Fat Dog, Nice Flower

What's been taking me so long? I've been busy -- that's my lame excuse. I think I had a true day off about a month ago. I'm tired, but happy, and not sitting around twiddling my thumbs. Imagination Stage has been keeping me busy. Along with Sleeping Beauty and the reading for The Christmas Doll, I also took part in their fundraising Gala, which involved the SB castmembers and a few dozen kids of various ages, scenes and musical numbers (I sang solo for the first section of "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" and sang and signed in a presentation of "Aurora's Song," which featured a member of the Deaf Access program), some awards and presentations and the dedication of the Christopher and Dana Reeve theatre, featuring a touching speech from a video-taped John Lithgow. The part that amazed me most was during the reception that followed -- a number of the kids gave me hugs before they left, and I realized that they enjoyed being a part of the Gala immensely. One of the kids, Elijah, dragged me over to the piano player (Glen, I believe) who was playing in the newly named Reeve Theatre, and he made me sing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" with him again! Soon I noticed that a number of people had crowded around for this new, impromptu performance. Elijah continued, singing songs like "Paper Moon" and "Margaritaville" with the pianist -- I managed to escape after "SOtR."

Monday two weeks ago I went to a general audition at Center Stage in Baltimore. Last Monday I did a photoshoot for an online "English as a Second Language" training program (through a series of 70-some pictures, I portrayed an occasionally bungling street cop). I had a couple of commercial auditions on Thursday and Friday. Last night I had an audition at Rep Stage for Bach at Leipzig, and today I drove to Cumberland for a general audition at Cumberland Theatre.

Wee!!!!!! And Sleeping Beauty has one more week to go. Not sure what happens next.

And below is a picture for a dog food commercial that made me laugh out loud. I first found it at Neatorama (where you can also see another funny commercial from the same company), and you can see a bigger copy of it HERE.

I made a quick trip to Wayside Theatre Friday a week-and-a-half to see their production of Othello. It was a wonderful production, some great performances from some of my favorite folks, fantastic set (I want it in my house, but it won't fit), great direction. If you didn't get out to see it, too bad for you, it's closed. I suggest you send notes to Warner, saying things like, "Do more Shakespeare! I promise to see it! And don't you think Peter would make a wonderful Richard III?"
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Did you ever notice that the difference between "denial" and "Denali" is just a move of the "i"?
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I have a little dream of creating my own mini-zoo. I already have an aquarium with 3 frogs and a few fish. Frogs are cooler than fish. I also hope to have a little ant farm soon, either by building it or buying it.
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And by the way, I'm enjoying the heck out of Sleeping Beauty at Imagination Stage. After playing a number of serious roles in war time plays, it's a great change of pace. Hearing the laughter of little kids is wonderful. On Sunday, I saw one little kid and his granddad sitting on the floor, watching our show. How BEAUTIFUL is that?!

(And what you see here is a little cartoon of a very young Aurora - a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty - already inspired by "girl knight" Brandamant, a.k.a. Bradamant.)

If you ain't busy, you should check out The Christmas Doll Tuesday the 3rd at 7 pm at the Round House stage in Silver Spring, MD. This ain't purple dinosaurs-style children's theatre. This has some dark stuff in it. I think it's a good show.

And if you're not at this reading, then you'd better be watching Carl Randolph at Round House's Bethesda stage, where they tacked on a couple of extra performances of A Prayer for Owen Meany, including this particular Tuesday. I can't think of anything else worth doin' an a Tuesday night.