November 13, 2012: Reflections on Pericles

I have just finished directing Pericles at my alma mater, The College of Idaho.  We are entering our second and final week of performance, and although I’m holding a pickup rehearsal tomorrow evening, I am aware that my work on this production is, for all intents and purposes, complete.

In the depths of the rehearsal process (as I worked 70-hour weeks and sometimes found myself forgetting what time of day it was), I imagined that I would feel relieved, at this point, to have a lighter work load and my evenings free again.  Instead, I find myself missing the onslaught of questions, challenges, and inspiration I faced working/playing/exploring with my cast and crew every night.  I miss the electricity of the collaborative environment.  I guess that means I’m doing something right.

I hesitate to explore this process in too much detail, publicly.  Dare I admit that my only previous directing experience was in a class I took my sophomore year of college?  That although I did my best to analyze the script, develop my “concept,” and clarify my ideas about what I wanted for the show before casting it, I’m certain I fell short?  I fell on my face 1,000 times since the beginning of June when I started working on this project, and especially over the last 7 weeks.

And yet… I’m so proud of the way the show turned out, and of everyone involved in it.  We’ve come together to tell an engaging story in an authentic way, and we’ve grown in the process.  And the show has been well-received so far.  We were adjudicated on Saturday night, and the respondent described my directing as “delicate,” and the acting, overall, as “natural and genuine.”  He said the play evoked in him a feeling of Eastern mysticism (which, in case you’re wondering, is in line with the concept of the production).  After the opening night performance, a student I’d never met was gushing about how she never knew Shakespeare could be so entertaining, and how she wished she had auditioned for the play.  The set is beautiful, and the lights, costumes, and sound all help to define the world of the play and tell the story.  What more could I ask for?

In the last 7 weeks, a lot of different people asked me a lot of different questions, most of which I didn’t know the answer to.  What I learned is that I didn’t have to pretend to know things I didn’t know.  There is a degree of freedom in admitting I don’t know all the answers, and in supposing that the process has something to do with mutual exploration around a theme or set of guideposts.  Perhaps the greatest and most humbling thing I discovered through this process is that a substantial part of my job, as director, was to give my fellow creative artists the space and support to explore their own creativity, as I attempted to provide a lens through which to focus everyone’s ideas. 

Next time I direct a play, I’ll be a little more knowledgeable, a little more experienced.  I’ll prepare different materials.  I’ll ask different questions.  It’s a process, and I’m intrigued about where it goes.

May 9, 2012: Halloween in the Springtime

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The other day, driving to class, I found myself caught behind a vehicle that I’m certain was exhumed from a retired little-known Disney Amusement Park ride.  It was a glittering gold VW bus with a makeshift second tier of windows cobbled onto the roof, creating a double-decker effect.  Adorning the roof and all sides were lively skeleton statuettes – grinning and dancing arm-in-arm, sporting top hats and canes, or draped in jewels.  The back of the bus (of which I caught the best view, driving behind it) was framed in smiling skulls, bones, and jewels, with the words “Never-Never Van” sparkling below the rear windshield.  I can’t imagine any practical purpose for such a van, other than taking amusement-park-goers through the Pirates of the Caribbean / Indiana Jones / Peter Pan / Haunted Mansion ride – and I hoped I might be caught, briefly, in the van’s magical tail winds and allowed to traverse the imagined Disney ride in my Honda Fit.

It didn’t happen.  But it did remind me that in my last blog entry a million years ago, I promised to tell two stories, the first about Halloween.

At the beginning of October, I saw an ad: “Actors Needed for Haunted House.”  Intrigued, I showed up to the Corn Maze at twilight for the auditions, where a group of about 10 of us limped, drawled, screamed, snarled, and wailed our way through a series of ridiculous improv games based around the Haunted House’s theme of zombies in the Louisiana bayou.  I was invited to join the fright crew the very next weekend; I think it was my character “Swampland Mary” (creepy, “undead,” on an eternal search for her lost frogs) that sealed the deal.

Excited to strike some fear into the hearts of adrenaline-seekers for one of America’s least wholesome holidays, I showed up for my first night of work 2 hours before the Maze opened to get into costume and makeup.  I was cast as a zombie, so the crew found me an Elvira dress and proceeded to tear it mostly to shreds.  I wore flannel pajama pants and a turtleneck under it because it was cold outside, and purple Doc Marten boots because it was muddy.

Some fellow zombie girls did my hair like theirs, ratting it up to oblivion and spraying it with enough super-firm-hold hairspray to asphyxiate anyone but the undead.  The makeup crew gave me a nasty hole in my cheek; and on my way out to my post, a guy dressed in a bloody butcher’s costume holding a 2-liter water bottle full of corn syrup, cocoa powder, and red food coloring spattered me in fake blood, head to toe.

I was entering the crew late in the game; a few zombies had dropped out, so I was a replacement.  As a facilitator led me to my place, I passed a slain bride, a giant spider web, a scarecrow that came to life, and a swamp monster dressed in camouflage and partially submerged in water.  There were two other zombies stationed near me, and I asked them about scare tactics as we were waiting for the first victims to pass through the maze.

Highlight:  Lunging out to scare a lone male, perhaps 17 years old, and causing him to scream and jump 3 feet in the air.

Lowlight:  Hearing a 4-year-old child approaching, crying, being dragged by his parents muttering things like “you were the one who wanted to come!” and “toughen up!”  When they reached my station, I didn’t jump out at them.  The mother caught my eye, stopped and knelt down to the wailing child, who buried his face in her chest.  “Look!” she commanded him.  “Look behind you.  Turn around and look!  This is what you wanted to see!  Look, she’s not even that scary!”  The child would not be consoled, and as he sobbed, the mother looked up at me and said, “he’s been begging to come here for weeks, and now he won’t even open his eyes,” at which point his father bent down, shook him by the shoulders and said “stop crying right now!”  I turned my face to the ground and inched backward, waiting for them to move on, and hid in the recesses of the corn row for the next few passers-by, trying to regain my own sense of morals in my monster-role.

Highlight:  Entering the Haunted Maze before it opened and hanging around all the monsters, joking and laughing, feeling safe behind the scary façade.

Lowlight:  Lunging at a pack of 10-year-olds whose leader sneered at me and told me I wasn’t scary, and proceeded through the maze jeering at the freakish, bloody, terrifying monsters, unfazed.  How does our world create such impervious, unreceptive children – and by playing a zombie in this funhouse, what was I doing to perpetuate this impassiveness?

Highlight:  Hiding in the theatrical fog, between the rows of corn, under a full moon, during a lull in the evening.  I felt simultaneously lonely, powerful, mysterious, and full of the night.

Realization:  I’m not cut out for haunting.  At the end of my second night, my feet were aching and blistered; my quads were burning from the short sprint/lunge routine I’d developed as my optimum scare tactic; my voice was raw from my experimentation with screaming and growling; and both my own morals and my judgment of other people’s morals (for scaring small children whose parents shouldn’t have brought them into this terrifying maze in the first place) were seriously compromised.

After only two nights of haunting, I resigned as Center Zombie #2.

This brings me to my second promised story, the day I spent as a “featured extra” for a promotional Nike video a few weeks later.  The audition called for women who “appeared high school aged” in “extremely good physical condition” to be on a women’s cross country team for the video.  The audition consisted of pinning a number to myself, saying my name, and sprinting down half a city block toward the camera – a feat which took all of 7 seconds.

I was hired along with 30 other girls; it turned out we were playing members of multiple competing teams at a cross country meet.  When we showed up at 7am on the day of the shoot (a morning in early November) we were given track uniforms (shorts and tank tops) and Nike shoes to wear.

Costumed and ready by about 8am, I wondered briefly if there was any chance this cross country meet would be indoors.  No such luck.  I followed the crowd outside and across a field, huddling in my coat, noticing my breath puffing out in misty clouds, my feet crunching through the frosty grass.

Soon, though, the cold became less of a problem than my realization that when they asked for people in “extremely good physical condition,” they weren’t kidding.  I go to the gym daily.  I run.  I lift weights.  I take physical fitness very seriously.  But apparently, not seriously enough to be a contender on a fake TV high school cross country team. 

We filmed in four separate locations around the field (which was actually a horse racing track, go figure), and each shot involved us sprinting from one point to another (around a bend; on a long, straight path; over some small hills; and through a giant puddle of water and mud).  At each location, they needed a variety of different camera angles, and they also needed to time the actors’ lines against the group of running girls – so we did about 25 takes at each of the 4 locations.

I would exaggerate for dramatic effect, but there is no need.  After the first 3 takes at the first location, I was no longer cold.  After 3 more takes, I decided my character would be a straggler – somebody the coach kept on the team out of pity because she could never keep up with the group.  I put on my game face and melted to the back of the group, shortening the distance I had to run by a few feet whenever the director would yell “cut!” and we would jog back to our starting positions.

By noon, I was exhausted, sore, and seriously wondering if this ordeal might actually kill me, not make me stronger.  On top of that, the shoes we were all wearing had unusually high arches that were bothering most of us.  I took mine off at lunch and could actually see bruises beginning to form in the middle of my feet.

My straggling technique paid off at the first location after lunch.  The director decided he only needed half of us for the shoot, so I sat it out.  Somehow I made it through the day, and the hot bath that night never felt so good.  I walked with a limp for a week afterwards.

I received a copy of the video, and after watching it, there appeared to be no evidence that I was a part of the team.  Most of the shots are from the front, so you can really only see the first half of the team before the camera cuts away to something else.  Determined to prove (if only to myself) that my hard work was not in vain, I scoured the shots for any sign of me.  I finally found, by pausing 17 seconds in, that I am visible for about one second at the back of the group, rounding a bend.  It was in our first location.  I could have left at 10am and their video would have been exactly the same.

I learned: that it’s not a good idea to break in brand new shoes by running in them for eight hours straight; that if you make a point of dawdling behind the action of a filming camera, you probably won’t be in any good shots; and that sometimes, the job of a “featured extra,” while not necessarily “featured” on screen, is still very, very demanding.

December 30, 2011: Change

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I’ve been putting off writing my next entry until “things settled down” a bit, or until “I have a little more time.”  Now, one day before the end of 2011, I’m admitting to myself that things are never going to settle down, and if I’m lucky, I will never have a little more time.

I’m busy with a hundred things, and for this I am grateful.  As I move from project to project, during those rare transitional moments when reflection is possible, I begin to latch onto the idea that change defines me.  I don’t think I made that up.  I think I read about it in a Buddhism book while I was soaking up the Mexico sun the week before Christmas.  OK, so I guess I haven’t been that busy.  I was lucky enough to get a week’s true vacation, and for this I am grateful too.

When I Google “change,” the top five results are as follows:

1.     www.change.org, “an online advocacy platform that empowers anyone, anywhere to start, join, and win campaigns for social change.”
2.      www.dictionary.com, whose first definition of “change” is “to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone: to change one's name; to change one's opinion; to change the course of history.”
3.      Change.gov, President Obama’s campaign website.
4.      The Wikipedia page for “change” which begins by saying that “change may refer to the process of becoming different,” (yup.)

    and

5.      Thinkexist.com, a webpage full of inspirational quotes about change, including (near the top) “what you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others” – Pericles, 495 BC – 429 BC.

I can’t quote the book I was reading because I already returned it to the library (it was Buddhism is Not What You Think by Steve Hagen, for anyone interested), but the author talked a lot about how we are in a constant state of change, and in fact change is the only constant in our lives.  He even discussed the philosophical idea that it is impossible to define ourselves concretely – for example, he said that he didn’t write the book I was reading, because the “he” who wrote one word was different from the “he” who wrote the next word.  He was constantly changing, so he could not say to me “I am the author of Buddhism is Not What You Think,” because the “Steve Hagen” who put the period at the end of the last sentence only existed for a moment, and then he changed.  I am a different person than I was when I was 5 or 15, or than I will be when I’m 65 – and truly, I’m never the same from one moment to the next.

I don’t know how important it is to contemplate this idea too deeply.  To meditate deeply on the idea of “no self,” because of the constancy of change seems a little counter-productive, at least to me at this point in my life.  However, the more I let the awareness and acceptance of change live in the back of my mind, the more I realize the simplicity of its truth.  Maybe that means it is, in fact, really important and relevant.

Setting aside, for a moment, the necessity of letting go the idea of “self” to let in the idea of “change,” let’s go back to my top five Google results.  We’ve got two platforms for social change (change is such a powerful word, in fact, that it carried our current president into office: “Change We Can Believe In!”), and a plethora of inspirational quotes dating back 2000+ years.  Change is powerful.  Change is constant.  Change may refer to the process of becoming different (!)

Over the years, my mom has offered me grains of wisdom that stuck with me.  One was that I should “create my own happiness.”  Another was that I should “embrace change.”  She used her parents as an example: they’re in their 80’s now, but rather than taking on the stereotypical old-person’s attitude that things were so much better “back in my day,” they change with the times.  They buy and learn the new technology as it comes out; my grandpa even has a Facebook account.  Rather than bracing against change and longing for the days when things were different, they go with the flow, and they are happier for it.  I think this is hugely important.

Being in school allowed me to have a single-minded focus, driving toward a concrete goal.  Achieving that goal, I was faced with the question “what next?” and the easiest answer was “well, I’m in a transitional time.”  And there’s nothing wrong with that answer, exactly, unless I use it as an excuse not to continue filling my life with purpose.  Every “time” is “transitional.”  We’re always moving forward, and what we’re moving into is different from where we’ve been.  My point, I think, is that although I’m no longer able to have the same single-minded focus toward a concrete goal that I had while I was in school, that doesn’t mean I’m failing.  It’s just a testament to the way life is always changing.

I have two stories I really want to tell, but they’ll have to wait.  One is about how I was a zombie in a haunted house at Halloween, and another is about being on a girl’s high school cross country team for a Nike commercial.  I’ll tell them.  They’re worth telling.  Hold me to it.

October 9, 2011: Awareness; Presence; Empowerment; and Flow

I am a Fitzmaurice Voice Teacher-in-Training.  Over the last eight weeks, I’ve practiced teaching the technique to small groups of people, mostly actors.  Since the technique, in its early stages, centers around a physical exploration of breath in the body, students often experience unexpectedly deep emotion as they practice it.  This experience may be tied to a specific emotional memory, or it may be a response rooted in the muscles and breath, with no specific event memory tied to it.  Either way, the response is very real and often powerful, frightening, and difficult to handle, especially for new students of the work.

As I’ve begun to teach this sensitive practice, I’m struck with an important question: what is my role as a teacher of this work when a student encounters an emotional response, and how do I undertake that role with honesty, awareness, and compassion?

As a student of the work, I’ve experienced emotional responses in two very different ways.  The first, more common response for me, is one that takes me by surprise, overwhelms me, and causes me to step back from it.  I feel the emotion as it starts to overtake me, and then I sort of brace for it, wallow in it for a while, and then recover from it.  I leave the class feeling exhausted, like I’ve worked really hard.  The second kind of “emotional response experience” I’ve had feels more like moving through the emotion and stepping out the other side, transformed.   Here, I traverse a path through the experience I’m having, not knowing what will be on the other side but forging ahead nonetheless.  This kind of experience is a true emotional “release” and leaves me feeling open, enlivened, and empowered.

If my students encounter emotion through their explorations of the Fitzmaurice Voicework, I’d like for their experience to be empowering, not crippling.  I’d like to bolster their courage to move through their experience rather than being paralyzed and turning away from it.  At the same time, I know their experience must be uniquely theirs, and I cannot project my own experiences or expectations onto what they are exploring.  My task is a delicate one; but if I get caught up in the delicacy of it, I run the risk of sucking the joy out of an exploration that, while sensitive, should also be buoyant and playful.

Is there any hope for me?

Yes, I think it can be done.  I’ve been thinking about a number of principles that can help guide my journey.  They aren’t concrete answers, but in this question I don’t think any concrete answers exist.

Compassion.  Joan Halifax, a Zen Buddhist, anthropologist, ecologist, civil rights activist, and author, says in a speech entitled Compassion and the True Meaning of Empathy (www.ted.com/talks/joan_halifax.html):  “Compassion, which activates the motor cortex, means that we aspire to transform suffering; and if we are so blessed, we engage in activities that transform suffering.  But compassion has another component, and that component is really essential.  That component is that we cannot be attached to outcome. . . Any attachment to outcome [will] distort deeply [our] capacity to be fully present.”  As a Fitzmaurice teacher, it is my job to help my students transform their deep emotions (which may be frightening or uncomfortable, like suffering) to a feeling of empowerment.  But as I endeavor to help them, I cannot have a fixed idea of what lies ahead; I cannot be attached to outcome.  While offering my own strength, vulnerability, and presence in the moment, my job is to witness them honestly as they traverse their path themselves.

Presence in the Moment, or Embracing the Unknown.  Galway Kinnell’s poem Prayer says:

                Whatever happens.  Whatever

                what is is is what

                I want.  Only that.  But that.

In teaching the Fitzmaurice Voicework, especially as it relates to dealing with students’ experiences of emotion, there are elements of letting go and diving into the frightening, vast, and delicious unknown (“Whatever/ what is is”) with an entirely appropriate mix of careful compassion and reckless abandon.  There are times for both, and only attentiveness to the present moment will illuminate which is which.  In and then you act, Anne Bogart calls us to “imagine art as the space at the end of a breath before the next inhalation.  Time stops.  An actor knows that each inhalation can come as a surprise” (133-134).  Bogart invites us to discover our breath together, and the space between our breaths, as a doorway into letting go of expectations – which is also what the Fitzmaurice Voicework helps us do.

Attentiveness/Availability.  In Firstlight, Sue Monk Kidd suggests that “attentiveness is entering fully the moment you are currently in . . . and simply being present with it” (37).  As a teacher of the Fitzmaurice work, I seek not only to do this myself, but also to teach my students to do it.  “Such deep availability requires a hospitality that receives people as they are, without necessarily seeking to cure, fix, or repair their problems.  When you practice mindful availability, you are simply there with your heart flung open” (Kidd, 51).  Simple availability and attention to what is happening in the moment are important principles for teaching and practicing the Fitzmaurice Voicework.

Flow, or Being a Conduit.  During my first month of Fitzmaurice Voice Teacher training, several of the teachers talked about “flow,” and noticing the experience of transition.  Flow can mean a lot of things, but as I consider its relation to helping my students move through an experience of emotion, I realize that emotions naturally flow through us like waves; and in the natural course of things, one experience transitions to the next.  When we encounter experiences that are new or frightening, we might instinctively brace against change; but I would like to help my students explore change instead.  In order to do that, I must first experience my own sense of internal flow, and then offer my experience of flow to my students in whatever way is appropriate in the moment.  In a way, I am endeavoring to be a conduit of all the principles I’ve described, and as a conduit, offer these experiences to my students so that they may make their own discoveries.

All these ideas are well and good, but how, specifically, can I put them into practice?  I think teaching the Fitzmaurice Voicework is an art, and like any art I think it will take practice, time, study, patience, risk, failure, and gradual growth.  In time, I think I will begin to discover my own authentic way of offering what I have learned to my students, and continuing to grow with them as I continue to grow and change myself.  While that is true, I have some ideas about how to begin.

Introduce and reinforce the idea of empowerment.  When I realized my emotions could be a source of personal power, it was a huge revelation.  I can offer this idea to my students near the beginning of our work together, and reinforce it as that feels appropriate.  To me, empowerment means I can use my emotions to move into action.  I can express myself; I can live at the forefront of my own experience and move forward through each moment rather than being held captive by what is happening to me.  I think a discussion of this idea of emotional experience as a source of power can be a tool for my students to store away in case they decide to use it later.

Cultivate a sense of ensemble.  I do this by making the choice to engage openly and honestly at the beginning of each class, and (by example) encouraging my students to do the same.  I do this by mixing group games and partner work into our activities.  I do this by slowly, gradually, asking my students to engage with each other in ways that require trust.  I do this by remembering to lay out ground rules for our activities, and discussing their experiences afterwards.  By cultivating a sense of ensemble, I am helping to establish a safe environment where a student who experiences strong emotion will know that their peers and I are there to support them.

Communicate honestly, or “teach what’s in front of me.”  During my first month of Teacher Training, Catherine Fitzmaurice reminded us often to “teach what’s in front of us.”  I think this means I need to keep my eyes and ears open to what my students are giving me.  I can prepare with lesson plans and form goals for myself and the class, but I need to constantly evaluate and re-evaluate those plans based on what the class is telling and showing me.  I need to be honest with myself and them about what I perceive.  There is a reality that I am “the teacher” and they are “the students,” but there is perhaps a more important reality that we are all human beings with a wide, rich, and equally valid range of experiences, ideas, abilities, and strengths.  If I can recognize and cultivate the humanity in my classroom, that will go a long way.

Go for it!  In August I participated in a week of training with Shakespeare & Co., a program that brings Shakespeare to high schools in highly accessible ways.  One of the things they reminded us was “You Are Enough,” meaning by the time I walk through the door to teach my class, I can trust that I’ve prepared and learned enough to be there.  It doesn’t matter that I have a lot more learning and growing left to do; on that day, for that class, in that moment, “I am enough,” and I can trust that the class will be successful.

September 2, 2011: A Tiny Moment

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As I sit down to write this reflection for the blog-o-sphere, I realize August has passed me by.  When last we left our fearless adventurer Jenny, she was getting ready to open her play, Much Ado About Nothing, while dodging amorous park exhibitionists and late-night sprinklers.  Now, I'm heading into our closing weekend, having braved a plethora of unexpected events.  There was the Maryhill windstorm that required all off-stage cast members to hold onto our tent to keep it from taking flight.  During this adventure, our Benedick (who is also our set designer) perceived the need to let some of the air out of the tent and, since we were getting a new tent the next weekend, decided to cut an air escape route in the roof.  After hunting around for scissors or a knife, he plucked the dagger from Don Pedro's costume and valiantly stabbed a hole in the roof just as Beatrice declared onstage: "and Benedick, love on, I will requite thee!"  There was our 96-degree performance (hot for this Portland summer) in a venue where our stage was in the sun.  When offstage, we would suck water, put ice down our shirts, and fling ourselves to the ground, unable to support our own weight a second longer than was necessary.  Our set, that day, agreed with our response to the suffocating heat, as one of our side arches buckled and collapsed under its own weight at the beginning of our second act, just as Borachio asks "Dost thou hear someone?" to which, that day, Conrade replied "no, tis just this arch falling over."  We've had our share of interesting audience members, too: there was a woman who brought her spinning wheel and spent the whole play spinning straw into gold (half of that is true . . .); there was a homeless man who Dogberry nearly convinced, during our pre-show, to become a member of the watch; there were three separate groups of people who came dressed in full period outfits -- corsets, top hats, walking sticks and all. 

But truly, I wanted to write about something else today: a tiny experience that snapped me to attention for a moment of clarity and leaves me, weeks later, wondering at its significance. 

I was called to be an extra on the final episode of the current season of Leverage.  For those of you who don't know, Leverage is a TNT show filmed in Portland, about -- well, I'm not really sure.  I know it involves good guys and bad guys.  This particular episode featured a room full of business executives at a cocktail party (i.e. 250 Portland actors and other under-employed people who owned business-wear and could be available for 14 hours on a Monday with less than 24 hours' notice). 

This was my fourth time ever being an extra, and although I don't intend to make a habit of it, I do find it interesting and useful to be on a set, watching the way filming gets done.  About 10 hours into our day, I realized there were some famous actors in the room with me.  In my defense, I had spent the first 6 hours of my day in an extras holding area, waiting to be called to do something.  When I was called into the scene, I moved into the room along with all 250 of the other party-goers, listening attentively to the Extras Wrangler who served as interpreter between the director and the somewhat unwieldy mob of restless extras.  My attentiveness earned me some highlight moves as the Extras Wrangler caught my eye: "You!  Walk over here as the camera rolls by!"  I hope it isn't my ten minutes of fame, but having a task kept me mildly entertained as the same scene was shot over and over. 

But the "significant moment" happened, as I said, about 10 hours into the shoot when I realized there were some famous actors in the room with me.  Specifically, I recognized Leon Rippy (although I had to look up his name when I got home), the actor who played David's creepy southern lawyer in The Life of David Gale.  That movie is one of a very few that actually took my breath away.  I won't spoil the ending if you haven't seen it, but it twists to reveal a truth that, when I witnessed it, was almost more than I could fathom.  I saw it twice by myself in the theater and again with Steve when we were first dating. 

So when I saw Leon Rippy (i.e., "the actor who played the creepy lawyer in that movie that changed my life"), I was star-struck in a way I hadn't anticipated.  I wanted to watch him act, but my position in the room wouldn't allow me to hear the dialog, and it was difficult to keep my eye on him without drawing the attention of the Extras Wrangler for not appearing natural.  (Extras Wrangler: "I don't think party guest number 147 should be craning her neck like that."  Me: "No, it's this yoga thing I'm working on.  It's part of my character."  Extras Wrangler: "There's no yoga in this scene.  Face forward, drink your soda-water champagne, and laugh like you're having a good time.")

Presently, we were starting a new scene and all the extras were being herded to one side of the room while the principal actors moved to the other side.  I was roughly in the middle of the throng, at the edge of the corridor being created for the actors to move between us.  Trying not to step on anyone's toes, I suddenly looked up and found myself face to face with Leon Rippy, the-actor-who-played-the-creepy-lawyer-in-that-movie-that-changed-my-life!  Inexplicably, he stopped, offered me his hand, and asked my name.  "Jenny," I said, grinning like an idiot.  "It's nice to meet you, Jenny.  I'm Leon," he said, and winked at me.  Then he moved on through the mob of extras and crew. 

As he moved away from me, tears came to my eyes.  I looked across the parted sea of extras at a guy I didn't know and whispered "he shook my hand!"  The guy whispered "who is that?"  I shook my head and watched Leon disappear into the crowd. 

That’s Leon Rippy, the-actor-who-winked-at-me-on-a-TV-shoot-once. 

July 31, 2011: Much Ado About... Sprinklers, Darkness, and Lovemaking

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I’ve had the pleasure of rehearsing Much Ado About Nothing for the last 4 weeks.  It’s been a pleasure for many reasons: I’m playing a villain, which is something I’ve never done before and may never get to do again; I’m vocal coaching the show, which is a new and challenging experience; and I’m working with a group of talented, dedicated, pleasant-spirited people.

As Portland’s Shakespeare in the Parks company, we play in a different park each weekend, but we’ve been rehearsing for the last week in the park where we opened this weekend.  Our playing space is at the bottom of a large staircase, which means we get to haul our set, costumes, and tent down and back up the stairs each day.  Although this is not an ideal situation, it’s actually not a big deal either, because everyone is so gracious about it.  We don’t complain about what a pain it is; instead, we make jokes about getting in shape.  We help each other out, everybody pitches in, and nobody leaves until everything is done.  These are not rules that had to be either named or enforced – it’s just what has happened since the beginning of tech week, and I’m proud to be part of such a generous group of people.

Despite our laudable work ethic, there were a few wrinkles in the week.  Monday was our first rehearsal in the park and our first time loading everything in, and we got started a little late.  Although we had gotten to the park at 6pm, we didn’t finish our run until about 9:30, by which time it was pitch black, and the park has very little lighting.  Our director decided it was unsafe for us to try to load out in the dark, so we waited for the producer to bring flashlights and lanterns.  We were maybe halfway done with the tear-down when the park sprinklers came on about 50 feet away from us on both sides.  This caused a bit of a panic, and we cleared the area with as much speed as is possible while carrying heavy equipment up stairs in the dark.  The sprinklers in our area came on as if on cue just as we moved the last items out of the way.

Our final dress rehearsal was Thursday night, and we were entertained by an amorous couple on the hillside no more than 20 feet from stage and in direct view of the people waiting backstage.  They were engaged in what can only be described as “heavy petting” lasting through most of Act I and Intermission.  When I came offstage after my first scene in Act II, I rounded the corner of the viewing area just in time to see the girl TAKE OFF HER SHORTS and… well, perhaps I’ve said too much already.  Their boldness made my jaw drop, and I wondered why they hadn’t chosen a more secluded area to consummate their evening.  They were on a hillside surrounded by well-trimmed grass and no bushes, and at this particular moment they actually had a pretty good spotlight created by a well-aimed patch of light from the setting sun shining through the branches of a tree at the bottom of the hill.  Surely they were aware that they were in the company of 16 thespians rehearsing a play, as well as various other park-dwellers in relative close proximity.  Did they think the brilliance of our performance would overshadow their lovemaking, drawing all eyes past their show and onto our stage?  That’s flattering, I suppose, but unrealistic.  While Benedick and Beatrice confessed their love with words onstage, Amorous Park Exhibitionists 1 and 2 gave us a real live physical love demonstration.

Ah, the wonders of Nature.

July 16, 2011: Words to the Wise

07-16-11

So, I was at a film shoot a few months ago during which one of the camera guys made an off-handed comment, during one of the breaks, that he hates people who blog: “I mean, really, YOUR LIFE IS NOT THAT INTERESTING!” – I think those were his exact words.

Being, in general, an even-tempered and non-confrontational person, I smiled, nodded, and declined to offer the argument that I blog, and this must therefore mean he hates ME.  I think this would have killed both the conversation and the good cheer of those involved in the filming.

But his comment has been festering in the back of my brain since then, and it makes me want to blog in an especially witty, creative and deeply meaningful fashion.  So in an attempt to make this entry more profound, I offer this moral in advance: “Observation is the Seed of Wisdom.”

Steve and I joined a gym last week.

It seemed like an appropriate decision, given my obsession with working out and the gym’s proximity to our apartment: Google maps says that from our front door to theirs, it is 0.6 miles by car or 0.3 miles by foot.  It’s less if I cut across my neighbor’s lawn and hop the wall around the gym parking lot.  I’m certain that if necessary, a carrier pigeon could deliver a message from me to my personal trainer in 45 seconds.  That is, of course, assuming I had paid the extra monthly fee to hire a personal trainer.

This brings me to my next point.  As part of the sales pitch to get us to become gym members, our sales associate offered me and Steve each a personal training session with the gym manager himself (we’ll call him Albert).  I remember thinking it odd that the gym manager would conduct these sessions – isn’t that why they pay a staff of personal trainers with varying hours and specialties (and, presumably, a lower paycheck)?

My question was answered when I showed up for mine two days later.  Albert and I were scheduled for an hour together, which seemed like kind of a lot of personal training, but I was up for the challenge.

The challenge turned out not to be related to muscle strength or flexibility, but to endurance of a sales presentation.

I spent the first 25 minutes of our session filling out a questionnaire about my health and fitness goals, and listening to Albert’s speech about the pillars of health and fitness, complete with a myriad of chicken-scratchy illustrations he provided on the back of my questionnaire as he spoke.

For about 15 minutes in the middle of our session, Albert led me to one end of the gym and had me do some pretty basic lunges, squats, and ab exercises.  He reminded me repeatedly that the session he was giving me was different from any other gym because it was tailored specifically to my personal needs.  I wanted to ask him how that was true, but he never really stopped talking.

The last 20 minutes of our session were back at Albert’s desk with a sheet of rates and an impressive list of reasons why I needed to sign up for a year of personal training RIGHT THEN.  Albert told me that during my workout he noticed that my lower back and upper body were very weak, that my right side was stronger than my left side, and that it was imperative that I work out with a trainer to avoid injury and ensure that I meet my fitness goals.

Let’s examine his observations a little more closely:

 1.   That my lower back and upper body were very weak.  Now, I don’t mean to brag – that really isn’t my point.  But I can do bicep curls with 20-pound weights, and I can do pull-ups without assistance.  So, I’m sorry Albert, but I’m inclined to disagree with that part of your assessment – and I also wonder how you felt you could determine the shape of my upper body by watching me do lunges.

  
2.    That my right side was stronger than my left side.  OK.  Maybe that’s true.  Don’t we all have a dominant side?  And I wonder if his sole basis for this conclusion was his observation, while I was filling out the detailed questionnaire, that I am right handed.

3.   That it is imperative that I work out with a trainer to avoid injury and ensure that I meet my fitness goals.  Well, Albert, if you had read my questionnaire, you would have noticed that I have been working out consistently for 15 years, that my only injury of note was a broken tailbone 6 months ago from falling on the ice, and that my fitness goal is to maintain my current level of fitness.

So, thanks Albert, but I think I’ll pass.

Meet your intention to your observation, your observation to your word, and your word to your action – and there, you will find… I don’t know, truth?  Fulfillment?  Connection?  Success?  Albert, I wish you these things, and the inspiration to develop a more useful personal training pitch.