A Night Off!

This morning began with a trip to Starbucks, because sometimes it doesn’t matter how interesting a class is – if the lights are off, I’m going to be asleep.  So after sucking down a venti  Mocha Frappuccino for which I paid what must be the price of a small child in some countries, I was ready for film history.  And today we watched the fantastic, but oh-so-Soviet film The Cranes are Flying.  The cinematography and the acting are so damn good… and the ending is so damn Soviet!  And overall, it’s a really great learning experience to watch it.

We had a quick lunch today and then headed off to acting class in which our group etudes were again a lot of fun.  Where yesterday we had the apocalypse and statues coming to life and critiquing art students, today we had a newly painted wall that is magically sticky if people touch it in the wrong place, and a wine that makes everyone only able to sing (in this case it was Bohemian Rhapsody and Always Look on the Bright Side of Life).  It started off class with a really fun energy.  And then getting to rhapsodize to Sergei about Master and Margarita also got our juices going, so much of our warming up was really good today.  Our Chekhov etudes are still hovering in this “good idea, incomplete execution” place, but hopefully we’re fumbling in the right direction.

Then, after class, something magical happened: I went back to the dorm.  We had a few tickets to the MXAT’s production of Marriage, which I have already seen, so I opted to let other people take the tickets, and I just went the hell home.  I stopped at a couple stores on the way back to the dorm, I got groceries – including a couple beers.  It was downright civilized! 

I had every intention of spending the evening working on my conference paper (the level of writer’s block I’m dealing with on this thing is EPIC), but I managed to be distracted by conversations with people both here and back home… so I didn’t get much done, but I did get caught up on my journal… and I did get some much needed mellow.  I have Monday night off too... but I'm going to make myself work on something other than my paper... because I really do deserve to do that.  I have been dying to work on my script for Dead Man's Cell Phone, which I'll be directing in September.  I feel like working on my prep work while I'm soaking in all these awesome Russia juices would be very good for me!  So Monday... I've got a date with Sarah Ruhl (and, let's be honest... probably another beer).