In Venice!!!

Home again, home again, jiggity-jig.

We're in Toronto now, with one week to go. Six shows. It's encouraging to think that I can do this long a run. Back to Montgomery's Inn, where we started rehearsing so long ago.


I'm grateful to be in Summerworks, grateful that my 'I'm in a show' haze can continue a few days longer, but in a way it's difficult because one project doesn't get to die before another starts up. It's great in terms of putting off post-show-depression (although it will be all the worse when I have nothing to do and must turn to crime and hard liquor), but bad because I don't have a chance to let something end, and be myself without that particular show.

One of the best things about doing these two shows at the same time is how different the processes are. 'Shrew' is so organized, both onstage and in our rehearsal show. 'Witch' has a lot of madness. More madcap. I love the organization, I love feeling protected and treated like a professional, but I also love the touch of insanity, the idea of throwing something together, that it will likely fail but we'll do it anyway. In my extremist tendencies, I want to find a way to have both, intensely: a show where everyone feels safe and no one's time is wasted, but where simultaneously anything can happen and we're all on very dangerous ground. Controlled madness? Kept safe by each other, but teetering on the edge. I don't know how to combine those two things, but I think for me, that would be the ideal situation.


I'm breaking down now, though. I have lost the upper notes of my register, have two sprained fingers, one on each hand, a sprained ankle, and knee pain. So I guess I am no longer 'surviving' this marathon summer. Or maybe I am just barely surviving. It has been hard. I am so not suited to a freelancer's lifestyle! Feast to famine. Not good for me. Ayeeee. I am sure I have forgotten how to audition.

I don't know how to talk about the work that I'm doing anymore. Sometimes it feels ok. Sometimes I need the audience to let me know that it's ok, and I don't think that's how it should be. Sometimes I have lots of fun and sometimes I am confused. I know that if I were a good actor, all the aches and pains (especially the lost voice), would not be troubling me right now. I still find new things, and that is wonderful and also frustrating, because I think I should have found them ages ago. I still like parts of the show. I still love parts of the show. There are still problems. The work is the work and that's all there is. Right now I don't think I'll miss playing Grumio, although I have had fun. I am so contrary. I wanted to do Shakespeare and comedy this summer, and that's totally what I got, and so now I am hungry for new work, and drama. Oh, I am ridiculous. What a joy I must be to be near.


I have to take pictures of scenes that I'm not in, which means they are always kind of the same, but with DIFFERENT BACKDROPS. I wish I was better at taking pictures.

Maybe I'll focus on that and get really good at it!