Lots of news and happenings

Posting career info on your Facebook page is pretentious. I don't care about what gig you have this week. I don't care about with whom you're performing. I don't care about where you're performing. I don't care to see pictures of the food you've been eating while you're performing in said city. I don't care to hear about the traffic in the city where you're performing. I DON'T CARE! Facebook is a social networking cite. Save career info, photos, etc. for the website you use to promote your career and use Facebook to increase the number of people on your friends list.

Now that that's off my chest I can say that a lot has happened since I last posted. As everyone probably knows, James' mother passed away very suddenly about two or three weeks ago. I saw her on Friday morning of that week as did a couple of the neighbors. James talked to her that same day as did his aunt Alice and she seemed fine other than an upper respiratory infection that was getting better. The next morning, Saturday, her neighbor Jan found her on the floor of her bedroom. It looked like she'd started to get up, like she always did, and was struck by a sudden heart attack. James was in South Carolina with the Tenors and couldn't get back until early sunday morning. My mother was kind enough to let James' brother fly back from Toronto using one of her passes on American Airlines.

Everyone seems to be doing great. James and Johnny have never been the kind of people to wallow in sorrow. They are taking it in stride and doing their best to move forward. They have up and down moments. James said he was in a book store the other day and realized he was looking for books for his mom or he thinks of something he needs to ask his mom.

Also in true McQuillen fashion, the day after the memorial James started making plans to have all the bathrooms in the house remodeled. His grandmother had her house remodeled which his grandfather died and James's mother had a large part of the house redone when James's father died. Having the bathrooms renovated was something James been talking about with his mother so he figured why not go ahead and get it taken care of. The bathrooms haven't been touched since the house was built and are in desperate need of updating. They are decorated in tan, beige, brown, taupe and any other shade or hue of brown you can come up to. It's pretty bad. We are planning to move into the house after the bathrooms are finished. They mortgage on the house is almost paid off so we're going to move into the house when the bathrooms are finished, hopefully around the first of the year.

the other big news is that I recently auditioned for the Metropolitan Opera chorus. I sang well but I have no idea when I'll hear from them. I would be hired as extra chorus which means I might only be in one or two productions. It depends on what they need. We'll wait and see.

that's about it for now. Things are scooting right along. More soon!

New Post!!!!!

It's been ages since I've posted anything. I am finding that I'm not one of these people who blogs constantly. I don't have a thought and then, quick, write in my blog. I also feel as though my day to day life is pretty mundane so I don't feel the need to be writing things like, "I went to the store, I got gas, I paid the electric." They have that feature on Facebook now, which I'm convinced is a government conspiracy created to spy on us civilians, where you can punch in where you are all day long all the time. I don't want folks to know where I'm having dinner or where I'm buying my underwear! That's none of their damn business! Anyway, I shall endeavor to catch my teeny, tiny audience up on what I've been doing lately.

First big thing was that I came down with the flu a couple of weeks ago. It really put me out of commission for a day or two. At first I thought it was just allergies but as it got worse and worse and I started to feel achy I knew it was much more than allergies. It only lasted a day or two but ever since I've had a nasal infection. I finally went to the the fabulous Dr. Presley Mock who gave me some meds for that and also gave me a new prescription for Aciphex which is for my acid reflux.

Things are going well on the vocal front aside from swollen cords caused by drainage from said nasal infection. Other than that I've been singing really well. I'm not sure what happened but late last August something clicked. I realized that I didn't have to "try" to support. Support is a tricky word because it implies that some kind of physical strength is being applied to make something happen so it's probably not the best word to use. All my life I've had a lot of teachers, especially my undergrad teacher, tell me That in order to "support" I had to hold the rib cage open or I had to resist letting the rib cage collapse, I had to feel the sensation of pushing down as I sing as though I'm going to poop, etc. I have been told MANY different things and I've come to the realization that all of them cause TENSION in the THROAT. Any sense of holding or pushing or forcing is going to set up tension because you're trying to make your body do something it's not accustomed to. This manipulation puts tension right into the throat and so the larynx isn't free to do what it needs to do. BIG "ah ha!" moment for me.

So, back in august I decided to just try taking in a comfortable, full, expansive low breath and just let the air out as the voice sounded. Don't get in the way, don't try to keep anything expanded, just let body REACTE to what the voice is doing. Basically, what I was doing is getting out of the way so the voice could do what it needed to do. Ever since then, things have gotten better and better. I have found that the voice goes right into the grove where it can resonate freely and when it's not in that grove I can tell that they air isn't doing what it needs to do. The top 6 notes in my voice, basically from the passaggio to the C, have all gotten MUCH easier to sing. I can leap octaves much easier now, I can start a phrase on a high note without getting tied in knots. Most importantly, I'm not scared of high notes anymore. They stay hooked into the rest of the voice and they stay connected to the body.

I had a lesson the other day where we did 30 minutes of vocalizing and then worked on a couple of demanding english art songs. Things were great! All the high notes were connected, resonant and easy to access, my legato worked and it was actually FUN to work on the songs! At the end of the lesson I felt as fresh and ready to go as I'd felt when I walked in the room.

What's most exciting is how consistent everything has become. I know what the notes are going to feel like, I know how the air needs to react to the voice, and I know how the voice feels when it's resonating correctly and I know how took keep it in the groove so it will keep on resonating. It's all very exciting and makes me want to practice (when I'm not sick) and learn new music!

That's it for now. I have a busy afternoon planned. I want to talk about what's going on with my pottery so more later.

HUGS!

Fall posting. Not much to report.

There's not really much to say right now but I haven't posted in a while so I thought I'd leave an entry.

Fall has fallen, sort of. school is back in session but I have pretty much finished my course work so all I'm registered for right now is voice lessons. I'm finding now that there are lots of odd loose ends to take care of. Quals, writtens and orals, a recital and a lecture recital, foreign language barrier to pass. It's all stuff I have to register for but it doesn't require that I go to a class on a regular basis so it's hard to get motivated. James suggested I make out a "to do" list in chronological order. What needs to be done first, second, third and so on. I can then check things off as I go along and hopefully this damn degree will be finished sooner than later.

Opera chorus has been going full tilt for a few weeks although those of us who aren't in Giovanni have almost three weeks off which is nice but I'd rather get the pay check. We seem to have a nice cast for Anna Bolena and a wonderful director in Steven Lawless. We're back on the Globe Theater set with the addition of some very tall, louvered walls mounted on wheels so they can be pulled into various configurations by supers. It seems to divide the stage into smaller playing areas and I think will be very effective.

I realized recently that I've barely mentioned my pottery! I have been taking new pics of my pots in anticipation of putting some pieces up on etsy. I haven't done it yet because I'm afraid my works not good enough and will be rejected by the etsy shopping community. This is just a vampire, I realize, but it's looming large for me at the moment. I'm sure I'll pluck up the courage soon and put a few pieces up for sale and see what happens. when I do I will let you all know.

I could write more but it's late and I'm ready for bed. More to come, I promise!

nighty night!

START SPREADIN' THE NEWS!!!!!!! (Liza wind up!!!!!!)

This past week James and I hopped a plane and went to NYC for three days. Now that the craziness of our Ohlook summer is over we decided to take advantage of a little down time to get out of town and take in some different scenery. Not that New York is new to us, been there, done that, but the chance to see a few shows and wander through a couple of museums always gets the creative juices flowing again.

Having taken the creativity workshop with Susan Blackwell earlier in the summer, the thought that came to mind during this trip was "grounded, specific and self-expressed". These words come from Susan Blackwell herself and they/it/this phrase has been the theme of my summer, or at least the last half of my summer. Susan Blackwell was a co-writer of [title of show] and as we were going through the rehearsal process for our little production I kept this phrase close by, repeating it to myself whenever I wasn't sure what path to take. Keep it simple! This harder than it sounds. I'm happy to say that our "Little Show" turned out beautifully. James and I were so lucky to get the AMAZING cast we had in Marianne Galloway, Jennifer Pasion, Marshall Warren and John Davenport. From day one their performances were focused, self-aware, and incredibly honest and real. I ran the light bored for all 8 performances of our too brief run and for all 8 I sat there with a huge, gleeful grin on my face! What a wonderful gift to be given this cast and this show. As a result of the wonderful cast and their deep understanding of the characters, we got lots of WONDERFUL comments from our audiences and managed to get a fantastic review from a local critic. Our plan now is to take the show to the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival next summer. We have a lot of money to raise to make that dream a reality but I know we can do it. The cast is totally behind us and I think we'll discover that there are a lot of folks who believe in us and what we want to do. Crossies!

All of this recent activity came to mind during our trip this past week. While in NYC two of the four shows we saw reminded me specifically of Susan Blackwell's words. We FINALLY saw South Pacific at Lincoln Center. We were lucky enough to get to see Kelli O'Hara and Paulo Szot reprise their roles only a week before the show closes. A large number of the original cast were still with the show so it was as though we were seeing it soon after opening. We all know what a hit this show has been so I don't have to tell you that it was STUNNING to look at! Michael Yeargin took advantage of the vast stage of the Vivian Beaumont Theater and created both intimate and wide open spaces within the same production. Most impressive! The show sounded amazing! It was such a refreshing change to see a show that didn't hit you over the head with amplified sound and which had actors who SING OUT with big, booming voices! WOW!!!!

But what really impressed me was how REAL Kelli O'Hara and Paulo Szot were in their performances. There were no histrionics, there was no "I'm a big, big star playing an iconic role so I'm going to over-do everything and be self-indulgent" performances. Just real, connected, grounded, specific and self-expressed. Inspiration!

The big surprise of the week and what really brought Susan Blackwell's words home to me in a big way was the off broadway revival of Our Town at the Barrow Street Theater which is also closing soon. This production was performed in a small, makeshift space on a very, VERY intimate thrust stage, so intimate that you could easily, at any time, reach out and touch the actors. Everyone on stage wore only rehearsal clothes and a bare minimum of props and furniture were used. The house lights never went down and, in fact, it seemed as though no stage lights were used although there were times when the lights seemed to get brighter and in the third act the lights were definitely dimmer than in the previous two.

Basically, this is a play about small town life. I have seen it twice before. the words boring, soporific, long, dull, excruciating, inconsequential come to mind. This was anything but! There was such an incredible focus and urgency in the performances, such a depth of understanding and connection between the characters that it was palpable. We, the audience, felt what the characters felt. If they cried, I found myself crying. If they laughed, I laughed. The first and second acts seemed to go by in an instant. They weren't dull or slow or boring at all! I was riveted, hanging in every word.

BUT, the most profound and moving moment came in the third act. Emily has died and is in the graveyard where she encounters the other characters who have also died. She asks the stage manager if she can go back and experience one day from her life. He finally agrees and draws back a curtain that I for one had not really noticed before this moment. After all the rehearsal clothes and rehearsal props, the curtain revealed an amazingly detailed set of a turn of the century kitchen. Emily's mother was fully costumed, hair done, make up on. When she went to cook bacon it sizzled in a VERY hot cast iron skillet! We could smell it! She then scrambled eggs in that same pan. The coffee had steam rising from it. The water pump pumped water! The point was made by Emily and driven home by this moment in the production. As we go through our lives we don't pay attention to what we do on a day to day basis. We don't see and observe. At this moment, after Emily has died, she sees everything clearly.

My question after seeing this production was this: Why aren't we doing this in Dallas? Every production, every performance could be just as immediate, just as moving, just as deeply felt and understood by both the actors and the audience and yet we don't seem to get that here. Instead we are forced to settle for work that doesn't trust it's material, misses the point completely and settles for simply "good enough" rather than "right".

Trust the material! Understand the material and what point it's trying to make! Don't settle for "good enough"!!!

I could not have asked for a better evening!

Things are always busy at Ohlook PAC. I went with James to a 1030am performance of The Secret Garden. It's the children's show. By a mix of kids and adults and for kids. HUGE highschool auditorium but not a huge audience. Then over to Plano to see the garden and out to Grapevine for the opening of Little Shop of Horrors and the late night show of [title of show].

Little Shop has come together much faster than it should have and everything felt as though it waited until the last minute to settle. Tonight was wild. I have stepped in at the last minute to play the voice of Audrey II which is no big deal. I have listened to the cast album since I was about twelve so it's safe to say I am familiar with the part. I have a music stand and a stand light tucked away in the crawl space behind the set but I was not prepared for the doo-wap girls when they also had to be crawling around back there! It's already a tight space and they didn't help! Anyway, I think I finally found a spot to stand that's out of the way but I can do what I have to do.

It's such fun playing this part! It is a role I've never gotten to do and, frankly, never thought I'd get to do. AND there is no pressure because I'm never on stage! I have a freedom I don't usually experience when performing. YAY!!!

As soon as we were done with our Little Shop performance the turn around had to happen so we could do [title of show]. I thought it was going to be a nightmare but amazingly everyone was able to get all the accoutrament including the plants moved out so that our little show could move in. A lot of the Ohlook kids hung around but we had a lot of folks just coming to the show. So much so that the show was sold out!!!!

I had pretty much given up on Alexandra Binfield coming to review the show. She said she might but I hadn't heard anything else from her so I assumed she wasn't coming. Just as I was about to go make the curtain speech Jill came and found me and said, "the critic is here!" I went outside, shook her hand, welcomed her and ushered her into the theater. Of course, she managed to find a seat on the front row where the actors could see her plain as day. I made a point of not telling anyone she was there so they wouldn't be nervous. I gave my curtain speech and we started the show. I noticed that the Ms. Benifield never cracked a smile. Not once! I was later told she chuckled a time or two but I didn't see it.

The audience LOVED the show!!! They didn't just laugh, they HOWLED, and a couple of times there was seriously prolonged laughter. When Jeff asked Hunter if he had his hands down the back of his pants and Hunter replied no I thought the audience would never stop laughing! I think there were three rolls of laughter but it was hard to tell because the audience didn't want to stop! Of course, it was a fantastic performance. How could it not be? What I loved about the show tonight was that it really felt like an event and the actors really rose to the occasion. I must say, I can't imagine doing this show with anyone else. The cast is so connected and is having such fun! I couldn't have asked for more! I hope next weekend goes even better and we have big audiences again!

More to come!

The garden and the theater

Well, the garden looks great! Today we went to North Haven Gardens and bought Garret juice, concentrated vinegar and compost tea. The garret juice keeps the aphids away from the cucumbers, the concentrated vinegar is good for killing weeds and the compost tea is a good fertilizer. We could actually make our own compost tea with our compost which I think we can finally go ahead and do now that we have enough. While we were at North Haven we took a stroll through their display vegetable garden. We were thrilled to see that they are also growing melons, egg plants, peppers, cucumbers, melons, squash and okra.

Everything in the garden seems to be doing great. We decided to pull out the corn because upon inspection we realized that the plants were unevenly pollinated. The corn stopped growing when it was only waist high and the ears never got very big. When we pulled back the husks on several ears we discovered tiny kernels and big kernels unevenly spaced. Pollination has to be airborn where corn is concerned so it's really the luck of the draw. We are probably going to plant more and see what happens. Can't hurt.

The melons, on the other hand, are doing great! We are starting to see little tiny nodules develop under the blossoms that are going to turn into yummy melons here in a few weeks. The new squash is just beginning to appear above the dirt. This time, we're going to try to be careful and keep the squash bore worms away.

Turning to things theatrical, [title of show] is going great!!! We had very good, very demonstrative audiences and the cast did a fantastic job! I think now that The Wedding Singer is over the Ohlook kids will be coming to the show and doing their part to fill seats. I have been trying to get a reviewer out to see the show but it's been tough. Part of the problem has been the fact that a lot of critics have ten million summer shows to review around Dallas right now so it's just a matter of finding time in their schedules. Also, I think critics are hesitant to review our show because it was just done at Theater Three. I guess it seems like old news to them. I want a review to include in our materials when we apply to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It can improve our chances of getting into a good venue which increases our chances of good audiences at the Fringe. I'm still working on it so we'll see.

I guess that's about it. Stay cool! Stay tuned in! Stay inspired!

More to come!

Theatrical Criticism

Since [title of show] opened I have been working really hard trying to get the word out about our show and drum up an audience. In working toward this end I have been getting in touch with a couple of local critics and asking them to come review the show. One of them wrote back that he didn't like the show itself but he'd try to get someone out to see it. I think that's an interesting comment. Is he saying that because he doesn't like the show he would give it a bad review no matter how good it might be? Since when does criticism hinge on weather or not the critic likes the show, the composer, the lyricist, the director, the actors, the set designer, the costume designer or the producing organization?

Dictionary.com defines the word "criticism" as "the act or art of analyzing and evaluating or judging the quality of a literary or artistic work, musical performance, art exhibit, dramatic production, etc." That being said I ask the question, should critics let their personal views enter into their review? If they don't like an actor, director, etc. should that opinion play into their review. I have always been under the impression that the goal of criticism was to look at a work as a whole and determine weather or not the parts add up to that whole. Has the show reached the goal it has set for itself and do the parts, i.e. actors' performances, sets, props, costumes, sound, lighting, etc. all do their part to reach that goal? In my opinion, if a critic lets his or her personal opinion enter into the discussion then they aren't doing their job. I say, save personal opinions for your blog or an op/ed piece or a book you're thinking about writing.

More to come!

A Busy Summer

Things have been very busy since I got back from the Czech Republic. The day after arriving home I was thrown into rehearsals for Sweeney Todd at Ohlook PAC out in Grapevine. Ohlook is a theater school that works with kids from about the age of six all the way up to adults. Over the summer they have a crazy performance schedule with the children's shows happening during the day and the more adult shows at night. Our rehearsals took place from 2 to 6 everyday while rehearsals for Ohlook's productions of Reefer Madness and Evil Dead: The Musical took place in the evenings.

The plan had been for Ohlook's new building to be built before the summer which, of course, didn't happen. As a result a lot of the summer shows are being rehearsed and performed in the Cafegymnasitorium at the Clarinden School in Southlake. It's not ideal at all. There are no dressing rooms, no "cast only" bathrooms, and while there is a stage, there is literally no wing space. It's just a raised stage floor with steps leading up to it and then three large, bare walls. There are almost no lighting instruments in the space and no mikes. The director brought mikes from the high school where she teaches but apparently she didn't see fit to let Ohlook use them for the rest of the summer so they are doing the best they can in a space where the sound doesn't carry very far once it comes out of your mouth. Many of the roles in Sweeney were triple cast which presented all kinds of problems. It made rehearsals problematic in that rehearsal time was not doled out fairly. Those who were favored by the director tended to get more rehearsal time while others were seriously under-rehearsed. Not an ideal situation.

Once we were open, James and I started rehearsals for [title of show]. This has been my first experience directing a full scale musical. Granted, this is a very intimate, no frills show, but it's 90 minutes with all four on stage most of that time and I had never directed anything with a running time longer than an hour. I managed to avoid panicking by being incredibly organized and prepared. I have Candace Evans to thank for that. Three summers ago when we worked on Cabaret together she was the textbook example of what a well prepared director should be.

But this isn't about me. Our cast is AMAZING and needs to be commended! I have been so blessed to be working with Marianne Galloway, Jennifer Pasion, Marshall Warren and John Davenport. I couldn't ask for better! They have worked so hard in rehearsals and taken everything James and I have told them and made it better than I could have hoped for. I extend a giant thank you to them!

On paper it looked like we had lots of rehearsal time but due to the Ohlook performance schedule and James being the music director for both Reefer and Evil Dead, we could only rehearse four days a week. The cast rose to the challenge and has done an amazing job! We managed to pull the show together in about nine days of rehearsal which is VERY fast and not ideal. The cast got into the habit of meeting early to run lines before rehearsal which was a tremendous help! I wish we'd had time to routine the show a little more but no matter. I am thrilled with the wonderful job they are doing!

This past monday we made an appearance at Mama's Party to promote the show. Sometimes the audiences there are small but we were lucky enough to be on the bill with the Brookhaven JC production of Chess so a lot of students were there. Our cast performed four songs from the show and a lot of the Brookhaven kids said they were planning on coming to see our show which is very exciting! We had small audiences our opening weekend so hopefully things will improve as time goes on. Lord knows I'm doing as much as I can to promote the show with the resources I have available.

The garden in Plano is going great! I am really enjoying it. Things are really starting to thrive and grow and we're starting to see the results of all our work. Soon we'll have tons of egg plants, peppers and okra. The gourds, squash and mellons are doing well, also. We had an attack of aphids in the cucumbers which was surprising as we've been doing everything possible to prevent them. James thinks the week of rain we had a while back made things too damp and that left the door open for the little motherf-ckers! LOL. We've been using garrett juice and an organic insecticide on them and I think it's working. The leaves don't look shiny anymore and the new growth looks very healthy and is putting on flowers. Hopefully we'll have a huge crop before it's all over. The compost pile is doing great! We moved have of it into the second...what would you call it?...receptical?...containment area? Who knows. Anyway, we separated the compost into two parts and layered in hay to allow it to aerate itself. They hay will break down and add to the compost, of course. As we dug, we could feel a lot of heat coming off of the compost. The center is VERY hot which is exactly what is supposed to happen. Over the winter we should be able to till some wonderful, nutrient rich "compost dirt" into the raised beds to enrich the soil! YAY!!!

I guess that's about it. I am constantly thinking of things that would be a great blog subjects but I never write them down so I forget them. I will work harder. For the time being this will have to do. I hope it's remotely interesting.

More to come!

I'm sitting here at 140am waiting for my iphone to finish downloading its new software. Ever since the last update which coincided with the release of the 4G my pitiful 3G has been acting all kinds of crazy. It's taking a while so I thought I'd write a blog which I wait.

Ever since I returned from the Czech Republic I have been incredibly busy which has left me no time AT ALL for clay. It doesn't help that kids camps are going on right now but I think they may be over so I'm sure it's safe to step across the thresh hold again. Their not going to remember who I am!

What's keeping me so busy? Well, right after I returned stateside I immediately went into rehearsals for a production of Sweeney Todd being done at Ohlook. Sometimes they do larger shows with a mix of adults and kids and this was one of those shows. I played Beadle Bamford, surprisingly, for the first time. I have had some opportunities in the past but it has never worked out. We did twelve performances and while it might not have been the most professional production I've ever been in at least I got to learn the role, get twelve performances and write it on my resume.

After we opened that show, James and I started rehearsals for [title of show]. This has been a labor of love. Labor being the operative word. James and I have had to be the costume designers, set designers, props designer, producers, go fers and anything else our non-existent "staff" would do. Honestly, I don't really mind it as it is great fun and we get to do the show the way WE want to do it.

It is a wonderfully written show all about the creative process and how a group of friends relates to one another as the quirky musical the write starts to become successful. We have a wonderful cast, all very good friends, and we've been having a lot of fun. The artistic director at Ohlook has been great. She has been very hands off because she knows that we know what we're doing and as a result we've been able to do the show exactly the way we want to do it which is thrilling. The cast is so good I can't say I've had to give a whole lot of guidance as to their concept of the show. Mostly I've shown them blocking then tried to stay out of the we and just let them have fun and play and create the characters' relationships on their own. I'm big on pacing and intent and connecting the dots of hte plot so that's mostly where my notes lie. I think it's going to be a good production. It's played on a TINY stage and truly is just four chairs and a keyboard, as the song says. I'm sure opening night will be fantastic!

I guess that's about it. I've just been consumed with these two shows. I decided not to take voice lessons in Summer II because I knew I wouldn't have time to learn new music what with [title of show] to direct. I am trying to push myself to get everything done by next may so I can graduate. There's relatively little left to do. Keep your fingers crossed!

so that REALLY is it! I wish I had more to say. I'm always thinking up subjects to blog about but then I think they'll be too ranty for words! I must be terribly dull. Sigh....

DiE, Vampire, Die!!!!!

Susan Blackwell totally rocks my ass!!!

WOW!!!!

It's been several days since I have posted so get comfy. This may be a long one as there is much to catch up on.

Our last concert day in the Czech republic was also my birthday! It was the big 4-0! A milestone! I had tried not to make a big deal about it. In fact, I got up early that morning and went down town to do some last minute shopping. When I returned Christian had gone to a local bakery we all frequent and brought home some pasteries to celebrate my birthday. Everyone had signed a card and they gave me a little mini cookbook full of traditional Czech recipes. It was so nice of them and totally unexpected.

SO, the last concert went well. We climbed into the Mystery Machine and drove down to the town of Tabor about an hour and a half south of Prague. It is the birth place of Oskar Nedbal, the composer of our operetta, and the theater where we performed is named after him.

Speaking of, the Divaldo Oskar Nedbal is a lovely little 19th century theater that holds maybe 300 if they are lucky. It has two wrap around balconies complete with individual boxes, an orchestra pit and a lovely chandelier hanging from the dome. Again, as in the other theaters we have played, there is relatively little wing space and in this case the stage is relatively shallow. There is a newer, larger "Mid Soviet Modern" theater next door, the stage and auditorium of which sit at a right angle to the older theater. The back wall of its stage is shared by the stage right wall of the stage of the older theater except that this wall has been removed so that the two stages are open to one another. It is a very odd configuration given that this wall doesn't exist. Of course, it gives sorely needed storage space for both stages but it also means that both theater's can't be used at the same time. We were told it is the only theater in Europe configured this way. A fact they seemed to be very proud of.

The performance went extremely well. We have gotten so at ease with the show that we can now play with it and add lib here and there, incorporate little bits of comic business, etc. The audience LOVED the performance and called us back for four or five curtain calls. I am continually intrigued by the audiences we've had. They are very, very quiet and pay very close attention. They never laugh and sometimes may not even clap at the end of a song. A time or two we'd end a number with a big "ta da!" moment and we'd be met with silence. BUT, they always show their appreciation at the end and I'm glad they enjoyed the show. That's all that matters at the end of the day.

We packed up our things and walked up to the town square to find a restaurant for dinner. Tabor, like all the other towns has a very clean, beautiful town square. All the buildings are well cared for and there is, as always, a monument/fountain in the center and a large, beautiful Catholic church. We tried to get seated in a couple of restaurants but they were either full or, believe it or not, unwilling to wait on us! Eva, who had met us the first day at the airport, was once again with us and she was told by a waiter about a restaurant just off the square that might be able to seat us. We walked past the entrance to the church and down a lovely, curvy street to a restaurant called, in english, the Two Cats.

It was a typical Czech restaurant that served Czech beer, wine and a menu of typical Czech food which includes sausages of all kinds, schnitzel and potatoes. It was the perfect place for us! We were all able to sit around one table and had a lovely waitress who was able to put up with us loud americans and keep a smile on her face!

The next day was a free day even though we were done with all our performances. I did some last minute sight seeing and bought a couple of gifts for folks. We had all planned to meet that evening to go out for one last dinner together but Lynn told us that Jill, the wife of the director of the festival, had decided the cocktail party was no longer going to be a party for the Plenblut cast, but a private cocktail party that only Lynn and Brian were invited to. Lynn was really worried about how we'd all take it but we were only puzzled because Jill had said earlier in the week that she'd throw a party specifically for us. Uninvite = Rude but what can you do? We decided that Lynn and Brian would make an appearance and then meet us later for the dinner we had already planned.

We were to meet Lynn and Brian in a certain park by a certain metro station at 7 that evening but they didn't show up until almost an hour later. Of course, it was much more difficult to get away from the party than they'd anticipated. William Bolcom and his wife Joan Morris were there. They were giving concerts as part of the festival and apparently Ms. Morris was expecting us to be there and had been looking forward to meeting us all. After comparing notes, both she and Lynn realized that it was Jill who had decided to uninvite us. Instead she had invited some people from the French Embassy because William Bolcom had lived and studied in Paris as a young man and wouldn't it be fun for him to be able to speak french them them? An upside to this odd situation was that Lynn and Ms. Morris hit it off and Lynn is going to try to get them to come to UNT for at least a concert if not more.

Anyway, after Lynn and Brian joined us, we found a lovely outdoor restuarant right on the river and had a lovely evening with good food and fun conversation.

BUT the next two days were stressful to say the least. This was our day to travel back to the U.S. Up to this point we'd been picked up by an employee of the festival, driven to all our concerts and even been met and walked to rehearsals in Prague just to make sure that we got to where we needed to be without getting lost. Suddenly, we were expected to get ourselve and our luggage to the airport without any assistance from the festival. This didn't seem like such a huge deal. We figured out that we could take the Metro to the end of the line then take a bus to the airport. No big deal.

We got up on the morning we were to return, packed up our things and made our way to the airport. It was sunday and the trains were running more infrequently than during the week. What should have taken 45 minutes to an hour took closer to two hours. Jennifer was flying to Italy that morning but Barbara and I were returning to the U.S. We arrived at the Delta counter to be told by a very sour and apparently annoyed woman that we were too late, the counter was closed and she wasn't going to let us check in for the flight. We told her we had to return that day because of our jobs etc but it didn't matter. She directed us to Delta's customer service office where we were told we'd have to return on a flight the following day to the tune of 300 bucks each. I looked at Barbara and I could see that she was about to burst into tears. "I dont' think I have that much money in my checking account. All I have is what the festival paid me and that's not enough." I told her it would be ok and that I'd pay for it. As we were waiting fo the changes to be made and my credit card to be charged, I told Barbara that if the festival had arranged for our transpertation to the airport to begin with we would probably not be dealing with this issue right now. It seemed right that they should reemburse me for this unexpected expense.

After we were through at the airport we had to figure out where we were going to stay that night. We could either lug our bags back through Prague to the hostel or stay at the airport Marriott just across from the terminal. We decided that since there was no guarantee we'd be able to stay at the hostel, we decided to check in at the Marriott. That way we'd already be at the airport and not have to worry about missing our flight again. We checked in to a "modern" hotel room with comfortable beds and a bathroom actually connected to our room and decided to go back into town and try to take advantage of our extra day. We had lunch at a wonderful vegitarian restaurant, I bought some hand blown glass tumblers and we explored the "Little Town" on the far side of the Charles IV bridge. The next morning we took advantage of the included breakfast and boarded our flight back to the U.S. Thankfully, that all went without a hitch. I emailed Lynn and asked about being reembursed and she totally agreed. The festival dropped the ball so I'm hoping they'll be willing to put things right. Apparently, the director is meeting this week with officials from the U.S. Embassy to talk about bringing us all back to do Polenblut again next summer which would be wonderful. Despite the snaffu at the end of the trip, I'd be thrilled to do it all again. It's a beautiful country and everyone was very nice. Why not?

We finished up with the

I'm singin' Broadway and I love it!!!!!!

I'm back in Prague! Yesterday was my and Jennifer's day to give our recital in Ivancice, Moravia.

You know, there are times when you feel as though it's still in a communist country. Old habits die hard. I REALLY felt it in the hotel, to be honest. In the daylight it looked even more like an official "Tourist Hotel" than it did in the dark. By that I mean it must be what the hotels looked like for westerners during the Soviet years. It was nice but in a Days Inn kind of way. Like they were trying to make an effort but it wasn't really something they wanted to commit to.

Anyway, we gathered up our things and went with our accompanist, Alice, to the train station for the short train ride to Ivancice. We were met by a lovely woman at the station in Ivancice. She was maybe in her late forties with red hair but one side was longer than the other. possibly a holdover from her college years? She spoke enough english to communicate with us and was very sweet and all smiles. The town is charming and has a very picturesque square. There is a town hall, a Catholic church and many stores. There are some stalls where they have a market on saturdays. There was a man set up selling Czech sweets. He had a sort of fudge made from chocolate and coconut that was very good and a middle eastern confection made from eggs, honey and nuts. It was very chewy, almost like gum, and very good. He also had smoked cheese! It was formed into little loaves and looked more like bread than cheese. It was excellent. I should have bought some to take home for James. All the more reason to come back! Ivancice is also the birth place of Alfons Mucha. They have a museum on the town square in the house in which he was born. It houses some large studies he did for his Slav Epic as well as studies for other works and tons of photographs of his studio, his family, his models and his travels. They were accompanied by explainations that told us much about the artists life. It is interesting. Often the english versions afe full of typos and faulty sentence structure. I find it charming and admirable that they are working so hard to make things accessible for foreign tourists.

The recital went very, VERY well. It was a program of musical theater classics which was right up my ally although Jennifer wasn't as familiar with them but rose the occasion beautifully. It started at six thirty in the evening mostly because we had to catch a bus back to Prague. More about that later. The venue was a very small, intimate room with a low, raised stage. There were mirrors along one wall with a ballet bar and windows along the opposite wall. We had a small audience. Ten people, eleven if you count the man with the tv camera who stayed for five minutes and then left. Our host was very upset about this. Apparently, our concert was held in a small music conservatory. Back in may, they had a long series of concerts at the end of the spring term and the general consensus was that they town must be concerted out at the moment. She was truly upset because she thought we'd done a wonderful job and kept appologizing. We told her it didn't really matter. The people who showed up loved it and that's what matters. As the old saying goes, "When two more more are gathered..."

Afterward, we were treated to the same open faced sandwiches they'd given us in Pisek (Not the SAME sandwiches. They hadn't saved them and pulled them back out for us a week later. These were new but with the same toppings. Clearly a very Czech way of eating finger food.) After we had packed up and eaten we were told we'd be driven back to Brno to catch the bus. We walked outside and met a very nice young man who was standing next to a very old, very beat up four door hatchback! Again, old habits die hard. He threw our things into the back. We said goodbye to our appologetic hostess and climbed into the car.

Off we shot through the countryside!!! Our drive was not affraid to put the peddle to the metal mostly because we had a bus to catch. The country side was beautiful. Again, rolling farmland and small hamlets with red tiled roofs. (I want those tiles! No! There! Those tiles THERE!") We arrived in Brno thirty minutes later just a block or two from where we'd given Plenblut the night before. Alice had our tickets for the bus so we climbed aboard.

It was a sort of double decker affair as touring buses are with the lower level for luggage and the upper level for passengers. We had to climb up a very steep flight of stairs to the passenger level and discovered a pair of seats right there facing the stairway, bulkhead seats, as it were. We grabbed them and got comfortable. Greyhound needs to take this bus line as it's example. After we got on the road two male "flight attendants" came around to make sure we all had our seatbelts fastened, then passed out earphone to whomever might want to watch the "in flight" movie! They had video screens and showed an american film dubbed in Czech. After we'd been on the road for about thirty minutes one of "flight attendants" disappeared down the steep stairway and didn't come back. A couple of minutes later the OTHER "flight attendant" disappeared down the steps and didn't come back! We kept hearing the sound of a machine buzzing and could even feel the floor beneath our feet buzzing in time to the sound. After a few more minutes, one of the "flight attendants" reappeared with a little tray on which were four small cups of espresso which he carried to various passengers! LOLOL!!!! I also noticed you could ask for bottled water. I was happy with my bottle of Fanta orange soda so I declined.

We got back into Prague at 1115pm and took the metro back to the hostel. Barbara and Christian were thrilled see us. They said they'd missed us even though they'd had a nice day off and done some sight seeing. They said it was very chilly and windy yesterday. The weather has been unseasonably cold and wet while we've been here. I'm not complaining. It will be very hot when we get home so I'm soaking it all in.

By they way, did I mention that it's my birthday today? It's a big one. 40! Can you imagine?! I can't! I keep asking myself, "how the hell did this happen!?" I don't feel 40. I'm not sure what it is supposed to feel like but I don't feel it. I haven't really told my colleagues yet. I don't know why I'm withholding information. I guess I didn't want to spend the actual day this way. Oh, well. I am excited about turning 40 but at the same time I'm asking myself, "What do I do now?" It seems to me that there is a certain adulthood and maturity that comes along with flipping over that first number. I would say this has been a year of re-evaluation and deciding what is important to me in my personal life, my professional life and my artistic life. I think rolling over into this new decade of my life means it's time to get on with all the things I keep saying I'm GOING to do. A new start. That's what it means.

That's about it for now. I'm on the verge of being ready to go home. I'm starting to miss folks and places and things. Also, I'm looking forward to directing [Title of Show] at Oh, Look! New music to learn and that pesky theater company to get started.

More to come!

Greetings from Brno and a Cyech kezboard1

Hello, All1 I am spending the night in what is supposed to be a Fancz Hotel in the citz of Brno. In case zou§ve alreadz noticed some odd characters and misspellings in mz tzping, it is because I am tzping on a Cyech kezboard. A couple of the letters are different, punctuation is in different places and there are lots of extra kezs for all their accents. I decided to just tzpe the waz I know how and let zou all see how it looks so please bear with me.

We drove southwest from Prague through the pouring down rain to Brno todaz about three or fours. The countrzside so far has been rolling hills, fields and groves of trees. Todaz as we drove we saw bigger hills, I hayyard to guess thez maz be foothills leading to mountains, all the waz here. Brno itself is verz hillz but verz picturesque. Thez have a tram szstem and it§s a pleasant place to walk. It is the second largest citz in the Cyech Republic.

The theater is fantastic1 It is an eighteenth centurz building but it has been totallz renovated and is verz modern. The lobbz is capped with a huge sunroof and is used as an art gallerz. There is a small, state of the art theater with a balconz and elevators that lead to a scene shop below. This is where plazs and opera are given. I§m told there is a larger theater for the ballet companz. We performed on a portable stage in the Sal Moyart. It is a HUGE room with giant windows looking out on the square. White ceiling, white wood trim and bright red walls. STUNNING. we had an audience of well over one hundred. The performance went VERZ well1 It was the first time we all felt relaxed and we all were able to give our absolute best. We got a verz long ovation at the end and were called back to the stage four times. Afterward, we had a piyya in a verz nice restaurant and then came to the hotel. I would write more but thez§ve turned out he lights in the lobbz so I will log off now. It seems odd but it is a different culture, after all.

Look for another posting soon1

Polenblut No. 2, Communism and Alfons Mucha

It's been a busy two days since my last post so I shall jump right in.

Yesterday, we all piled into our van, I have christened it The Mystery Machine, and we drove two hours to the town of Pisek for our second performance of Polenblut. The town is lovely! A river runs through it and it is obvious the city has worked very hard to create a beautiful waterfront of new buildings with shops and restaurants.

The theater is new with beautiful dressing rooms and a nice stage although there isn't really a fly space and, like the last theater, NO backstage space at all. The auditorium is a large, square room that seats about 250 or 300 people. The back half of the seats were raked but were on portable risers. Clearly all of the seats could be removed from the space to make room for large events of all kinds. There was a small orchestra pit but for whatever reason the elevator had been raised to floor level. The orchestra was on the stage with us and the pit wasn't used. Interestingly enough, for a square room the accoustics were very good. Weather by accident or not, the sound actually went out into the room. We couldn't always hear each other well but we could hear our voices resonating out in the hall so we knew we could be heard. It was an odd sensation but once you got used to it it was heavenly!

Before the concert our hosts were nice enough to bring us some trays of open faced sandwiches. On a very good slice of white bread, sort of a french bread, was spread either a cheese spread or a seasoned mayonaise, then a piece of prociutto and then some pickles and raw onion. They were sort of gloppy but tasty. The only draw back was that the onions smelled to high heaven! UGH! It was really gross after a while.

The performance went well. Much smoother than two days with fewer memory slips. Our small but well formed audience gave us a long ovation. Afterward, our intrepid driver, Petr, lead us through a beautiful park to a very traditional Czech restaurant where I have a fantastic wild boar steak and potato wedges! It was like pork but darker and a little gamey-er. It was GOOD, mkay? Afterward, we piled back into the Mystery Machine and headed back to Prague. I listened to a podcast of a very interesting interview with Linda Lavine of t.v. sitcom "Alice" fame. VERY interesting. She's very much a theater actress and the t.v. show was a 9 year hiatus from that. Now she is in a play on The Broadway and she and her husband own a very small community theater in North Carolina where they act in, direct and produce plays. Isn't that cool!?

Today is a day off for me although two of my colleagues hopped a train to go do a recital in another city. I get to do this with Jennifer Ciobanu on June 3rd in Brno at the Sal Alfons Mocha. More about him later.

By the way, the weather here has been overcast and chilly for the most part. I managed to leave my jacket on a park bench my first day here (It was actually Jamie's so now I owe him a jacket.) so today I went looking to buy another jacket but had no luck. I went to a Tesco department store. Oddly enough, they just mix in the mens and womens clothes and you have to go search throughout an entire floor to find the mens and, more specifically, a wind breaker as they are not all kept inone spot. I wonder if this has anything to do with their history with Communism and the lack of consumer goods during that time. More about that later. Anyway, it seems XL and XXL sizes are made for munchkins here. I could find nothing that would even begin to fit (Am I one of those Fat Americans I hear tell about?) so I gave up. I remain slightly chilly as I make my way through the seats of Prague but I'm not complaining. I'm told it's been in the 90's back home so I'm enjoying it while I can.

ANYWAY, I have become intrigued by the Soviet Era and it's impact on the Czech people so I paid a visit to The Museum of Communism.

It is located just off of Wenceslas Square in the middle of a very busy and fashionable shopping district. It is housed in an old Art Neuveau building called the Casino Palais. BIG staircases, BIG moldings, threadbare carpets and dingy walls. You can see where sometime in the past they installed some very ugly wood venier panels. They don't match the rest of the building. VERY utilitarian and, I suspect, VERY Soviet.

The museum is on the second floor at the top of a large, wide staircase. It is AMAZING! It follows the development of Communism in great detail beginning with the writings of Karl Marx and moving through Lenin and on to the present day concentrating, of course, on Czekoslovakia. The exhibits talked about Marx's emphasis on building a base in industry and how everyone should work in factories and be productive for the state and not for personal gains. The exhibit shows the push towards technology, especially in the arms race and space travel, and the way schools were reformed to educate children in ideals of Communism.

I learned about how the government fixed prices to make it seem as though the economy was fine but there were constant shortages of consumer goods and lots of empty shelves in shops. Foreign luxury goods could be acquired but they had to be bought in special shops using special currency which was available "underground" through brokers.

The city fell into horrible disrepair as government money was going to fund factories and build large, ugly monuments to Communist leaders and "The Workers". Then,in the late 1960's came the "Prague Spring": a period of liberalism in which there was more freedom in the press and in the arts. This was quickly crushed by Moscow when Soviet troops came to occupy the city and the country's Premier was replaced. The most moving part of the museum is the 30 minute video that is shown about the "Velvet Revolution". This,as we all remember, was a series of relatively peaceful protests in Wenceslas Square in November of 1989. They happened as a result of Glastnos and lead to the end of communism in Czecoslovakia. I sat there watching footage of the square FILLED with protestors, young and old, as police, both in and out of uniform, tried to apprehend them. Many were being beaten by the police or hoses were being turned on them. It was upsetting to see the looks of frustration on the faces of the protestors. I sat there and cried.

The last part of the museum discusses the fall of the Berlin Wall and the election of the first president of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, who was one of the leaders of the protests in 1989.

I left the museum and walked out into Wenceslas Square where these protests actually happened only 20 years ago! I was 19 years old! I remember it! I looked up the beautiful, tree lined boulevard that leads up to the impressive facade of the National Museum and tried to imagine what it all must have looked like only 20 short years ago. Now there are fashionable shops with names lik Escada, Benetton, Chanel, and lots of out door cafes. People shop, eat, drink and have fun. You'd never know that such earth shaking events had happened there only 20 years ago!

After what is probably going to be the highlight of my time in Prague, I walked around the block to the Mucha Museum. Mucha was a pioneer of the Art Nouveax style in the late 19th century. He was a born in a small town in the western Slovakia and came to prominence in Paris when he was commissioned by Sarah Bernhardt to design a poster for her production of Gismonda. For the next six years he designed posters, cosutmes and sets for her theater company and spent many years with his family in New York City. After the turn the century, he returned to his homeland in Slovakia where he continued to design posters but also began work on is Slav Epic, a series of 20 HUGE canvases depicting the history of the Slavic people. It was complete in 1913 and is currently housed in the castle of Morovsky Crumlov. There is the intent to move the series to Prague but it has yet to happen.

EVERYONE has seen his work. It is the embodiment of the Art Nouveux style. Beautiful women with flowing hair, sometimes bare chested, reclining on pillows. His posters for Sarah Bernhardt are particularly famous, especially the dection of Ms. Bernhardt as Hamlet. GORGEOUS is the word du jour! I bought some beautiful posters with the official seal of the museum on them and a carboard poster tube to put them in. The will be a welcome addition to my collection!

I think that's about it. Tomorrow night performance three of Polenblut and the next night my recital with Jennifer. More postings to come!

uart

So, much to say, so little time!

We have been very busy here in Prague. Jennifer and I had our first rehearsal for our due recital with our accompanist which went well. All musical theater so, of course, I'm going to have a blast. That day and the next were officially days off so I tried to fit in as many sights as I could see through the haze of jet lag. I've never been one to get over jet lag easily so I just suffer through until I can sleep through the night and feel rested.

I visited the Jewish Quarter just north of the Old Town. VERY interesting. The Jewish Museum is actually a series of six sites all visitable on the same entrance fee. Four synagogs and two aditional buildings. The Jewish quarter was, of course, wehre the Czech jews settled and eventually became a walled in Ghetto. When the Nazi's occupied the city it was where the jews were imprisoned. Hitler allowed the Jews to collect Jewish artwork and documents with a plan of creating a Museum of the Extinct Jewish Race once the war was over. Eventually, these scholars were killed along with 90 percent of the Jewish population of Czecholslovakia but the work they did lives on today and is there for everyone to see. It goes without saying that the exhibits are fascinating and very moving.

I visited Praque Castle which contains St. Vitus Cathedral with in it's walls. Both are very impressive. The cathedral is famous for it's Hapsburg tombs and the famous Mucha Window. Mucha was one of the pioneers of the Art Nuveau movement. His work is very famous and we've all seen it without realizing it is him. Think Maxfield Parrish and you'll get an idea of what his work looks like. His themes are VERY nationalistic and dramatic. There is a museum in Prague dedicated to his work which I'm hoping to visit soon.

I discovered a fantastic vegitarian restaurant in the Old Town. YUM!

The Little Town which is at the bottom of the hill on which the castle sits is a beautiful neighborhood with lots of wonderful shops and picturesque architecture. It has been fun just to walk around and look at the streets and buildings and the people. Everything is clean and the streets are well kept. I wonder what it all must have been like before the fall of Communism. From what I've read, it was a very different place and I would be having a very different expereince if I were here before 1989. Tomorrow I am going to the Museum of Communism which should be interesting and will shed more light on what Prague was like at that time.

I have been obssessively studying my Polenblut score. Really we all have. We're all trying to get our words into our tiny Singer Brains and trying to remember the running order of the show and all our spoken dialogue. On friday, one of our Minders, Petr, (Very nice pianist who has been very patient with us crazy singers.) drove us to the venue in a 9 seater van in the town of Ceske Budejovice. Lovely, clean streets and beautiful, large town square.

The theater was an experience! The entire building smelled of cigarettes and body odor which made me feel queezy when we first walked through the stage door. The auditorium was TINY. It maybe sat 300 with one balcony and some very odd side balconies. The stage was very narrow but as deep, if not deeper than the auditorium itself. There was NO backstage space at all although, there was a large scene storage room off stage right. It was clearly a Soviet Era building. Utilitarian, ugly, and nothing artistically pleasing about it. We have an orchestra of eight FANTASTIC musicians (They are all very stocky, very Slavic looking gents who look like they'd be more at home driving a cab than playing in an orchestra. I would love to hear them play some Bohemian or Slavic folk music! I bet it would be fantastic!) including our Czech conductor who conducts from the piano and is a rock. He is the calm in the storm which is exactly what any good conductor must be. We were really struggling with words and staging throughout our orchestra run through but thank god we had time to study before the beformance the next day. The town is a three hour drive from Prague so it was there and back on friday and there and back on saturday for the performance.

The performace, by the way went well baring a few memory slips more in the spoken dialogue than in the music. You just have to see the humor in such mishaps and laugh about it. By our last performance, we are giving four in various cities, we should be AMAZING. We had a small audience and they seemed to like it. We are told that the audiences might be small, they might be huge, you just never know.

This particular theater seems to be very fond of contemporary foreign plays in Czech translations. In our dressing room I found a script for a play by Neil LaBute, probably one of his cycle of three Beauty Plays. I saw from the posters back stage that they have done works by Christopher Hampton, Martin McDonough and are currently diong a production of God of Carnage that is, apparently, a huge hit.

We had dinner after the concert, I had a fabulous lamb with mashed potatoes (very typically Czech.) and toasted our opening night with a VERY strong plum vodka. It really knocked our heads off! I can home and started having an allergy attack, the first real attack I've had since I got here, and took two Zyrtek and went to bed. They knocked my out and woke up at 115 this afternoon feeling better and more rested than I have since I got here! We had another rehearsal for our duo recital and I sang my best since we arrived so lets hear it for sleep!

We're all having dinner together tonight and then it's off to our next venue in Pisek with the orchestra for Polenblut tomorrow. Say a prayer for me and all my lengthy speeches! AAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!!

Jay in Prague

P.S. More to come about the quirky hostel where we're staying.

They told me I could buy a car with a pair of Levi's jeans but no one's selling!

For those of you in my small but loyal group of fans who may not know, I am currently in Praque, Czech Republic at the American Yaro Music Festival. Arrived with six vocalists from Texas on May 24th and we'll be here until June 6th performing a cpncert version of an obscure Viennese operetta called Polenblut and giving a duo recital of Classic American Theater Songs. The operetta performances will be in various cities around the Czech Republic and we are based in Prague. We were met at the airport on monday by one of the Festival's accompanists. She took us by taxi to the church hostel where we're staying. It's very spartan with simple furniture and very, hard, army-cot-like beds. The day we arrived the hot water stopped flowing but that was fixed within 24 hours and all is well now. We have full kitchen privledges and there is a very nice grocery store nearby which happens to be in the same building as the metro stop.

The hostel doesn't have internet service but we were told by our Fearful Leader that "there are internet cafes on every corner.

HA! SHE LIED!!!!

Yesterday my colleague and I wandered around the Old Town look for these seeminly ubiquitous (sp?) internet cafes. There were none to be found! ANYWHERE! We searched high! we searched low! Finally, we spied one across the street from the Estates Theater where Don Giovanni was premiered in 1787. The front half is, indeed, a cafe but the decore is about two or three decades old and clearly hasn't been refurbished since. The computers are housed in a harshly lit back room. It is "no frills" written all over it and the faint smell of B.O. makes my eyes water but what can you do? I'm convinced this place is one of the last vestiges of communist Czechoslovakia. I'm sure it's riddled with hidden microphones and cameras! If I say or do the wrong thing I'll be whisked away and never seen again!

By the looks of things western capitolism is alive and well as represented by MacDonalds, KFC and Starbucks. The buildings and streets are beautiful in spite of western popular culture. Prague wasn't bombed during World War II so all the art nouveax buildings survived, but just barely. I have read that pre-1989, large beams were wedged between the buildings to keep them from falling in on one another. The buildings were black with soot and the general mood was very dark and depressing. Not so today! Everything has been cleaned up and repaired and the tourist industry appears to be booming.

There are a few buildings that give an idea of what things looked like before the Velvet Revolution. The National Museum is still rather black and you can see where the plaster has crumbled away and the National Theater is also black with soot. I hazzard to guess that it is also very run down inside. It presents Operas, ballet and plays and has the largest state subsidy of all the Nationally supported arts organizations. (Interesting side note: I noticed that Tracy Letts' play August: Osage County is playing right now...in Czech!)

In my wanderings I happened across the Czech State Opera House so I bought a ticket for about 35 dollars for Tosca tonight night. The exchange rate is amazing. About 19 or 20 crowns for every dollar so a 700 crown ticket is about 35 dollars for a really good seat. (I assume since it's the National Opera the singers will be Czech and I wouldn't be surprised if the opera is sung in Czech.) The exchange rate also makes food very inexpensive. a 200 crown bill is, what, 10 dollars? Not bad!

Yesterday, we had our first rehearsal with the conductor in a church in central Prague. I can't figure out what kind of church it is. Something about the Sacred Brethren? from what I can gather the Catholic faith has had a hard time here so it may be protestant. The sanctuary is square with a wrap around balcony and an organ on the second level. it is painted in shades of yellow and white and is equipped with very old wooden pews that are all scratched up and even have initials carved in them. The rehearsal went well. The conductor played the piano for the rehearsal and knows the Viennese operetta style very well. It's hard to explain what he was doing. Basically he was swinging the waltz beat, shortening the first beat of the measure and adding time to the second. We would probably refer to it as a jazz rhythm but I'm sure it's typical to the Viennese operetta style. this method gave the music a lilt and an elegance they don't even begin to teach us about in the States. I suspect our Flerdermaus's and Merry Widows are pretty sub-standard.

Today we rehearsed for our duo recital. Our accompanist met us at the hostel, she is a very attractive brunette who speaks very good english, and she took us to the appartment of a pianist friend of hers. It was located in a typical modern neighborhood off of a main street with a street car line. We went up a very dark, very institutional-looking stairway to the second floor and I'm not lying when I say I wondered if we'd been lead astray and were about ot be sold into white slavery! We were shown into what seemed to be a two room flat with a central vestibule. I wasn't sure where the kitchen was but it seemed the vestibule might also be the kitchen although I didn't see a refridgerator or a stove. There were shelves on two walls that heald dishes, a tea service dish towels. The piano was a very old Steinway that hadn't been tuned in donkey's years. In general the decor was VERY spartan and the whole place smelled very musty and old.

After the rehearsal I had intended to go tour Prague Castel but owing to my lingering jet lag and a blistering headache I got on the wrong tram! It was some time before I realized I was going AWAY from the castle and not TOWARD it. I finally change trams and came back down into old town but at that point I was EXTRA tired and my feet hurt so I found a starbucks and drank a latte. Sidebar: the barista give me a hard time because I gave her a thousand crown note which was all I had after my visit to the bankomat. Cashiers are famous here for giving you a hard time about almost everything. I just smiled great big and said, "SORRY!" I got a dirty look.

I'm going to try for the castle again tomorrow and also the Jewish Quarter which is on the north side of the Old Town. That's a saga unto itself so I'm sure I'll have lots to write about.

Talk to you, my small but loyal followers, soon!

P.S. I'm posting this without editing it. My appologies for typos and odd sentence structure.

so my trip to the Czech Republic is closing in on me VERY FAST. We are in rehearsals for the operetta we'll be doing there and the memorization is freaking me out. I can't hurry it along, I know that, but it's hard to be patient with myself and not stress. It will all get tucked away in my head when it's good and ready and it will all come out of my head when it's good and ready. In the meantime, I'm going to carry my book around in rehearsals and if the other's don't like it then too bad. I need to stop stressing about it. Nothing is going to get accomplished by it. I just need to get over it.

We're in the midst of auditions for Title of Show. I think we have some options for guys and girls. I have never really been on this side of the table and I worry that I will upset my friends if I don't cast them. James goes through this all the time and I now know what it feels like up close and personal. I will say that I'm very happy that we have options as far as casting goes. We weren't sure going into the auditions how the chips would fall. I'm happy to say that I think we're going to have a wonderful cast regardless of who's in it, it's going to be great fun!

This is the first "show" I've directed. I've done the Crested Butte shows but those were musical reviews. This is my first "book" show. I'm not totally sure what I'm going to do with it yet. For me it's a matter of just studying the script and seeing where my creative juices send me. I don't want to copy the broadway production but certain elements were so brilliant that I can't imagine not incorporating some version of them into our show. We're definitely going to do a series of projections for Monkeys and Playbills. I think we can use powerpoint, easy. My dear, funny friend Marianne Galloway has a collection of playbills numbering into the thousands that her grandparents bequeathed to her. She will let me borrow them so we can scan them and use the images for the projection sequence. YAY!!!!

There are several things I could rant about but it's late as I'm writing this and I want to go to bed. I'll start making a list and then I can address each point.

Just as a teaser, some of them are:

"What's up with girly gay men on stage, especially in Dallas?"
"The lack of customer service at any Wendy's drive thru."
"University music programs in general."
"the classical music 'business' and the disfunctional people who work within it. (I think I have to include myself in that group.)" "Am I the only one who didn't like both Next to Normal and Spring Awakening?"

Am I getting old?

I was looking at the NY Times on line (It's only a matter of time before they will be charging us for looking at their website! It's horrifying, and probably true. But that's another blog). I flipped over to the theater section and read the review for American Idiot, the new "Green Day" musical that just opened on The Broadway and is based on their album of the same name. As I read, I found myself rolling my eyes and "tsk tsk"-ing.

It got a rave from Charles Isherwood ensuring a healthy run but I must admit, whole thing seems so silly, doesn't it? All the photos and videos I've seen reveal a group of very young, very hip actors with piercings, tattoos and pre-determined bedhead jumping around in a very angry, disenfranchised way on what seems to be a very edgy, modernistic set dotted with flat screen tv's and lots of psychedelic lighting. It looks to me like a very fast moving, fast cutting MTV music video. (Is MTV still on? Do they still make music videos? Whatever happened to Martha Quinn and Nina Blackwood? Sigh... quietly sings, "video killed the radio star!")

At first glance it seems like a terrible idea. Who would be interested in a musical based on Green Day? It's rock music! Not Elvis or Frankie Valli or Buddy Holly. CONTEMPORARY ROCK MUSIC! I'm sure it's very loud and very in your face and probably expresses themes that would make our parents very uncomfortable!

But then I remembered going to see Hair in NYC over New Years weekend this past year. I LOVED IT! It was all about being yourself, standing up for what you believe, challenging the status quo, and it was all filtered through rock music and a non-linear story line before the musical Company came along and claimed the non-linear story line for itself. That show made our grandparents VERY uncomfortable. It brought up themes that no one wanted to deal with even though they were staring everyone in the face. Hair seems tame in comparison to American Idiot but is it really all that different?

I brought this up to Jamie the other day and he said, "Well, you are very conservative when it comes to musicals."

"What do you mean!?" I replied.

"You have very specific opinions about musicals and how they should be written and directed and all that. You're always saying how badly some of these new shows are written and constructed."

But, I don't want to be conservative! I don't want to be an old curmudgeon! I'm too young to be an old curmudgeon! I'm hip! I'm with it! For god's sake, I even voted democrat!!!!!

So, in the interest of NOT turning into a fuddy duddy, I am going to go see American Idiot when I go to NYC in early May. I may complain that it's too loud and I may tell anyone who'll listen that it's assaulting my eyes with it's multimedia extravaganza of color, light and video BUT, I will be there. And I will NOT be a curmudgeon!

XANADU!!!!! XANADU!!!!! NOW WE ARE HERE IN XANADU!!!!

James and I went to see the national tour of Xanadu:the Musical playing at the Music Hall at Fair Park through April 18th.

"What!?" Xanadu? The MUSICAL!? Wasn't that a really awful movie back in the early 80's starring Olivia Newton-John? Why, in God's name, would they make a stage musical of THAT!!!???"

Good question but not to fear! Book writer Douglas Carter Beane, Director Christopher Ashley and choreographer Dan Knechtges have retained the songs written by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar and opted for a tongue in cheek, wink, wink, nudge, nudge adaptation. Set in 1980 in Venice, California rather than 1580 in Venice, Italy, the muses, lead by Kira, come together to help mere mortal Sunny Malone realize his dream of owning a space where art, music, theater and dance can be created and performed. In other words, a roller disco! Conflict is introduced when the muses Melpomene and Coliope become, quite frankly, pissed off that Kira seems to be getting all of Zues's attention and they hatch a plan to thwart her plans to help Sonny achieve his dream. (The funniest line in the show is uttered by Coliope during a particularly evil moment: "This is fun! It's like doing children's theater for 40 year-old gay men!" BLACKOUT!!!)

The show is ultimately about holding onto your dreams and working to reach your goals in spite of the obstacles. the message is stated without seeming too earnest. In fact, you may find your self getting a little teary. The set echo's that of a roman temple and the muses wear togas, sandals and more body glitter than you can shake a stick at! And yes, there are roller skates!!! The entire production was conceived on an intimate scale for a cast of only 10 actors who do double and triple duty as muses, mythic monsters and fan dancers to name just a few.

Those of you who know James and me know that we can turn ANYTHING into an adventure and this show is no exception! Not content to just sit out in the audience and watch the show from afar, we opted for the ON STAGE SEATING!!! Yes! Xanadu has about 20 on stage seats that surround the main playing area in two semi-circular rows. We were told to "keep your hands inside the ride at all times and don't activate your glow sticks until the end of the show". (YES!!! They gave us glow sticks to brandish in the finale!) Thus prepared we settled in for a fun ride!

Indeed, Xanadu IS a lot of fun! The hard-working cast was excellent. They were all on stage most of the evening and the four person ensemble worked their mucho talented butts off singing and dancing almost non-stop. The jokes ranged from jabs at Greek mythology, tragedy and comedy to comments on current events. Nothing is sacred but at the same time nothing is taken seriously. The actors are clear that it's all a big joke and we are invited to be in on it.

BUT, the best part of the evening was getting to sit on stage. As a member of the Dallas Opera chorus I have been on stage many times at the Music Hall so for me that was nothing new. What was exciting was getting to see the performers and watch the show up close and personal. Something one NEVER gets to do at he Music Hall! We sat on the stage right side and all the actors' exits and entrances happened just inches from us. It was not unusual for them to make comments to us as they passed by. At one point, Kira grabbed on to my arm for dear life as Sonny tried to drag her to center stage by her be-skated foot!!!!

All told, Xanadu is an intimate, extremely funny show performed by freakishly talented cast. Run, don't walk to see it before it moves on to Sarasota, Florida!!! AND MAKE SURE YOU SIT ON STAGE!!!!

Be Vewy quiet, I'm hunting wabbits!

Thursday was an exciting day. James was in Arizona with the Three Redneck Tenors show and I had to teach a lesson thursday afternoon so I suggested I meet my student and Jamie's mom's house. So I go toolin' over to Plano. Jamie's mom and aunt (visiting from Oklahoma City) were out so Gus (Jamie's Aunt's beagle. I realize this is getting complicated.) accompanied me in the backyard while I checked on the progress of the herbs, grapes and blackberry bushes we planted early in the week.

WELL, I was leaning over one of the containers in which we'd planted lettuce when I noticed a hole that an animal had clearly dug in the dirt under the lettuce plants. I peered in and saw a rabbit!!!!!!!! We see rabbits in the neighborhood all the time but it was exciting to discover that we were already having wildlife encounters when we'd barely even begun creating our urban farm! Of course, I left the rabbit where it was, Gus sniffed at it but didn't really react, and we went back in the house. When Jamie's mom and aunt came home I told them about the rabbits which they found interesting and suprising. A few minutes later Jamie's aunt took Gus out in the backyard and the next thing I know I'm hearing Gus barking up a storm and Jamie's aunt chasing after Gus, grabbing him and carrying him to the back door with Gus doing his best to free himself from her arms. I ran and opened the door for her. She set Gus down inside the house and told me that there were four rabbits in the yard and Gus got hold of one in his mouth. Alice got Gus to drop the rabbit. It escaped with one of the others but two of the four ended up crouched in a corner on the patio. There was no more Gus drama and eventually the rabbits hopped away. Clearly we're going to have to do something about keeping Peter out of Mr. Mcgregor's garden!

FYI

FYI,

There is an excellent article in the current Classical Singer Magazine about classically trained singers singing musical theater, jazz, cabaret etc. I guess you could call it "crossover", a word I hate. Anyway, the author, who I happened to have gone to grad school with, interviews composer and teacher Craig Carnelia and teacher and performer Sylvia McNair on the doe's and don't's of crossover. Great article and a must read for classical singers of all ages!!!

Who am I?

I am new to this blogging thing so please bare with me as I learn by doing.

I do a lot of different things. Being a gemini I am convinced that my various personalities have gotten me involved in my many interests and so far they've all managed to live together in relative peace. No black outs and no feuds between my imaginary friends.

First of all, I am a singer. I am a member of the Dallas Opera chorus, I sing in concerts, cabaret shows, musical theater and anything else that happens to come down the pipeline. I have a Masters degree in voice and I'm currently working on a doctorate in music. I was trained as a "classical" singer and after years of frustration and metaphorically hitting my head against a brick wall I am coming to realize that all classical music does is frustrate and depress me. My heart just isn't in it. I get little or no fulfillment from performing arias and art songs. I put off my last recital for more than a year and a half because I just couldn't get excited about it. (More about this in a future blog.)

On the other hand I LOVE LOVE LOVE musical theater, cabaret and the Great American Songbook. I never get tired of it. I loooove performing the songs of Kern, Berlin, the Gershwins, Loesser, Rome, Arlen, etc, etc, and so forth. In the time I was supposed to be learning the music for my last recital I performed two or three cabaret shows and participated in a christmas review. Each show contained new material and I didn't have any problem getting it learned in a hurry. I am currently trying to find a way to give a GAS (Great American Songbook) concert as my last degree required recital and make it look terribly stuffy and high brow as these academic presentations are want to be.

As you may have already guessed, I am caught between two very different worlds. Among my classical colleagues I seem to be a very black sheep. When I try to discuss cabaret, musical theater or famous singers of the past or present and how amazing they were or are on stage, I am usually met with indifference. Their eyes glaze over and they usually respond with a polite, "that's interesting" or "I haven't heard of this person." Many of them have never heard of the composers I love and aren't familiar with their songs. What's more, they just don't seem to be interested which is frustrating for many reasons that will be probably be discussed in a future blog.

this indifference extends to the faculty and I don't think this is a problem only at my school. Whenever you bring up musical theater or the great Tin Pan Alley composers they roll their eyes. They'll tell you, "Oh, I love that song!" or "I LOVE musical theater!" but when push comes to shove they turn their noses up at the GAS and don't take it seriously.

And yet, whenever a floor show is required for one of their many fund raising dinners or scholarship awarding ceremonies they ask for, SURPRISE, SURPRISE, musical theater. It's fine as long as it's presented between the chicken and pasta and desert but not as part of the music department's curriculum. The Irony is not lost. (I could go on and on about this but I won't right now. Stay tuned to read about this in a future blog.)

On the other hand, my musical theater friends seem to have a lot of respect for what I do as a classical artist. They freely admit they don't know a lot about it and they've probably never attended a concert or the opera but they appreciate the hard work and level of expertise it takes. I have never felt judged by my musical theater compadres. They are a wonderful, supportive bunch and I love them dearly.

There in lies the conflict. I am constantly being pulled in both directions and frustrated by the tug of war. I know which world I would like to spend all of my time in but the other is constantly pulling me back to that brick wall. I have the bruises on my head to prove it.