I went to my first Arts for Life Best Performance Awards yesterday and had a blast. Not to mention, I had the most gorgeous dress, I look forward to donning it again. The thing is, I was just about to give up my search for a dress to wear and decided to stop in Macy’s for some black elbow length gloves and saw the dress snuggly displayed on a headless mannequin and couldn’t take my eyes off of it. The sales woman was very nice and when I went to ask her opinion after I had it on, she was very sweet and I felt I could trust her opinion so I ended up buying it, even though it was a little more than I was hoping to pay. Why is it that nothing is ever on sale when you’re actually looking?
But I had a great time, everywhere I looked I saw friends and those whom I didn’t know, I soon got to meet. The awards ceremony was wonderful; my darling Ryan won the award for Best Comedic Actor thanks to his “Carmen Ghia” (The Producers) and Jen Theby won the award for Best Lead Actress due to her "Flaemmchen” (Grand Hotel: The Musical). While Grand Hotel didn’t receive the award for best large ensemble, The Producers did and I believe they fully deserved to, they all put on such an incredible show. It’s one of those occurrences where I would love to watch the show again (same cast, same everything) but all I can do is attempt to play it over in my mind. It’s the same with Evil Dead: The Musical (also starring my sweetheart).
I was a little disappointed that Bob Wilcox, one of the reviewers in St. Louis, wasn’t there; he gave me some great reviews recently and I wanted to show my face. It was nice to see my current director and his wife, the musical director and his wife (the accompanist) so I hanged around them for awhile; they’re a fun bunch.
After the award ceremony, I went to dinner with my boyfriend and the Grumich family, close friends of Ryan’s and, through him, friends of mine as well. They are a theatre family so they were very interested in the how the event had gone and the program from the show made the rounds during dinner.
When I finally got home I realized how much my feet were aching and I slipped out of the gorgeous dress and went right to bed; a quick ending to a lovely day.
In other news, Chess (the musical) goes up at the end of this month and I’m in that nervous sort of mindset. I always do this but usually the show comes together near the end and everything turns out peachy. Though, I still don’t believe I was meant for this show or part. I’m an actor who can get by with the occasional song, especially if it’s funny. You see, that way the audience is so busy laughing that they don’t have time to think “wow, she sounds terrible…this is embarrassing.” Unfortunately, Chess consists of a story that is mainly told through song so needless to say, I’m even more nervous that I normally get in the weeks before opening night. However, I’ve talked to my directors and they both seem confident that I’ll be fine. ..I still don’t know.
I’m starting up voice lessons with a new instructor. He and his wife are evidently very good and what’s more, he’s not asking a lot in the way of compensation. When I made a comment about this he said, “I’m not looking to getting rich off this, my wife and I just like to help people who want to improve.” Sounds like my kind of people.
Also, I will be appearing in the next BlackBookBerry episodes, they are being shot this Thursday so I’m really looking forward to that. One of my costume designer friends had a magenta gothic dress that she let me borrow for the first shoot (it was canceled because the photographer’s day job was having complications). I need to go over my notes that I made on my character so I can get back in her mind before the shoot.
Good news! It’s slightly strange too I think since the reactions I get when I tell people usually consist of blank stares and then laughter – I was cast as “Donna” in Debbie Does Dallas: The Musical. I think it’s going to be an incredibly fun show that doesn’t really require singing ability despite it being a musical. I told a lot of people yesterday and it seemed that most of them were at least interested in hearing more so I’m hoping that our audiences will be large.
I wasn’t sure if I would be getting the part or not even though Bob (the director) had originally come to me about a year and a half ago with news about the show and the part he was considering me for. I did make a slight mistake though. See, in an attempt to look “high-school-ish” I had a completely clean face, no make-up whatsoever (which is strange for me) and a nice, summer dress the color of a string-bean that had fallen in the dirt. I went to the audition and showed up about an hour early for my audition. I walked down the sunny stone steps and immediately saw Bob and Heather Tucker sitting on a bench, the former smoking a cigarette while the other was busy texting someone on her cell-phone. Turns out that they had some cancellations or “no-shows” and I sat awhile with them, enjoying the weather from the comfort of the cool shade.
After awhile Bob finished his cigarette and, coming out of his daydream, asked if I wanted to just do my audition since I was there and no one else was. So I went and did my stuff, performing my monologue and singing the 32 bars of my song. When I was finished, I went back into the lobby and talked with Heather for awhile (she seems to run every audition I show up at these days) and we gabbed for awhile. Bob came out and joined in – soon making the comment that it was so strange to me without make-up on and that he was expecting me to wear gothic looking make-up for the character I was being considered for. So, I was frustrated at myself for making such a mistake and went to callbacks the next day with my normal (though I’m not sure if it could be considered “gothic”) make-up on.
The callbacks were fairly normal, not as many people there as I expected but I believe the cast we ended up with is going to be fabulous. I still have the dance combo memorized from the callbacks and I got a message from the director a couple weeks ago saying that we girls were going to get our cheerleading outfits and learn more of the dance for a promo video. I’m really excited; it’s going to be fun playing around and being “bad” again. ;)
"Rawr!"
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