Then On To Cremona....

I've never done a run this long before that wasn't TYA, and I'm already realizing how demanding it is. I've also never toured like this, and that's taking it's toll. But it's pretty great. Touring combines my love of acting with my love of practical things (such as moving shit and putting shit up). There's a DIY attitude which I just love. I love that our show fits in three cars and it just goes where we go. It's a challenge, but such a good one.

And while I'm still a bit hesitant about how I feel about the show after four weeks of it, I'm seeing how great it is to get to inhabit a character for that length of time. The ability to rehearse for months (or years, as they always say the Russians do) is so amazing. I have to push myself to find new things, but they're there, and they're surprising me. Again, a challenge that I think I"m up to.

Another day in Bolton, where it threatened to rain.



But didn't! It was super nice and there were lots of people and not so hot. I didn't have a great show, it was a difficult one for me.


And then tonight we were at Cedar Glen. Where we performed for a whole bunch of kids at some kind of leadership camps. YOUTHS. I hate youths. I fear youths! When they come to my job and I have to deal with them I try to switch with someone, because they scare me, what with their coolness and new fangled popular music.
It felt like they didn't understand or like the show. And then it felt like we, the actors, perceived that, and got demoralized, and slowed down, and all kind of lost interest. That was how it seemed to me. And then, of course, being the contrary asshole that I am, decide that I have to save the play in the second act, so come out with guns blazing. I'm not sure if I did a good scene: it felt really good, it felt new and different, and I was finding things all over the place tonight. But it might have just looked like me charging at some invisible wall with all my might.

That's hard for me. I have so much energy, I have a big voice, I have emotions that I struggle to keep inside of my body, and I'm a pretty physical actor who wants to move around: I need to find containers for all these things so that I don't just get up onstage and bleed and cry and dance. Then it would be the Shapes and Feelings show, and we don't need that, do we? Not sure if tonight was too much, or if I was able to find enough moments of sublety that it was ok. I definitely found more shades, and while it was bigger, or, more accurately, more cartoon-y, which I like but is becoming a default type of characterization for me, because I love love love Looney tunes this sentence is so long no one will ever read it, I still felt that the madness of the big moments were freeing me up to be quieter in quieter moments. But maybe not. I don't know. I was in it, dammit, I couldn't watch the damn thing.

Ahh, I love Shakespeare and touring.


AND THEN THE BUGS COME AND EAT MY FLESH.

Itch.