May 25, 2013

Watched the streaming table-read of 16th and Curtis on Willinet.org. It was fun to watch, and not at all cringe-inducing. My body language is foreign to me, when I see it like that. It is far less fidgety and extravagant than I feared. I do have an enormous head. Luckily it’s almost too late for vanity.

Din in the holly is a family of baby purple finches being fed by dad, outside the nest, a sort of picnic.

Second attack on the Phil Mechanic garden. Planted yellow canna, pink hydrangea, a yellow daisy I forget the name of.

Douglas hugged me last night and said, “Oh, you smell good!” Not the reaction you expect from a straight man.

Pope Francis is a Universalist. Best religious news in the West in my time.

Went to the Cathedral to hear The Madison Singers from James Madison University. Perfection. They sang Penderecki’s harrowing “Agnus Dei” right before Palestrina’s “Sicut Cervus,” one so agonized, one so transcendently sure and filled with light, perfect contrasts, the extremes of one spiritual impulse. When I returned, the moon was rising over Merrimon Avenue in the twelve pure splendors, stupendous and silent and sublime. Nothing stood in heaven beside it, the dark not yet dark enough for stars.

May 24, 2013

Cold through the windows, rather invigorating than fearsome. In the last dream, Peg Downes had gotten me a job at Starbucks. On my first day, I did not make or serve any coffee, but rather assembled and disassembled intricate machinery that they used for something. I was happy doing that.  I also noticed that I cold kneel and squat without effort, something I cannot do in waking life. My shift began at four, and I was worried about have to choose between Starbucks and “the play,” and at waking was briefly relieved to recollect that I am not in any play.


Yesterday a day of innumerable disasters. Every single thing that could go wrong, did, as well as much that one didn’t see coming. Fought desperately against the gremlins to get to an appointment which, it turned out, I didn’t even have. Couldn’t even creep home with tail between legs, because of the cleaning ladies, so I went to the mall and bought a tuxedo and a Nook. Saw the Nook bag sitting on the table this AM and thought “what the hell is that?”

Deeper illness came upon me yesterday. There was a periodic cold-dull pain in my groin, which I fancifully identified as kidney stones. It was a lymph gland–like some evil hornets’ nest-- warning that it was about to dump toxins into the system, which it did as we were setting up the church for the Cantaria concert. That could have gone one of two ways, an advancing and devastating systemic infection, or the bacteria’s being wiped out by the antibiotics already in my system. Thank God it took the second road. It was touch and go for a while, though, and I was probably not singing at my best. It’s amazing how immediate and measurable the loss of vitality is during those attacks: I knew how weakened I was because I couldn’t lift one side of the altar by myself, as I usually can.


I wonder why Spotify thinks that Mozart’s Requiem is right for a channel dedicated to Bach?

The baby mockingbirds were fluffing about in the garden yesterday, flapping their stubby wngs to scare up prey even as their parents do.

Our usual course is to sing better at the concert than we could have expected from the rehearsals, and we pulled that off again this time. DJ, who could hear more from where he was (including the whole pond of croaking basses), thought it was less successful than I did. Some of the songs were quite affecting, and it was good– in a way– to look out at people’s faces crumpled with sobbing.

May 23, 2013

Bad dreams. They started out well, but one by one bad things happened to me, snide comments, a bad choir rehearsal, incidents from the inconvenient to the tragic. Anger boiled inside. I hated the people around. The cats were scratching at the door (this probably was happening in real life) and I, magically, struck them through the wood. When I went out to look for them, I’d killed one of them by, apparently, turning her inside out. I understood the progress of the dream as I was dreaming it; it was a critique of the idea that we are solely responsible for our misdeeds. It was clear to me that Fate was the cause of my reverse of attitude, and though I probably could have avoided mood-change or retaliation, why should I? The lords of karma must be held responsible for the brutality of the acts to which the soul responds. Who is God to put us to the test? That rebelliousness has always been in my heart–Who is God to put us to the test, to withhold or grant in ways unrelated to our needs or achievements?–but seldom in so pure a form. A way to stop our bitterness is not to put us to the test; this needs to be part of the dialogue.

Spent 40 minutes weeding out formatting problems after I downloaded a Loves of Mr. Lincoln rehearsal schedule.

Wednesday, paradoxically, had been lovely. I rose and gathered my tools and before 7:30 was digging Jolene her garden. Pulled out a sprawling rose bush and a couple of weird trees and lots of pottery-related debris. The soil is stony and bad– I had to open it with a mattock before I could shovel-- so in went pounds and pounds of store-bought garden soil and fertilizer. When enough was prepared, I bought flowers: lupine, peony, ice plant, iris, phlox, hen & chicks, various succulents. Before noon I had done about 1/3 of what I conceive now to do. I was happy. I sang and hummed all through the doing. I was very dirty and sore when I got home, though both conditions have now been amended.

The day ended in paroxysms of rain. 

May 22, 2013

Mists of morning. Shapes through the mist– a strange cat sitting on the top of the garden stairs, quietly surveying all. The colors of the flowers, dimmed a little, as though they were in a painting of the rain. Sounds muted. A little moisture even on the floors, over which you walk as on the evenist of all cool lawns.

A day of no duties: delight! Delight!

What does an off-Broadway rehearsal schedule look like? It looks like this:


Hi everyone,
Apologies; there was an error in the call sent out about 45 minutes ago, where the left hand column did not match the updated right hand column. Attached is the revised and corrected call.
Thanks,
~Aislinn
CAST Call Daily Call
Don Burroughs ------- Abingdon Theatre Rehearsal Studio
312 West 36th St, btw 8th & 9th Avenues, 6th Floor
11:00am Staging – Act One (p13-18)
Steven Hauck, Stacey Todd Holt
12:00pm Staging – Act One (p18-26)
Leah Curney, Steven Hauck
2:00pm Continue staging Act One
ADD Tobias
Leah Curney, Tyrone Davis Jr, Steven Hauck
3:00pm Continue staging Act One (p26-28)
ADD Joshua
Leah Curney, Tyrone Davis Jr, Steven Hauck. Stacey Todd Holt
4:00pm Music – Tobias
5:00pm End of day
Leah Curney 12:00pm
Tyrone Davis, Jr. 2:00pm
Steven Hauck 11:00am
Stacey Todd Holt 11:00am

ANNOUNCEMENTS / NOTES


=

Aislinn Curry
Production Stage Manager
The Loves of Mr. Lincoln

718.354.5718
acurry.sm@gmail.com
On May 21, 2013, at 9:04 PM, Aislinn Curry wrote:
Hello everyone,
Wonderful to meet most of you today! I'm looking forward to sharing this fast paced wild ride with you.
Attached is the call for tomorrow. Please note that it differs from the original rehearsal schedule, but is as we discussed in person today.
Thanks,
~Aislinn
CAST Call Daily Call
Don Burroughs ------- Abingdon Theatre Rehearsal Studio
312 West 36th St, btw 8th & 9th Avenues, 6th Floor
11:00am Staging – Act One (p13-18)
Steven Hauck, Stacey Todd Holt
12:00pm Staging – Act One (p18-26)
Leah Curney, Steven Hauck
2:00pm Continue staging Act One
ADD Tobias
Leah Curney, Tyrone Davis Jr, Steven Hauck
3:00pm Continue staging Act One (p26-28)
ADD Joshua
Leah Curney, Tyrone Davis Jr, Steven Hauck. Stacey Todd Holt
4:00pm Music – Tobias
5:00pm End of day

Leah Curney 11:00am
Tyrone Davis, Jr. 1:00pm
Steven Hauck 11:00am
Stacey Todd Holt 2:00pm

ANNOUNCEMENTS / NOTES



Aislinn Curry
Production Stage Manager
The Loves of Mr. Lincoln

718.354.5718
acurry.sm@gmail.com
On May 20, 2013, at 9:48 AM, Aislinn Curry wrote:
Hello Company,
Here is the daily call for tomorrow.
Please remember to bring shoes as requested to your fitting. Additionally, please make sure to allow for a little extra travel time; the rehearsal studio is on the sixth floor and can be difficult to find.
Thanks,
~Aislinn

May 21, 2013

Drifting back into the land of the normal. Back to the Y, coffee with Tom, then a most satisfying day at the studio. Two pigeons had moved into the space, so the first task was ejecting cleaning up after them, but then painted happily. Jolene wants me to put a garden in at the front of the studio, a task I’ve been doing in my head ever since the conversation. Late afternoon trip with DJ to the cinema to see the new Star Trek, which I found delightful. It is not so very late now at night; something might be accomplished, or I might get early to bed.

May 20, 2013

Pentecost passed. I didn’t feel the tongues of fire this year. I didn’t hear my language spoken from the upper room.

Open dress rehearsal for Cantaria, a very good idea, I think, though an audience less inclined to approve would have heard some pretty awful passages. Most of the awfulness comes from two singers with powerful voices, no sense of accuracy, no sense that the notes they are trying to overpower around them are actually the right notes, the ones they should be matching. Steve was frustrated to the point of steam from the ears, but it’s difficult to know what to do other than say “get out,” and in an organization like that, that’s immediate schism.

When I go out at first light, I expect the black iris to be in bloom. I adore black flowers. In my head now I see a great field tossing with black and purple.

Jeff, whose character I eliminated in the revision of the play, was a beatifying angel. I heave sighs of relief.

May 19, 2013

Theater last night at NC Stage, This. Acting and directing were stellar (there it’s hardly ever anything else), but the play was disappointing: well written, funny in places, well observed in minutiae but faked in the large issues, aimless, static (in the sense that no character in it really went anywhere) ultimately both dishonest and manipulative. I have no idea what the process of play selection is, but I find it baffling. Likely there’s a principle being served that I don’t understand. As opposed to my universal respect for the casts, I really respected one play done there this season, and I like to think of myself as a relatively eclectic and accepting audience. Drinks at the Vault before, drinks at Avenue M after. Too many drinks. I hope the Pentecostal fires burn away my hangover.

In a related issue, attacked Awake! Awake! Deborah!, removing 11 of the 59 pages, and eliminating one whole character. Each time I found something superfluous, I remembered the reason I put it in, and in most cases it was to make a point, to score a point. That’s a violation of one’s pact with the Muse, but somehow, in this play, I felt entitled to do everything wrong. It didn’t work. Better now. Much. If it’s still a debacle, it won’t be such a protracted one.

Dream last night: there was an athletic event where a woman would run a kind of sprint, and then a man would measure off the space she ran with a sock turned in to an art object. He would turn the decorated sock lengthwise end over end until the course was measured. The woman had already won the race when this was done, but somehow the results weren't final until the sock came into play. I was one of the men measuring my runner's race off with a sock, which I had decorated, maybe as decoupage, with headlines from old newspapers.

Phlebitis run-down still (at a reduced level) somewhat in play. The end-of-night is screaming with birdcalls, Kevin the Frog the deep bass under them.