Whew!

What a whirlwind week! D. came into town to see Ricardo debut at the MBar in the ANMT Performers Workshop Cabaret... I worked the door before the show, and then had a terrific time inside. You done good, Rick -- I'm so proud and excited to see marching through to your dreams! And you're getting quite good!

The night before I'd just seen Wicked for third time -- always a lot of fun. (Ran into Matt C, who was there with his mom... that was cool -- so sorry to hear later he'd broken up with my girlfriend:( I'd planned to watch it this time from a writing point of view -- but that lasted about 3 minutes until I got into the story again. New Elphaba for me, but quite an experienced Galinda... (M.H.) who, IMHO really has milked it -- in a good way, got the funniest laughs ever, but in a bad way, taken so much liberty that you can't hear her whispers and gasps if you've never seen the show before... it really got annoying after awhile. Whatever happened to KEEP IT SIMPLE? I don't want to "see" the performing in shows... I want to see CHARACTERS. Last night D. and Jeffrey and Alan came to see the show at my theatre, where the director was brought in to "tame" an out-of-control actress... yeah, people do take pacing and professionalism seriously!

I've practically slept all day and now it's off to the theatre again -- they've increased my hours now to stay into intermission, and I'm happy to do it -- it's good to feel wanted and needed.

And as always great to be around my "high school" gang again... I get so much strength and support and laughs... the next time we're all together I'll be on the hot seat for my recital! :)

Success is the best revenge

I let myself cool down for a few hours listening to my beloved Yahoo Show Tunes channel and playing spider solitaire...

I've been nerve-wracked for the past week or so because my schedule at the theatre has increased a lot -- this for a woman who hasn't worked a 9-to-5 for a half a dozen years -- and getting stressed about passing this g.d. jury on March 18.

Seems the world of academia is 10 times more unorganized than my world of late. Prof doesn't know our recital dates, or what he told us the week before, or even how the juries will be run -- concurrently or individually. He can't wait to get into the compositions that people are finishing up -- and yet this isn't really a "workshop" so what the hell are we supposed to say? Or rather, what am I supposed to say to these arrogant 21-year-punks who think...

Okay, so there's only one guy, but he's the frickin' ringleader here. Working on a five-song song cycle about the five senses, writing his own lyrics and playing his own guitar. Do I need to know about the "all beef Chicago hotdog and mustard" and the "boy-girl kiss"? Prof says thanks for sharing your "3:00 am Self" which I gather means what you're driven to write when you are REALLY FEELING IT at three in the morning -- but I just want to kick him in the ass.

Granted, when I was 21 I started a 16-song song cycle based on tiny short poems called "What Does She Want?" (and I was SHE-ila -- get it?!) which probably would have been as mastabatory (is that a word?) -- but I'm just SO NOT HERE now, and I couldn't stand the lack of authority in the room. I actually walked out for five minutes to take a walk.

After an great week of a writing workshop, concert readings (it was great, Clay, and I really enjoyed your music and lyrics of Dr. Heidigger's Experiment!), dinner with musical theater folks, seeing Christopher as Clifford Bradshaw in Cabaret (dude, you kicked ass singing "Why Should I Wake Up") and last night, hanging with fellow musical theater writers last night watching the Academy Awards... damn, my life is rich!

And last I watched the documentary that was made about my team writing our mini-musicals at the Academy last year three times last night(!)... just relieving the whole experience, and so proud of the end result...

What the hell am I worried about?!?! Punks?

As we used to say in the early 80s: FUCK THAT NOISE! I'm makin' me some music.

When you don't have a TV

You start doing meez! You should be listening to "Bebot" too -- like on my myspace.com profile... hehehe



And yes, that's a PINK TIARA ;)

Documentary screening

...of "how the mini-musicals are made at ANMT" -- featuring my team -- and I'm nervous. I've already seen how awful I look in it -- but hell, it's real.

I think I'm going to be sick.

At least there's an Opening Night Party at the theatre tonight and there's wine... I'll let you know how it goes...

Second Day and all that jazz

What a big old crazy weekend... second day, eh, not so thrilling. Mostly because it comes right during the time I'm thinking about having a real meal (5 pm) and by the end of it I could eat... just about anything. Thank god I had a little maple syrup hard candy directly from Vermont (thanks Jeffrey :) in my purse... my, I'm turning into my mother with all her emergency foods, etc.

New news: we may be consolidating all our chamber orchestras on ONE concert for logistical reasons. Three of us have a massive group of instrumentalists to try to gather together and rehearse, so... why kill ourselves?

Although I'm not thrilled with splitting up my recital, I did put in for the concert to still be on my original date, Sunday, April 20, especially convenient since my classmate's recital is later on that evening. And I'm also thrilled at the idea of getting LOADS AND LOADS of people on a big huge stage (Thorne?) so I can hear "Pilya" played the way in all it's whacked out glory ;)

In the meantime... this whole thing is a logistics mess... and I have lots of scores to re-enter since I lost all my music when my PC crashed last November.

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But the good news: After a disastrous disappointment of not getting an online ticket to the ANMT 80-seat salon starring the visionary MUSICAL THEATRE ICON and my hero :)

Stephen Sondheim

... I got a ticket from a classmate, who had an extra -- SHOUT OUT TO YOU AND THANKS, MAUREEN! Then today, after many upset emails between members and staff -- ANMT fixed it all and moved the salon to a larger venue to accomodate all the members plus some. YAY!!! Now my colleagues can go too... whew... and guess where they moved it to? Yes, the Colony... the theatre I now work at! Life's so weird, isn't it?

Here's the man teaching students how to do Sweeney Todd's "My Friends" -- wonderful, eery... incredible. The man thinks character and motivation before a lick of music or lyric... witty as all hell and though it may not seem like it -- big-hearted.

Darn, I can't stop grinning!