Day 141: Surprise cafe

Going through my head all day were the lines from the Rolling Stones song:

This may be the last time
This may be the last time
Maybe the last time
I don't know

:(

Well, today was the last Thursday in Cambridge, and you know what that means.  After work, biking to Calliope quickly for dress rehearsal, hugging a water cooler (see left), frantically searching for food (and finding some at a café that seemed to come out of nowhere on Boylston, Café l'Aroma -- tasty salad! might even have had couscous in it? --, it was time for the Last Time at live-band-karaoke.  While I didn't end up singing that particular song, I did sing some other Stones and Boyan (leader of B11) got me up there for back-ups several times.  I am going to miss those boys -- I know they will keep it rocking though!  And there is now a serious karaoke contingency among my close friends in Cambridge. Three more days!

Day 127: Stage fright

Tonight was our final dress rehearsal for Rumors.  Although we were Pudney-less, I felt that it was finally the first night that, had there been an audience, we would not have embarrassed ourselves.  Part of that must have been due to the fact that since it was finally a closed set (that is, all entrances done through the correct stage exits and passageways, etc.) and all of the house lights were down (leaving our director and all who were watching from afar in near darkness), it felt Much More Intimidating.  Funny that having the lights OFF makes it more terrifying -- but it finally felt like really being on a stage!  It's been a long, long time.  I think it must have been the stage fright this all instilled (at least it did in me) that got us going and knocked us into perspective!

In recent rehearsals, one of my favorite on-stage presences (BNap), who plays my best friend in the show, and I have been playing a game called "steal-the-funny-one-liner".  And when I say "we" are playing a "game", I mean she is taking over my lines when I forget them.  And I have a lot of potentially funny non sequiturs (at least seemingly so -- does "sucking his thumb" perhaps prime "I can't believe I'm paying a baby-sitter for this night? Only Neil Simon can know for sure...).  Meaning that many of my one-off lines are very difficult to remember, unless (apparently) you grew up with the GTW, a la Nappa, and have just decided to memorize the entire play.  So, when BNap stole one of my less punchy "Oh who gives a shit?" lines, I finally just gave up and countered with "Apparently not me."  This is gonna be fun when we start doing it for real, tomorrow!

Day 125: Bike Un-Borrowers (Bike lights, big city?)

Bright lights -- big city.  Well, at least, bike lights, big city.  Always useful!  And brought to me by mine truly, E.E.  That is, upon arriving home from a long day at work only to dart off again to another full-length dress rehearsal (the life of a community theater actress is clearly not that glamorous--though it's a helluvalotta fun!), I found E. outside my apartment installing two lights on to my beloved Yoshi.  Having great friends around is like the opposite of having "borrowers" at your house -- and Yoshi certainly appreciates it.

Post-bike-light-installation, our lively troupe of four (D/E/"Pudney" and I) headed off to dress rehearsal #2.  Though it ended up being an extraordinarily late night (sadly prohibiting me from attending the birthday gathering of a former classmate -- happy birthday, Jak!), it was by leaps and bounds our best performance (the gap between Thursday and Sunday was huge -- but we closed an even bigger one tonight).

Tomorrow night we have off, and then final dress rehearsal on Wednesday.  Then it's four days of performing!  Thursday through Sunday.  Turns out my mom will be in town for all of it -- she definitely would have come to all of the productions of plays I was in as a kid, but she should get an award for continuing that tradition into my adulthood!

Day 124: The Cambridge garden party

Today marked the beginning of one of the ends of summer -- that end being the production, and therefore finale, of Rumors.  And by that, I mean that today marked our first full dress rehearsal in Georgetown.  Well, nearly full; there were a few stray "threads", if you will, such as some evening gowns-turned-shorts-and-a-t-shirt and faulty walkie-talkies!  But overall it seemed worlds beyond the rehearsal on Thursday, which was a pleasant surprise.

This weekend's chaos left little room for error, but somehow in between the dress rehearsal and the garden fête this afternoon (more on that in a minute), there was some room for a quick oil change and finishing the cookies!  Almost vegan, not quite; still haven't quite figure out the whole baking-without-eggs thing.  Ok, so not so vegan at all, though the butter substitute worked like a charm. [Sidenote: apparently, upon a quick google search, bananas can sub for eggs.  Must experiment.]

At any rate, I arrived at M.'s house (where the garden party was being thrown for T's birthday, partially organized by me -- i.e., me being the constant source of harassment and verbal berating asking them to come to the damn thing) later than I had hoped but earlier than I had expected, allowing me to help prep a bit and to bake some of the cookies at her place.  It was a really nice afternoon for an outdoor Cambridge garden party. [M.'s place is exceedingly well-suited for throwing such gatherings -- beautiful outdoor garden mostly maintained by the two landlords, who live upstairs, and to some extent M. herself, I expect, with plenty of space for grilling and sitting or standing around, chatting.]  Eventually many of us devolved into devising some strange antics, some of which involved wearing bright sunglasses, hats made of plastic bags, and tiny spatulas (so cute!) for decoration; the antics may also have involved creating some videos of upside-down talking heads.  No further comment on that one.  But the moral of the story is, it was a relaxing end to a long week (fortnight? month? summer?), and presumably one happy birthday was had.