I am Obsessed

All I think about is this show now. I am okay with that. I did this for the experience, to feel wholly alive and that is happening. I am free of control of the overall experience the audience will have—that is in Kim, the director's hands. But…

Once I enter and step on the stage, I am in control. The actors, the stage manager, the dresser and the technician in the booth are all “in standby mode,” waiting for their next cue to cue the actors, enter, change the lighting or to add sound and/or prepare a costume for assumption by an actor.  I am “in control” until I give that next cue.

Almost every time I speak, I have a lengthy monologue. There are short monologues as well, but I rarely interact with the other actors. There is, perhaps, four lines of interaction between me and an actor in the 110-minute play. So if I choose to ad lib in any of the monologues, I can, as long as I end on the cue.

Will I do it? I itch to in a couple of places, and as the overall tone slips due to David’s reliance on the script, I am more and more likely to loosen up under the circumstances and go off script sometimes.

Tuesday: Preview Night

Asthma issues Monday night ahead of going back to work yesterday; a migraine last night. And today may be even more brutal than yesterday. It all depends on David. Lois is off book; David is miles from being even close and we have a tiny invited audience tonight. It could be creepy but once I step on that stage, there is no going back no matter what happens.

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I am likely to go ahead with The Hater & The Harridan.  I am back on track. I lost faith in it and everything for a while when I thought I would never get my lines, but I am doing just fine now, and we have an excellent prompting system in place with which I am very comfortable. I believe that the ease with which I am managing this time is entirely due to structural improvements in my writing learned from Knock Knock.

Gillian, the teacher at Cap College, has said that we can meet between June 8 and June 15, so if she gets in touch, I will proceed in my discussions with her. Working with her and her students would mean getting free music and choreography for the songs in the show.

After all this sewing and building of props and costumes and memorizing for Trudeau, getting back to just writing sounds wonderful—and so simple: just eight fingers, one thumb and a computer.

I know Harridan has a good basic structure and the songs are strong. With luck, I can bring life to the script. I am stoked to try after seeing what Lois and David have brought to the characters of Basil and Vivicean. It feels truly magical/spiritual to me.

Tuesday

Okay … problems.  There was a bit of tension on the boards today because poor David is having trouble getting off book. We persevere and I am loving the process.

And now that I have my lines, I am keen to continue the development of Loranger & Associates Elaborate Storytelling Theatre Company.

To produce Knock Knock cost me $17,000 because I gave all the box office to a charity. If I had kept the box office, I would have spent about $3,000. I hired a director, the fabulous Shawn Macdonald, who was the artistic boss, but as producer, I had a strong voice and felt confident going into performances.

Trudeau will cost me about $800, but I am not in control and it has been done in a way I would not have considered. And then there is the issue of David and his struggle with the lines. It is an interesting exercise to be part of something that feels less that it could and should be, to be frank.

But the pluses still outweigh the minuses.

I passed this pink Dogwood on the way
to the theatre this morning.

David and Lois play themselves as well as
Basil and Vivicean. When they are playing
themselves, they read their lines. 

You can see the model of Presentation House that my friend
John built upstage centre. Lois is positioning it.

Lois, as Vivicean, makes notes in her script.

Tuesday Morning

Pear. 

Here we go: Tech rehearsal today and perhaps a run afterward, definitely our first run with costumes is tomorrow afternoon and tomorrow night we expect a tiny preview audience. Thursday: Who knows during the day, but there is a big audience for the Thursday night fundraiser.

Yesterday I barely looked at my script. I walked the seawall, ate half a watermelon and did errands. It was partly a day of rest, partly a day of preparation for "war."

I am back to old habits. For weeks, I was sleeping like a normal person, but now I am back to my decades old habits of tiring very early, and rising as astoundingly early. Last night I went to bed at 9:30 but I awoke at 1:00 am and alert.

Still awake at 2:00, I got up and took a little bit of marijuana (I don’t smoke it), to relax and it worked. At 3:00 I fell asleep again until almost 5:30 and thank God. I am afraid to take Atavan, which is what I usually take, because I don’t think my lines will come during rehearsals if I do.

Monday Morning; Day Off

Lines I like in the show:

“That’s it. It’s not much of a story really/ She came. She danced. We lost money. She left.”

“I cannot be part of a capability inversion such as you propose I am afraid.”

“Obscene, Vivicean? Really?”

It is times like this that I miss having an intimate relationship. Going through technical rehearsals and then opening is so intense—especially the opening. But this time, I have a surrogate; Steve, my ex arrives from L.A. on the afternoon of opening night.

We kind of have two openings and he is here for both of them. The first one is a fundraiser for Presentation House and it costs more. The second one is the one to which they invite their freebie list for opening nights, so at least we have two good houses (out of eight).

We are down to eight performances, which is great: Two runs of Thursday, Friday and Saturday night and then a Sunday matinee.

So: Trudeau, the Felons & Me, at eight performances, is twice as long as Knock Knock was, so the Chris Tyrell Loranger elaborate storytelling company is growing.

New Form Cartoon