard to have a cast of six', or, 'I don't know if we can do that', or 'this can't be staged'. A project like Sleep No More requires, at several levels, people to say, 'This is not possible and it will happen anyway'. 'I do not know how but I will do this'.

How is this kind of thinking possible? Why don't I have it, or, when I do have it, why don't I have enough of whatever else I need to make others say 'yes'? Where can I get it? Costco?

Can we, as a community, make a pact to just TRY thinking this way? Maybe we'd create some good shit. Or at least build really amazing haunted houses.

And what really makes the hugeness of the project so incredible is the minute detail that fills every inch of this massive space. Every room is full of tricks and ticks. There's stuff in all the drawers, there's writing on all the pads of paper. The design is beautiful and spooky, rooms made of cardboard with playing cards nailed to the walls, or a crib with headless babies hanging over it. It's an amazing juxtaposition between the very big and the very small. The dancing mirrors this, and the story. Its a huge Shakespearean tale told, in many ways, through tiny moments. MacDuff forgetting about his wife at a party, while he dances with another woman (really a witch). Banquo and Macbeth changing shirts together before something terrible possesses them both. Malcolm shaving his father before they go to Macbeth's castle. The dancing flies and scales the walls (wow, do they ever climb the walls, gravity seems just another negotiable factor), but is also unnervingly intricate and precise. It's an amazing combination of dreaming big, while still knowing the devil is in the details.

Then there's this amazing idea that you create something that the audience viscerally wants to see. This moves beyond being 'on the edge of your seat', because you can literally and physically be propelled forward, off the seat, and chasing the action up six flights of stairs or down a hallway. You can get pushed out of a room where you so desperately wanted to see the scene. I hadn't seen any of Malcolm's stuff so I was determined to follow him out of a big group scene that marks a kind of looping point in the show. He ran out of the room, so I BOLTED after him, running as hard as I could up five flights of stairs. I was the only one following him and was so thrilled that I would see all of his stuff. And then, out of nowhere, two other people in masks came out on a landing between us, and he got away. I was so disappointed. It's rare that I want to see something so badly that I chase it down (other than ice cream trucks or Pauly Shore movies). But that's what this show makes you do. I always love shows where you see the actors sweat, and I love being in shows where I get to run, or that feel like running: shows where the characters fly and move so quickly through thought that they are physically in motion, even if it's all internal to me. That's the kind of stuff I like doing. So to have that feeling as an audience member was kind of remarkable. I have never been this exhilarated when I wasn't performing.

But, of course, I was, implicitly, performing in this piece. You can watch the audience in the same way you watch the show. Your presence factors in, you're slowing other audience members down, forcing others to run (especially if you're me, I got kinda pushy), you are standing somewhere where an actor needs to be, rifling through a prop that is soon to enter a scene. You're a weird, complicit, partner, a ghost in this haunted world.

Don't worry, I already put it on my resume.

I remember once being taught that speaking Shakespeare should feel like you have a knife at your back, so great is the need to speak. This was like watching with a knife at your back, so great was the desire, the need, to investigate, to see, to explore, to understand, to discover, to win.

I see a lot of theatre and going, much of the time, feels like taking tonic, like it is something that 'I have to do' or 'is good for me'. I stand in lines with other actors and we say that we don't really want to see this play, but we felt we had to, out of devotion to our friends or our heroes, out of the desire to be seen at the theatre and therefore remind other theatre goers of our existence, out of the hope that maybe we'll see something that is beautiful or terrifying or sexy or silly or enough to remind us that we want to keep working and we want to keep fighting. This is not to say that I don't see very good theatre on a fairly regular basis, because I do. But there is a difference in having to fight to watch. In having to make choices. Here, passivity, do stay in the same room and watch the action go through you, is a choice. So is pushing to the front of a mob of people to see naked bodies, or sprinting after a witch so hard you fall down (guess which ones I did). But they are choices, not defaults.

Ok, so I didn't get the story. Not really. I got moments from the plot, but they were isolated, and I know the play very well (I am, however, very stupid and often don't get things. This amazes me, how little I get in a a given play). Big stuff is there, the murders, who is on whose side. And the invented stuff particularly with the MacDuffs, was wonderful, and felt like it did, indeed, come from the text. But I don't know a ton about dance, so, to my untrained eye, the dancing sometimes got repetitive, and it didn't help me differentiate characters or moments. Everyone is in a kind of perpetual state of either lust, or paranoia, so I didn't really see character arcs. Everyone dances in a quite similar way, to me. Sometimes, I get this a lot with physical theatre, I could see that movements were specific, but I didn't know what they meant, so they end up just kind of being 'the dance of sadness' for me. And that happened.

But I did get a very strong sense of the feel of the play. It's a huge insight into fear. How scary it is to be alone in a world where witches can appear. How paranoid you get when there's darkness all around, when everyone's face is a mystery. There's also a fascinating duality between individualism and collectivism. Everyone's time there will be different, and there's a supreme desire, at least for me, to have an individual experience, to see something no one else will, to discover something new. There's also an immense comfort in moving as a group, in outnumbering the actors and forming the shadows or demons that are in their imaginations, or maybe even their realities. I moved back and forth constantly between wanting to stand out and be autonomous, and craving the other white masks around me, to protect me.

There's also something about the voyeurism, about insatiable curiousity, that compels us to break all the rules that we've learned in years of theatre going, to rifle through papers and get close to the performance. It's powerful and intoxicating, doing what you shouldn't, and as seductive as the power of a demon or the lure of a throne. The appeal of the dark side is overpowering, toxic, and that's such a presence in the script, and manifests in a totally sensory, palpable way. All of these feelings that are in the play are made flesh, if the actions are not. It's pretty cool. It's a pretty cool way of thinking about how to communicate. I know that I've been told to stop worrying about communicating feeling and just deal with action, that you can't act feeling, you can just do things, and I always hated that because I am the type of guy who would really like to just get up and cry and laugh because I am awesome at having and showing too many feelings and not so great at getting out of bed and making decisions and conquering Rome. This made me think that there is something to all the feelings I have, and there's a way that that can be made valuable and tangible to an audience, and as satisfying as watching concrete action.

It's pretty amazing to have a show that can challenge the rules you have been taught or you have accepted or made for yourself as an artist.

And then, after, it continues to work on me. My brother and I were pretty obsessed with it (and my brother is not really a theatre person. He occasionally works in theatre as a musician, but its not his medium of choice, although because of me and some other friends, he now sees a fair amount. He loved this show). So obsessed, that we spent a lot of time comparing our experiences and then trying to piece together the whole thing, so that we had a map of the show. Which looked like this:

Each column is a character and we wrote down what we saw them do, then tried to locate it in a timeline.

This took an embarrassing amount of time. And was worth every minute, because when we went back for the second time, we had plans, and were mathematically figuring out where to go.

I've been endlessly going over not just the technical stuff, of who goes where when, and what that means for where other people are, but been - actually - haunted by the images. Of the white masks roaming around darkened halls. Of rubber rooms with stray straight jackets in them. Of the taxidermy wing and the pile of salt in the corner of a tea room, of the feeling that someone was sneaking up on me, or watching me, or that I was somewhere I wasn't supposed to be and seeing something I shouldn't. It's been a week and it's still very much with me.

Exciting. Scary. Wicked, in every sense of the word. Yup.

If you need to be inspired and confused and enlightened and spooked and charged and pushed and left alone and forcibly moved and softly caressed, get out and see this show if you can.

The Bronx is up and the Battery's Down

2011-10-02T16:07:00.000-07:00

I went to New York.

I love New York.

I really do.

I talk to other artists and they say they couldn't live there, and I totally get that it is very hard and I would be eaten alive and in a total panic within seconds, but a huge part of me just wants to be there so so badly. I could never afford the lifestyle with any sense of comfort or confidence, and I'd be so overwhelmed by the crowds and worry and all that, but still, but still, but still.

It really is such a mecca for theatre. I saw three shows there, one twice, and I'll talk about them all in subsequent posts, but it's just so inspiring to be in a city that has such successful commercial theatre, that brings people from all over the world, and also has really subversive and interesting, different kind of stuff.

I feel bad saying that because I have seen three shows here in Toronto in the past four days, and they were all very very good, there's an abundance of great stuff to see here right now and I'm overwhelmed and lucky by it. But New York is still different. Right? What is that?

On 30 Rock, when Steve Martin guest stars, he has a line trying to get Liz to live with him, and he says they could move to Canada, and says, 'Toronto is just like New York without all the stuff!' One of my favorite lines. Is that true? It is both true and not true.

So I was very inspired but also sad because it made me feel like this amazing work was possible, but far away.

But either way, I still got to go to New York, which I always love more than almost anything.

So exciting.....

If You Got It, Give It

2011-09-19T14:17:00.000-07:00

I'm going to use this thing for self promotion for a minute!

Ok, so the big news that I was alluding to a million years ago is that I'm in a show at Tarragon this season that is written and directed by Daniel MacIvor. The show is called Was Spring and HERE'S MY FACE. That will be in March/April/May.

And the other big news is that the show I wrote called Modern Love that was presented as a workshop back in May is in the Next Stage Festival. And that will be in January.

They are both very exciting things. Yay!

Small World, Isn't It?

2011-09-14T09:15:00.000-07:00

Hi!

Been a while...I haven't been blogging because not only have I not been acting, I have been doing relatively little even close to theatre. But then this past weekend I went to see a whole bunch of stuff.

At the festival of this guy:

Good old George Bernard!

I saw four shows and was knocked out by the quality. Four very strong productions. It's rare that I am so consistently impressed. There were parts of each of them that I thought were stronger than others, but on the whole, they each had a vision and it was so clearly communicated. And the vision was, in different cases, beautiful, or unique, or heartbreaking, or epic, and they were all clear, clear, clear in execution. So that was very encouraging.

It's so so exciting to see good theatre.

Feeling not so much a part of acting and theatre right now is kind of both nullified and exacerbated by going and being surrounded by a sect of the Canadian theatre community for a while. On one hand, it's great to go and be inspired and feel like, yes, these are things I'd want to be a part of. Specifically at Shaw, because I have always felt that there was nothing I could ever do there, but watching those shows I saw stuff that I would like and could do. Also, you realize how very very infinitesimally small the community is. I ran into several Tout Comme Elle alumni, and other people I had worked with, and then, onstage, are people I know, or am connected to in some way. It kind of feels possible that I can move forward and get somewhere, at some point.

But....on the other hand, I feel often that my theatrical past comes back to haunt me. I have enemies. I have people in the community who I know don't like me, as an artist or as a person, and there are even more people that dislike me and I don't know about it, due to either duplicity or my own shocking ignorance. And those things make the idea of being successful seem far away. And because I still see the ways in which it is possible, failure is all the more crushing. There's a humiliation factor at this point, because enough people know me that enough people will know that I gave up. Or couldn't hack it. Or whatever. That's the down side to now feeling, on occasion (rare occasion, really) that I am or could be a part of the theatre machine.

So....limbo....As with anything, it seems, the positive and the negative are there side by side and I jump back and forth from one to the other. They're both real, too, I think. I guess it is just learning to live with them both being side by side and not letting that make you crazy. Acceptance. Serenity now!!!

Come Blow Your Horn, Start Celebrating

2011-08-27T16:45:00.000-07:00

Yes, I am procrastinating doing things I have to do by writing a blog post. Wanna fight about it?

Also, I have no theatrical pictures to show, so I'm posting, for the first time I think, evidence of one of my deepest loves: text in strange and public places. There's something about it that makes me feel lonely and connected at the same time.

Anyway, the procrastination. It's not my fault. I don't have anything now coming up for quite a while, and it's so hard to work really hard on stuff that seems far away. I want to announce things but I'm going to wait until they're all official like, because I am nothing if not proper. But anyway. I have irons in the fire, but the irons are like a million feet long and so the fire is just this little flicker in the distance, and I can't care about that when there is terrible television to watch, right?

Well, they probably aren't that far away, and there is stuff that I have to do NOW for proposals and putting things in motion, but....you know. It's just very easy to slip into apathy. Terrifyingly easy. I'm also tired. I FINALLY finished all of the performance stuff I had. Since May, I have always had something coming right up. And now I don't. I was supposed to have a project in October and it got cancelled. It's kind of a big bummer, and it's thrown me from feeling quite comfortable with having a month long break to absolutely panicking about having a three month long break. I turned stuff down because I thought I was doing it, which I guess is a lesson to never turn anything down, but, realistically, I couldn't have done them all, so I guess sometimes things just don't work out and it sucks, and that's the real lesson to learn. Shitty lesson!

So. I'm in some sort of paralysis between apathy and terror. I think this is where I live. I should move.

For the past two nights I was helping my friend do a cabaret fundraiser for her new theatre company, so I performed some weird schticky thing that I do, my vocal masque, which I have spoken of here. It really is my favorite thing to do. I just love it. And it went well, people were into it, which is always so exciting. I didn't know many people there, so I felt strange about performing, but as socially awkward as I felt, it was really great to see new faces and have them see my work. And to be applauded and told lovely things by people who have no obligation to. Nice to expand the network, but it's even nicer to be confronted with how many people are fighting so hard, how many people are willing to put themselves out there for art and friends. And how very talented some people are, like this lady. And cabarets are so great, to see all this different kind of stuff, one thing after another. I don't go to many, but every time I do I always am thrilled that they did not out last my squirrel like attention span. And I had a terrific time at this one.

But, now I'm all out! No more performing for a bit!

Frozen yogurt instead?

The Little Ways You Try Together

2011-08-25T07:42:00.000-07:00

Last night, in the midst of torrential downpour, and in the MIDDLE of NOWHERE, I read stage directions for my friend.

This friend! Hi, David!

Ok, so the torrential downpour mostly happened after we were done and it was more beautiful and exciting than anything, the lightning was pretty incredible and alternated between bolts and sheet lighting, so everything was lit up in a variety of ways. And it wasn't the MIDDLE of NOWHERE, but it was the east end, and Christ, that is far from my house. I am so very much a west-ender. I couldn't believe I had been on a streetcar for twenty minutes before I even got to Yonge Street. Oi. Anyway, I don't have plays in my life anymore for a time, so I have to fictionalize ('lie').

It was ok, but reading stage directions made me feel that I just wanted to be in the play, and it makes me realize how very petty I am. I really still am that girl who gets put in the chorus and just wants to play Sally Bowles. Or, more accurately, the girl who does props for our high school production of 'Cabaret', because she quits theatre the week of auditions, and then spends the year lamenting it. I was in the chorus for everything else that I auditioned for. 'Tommy', most notably, where I as in 'B' Chorus, because I wasn't good enough to be in the fun numbers! Moving on!

But everyone who read was good, and it's nice to hear a play aloud.And the stage directions are fun and beautifully written. It's especially great to hear a play I LOOOOOVVVEEEE, like this one. The Art of Dining by Tina Howe. I just love her so much. Man. Her play Museum was the first show I ever directed, also back in high school, and I have just been so totally nuts about her since then. Her plays are full of glee and whimsy. All the characters are these ridiculous live wire versions of over the top people, no one listens to each other and everything is always funny until it's not. It's perfect. I want to do this play very very badly and last night reminded me of that. Even with my selfish and self-conscious desire to play every part, it's nice that a group of people can just read together. When I'm not working (and I'm not), what else is there to do?

Because really, all theatre ever is is a group of people in rooms. So it's nice to be in those rooms and remind yourself that you're making theatre. The little things, the little things.

The little things add up and stress me out a lot, but doing them makes me feel that this is what I do. That it's not just the big productions I have to wait on that make me a part of the community, but just on a given Wednesday night, I might be reading a play. On a Thursday and Friday (such as today and tomorrow) I might be performing in a cabaret. More on that later. When I figure out what I'm doing. Eep. But when theatre and performance are a part of my casual life, it makes me feel that they are my life. I like that as much as it makes me tense.

I do want a project now though! I'm done with the break!

It was at this beautiful wine bar, Swirl.

Here's the best thing about Swirl:

People write wishes in the drawers of the tables. Best.

But Now Go With Dignity

2011-08-16T10:26:00.000-07:00

So, another one down.

Our houses were pretty solid the whole way through, which was great, and a bit unexpected, for me, as we didn't have a ton of pre press. SummerWorks is hard. You're competing against the people who you apply to for the rest of the year, because there are emerging artists but also really established people. It's also a bit of an inner circle thing...I have never really felt a part of it. I find it exhausting and intimidating, and even when I'm in shows that are part of the festival, I feel like I'm crashing a party I haven't been invited to whenever I see shows.

But, of course, I'm a crazy person and not to be listened to.

Anyway, I didn't see very much, but I did see ONE, which was an Orpheus/Eurydice type tale from Calgary and I wept hysterically during it. It was so beautiful. So many images that I wanted to create myself, I was watching things I had dreamed of be put onstage in front of me. Weird. Sad, kind of? But also amazing. And then I saw some other stuff and that was kind of ok too.

I wish I had more pictures of Long Dark Night, although the promo shots were kind of killer and nothing could match them. Mostly I just wish that I had some shots of my in my costume, which was kind of really beautiful. And my hair was awesome.

It was a hard one, just because it never felt like we were ready and I don't really like feeling that way. But I loved the show, and I loved my character, and it's the kind of part I've wanted to do for so long and never thought I'd get a chance to do. Plus, I got to be in a musical, and it made me think that maybe if I worked hard on all the stuff that you need to do in musicals, which I wouldn't mind doing, I could do more. And we all know that musicals are the nearest and dearest to my heart. Our reviews were mixed, but I got singled out a lot. Which is nice, I guess, but it's nicer when the production as a whole works and is recognized.

I feel a vague sense of sadness and I'm reluctant to say its post show depression, because I feel it kind of hasn't hit me. We had so many days off because you only get six shows at the festival, so I have had lots of days without shows, without rehearsals. But I guess having two days in a row without anything is weird. I've been doing the things that the humans do. Going to the gym. Responding to emails in a timely manner. Sitting. I have become one of the women reading The Help. Ugh.

I'm grateful for a break but also kind of antsy already. I haven't really relaxed because I have two little theatre things that I'm doing next week to help out some friends, so I still feel I have shit to do. On one hand, I'm tired and eager to not be involved in any performance. On the other, I know it will about twenty minutes before I start worrying and wanting to be in a show. After that stuff next week though, I'm anticipating the dam breaking. And it won't be pretty.

Boo boo be doo!

Set.

Burst through set!

Though I Practice Yoga, I Don't Breathe

2011-08-06T15:11:00.000-07:00

More amazing pictures from Tanja Tiziana. I love these so much.

We opened the other night.

And it was rough.

But no one died.

This is the thing I have to keep reminding myself: no one died. No matter how bad the play is (and however bad the play is, it feels way worse when you are watching it from onstage or backstage and feeling each moment trickle out of you like some deformed baby you have brought into the world), it eventually ends and it isn't so bad. Because it's just a play. Not such a big deal.

ALTHOUGH EVERYTHING IS ALWAYS A BIG DEAL TO ME! BECAUSE I AM A BIG DEAL KIND OF GUY.

I'm not the best guy at being positive, I am more the kind of guy who immediately wants to surrender, after turning on every other member of my team. I panic. I don't usually jump ship, but I jump all the way around the ship, screaming, much to the disappointment of the other sailors.

So there were mistakes, but we lived to tell, and there will be new, worse mistakes tomorrow. But we dealt with missed entrances (VERY missed, actors not even backstage or aware the show was starting entrances), non existent props critical to the action, entire verses of songs forgotten, scenes not being changed, sets falling apart or not making it onstage, the piano getting unplugged....

I aged ten years backstage. I was pretty much in a Jessica Moss brand state of panic from beginning to end. I actually started thinking things would be ok, before the show I felt confident but then it all just derailed.

But again, no one died. So I have to stop mourning and fretting as if someone did.

And then we did the show again today, and it was so much improved. Really, we just needed a run in the space. And it's unfortunate that during these festivals, that happens often on opening night. And that just as often, opening night is reviewed. But one review came out and I actually think it is pretty fair, if not the best review. And the show today was much cleaner, and we can really only go up from here. With this show, I really hope we can get the 'stuff' cleaned up, all the exits and entrances and tech, because its silly and funny and who knows when I'll be in something silly and funny again.

I have to chill out. But how do you stop caring about something that is important to you? I feel a bit guilty because, as I have been told, everyone knows when I'm upset, and it's like a tidal wave of negativity that can bring others down. I don't mean to do that, but I'm capable of it, and when I get upset, I don't care so much, and just let that rip. And that's hard for other people. Especially people for whom this is just supposed to be fun, not a career.

But, and I said this earlier, its really only fun for me when we get to work really hard, and when I believe in the work. I've either got to figure this out, or I've got to only take projects that make me excited and will lead me to feel this way. That's difficult to predict though.

Anyway. I have some good news that I want to share but I can't yet, so I will later and that will keep me going.

And until then, I will just go on solving mysteries.

You Cross Your Fingers and Hold Your Heart

2011-08-05T12:03:00.000-07:00

Urp, we have to open tonight.

I don't feel very ready for this opening, which is fair, I think, when its a show like this that is quite big (in that it has a set and a projector and tech and 5 people and songs and dancing), and we only had 4 hours on the stage to make it happen.

There are the openings that you're ready for, where you're chomping at the bit and really need an audience, and then there are the openings that come out of nowhere and bite you in the face.

Although someone was saying, what would we do with more time, and its kind of true, we'd run it but we'd never really be prepared, because how can you prepare yourself to be bitten in the face? There will always be blood. There will always be surprises. There will always be tears. So you just do everything you can before you get run over by the train. And then you cope.

I'm coping by freaking out! What else is new?

I freak out all the time!

I'm trying to summon up some excitement. I am excited. But right now I'm just nervous. I'll be excited after we open and have conquered that. Because the show is fun and funny and totally unpretentious and that's wonderful. So once I just get through it once it will be ok and I'll be back to my neurotic self.

Honestly? I'm looking forward to not being in a play for a bit. After this I have a reading the week after, so that will keep me busy, and then I have a month where I don't have to perform (except, you know, my screaming fits on the subways and dramatic monologues to gay boys begging them to love me so that we can just watch musicals and cry together all the time, which are the only activities I'm interested in, sexually or otherwise). I'm kind of really looking forward to not performing. Of course, that looking forward will last approximately nine minutes, and then I will frantically try to cajole an army of homeless men into staging my rendition of 'As You Like It', as that's probably the only company that will ever let me have a shot at playing Rosalind.

And then we'll do my masterpiece, 'Ot-Hello Dolly!', a conflation of two great works. (Actually this is my total dream).

And You're Aching to Move But Your Caught in Her Web.

2011-08-01T12:30:00.000-07:00

Ok.
So I'm difficult.

I ADMIT IT!

I'm a hideous man eating fire breathing spider woman!

I push because I want things to be really good, and that comes off as bossy, or aggressive. I have certain rules, like I really try to never ever give another actor notes (because when another actor gives me notes, I want to flip right the hell out), or try to tell anyone how to do their job. But when I'm working, I can go into this mode of super focus and speed, of wanting to drill things that need drilling without fucking around. And when I get worried or scared, that mode becomes even more militant. And really it is just me going inward so that I don't get mad or say something. It looks like shutting down, and I guess it is in a way, but its also how to cope when the going gets rough. The only alternative I've found to that is freaking out, and that doesn't work. So I get kind of stroppy, I guess? Quiet. Fast.

And sometimes that all comes across as BITCH.

I'm so terrorized by the idea of being a difficult, demanding actress. It haunts me that my this reputation already exists about me and will preclude any success. I will be like ChaCha
diGregorio.

'They call me Cha Cha because I'm the best dancer at St. Bernadette's'. 'With the worst reputation!'

But the thing about Cha Cha is, SHE COULD DANCE.

TERRIBLE VIDEO! Good scene.

And I am difficult, but I really believe that you can see hard work, and you can see the effort and the care and the skill onstage. So I push to make the show as good as it can be. It's just always scary that the way you are, and something that I think is positive, like caring about shows, can come across as being a negative and something that makes people count you out. It's a girl thing too...the stereotype of the impossible actress. GREEN M AND Ms ONLY!

So I push myself and I try not to push anyone around me, but I do, even when I don't mean to. Because I am frustrated now when I'm not in stuff I really believe in. I've done enough of plays just for the sake of doing plays. Now, we make art! Or not really. I just want to be in good shit. Partly for my career, because I'm always looking for the thing to take me to the next level and all of that. And partly because it's only fun now when it's good. If I'm being honest. And good is not the same to everyone, but I want to believe in the work I'm doing, even if everyone else hates it.

I'm working on it. Trying not to be so impossible. I can't really expect myself to care less. I care about everything! But I'm trying to be aware of it. Because I like other hard workers, but I know that not everyone does, and I have to be able to work with as many types of people as possible. It's hard. It's hard to not be who you are.

Anyway, because I'm an actor, I just spent the better part of two hours to try and recreate this hairstyle:

Good thing I have nothing else to do with my life!

Except rehearse. Which we are doing. As much as we can. And it's coming together. Yup.

Happy August!

But Be a Comical One.

2011-07-29T11:29:00.000-07:00

It's hot, but not as hot as it has been.

Boring sentence, no? Boring observation. I don't have enough to do right now.

Tum te tum.

Actually, I have a million things that I could do and should do, not even getting to the strata of things that I REALLY could and should do, like build orphanages and save the whales, but I have a ton of things that would probably make my life better and me better if I did them. Things like learning to drive and cleaning my house and searching for the holy grail of joe jobs that lets me leave for a month to go do shows and pays me handsomely and lets me work erratic and ridiculous hours to accommodate my insatiable desire for the stage.

I could do all those things......

Or.........

I could post leftover photos from Swoon!

Orrrr.......

I could do nothinggggggg allllll the time........There's so much nothing to do! So many episodes of Mad Men to watch on my computer....so many theatre websites to look at and dream about....so many revenge fantasies to watch in my mind....so many things to worry about and hope for. It's hot and summery and I am confused. Enough reason to not do the things I should. But then I feel bad. VICIOUS CYCLE.

There's a lot to do for the next thing I'm working on, which is this:

It is called Long Dark Night and is a film noir musical. For all of you who ever doubted that I would ever be in either a film noir or a musical, I am now in both! (It is terrifying!)

I have to learn my lines and the show has to really, come together. We have a week. Which is both a lot of time and not enough time. I don't know. It will be what it will be and it is a lot of fun and really different from Swoon! and that's sad because I miss Swoon! but also great because its great to do different things.

It's a really old fashioned, Mel Brooks-y, balls out comedy, which is so fun for me and something that I haven't really done in a while...maybe ever? I feel I've done this kind of thing before, but maybe only in improv and sketch and skits, I don't think I've done a show in this style, and if I have, it was years ago. It's so much fun! I try to think about Carol Burnett and Madeleine Kahn and Gilda Radner and Lucille Ball and all those women that I wanted to be growing up. And then do impressions of them.

Awesome pictures, yes? They are taken by Tanja Tiziana, who is really amazing and has lots of good pictures on her website, which is infinitely more interesting than mine.

But comedy is hard and I don't know how funny I am and how funny anything is at any given time. There's a lot of the 'stock' funny stuff in this show, like silly accents and voices and double takes and that kind of thing, and I guess that stuff is funny, but sometimes it isn't, you know? I went and saw my friends at Humber River Shakespeare do The Comedy of Errors over the weekend, and they said the same thing. That it's a broad style show, and they spend time going, 'hmm, is that funny?' and sometimes the audience reaction is not as vocal, and that's scary. This is kind of the same thing. I don't know whether I'm funny. Sometimes I feel myself really trying to be funny, and usually when I am like that, I am anything but. And I am really annoying and everyone reaches for the mute button.

But when comedy works its the best thing in the world, and its really fun to do.

Hee hee, I am a ditzy and silly but on the ball girl friday. I love the term 'Girl Friday' more than almost anything in the world.

When Your Luck is Batting Zero, Get Yer Chin Up Off the Floor

2011-07-20T20:36:00.000-07:00

Because I am, of course, a miserable and lonely human being, I am very sad that my show, Swoon! is over.

Because I am trying to be less of a miserable and lonely human being, a short list of productive ways to deal with my negative feelings:

1) Build small scale versions of cities and stomp on them like some giant troll or lizard.
2) Build large scale versions of cities and run them like Mayor Quimby.
3) Watch Game of Thrones (NOTE: I don't do this, because I usually don't watch any TV that other humans watch. Should I get into it? I don't think I can handle this show. How can there be a game of thrones? Is it like musical chairs? I'm the WORST at that! I am so slow and never listen! Anyway, it doesn't sound any fun. If you have enough thrones that you can make a game of it, you probably just have too many thrones.)

And that's really all I've come up with. I've come to the sad and startling conclusion that when I'm in shows, my life is silly and full of random adventures, often trying to procure props and costumes for the shows, and also just because there are people in my life, so that leads to adventures. Not adventures that are all that exciting, or anything, really, but just things. I think most people call those 'things' or 'life', but to me, they are adventures. Gee, that's pretty sad, eh? Like sitting in a park really late after rehearsal. Or going to see a play in an underground parking lot at 3 a.m. after dragging my friend on a coffee search because I promised the SM I would bring her something, and then of course we couldn't find any, so I just brought a whole bunch of soda pop, but not until I had embarrassed myself at several establishments and walked all over the Annex in a freaking leg brace.

Oh yeah, all the adventures of the past week have involved a leg brace.

But that's the stuff that life is made of!

And I only really do that stuff when I'm in a show, because the rest of the time, I am lured into a semi-comatose state by the twin sirens of TV and my bed. Thank god for my friends, the cast of Community and fictional character Veronica Mars.

Luckily, I am always in a show. I have stuff coming up, and that's lucky. There will be other shows. I always feel like there won't, but there will.

But I miss Swoon! A lot. It was a really strange process, I was certain for a long time that it would fail (I'm not proud of that, but it is true), and then it didn't. At all. It was great. We got some recognition. Finally! Some recognition! I miss the people in it and their pretty faces.

Of course, when one show ends, a wave of rejection sweeps over me, with an agent who doesn't want to take my money (why not?!! that's what I steal it for!), or help me make more money (why not?!! I'm so bad at stealing!), and I think of all the projects I'm not in, and look at all the people who are doing better than me, and run right into the arms of Troy and Abed in the morning. And things always conflict, I commit to one project and then something else rears its head, and I don't know what to do. I can't manage myself (I'M OUT OF CONTROL!), and I'm terrible at business and networking and everything pretty much. I also hate doing it. So I look for the path that leads to fewer people hating me, and that's rarely the best career move. I think most business moguls take the exact opposite path. And look where it got them (Rupert Murdoch)!

So I feel stagnant, again, and confused, again, and without purpose, again.

Eep.

Please Spell 'Hospital'. H-O-S-P.....

2011-07-15T14:15:00.000-07:00

Acting Emergency! Call Lawrence Olivier!

No, not really. But I fell down and went BOOM. And then went to the hospital.

And then got these amazing bruises:

Tough, yes? THEY CALL ME ANIMAL.

And have been doing the show for the last two performances in a walking cast. It really helps me feel more self-conscious and less like a human being who anyone would ever date or put in their play, thanks for asking!

Yipes. I fell coming out of a play set in a church. I KNEW THE THEATRE AND ORGANIZED RELIGION WOULD BE THE ONES TO BRING ME DOWN. Ugh.

It's more embarrassing than anything else. Feeling incapable is rotten. I feel incapable because it happened in the first place. I fell in front of people I know and theatre people I want to impress, and that's kind of the worst. This kind of thing always happens to me and feeds the image I ahve of myself as this hapless and hopeless child/muppet creature. And then I have spent three days asking people to carry things for me and walk slowly because of me and we all know that my combination egomania/crippling self doubt generally make demanding anything of anyone impossible.

The amazing things have been two fold. a) The show survives. More than survives. It's a cute addition to my character when it is visible or mentioned, and then it's not really important when it isn't. I hurt doing the show....there's a part where we sway and it's not fun anymore, when before it was my favorite piece of the play, and it's just because it's hard to sway on one leg. But it's a physical piece, and I'm not as good as I normally am at being physical, and it doesn't matter. It definitely isn't ruining anything. Thank Allah.

Biggest house yet the first night I had to do it in the cast. That's the line up of people waiting to get in. We are close to selling out, and I desperately want it to happen. So it continues to go well and I continue to be proud of it.

b) The cast (the human one, not the one that makes me MORE MACHINE THAN MAN), has been incredibly supportive

It's such a nice bunch. Everyone has been really helpful and kind. Having done two big ensemble shows back to back, and developing such a bond both times with people has made me want to work this way over and over again. It's kind of the worst, because you just fall in love with everyone and then the show is done and they go back to their lives and you don't know if they ever really cared the way you did, because maybe it was just another thing for them, and while you still share something between you when you run into each other on the TTC or in a line up for another play, it's weird to not still be living in the same place together. But it's so exciting to be in big groups of people, to fill stages with people that it's almost worth how sad you get when you're alone in the end.

Almost.

I've been humbled by everyone's support. I don't know how supportive I am as a scene partner or cast member. I used to think I was, but I was not great during the beginning part of this process. I resisted and rejected the show. I was really hard to work with. And I still have problems because I'm bossy and have ideas that I think are the best because they come from my brain, and cry all the time and am essentially impossible. I have so much to work on.

Now, I know you will be wondering, 'Jessica, has this injury got in the way of your 'party all the time' lifestyle?'

NOT IN THE SLIGHTEST!

SWOON ON ICE (PACK)!

Without Love, Life is Like a Beat that You Can't Follow

2011-07-11T15:47:00.001-07:00

Fringe madness.
Like. For real.

I forgot how wonderful but also how very draining Fringe is. It's such a great time, but it's a bit overwhelming. There are so many plays to see and I feel so much obligation to go to my friend's shows, and there are things I want to see because people that I admire or am interested in are in them, and then there's social stuff, and it's all so hot and there's a lot of theatre, and theatre is, as we know, crazy making. Exhibit A: Jessica Moss.

But it really is so much fun. It's like a sport, and we all know that I love when theatre is like a sport. It's true! Good for my competitive spirit and cardiovascular health.

I'm trying to see stuff and trying to be a part of the scene and not feel like I'm not, even when I'm surrounded by people who I wish I felt more comfortable talking to and having a low grade anxiety attack. Because it's pretty great, to see all these people who care about the same thing, and are fighting for the same thing. And there isn't enough for all of us, it's true, but still, we understand what's going on, and every now and then we root for each other and show support in the most astonishing ways, and that's beautiful.

I'm deeply in love with Swoon!

I really adore doing the show. I love it like I loved doing Alice in Wonderland. It is so fun, and challenging in a way that is heartening rather than discouraging. But really, it's just a series of getting to do fun things. Even though my part of the show is pretty sad, it's a pleasure. And all the other parts are like dancing. Singing. Weddings. Parties. Pie shops. Fun. Love. Swoon.

I also believe in it. I think it's talking about something that's real. And yes, it's a series of vignettes, so there isn't the kind of structure that we're used to, but the stories are so so honest, and they're talking about how we all walk around just hoping so hard that we fall in love, or hoping so hard that we don't, and then how when we do, we swoon. And swooning is wonderful, but you lose yourself in that, and that can be hard. Because how can someone keep loving you when you're gone, when you've left? Or when you change. Or when they do. And there's so much funniness in when we do these horribly embarrassing heartbreaking things, and so much sadness when we do dorky cute things, because we're doing them for love, and that's either really beautiful, or really really lonely.

Yes, love is something that I don't understand very much.

My Pulse is Rushing, My Head is Reeling, My Face is Flushing

2011-07-07T11:46:00.000-07:00

I'M SO NERVOUS!

WE OPEN TONIGHT AND I AM SCARED.

There have been cuts to my monologue and I don't know if I remember them. I don't know if I can find my light. Why do I feel like I have never done this before in my whole life? I feel like I'm going to be the one to mess everything up. This is how I felt for my solo show, and this is an ensemble piece. Weird.

It's the kind of show where we can't freak out, we all just have to go onstage and love each other, and the audience will feel that and love us back. But I can't stop feeling very very scared, as if I'm the one who is going to ruin it for everyone.

But we've had amazing amazing pre-press.

http://torontoist.com/2011/07/so_you_want_to_see_a_ensemble_show.php
http://www.blogto.com/theatre/2011/07/toronto_fringe_festival_2011_preview/
http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/06/30/plan-of-attack-toronto-fringe-festival/
http://thebridgetheatrecompany1.com/?p=868

Plus, guys, look:

The show is beautiful.

Photo Credit: Colleen Dauncey

Instead of Just Kicking Me, Why Don't They Give Me a Lift?

2011-07-04T10:45:00.000-07:00

This article in the Toronto Star was pretty interesting. Yes, it's true, there's a lot of stuff at Fringe and it all falls somewhere on the spectrum from terrible to wonderful. That's a wide spectrum, and there's a lot of not great stuff. You do, as an audience member need to make choices. You can't see everything. You need ways to slim down the options.

But it's such a demoralizing way to look at the situation, when the article could have as easily be 'Ways to Spot a Great Show'. Really, the whole idea is dumb. There are great one person shows that are dramaturged and done in barns, there are terrible on person shows done the same way. There are amazing epic, musical 30 cast member shows with tons of money, and there is Lord of the Rings: The Musical. None of these things are conclusive evidence that a show will be good or bad.

But if an article about how you have to be selective has to be written, this is such a miserable way to do it. Do it positively. Or don't do this! If seeing all these kinds of shows in these kinds of venues (what the eff is the thing about the venues? So stupid. Factory back is a great space, and you're going to not come because there are STAIRS to the theatre???? Fuck you. You get to sit and watch other people sweat for an hour for your amusement, you can climb six stairs), is such a pain for you, GET ANOTHER JOB.

It's frustrating that I have a hero worship problem, I have so much adoration for so many people in this industry, I'm so jealous of people who are able to make a bit of a living doing this, and I get let down when people in these positions of power, be them artistic directors or reviewers, give me the sense that they aren't in love with theatre. I feel devastated and confused, and then angry.

Because I'm totally in love with theatre and it isn't always the best relationship but I'm in it and I love it in a way that makes me lose myself.

And if you don't, then don't review it. Don't come see it. We don't need you. People are here trying. People who don't get to go or don't choose to go to the theatre get involved in Fringe and that is an amazing thing. Why would you publicize any reason to put the kibosh on that? How is that good for the community that grants you your employment?

Oh, it's very upsetting.

I guess it's the thing I have talked about before that it is so easy to condemn, to shut down, to judge, and put yourself above everything. It takes energy to be positive. It's not easy.

Swoon! was hard for me to be positive about for a long time. I'm learning that I am not really that bright, when it comes to understanding shows. I have an aesthetic and it takes me a while to give up on what I want and see what other people are trying to do. I like things a certain way, which I think is ok for an artist, but my brain works slowly to change and come to appreicate different things. I don't want to be that way, but it takes me time. And I can commit to the action, to working really hard, but I don't always feel it. I can come in and give 100% to your show, but my heart will be going, 'hmmm'. It's the same thing. It's a horrible thing. I'm so embarrassed to admit it. But its true.

But I've come to love this show, things started fitting together, and I didn't ever think that they wouldn't, but I couldn't always see that they would. You know? My worry is not that I lack faith in the people around me....I just worry. It's how I think. I think really it is more thinking than worrying. I do a lot of it though, and sometimes when I do it I look sad, and then everyone hates me. I have to get better at that. Because, somehow, the show works out. This has more than worked out. I'm very proud of this show, and I'm very honored to be in it.

And really, it's the same thing as looking at the Fringe and finding the million reasons to say 'no' instead of the reasons to say 'yes'. I'm working on it.

But say yes to Swoon!

For Whatever It's Worth, Charlie Brown, You're You

2011-07-01T08:24:00.001-07:00

WELL, IT IS DEFINITELY A SHOW!

Or maybe not. Who knows? Do I know anything about theatre? No. I have such a quick movement towards judgement, but I know absolutely nothing. Sometimes I don't even know what I like. But I will tell you some half formed opinion based on nothing. And I'll do it loudly. What an asshole.

There is a lot of buzz about this show, and I've never been in a Fringe show that had that kind of momentum before we even started. It's a bit exciting. It also makes me feel that even though I'm still doing Fringe, after all the theatre that I've done and all the work I've put in I'm still back at the same festival, some things have changed. Not everything. But we're different artists and people than we used to be, people know us ( a bit, or they think they do), and we can make waves with the quality of our work, and the way we know how to promote it, and other people will make waves for us for those reasons too. So that's good.

(I'm telling myself this in part to help think that I am moving forward, because I have been doubting that in the past few days. The stuff I have coming up is exciting, and I'm lucky to have any work at all, considering my atrocious looks, hideous personality, and shocking lack of talent. But I always want to feel like I'm taking the next step and moving up and any number of cliched phrases that sound like the lyrics to a 90's sitcom theme song, and I don't think that's happening. Blurgh. )

Or maybe this is just a show with a very large, very attractive cast, and that's all it takes to get people talking. Probably that.

So much of being a good actor is being likeable. Being a person. Having vulnerability and humility and insecurities. I think I have all these in my real life, but then I get onstage and sometimes I find myself doing this hyper-aware-over-articulate-hypenated-fast-talking-girl-thing-who-is-too-smart-for-everyone-and-has-no-soul and I don't even know why. That impulse to perform in a way that immediately turns people off is so strong. I do it. I see other people do it. What's up with that? I guess it is scary, if you let that go, because then you're just some schmuck who is scrambling to know lines and hit the mark and not ruin everything, and you're wading in all of these horrible feelings about your own lack of everything. So it's easier to just talk-loud-with-hypens.

There's non actors in this cast so I've been thinking a lot about what makes people work onstage and why we bother going to school to learn to do this human thing. And, yes, you can see training. I didn't use to, but you can. There's being comfortable onstage. Having the muscle and the awareness to know that everything you do onstage is magnified, so there has to be intention behind everything (no scratching your eyes!). And that's a thing you learn doing shows. And talking loud enough, and speaking the speech in a rhythm that makes it clear, and all that stuff, which is just time. You spend enough time onstage, you get it. NBD.

But then there's this thing about who has a soul and who will let you see it. Who will come out and just go for something, even though going for anything has in it the seeds that you will very possibly fail and it will be tragic. The non actors in this show are so amazingly good because they have this incredible humanity, this honesty and sensitivity that is related to them being good people, more than it is to them being actors. You see it onstage in a way that, when you see it in real life, you fall in love with them. I worry that I'm experienced enough to have lost this quality. It isn't so clear to see this in real life, the moments aren't magnified in the way they are on stage. Someone really listening to you can go unnoticed in real life, or how softly someone touches your hand, or the specificity of a really personal story that you are lucky to be hearing because they don't reveal it to anyone, those moments are raaaaare in real life, and I think you can miss how special someone is because we're not used to seeing that. But onstage, someone's heart can just radiate out of them and you all get to see it. And that's worth watching. That's the moment you pay for.

And then there's this chick. She just stomps her feet and makes these ethnic slurs all day. I don't know what's up with that.

Photo Credits: Alex Felipe

Stop Studying Strife and Learn to Live the Unexamined Life

2011-06-29T13:00:00.000-07:00

I'm rehearsing one show that is in the crazy stage of fine tuning and trying to make it a cohesive hour and clean everything up. The notes are pretty small and it is all about the details. And I'm rehearsing another show that needs huge broad strokes, that isn't even fully written yet and needs to be brought to life entirely.

Both pretty fun, really.

I have been worried about both of them on and off. I worry that no one in the show likes me. I worry that I'm the weak link in the cast. I worry that I talk to much, or don't contribute enough, or am not pretty enough to be in the show, or am generally just this horrible person they are all stuck with, onstage and off. I worry about my career endlessly. I know it's annoying. It drives everyone crazy. And it drives me crazy when other people, who I think are doing better than me, worry about their careers. But it is just a part of me. I worry about the work because I care. I worry about things because I want to have a career and I want to take the steps that will lead to me having the career I want. But more than anything I just really want to take pride in what I put out there and believe in the work I do. And I do with these projects.

As much as I want the audience to like what I do (I wanted Tout Comme Elle to be a smash of such gargantuan proportions that it would become something that changed my entire life. Like, nothing was the same ever because of doing that show. That didn't happen. It was wonderful and perfect, but it didn't happen), I care more about how I feel about my own work. I want Swoon! to be a huge hit at fringe, and for us to make money and to be a part of something that buzzes and makes people excited, to feel like I am connected to something that is bigger than me but needs me. And that excitement comes with an audience, an eager audience that wants to see our show. And I want to create an environment, or an experience for them that is magical, and generous, and all of that. It's true. I thought about that so much when doing Modern Love.

But ultimately, it can't mean to them what it means to me, and they are going to bring their own personalities to the work and they're going to judge it. Because that's easy to do. I do the same when I go see a show. I do the same when I read the Fringe guide and look at shows, and think that some look so dreadful. It's easy. It's really easy to receive the art and slap some opinion on it and not care. I do it all the time. That's sobering. I love theatre and want there to be good theatre in the city I live in, I want the right people to make it and the arts to be so supported by audience dollars that we don't need corporate sponsorship or government funding, and I still come into almost everything with the attitude of 'This probably isn't good enough'.

I'm a bad person, that way.

You don't have to think, to watch plays like that. It's so easy. Because they're never perfect. There's always so much more you can do. And I always push, to the endless dismay of anyone who has the misfortune to work with me, because I don't want to think we wasted any opportunity. It's like being tied to the track with the train coming. I want to do everything we possibly can before we get run over.

So I'm trying to be more open as an audience member and more fearless as a cast member. In rehearsals, it's coming up as to what's confusing and what the audience is going to think, and I care, and I don't. I care way more about how I feel about what we've created.
And right now I think it's pretty interesting and different and has moments of real beauty.

Photo credits: Alex Felipe

Little Known Facts

2011-06-26T16:36:00.000-07:00

"No great thing is created suddenly . There must be time. Give your best and always be kind." - Epicetus

Trying to think about this in many ways. Especially the 'kind' part. Sigh.

We Had a Good Thing Going, Going....Gone

2011-06-24T07:47:00.001-07:00

So another one bites the dust, and I am very depressed and don't know how to deal with it. Such is life.

I don't know why it continues to shock me how sad I am when a show comes to a close, but I always feel unprepared for the booooo feeling that follows. I don't quite know what to do with myself, and I'm not good at feeling good about myself without a show. I've been watching a lot of cartoons in bed, I'm not going to lie. I also have developed a habit of getting sick immediately after shows, which worries me, as I've long advertised myself as someone with the hearty constitution of an ox, or similarly sturdy critter, who I resemble not only physically, but also in stubbornness and a lack of manual dexterity.

(No, that's not me, but I'm flattered you think it is!)

So I'm sick and sad. And I don't think there's any remedy for it other than time and maybe getting into another project that I feel excited about, and there are two that I am waiting to hear from, and one that I won't know for a bit, but I should maybe give up on the other one. But at some point, some project will come into my life and then it will break my heart too!

THIS IS WHAT MUFASA WAS TALKING ABOUT.

Here's some of the Tout Comme Elle reviews. They were, on the whole pretty good to great:

http://www.nowtoronto.com/daily/stage/story.cfm?content=181310
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/arts/theatre/a-mother-and-daughter-reunion/article2062386/
http://www.torontosun.com/2011/06/15/the-mother-of-all-mother-plays
http://www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/1009733--review-tout-comme-elle-explores-mother-daughter-relationships

And here's one that mentions me, which is, of course, the worst review. Not very well written, and I don't think the reviewer understood the show. So of course, she thought I was pretty good! My popularity amongst the confused (as well as the criminally insane) remains a pillar upon which to base my self esteem:
http://torontoist.com/2011/06/luminato_presents_a_mother_of_a_show.php

While I idly look for a job and other reasons to live, I'm doing this:

Hm, it kind of looks like some bizarre form of art therapy, in which there's lots of crafts and hugging. While that is something I should likely look into to curb my many issues of instability and night terrors (I really shouldn't joke about night terrors, but I think they're hilarious, ever since an episode of The Simpsons where Homer keeps falling asleep and then yelling, 'Aaah! Cobras!'. And it's a bad episode, Season 13 or so, where the plots make no sense and the animation is on the computer so it doesn't have any heart, but man, that Cobras thing is so funny it redeems the whole shebang, and make night terrors forever hilarious. But I apologize to the one person who reads this, in case you suffer from night terrors and my insensitivity causes you to suffer more. I'm sorry.) (I'm not sorry.), this is actually a play.

And if you believe the punctuation in that last paragraph, you will believe anything!

I'm doing the Toronto Fringe again, and this play is called Swoon!

These photos are all by the director/creator of the piece, Jason Maghanoy. As you can see, I am continuing my tradition of only being cast in shows where everyone else is a model. Another pillar upon which to base my self esteem.

We've been rehearsing this for a bit, but it's going to pick up steam now. We did the first stumble through last night, and so now it becomes about shaping the material we have, putting together a show instead of a collection of stuff, rather than generating the material and exploring like we've been doing up til now. More rehearsals, the pressure feels like it's there, but it's always kind of amazing, at this crisis point of a production, how much can be done and how much things can change and that anything really is possible if we care about what we're doing and we want to make something we can be proud of. I like this part of the process. I like doing the whole show. And finding out what kind of animal it is.

Maybe an ox!

Named Ferdinand. (Ok, Ferdinand was a bull, but I just looked it up, and they're the same animal, except an ox has been castrated, and a bull has not. So Ferdinand had a few reasons to smile and be the sweetest bull that ever was. Two reasons, in fact. LEARNING!)

So Here's to the Girls on the Go - Everybody Tries

2011-06-17T20:59:00.000-07:00

It's kind of amazing how exhausted I am from doing this show. I think back to last summer when I worked a job at the same time as touring Shrew, and I don't know how I did it. This show is more intense performance wise, sure, maybe more so than anything I've ever done. I don't know if I've ever been onstage for an entire show that was more than an hour. And it's a high intensity show, both physically and emotionally. The movement is not so hard as the sustained poses, the lengthy stretches where we all slowly do something. But I'm wiped by it. I don't know how I managed last year to tour something and work a day job and rehearse something else at the same time. I've been doing occasional rehearsals for Fringe, and really letting that slip, to be honest. But I've just been very tired.

Photo credits: Michael Cooper

The show has a momentum that picks me up even if I'm not ready for it. Today at the beginning I kept finding myself not in the right place, and that threw me off, but I ended up feeling like I had a really good show. It has a life force. Even if I don't feel like I have much of one.

I'm getting kind of sick, and I've been regularly getting sick every few months. This worries me. I never used to be sickly and I pride myself on my heartiness. But I'm not really feeling so great right now, fatigue is a part of it. It's disconcerting to me. I don't want to be constantly weakened by doing shows!

I'm going to miss it. I'm getting glum already, wah.

Sun's Gettin' Shinery to Spotlight the Finery

2011-06-15T09:41:00.000-07:00

Pre opening:

Post opening:

(Addendum: recently, someone on Facebook detagged himself in a photo I tagged of him, and it made me quite angry that people are so sensitive about the image they create for themselves online. Like, what, a bad picture of you has never been taken? It wasn't even bad! Own it! So I continue my series of atrocious pictures of me. For public benefit.)

Man, this show is taking it out of me. I am exhausted. I am finding it so hard to focus on anything else. I don't know why. The show is very low pressure, in terms of prep. I have to be really awake and focused while I'm in it, but it's not like I have to run lines all the time, or do fight prep or anything. I don't know. I'm tired though.

But loving it.

This really is such a special piece. The response back has been mixed, and there have been a lot of people who haven't said anything to me, or who clearly weren't too in to it. And I kind of get that. But at the same time, it's something so different, so huge, all the silences and stillness, all the people, and we don't get to see that so much, so I wish that there was a similar sense of that innovation from our audience. Perhaps it will come. Perhaps I'm talking to the wrong people. Not these people. These are the right people:

I know I have to give up what the audience thinks, because if I love a piece, it isn't possible for the audience to love it as much as I do, not being involved in it. I'll never get the kind of satisfaction I need from them. Applause can always be louder and reviews can always be better. I know that doing this show gives me a supreme amount of satisfaction, and that holding on to the idea that I was in this is like a little jewel. So I'm trying to own those things and let others go. It's not easy.

Opening night means gifts.

Opening night means parties.

I'm feeling very insecure right now and I'm not sure why. I am a part of this beautiful show and have something big in future, and two little things which will keep me acting-active for the next two months. But I'm still feeling competitive, like everyone is doing so much better than me and that I'm not a real actor, that this will end and I'll never get to this height ever again. Not entirely sure what it's about. But it sucks. And I want it to end. I guess it's like that audience thing, but there's always so much more to want and to do and to not get, so how can you stop feeling blah about things? I don't know how to look at the success of others without seeing my failure. That's a horrible thing to admit, but it's true.

Not very in the spirit of Tout Comme Elle. Breathe, breathe, wait, breathe, squat, walk, breathe. Ah, that's better.

This was drawn by the beautiful Anne Anglin, one of the 50, the one who ends the show with a great big bang, and given to our cast. Appropriate.

Here comes the audience now

2011-06-12T00:30:00.000-07:00

We've had a wealth of runs with this show. We learned the blocking very fast, so that since the second week we have been just doing fixes and runs every day. It's a blessing because a show as a whole is a different animal, and this one in particular needs to flow, needs to wash over us and so the runs are necessary, as everything connects.

I have had good runs and bad runs. It's a pretty amazing show in that even doing it tired, or doing it when you don't really want to, you can have moments of clarity. It picks you up and takes you regardless of where you are when you start. Having said that, there's a very specific feeling that feels like flying, feels like 50 people are onstage and connected and moving as one, and that's only possible if I am ready and open and not tired. There are parts that always get me and are touchstones in that I'm able to drop in. There are parts that are harder.

I worry about my monologue, but I try not to think of it as my moment, that I am speaking through the whole show and that when I actually speak it is for everyone, so it is just another part of a bigger picture. I'm still worried. But, you know. Working on it. Because I really do believe that is the case.

It's such a special show in that way.

Plus, we all look hot in it. The costumes are by Yso and Erika Connor and they're effing sick.

Last night was our invited dress, and it was pretty interesting to have an audience. The run before it was a very hard one for me, probably my worst run in a lot of ways. I found myself fidgeting, struggling to hit positions. I was tired.

I was not tired for the dress, but it became a very different show. The incubation process of this one has been interesting. In one way, it's hard to say that we've been in isolation, because there are 50 of us, so how secluded can the process be? At the same time, it's an intimate show, and we've shared that together, so now that there are all these other people, it is changing a lot. There were definite rough patches, which I guess is to be expected. And lots of surprises. Two of the monologues (one being mine) got laughs that I was totally not thinking would come. Weird things happened. A part of someone's shoe fell off so I picked it up during a part that we do when we roll on the floor, and shoved it in my bra. I ended up in (physical) places I had never been before.

But it's all good. It was a dress and the audience was great and now we have broken that seal, and the audiences can continue to come and we can grow.

Already the seeds of sadness that it's going to end are starting to sprout. With such a big cast, there are people I haven't had a full on conversation with, and that is sad, especially because everyone is so talented and there are people that I have looked up to for years and years here, acting beside me. But it isn't done yet and I'm trying to enjoy it even though I know it will end and be gone, and that's heartbreaking, really.

But it's less heartbreaking than it is beautiful that I got to do something like this, once. Right?

Girls in White Dresses with Cream Colored Sashes

2011-06-11T10:09:00.000-07:00

As has been lamented on several occasions, on this blog, when I'm in a show, it's hard for me to find time to write on a regular basis about the show. Whether this is due to my astonishing lack of organizational skills, or is merely another facet in my veritable diamond of flaws, it means that I don't get to talk too much about the shows I'm doing, in a blog that is designed for that exact purpose.

Such is life.

I will, however, find time to post pictures of parties and people wearing fabulous dresses. One thing that can be said of me is my priorities are in order.

Tout Comme Elle is an incredibly special experience and I am continually knocked out that I'm in it. We moved into the theatre (the freaking Bluma Appel!) this week, and even though the scope of this project is so huge, there has been such an effort made to make everyone feel safe and appreciated, that it has been relatively smooth, from my point of view. Maybe this is because I'm kept in an actor bubble. But I think we are all working to be happy and kind with each other.

There are, of course, moments, mostly when we get notes and there is a lot of talking, or when we're trying to do something complicated and there are lots of questions, and lots of people talk at the same time, when it very much feels like there are 50 women involved, and that none of us are the same. But these, in the grand scheme of things, are rare. For the most part, especially onstage, I feel the power of being one in a huge group, I feel the weight and the breath around me, but it doesn't seem unusual, or overwhelming. It feels powerful.

Also, I'm getting used to doing things in a massive group of chicks, so it's just old hat now.

One of the benefits of being in this show is getting treated like a special star because we're a part of the Luminato Festival, so all of these pictures are from the opening night party of Luminato.

Oh, hello Mr. Waiter/Actor. You'd like to offer me another free glass of wine? Well, if you insist. Also, one of your compatriots had some sort of pork product, could that possibly come back here so I can shove it down my throat? You are too kind.

I'm so uncomfortable at those parties, but it was so nice to be in a group, and it is very fun to spend an evening feeling entitled to company and vitriols. WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU ARE OUT OF FREE GIFT BAGS? OUTRAGE! Kind of fun. Can't get used to it. Back to the salt mines.

I want so many more pictures of this show. The costumes are absolutely incredible, so sexy and soft and feminine, and everyone looks amazing. I mean, look how hot these girls are.

AND THAT'S JUST THE BEGINNING.

This is a fraction of the cast, and our costumes are even hotter than the dresses we wear to impress rich arts donors.

Girls, girls, girls.

I'm having a wonderful time. Someone else who is in the cast said to me that even the parts she is finding difficult, even the people who are driving her crazy, she's enjoying it. She's kind of getting a kick out of the hard parts and people, and that's an oddly satisfying feeling. Perfection is boring, and, plus, it's not even that perfect, when you're there. So if you can find a way to appreciate the little irks and make them like little grains of salt and pepper that keep things exciting, then I think you just have a ball. And I'm finding that. I get frustrated when I can't hear things, or when there are too many voices, I just shut down and then I feel stupid. But there's also something in me that rallies at those moments and wants to surge forward and attack, and that's such a valuable place to be in when I'm rehearsing, I find. It feels ready and dynamic.

SO BRING IN THE AUDIENCE.

How he could dip and glide and skip and slide. In his very soft shoes.

2011-05-31T19:27:00.000-07:00

Here is what 50 pairs of women's shoes look like:

And here are mine:

They are the color of a cherub angel blushing, because I have the delicate flesh of a wee Irish lass, and my skin is the shade of a malnourished pig. But my shoes are cute. I fell over in them today. Also cute.

Today was hard, I had 11 hours of straight rehearsal, and it was a hot, tired day.

I am so so so grateful to have been so theatrically busy lately, and I hope it never ends (it will, soon), but it's also a bit overwhelming. It is GLORIOUS having acting be the day job though. Man. Can this just happen all the time? But it's fatiguing.

I'm learning so much in the rehearsal room, soaking up energy and ideas and the different ways that all of these successful actresses work. It's a crash course. There's a lot of different styles of approaching the work, and sometimes it feels totally overwhelming, but there's a real beauty to so many different people all finding a way to do something together. The ache of doing it is is paid back when, after struggling, we get it right and it feels like flying.

The thing I really have to learn not to shit where I eat. It's hard to keep the personal stuff away. We are who we are and that effects the way that we work. Hard not to let all these feelings about whether people like me and the games that I am embarrassed to admit that I play, but I do, and to keep those out of the room and not in the work. Hard to be friends with people and work together, and I don't know how to do it. I don't know how to conduct business in a way that mixes so seamlessly with my personal life. Ugh, this is not making a lot of sense, I am tired. I guess it's just hard to keep doing the work, because it is much easier to be distracted by all the stuff that isn't the work.

Oh well. Another challenge.....

Here's a promo video of us!

A Little Brains, A Little Talent, With an Emphasis on the Latter

2011-05-28T19:40:00.001-07:00

Here's clips of my show!

NBD, right?

Yay.

Clear the Decks! Clear the Tracks! You've Got Nothing to Do But Relax

2011-05-26T17:28:00.000-07:00

Of course, the trouble with having a blog about my acting career is, on the rare occasion that I have an acting career, I have no time to post anything about it.

I've been very theatrically busy. I mean that I've been busy working in theatre, not just been busy and being very theatrical about it, although that is probably the truth, too.

I have been spending my days rehearsing Tout Comme Elle, which is just a thing of beauty and a joy forever. This is the new eflier:

Lotsa chicks, no?

It's hard work, I feel quite tired by it, but it's also beautiful, sensitive, special work and I am learning a lot. It is a pretty amazing room to be in. It's full of people that I respect and that made me want to be a in Canadian theatre, and that is kind of crazy. It's almost non-acting....the director talks a lot about just being and doing, and not always having to show was tremendous actresses we are. Very simple, but very focused. It's hard. But not. You know? Man, that is such a pretentious asshole acting thing to say, but it really is the truth. There's an inclination to perform and show the depth of your talent at every moment, I have to work not to blow my wad all the time. Really, in life I'm like that too, I am so emotional and have such strong emotions that it's not a big deal for me to constantly be screaming, crying, shrieking, emoting. But this is something different. This is about core, and truth. Plus, everything you do is magnified by the fact that there are 49 other women doing the same thing. So I have to relax and let go and let it all come up roses.

Really, it's just an amazing learning experience about how to work. Brigitte (director) says we have to be like sand, we contribute to the beach, but we work on perfecting our own grain. I'm trying to not worry about others, to not tell anyone what to do or ask many questions that slow us down, or that I can find the answer to after. That's an ego thing. It's difficult to not think that what you are doing is the most important thing, but in this case (and probaby all the others) it really is the truth.

The best part about it being a learning experience is that everyone is learning. There are real pros here, and they are figuring it out too. Marjorie Chan, this writer/actress that I am a huge fan of, was talking to me about her experience the other day, and she said that having experience gives you confidence when you go into a room, but every project is different and you are always working on figuring out how to do the work. That never goes away. It's humbling and comforting at the same time.

So anyway, it has been amazing and I am grateful. And the cast is A-M-A-Z-I-N-G.

And then, in the middle of that, last Saturday night this happened:

That's my show Modern Love at Canadian Stage. Photo by Claire Calnan.

I did it and it went well. I was happy. I miss doing it. I am excited to do it again one of these days, maybe. The issue now becomes a) holding on to all the good work and good feedback we got, and b) thinking about what happens next. We have done an application. We will continue to think about other places that we can do it. I don't know. Where does the work go? Do you just do it and let it evaporate?

I also wrote that Sonnet Show play and did some stuff for other shows that I'm working on. I have felt a bit split, a bit busy, but really it is all just great. I'm grateful to be this tired, because it's good tired....the kind of tired that comes from being really invigorated and working on things you care about. As opposed to the fatigue I would feel when I worked at the ROM for two days and just wanted to cry. I'm trying to not let myself get worried about it ending, because there will always be more to look forward to, and all that, but it's so frustrating that in anything beautiful are the seeds that it has to end. DON'T THINK LIKE THAT!

Things are good, yes? Yes.

High School Ladies at 5 o'clock

2011-05-19T19:45:00.000-07:00

I had my first rehearsal for Tout Comme Elle today, which is commonly known as the 50 women show, because it has 50 women in it. And I'm one of them.

It is a pretty amazing group and I'm gobsmacked by the whole thing. It's pretty much all the actresses in this city who you would most die to work with. All together. I'm so lucky. It's hard work and there's lot of challenges but it is a real gift of a show to get to be in.

This is what we look like:

Or this is what we would look like if we were all blue and dots and seen as if from an aeroplane. Please note my old timey spelling of 'aeroplane', or 'flying autobus', as my compatriots down at the Legion also call them. I couldn't take a picture.

And then I rehearsed my one woman show for the last time with Eric and Julia, which made me sad, but they said it wasn't the end, and they also said that I need an audience, so one had better materialize on Saturday night.

Eeek I have a very theatre-y actor-y life right now, it is so great.

That's Where I Sweat to Earn My Pay

2011-05-17T20:24:00.003-07:00

I have to blog this for posterity, in case it never happens again.

Today, I worked at these three theatres:

Ohh, SNAP.

I Can't Really Explain It, I Haven't Got the Words

2011-05-15T20:46:00.000-07:00

Oh, and sometimes there are just days and nights when things go right, and it isn't because the work is perfect, because it isn't, and it isn't because the work is new or shocking or something familiar or something novel, because it's all of those things a little bit but really none of them, but what it is is that a group of people were in a room and something happened because they were there. And there is a feeling of fun and sharing and going further than you should because you CAN all of a sudden, and everyone is hoping but not dreading and things are easy and silly and because of that they are also daring and dangerous.

It's very beautiful to be in a room when the actors crack each other up, and the play stops for a split second and the PLAY takes over.

And these are just seconds that take us away from a loneliness that will gobble you up if you give it a chance, but the seconds are such gems of hope that they allow us to keep going, because when you are in a room like that there is love for you, and you are a part of it, whether you are actor or audience. And they're so rare but like berries that pop in your mouth you must keep searching for more.

Oh man, my relationship with theatre is serious. It's making me doubt my relationship with fictional character Jim Halpert, it's so serious.

In my Copy of a Copy of a Copy of Dior

2011-05-14T15:24:00.000-07:00

It's causing me small amounts of distress that I don't blog seriously enough, or wittily enough, and no one reads it anyway, and it is just another project that I pour my heart into for nothing. So to combat that I have decided to not be precious and just write a little bit. Not a lot. But just something.

Someone I love very much was telling me how I have to let go of how important it is for me to be liked by others, and I understand that it's true but I also think it's like telling the tulips not to droop. You can do it, but they're going to droop anyway, so why not just enjoy the smell?

Not that I smell good. Actually, I do, I am a fairly good smelling person, I believe.

Because I am a pathetic girl who really, when I am being honest with myself, just wants to sing and dance in fabulous outfits, I often turn to musical theatre when I am feeling anything. (SIDE NOTE: I used to think I wanted to make 'important' theatre. And that I wanted to see 'important' theatre. When I was younger, this meant that if it made me laugh, or if it was frivolous and fun and footloose and fancy free, it could be enjoyed, but like champagne: sparingly and with a stiff upper lip. The sobriety of my youth now amuses me, even though I still loved musicals I wanted to be in Shakespeare and Chekhov and to write plays where people killed themselves and said things like, 'I have loved you.....always'. I still want to be in those things, and I still do write like that, but really, I want to do the things that I want to do in plays. That's why it was very important to me that the show I'm doing now end with a David Bowie song. The next thing I want to do is dress in a gold lame body suit and do an AMAZING interpretive dance to Meat Loaf's 'I Would Do Anything For Love (But I Won't Do That)'. Wouldn't you like to see that? I want to see shows that are people doing what they really want to do. I still want to be in Shakespeare and Ibsen, but more Meat Loaf bodysuit dancing, please. Copyright Jessica Moss, if you take that idea I will be so upset). And because I'm looking at a terrifying week full of things that I'm happy about but scared by, and worried about lots of things, and also just because it is the best and I listen to it often, I'm posting this:

I didn't discover Sweet Charity until recently, for some reason. I missed it in my musical adolescence. But it has become one of my favorites. I want to play her. I feel so much like her, and Shirley Maclaine is gorgeous, and there's so much hope in spite of the despair. It captures joy in the face of sadness so so so well, and it isn't cloying at all, or cutesy. It's quite gritty and honest, but still manages to smack of gumsmacking lipsmacking candy coated sass and glee.

I love it. I'm holding on to it. In the face of fear.

DANCE IT OUT LADEEEEZ.

Life is Random and Unfair, Life is Pandemonium

2011-05-11T14:41:00.000-07:00

BLARGH.
THAT'S THE WORD FOR TODAY!

Not really. Today has been a proliferation (I am using that word incorrectly, I'm sure) of first world-type problems. Not even, it has been problems of TOO MUCH GOOD FORTUNE.

Which sounds stupid, shut up Jessica stupid-face, but is also really frustrating.

Everyone always says that this is how acting goes, feast to famine, and then there is a surplus of work and you can't take it all. This has happened to me before, I had to turn down the first paying job I was ever offered because I had committed to doing a Shakespeare show for no money, and conflicts are always there, blah blah blah. But today I had my two highest profile things clash. And I really want to do them both, and I can't.

I just worry because I'm not good at handling the business side of stuff at all, I'm not good at organizing and making people happy. I always cause trouble and it's usually because I'm trying so hard to be good and to not make waves that I make TSUNAMIS.

Over-exaggeration. Hubris. FACT!

I just don't want to cause trouble, but I am, and I don't know how to fix it. I'm terrible at figuring out how to be at two places at once, and knowing what thing is more important than what other thing. It makes me very stressed out and I always come back to this idea that I'm going to be fired and thrown onto some kind of burning pyre. I am so lucky to have a conflict, to have more than one company be interested in my terrible work, but I just wish it would work out. I also wish I had an agent because then I wouldn't have to make phone calls and tell people my schedule, which are two of the things that I hate the most.

And because I am also crazy, I just signed on to write a play in two weeks, set in this room:

Why? I don't know. Because I really want to. But I now have to write a play, rehearse and tech my one woman show, rehearse a fringe show, start rehearsals for a contract, and turn down a workshop that I would KILL to do, because of conflicts.

The play is for this, which is great, and I'm really glad I can be involved in some way, because I can't act this year. However, the project hit me today. Shit. A 14 minute play? Oh crap. Here's me realizing what I have to do:

Here's how I'm going to deal with it:

I don't know!

I guess I'll write something, and I think it is good, because I want so badly to start being a writer, and sadly, the only way to do that is to write. Much like the only way to be a 'doctor' is to go to 'med school', or the only way to be a 'pirate' is to 'sail the seven seas'. Not really though, through my ridiculous job I have found that you can just IMPERSONATE these people onstage by wearing vague facsimiles of their clothing items, and speaking dialogue that someone else thinks up for you in broad accents with sweeping hand gesture. That's how I have had the chance to be a servant, a pirate, a caterpillar, a Queen, a lesbian, an alcoholic, a prostitute, a nun, a soldier, and a wolf.

But for writing I have to do it, because when I do it, then the writing exists, and I can JUDGE it, and one day when I have confidence and friends to read it, other people can JUDGE it, and from that JUDGEMENT it will become better and one day be a play that other people will perform and I will feel like I accomplished something and can go back to just watching funny videos all day long.

Argh. It's scary and overwhelming, and I'm grateful for it, but I'm also scared and overwhelmed.

Last night my friend Morgan and I were talking like non-English speaking actors:
I do pretend job in clothes not mine?
Me act hard now, you pay pitiful sum, yes?
I speak words in funny voice, others stare from chairs?
Speak the words, I pray you, trippingly on the tongue?

We Could Pool Our Resources by Joining Forces

2011-05-04T19:27:00.000-07:00

Eep, the CanStage thing is so soon. I'm kind of freaking out.

We are working so hard on this! It's only one shot...and it's a development festival, the majority of the work being presented is readings, and no critics or anything will come. But we are all working our butts off for this. I guess because we're being presented as kind of 'foster children' of a CanStage program, we're the young guns and we want to make the most amazing impression because it seems like a real real shot to do something cool. It is a cool opportunity. Plus, it's fun to work hard, right?.....Right?

Also exhausting. But good, but good.

It has been humbling that other people are working so hard on this. I'm shocked and really touched that people can care so much about something that doesn't come from them, or doesn't put them in the spotlight. Obviously it's a team effort, and I feel the creation has been very collaborative, but it was my idea, and the writing was mine, and I'm the only one onstage. Three other people are giving a lot to help this come to fruition. I'm impressed (and relieved) that they feel invested and that it's their project too, because it is....it's become a whole different thing because they are involved. Maybe I am just selfish, or maybe I haven't been lucky enough to see this kind of generosity. I'm very lucky in this one. Wow.

We've had lots of meetings and rehearsals, a photo shoot, a tech master working at home, emails going back and forth, and today we had a goddamn FILM SHOOT!

Like, this production is out of control!

It makes me worried that maybe I'm getting soft, that I'm used to doing shows where I just show up and act ('act'?). This is one of those scenes where we do everything....I'm carrying costumes around, rehearsing at coffee shops....I love it.

We shot here at the lovely Sunnyside bathing pavilion. When I am an insane 1950s debutante aging with no grace, and preserving everything exactly as it was from the day my third husband left me, I'm going to do it all there.

I plan to wear a lot of nylons on top of bathing suits, and to talk a lot about gentleman callers.

While it looks kind of like a weird asylum or a place where we should do Greek theatre, it was pretty great and we did a really amazing, but pretty easy shoot. I'M SO EXCITED FOR IT!

Our tech is done by Kyle. He's a genius. He's doing all of these projections, and photos, and all this stuff for this show.

I'm like a dopey girl who dreams of meeting someone, and has dreams about meeting a dream man, but in reality there is no one there for her. Sad. It's a silent movie style though. Which I love because NO LINES TO LEARN. And melodramatic acting. My specialty.

Julia as notetaker extraordinaire. Also grip and lighting goddess and general good person to have around.

And Eric did a million production jobs and then played a janitor.

Like, this is an amazing thing about theatre, how we all work together like this. It just makes me melt. It takes so much. This is a one woman show, and there's four of us working like crazy. For nothing. For each other.

Except for me. I, of course, just took pictures of myself all day long.

What else is new?

I'm as Trite and as Gay as a Daisy in May

2011-05-01T14:23:00.000-07:00

IT'S MAY!!!!

I have been looking forward to May because the past few months have been womp wommmmp.....

May means two things!

1) My show with Theatre Caravel presented at Canadian Stage's Festival of Ideas and Creation.

2) Tout Comme Elle rehearsals start!

These things mean other things:

1) Wah I have to learn all these lines.

2) Yay between these things and this Fringe show I am helping with I have rehearsal practically every day for a month.

3) Holy God rehearsal every day for a month.

4) Damn I wonder what I remember of Tout Comme Elle. I also wonder if I can do all the squatting that show demands.

Some of those rehearsals happen here:

It is very fun to say 'I am returning from a rehearsal at Canadian Stage'. Or, alternatively, 'I will now go to my rehearsal at Canadian Stage'. Or, if you must, 'Drat, I guess today I won't be at Canadian Stage rehearsing. However, I will, in future, be rehearsing at Canadian Stage'. Versatile.

It's so nice to have space. It's such a luxury. Up til now we rehearsed this in a living room. My fringe show has rehearsals in apartments. The first fringe show I ever did was rehearsed entirely in a bed room, with the director directing from his bed. To have space to move in, to be in the space where you will perform, it's huge. It's kind of amazing that I take it for granted now....I went through years of never thinking I'd rehearse in a designated rehearsal space.

This show is exhausting. I have written myself a show that takes the wind out of myself.

Tired and blurry, what is up with my camera?
Anyway, the show almost seems impossible to do when I think about it, but then I actually just do it and it is not so bad. It's like, every day I go to rehearsal and I go, 'I don't know how to do this, I don't know my lines, this is so hard', and we just do it and it isn't so bad. Today I was even saying how I thought some scenes would be monsters and they aren't at all.

You just have to do it.

It's like the 'shit or get off the pot' stage. It sucks to have to actually work, complaining and being worried is easier than actually getting off of my ass and making things happen. But complaining and being worried aren't the work, so they don't get you farther, whereas the work does. Even if its bad slow awful work, it does. Why is this hard to remember? Maybe I should get it tattooed on my neck....

In other news, I combined my loves of baking and theatre to put an octopus on a cake for my friends at Theatre Caravel.

Don't judge my cake skills on this. Octopi are hard to draw.

Someone's Got To Be Oppressed!

2011-04-28T12:05:00.000-07:00

I meant to do a birthday post and then I had a really horrible birthday and I didn't want to.

And then I meant to do a post about Shakespeare's birthday and be a part of this massive blog project but then I wrote half of it and learned that talking about Shakespeare makes me sound like a really really big jerk of a nine year old. Like this kid who is incredibly pretentious and too smart for their own good, and should be rolled in a parking lot. So I didn't do that either.

I'm in a pit of nothing right now so it is hard to blog and not sound like a really blah or boring or whiny person.

Enough of that.

A lot of people have been telling me that they also feel they have nothing going on, so maybe it is just that time of year? The city looks like this:

Ugh. It is grey and rainy. Although in January we were saying it was 'just that time of year' when we had nothing going on. And we'll probably say it in August too. Really, the whole year is just very, very hard.

But quite a few of us are feeling very dejected and as if this Toronto theatre community doesn't want us, and we don't even really want to be in the community the way it is now, but it's something we've wanted for so long that we can't just give it up, and sometimes we want to be in it, plus we want the option, so we have to be accepted by the community and then we can turn it down, but we can't get accepted. And we can't get accepted because maybe we aren't talented, or maybe we are and we're just not friends with the right people, or we're not the right people, we're too weird, or too boring, or too not ethnically diverse, or too much or too little or we didn't go to the right school or we just don't have anything to offer. And who knows? It could be all of those things so we worry about them all without knowing what is the thing we have to change and whether we have to change at all.

It's tiring. And maddening. And I don't know a way out. For a job that I think I continue to get better at, I really don't know how to deal with it in the slightest. I tell myself that when I have work I will feel better. These periods without it make me feel like I'll never work again. And I can't get out of them without doing a play or getting cast, and I can't do those things because of the above paragraph.

My life is small and silly but it still causes me lots of anguish. I could have an anguish sale. Everything must go.

In our continuing series of horrifying pictures of me, we present THE DAY I DRESSED UP AS MEN YOU WOULDN'T DATE.

You wouldn't want to date this guy, shotgunning a PBR at 2 p.m. on Easter Monday in the rain, would you? Maybe you would.

This was, of course, for my fast approaching thing at Canadian Stage. I'm at the wonderful Canadian stage of artistic development where something is far enough away that I don't learn my lines, but close enough that I have anxiety attacks on the streetcar when thinking about it.

These are horrifying and I will have to marry a giant squid and live at the bottom of the sea with the other unspeakably hideous creatures. My gorgeous friend Eric Double took them. Kyle Purcell is in them, taking good quality pics that will be used in the show. Behind the scenes footage!!!

They're also kind of funny. I hope my show is. I don't know. It's a weird look inside my brain. It is, on one hand, very much my thing, but because we're using a multimedia element and I have two people directing me, it now is something that started with the way I do things and is changing. That's hard. The multimedia stuff is amazing, but when you don't initially think of theatre in that way (as I don't), it's hard to combine it with your own aesthetic and still feel like it's something that you would do. Kill your babies and let go, and we're stronger when we work together. I know it's the truth, but it's hard to do. Anyway. I am loving working on the show when I actually work on it. When I don't, the demons of insecurity creep in at an alarming pace. Partially because I wrote it, partially because it now is changing, partially because I don't know the lines...so many things to worry about! So many insecurity demons.

I just want it to be spring.

I Would Like The Universe to Get Down on It's Knees...

2011-04-19T18:48:00.000-07:00

Well, this is a post about ego.

(I really loved how in 'Ratatouille', the critic was named Anton Ego. First of all, that is a great name, both parts of it are equally perfect. It makes such perfect sense, as well as being almost onomatopoeically wonderful. Such a fun, and clever name. Such a fun and clever movie).

Anyway, my ego is almost as bad as this scary looking cartoon creation. Ugh. Maybe I should start picturing my ego in this way. It will make me hate myself, but will likely encourage me to get over myself, and not pay attention to this unfortunate aspect of my personality, yes?

My ego's being threatened right now because a) I'm not doing great as an actor right now, because I'm not in anything and I'm struggling to remember that I actually do, on occasion, perform in shows, and b) I'm nervous about the things I have coming up.

People tell me that all social anxiety and anxiety in general is related to ego, the idea that you are more important than you actually are, because you think people care about you or are watching you, when in reality no one really does. This is always a very upsetting statement when you're already feeling anxious, and it's true in part, but I don't think it's a completely accurate idea. I just want to do well, and I want people to like me.

I have an ego, and it flips wildly back and forth between telling me that I deserve things and am entitled and am smarter than everyone else, and telling me that I should give everything up and take an office job where no one notices me ever because I am useless and have nothing to offer.

I have two big ensemble shows coming up, and I'm quite terrified about them (I'm a little excited too, but mostly really scared). In big shows like these, it's an interesting balance about how important you are. On one hand, you have to blend in, you have to not cause trouble because there are so many people and things to deal with (and man, do I love to cause trouble), and be a cog in the machine, to a certain extent. This is often difficult when I want to be the STAR and have a hard time wondering why people need to cast other actors, because I could just play all the parts. But, you can't let go of your ego to think you aren't important, because you still have to be present and generous and totally loving your part. Even if it isn't what you want to be doing. Ego battle.

It's a lot like Bottom in Midsummer, but I really think that Bottom is a wonderful character who just has so much love for performing and life and his friends that he wants to be a part of everything. I don't think it's all him just wanting to talk all the time: it's about an inherent joy in doing. I try to justify my overwhelming urge to get onstage by explaining it like that to myself. I'm not an egomaniac....I'm just genuinely overcome by a love of the theatre.

Plus, I'm an egomaniac.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Remember Mediocrity is Not a Mortal Sin

2011-04-13T14:13:00.000-07:00

OH. MY. LANTA.

Here are some embarrassing pictures of me:

And here are some embarrassing confessions:
1) I have remained relatively faithful to the terrible television show 'Survivor' since its inception, missing only a handful of seasons. I have recently taken to REWATCHING entire seasons from years ago, in the privacy of my bed.
2) I'm often eating jelly beans while I do this.
3) Therefore, there are lots of jelly beans in my bed.

NONE OF THESE, however, is as embarrassing as the HIDEOUSLY EMBARRASSING AUDITION I just survived.

I used to think that I was funny. I used to think that I had some ability to do 'improvisation'. I now know that these are not true, because I auditioned for the Second City and it was horrible.

I am just not an improviser anymore. It's weird, at one point that is the direction that I thought I wanted to go in, and I was told by an agent that she wanted me if that is the way I was willing to go. But I was really bad at it! I just haven't used those muscles in such a long time. I'm not really that bummed....It isn't what I do anymore, so it was just an experience, but it's brought up two points of contention:

1) Am I funny?
2) Should I get back into doing this? This would mean putting in a lot of time and money to doing Second City classes and focusing on that.

At one point I wanted to be on SNL, and that has kind of been reinvigorated because I kind of want to be Tina Fey. But I'm not sure. Wow, this was bad. I don't even know if I have the basic skills anymore. No, that's not true, I'm pretty sure I do. I just don't know whether it's something I want to work at. Especially to the extent I would have to work on it in order to be as good as I would want to be.

I have been stinking up auditions lately. I've been on a run of not great experiences. It is probably payment for the general feeling of confidence (hubris?) that I was feeling two weeks ago. I've had to be reminded that I'm not that talented, and not doing that well. Sigh. It kind of sucks! Hopefully now something good will happen and things will swing my way. It really only takes one good thing to make me feel like there is a possibility of success. But at the same time, one bad auditions really grinds my gears. Ugh.

The most important thing now, of course, is to rally, think about the good stuff I have coming up, and how much I have to do, and work on the stuff that will make me better and not think for a second about the places that aren't so into me. That's hard, but not as impossible as it used to be. Actually, this horrible audition story is kind of funny. That's the worst audition I've ever had! Like, it wasn't soooo bad.....I lived through it!

Wow, there's a lot of embarrassing pictures of me on the Internet.

Are we Writing for Art? And is Art a Springboard to Fame?

2011-04-09T17:14:00.001-07:00

I'm building a play.

Like, from the ground up.

If my reality show about building plays needed a title, it would be 'From the Ground Up'. Except that' s already a show, so it wouldn't be. It would be called, 'Laughing on the Outside, Crying Within'. Or wait, that's my autobiography. Ok, well there isn't a show, so there doesn't need to be a name anyway. Stop hassling me.

Anyway, I'm building it and this is what it looks like right now:

It's actually amazing to see it like that. I had hit a complete and total wall with it, and didn't write a word for a week. I didn't see it ever becoming anything more than a collection of little scenes. And then I had a meeting with the two directors (co-conspirators? They're kind of my patrons, because they're letting me do this with their slot in a festival, so maybe they are like my wealthy dowagers), and they were just fresh eyes and guiding lights of help, as always. So we took the scenes that I had, and some kind of bled into one another, and the ones that didn't, we found a way to make them bleed. MAKE ALL THE SCENES BLEED.

And now it has a kind of structure, or at least, the frame, of a structure that I can now start to fill in, and it is like a little journey, which is nice.

Anyway. It's great. Sometimes, all you need is a helpful meeting to get you off the playwriting ledge. And I really was on a ledge. Ugh, creation is just the most frustrating thing. It comes and it goes and you have to just keep hammering away at it. Sometimes it gives, and sometimes you just end up hammering for hours. Hammering and yammering.

These are the two gorgeous muffins that are making my stupid ideas into something that other people might be able to look at.

Julia and Eric. THEATRE CREATORS OF TOMORROW. And today. Because they do a bunch of cool stuff, and I go to it.

So it's great, and it feels hopeful and full of possibility, but I still have lots of work to do. There's a lot more still to write and writing takes a discipline that I need to haul out of myself with a crane. Like exercise and not swearing. So difficult! And not only that, but after I do that, which will kick my ass and involve me giving up and restarting and hating myself and all the other things that writing always involves, and THEN I have to GET UP AND START ACTING IT.

YOU WROTE YOURSELF INTO THIS MESS, YOU ACT YOURSELF OUT!

And that is another rigour that right now I am looking forward to, but will also be challenging and involve me giving up and restarting and hating myself and all the other things that acting always involves.

But one thing at a time.

Only Way to Make a Piece of Art

2011-04-09T16:56:00.000-07:00

Please read this:

http://www.austinkleon.com/2011/03/30/how-to-steal-like-an-artist-and-9-other-things-nobody-told-me/

It's very wonderful.