Mischief Night

Today is Halloween. That means that last night was what we used to call Mischief Night when I was growing up. The idea was to pull pranks of various kinds. TP the yard, egg a few cars, cover the windows of cars with shaving cream...that kinda thing. It always was meant to be done in good fun, though sometimes things got a bit carried away and kids would get into some serious trouble or property would get some damage. But like I said...nothing too terrible.

Last night was the oddest Mischief Night ever.

I decided sorta late (10PM or so) that I was deathly bored just watching TV at the Delta House so I drove the 2 or 3 miles to this place that Jonathan and Heidi had discovered after I left Battle Creek in June. A nice little divey bar that I probably shouldn't name. (If you're coming to the area and would like to check it out, give me a call or something and I'll tell you what it's called.) So I sit at the bar and right away there were all kinds of characters. A loud table right by the door. A VERY drunk married girl trying to sign her credit card receipt. A dirty drunk guy who was trying to hit on the receipt-signing girl. I texted Heidi that I was there and she got excited for me. She asked if there was a crossing guard there and I told her that there wasn't but then as soon as I sent that, lo and behold...in walks a guy in a reflective vest. A crossing guard!!! Amazing.

So I have 3 beers over the next 2 hours and I start to feel like I have had enough. But right next to me has wobbled the loudest drunk guy at the loud drunk table by the door. He's sucking down his final drink and waving off people who are asking him if he's driving himself or not. He can barely walk as he heads out the back door to the parking lot but as concerned as everyone seemed just a few minutes ago, now nobody is even looking at him. I ask the bartender if he's OK and if he should be driving. She sort of shrugs.

So I say out loud that maybe I'll go check on him and make sure he doesn't drive. The people at the bar say generic nice things and I'm off to chase down the drunk guy (did I mention that he is a BIG mean-looking drunk guy who almost got into a fight just an hour earlier? 'Cause that should enter into the big mental picture.) for some unknown reason.

He's at his car, trying to get in. Yup...TRYING to get in. So I get to the car and talk to him. "You alright?" "Where are you going?" "Why not let me drive you home?" He keeps saying no. He's good. I tell him (he calls himself "Bill" at first but then after asking if I'm a cop and me telling him that I'm not, he tells me that his name is "Tommy") that he can barely walk and was having trouble sitting in the car seat and maybe it would be the best thing for everyone if I drive him home and then he can come back and get it in the morning. After a while...10 minutes or so...he finally starts to get upset with me and slowly drives off. It knocks me back a little at first but after I've cleared the car and wheels and stuff he drives faster. "Fine," I think. I did my best. So I get into the car DM has let me borrow and start to head home.

But there he is, at the intersection. He's turning the same way that I happen to be turning. Aaaaaaand, he's weaving. Not nearly as much as I would have expected from somebody who was finding it tough to walk, but there is a weave. So I drop back a little bit so as not to be a part of his accident and, when a little down the road he turns...for some reason I decide to turn as well. I just didn't want this dude to get into an accident. I meant only the best. Y'all have to believe this.

So another turn and now I'm thinking I should be turning around. I'm getting to an area of town that I don't know and I don't want to get too far away from a road that I'm familiar with. But I see him turning into a driveway. "Great," I think, "I've done my really good (yet slightly odd) deed for the year. Yeah, me!". And I start to turn around to head back to the Delta House. But as I look back in the direction of the driveway that "Tommy" has turned into, I see that he's backing up and yelling out the window at me. He squares his large SUV-looking thing in my direction and starts coming at me pretty fast. I panic like crazy. Is he going to come after me for following him? Is he upset that a total stranger didn't trust him behind the wheel of his car? I don't know. The fight he almost got into earlier at the bar was about some guy standing too close to him. So I didn't want to stick around to find out.

I'm in the process of backing up at this point and I get so distracted by this drunk dude coming at me in his car that I hit something. A parked car. I wasn't going very fast or anything, but I bumped it pretty well. Scenarios whizzed through my head but I couldn't think about anything other than "GO!!!!" So I drove off. I started to head back to the Delta House when I noticed that now "Tommy" was following me! And pretty closely, too. Honking. Flashing his lights. And, of course, weaving. Now I'm getting scared. He's still following me when I come up on the Delta House so I keep driving. A ways down the road he decides to try and pass me. So when he's on the other side of the street and just a little ahead of me, I slow down and pull into a driveway to turn around. He pulls up behind me and yells out the window a lot of phrases and names that I shouldn't repeat here but also that he's called the police on me. I yelled out that "is this what I get for trying to help somebody out?" and he calls me a few names and is off.

I turn around and head back home. But he's following me again. I manage to get a bit ahead of him and turn into a sideroad and immediately into a church parking lot. I threw the car into Park and turned off my lights. "Tommy" goes flying by on the road. I wait a second, and get back onto the road and I'm quickly in the driveway at the Delta House.

So now...I have no idea what to do. DM and his family have gone through a lot of problems in the past few months and the last thing they need is some more trouble with a police report. And while I'm almost 100% certain that nothing on the other car was damaged at all, I am frightened to go back for fear that the guy might randomly be there while I check to make sure everything is alright. Naturally, I'll be telling DM all about this later tonight after the show. And I'll, of course, offer to pay for the tail-light that got broken. I have to believe that "Tommy" didn't really call the police. I mean, he was really drunk and that would have not been a very smart thing for a drunk guy to do...call the police while driving drunk. But I'm all kinds of nervous now. I don't want to get into trouble and I certainly don't want to cause more trouble for DM.

But I meant to try and do a good thing. This was all about me watching out for some stranger who obviously needed some help when nobody else cared. And all of this is my reward? I don't get it. THIS is how the world thanks me for trying to be the nice guy? I just hope that I can get DM's car fixed relatively cheaply and be done with this whole episode.

Maybe I'm just better off only looking out for myself from now on. I'll have to look out only for Number One for a while. Because, in all honesty, I feel like I've earned that right after last night.

Half-way home

So it's almost 5PM on Thursday. The day before Halloween. And I just got back to the Delta House from today's matinee. Each show is different than the one before it and I'm not so convinced that that is a good thing. The format of the show could use some MAJOR tweaking and DM could stand to be a little less heavy-handed with the "narration" that he provides. He actually seems a little (playfully) offended when an audience member starts talking on their own instead of waiting for him to feed them lines. And that's not very fun at all. SH and I go on forever and ever in our scene. The least DM could do is allow the audience member to have a little fun while he/she is up there. Once they have their fun, THEN DM can jump in and start shaping the scene the way he feels it needs to be going.

But whatever. The audience seems to be enjoying themselves...which is really all that matters. I suppose.

Yesterday I received yet another call from the agent. This time it was with a theatrical thing that, in the end, just didn't pan out. It was a last-minute thing and I just can't bring myself, at this point, to leave "Six Degrees" with only about two weeks left. So once again, last minute casting sort of screws me. I just don't understand why Casting and Artistic Directors wait so long sometimes to get things done. And, of course, I just know that if I were to decide to not accept parts with the expectation that good, professional, paying gigs will come to me at the 11th hour...that'll end up never happening.

Sometimes this business drives me insane. Anyway...I'm stuck in "Six Degrees" at this point. For better or for worse. I'm not thrilled about it but that's the way it is.

I'm gonna get to head down to Nappanee, Indiana late Saturday night to see Heidi, which is awesome. It's been a rough and VERY long couple of weeks and I really need to see her. While I'm down there I will also (maybe) be able to let people know that I've got nothing going on, gig-wise, after the new year and someone's interest will be piqued. Or not. To be honest, the only reason I'll be there at all is for time with Heidi and anything else that goes on or happens is just gravy. I miss her something awful.

Never a dull moment...

I just got done with one of the longest weekends I've had in a LONG time. I guess I wasn't content with simply finishing up the big show out at Circle Theater, I had to get myself involved with another one of those Columbia College student films. It was a good time and it's always interesting to see how all these students get together to get a film going and shot and everything. But it meant that both Thursday and Friday I had to wake up at 5AM to get to the set by 7AM (braving the crazy CTA system) to stay until 5:30PM or so so that I could train it out to Forest Park for the big show. Saturday I got a little break...didn't have to be on set until 3PM but then had the show afterward. And then Sunday I was called for 8AM, finished up at the stroke of 1PM, then got a ride to the theater to finish out the run. Three days out of those four I saw the sun rise. More times than I've seen it rise in the past year...maybe two!!!

Anyway...in between all of that, I had to pack up and prepare myself for a quick, week-long trip back to Turkeyville for some sort of improvised murder mystery thing that they do at this time every year. So bright and early this morning I found myself on an Amtrak train heading back to Battle Creek. No rest for the wicked, I guess.

DM picked me up and brought me back to the Delta House, which has had some major cleaning done to it. It's no better, structurally, but inside all efforts have been made to make it more of a home and not so much a stop-over for wayward actors. We sat and talked about the gameplan for this show and it seems like good silly fun. It'll be nice to see how it is received but DM and SH (both from "Don't Dress for Dinner") are excited about it. So we'll see.

In about two hours or so, someone will come over and pick me up and we'll all get together and talk about what else will be going on. It's an improvised show so I currently have nothing much to report as far as the show goes. I'll have more after tomorrow's trial-by-fire afternoon show.

Then...I'll go to sleep. I still have sleep to catch up on from the long weekend and I'm STOOPID exhausted.

It's like a damned roller coaster...

"Russ" called today and told me that the lead for the show I auditioned for two week ago was older than they had anticipated the character being. Therefore, all the characters were going to have to skew older so I was no longer going to be called back for the big show he was casting.

So...to recap:

I auditioned to great response.
I got a mysterious call heavily indicating I would be called back but there was some room for doubt.
I was definitely going to be called back, according to the director.
I was absolutely not called back, according to the director.
I did a great job in the show I'm in and was apologized to for being treated poorly and I was for sure going to be called back, according to the director.
The show was being cast in the classic "in another direction" and so the part was no longer available to me.

Watch...three days from now I'll get a call telling me I've been cast and when the first rehearsal is. At this point, that wouldn't surprise me in the least.

Sometimes I hate people.

The saga continues...

Thought (veeeeeeery briefly) about posting all of this last night when I got home from the big show but the Red Sox were busy staging their amazing comeback on the Rays so I watched that...and celebrated with a little Beam...instead. But here we go...

I got picked up at the usual time and place by "Jason" to head off to the big show last night. We get there and as I'm organizing some comps for folks coming in this weekend to see the show, I notice a slip of paper on the desk announcing that "Russ" from "Chicago Dramatists" has made a reservation for that evening's performance. Are you kidding me?! This will never end.

So all through the pre-show time getting dressed and playing solitaire and stuff, we all talked about (among other things) our individual run-ins with "Russ". Each of us had a story except for "Tim", but he was (true to form) chiming in and making jokes along with the rest of us. So we do the show, which turned out to be not bad. (It SURE does get warm in there sometimes...) Afterwards, we all go back to the dressing room and change and get our stuff and slowly wander out to the lobby to eventually leave. Outside, who is standing there milling about? "Russ", of course! (Or did you not see the title of this post?) Most of us go outside (not "Jason", who takes a little extra time to get some of the white out of his hair) and "Russ" tells us each what a good job we all did. He then looks at me and asks if he and I had spoken the night before. I said that, indeed, we had. He then apologized that he was so rude and explained that there were about 4 people right there wanting stuff at the time that I called.

Then he told me that the callbacks were going to happen in a bit and that I was definitely going to be called back. He then wandered off into the night, presumably to find his car. Everybody seemed pretty impressed that "Russ" had stuck around specifically, it seemed, to tell me that I was going to be called back but I don't know. At this point, I'm not expecting anything, though. I mean...it almost seems from one moment to the next, "Russ" has a change of heart or mind. And I refuse to, at this point, get my hopes up in any way.

We'll just have to wait and see how this all works itself out.

(---sigh---)

Sometimes I hate this "business"

This kinda thing doesn't happen too often but it does happen and I always seem to get the ass-end of the situation. I don't really know why. But I do. So here's what has been going on in the past two weeks with a theater company that shall remain nameless but let's call, for the sake of giving it a name, "Chicago Dramatists"...

Two weeks ago (today, as it turns out) I took the commuter train back from seeing Heidi in Indiana for a few days so that I could go to an audition and the big "Escanaba In Love" show (which I had found out as I was packing up had been cancelled). The audition was at the above mentioned company and I was "crashing" it. Essentially, what that means is that the audition time for that day was for members of the Actors Equity union. I'm a candidate (which means I'm sort of, slowly, on my way to maybe one day joining the union) so if there is a slot that opens up somewhere, I can slide in there and audition. So that's what I was trying to do. But they had wildly overscheduled these audition slots and so I waited around for a looooong time (long enough to read the entire original script) to get in. In fact, I was the last person they ended up seeing for the day...after 2 1/2 hours of waiting.

I read the scene they had given me (the Big Scary Guy role, naturally) and did a pretty good job. The director laughed at all the right times, he gave me some notes, and asked me to try it again. So I did...and they laughed some more. "Great", I thought! I thanked them for sticking around to see me and off I went on my merry way. According to the literature they passed out at the audition, the callbacks for the show were to be the following Tuesday and Wednesday. I sat back and waited for a call.

On that following Tuesday night I was cleaning up my apartment a little bit while watching baseball (Go Red Sox!!) and came across the sides I had collected at that audition. "Well," I thought, "guess I don't need to keep these since the callbacks are going on tonight and I never heard anything." I tossed them into a big bag of garbage. About an hour later (this must be about 7:45PM or so) I get a voice mail from some guy (let's call him "Patrick") at "Chicago Dramatists" saying that he wanted to tell me that they had not called people back yet and wanted to let me know that the callbacks were now scheduled for the following Thursday (which, by the way, is today) and if I'm called back I will get a call on Tuesday. Also, if I take another part in another show, they would appreciate me calling and letting them know.

"Fantastic" I think to myself. It seems to me that this "Patrick" couldn't really SAY that I would be called back but that it seemed like pretty much a foregone conclusion. Having to call if I take something else is certainly a good sign...especially considering that I hadn't even been through a second audition yet!

But there's a problem. I have a show on Thursdays. So I called "Chicago Dramatists" to let them know and I finally get to talk to the Artistic Director and Director of the show...let's call him "Russ". So I explained that the message I got was fairly ambiguous and even though I understood that I didn't actually HAVE a callback, I appreciated being told about the later callbacks and I was happy to just maybe get a second chance to read for the part and blah blah blah. "Russ" listened and said that the callbacks would be in the afternoon on Thursday so that IF I was called back it shouldn't interfere with my show that night and then he said "you know what...this is silly, you'll get called back so plan on coming back".

So I thanked him and hung up. Great! I penciled into my calendar that this afternoon (at some point and in some location) would be a callback for "Chicago Dramatists" and stopped worrying about it. But then yesterday afternoon I realized that I never got a call and wondered if maybe "Russ" thought that he had given me all the information so I called last night during a break in "Six Degrees" rehearsals to leave a message about it. It's the passive aggressive way of dealing with the situation...perfect!!

But "Russ" was there. And he told me in no uncertain terms that I had not been called back. So I apologized for my misunderstanding and sorry for bothering him so late at the office and I hope to be able to read for him again sometime and blah blah blah. So...no callback. Which I can deal with.

But what the hell is that all about? Ever since the initial audition, I feel like I've gotten nothing but positive feedback from this company. Calling to tell me the callbacks were moved. Asking me to call if I get cast in something else at the same time as their show. Saying that I would get a call on Tuesday for callbacks. The director flat-out TELLING me that I was called back. And then, when I call to try and get information and finalize this thing...I get treated like I had just dumped poop on his head. I don't get it.

So that's the kind of thing I get to deal with a lot in this business. People who are too busy or too self-important to bother to remember my name or actually give me correct information. I hate it. It's obnoxious. And I think I deserve better treatment than that.

Sorry...I'm just venting right now as I sit at home getting ready to go off to earn my $10 tonight doing this great show when I should be reading for a decent part in a good Equity show that might have actually paid me something that isn't insulting.

ARGH!

#50 is a looooooong time comin'...

So I'm looking back and my last post was July 29th. Um...yikes. Sorry about that. Life moves pretty fast, as Ferris Bueller once said, and I have been working hard but, more than anything, just being kinda lazy. So let's see if I can encapsulate the last 2 months or so...

August...I concentrated pretty heavily on rehearsing "Escanaba In Love". The accent work was a problem and it took quite a while for us to get a dialect coach which slowed me down considerably. I didn't want to learn the lines wrong (with the wrong accent, that is) so I waited until I started to get a handle on the accent to really learn the lines which ended up being sort of a problem. I ended up being, more or less, fine with the lines by the time we needed to be good but there was a frantic cramming period starting about 2 weeks before opening. Very stressful.

September...Basically more of the same. The show is going well. The audiences seems to enjoy it even though the critics haven't been exactly falling all over themselves to recommend us. Ah, well. Meanwhile, I'm auditioning and trying to sort of life out. Which, of course, is going unbelievably well! (that was sarcasm)

Through it all, I'm so happy to say, is Heidi. Though we are only getting to see each other for maybe a weekend or two every month, she remains a huge part of my life. We talk every day, even if it's only through texts, and I love and respect her more every day.

So the reason I finally decided to write some on here is because it appears that I'm going BACK to Battle Creek and the land of the Turkeys! Late last Thursday afternoon, DM called me and offered me a one-week gig that they do every year. Some sort of mostly-improvised murder mystery show that they claim is a huge success and lots of fun. So, after some negotiating with the director of "Six Degrees", which I'm in rehearsals for right now, I'm going. It'll be another nice little vacation and I'll be paid fairly well so I'm happy.

Then yesterday, Heidi indicates that she may have nearly gotten me a part in the Christmas show out at the Round Barn Theater where she's working. Nice. I, sadly, had to turn it down (not that it was ever REALLY offered but it sure was indicated strongly) because after needing to heavily negotiate with the director of "Six Degrees", it would have been extraordinary bad form to go back two days later and outright quit. But I'm interested in trying to work out there. And with "Barefoot In The Park" and "Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum" and "Oklahoma" being put up next year, I feel like there are three shows I could really contribute to. The thing about Round Barn is that they seem to wait until almost the last minute (quite literally in the example with the Christmas show that starts rehearsals tomorrow) to cast and that's 180 degrees from the way I like to try to organize my life. The further away I can get figured out, the better. I don't know how they can expect to get a good cast together if they wait until the last minute like they do. But anyway...I'm still gonna try and figure out how to get myself cast there a time or two. It would be fun!

So there. This is now (hopefully) an entree into getting myself back into the habit of "blogging" every day again. I actually kind of miss it. And...ya know...I always have sooooooo much to say!

So I'll be back. Trust.