Whew.
I'm trying to think if I have anything to write of any sort of importance. (Do I ever?) My top five subjects, in no particular order, seem to be:
1. Senior Ball. I'm not sure if this is particular only to my college, or all other schools, but at least my small liberal arts college seems to place a lot of weight on this one evening, with sort of mixed results. On one hand: Congratulations! You have emerged from three and a half years of rigorous coursework, have "found" yourself, and are now able to call yourselves mature, educated, responsible individuals. On the other: You are an immature college student, and we all know how college students act when they spend a lot of money on dresses, shoes, tickets, and jewelry: drunk and belligerent. We will put you through two security checkpoints to ensure that no one brings in any alcohol that is not the kind you need to pay for. And once you arrive at your destination, we encourage you to go drink and dance-- as long as you can get the attention of one of the four bartenders we hired for roughly nine hundred people.
Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to strap my Virgin Mary flask to my inner thigh all evening, so that element wasn't so much a problem. One cultural oddity down, another lifetime to go.....
2. Schoolwork. There's too much of it. I realize I am paying a decent chunk of cash in order to do all of this work, and for the most part, I really do care about getting it all done on time. I like reading more, expanding my mind, becoming an educated person, and I really don't like to let down professors with yet another paper typed at 4 a.m. with imaginary words. But I also like sleep a whole lot. Which brings me to:
3. Thanksgiving. Thank god for this holiday. I know it's not even anything I care about for reasons like they teach you in third grade-- I couldn't really give a shit about the Pilgrims and the Indians sharing one glorious meal in happiness until they all started killing each other again. What I am grateful for is the idea of time away. They let me go home, see my family and friends, and escape the confines of classwork, homework, extracurricular work, and just plain ol' work-work for at least a long-ish weekend, and for that I am a grateful little lady. Do I even like turkey all that much? No. That's why my mother cooks filet mignon every year. (And oh, god, does she ever.... with this mustard tarragon cream sauce that you wouldn't even believe). And don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of mashed potatoes and pumpkin anything... but what I really like is the chance to catch up on friends, rest, and sleep. Unfortunately, this brings me back to:
4. Theatre. (And, in essence, number two: work). I have a dress rehearsal the Monday after we return from break. I'm not really ready for that. So much for time away to revive and recover. And in essence, this is really:
5. Life. (Not the board game. My own). I'm trying to figure out now if what I think I want to do with my life (design costumes, live in this theatre world, become a true "artist") gibes with what it actually entails (poverty, struggling to break through, honest assessment that I might not actually be "good enough" to do what I want). It's a strange time in my life right now, and I don't know if I even merit the sort of self-scrutiny that I've been subjecting myself to everyday... but if anyone's going to question my own self-worth, I guess it might as well be me. Is this really what I want to do with my life? Have I pidgeonholed my interests, or am I truly finding myself? Am I smart/talented enough to have the career that I want? And is it all that important anyways?
So anyways. That's what's on my mind this week. You can catch up with me after I've had my nap and steak/mashed potato dinner.... and maybe I'll have a different worldview entirely. Enjoy your turkeys!!
Monday, November 19, 2007
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Reality Check.
So Thursday night, I'm backstage at my show. I'm spacing a little-- two more quick-changes and I'm outta there, going home, pouring a glass of wine, and catching up on abc.com with "Pushing Daisies." (Which-- sidebar-- I know I shouldn't love for so many reasons, but I do. They're really pulling out all the stops here, which although yes, we've seen it all before, I still can't help but just adore. The cast is amazing, they've been able to sustain a seemingly unsustainable premise for four episodes now, and I really hope the WGA strike doesn't put it all on hold. But I digress).
So I'm prepping my next change, thinking nothing of anything, when all of a sudden we hear this horrifying sound coming from the back stairs -- as if a large weight was crashing and banging down them, hitting every single step until its final destination when it came to rest in one final, terrifying moan. Sure enough, I run over, dodging distraught actresses and freshmen techies, until I see my friend Cara, at the bottom of the stairs, in full Victorian period getup, eyes closed and moaning quietly in a tangled mess of petticoats.
Let me explain something about these stairs. The way the theater is constructed, the dressing rooms and costume shop are all upstairs, on the building's fourth floor. The theatre itself is on the second; we have a set of stairs that connects the backstage area to the fourth-floor dressing room area that scares the bejeezus out of everybody. They're old and steep, with carpeting to help muffle the noise (because they are old, they are creaky, and because they essentially are directly over the audience's head, the creaking really distracts from the performances-- thus, even the most cautious of actors still tend to avoid going up or down them during performances because they know just how noisy they can be). They're also steep motherfuckers-- essentially connecting the fourth floor to the second in one staircase, so people are cautious on them in part because of the noise, but in part because to fall down them would hurt. Badly. Kind of like what Cara discovered.
Turns out she's been feeling woozy the past several days as a side effect of her antibiotic, but because the girl's a trooper (very Long Island I-Could-Break-You-And-Quite-Possibly-Will), she powers through the show anyways. She doesn't actually remember what happened at the top of the stairs, though she does remember thinking mid-fall, and I quote, "Oh, shit...."; and she remembers waking up at the bottom and thinking "I have to go onstage now...."
Needless to say, seeing as how the girl just broke a 33-step fall with her nose, she didn't go onstage. Once she proved that she could stand and move on her own without her neck being broken, we got her out of costume and upstairs, where the rent-a-cop campus security chief and his medic were waiting; and about ten minutes later I'm holding her hand as the EMTs body-board her with a cervical collar onto a stretcher and put her in the back of an ambulance. (Neither did we stop the show, either, which was part of the reason why I was the one to get in the ambulance with her at all). We spent about four hours in the hospital getting her x-rayed and questions answered and poked and prodded, and-- get this-- here's what's up:
The corset and wig she was wearing probably saved her life. The corset kept her spine straight when she finally landed into the wall at the bottom of the steps, and the wig-- with her hair in pincurls on top, and with the extra cushioning and padding-- acted as a helmet to keep head injuries to a minimum. She had a contusion on her wrist (I didn't know what it meant-- basically a nasty bruise) and a headache like none other, and now 48 hours later, she's pretty banged up across her chest, torso, and upper arms, but other than that-- she's FINE.
What I'm to make of all of this, I really don't know. I honestly went home that night-- after getting her safe back to her dorm room, with her roommates and a Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich-- and emailed my parents, because I decided I didn't tell them I loved them enough. I'm not trying to get religious here now, since I have a lot of really unresolved issues in general, but I do believe that spiritually something happened that night that saved her life. By all accounts, a fall like that should have broken her neck; it's hard for me to imagine how quickly everybody's lives could have been changed. Every time I've gone down those stairs since I keep thinking how horrifying a fall would be, and how in the thirty years people have been saying "one of those days, someone's going to take a header," I can't believe someone actually did.
Moral of the story: Be careful what you're doing. Life can change quickly. If you love somebody, tell them, and if you are in danger of falling down thirty-three steps in the middle of a musical, I would recommend doing so in a corset and Victorian updo.
So Thursday night, I'm backstage at my show. I'm spacing a little-- two more quick-changes and I'm outta there, going home, pouring a glass of wine, and catching up on abc.com with "Pushing Daisies." (Which-- sidebar-- I know I shouldn't love for so many reasons, but I do. They're really pulling out all the stops here, which although yes, we've seen it all before, I still can't help but just adore. The cast is amazing, they've been able to sustain a seemingly unsustainable premise for four episodes now, and I really hope the WGA strike doesn't put it all on hold. But I digress).
So I'm prepping my next change, thinking nothing of anything, when all of a sudden we hear this horrifying sound coming from the back stairs -- as if a large weight was crashing and banging down them, hitting every single step until its final destination when it came to rest in one final, terrifying moan. Sure enough, I run over, dodging distraught actresses and freshmen techies, until I see my friend Cara, at the bottom of the stairs, in full Victorian period getup, eyes closed and moaning quietly in a tangled mess of petticoats.
Let me explain something about these stairs. The way the theater is constructed, the dressing rooms and costume shop are all upstairs, on the building's fourth floor. The theatre itself is on the second; we have a set of stairs that connects the backstage area to the fourth-floor dressing room area that scares the bejeezus out of everybody. They're old and steep, with carpeting to help muffle the noise (because they are old, they are creaky, and because they essentially are directly over the audience's head, the creaking really distracts from the performances-- thus, even the most cautious of actors still tend to avoid going up or down them during performances because they know just how noisy they can be). They're also steep motherfuckers-- essentially connecting the fourth floor to the second in one staircase, so people are cautious on them in part because of the noise, but in part because to fall down them would hurt. Badly. Kind of like what Cara discovered.
Turns out she's been feeling woozy the past several days as a side effect of her antibiotic, but because the girl's a trooper (very Long Island I-Could-Break-You-And-Quite-Possibly-Will), she powers through the show anyways. She doesn't actually remember what happened at the top of the stairs, though she does remember thinking mid-fall, and I quote, "Oh, shit...."; and she remembers waking up at the bottom and thinking "I have to go onstage now...."
Needless to say, seeing as how the girl just broke a 33-step fall with her nose, she didn't go onstage. Once she proved that she could stand and move on her own without her neck being broken, we got her out of costume and upstairs, where the rent-a-cop campus security chief and his medic were waiting; and about ten minutes later I'm holding her hand as the EMTs body-board her with a cervical collar onto a stretcher and put her in the back of an ambulance. (Neither did we stop the show, either, which was part of the reason why I was the one to get in the ambulance with her at all). We spent about four hours in the hospital getting her x-rayed and questions answered and poked and prodded, and-- get this-- here's what's up:
The corset and wig she was wearing probably saved her life. The corset kept her spine straight when she finally landed into the wall at the bottom of the steps, and the wig-- with her hair in pincurls on top, and with the extra cushioning and padding-- acted as a helmet to keep head injuries to a minimum. She had a contusion on her wrist (I didn't know what it meant-- basically a nasty bruise) and a headache like none other, and now 48 hours later, she's pretty banged up across her chest, torso, and upper arms, but other than that-- she's FINE.
What I'm to make of all of this, I really don't know. I honestly went home that night-- after getting her safe back to her dorm room, with her roommates and a Wendy's spicy chicken sandwich-- and emailed my parents, because I decided I didn't tell them I loved them enough. I'm not trying to get religious here now, since I have a lot of really unresolved issues in general, but I do believe that spiritually something happened that night that saved her life. By all accounts, a fall like that should have broken her neck; it's hard for me to imagine how quickly everybody's lives could have been changed. Every time I've gone down those stairs since I keep thinking how horrifying a fall would be, and how in the thirty years people have been saying "one of those days, someone's going to take a header," I can't believe someone actually did.
Moral of the story: Be careful what you're doing. Life can change quickly. If you love somebody, tell them, and if you are in danger of falling down thirty-three steps in the middle of a musical, I would recommend doing so in a corset and Victorian updo.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Ten Reasons Why I Love Actors
That was sarcastic.
Actually, I do love actors. I spend a lot of time with actors. I enjoy the company of many a fine actor, always good for a laugh or a cigarette. I can't do my job (did I mention? I work in costumes) without actors.
But I have learned a few universal truths about actors over the years, namely:
Sometimes, actors are really, really dumb.
This problem is always at its height on the first dress rehearsal of any production. For some reason, the minute that an actor puts on a costume for the first time, their bodies start to produce some brain chemical that causes them to ask, frankly, a lot of stupid questions. And I mean a lot of stupid questions. Things that would never give a rational person a moment's pause before ("Should I put one arm in this sleeve or both? Should I button these buttons in the buttonholes on the front of my costume? Do you suppose the wig is meant to go on top of my head?") become major obstacles in the life of the young actor.
Now I don't want you to get me wrong here. For the most part, these are not people picking their noses or staring at their feet (or worse, singing showtunes) at a party. These are people who play drinking games and do stupid things and dance and are generally okay to be seen with in public. But the minute someone says something to me like "I know you're busy right now, but could you possibly lace my shoes for me?" I lose my cool. I am currently doing ten other things right now. You have owned shoes for, let's say, the past twenty years of your life, and for probably eighteen of those years, you have understood the basic principle of putting laces through small holes and tying a pretty bunny knot at the top. When I am not trying to solve the crisis-of-the-moment, I would be more than happy to educate you in the finer arts of "over-under-around-and-through," as my kindergarden teacher Mrs. Daly taught me, but for the time being, I would sincerely appreciate it if you would shut the hell up.
This isn't by any means an expansive list, either.... it's just the first thing that's come to mind. I keep thinking about the scenario posed to me by an actor-friend of mine from last year's summer stock, who wondered, "If you were to be locked in a small ski lodge cabin for one long weekend with either twenty cats or twenty actors, which would you pick?" On any given day, I would pick the actors... but switch that to a roomful of actors trying on their costumes for the first time, and give me the cats anyday.
Actually, I do love actors. I spend a lot of time with actors. I enjoy the company of many a fine actor, always good for a laugh or a cigarette. I can't do my job (did I mention? I work in costumes) without actors.
But I have learned a few universal truths about actors over the years, namely:
Sometimes, actors are really, really dumb.
This problem is always at its height on the first dress rehearsal of any production. For some reason, the minute that an actor puts on a costume for the first time, their bodies start to produce some brain chemical that causes them to ask, frankly, a lot of stupid questions. And I mean a lot of stupid questions. Things that would never give a rational person a moment's pause before ("Should I put one arm in this sleeve or both? Should I button these buttons in the buttonholes on the front of my costume? Do you suppose the wig is meant to go on top of my head?") become major obstacles in the life of the young actor.
Now I don't want you to get me wrong here. For the most part, these are not people picking their noses or staring at their feet (or worse, singing showtunes) at a party. These are people who play drinking games and do stupid things and dance and are generally okay to be seen with in public. But the minute someone says something to me like "I know you're busy right now, but could you possibly lace my shoes for me?" I lose my cool. I am currently doing ten other things right now. You have owned shoes for, let's say, the past twenty years of your life, and for probably eighteen of those years, you have understood the basic principle of putting laces through small holes and tying a pretty bunny knot at the top. When I am not trying to solve the crisis-of-the-moment, I would be more than happy to educate you in the finer arts of "over-under-around-and-through," as my kindergarden teacher Mrs. Daly taught me, but for the time being, I would sincerely appreciate it if you would shut the hell up.
This isn't by any means an expansive list, either.... it's just the first thing that's come to mind. I keep thinking about the scenario posed to me by an actor-friend of mine from last year's summer stock, who wondered, "If you were to be locked in a small ski lodge cabin for one long weekend with either twenty cats or twenty actors, which would you pick?" On any given day, I would pick the actors... but switch that to a roomful of actors trying on their costumes for the first time, and give me the cats anyday.
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