Friday, October 02, 2009
AN October Swim
.....well before a morning Staff Meeting....and all seems possible today...OF MICE AND MEN on the road seems to be going well, and the actors certainly seem to be having a good time, on their comfortable bus, playing a different venue each night to audiences that truly seem to love their work.....the play and this production directed by Katy Brown are powerful....and the show reports tell of engaged audiences and standing ovations in each place......even the very largest they play.
The show is going to venues ranging in size fro 500 -4,000 seats! (The Eisenhower in West point, NY), so for Michael Catalan and the crew to put the show in to these various places so that it looks good and plays well is no small feat of skill.....i am so grateful for Catalan on the road....and for Rebecca Reinhardt and Holley Housewright, our Company Manager and Stage Manager, respectively....this is a good group and one that is gaining invaluable experience on our behalf for future tours.
I am very grateful for so many people around me right now...people who have patience with me...understand my overly-dramatic way of experiencing the world and still choose to play with me day after day after day....passion attracts passion, I suppose....and I have in my life people who experience the world with the same gusto and drama that I experience it with, so our sense of the HUGE nature of it all sometimes is understood.....and understanding and patience are all we can count on in each other when things get rough around the edges.
A good actor convinces himself that where he is in that moment of the play is true and real, that it is forever, that moment, and doesn't think or remember how the play ends.....and that's how I experience times in my life as well...i never remember there is always light at the end of any tunnel I feel stuck in....i never remember it all turns out alright....i always believe the worst in each moment of seeming emergency...and forget my strengths and capabilities....that I can swim, no matter how deep this end of the pool is that I have been thrown into...i AM A STRONG SWIMMER!!!!
And (as a dear friend put it recently): whereas it may feel like I am about to be thrown under the bus, all that is really happening is is that I am running along side that bus at a prodigious rate.....and keeping a pretty good pace.
Fall is crisping the air....at last...and leaves will soon turn...and before we know it, these momentary things that are disturbing will be sheer and utter history....i keep forgetting that part too: it ALL comes only to pass.....
I send hugs of warmth in this early chilly morning to all who care....
xxev
Labels: OF MICE AND MEN TOUR 2009
Friday, September 25, 2009
Birthing a Tour and Celebrating a Husband!
Well, the OF MICE AND MEN Tour had two good shows in Greeneville yesterday at the Nisewonger Center (a lovely place run by truly lovely people!), and despite some tech "snafu's" that were ironed out by our road crew staying up late to fix things, the show looked great, and actors performed wonderfully! Now, tonight, having successfully arrived in Lexington, Kentucky, this fine company of actors and crew have their first of 5 shows in the Opera House there, and I am so proud of everyone! I am most proud of the melding of styles accomplished between our tech people who are on the road with the show and the styles of the new folks we brought in especially for the Tour...there were some rough and un-typical moments of personality tension to start with, but with the help and support of many people, these tensions seem to have resolved in favor of working FOR the Tour and making it happen well. And so far? So good! I have grown particularly fond of the spirited young woman we hired to be our Company Manager: Rebecca Reinhardt. i adore this girl! Her good spirits, her good mind, her sweet heart and her smart business sense, all combining to make her first outing as a real Company Manager not half as bad as it could have been with a lesser new person! She is terrific! And before this Tour is done, she will be fabulous at this job, having learned more than she ever even suspected she was going to need to learn. I now consider Rebecca my new sister....i truly like her. She makes me laugh, when , lately, there hasn't seemed that much to laugh at!
Brava Rebecca for all you done to get this show on the road! I am thankful for you.
But this learning thing can honestly be said for all of us here: every day, especially in this busiest part of our year that we call "Techtember", every day, numerous new problems have arisen, total suprises that have caught all of us off guard...unexpected turns and many many instances where things were asked of us we did not even know we had to have to give!! We are performing this lovely production at some 30 different venues across the country, so this is by no means a small "local"tour...so all the experience this theatre has had hither to this point, even though it helped to get us going a little in the right direction, none of the smaller tour experience prepared us for the numberless details necessary, the infinite things we needed to figure out way ahead of when we thought we needed to, answers needed by hundreds of people around the route of the Tour...itineraries to figure out, for both cast and crew (thanks to R.R.for patiently doing that part)...hotel rooms to book and secure (thank you all the gals at Road Concierge for that part), enormous amounts of information to get to Tech Directors around the country who needed it far sooner than we were able to supply it (an ironic hit on the head to all those who stood in the way of that part of the process...)...BUT MAINLY, my biggest obstacle (as it often is) was all the stuff I did not even know I did not know!!! ALl the stuff I had no idea I even had to know....all the rude awakenings! But somehow, so far we have survived,despite my lack of expertise.
But tonight - let the wonderful Tour do its thing! Because I am going to an elegant Awards dinner for my fabulous husband Peter Yonka: he is being honored as one of this region's 40 Under 40! And he deserves every single bit of the honor. He has worked hard for it, never failing to give this theatre every ounce of his energies even when he had no energies left. I am so proud of him. We will celebrate together, at a table with others of our admired and respected colleagues . We look forward to a fun evening. CONGRATULATIONS PETER!
More soon.
Brava Rebecca for all you done to get this show on the road! I am thankful for you.
But this learning thing can honestly be said for all of us here: every day, especially in this busiest part of our year that we call "Techtember", every day, numerous new problems have arisen, total suprises that have caught all of us off guard...unexpected turns and many many instances where things were asked of us we did not even know we had to have to give!! We are performing this lovely production at some 30 different venues across the country, so this is by no means a small "local"tour...so all the experience this theatre has had hither to this point, even though it helped to get us going a little in the right direction, none of the smaller tour experience prepared us for the numberless details necessary, the infinite things we needed to figure out way ahead of when we thought we needed to, answers needed by hundreds of people around the route of the Tour...itineraries to figure out, for both cast and crew (thanks to R.R.for patiently doing that part)...hotel rooms to book and secure (thank you all the gals at Road Concierge for that part), enormous amounts of information to get to Tech Directors around the country who needed it far sooner than we were able to supply it (an ironic hit on the head to all those who stood in the way of that part of the process...)...BUT MAINLY, my biggest obstacle (as it often is) was all the stuff I did not even know I did not know!!! ALl the stuff I had no idea I even had to know....all the rude awakenings! But somehow, so far we have survived,despite my lack of expertise.
But tonight - let the wonderful Tour do its thing! Because I am going to an elegant Awards dinner for my fabulous husband Peter Yonka: he is being honored as one of this region's 40 Under 40! And he deserves every single bit of the honor. He has worked hard for it, never failing to give this theatre every ounce of his energies even when he had no energies left. I am so proud of him. We will celebrate together, at a table with others of our admired and respected colleagues . We look forward to a fun evening. CONGRATULATIONS PETER!
More soon.
Labels: OF MICE AND MEN TOUR 2009
