Finding My Voice

Exactly what it says. The girl who has proclaimed "I can't write!" on a weekly basis is ... well ... writing.

Monday, June 26, 2006

I am a Theatre Person

And all that entails.

Even when I get tired of the business of the business, theatre feeds my soul.

One of the things I really miss about New Orleans is that there's a true Theatre Community. Which is good and bad (hard for newbies to break in; can be very cliquish; gets incredibly incestuous when you realize that it's everyone's dating pool as well ... but that's a whole different topic).

But it's a community.

I could show up to any theatre in town and know someone on stage, and probably someone in the audience.

I could show up to any theatre in town and feel certain I'd have someone to grab a drink with afterwards. Or that odds were good I'd be invited to the party.

I miss that.

There are a couple of times I've had that "oh, you're one of us" experiences here in LA.

Once was early on. I went to see Bon's show at The Next Stage (she had directed); and I happened to know two people in the audience! (yes, I only linked to one on purpose.) (A third I met, and I'd get to know - and work with - later!) I'd only been living in LA for a few months, and I randomly went to the theatre alone and found people to connect with. What a joyous feeling!

It really didn't happen again - except for my Ark "home", which is of course ongoing - until this year.

My co-worker Kristi's husband Clark is an actor (you can't spit without finding one of us, right?) and he was doing a show for free at a little actor's studio in West LA. Well, I wanted to support, and you can't beat free, and West LA works for us so ... we went. I had never met him (although when you work with someone long enough, you DO feel like you know their families intimately), nor did I know anyone associated with the production. But after the show I stayed to introduce myself, and it turned out they were having a little wine and a mini-party, and so we had a chance to hang out a bit. We were also introduced to the director, this guy here, and he was incredibly cool (and he and Dick turned out to have people in common). It was very friendly, very "oh you're one of us, please stay a while". I liked it a lot.

But even that didn't compare to our recent journey to PRT (as I wrote about below). After the show, we were walking out, and then Dick doubled back to just tell the director how wonderful her work is. And it is. (This is the second show of hers we've seen, and ... yeah. She rocks.) As it turns out (and this was the first of many coincidences ... if you call them that) that she knows Paul. (Ark's Artistic Director). She immediately invited us to stay for the party.

And then things just got cooler. See, I'm a total geek about working character actors. They are the gods and goddesses of showbiz, to me. So to not only watch this man be Willy Loman for several hours in a theatre as intimate as PRT, but to sit and talk to him for quite some time afterwards ... well ... WOW. I was bouncing off walls. "Are you an actor, too?" he asked me. "Yup," I said. "My condolences."

By now we're well into the party (which really is the cast, a few other PRT people, the Crazy Woman and us)and people are just introducing themselves to us. "Who do you know here?" they'd ask. "No one," I'd say, "we just got to talking and stayed." And they'd hang out with us ... there was a whole "oh, you're theatre people? Then you're cool." Two people in particular were oh-so-awesome ... I laughed so hard that my cheeks were hurting by the time I left. We laughed for HOURS ... it was incredible! Then there was the college student I was offering Life Advice to (ha ha!). And of course, the director herself, who as I said, knew Paul - as it turns out - she was on the board of directors of his theatre company in Phildelphia - a position which she gave up the year before Dick joined that company, way back a million years ago! Small world.

I loved how welcoming they were. Such good, cool people - I look forward to seeing them again some time.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Bad Theatre Etiquette

How NOT to behave in a theatre.

Dick and I went to Pacific Resident Theatre (my new favorite non-Ark Theatre, but that'll be a separate post), and had ... well, quite an experience.

It was opening weekend, and on Sunday night, the theatre was about half-full. If that. At just about curtain time, this woman rushes in, obviously relieve to have just made it. She scans the available seating, and sits Right Next To Me.

And starts talking to me.

"I can't believe I made it! I had to take five freeways to get here. I ended up practically in Northridge. I had bad directions ....." (For those who don't know, PRT is in Venice. I'd say those are bad directions.)

"Well, you're here now," I say, guardedly friendly, as I already have a not-so-good feeling.

Then CW ("crazy woman") says, "I wonder if I have enough time to go to the bathroom."

A woman who Dick and I assume to be the director (you know how you can generally just tell?)is sitting right in front of us. She swings around and says, "Yes. Go now."

CW says "Oh, but they're about to start."

Director says, "I know, but go now."

"Oh, but she [the house manager] said no."

Director says, "Go."

CW says, "Oh, no, it'll be fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I'll be fine. It'll be fine."

Fine. House Manager comes out and gives her curtain speech, at the end of which, CW *raises her hand* and says, "Do I have time to go to the bathroom?

Simultaneously, director swings around again and says "Yes," and House Manager says "No." HM of course defers immediately to the director.

CW says, "Oh ... never mind."

Director says, "It's an hour and ten minutes til intermission. Go now."

CW says, "No, no, it'll be fine, I'll be fine, never mind."

House manager clears the stage, the director takes out her cell phone to make sure it's off, the house lights dim, the music begins. CW sees the cell phone light and says - IN FULL VOICE - TO THE DIRECTOR - "Um, could you turn your cell phone off please?"

Director swings around and just stares.

I turn and stare, briefly, and then just squeeze Dick's hand. I'm also starting to think that I want to make sure at some point that everyone around us knows that SHE IS NOT WITH US.

About 10 minutes in, she TAPS THE SHOULDER OF THE WOMAN IN FRONT OF HER, and asks - in a loud whisper - if she could move her head because she's in the way. The woman slowly turns to look, gives her an "Are you out of your effing mind?" look, and gestures to the entire right side of the house which is empty.

I have now cut off circulation to Dick's hand.

Now. During the course of the play, the folks behind us start whispering commentary during the play. Not a lot, and not loudly, but enough to be a little annoying. Had CW not been making me nuts through the whole thing, I might have noticed and been annoyed, but really everything being equal, it seemed minor.

But not to CW. She spins around and, in a loud whisper, says "Could you please stop talking? That's very rude." They laugh.

Intermission rolls around. She swings around and starts telling them off for being so unspeakably rude as to talk through the play. They tell her, "Oh, shut up." She goes even more ballistic and storms off to see the house manager.

Now. Was she right that the people behind us were being rude? Absolutely. However, when you've already committed THE SAME SIN, you really have no leg to stand on with your indignation.

I was hopeful that upon our return, CW would have found another seat. No dice. The people behind us, however, opted to move elsewhere.

CW starts asking me, "Do you think that was too much? Was I too mean? I mean, they were really rude, right? Was I too much?" Of course I want to yell "Yes!" but instead I demur that well, certainly they shouldn't have been talking. "Exactly!" she says, "So was I too much?" I'm now laughing - I can't speak. I'm some combination of stunned, amused and disgusted and it's manifesting itself in uncontrollable laughter. She says, "Well, I guess your not answering is an answer."

She leans over me and says to Dick, "What about you?" Finally he says something along the lines of "Well, no, they shouldn't have been talking," to try and shut her up.

Luckily Act II begins. We manage to get through the whole act without incident.

After curtain call, the house lights resume, and CW immediately turns to me and begins again with, "So do you think that was too much? Was I too mean?" I looked at her and said, "I just don't know why my opinion is so important to you."

That threw her. "Well ... uh ... Well it's not that, I just, you know, didn't want to shock you."

"It's fine," I said, "nothing shocks me."

I would like to add, as a sort of footnote, that she stayed for the party, enjoying the food and wine, in spite of the fact that she didn't actually know anyone.

Yes, Dick and I stayed as well, but we were actually invited. :) More on that later.

Wednesday, June 14, 2006

Lessons in Finance

Q: When is your money not your money?
A: When you put it in the bank.

Dick and I decided to buy a used car. The first one we were set to buy, they needed the money faster than we could get it. Our down payment was in our savings account, which is a three-day transfer to our checking account. By the time it cleared our checking account (plus with the paperwork for the bank loan we'd be taking out) ... they were in too much of a hurry (moving out of town).

OK, fine. So I put the money back in our savings account.

And of course, almost immediately found another one. OK, I thought, three days to move it. Well, as it turned out, there was an extra waiting period because I had just moved it to the savings account. Yikes! So it was like a week and a half just to get our chunk of savings out.

OK, fine. The buyer was patient.

Our loan ended up coming from a person rather than a bank. Deposited the check ... and the bank put a hold on it for seven business days. Seven!!! I'm sure it cleared the bank of the person who wrote the check long before that.

It took about a month, beginning to end, to get this car.



OK, that's not literally our car, but our car is a 2002 silver Prius, so it's pretty darn close. :)

Really tired of banks, though.