Dressing the Dead

For Arsenic, that is. On Monday I got to make a dummy, who plays two distinct dead bodies. The official stage manager and I have to switch his costume in about half a page of dialogue, actually. It's strange that the only quick-change in our show belongs to a corpse.

He was made by putting a fat suit and blankets into a pair of coveralls, then pinning a wig-head to the top. Surprisingly simple, honestly. I'm enjoying the job very much. We open in a little more than a week (next thursday), and as we approach that deadline, the pace increases, which suits me fine.

R.I.P. Eartha Kitt

This takes on a certain poignancy, since I just posted her singing Santa Baby two days ago, and now find out that yesterday she passed away. Older, wiser heads than I have spoken about her life & times (much of which I did not know), so I'll just leave you with a clip of her singing one of my favourite of her songs, "I Want To Be Evil"

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

My favourite Christmas song. Really a classic of the genre, I feel. Happy holidays, y'all!

And a bonus, my other favourite Christmas song, Eartha Kitt singing "Santa Baby"

Barbara Cook=Magic

Well, the title about sums it up. I finally managed to get my hot little hands on Rainbow 'Round My Shoulder today, and it pretty much blew my mind. I expect I'll be more coherent on the subject after I've relistened to it a few times (and will, ideally, post again with favourite tracks and such), but in the meantime I'm just totally bedazzled. She has such a warm, expressive, beautiful voice, and is still incredibly sound technically, neither of which is a mean feat at her age. And, of course, she's a genius with song selection.

She truly is a living legend. She should get a theatre named after her when she dies. Or even before.

Opportunity knocks!

So, it's looking like I'm going to get to be an assistant stage manager on a January production of [i]Arsenic and Old Lace[/i] at the CentreStage theatre company in Kentville, quite close to where I live. Needless to say, I'm too excited for words. I'll be sure to keep y'all updated, and yes, I actually mean it.

In other, unrelated news, three items:

I sang "Send In The Clowns" for a recital for the students of my vocal teacher, and was profusely complimented.

I performed a monologue for my drama class, and, sadly, floundered.

Today's my birthday! I have obtained no fewer than11 plays! [i]To wit:[/i] Shaw's [i]Plays Pleasant[/i], [i]Plays Unpleasant[/i] (four and three plays respectively) and [i]Major Barbara[/i], Ibsen's [i]Hedda Gabler[/i], [i]She Stoops To Conquer[/i] (the author has slipped my mind at the moment), and [i]The Importance of Being Earnest[/i]. I'll have opinions once I've, y'know, read them.

EDIT: The coding on this is not what I'm used to, and due to my staggering sloth, I'm not about to go back and tweak each of those tags individually. You'll have to imagine that anything in [i][/i] is in italics, yes?

Start Spreadin' The News...

Well, I think I'll talk about my choir trip, which my dad says he will do his best to ensure I partake in. It's this March, and it's to two places: Boston and New York.

Boston only for one night or so. We get to see a rehearsal (with talk from the conductor!) of the Boston Pops, and take a tour of Berklee School of Music.

In NYC there will be, of course, a show (I'm attempting to push the committee into deciding in favour of Gypsy or WSS. We'll see how that fares). There will also be a tour of Juillard, a master class for singing actors (also, potentially, at Juillard), and the chance to sing at Carnegie hall.

Oh, and, like, four hours in the Met, which is also pretty nifty. I haven't been there for years upon years.

Needless to say, I'm terribly, abominably excited. Now I just need my passport...

Perpetual Anticipation...

Baltimore.
Boston Concert.
And an announced New York reading.

WHERE IS THE BROADWAY REVIVAL OF A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC?
It's been more than 35 years since this show premiered. It is not my favourite Sondheim (Hi Follies), but it's a fantastic one, and his biggest commercial success by far. Don't get me wrong, I like Merrily We Roll Along a lot, but why is it getting first crack at a revival?

Anyway, my dream cast for ALNM:
Desiree: Christine Ebersole (ref: Boston)
Fredrik: Victor Garber (ref: upcoming reading. And I can see him in the part)
Anne: Laura Benanti (ref: reading. And I love her)
Charlotte: Barbara Walsh (ref: Joanne in Company has a similar dry wit)
Madame Armfeldt: Angela Lansbury! (ref: she's amazing. End of story.)
Petra: Lauren Kennedy (not a major role, I know. But this woman should be better known.)
Fredrika: Kelsey Fowler from Grey Gardens, mostly because she's like the only actress of the right age I know. Though there's also the 13 kids, I guess.
Henrik, Count Malcolm, etc.: I don't know! Any ideas from y'all folk out there?

!

I've been TAGGED. Woe is me.

1. Link to your tagger and list these rules on your blog. The delightful TAFL was my tagger.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog - some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.

4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

5. If you don't have 7 blog friends, or if someone else already took dibs, then tag some unsuspecting strangers.


Onto the facts!

1. My introduction to theatre was a fuzzy VHS recording of the PBS Into the Woods broadcast, when I was five. Ten years later, I came back to it, and grew obsessed.

2. I play the celtic harp. Rather well, if I say so myself.

3. I have three sisters, ages 23, 16, and 6 months.

4. I, to quote Christine Ebersole, "have been known to break into showtunes without provocation"

5. I've lived in somewhere over 15 houses, spread out over four Canadian provinces. I'm not quite sure how many.

6. My first stage role was as a Snake, in some thing my church did when I was small. I don't remember what. I got facepainted, though.

7. There are only six interesting things about me.

Tagging time!

The divine Ms. Nancy*, at LiveJournal.

Katie at Theatreisms, my fellow high school drama geek in the blogosphere.

Esther of Gratuitous Violins, one of the few theatre blogs I read that hasn't done this yet.

The [tos] crew, because they're amazing, and I'm running out of people I actually know.

You. You reading this. Whoever you are, I don't know

Stage Management...

Well, I'm too lazy to write that post on politics. So that's not happening. But instead, I'm talking about a couple of books I've read lately on stage management (hence, you see, the title of this post). One is Stage Managing & Theatre Etiquette, and the other is The Stage Manager's Handbook. Unfortunately, I don't have either with me, so I can't recall the authors. At any rate, I found them both very interesting, and I'm quite seriously considering stage management as a potential future career now. I'm going to phone my aunt Tracy* about it at some point, because she worked as a SM for many years.

If any of you lovely folk reading this have any advice/resources/whatever you'd like to share, please let me know via comment, and you will win my eternal gratitude, which is redeemable for a cash value of 1/80th of a cent.

It's the Little Things...

Not much of note to report, but some tidbits.

-Started vocal lessons! My teacher is fabulous. Her name is Susan Dworkin [any relation to Andrea? I do not yet know)

-Saw two things in my school's performance centre this week. One was an environmentalist piece of theatre, sort of an audience-interaction thing, by a group named Otesha. It was a train wreck, but they had a good message, and obviously for the most part weren't theatre people, so I forgive them.

-The other was a presentation by our local electoral candidates for Canada's four parties (Conservative, Liberal, New Democratic Party, and Green). It was very interesting. I'll write more on that soon, but right now I haven't the time. Suffice to say, if I could vote, it would be for Carol Harris, the NDP candidate.

-My drama class has broken into small groups to create "mini-musicals". Again, think train wrecks, but this one should be fabulously entertaining. I've convinced my group to give my character "Gimme Love" from Kiss of the Spider Woman to sing. I'm going to rock it. I've also sort of ended up our de facto director/stage manager, which is interesting and kind of fun.