Document my grandmother's life through theater and film.

Today I graduate and perform my recital piece.

Hurrah!

Rehearsal routine for Hungry Ghosts:

1) Listen to some music. Stretch and warm up physically. Vocal warm ups, including y-buzz and call.

2) Read through at regular speed for comprehension.

3) Practice briezen for 5+ minutes, but no more than 20.

4) Explore physicality.

5) Run through with blocking (such as it is right now) and monologues. Concentrate on breathing and sharing voice with the audience. Explore transitions.

6) Read through, italiano speed.

7) Listen to some more music, do some constructive rest. Wind down.

That’s about two or more hours right there; keep in mind that the piece itself is about a half an hour in length. At this point, all I want to do is go home, have a good cry, and sleep.

Everything came to a head this weekend. Yesterday I had a panic attack that lasted a few hours. Eventually I came down and I did some good work during rehearsal.

This morning I woke knowing that I had dreamt of my grandmother’s death. This is like starting the grieving process all over again. I feel raw and echoingly lonely.

My friend Zanne read Hungry Ghosts for me during a workshop today, and I was surprised to hear how well the road map read for her.

I feel great!

Had a private today with my mentor regarding Hungry Ghosts. I’ve never gotten so much praise in my whole life, or so much good advice. He’s encouraging me to extend it and submit it for adjudication to the New York Fringe Festival.

Um, wow.

He also compared my work to Ntozake Shange’s choreopoetry style. Also, wow.

I gotta think about this. I feel a little intimidated by myself today.

Ugh. So sick. I passed on rehearsing Friday; I tried to rally the troops at one point, and I got some writing done, but really most of Friday I spent in bed. I’m still pretty sick today, but it feels like it’s progressing quickly.

Well, not completely. But I’m done with my recital piece—essentially. Tony said I need to start the rehearsal process. A couple of weeks early. Go me, I figure. Well, that’s where I am. I’m booked in the Cabaret space tomorrow for two hours to workshop Hungry Ghosts. We’ll see how that goes!

I restarted the process of working on my one-woman show about my grandmother’s life and death. It’s been a hard thing, and brought up things that I thought were buried or at least dealt with. Well, I have a short play out of it now, which I would like to expand, but we’ll see.

The show goes up in June, too. Rehearsing for something this intimate is more difficult than I ever thought possible. I never thought that I could get to that place so easily, but it flows like lava out of me. I only hope that I can do this justice.