Ladies & Gentlemen, I have swung the heavy bat.

I am currently in a run of a show that is THE most difficult thing I have ever done.

Saturday night we knocked it out of the park. It was the second night of the show that I am in, NORMAL HEART, and we blew everybody away.

By this performance the director had seen us go through this about a dozen times in a row, and he said we had him sobbing.

After the show he came running in all excited and this is what he had to say:

Ron: Okay, now I can tell you this without scaring the sh*t out of you. Every reviewer in Phoenix was here tonight.

He listed off four or five names, and sure enough, that was all of them.

So, this means that all the reviewers saw this show at its best possible level. Which means if they hate it, then they would've hated it anyway no matter what we did up there, and it's their problem. They could write all about how crappy it was, and I would not be phased at all. The knowledge that we rocked the house, and had half of them on their feet during curtain-call for that performance is enough for me to shrug it off.

But I'm kind of excited to read them anyway.

Dream from this morning

Note to reader: some weeks ago I mentioned Meg and I had a "friend" sleep over. For the purposes of this post I will call her... Eva

So Eva and I are out for the evening, and we come home real late to my dad's house (the house we lived in before he got remarried, on Kiowa St.) She gets into bed and falls fast asleep while I am telling my dad I'm home and I'm going to bed. I go back in my room and sit down on the bed, and lean down to kiss her goodnight on the forehead. The second my lips touch her she startles awake.

"My brother! Where's my little brother?" she asks in a panicked voice. In real life I don't even know if she has a brother, but in the dream I instantly knew she meant the little red-head kid I just knew was in the backyard.

"He's fine. He's just hanging out in the yard. Go back to sleep." I tried to tell her, but she was up and running to the backyard in only her bra and panties.

"No. Something's wrong. I know it. Something is wrong."

I followed her out to the backyard and when we get there sure enough, something was wrong. There were about two hundred kids just hanging out in the yard. They were all about fifteen years-old, and they were all perfectly quiet and well behaved. What was wrong was they just did not belong there in my yard. Two of them came up to Eva and I as sort of emmissarys, one guy and one girl.

I introduced myself and said. "Ok, look, you guys are all being really quiet, so I'm cool with you staying tonight, as long as you promise not to come back tomorrow or any other night."

This is where it spirals out of control. Fast.

The two that are talking to us get irate. As these two got angry a palpable wave of anger rolls through the whole lot of them. The two tell me they will come back any time they want. They ask "why should we leave?" The rest of the hundreds of them start to get restless and noisey.

"Fine, you won't make a deal with me? Then, I'm calling the cops." I started to head for the patio because I just knew there was a phone out there. The first phone I picked up was all staticky, and I could already hear voices on it. I said "hello?" a couple times and tried switching channels, but nothing worked. I looked to my left and there was another phone, so I tried it. This one got me a dial tone, but all I kept dialling was 991. I knew what I needed to dial, but I just couldn't seem to. Over and over. I kept getting more and more scared and stressed, and the kids kept getting louder and angrier, and all I can dial is 991!!

After a couple of minutes of messing with the phones I suddenly realize I lost Eva in the crowd somewhere. I look up and she is surrounded by a bunch of young thug boys, and she is still only wearing her bra and panties. I am just about to sprint over to her and start kicking some ass, but then I see one of them make a smug comment, and turn away from her to walk away, and she runs up behind him and de-pants him, and then puts up her fists with a look of intense anger.

She's fine.

I go back to trying to dial the cops.

An old man (mid-sixties aged) who is holding a disposable cigarrette lighter in his hand ( who I've never seen in real life, but in my dream I just knew he's my neighbor) comes up to me and tells me that "this has got to end." I tell him I'm trying to end it, but I can't dial it right on the phone. He walks past me towards the mob of fifteen year-olds, and I turn my back on the whole picture to try to better focus my attention on dialing.

After a moment I hear the old man say something in an attempt to get these kids to leave. Then I heard one young man bark something back sarcastic. Then I heard a gun shot. I just knew the old man was dead and one of the kids had shot him.

I whirled around and began running through the crowd looking for Eva.

.....before anything else happened my alarm went off in real life.

FINDING NEVERLAND

See this movie. If there is any part of you left that enjoys a healthy dose of make-believe or magical fantasy, you must see this movie.

It's the slightly fictionalized life story of James M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan.

They take all the most beautiful and most fun elements of Peter Pan and use them to tell you about the creator's life.

It's warm and human, and beautiful and heart-wrenching, and overall a very fun time.

Johnny Depp plays Mr. Barrie and never fails to make you wish you could've met the real J.M Barrie. Kate Winslet plays his muse. Or, I should say Winslet's family are his muses. Barrie gets drawn into their real world, just as they are drawn into his fantasy world. The two of them almost make you fall in love with their little psuedo-family.

It can drag a bit from time to time, but trust me, when that happens it will pick right back up again.

4 out of 5 poops

*****************

I met an artistic director last night. His name, and his theatre's name will remain untold, so as to avoid the accidental google.

He talked very animatedly about an adaptation he's doing coming up. He insisted I should audition for him. He was very clearly excited about the project, and even managed to get me excited about it too.

I was right there with him until he showed me a flyer. On the flyer were two men hugging. Okay, no problem there, right? One of them was naked. Still no problem there, not for me anyway.

Then he told me the naked man is the role I would be auditioning for.

...hmm. I might have to think about that one.

So, I went into a new store last night. A store that I knew I kind of liked from their catalogue, but I had no idea how much I liked it until now.

IKEA.

Holy crap. That place has some of the coolest furniture. And as all the jokes about it go, yes, some of it is flimsy crap. BUT, some of it, a lot of it, is not. Some of it is really good stuff.

What amazes me too is that they have something for every kind of taste out there. I tend to like tacky stuff. The tackier the better for me. I like odd shapes and color schemes that were popular in the sixties and seventies. They have 'em. But they also have very tasteful, classic things, and sharp, clean, modern looking things. And zany, bright things for children's rooms, etc etc.

I love this store. And I love how they target both markets equally. Meaning they have their affordable things and their rediculously over-priced, rape-you-through-your-wallet things right next to each other throughout the store.

Clever girl, that IKEA.

********************

Saturday night I went out for a few beers with my cousins. WHile waiting in line to pee in the bathroom I had the following exchange with a complete stranger. For our purposes we shall call him Frank.

Frank: (making brief eye-contact with Joey as Joey walks into the crowded men's room) Don't worry, man, I had the same question when I walked in.

Joey: ...I didn'tsay anything.

Frank: You didn't have to, your eyes said it; "where do I stand?"

Joey: (laughing) Maybe I did.

Frank: (his turn arrives, begins to relieve himself) Ooooooh, man! I'm peeing for days over here.

Joey: Beer will do that to you. She'll take you out, show you a good time, make you feel special, and then BAM! Once she's got what she wants, first chance, she'll leave you.
She's a fickle mistress, Lady Beer.


Maybe you had to be there, but Frank and I thought it was pretty damn funny.

Lion King

Last night I was fortunate enough to go see the touring show of Julie Taymor's The Lion King.

It's the big stage adaptation of the Disney movie.

Wow. Visually it blew me away. Ms. Taymor has a real eye for spectacle.

I wish I could describe in detail any of it, but my descriptions would simply not do it justice.

Really.

The performances of the actors playing Scar, Zazu, Timon, Pumbaa, and Rafiki were brilliant. Especially rafiki. They made rafiki a woman, and oh-my-god, she had one of the most incredible voices I have ever heard. Unfortunately, most of the other leads was kind of ho-hum. It seemed to me that many of them fell into the trap that is common when you've done a show for months and months. They seemed to be totally bored with it, and just plodding through it. But the combination of strong supporting characters listed above and amazing sets, costumes, masks, puppets, lights, etc. made for a great show anyway.

Ladies and gentlemen, if you can manage to see this show, you will not regret it.

6 out of 5 poops (it would be higher if some of the actors didn't seem bored)

Giveth and Taketh Away

Last night I finally did it. I achieved "white-hot rage" in the play I'm working on.

And in the process I completely blew out my voice like a cheap speaker.

...this is going to be a long run.

To help preserve my vocal cords I am not speaking at all for the entirety of the day today. I'm going to try to be more careful in rehearsals too. We'll see how that works out.

On the lighter side, tonight I am going to see the touring show of Julie Taymor's The Lion King. For Free! Can't beat that.

Well, I guess you could beat it, if it were... well, I'll leave that up to the imagination.

Once upon a time there was this guy. Let's call him...

Moey.

Moey was an actor who spent a good deal of his free time as an industrious cartoonist and writer. He would have his rehearsals at night, but by day (most days, anyway) he would blog and draw his cartoons to share with everyone on the internet. The writing and cartooning didn't pay anything yet, but Moey enjoyed doing it a great deal anyway.

One day, along came Moey's friend. Let's call him...

Nrandon.

Nrandon played the roll of the serpent in the garden of eden to Moey. He tempted Moey with a bright, shiny apple in the form of a horribly addicitive video game. Moey fought tooth and nail with Nrandon. Moey knew the game would get him cast out of the beautful garden of cartooning and writing, and he knew it would do so primarily because it was suck his soul out of him, through his eyeballs.

After weeks of protesting, and attempting to convince himself he didn't want to play the game, Moey finally relented. His spirit crushed, it promptly left through his eyeballs afterall.

The moral of this story? Never listen to Brandon! ...I MEAN Nrandon! Nrandon!