Keep the change!

Accomplished today (since the last post): Borrowed DM's car for the afternoon and got to drive (!!!), did much-needed laundry, "high-wired" the show

It's all about repetition now with the show. Just doing it and doing it and running things over and over and over. Eventually, almost everything will stick and then it's all about just going back and filling in the holes in the script with some studying. It's how I work best and, luckily, this process is turning into one of those situations. After running the show piece by piece for the past few rehearsals, Thursday night brought us an attempt at Act I, which I decided to try completely off-book. I knew there were certain sections that I wasn't 100% on (or even 50% on) but when I've been reading it for a while and then start to hear it said to me as I repeat it, it starts to stick a bit better. I call it "high-wiring" it. Where it's just me, up there without a net, giving it a shot. And while it usually makes the act run longer than it should (our time from Thursday night...nearly 80 minutes) and can be infinitely more frustrating for me, it's a process that I almost must go through for this to work out right.

I discovered this process in high school when I was doing a Neil Simon one-act. I forgot my script at home in the middle of the rehearsal process and was forced to try to run the show with nothing but my faulty memory and the help of the Stage Manager feeding me lines whenever I needed them. It was only later that I realized that it was a method that works best for me. Or so it would seem. I've been trying to do it ever since.

Anyway, I "high-wired" the act and ended up practically drenched in sweat. Fighting for lines and acting nervous and fidgety for an entire act (and show) is TIRING! What's difficult about the show is that once I'm on stage I almost never leave. And the two times that I do leave, it's for maybe 3 pages each and then I'm right back into it. In Act I, once I enter (page 4), I don't leave the stage until Intermission. That's a lot stretch of time with no break. So when I'm blocked to be up at the bar or sitting on a couch for even a few lines, I try to make the most of them and collect my thoughts a little. Because I know I have to jump right into it.

My character is charged with a lot of the "recapping" of the various goings-on of the show. And he also has to make up a lot of the lies that are thrown around so I end up having to say some REALLY convoluted things. What that means is a lot of round-about lines that go nowhere but have to be right in order for the lies (and the comedy) to continue. I'm finding those little speeches to be the most difficult. Because very often they don't make any sense. And how can I say something if I'm not sure, as the actor, what the hell I'm trying to say? I would imagine it's the same for anyone who ever has to do any technical-type acting. Like on a police or medical show. But at least there you can do some research or you have some sort of advisor there to tell you what's going on and how things are all fitting together and whatnot. Here...I'm on my own. Trying to figure out anything to help me remember how these lines are laid out. It's awful. But if I can figure it all out...I should be good.

We got our first paychecks today and...surprise, surprise...they are for a little bit more than the agreed-upon rate. Oh, happy day!! 8 more weeks of that will make me a very happy actor. Not much to report on that...it just made me very happy and maybe I felt like trying to brag on it a bit.

Everyone in the cast is really getting along. This is the second show in a row now, after "Time of Your Life" earlier this year, where the cast has been a pretty cohesive unit, onstage and off. And it feels really good. It's no fun working with someone that you just don't get along with. I guess that's true no matter what job you work at, though. Even an office job is made better by the people you have around you and interact with on a consistent basis. Evidence of that is how nearly everyone has gotten into the act when it comes to picking SP and me up at Delta House for rehearsals and dropping us off afterward and even letting us borrow their car, as DM did yesterday afternoon. We could have very easily been generally screwed by not having a car.

With the borrowed car yesterday we got the chance to find the closest laundromat and wash our week's worth of clothes. Thank God! I was very nearly at the bottom of my luggage and wondering when we'd get the chance to take care of that. But we did. And no I'm wearing all clean clothes. Mom would be proud! While I was watching the dryer finish up, I found one of those local magazine-type publications that is all local realty. Page after page of houses for sale and both SP and I were amazed at what houses cost around here. For the same amount that an ex-girlfriend of mine paid about a year ago for a one-bedroom condo just south of the Loop in Chicago, you could buy a three-bedroom two bathroom house with a finished basement, pool, two-car garage, and almost 5 acres of land. That's incredible to me! SP and I marveled at the cost of things in comparison to the city for a while, bought a couple of $1 sodas out of a machine (I guess not EVERYTHING is cheaper in the sticks), and then headed back to Delta House.

On the way back we passed the garage where SP had taken his van and noticed that it was closed. He panicked a bit. Later, we learned from one of the guys in the other show here that he had passed by later than that and saw the van up on the lift and being worked on. So we all breathed a sigh of relief. That other show closes tomorrow and the two guys living here will be leaving and if SP doesn't have his van back, we're two city actors without a car in the middle of nowhere. And that's no good at all. Hopefully, he should hear something this afternoon (um...VERY soon) and we'll be back on the road.

Tonight, all of us in the House are planning to try and go to the newly-opened bar down the road a couple of miles to just relax, have a couple of drinks, and (most importantly) get out of the House. That'll be nice. SP is getting incredibly stressed out between being unsure on his lines and being away from his wife and ailing dog and the whole van trouble thing and so I've sort of taken it upon myself to try and get him to relax a little. Not always be so anxious about burying his face in the script and to try and enjoy the vacation. He's just learned that he's got his next gig all set up (making me very jealous) so he's good for the rest of the year. It's a touring thing for school kids based in Boston and it's good money so he''ll do that for the fall semester and then join his wife and (hopefully) dog in Cincinnati just before Christmas (they are moving to Ohio in the two months he has between this show being done and the tour rehearsals starting). Lucky bastard.

Meanwhile, I'll be doing the Chicago thing, trollin' for gigs where and when I can. It'd be nice to have a steady gig for the rest of the year, but Idon't know how well I'd do if I was on the move for the entire time. It seems like a VERY unsettled existence for 5 months. Of course...if the money was good...

Sad that it has to come down to money. I guess that's the way, though.