do more theatre

Tonight was great, so much fun and a really encouraging and uplifting environment. Exactly right for me, I need healing. I need peace. I have found a comfort to be still in being involved once more, and I don’t need to be on the stage at this point to feel like I’m really achieving important things for myself.

So I recently joined a theatre I’ve only been to as a viewer in the past. I signed up for the front of house program (bar work), so I could meet some people and just be involved in supporting political theatre in Sydney. I’m on next weekend, and totally stoked.

Will update as more happens.

signed up for a class. don’t have the time to join a play at the moment, but next semester, I will be on stage!!!

“I think what influenced me was the commitment to a character and the fact the character wasn’t funny because he was doing
jokes, he was funny because he was sincere, and thats always stayed with me.”—Martin Short

I just love it, that is. Already two big amateur performances and a bunch of high school stuff behind me, now, really really looking forward to MORE!!!

Which is an original musical production based on Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” that is making its Los Angeles debut in September.

So – it is very exciting to have TWO memorable theatre projects right around the corner… Vanya and the Kern Shakespeare Festival. YAY!

They say

Your show is so beautiful
It is poetry, made alive
Costumes – lovely – so complimentary
Staging – wow….

and I say

Nothing

Wordlessness
Is all
Pervasive
So I sit back
And pray
It is
enough

Last night Amy asked why I hadn’t auditioned for the Shakespeare festival.

I said, “Well, I thought about it last week, and then… that is the only place it went… thought. And my Mom was in town so I wanted to spend time with her, so I decided I must not be meant to be in it.”

Then she said, “They are auditioning again tomorrow.”

So, I said, “Hmmm. Guess I am supposed to audition.”

So today I went out and auditioned for Randy Messick, a cool-kinda-eccentric man who is the Chair of the Drama Dept at Bakersfield College, the school that hosts the Kern Shakespeare Festival. I didn’t know what to expect, as I have never done Shakespeare, just helped Brian with his lines for Macbeth and loved just saying the words in the script.

So, I read with this cute little button girl in a scene from Troillus and Cressida.

We got done and Randy said, “Julie.”

I said, “Yes?”

He said. “You’re in my show. I don’t know who you will play, but you are in. You can go now and have fun with the rest of your day.”

Something like this NEVER happens.

I am still pinching myself.

How cool is this?

My favorite moment was actually playing a coquette opposite Bob. He entered as Pasaras (I think that is his character.) His lines were, “Hello, Cressida. Hello, Alexandra.” But he said it like on the Dating Game, “Hello, Alexandra”... I don’t even have another line there… his character played the entire rest of the scene talking to Cressida, but I played the shy… “ohmigawsh HE said HI to ME!” thing… we got a laugh. So much fun.

:-)

for “Song for Vanya” a new musical that debuted at Spotlight this April and he is taking to Los Angeles in the Fall. I am auditioning because it is Hal doing the asking… and it fulfills my ongoing goal of auditioning once per quarter.

What I especially love about this is my complete detachment from the results.

There are many reasons to want to do a show in Los Angeles – and my strongest motivation would be simply to work with Hal again.

Ironically, right before Hal came into the dressing room to seek me out (and I am the one he singled out to invite in a room filled with incredible talent) I had mentioned that I had chosen my next audition song “for that day when I audition for another musical” never thinking the audition would walk right int the room within the half hour.

The song?

“Not a Day Goes By” from “Merrily We Roll Along” by Stephen Sondheim. So excited to sing it for an audience, even if that audience is simply Hal.

I’m booked through Summer… I’m doing the Broadway Revue in April, I was asked to do a dinner mystery theatre show in May, and then the big Musical starts up for the Summer (Unsinkable Molly Brown)

Is it possible to complete this goal?

I think that with the crew I’ve found myself with it’ll be impossible for me to not do theatre. All these shows are with the same people.

I hate to check it off, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got it covered!

I can always say I want to do it again, right?