non-bitching

I just thought I'd write a blog that wasn't me bitching about something. So, here's some good stuff:

Tomorrow, I'm having lunch with my friend Bob Baldwin. I like Bob. We were roommates for a little while in college.

On Thursday I'm going to Nancy Walker's voice studio end-of-the-semester party. I like her, and I like Maggie Ramsey, her student, who I've accompanied this semester.

I'm in rehearsals for Man of La Mancha. I like it. The cast is strong. I like them. It should be a good show.

Naming names: an addendum

So this is just sort of an addendum to the blog I posted a couple of days ago (“fear & prejudice, and fear of prejudice...and fear”). Feel free to read it too, if you’ve not. (read it here)

While I was telling the world (okay, I know “the world” doesn’t read this, so...while I was telling a handful of mostly anonymous people) about this whole thing, I didn’t mention the names of the show or the theatre. I was trying not to be too bitter or catty or back-bitey or whatever. 

I’m over that now.

The theatre is Theatre Guild of Rockingham County, (their website) and the show is All Shook Up. The artistic director is Rose Cutuli Wray and the production chairperson & technical director is Jeff Mericle.

I have a friend who warned me some time ago to back out, back out, get out of it, don’t do it.!

Well, I’m generally not one to back out of a situation just because someone else had a bad experience. But maybe I should’ve. It would’ve saved me some grief...well, not grief, rage...and the effort I put into getting ready for auditions and making recordings for the choreographer.

Anyway...

Last night was their first rehearsal. The director, to whom I’d given my script and score when I quit, stopped by to pick up my notes on the singers from auditions. He’d asked if I’d give them to the new music director. For a moment I considered being a dick and saying no. But that’s really not who I am. So, he went to the rehearsal. Apparently, as soon as he got there he was called into a meeting of the board, where he was fired for not respecting the board or not supporting them or something completely ridiculous like that. And(!) they already had hired another director who was there for that first rehearsal. 

They hired someone else, and didn’t tell him until he drove (45 minutes or so?) to the rehearsal.

That just seems kinda fucked up to me.

That’s what they did to the guy who was upset about the racism bullshit, but who was patient enough to wait a few hours to see how it was gonna go down, and who tried to get me to wait and then to come back into the production after they'd decided to go along with our casting. This is a guy who’d put a lot of prep work into the show and was really excited about it. This is a guy who’s done shows with them before and, I believe, was going to do more with them.

Rose and “the board”...? They ain’t right.

So, that’s the latest on the story as I know it. 

Again, mainly I’m just writing this to say: Theatre Guild of Rockingham County and Rose Wray.  (their contact page: "If you have any additional questions or comments, we'd love to hear from you!")

fear & prejudice, and fear of prejudice...and fear

Sometimes the only reasonable response is outrage and a refusal to even consider discussion.
That’s not a quote I found somewhere. It’s hard for me to believe I’m saying that, but it’s also hard for me to believe that I was in a situation that called for such a response. My heart still beats fast when I talk about it.

I quit a show this part week—just a couple of days. We had auditions earlier this week, and the director, choreographer and I had cast the show. We were all very much in agreement about the cast. The other two seemed to be very excited about the cast, and I was really looking forward to doing the show. It was going to be my “fun” show this year.

The day after callbacks, and after we’d settled on the cast, the director called and said the three of us need to get together and talk because there was an issue with the casting. I immediately thought that maybe someone had to drop out, or that we hadn’t seen on someone’s audition sheet that they would only accept a certain role...something like that. But that wasn’t the issue.

There’s an interracial (black and white) couple in the show—actually two couples—and the story includes a small town mayor’s response: that those people aren’t appropriate for each other. And the show goes on to basically say “why can’t we all get along?” (“If I can dream of a better land where all my brothers walk hand in hand...tell me why can’t my dream come true.”) There are optional lines of dialogue in an index at the back of the script for productions that don’t have the racial mix required. It makes the “inappropriate” couples of different classes, as opposed to different races.

We didn’t have the right sort of turn out at auditions to cast the show as written with the racial differences. But we did cast a black guy and a white girl in the leads. That’s not one of the interracial couple in the script. So we were just gonna do the class difference version, and it happened that there would be an interracial couple.

So, as you may’ve guessed, the issue that came up was that someone on the board (or some ones? I don’t know—what I heard was “the board”) expressed concern that when their audience base sees PR stuff with that casting, they just won’t come to see it.

My immediate response to the director was that if that’s their position, it is completely unacceptable and ridiculous and I will quit the show. The director and choreographer both felt the same way. The director was gonna try to get someone from the board to meet with us that evening. I thought about it and quickly realized that there’s no need for a meeting. A meeting suggests there’s a discussion to be had, but as far as I was concerned there’s no discussion to be had. The only possible thing that “the board” (or whomever the director was dealing with) could say was something like “Wow, you three are right. We’re so sorry this even came up. It’s hard to convey how horrified and embarrassed we are at our own fear and prejudice. Please forgive us.”

Well, of course, that was not the response. The next thing I heard was that the board needed to get together and have a meeting about this. And at that point, I was out. It didn’t matter what the board might eventually decide. I was done. The fact that they thought they should get together to discuss whether it’s a good idea to enable the prejudice of their community, whether to allow such a consideration to be a priority or even an element in casting (or re-casting) a show, is completely unacceptable. I wasn’t gonna wait around while that happened.

So I quit. I called the artistic director and the production manager (or some-such title) and informed them. By the time I called them, they said “Oh, I completely agree with you, and we’re not having a board meeting about this. We’ll go ahead with the casting as is.” One of them said that they “jumped the gun” a little.

It didn’t matter: jump the gun, go ahead with casting as is, whatever. I was out. I had to be out. Because I was so fucking angry that I wanted to throw things, break things, and scream profanities at passersby. I just could not fathom people wanting to sit down and discuss the possibility of instituting a racist policy. And I couldn’t imagine being part of that production having known that this had come up, and having had the reaction I had. I just couldn’t see my being able to back-pedal away from such rage and disgust.

It’s horrifyingly ironic that this happened with this particular show. It’s quite lucky for me that I had a massage scheduled for that afternoon. I don’t feel like I had a massage a couple of days ago. But that’s only because I was in such an emotional knot over this thing, and the massage helped that.

My masseuse suggested that I need to find a way to deal with extreme negative emotions other than sort of swallowing them and putting a stopper on it. I think I’m just afraid of what I’ll do if I really let that sort of thing out. I think maybe I would hurt someone—not on purpose. Or maybe it would be on purpose. Maybe what I really fear is that Mr. Hyde will emerge and say or do really awful things and hurt people.

Maybe instead of a massage I need a therapist. Or at least somebody I feel that I can really talk to about everything without their being uncomfortable.

don't do it

Don’t tell a single person “Oh, you’ll find someone”. Also, don’t list for them their attractive qualities, nor exclaim how there are lots of people out there who’d be interested in someone with those qualities. Especially don’t tell this to a single person who is really tired of being alone, and even more especially don’t do it when you’re not a single person.

Because, seriously, when has that ever helped that single person feel better?

You may mean well. You might truly feel bad for the single person. But I’m kind of thinking that those statements aren’t really meant to make the single person feel better. They’re meant for you, the non-single person, to feel better. If you can convince yourself that the unhappy single person deserves to be happily un-single, and that it’s sure to happen soon, then you don’t have to feel so bad for them. And if they’re your friend, you’re absolved from any further action toward helping your friend in this matter, or any guilt in not helping them.

So, fine, if you need to feel better about your friend’s lack of love in their life, or even lack of like in their life, go ahead and tell them some trite nonsense. But just so you know, it might actually make them feel worse. They might even get a little angry. They will if they’re me.

honesty & fear

Why are people afraid of honesty?

Why do you feel after opening up to someone— saying things about yourself, your life—that you have to run away and hide from them? Is it fear of being hurt? Or that they may want something you can’t give them?

What’s so scary about really connecting with someone? I know we wall want that. I do. When you find someone you can talk to, why back off from that?

Okay, not “someone”. I mean me. And you. You know who you are. I won't embarrass you by mentioning your name.

I’m not going to hurt you. I though we’d started to established a real connection, I’m not gonna suddenly turn into an asshole. Do you think that? Or if you're afraid of “what might happen” ...well, doesn’t that suggest there may be something there worth happening?

I don’t like this. I didn’t like it a year ago when something similar happened. That person blamed it on Jesus—she shouldn’t’ve talked that way, that openly, because she was a Christian—which made me REALLY angry, coming out of a infuriating Baptist university experience. At least this time it’s not that mess. It’s just good old fashioned fear.

I'm sorry. 

back to life?

I'm not so stressed out now. At least, not like I'd been for the last few weeks. Guys & Dolls opened last week. Some time that week I wrote out some new parts for my multiple reed guy with some different instruments on a few numbers and a new cello part for "Luck Be a Lady". After opening night I wrote some exit music: a swing version of "Follow the Fold". It was the only thing left to do. We have 3 more shows this weekend, but all I really need to do is show up, do the show, and type up any band notes after. I'm actually not sure where the notes are from Sunday's show. I'll have to look around in/clean up my apartment.

I am still tired, and I feel like for a while now I've been pulled in several different directions. One of the biggest stressors for me has been that for several upcoming shows I'll be music directing, I've already had auditions but did not feel totally prepared to cast those shows. So far, it's turned out that when I was in the audition, and discussing casting with the directors, it seemed that I did know well enough what I needed: voice types, who sings what, etc. But I didn't feel as prepared as I normally would be. 

Man of La Mancha started rehearsals this past Sunday, after a G&D matinee. (I could use some Equity Mondays off...however I'm not doing Equity shows.) I knew what I needed to get done, but again, I didn't feel completely prepared. I've covered all the music, except that we lost our Antonia and shifted Fermina into that slot and are finding a new Fermina. New Antonia/old Fermina has worked a little on "I’m Only Thinking of Him" but not with the other characters. And I won't be at MoLM rehearsal again until Friday. I’ll be doing All Shook Up auditions & callbacks.

So, this may make me sound sort of full of myself, but... This being stretched in several directions and being under-prepared for all of them makes me feel the way I imagine "normal" people feel. I show up and do the best I can; I think I probably seem competent, but I don't feel like I really know what I'm doing. Normally, I feel like I really know the show and have a rehearsal schedule worked out, including how long I need to work each number, etc. 

Something different:

Now that G&D is open (that was a huge undertaking for me: orchestrating the whole show, generating & printing out decent looking parts in addition to being music director and rehearsal accompanist), I'm starting to think about my life again. All my "free" time is not so frantically consumed with getting things done anymore. And, of course, my life hasn't changed any, so I don't feel any better about it. I do have a new friend, from the cast, I think. We've been chatting a bit online. It'd be nice to hang out in "real life" some time, but with my schedule, I don't know if that's gonna happen.

Something else different:

This morning I woke up at 6:41am. I'm almost 100% sure that yesterday I woke up at 6:41am. And I'm fairly sure that on several days lately I've woken up around that same time. What the heck is going on at 6:41am and waking me up?

Stuff & nonsense

Macbeth, 

Macbeth, 

Mac-fucking-beth!

ooo (click here)

I do not believe.

I do not believe in the “Macbeth” ghost, nor in the “Good Luck” monster, nor in the whistling demon.

Similarly, I do not believe in crossing my fingers for luck, nor in avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk, nor in taking a detour to avoid passing beneath a ladder or crossing a black cat’s path. If I spill salt, it’s spilt. Why would a person throw some over his or her shoulder? That would just make it harder to clean up.

Similarly, I do not believe in Zombie-Jesus crying over my sins, 

nor in Old One-Eyed Odin who might pay me a visit someday, 

nor do I fear Zeus’ thunderbolt.

And guess what. I don’t think that Santa Claus, Hanukah Harry, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy even exist.

I am an intelligent person, capable of rational thought. I don’t feel that years of tradition give a ridiculous belief any “weight”. Your believing in it might. Not because believing in it makes it true in any objective sense, but because if you think something’s going to happen, you may subconsciously work to make it happen.

But just because you (yeah, I’m mostly talking to Susan Reinecke right now) believe something, doesn’t mean that I have to. Also, people, don’t keep perpetuating superstitions. It’s just silly. You don’t see me going around making up random rules and demanding you perform ridiculous rituals when you transgress.