Moscow... снова

It seems crazy, but I'm in prep mode for my FOURTH journey to Mother Russia and the Moscow Art Theatre.  We had an info meeting yesterday, which was amusing largely because I haven't been around many people lately, and apparently it was sensory overload for me.  This manifested itself in a series of some of the strangest metaphors imaginable.  Seriously... what is wrong with me!?  But regardless, I figured I should probably start the countdown, to get my head in the game - look out Moscow... I'm coming!

Breakup Goggles

I think this may be a phenomenon identified by How I Met Your Mother - the idea that, once you've decided to end a relationship, suddenly you start to see it all through idealized, rose-colored glasses.  Now, this is a faulty metaphor for me, because I have had a wonderful time during my stay here in Marshall, MN.  But in addition to the awesome rehearsals and classes, I've also been more than a little solitary and homesick as well... and that is most definitely the part of the guest director experience that I was least prepared for and am most looking forward to being rid of.  And now, as I'm sitting here in the theatre before our final dress rehearsal, looking ahead to the dwindling days I have left here at SMSU and with the great people I have met here, I am definitely feeling sad that this time is about to come to an end.  Theatre is a small world, and there is every possibility that I may cross paths with many of these folks again at some point, but I have no idea when that will be.  So as much as a big part of me has wanted to go home to Brian and our kitties (and my own bathroom!), the idea of not being here anymore is getting sadder and sadder each day.  I've been so lucky with all the great folks I've met here, it's going to be tough to bid them all farewell!

And even tougher, I have no idea when my next show will be!  It will be awesome to see my boyfriend when he arrives on Friday, and awesome to see our friends in Chicago on Saturday, and awesome to get home to my sweet kitties on Sunday... but once I get back to Ypsi, my immediate (and distant) future is made up entirely of writing my dissertation, writing articles, writing presentations, and applying for jobs.  For the first time in I don't know how long, I have no next show in the pipe.  And that is terrifying.  When will be my next chance to direct or act?  I have no idea.  That, among all the other uncertainties hanging over my head at this particular point in my life, is probably the one that makes me feel the most out to sea.  Well...that and the big question of a paycheck after May... but that just makes me want to throw up a little bit.  So... yeah.

Dead Man's Cell Phone - The Redial

I've been in Marshall, MN since January, rehearsing another production of Dead Man's Cell Phone at Southwest Minnesota State University.  They had already chosen the play before I was hired, so it's a strange little experience to be tackling the same show again so close to my first time through (back in October at Wayne State).  But I'm having a good time here trying to make sense of this play with a new group of students and designers, so I wanted to share some photos from our rehearsals so far (courtesy of my rockin' SM, Turi).

Warming up, pretty early in the process

Gordon on the Subway (yeah... I'm definitely stealing a few bits from myself)

The Other Woman and Jean

Jean and the Other Woman

Jean and The Other Woman

Mrs. Gottlieb and Hermia...and apparently I make claws at my actors a lot

Jean & Dwight

Gordon and Jean

Almost everyone (poor Marissa is just out of the frame)

Jean and Dwight

This time we're just missing Gordon

The follies!

Punching each other is awesome

See...they're still friends after all the punching

I can also do the punching!

From Moscow to Marshall

Last night I taught the first in a series of three workshops about contemporary Russian actor training that I'm offering while I'm here at Southwest Minnesota State University. I've spent the last three summers studying this work at the Moscow Art Theatre, and I've used it myself in rehearsals - to varying degrees of success.  I even incorporated a little bit of it into my Acting 1 class after my first trip to Moscow.  But this was my first chance to take the work I've been doing and package it for delivery to new students in a concentrated way.  And I have to say, I was really surprised by how well it went.  First, I ended up with 16 students, which was basically the perfect size - with this size you can divide the group into two equally sized, still even-numbered, still big enough to be a challenge groups, which allows them the chance to watch and reflect on the work that's being done.  I was worried that I'd have to do a lot of referring to notes and whatnot, but it turned out that, once I got moving, I was in the zone.  I definitely wasn't on Sergei's level - I don't pretend I ever will be - but I did feel like I was maybe channeling him a little bit here and there.  We worked through a number of exercises focused on concentration, ensemble and focus - and they really went for it.  They laughed and made faces and got frustrated, but they also succeeded in a lot of ways, which was a lot of fun.  The big question will come next week, I think, when they have to bring in object etudes.  It's one thing to work together on these exercises, it's something else to create an imaginative illustration of an object and an event.  I'm very interested to see what they bring back to me next week - and I have to admit I'm wondering who will and won't come back.  But in general, I got a great vibe from the group.  I'm really looking forward to the work they're going to do next week, building off of our time together.  This is a small department, but boy is it energetic!  Go Mustangs!  And, on a personal note, I'm feeling pretty proud of myself!  Hooray team me! (Ура команда меня!)

White Out

Have you ever driven through a white out?  I haven't... until today.  I have definitely driven in some pretty crappy weather.  I have white-knuckled it past spun-out cars, crawling along between all-too-sparse street lights and making bargains with all kinds of deities to get where I'm going.  But I'll tell ya... all of that became a pleasant memory today when I got stuck driving through white out conditions.  I landed in Sioux Falls, SD around 2:00, and it was a beautiful day.  Sure, it was cold and windy, but it was sunny and clear, and the roads were completely dry - a great day for a drive.  I got a few miles into Minnesota and saw something strange ahead of me - it was sort of like a wall of snow, but there weren't any clouds in the sky per se.  I figured I was just driving into some snow, but then I discovered something new.  I wasn't just driving into the snow, I was swallowed by it.  Inside this cloud, there was nothing.  There was just me, and about two yellow lines in front of me if I was lucky.  I couldn't see ahead or behind or to the side... I just had me.  For a while, I also had the person behind me.  We trailed along at 15-20 miles per hour for about 20 miles, at times I could barely see his headlights, but knowing he was there made me feel a little less alive.  There's pretty much a whole lot of nothing out here anyway, and it felt extra lonely as I was enveloped in swirly grey and white - no sign of humanity on any side.  I was getting to a point where I was actually considering pulling into the next farm house I saw and begging for help.  Luckily, I came upon a gas station in the teensy weensy town of Jasper, where I pulled off to have a little panic attack.  When I got there there was the guy behind the counter, and two large old me hanging out at a tiny little booth at the front of the store.  They chatted with me for a while, I called folks to try to decide what to do, and eventually, I made the extremely scary decision to get back on the road - trying to make it to the slightly less teensy weensy town of Pipestone, where there was a hotel.  This last twelve miles of the drive turned out to be the weirdest of the entire drive.  Sometimes the road cleared enough for me to speed up a bit, but then it would swoop in around me again, so I mostly just rode the rumble strip in the shoulder of the road and gave myself an ongoing manic pep talk.  But the weirdest part was that, for most of this part of the drive, I could actually see blue sky.  I could see the clear blue sky, but I couldn't see the road in front of me.  And when I finally got to Pipestone (named, because this area was the source for the stone used in Native American pipes back in the day), I took a moment to look around.  The air had cleared a bit, so I could see where I sat in relation to the rest of the storm.  As I looked out to the horizon, I saw billowing clouds on most sides, but they were billowing from the ground, not from the sky.  Mostly the snow wasn't falling, it was just being blown around, and it made it look like the ground was spewing forth all manner of hell.  It kind of reminded me of photos of the Dust Bowl... or like that ridiculous sand storm scene in the last Mission Impossible movie.  I can't explain it.  It was horrifying and stressful and scary and alone, and when I got to the hotel, all I wanted to do was just fall down off my shaky knees and weep for a bit, but as I walked into the lobby, I discovered that a middle school basketball team and their parents had made the same stop I had - and they all had to check in before I did.  I and the two other lone travelers beside me stood there for 30 minutes, waiting for all of these people to check in, and silently praying to ourselves that there would be a room for us once we got to the front.  Luckily, there was, so I retired to my new room and proceeded to call parents and boyfriend again - this time without the hyperventilating and weeping while leaning up against a Land O Lakes cooler in the back corner of a gas station.  When I think about it, the white out is a pretty fascinating and weirdly beautiful phenomenon, but it's one that I would be happy not to experience ever again.  EVER.

Happy 2014!

Well, it seems that another year has ended, starting a whole new one, that will pass just as quickly as the last.  It's like it's a cycle or something.  And I'm looking ahead at a GIANT year.  So far I have a guest director slot at Southwest Minnesota State University (directing Dead Man's Cell Phone...again) in January and February (the best time to be in Minnesota, for sure); then I'm presenting two papers (that I also have to write) at the Mid-American Theatre Conference in Cleveland in March; this will be followed by presenting a paper at the Comparative Drama Conference in Baltimore in April; then I'll be back to Moscow for one last June; July has Brian's friend's wedding in California and my friend's wedding in New York; then the final week has not one, but TWO conferences to which I have submitted proposals: one in Scottsdale, AZ and one in Warwick, England.  During all of this, I'm searching for jobs and writing my dissertation, which does need to be in pretty close to done state by, oh, let's say Halloween...maybe Thanksgiving.

I think I'm going to throw up.

But because things are moving so fast, and are going to be so overwhelmingly busy, I think I'm going to make an effort to keep better records of my thoughts and experiences as they zoom by at breakneck speed... which means I'm going to try to keep up with my blog a bit more. I used to really like blogging.  And maybe getting myself on a regular trajectory of writing here will help me in writing the 3-5 conference papers (so far) and that pesky dissertation.

So here we go.  Not so much a resolution as just a, "hey... here's something that might help my brain."

Enjoy.

Or don't.

Whatever.

The Passion Conversation

Last week was a busy, crazy, nutso week for me here in grad-school-donia.  There were power outages and migraines and university bureaucracy galore.  But this is not a post about that.  This is a post about a little pick-me-up.  I am working on my PhD, which means that books are a pretty substantial part of my life.  It's a rare week that goes by without my receiving a book (or two... or more) in the mail.  So there was nothing immediately remarkable when I came home the other night to find a book in my mailbox.  But as I trudged up the three flights to my apartment, I noticed the return address: Brains on Fire.  It was a copy of their latest book, which I had had a hand in proofing.  How sweet of them to send me a copy!  I opened the box as I climbed - never one for delayed gratification - and flipped open the cover to find that it was also signed by all of the BoF crew.  And I'll tell ya, this made me smile.  I'm sure mine wasn't the only signed book that went out.  And as it's been about five years since I left, the people I know there are now pretty much outnumbered by the people I don't.  But still, I was moved.  It was a little long distance hug from this wacky family I got to spend a few years with, and it was a recognition that, no matter how many years or miles or degrees pass, I'm still a part of that family.  And that's really what The Passion Conversation is about, isn't it?  The myriad little things that a company can do to bring smiles to the faces of those who encounter them?  Because isn't a smile the spark of any passion?

Thanks, BoF!  Love you guys!