This is glory on earth, and it is yours nightly.

During our performance last night, an actor who I love and respect stopped in me in the hall before I headed upstairs to do the final scene of the show.  "Katharine--I just have to tell you something.  I learn so much watching you in this show."  (Blushing begins.)  "No really, it's been an incredible lesson for me.  Because when you're onstage you just have this enormous smile on your face that isn't fake or cheesy--you just look like the happiest person in the world.  Like there's no where else you'd rather be.  And when you're watching an ensemble of people, you can't help but immediately be drawn to that.  So thank you."  Feeling much like Fraulein Schneider having received a pineapple as a token of affection from Herr Schultz, I was overwhelmed.  I inadequately thanked him, ran upstairs, got ready for end-of-show-naked-time, watched Kate Wetherhead be brilliant in the final moments of the show.  It was another "Wow. How freaking lucky am I to do what I do?" moment.  Those moments happen daily in my current environment.

I never want those moments to stop.  I never want to be onstage and not look like I'm having the time of my life (when the role can use that, that is.)  The second I look bored or over it onstage, slap me in the face.  I'm not kidding.  I've recently had the experience of spending a great deal of time with someone who is so disgustingly jaded and over her career; it kills my soul every time she opens her mouth.  Me to actor: "Aren't you excited for opening night?" Actor: "I'm excited not to have to (insert expletive here) rehearse anymore."  Okay, I feel that you're tired and we've been working hard...but really?  It's constant rain on my very emphatic parade and I've had quite enough of it.  Regardless, the point isn't to bash said actor.  The point is that if I ever become that cynical and jaded, just kill me.  Or tell me to find another career.

I am obsessed with what I do.

Literally, I have been spending the last hour watching musical theatre dance videos online studying what people waaaaay more talented than I am are doing to look so remarkably transcendent when they perform.  A lot of people just "do" their job.  You watch them, they're satisfactory, and the scene's over.  Other people transcend the work and morph it into something incredibly unique and truly unearthly.  I feel this way about Wade's emcee or anytime I watch Jeremy Dumont dance.  I wish to be this way.  Receiving that compliment from a co-actor was like the most enormous cookie anyone could possibly give to me.  When I'm onstage, there is truly nowhere else I'd rather be.  Ever.  If I can parlay that sentiment I feel to the audience and help them feel a fraction of the glory I do, then I have done my job.

I went out with a couple of my favorite people last night who'd seen the show and we were discussing life issues etc. and I explained my feelings about romance and the theater.  "There will never be a man who supersedes my passion for theatre.  It's just a fact.  It's nothing personal, but there will never be a human being that I could love more than I love theatre, music, and dance."  The ladies chuckled and made remarks about how I hadn't met the right guy and I was young and blah, blah blah.  Granted, they're four decades my senior and probably know infinitely more about love and life than I do.  Still, I can't imagine feeling more passionately (or even equally as passionately) about a person as I do about performing.  I never feel more alive (I know it sounds stupid and cliche but it is so, so true) than I do when I am onstage.

The easiest place for me to enter the transcendent is dance.  It just happens the most naturally.  I'm technically not the best dancer--not even a great one.  My body isn't built for dance.  My feet are horrible.  These are things that cannot be remedied.  This is why musical theatre dancing was such an enormous epiphany for me when I discovered it.  The first time I sort of experienced it was junior year in high school with Anything Goes.  Lots of tapping.  Totally my thing.  (I'm a musician first; dancer second.  Tap is about rhythm and music and translating that to an audience--not about lines or how high you can kick your leg.  My feet have always just known what to do.)  But the epiphany hadn't hit.  I was still just smiling and tapping.  Senior year, I was Bonnie Jean in Brigadoon.  Featured role, but a dancing one.  She has a solo to "Come to me, Bend to me."  (It's a shame Brigadoon is so stupid, the music is so stunning.  Oh, Lerner and Loewe.)  Anyway, it's more lyrical/ballet (which scares the bejesus out of me) and I remember rehearsing on my own in the dance balcony just feeling so silly and lackluster.  I felt very strongly about the music and had significant musical impulses inside, but it hadn't occurred to me that I could transfer those into my body.  Then, I played the music again, stopped scrutinizing myself in the mirror, and allowed my body to do the steps as they pleased.  The music dictated my movement.  And suddenly--the dancing was like breathing.  It had life.  It wasn't responding to the music--it was communicating through it.  It felt almost gratuitous--it was just so easy and natural.  But when I came back to rehearsal and saw my teacher's face after we ran the number, I knew what I'd learned wasn't silly; it was right.  I love to move my body, but I love music even more--and the ability to express music through dancing is truly ethereal.

The thing that's wonderful about (most) musical theatre dancing is that it's story/character-driven (when done right.)  God bless Joel Ferrell; he is a master of this.  Agnes De Mille is the mother of this.  She didn't have the build or body to be a ballerina.  But there is no choreography more gorgeous than hers.  I want to take her Carousel ballet behind the bleachers and get it pregnant.  I'm becoming way too old to play Louise, but that is a role that calls for more dancing as communication/joie de vivre than any other.  Anybodys in West Side is another.  (Jerome Robbins is a more contemporary example of perfect musical theatre choreo.  That man was just a genius. Ooh, and Gower Champion.  42nd Street ballet....sighhhh.)  I digress.

I'm still learning how to communicate that musicality through singing and that inclination to tell a story through acting.  Singing still terrifies me.  I know it's something I need to work on.  I'm not confident enough with my abilities yet to allow those impulses to dictate the sound.  My scenework has improved...and I have fallen much more in love with a desire to storytell...but I still feel like my feelings about scenework serve as sloppy seconds to music and dance.  Which isn't fair.  And is ultimately counterproductive.  ...things I'm working on.


It feels almost silly how fulfilling Cabaret has been--how much I get to learn from my castmates on a daily basis.  Kit Kat Kids have the luxury of watching many of the scenes/principal songs from our "voyeur" stations onstage.  I completely drop my Kit Kat demeanor (don't tell Joel) watching Julie (our Frau Schneider) sing "So What?" to Cliff.  I can't help but be turned into an audience member.  I've seen it dozens of times and it is still fresh and new and so vocally stunning that I just turn into another audience member in awe.  I watch Kate (Sally Bowles) sing Maybe This Time from far upstage and a similar scenario unfolds.  I try against all odds not to turn into a great overindulgent puddle of a human being (and thanks to a curtain in front of me/dim and hazy lighting, it's hopefully/most likely not even noticeable) but it is a constant battle.  The magical saxophone in that number is so darn seductive and soulful and stupid Kate Wetherhead is so talented and magical and vulnerable that it's a losing battle for me to attempt to maintain any semblance of normalcy.  I digress again.  (Big surprise.)  Point being, I love this job.  Dear Dallas Theater Center, please make us a permanent fixture or take us on tour.  I'm not sure that any experience could possibly top this and I'm only 21.  I am thoroughly spoiled and dreading May 22nd more than you know.  In the meantime, I'll be the chorus girl downstairs silly giddy about her job.


I'll close with my favorite quote of all time from one of my favorite people...

“When you perform you are out of yourself- larger and more potent, more beautiful. You are for minutes heroic. This is power. This is glory on earth. And it is yours nightly.” - Agnes De Mille

What a privilege to pursue a career in which this is the task.  I'm the luckiest girl in the world.