So, I volunteered to start a blog for work. I figured that would fill my desire to blog somewhere else, especially since Food Lush closed its virtual doors. This site will always be my first love, but I like to have other irons in the fire, too. Anywho, one of the first things my marketing manager wants me to do is a video blog, starring me, describing our tour shows. I'm excited about it and I wrote the script in less than 30 minutes. I made them promise not to make me record it until I've had an eyebrow wax, so I have a bit of time. In preparation for this project, I thought I'd do a couple of vlogs here to get myself used to hearing my own voice and to try to find an angle at which I dont' have a double-chin.
This is where you come in.
What types of things would you like me to make video blogs about? Should I do a cooking demo? Give you a guided tour of my makeup bag? Talk you through my menu for the week? Show you my workspace? Let you watch me fold tiny Angry Birds underpants?
I've seen a lot of people adopting words for this year. If I had to choose one, I guess it would be CALM. The past couple of weeks have blown my mind in a good way. I imagined I'd like my job, but that a little part of me might leave the office sad every day, missing the fast-paced life of a production stage manager, wishing I were in rehearsal or coordinating 40 costume fittings. While I certainly do miss some things about my old job, I am so incredibly happy right now. My job is quite fulfilling--I'm using my stage manager brain CONSTANTLY. My entire day consists of creative problem-solving, trouble-shooting, soothing hurt feelings, maintaining relationships and organizing details. I'm enjoying the work and the people. I was, I admit, very worried about feeling isolated--I work in a cubicle, pretty much on my own unless someone needs me. But people need me a lot. I talk to our presenters on the phone a lot and I walk over to the production offices several times a day to check in about this and that. My job really is a nice balance of production and administration. The best part, though, is that when I'm done with my workday at 4:30, I can stand up and walk away, knowing that I won't be dealing with anything else work-related until 8:30 the next morning.
My mommy guilt has dissolved and I cannot tell you the freedom that I feel. My family looks at each other's faces again. We are not rushing through things like we had to before. There's plenty of time for us to "waste" twenty minutes when we get home relaxing on the couch, doing our own thing, before we delve into "how was your day?" Dean wants to tell me what he did at school and, because I work at a place he thinks is super cool, he wants to hear what I did, too. We make and eat dinner together at a leisurely pace every night, not just once or twice a week. I have put Dean to bed every night for the past 10 days and it has been glorious. I feel so well-rested. I'm on top of housework. Marcus and I have time to hang out together and talk or goof around on the internet (FAIL videos are our new favorite) instead of spending the little time we have together talking about logistics or figuring out who can find a sitter for that week. I know things won't always seem so easy, but right now, this is so wonderful.
It was hard to walk away from my job, but I know now that it was absolutely the right thing for us right now. This is the speed at which we need to be living at this moment.
I saw a quote on Pinterest the other day that said, "I will be happy with a calm life." I think that's my new mantra.
Most of you know this from Facebook or have heard it from me. It was shocking to most of my friends and acquaintances. Heck, it was shocking to me. The main reason I decided now was the time to move on was Dean. I just don't get enough time with him when I'm working from 9am-8pm each day with a one-hour commute each way. Most mornings I was gone before he woke up and most evenings I didn't make it home for bedtime. Things came up at work suddenly over the past few months that caused me to miss a field trip, a trip to see Santa, and trick-or-treating. These may not sound like big deals, but when you're also missing dinner, school pick-up, and story time at night, they are HUGE deals. Marcus is directing a show in the spring and he's also on a committee that will keep him very busy in February, right around the time my first spring show would be going into tech. We don't have a go-to babysitter like we used to, and we weren't really sure what we were going to do about childcare. Add to that the fact that Marcus is up for tenure this spring and the fact that neither of us feels like we've really put down roots where we live, and I'd say that's a good reason for a change.
I was blessed to find a new job quickly, really before I'd started looking. On Wednesday, I'll join the staff at Birmingham Children's Theatre as Director of Touring. I'll be mainly responsible for booking our four touring shows, writing technical riders, getting the specs of the spaces where we'll perform, arranging accommodations, etc. I'll still get to use my bag of tricks and my theatre management skills, but I'll work M-F, 8:30-4:30. I'll be home every night for dinner and bed time. I'll be home every weekend. If Dean gets sick? I can go pick him up. It seems very normal. I don't exactly know how to function in a "normal" schedule, but I'm looking forward to figuring it out.
My last day at ASF, Dec. 23, was a bittersweet one. It was hard to clean off my bulletin board and take my name off my mailbox, and even harder to call the last cue of my show. There were countless hugs and thank-you's and good wishes exchanged. My precious intern company made me a Christmas ornament which they all signed. I received some cards with such beautiful, touching words that I can't even look at the envelopes without tearing up. I walked out on my own terms, though, with my head high, very proud of the years I put into that place.
When you work in the theatre, you learn some nifty tricks. Here are five of my favorites.
1. Hair gel in ashtrays. Back in the day, before e-cigs, I mean, we had to either use real cigarettes or herbal ones onstage. Sometimes, they'd need to be extinguished. No one wants to play their scene in a cloud of smoke. Enter hair gel. One squirt of gel in an ashtray and your cigarette is extinguished immediately and shall ne'er smoke again.
2. Sandpaper for matches. Sometimes in a show, you need to strike a match. We tend to use strike-anywhere matches, but sometimes you don't want to strike them on your set pieces. A tiny square of sandpaper can be cut and adhered to a surface and will allow a match to be struck just about any time.
3. Condoms on microphones. Actors sweat. Sweat kills mics. Each of our body mics gets dropped into an unlubricated condom, which we buy in bulk, then nestled into a pack on a velcro belt that's worn around the actor's middle. After the show, the mic is still dry as a bone.
4. Shellac. You can shellac a loaf of bread and it'll last an entire run. Just don't shellac a turkey. Seriously. Don't do it.
5. Hairspray on mirrors. You can not buy Spray Dull. It keeps the mirror functional, but dulls down the reflection enough that it won't reflect every light in the sky, blinding the poor actors and audience.
This post is happily linked-up at Friday 5 over at Clever Compass. Drop by, say hi to Alissa and submit your own list of 5!
It's funny to me (strange, not haha) when people ask when I'm going to stop doing theatre. What else do they expect me to do? I'm not a hobbyist. I make my living doing theatre. I get a paycheck every week, I manage a staff, I work the majority of the year (a big deal for theatre artists), I receive health benefits, retirement benefits, and most importantly, personal fulfillment from my job.
My life is exactly what I signed up for.
I knew what a life in theatre meant. I wasn't willing to do anything else. I found someone who felt the same. We've made it work.
I knew I wanted to be a parent. My husband did, too. We're still figuring it out on a daily basis, but it's working. Dean sees that we're both excited to go to work, not dragging our feet and dreading every work day. He's excited to hear what we did each day because we're excited to tell him.
We're doing it. We're actively living our dream.
We knew our reality would be different from other people's reality. Our hours are sometimes strange, our jobs are downright goofy sometimes (when's the last time YOU blew up a vampire at work?), but we're doing what we love and making ends meet. We're surviving.
We knew what we were signing up for, and we did it anyway.
OH, HEY! Sorry for the lack of posting, y'all. I've been stage managing a hum-dinger of a show.
That's a lie...it opened Sunday.
DRACULA!!!!!!!! It's fun. And big. And there are explosions. No one flies, but there's a ton of magic. I'm having a blast. It's also kind of nerve-wracking because there are multiple times when I could screw up and kill someone. Let's all hope that doesn't happen. The audience for opening went insane every time something blew up. It was so much fun.
Even Shakespeare got dressed up for the occasion:
He says he didn't write this play, but it's still pretty good.
Here's a sneak-peek at one of my favorite special effects:
That, friends, is what a vampire looks like after you stake it. See the little round things by his head, hip and between his legs? Those are pyro pots and contain enough flash powder to blow the sides off a coffin. (Told you the special effects were cool!). This picture was taken looking down into one of our traps in the stage floor. I kind of felt like this guy looked during tech week, but we made it through and have one of the best shows I've seen in a long time, so all the hard work was worth it!
To read more, check out our company's website: www.asf.net, or like Alabama Shakespeare Festival on Facebook!
(Shameless plug over. But I have to admit...my job's pretty cool.)
My job is very cool, y'all. This week, I'm stage managing a workshop/staged reading of a brand new musical called DOUBLETIME with lyrics and music by this guy. You know his songs, even if you don't know him. And he's awesome. AND he's a blogger. I am star-struck. I hope he hasn't noticed.
If you're interested, you can read more about our Southern Writers' Project festival of new plays here. This is one of my favorite things we do at the theatre, as it's a whole week dedicated to the process of making a play. All the frills--the costumes, lights, sound, props--are stripped away so we can focus on developing the story. For a theatre geek like me, it's great fun. Add Nile Rodgers into the mix? It's downright heavenly.
Oh, friends. I've missed my blog. I'm spending my days sitting in the dark running technical rehearsals for my show, which opens Sunday. After that? I go back into studio rehearsals for the other show in the afternoons (this current show will be playing morning matinees next week), then it's back into tech next weekend. Things are actually going swimmingly well, but very busy. My laptop is still broken, as I haven't had time to take it to the laptop doctor. Hopefully that will happen tomorrow. Dean's doing much, much better and is spending the week at my mom and dad's house. I miss him SO much. I'll be collecting him on Monday for two straight days of baby lovin' before I go back to work.
Here's a photo that pretty much sums up the past couple of days:
A few weeks ago, Dean saw THE LION KING for the first time. I've been looking forward to showing it to him for a long time. It was my favorite Disney movie as a teenager and young adult and has always held a special place in my heart. My college roommate and I used to quote it word for word in our dorm room. I bought my dad a hat with Pumba and Timon on it at Disney World. I think I owned the soundtrack at one point.
I remember seeing the movie in the theatre when I was about 17. Those first strains of the overture gave me chills. The animation was like nothing I'd ever seen on a big screen and the story was fantastic. I thought it was the greatest Disney creation ever.
Then I saw it on Broadway.
When I was 27, my friend Kitty and I were fairly new New Yorkers and decided to do a touristy thing one Friday night. Neither of us had seen The Lion King on Broadway, so we decided to see if we could get some standing room tickets. We stood in the "standby" line for about an hour. The box office manager came out and said that if anyone was willing to pay full price, she had a pair of house seats that had just been released. Being professional stage mangaers, we knew house seats were the best in the house, usually reserved for VIPs and company members. We quickly volunteered to pay full price and were ushered to our seats...on the FIFTH ROW. We were right in the middle of the audience, close enough to see everything. Theatre geeks that we are, we spent the time before the show began admiring the architecture of the space and trying to strain our eyes to figure out some special effects.
Then the lights dipped. The house went dark. After a brief moment, a beautiful, deep orange light appeared and the actress playing Rafiki hit that now-famous first note of "The Circle of Life." The theatre came alive. Actors dressed in elaborate costumes and handling gorgeous puppets that can only be described as absolute works of art came out of every nook and cranny in the theatre. Their voices blended perfectly. They moved gracefully toward the stage, taking our breath away with each movement.
And I wept.
It was the most beautiful moment I've ever had in the theatre because I was taken completely by surprise. My senses were overloaded and my heart was about to burst. These artists had just made magic.
As a theatre professional, I'm "in the know" as far as a lot of theatre magic goes. I know how to make people fly, where the trap doors open and how all the special effects work. To be taken by surprise is a treat for me. Fortunately, I've been able to keep my sense of wonder about me all these years to a certain extent. I always bring tissues to the theatre because,if I'm lucky, I'll get swept up in the magic and it will bring tears to my eyes. The day an overture doesn't bring me to tears is the day I need to stop doing theatre. The anticipation, the excitement, the escape from reality, the absolute magic...THAT is what makes all the long hours worth it.
SO! Since yesterday's post was sort of heavy, I thought I'd lighten things up a bit today. I have to tell you of a sort of Twilight Zone-esque, freaky thing that happened. Our union (Actors Equity) sends out a quarterly publication called "Equity News." I always look forward to getting mine so I can read about the goings-on in theatres around the country and look for people I know in the pictures. They do a lovely feature on the back page called "Final Curtain," a place to honor Equity members who have recently passed away. I always skim the list, but this month I made sure to look because I knew my dear friend Sonja's name would be there. I found her name (which was misspelled...grr...), then kept glancing down the list. Imagine my surprise when I saw this:
That's my maiden name. Here's the thing: In our union, your name has to be completely unique. When I was unmarried, I was Jen M. Nelson because this lady was already using my "regular" name.
I'd better go update my Facebook status so people will know I'm still around.
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