Friday, January 06, 2006
Laughing at Oneself...
...HAS to be the key to sanity....LAUGHING LOUD AND LONG! At the silliness, the vulnerability, the arrogance, the presumption of one's Self....hello SELF! YOU ARE STUPID! OR at least silly, to think you have control over even those things that seem so simple, so expected....
SO there I was, fresh and dewy-eyed from writing my New Year's Blessings to all of you, feeling good about the day ahead....y'know, one of those days when the right clothing seems to jump out of your closet for you to wear, and you look good in them, and the hair works right,etc....I had a busy day ahead and I ws feeling good about it..prepared...ready. Even for my 10:30 audition for FANNY HILL that my dear friend Ed Dixon had prepped me on the day before..he wrote it, wants this delightful piece of his to work, was glad I was coming in for the role of "Mrs. Brown"...etc....and I was happy abou the prep I had done on it....actually looking forward to presenting what I had to Jimmy Brennan, director (who I know and have worked with), Dennis Grimaldi (Producer, who I have also worked with) and of course Ed....I even wore a new pair of shows.....! COmfortable, pretty,I was goood!
THen, all of a sudden I WAS LATE (and I am never late for anything)...and in the rush, my new prety green suede comfortable left shoe tore and my foot was gfalling out of it (on 40th Street, no less), and there I was at Ripley-Grier Studios, a familiar place,...out of breqath, out of time (or so I thought), so I rushed stupidly into the room, not wanting my friends who I respect to be kept waiting any longer than I had already kept them.....
They were welcoming and warm and cordial and dear...I was rushed out of breath, apologetic and flustered, as I calmed down long enough to pull an unorganized pile of stuff out of my otherwise pristine bag, to do the one song that ,over the years has gotten me job after job after job after job,...a simply thing, which I had simplified even further for this audition because the main thing would be to sing Ed's delightful song from the show...so i give it to the young (!) pianist, whose name I have mercifully forgotten....(for the first time I noticed the pages were coming apart in the taped-together version I trailed out...dear me...)...and I centered and focused...and ...whaddya know? THE YOUNG GUY COULD NOT FOLLOW THE ARRANGEMENT! He simply played awfully, did not keep up with me, lost his place...I did not even get through the first verse before i gracefully forgot a lyric, looked pleadingly at the table of colleagues before me and siad: why don't we just do "Ed's song, okay?....I allowed this upstart pianist guy to totally throw me off my game...I mean: HELLO?????? Who was that crazy lady singing in the center of the room?
Sadly, it was me....
ANyway, I persevered...apologized (yet again!!!!I mean come on!!!)for my shabby shoe....we all even made jokes about it and how the character would wear such shoes,etc...I mean that room, half filled with dear men who knew me , and the other half filled with youngsters who ust have thought I was a bag lady from hell...well,
SO there I was, fresh and dewy-eyed from writing my New Year's Blessings to all of you, feeling good about the day ahead....y'know, one of those days when the right clothing seems to jump out of your closet for you to wear, and you look good in them, and the hair works right,etc....I had a busy day ahead and I ws feeling good about it..prepared...ready. Even for my 10:30 audition for FANNY HILL that my dear friend Ed Dixon had prepped me on the day before..he wrote it, wants this delightful piece of his to work, was glad I was coming in for the role of "Mrs. Brown"...etc....and I was happy abou the prep I had done on it....actually looking forward to presenting what I had to Jimmy Brennan, director (who I know and have worked with), Dennis Grimaldi (Producer, who I have also worked with) and of course Ed....I even wore a new pair of shows.....! COmfortable, pretty,I was goood!
THen, all of a sudden I WAS LATE (and I am never late for anything)...and in the rush, my new prety green suede comfortable left shoe tore and my foot was gfalling out of it (on 40th Street, no less), and there I was at Ripley-Grier Studios, a familiar place,...out of breqath, out of time (or so I thought), so I rushed stupidly into the room, not wanting my friends who I respect to be kept waiting any longer than I had already kept them.....
They were welcoming and warm and cordial and dear...I was rushed out of breath, apologetic and flustered, as I calmed down long enough to pull an unorganized pile of stuff out of my otherwise pristine bag, to do the one song that ,over the years has gotten me job after job after job after job,...a simply thing, which I had simplified even further for this audition because the main thing would be to sing Ed's delightful song from the show...so i give it to the young (!) pianist, whose name I have mercifully forgotten....(for the first time I noticed the pages were coming apart in the taped-together version I trailed out...dear me...)...and I centered and focused...and ...whaddya know? THE YOUNG GUY COULD NOT FOLLOW THE ARRANGEMENT! He simply played awfully, did not keep up with me, lost his place...I did not even get through the first verse before i gracefully forgot a lyric, looked pleadingly at the table of colleagues before me and siad: why don't we just do "Ed's song, okay?....I allowed this upstart pianist guy to totally throw me off my game...I mean: HELLO?????? Who was that crazy lady singing in the center of the room?
Sadly, it was me....
ANyway, I persevered...apologized (yet again!!!!I mean come on!!!)for my shabby shoe....we all even made jokes about it and how the character would wear such shoes,etc...I mean that room, half filled with dear men who knew me , and the other half filled with youngsters who ust have thought I was a bag lady from hell...well,
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