Would you do it again? What have you learned? Have you learned your lesson? What's next?

Those seem to be the questions I get most from doing this, and my answers are:

(1) Would you do it again? 
Yes, yes yes, and in fact I am doing some of the things again (except the snowboarding, BUT I would take a boarding lesson);

(2) What have you learned?
I have learned a whole bunch! But what I have learned from each and every experience is this:  If you do something, do it RIGHT! Put your whole self into that experience and don't waste the opportunity when you have it to do that thing to the best of your ability and efforts!  I find this mantra popping up in every aspect of my life, from work to motherhood, and this experience is no exception.  In hindsight, I learned that I was too preoccupied with accomplishing the task that I didn't take time enough to enjoy it!   I wanted to check things off my list and continue on my way, often missing the point of this project in the first place.  I am taking that valuable lesson with me as I continue on my journey through your things!

(3) Have you learned your lesson?
I hate that question, as if I am supposed to be "punished" for trying something new!  NO, I have not "learned my lesson"! Just because I didn't like something or got hurt doing it, that does not mean that I will shy away from it.  The lesson learned was that these things are your things that take time and energy and effort and I took that for granted.  (See my answer to number two!!)  I won't snowboard again, not because I got hurt, but because I didn't enjoy it.  Isn't that what counts?

(4) What's next?
Stay tuned as what's next is beginning my fitness training with my sister and combining that with my efforts to run road races with my friends!  AND, this time, I am hiring a trainer and seeking professional nutrition and fitness advice from my sister, who I am sharing this "thing" with!!

I am taking a break at the moment due to my broken elbow which is quickly on the mend, but also due to my hectic work schedule (do it right or don't do it at all, remember :) )

Thanks for reading!!

Show's over! No broken legs but a broken elbow!

JH is over and what a blast that was!  Thankfully I didn't literally break a leg, although I am told I did tear it up on the stage :)  However, I DID manage to break a bone doing the next thing on my list---snowboarding!! In an attempt to barrel-ass down the bunny slope, I broke my right elbow.  Here is a lovely "before" photo:

Don't we look super cute and excited?

And here are, sadly, the after photos:

 I learned a lot from that. mostly:

(1) I don't like snowboarding
(2) snowboarding is hard
(3) spring skiing in New England is kind of crappy
(4) don't try something new and dangerous without lessons
(5) always wear your helmet on the slopes and
(6) I don't like snowboarding!

I hope to write more on the subject as well as more on doing the play but I am typing with one hand at the moment which sort of stinks if you don't know already.  Check back in with the blog in a week or two! I will post more on JH and snowboarding.

Thanks for reading!
Yours truly,
the one-armed writer

Show in Progress!

One weekend down of the show and one more to go!  Check out photos from rehearsals and dress rehearsal, courtesy of my CCP friends!  I plan on posting more photos taken from backstage before the shows.

This link is rehearsal at the Hose House:

http://colonialchorus.com/JHRehearsalPhotos.html

and this one is dress rehearsal at the Rogers Center (I am in the last one):

http://colonialchorus.com/JHPhotos.

Cheers!

It's T-Shirt Time! No, Wait.... It's SHOWTIME!!!

After many months, I cannot believe the time has come-- it's showtime! Jekyll & Hyde opens this Saturday at the Rogers Center at Merrimack College!

This week is called "tech week"  but affectionately named "hell week" for reasons any week would be called hell week.  Rehearsals, rehearsals, rehearsals!  Tonight we had a partial tech run and yesterday we spent the day putting the set together and then off to rehearsal with the orchestra!  Here are some photos from set building at the Rogers Center.  I cannot wait to perform there, it is incredible.  I am told by the theater junkies that this is quite the privilege to perform here.  Take a look!


View from the audience



View from the stage

Lucy's bedroom

Putting together the ballroom wall

Putting together Jekyll's lab

Jeykll's lab

I am putting a cabinet doorknob on :)

A camera phone photo of Jill and Meghan putting Jeykll's lab together

Tech Run

Aristrocrat props!

Here is the orchestra pit with some of the ballroom wall sitting inside. You can see that the top of the

"walls" are peeking over the stage floor.  

I hope to see you all there- can't wait!

P.S.-- having sat through countless shows, it is a lot more fun to be on stage rather than looking at it!  :)

Theatah Jargon

Hello all,
In order to get you in the mood for some theatrics, i thought it would be fun to share with you the theater dictionary I am building as I navigate my way through rehearsals.

Upstage: the back

Downstage: the front (brownie points for those of you that can tell me where those names come from without googling!)

Fourth wall: the audience

Drag through: run through of a scene or act

Principal: a nice way of saying a lead role

Blocking: choreographing or setting places for scenes

Straight tone: singing without vibrato

Vibrato: that funny vibration noise you hear from good singers (i don't sing with vibrato :)

Set building, ticket sales, playbooks and biographies

Hello friends,

It's been a while since I last blogged because I have been so busy with rehearsals!
Jekyll & Hyde is going great and I am really enjoying the experience. I feel proud to be a part of this production and as it gets closer I can't wait to show all of you what I have been working on these past few months!

The show is fun but also challenging. The music is fast paced, the choreography is hard for a scatter brain like me to remember and the cast is huge.  I guess that's theater for you! Last night we did what is called a "drag through" of act II, which is exactly what it sounds like- a run of the entire act.  I have to say a big kudos to our leads, Bobby (as Jekyll), Lori (as Lucy) and Brittany (as Emma).  They are truly talented folks that really make our production special.  I am excited for those of you coming to see such a talented cast! I just hope to keep up and not screw up. :)

If you want a sneak peak, here is a sound file for "Murder Murder" from rehearsal.  This was our first run through of the full song.  It's 8 minutes long(!) but during the show there is dialogue (and murders!) to break it up. Thank you to my cast members Chris and Andy for sharing this link!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/8066055/Jekyll%20%26%20Hyde/25%20-%20Murder%20Murder.mp3

On top of the rehearsing, cast members are encouraged to sell tickets (of course) but also sell ads in our playbook to promote local businesses, and to help with set building, painting and costume creation.  (For any locals interesting in purchasing an ad in our book please comment to this post or email me if you have my email address. Ads are due by Feb. 27). 

The Hose House, where we rehearse, becomes a hive of activity on Friday nights, Saturday afternoons and Monday nights, with cast members, their friends and family and past group members all lending a hand with creating the set and costumes.  It is very exciting to see the pieces falling into place and to see an end in sight. For instance, my ballroom costume started off as an old ugly prom dress and has slowly transformed into a Victorian England-era ball gown.  Sophia has been a great help at set painting too so for those of you reading the playbook at the play you will see her name as a helper!  Here are some photos of us painting the set at the Hose House

Ronnie painting the benches for the "Wedding Scene"

Here's Kim, one of the prostitutes :)

For those of you interested in attending the play, here are the details again.  They will also be posted at the bottom of my blog page until the show is done.

Show dates are:

March 19, 25 and 26 at 8pm
and March 20 at 2pm

At the Rogers Center for the Arts, Merrimack College, North Andover, MA
Tickets are $18 for adults and $15 for students and seniors (ages 65+).  *group rates available for parties of 15 or more.

For more information visit http://www.colonialchorus.com/ or call 781-944-9780 or of course contact me for tickets.

Thanks again for reading- More to come!

Murder Murder!

Rehearsals for Jekyll and Hyde are going great! 

So far we have learned two songs from the show; "Facade" and "Murder Murder".  Both have been really fun to learn and to sing.  The music is complicated in spots (which just makes for a better sound in the end), so a few people bring tape recorders to tape individual parts and practice at home.  I have some of these sound files and I hope to post sound bytes of rehearsal on here soon.  I have also posted on the bottom of this blog site details with the attached event flier for the upcoming show. (Shows are in March at Merrimack College).  We have a lot of work to do but I know at this rate we will have created a wonderful end product that you will enjoy! 

A Blog Thought

Recently a friend said to me that she assumed I was unhappy with my life because I was always "doing."  I thought this was an odd assessment of my situation since to me, life is about living and doing!  In fact, I find "not doing" to be the definition of unhappiness.  For me, really living my fullest life involves finding ways to push, challenge and surprise myself.  What is life without experiences?  This recent journey is my newest way of living and I am having such a wonderful time doing it!  And for the record, I feel truly happy and utterly blessed with my life and the people in it. 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to my loved ones and thank you for your support! 

I am not a hooker!

I was truly hoping that the title of this post would be "I AM a hooker" but alas I was not cast as a "red rat girl" in Jekyll & Hyde as expected.  But I am getting ahead of myself.  Let me explain....

The time has finally come to do the "thing" that has inspired this blog!  Last week, with the help and support of my friends Kim and Allison who are the people behind the "thing" behind the inspiration of this blog,  I auditioned for two community theater plays; "Little Women" and "Jekyll and Hyde."  I am happy to announce that after several hours singing, dancing, waiting and sweating, I have accepted a role as an aristocrat in the ensemble of Jekyll!  Rehearsals have already begun and are Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday nights.  The play is set to open in March at Merrimack College!

What can I say so far about all this? It has been quite a time-consuming process!  First, auditions.  They start by filling out an application, writing down what part you are auditioning for, and listing your past experience (mine is high school chorus, singing in the shower and to my kids) and attaching your theater resume if you have one (um.. yeah. okay, I don't).  You turn your application in, get a number, take a mug shot (I think in the theater world it's called a head shot) then you wait to be called.  The Little Women (LW) audition was a "you in front of the directors alone thing", meaning no one was watching.  Waiting for this sucked and despite the fact that I looked cool as a cuke while waiting (that was the feedback people, I don't make this up) my nerves were shot.  Let's face it, I haven't sang in 15 years and even then I would say I could carry a tune but I don't hold a candle to talent! (If you think I am being humble just ask my loving and supportive husband :)   With that in mind, I made my application as funny and convincing as possible and auditioned for parts that I thought were reachable (ensemble for Jekyll and the part of a "troll" for LW). 

Anyway... to audition, you are required to sing a song or two in the spirit of the show (whatever.... my choices for both plays were "Part of Your World" from the Little Mermaid and "My Favorite Things" from Sound of Music). The director for LW actually asked me to pretend to pick flowers and sing to them while performing My Favorite Things.  hee hee.  I must have kicked ass on that because despite my efforts to get the part of a "troll" I was called back to read for the part of "Amy", one of the four sisters! Let's just say after I competed for that role I got NO part in LW, not even TROLL! Yeah, they were finally on to me and my lack of singing and theater experience.  Whatever though, their loss, because I WAS cast for Jekyll and I am excited to do that..  So, on to that audition....

For Jekyll & Hyde (JH) you have to audition in front of a room full of people! Let me tell you, these people were so great and supportive (most of them just showed up to watch, not even audition!!), and they brought cookies, I can't forget that part.  But despite this "support" I was so nervous, especially since I had to follow a phenomenal singer who was later cast as the female lead in this play!  Same process as for LW but just one song here.  After cursing out my preceding competitor, I made my way to the front of the room, introduced myself and sang 16 glorious bars of "Part of Your World" and got a raging round of applause (really!!).  JH is a dance-intense musical, so after vocals, they asked us to hang around for auditions part two, which was to learn choreographed dance moves and perform them in front of the directors.  I had to learn both ensemble and "red rat girl" dances.  The red rat girls are the whores in JH and they have a really fun dance scene in the play so you understand why I wanted to be a red rat SO BAD!   The dance for the red rat girls was so much fun and super hard! It was raunchy and racy and left me with bruised knees and in need of a shower afterwards (seriously, I am not making this up).

I left auditions three hours later covered in sweat, dirt and bruises, but because I really can't dance I wasn't cast as a hooker.  (I am sure that's the reason as I am confident I was skanky enough for the part.)  Kim WAS cast as a red rat girl though-- she did great! (As one male watching said to her, "Kim, you are naughty!")

So, on to rehearsals! I plan on posting a separate entry for rehearsals, and maybe a few as I go with progress updates, even though I am pretty sure that no one is reading this!! Anyway, all I can say is that this has been a blast.  It has pushed me beyond my comfort levels and made me feel really crappy about myself at times, but I would not trade this experience for anything.  It has also brought out my competitive spirit and made me want to try harder and do better, which I will!  Just wait until you see the play (which I am making my entire family see- hee hee).    Stay tuned!

A man, his gun, his dog .... and the wife

This post is about duck hunting!!!

While you all were sleeping off your turkey dinners, Eric and I went duck hunting last Friday.  Long story short, no ducks were harmed in the making of this "thing."  So much for the hunting part.

In order to enjoy our nice date day, we needed to first unload our precious cargo, also known as Sophia and Griffin  (and referred to in earlier posts as my "party crew.")

 Luckily awesome aunt Kellie was up to the job of babysitting, so we loaded up and headed off for an afternoon hunt.  Eric took me to the Nashua River in Pepperell , MA.  His friend Dick was nice enough to join us for this adventure (also affectionately called a "shit show" by my loving husband).  Dick just had to see the wife in camo!

We arrived at the river, put on our bad-ass duck hunting gear and packed up the canoe.  (Ok, so Eric packed up the canoe, I just complained about how cold I was.) Bogey squealed in delight the entire time, eager to get his bird.  (sorry Bogey, that never happened.  I know you deserve better than that.)  Here is a photo of me and Bogey dressed for the task at hand.  I know, peeps, I look smokin' hot....

After a short canoe trip across the river, Eric found our spot and we set up shop in a muddy, marshy location.

Here's Bogey checking out the scene

Here's Eric in the canoe

The blind

Me in my kick ass outfit

                                                             

Eric setting up the decoys

Mooooo

 The odd thing was that there were cows in the field right across the way from us.  They didn't seem to mind the gunshots though. 











After we set up the only thing left to do was sit, wait and watch the sky.  Besides my cold fingers and toes, I enjoyed sitting out there and listening to nothing at all.  It was peaceful-- I get why my husband likes hunting.  The boys said some silly stuff like "there is some nice movement in the spread" (meaning the ducks are moving on the water--- why don't they just say so?!) They also participated in some skillful duck calling which I can only imagine sounded like sweet songs of seduction for the ducks. I also now know why Eric comes home empty-handed often.  He and Dick failed to do the "watch the sky" part! Ducks flew over us only three times: two out of the three I had to tell them, "hey guys, there are ducks flying by."  The third time, let's just say I didn't escape without injury!  (See bloodied gum below).

I also want to mention here that wearing your headphones or ear plugs around 12 gauge shotguns is a good idea! Don't take them off! (my ears are STILL ringing!)

We had to end our hunt at 4:16pm because of sunset and while we left empty handed I personally left with a sense of self accomplishment.  I was nervous and reluctant about this trip.  There were so many unknowns to me.  But I really did enjoy myself, I made it through without serious injury and I think it really benefited my relationship with Eric.  After 13 years together, I learned new things about him, and for that I am truly grateful!