Holy Lizards

I've been busy the last month-and-a-half, with travel (visiting various relatives), teaching, and auditioning. I am really, really tired, mainly from the teaching, which just finished today (almost: now I just have to finish grading a few things and fill out some paperwork). On Monday the 22nd was a general audition for a number of area theatres -- I was there all day, because, along with my own audition, I also helped sign people in. Not a bad day -- a few folks, unsolicited, said they liked my audition, and I had the chance to see a few friends, including Carl Randolph, Warner Crocker and his wife Thomasin (from Wayside Theatre) , Chris Youstra and Margo Seibert, with whom I worked at Imagination Stage. And I have a callback already at Signature Theatre in a few days, about which I'll say naught more at this moment, lest I hex it.
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Interesting stuff:
A virgin Komodo dragon has recently given birth to 5 baby dragons. (Okay, "gave birth" is a touch inaccurate -- she laid the eggs, and then they hatched.) I'm sure this'll be horribly offensive to someone: what if this were the Second Coming? Why not? Couldn't Christ could take the form of 5 adorable baby Komodo dragons if He so pleased? Additional proof of the involvement of a higher power: they've been eating locusts (perhaps to gear up for the next plague of 'em).

New items for my materialistic Christmas wish list: I 'd like an "adaptive wave" catamaran. Or a hydrogen powered motorcycle (shame it only does 50 mph, but apparently it has kick-ass acceleration).

Word, Y'all

While looking at the website Neatorama (specifically, the little blurb about the Pillow Fight League in Toronto) . . . .

. . . a random word popped into my brain, and now it's our word of the day: oubliette. An oubliette is "a dungeon with an opening only at the top" and it comes the French word oublier meaning "to forget" (i.e., it's a place where you can be forgotten, not where you can go to, say, forget about your troubles, though I can see how that could work -- I wouldn't be worried about car repairs or taxes if I happened to be thrown into an oubliette). Live it, love it, learn it. See if you can use it in casual conversation.

Santa's Gone Bonkers. I Came Close.

The fat lady sang on Sunday -- Twelfth Night at Cumberland Theatre has closed. What an interesting, odd ride.

'06 has been a decent year for me, theatrically: 28 weeks in rehearsal or onstage, somewhere over 100 performances, thousands of people came to the shows, adults and children both, and lucky me, I've made 'em laugh and cry and a few other things inbetween.

And personally it's been stellar -- Jenny and are now m-m-married. I got the best lady in the land! Still don't know how I pulled that off.

And I finally went to a foreign country (Belize), woohoo!

But hey, here's hoping '07 tops '06! Life! Hooha!

It's almost Christmas time. Jenny and I are off to Mississippi in just over a dozen hours.

Here's another drawing for you. Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Fantastic Festivus, Stupendous Solstice, etc.! Happy Holidays!

COLD

It is 43 degrees outside, "feels like 39" according to Yahoo! weather, here in Cumberland at 4pm. Tonight it should hit 2o degrees. The house where many of the actors stay doesn't keep out the cold -- last night, along with the sheet, two blankets, and a comforter, I wore sweatpants, tank-top, sweatshirt and a hoodie to bed! The heat seems to work in small, very selective parts of the house, none of which are remotely close to my room. I hate, hate, HATE being cold!
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Last night was our "official" opening night for Twelfth Night. We had good-sized crowd, and they overall seemed to have a pretty good time. At the reception that followed, a gentleman said that he loved the show and that I had done a great job.

Then he asked me if I played Feste, the clown.

I currently have a goatee. Andrew, who plays Feste, does not.

The gentleman said I look very different in person.

It must be because as Orsino I wear a suit. Yes, that must be it.

I'm Dreamy, and I Smell Like Peanut Butter Cup

Twelfth Night opened yesterday, with a matinee and an evening show. The audiences were small, but so I'm told that's normal for the Wednesday opening shows, because everyone in town knows the cast is still bumping through it a bit. I've heard Friday should be good.
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My face was feeling dry, so I went out and got some lotion, which happened to have cocoa butter in it. Esther (Viola) said she thinks her character is attracted to Orsino because he's "dreamy and smells like a peanut butter cup."
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And I got to meet another celebrity, who I found out is from this area: William H. Macy. From our brief meeting and according to our director, Mr. Macy is a really good guy, friendly. He was impressed that we put this show up in a week (true, that's no small accomplishment). After the evening show, Bob, the Stage Manager, told the cast "someone wants to meet you." My first thought when I came out was, "Huh, that guy look like Bill Macy." My second thought was, "Oh, that's because . . . ."

Happy Tofurkey Day

A rough sketch from last year, but it still works.

Penguins Can So Fly

I managed to work myself into a good blue funk for a while today. When I got over that, I drew this for you:

Ego

A happy accident: Jen and I went to a Starbucks for a snack. Jen dug through that bin that people drop their pre-read newspapers in, and look-y what she found on the cover of the Washington Post Weekend section:
Yeah, that's me dressed as the King, with some kids who had just seen Sleeping Beauty. At the exact moment this picture was taken, I was plotting with the kids on how we were going to raid the lobby area and take all the cupcakes for ourselves. For the moment, you can also find the pic HERE and the related article (with a picture of Margo Seibert, SB's Aurora) HERE.

Orsino-ful and Fasch-less

I've been avoiding my blog. It's a dangerous time right now. Too much space around me.

Sleeping Beauty closed on Sunday. It was a great experience, and I miss those folks. I want to work with them again.

I am ready to return to more adult audiences now, after listening to the little ones laugh for a while. The batteries are feeling refreshed. With that in mind --

I'll be playing Duke Orsino in Twelfth Night at Cumberland Theatre -- a quick run, opening Dec. 6 and closing Dec. 17. He's a fun, lusty, egocentric character, and I'm very ready to play in that territory for a litle while. Also, on Nov. 27 at 7pm, I will be in a staged reading of Voodoo Today Here Now 5, by Joe Musso, at Rep Stage / HCC, in the recital studio in the new performing arts building.

So I guess that's all good. But it's not all, not quite. See, I recently had an audition for Bach at Leipzig, and I didn't get the role. Life of an actor, yes . . . but this one I worked very hard for, pushing for the audition, and memorizing and working and reworking and reworking two long monologues and a couple scenes. So I was very disappointed when it went to someone else (even though I like the guy), because this role meant a lot to me. It's taking some time to wash away. Odd. I have the most success with the auditions I'm casual about ( tho' not, NOT, apathetic!) -- which is why I've been really successful with commercial auditions, because I'm absolutely incapable of taking them too seriously.

Well, well. Sometimes I hit, sometimes I miss, sometimes Republicans win, sometimes Democrats (and boy-o-boy, the R's earned the drubbing they got this go 'round), and throughout it all, the big blue world keeps turning regardless. That I love.

Bang for a Buck

Yesterday morning, while driving on the DC beltway, I saw this in my rearview mirror:

A police officer pulled out his pistol and shot a buck.

The buck was lying on the side of the road -- apparently hit by a car, severely injured but not yet dead. The officer was doing a good thing. Still, it's a heck of a way to start halloween morning. I heard the shot, too.