Saturday, April 9, 2011

Three Beautiful Things 04/04-04/08/11: Hard Work = Great Play, Routine, Oh! There's Also My Job

1.  Rehearsals and performances of "'The Taming of the Shrew" have dominated my life from Monday-Friday.  Our energetic, colorful, acrobatic, musical circus of a production all came together this week and the long hours of work have resulted in two live audiences, Thursday and Friday, loving the play, praising us lavishly, and coming out of the Blue Door with wide grins and animated conversations.  We're really doing it.  We are putting on a really good show.

2.  I've developed a routine to get ready to play and perform:  shower, Asian food at different restaurants, lots of water, and finding my own place to sit quietly, calm myself.  I appreciate how many of my fellow cast members fuel their performing energy with loud talking, rapid pacing, jokes, quoting movie lines, talking about super heroes, doing impersonations, and singing (everything from Journey/Asia/Toto to "Les Miserable"), but I have to quiet myself down because performing over activates my adrenaline.  Too much adrenaline can push me out of control, can narrow my vision of what's happening on stage, can work against my best efforts rather than support them. 

3.  Oh!  And then there's my job.  I've been remarkably energetic and alert for my 8 a.m. classes despite not getting home until 11:30 or so and needing about an hour to wind down before sleeping.  But, existentialism, inquiry into happiness, making fun of the technical details of presenting research (while also taking it seriously) has been fun and it was a good week in the classroom.

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