For the Love of the Kalita

Those who know me understand that I am the biggest dork in a whole myriad of ways.  My love of old buildings, vacant buildings, and churches is borderline obsession.  I'm not sure why I have such a fascination with old buildings/buildings with history/buildings with character, but it's a very real thing.  When I went to Nice, France the summer after my senior year, my half-French best-friend and I were wandering around the old town square in our little sundresses, just enjoying gelato and the sun.  We stumbled upon this gorgeous vacant church in Vieux-Nice that had been built in the 1300s (I think...I'm certain it was centuries old/pre 1500) and I suddenly found myself crying.  I was so overwhelmed by thoughts of the people who had joined together there so long ago under the unity of a belief, by its age, and by the eerie sadness that came with the sense that the building was now forgotten.  With this realization came a greater understanding of just how new America was as a nation and how insignificant my tiny unimportant life is in the grand scheme of things.  I have the most insane fantasy that when I am old, rich, and famous (which has been a subconscious desire since childhood...as I think it is for just about everyone) I will take a crazy-beautiful vacant church (preferably cathedral style) and turn it into an arts complex.  I want art galleries, a coffee shop, a black box, and a big performance space.  If you've ever been in Marty Van Kleeck/Ronnie Claire's homes, they pretty much reside in my ideal.  A Catholic school/church built around 1900 on Swiss Avenue that they turned into their respective homes.  They are gorgeous.

I really believe there is something as spiritual and holy in a theater as there is in a church.  I don't mean this in a sacrilegious way--simply that singing or playing music, reveling in the human connections found in theater, and dancing are the most spiritual and supernatural experiences I've had.  There's an Agnes DeMille quote that I've always been a bit in love with:

“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."

I fully believe this to be true.  When I think about all of the magic (because, really, what else could it be?) that has occurred in a theater--the heroism--I fall utterly in love with my craft and its venues all over again.

The history of theater buildings particularly fascinates me; this includes personal history--not just history in a larger context.  Carpenter Hall is the most glorious space in the world.  It's new, it's enormous, and it is beautiful.  And while I love the insane rush of performing there, there is something so warm and comfortable about the nostalgia of the Granville Arts Center in Garland.  I had my first dance recital there when I was three years old.  I did my first musical outside of school there.  There, I had my first audience.  There, my entire family occupied an entire row for every performance over the last 17 years.  For some mind-bogglingly beautiful reason, I have the opportunity to perform in both of these spaces this summer.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been performing in the Kalita Humphreys Theater.  I think it is perhaps my favorite space I've had the opportunity to perform in  I love the crazy-weird Frank Lloyd Wright architecture (despite it being responsible for the tumbles and subsequent bruises from bizarre winding staircases backstage), its location in Turtle Creek, but mostly the old-school prestige and history it has in the world of theater.

Frank Lloyd Wright designed everything in the theater on a 30/60 degree angle as it was in nature.  The only 90 degree angles in the space are the walls meeting the ceiling and floor.  The theater was built over 50 years ago in 1959--and is one of 3 spaces designed by FLW.  Upon researching the theater, I found that the basement is supposedly sometimes used as a blackbox.  (And thanks to this research, I'm now determined to make a performance happen down there. Any takers?)  At any rate, the theater was the home to the Dallas Theater Center from 1959-2009.  Since the DTC officially moved to the Wyly in the Arts District, Uptown Players (where I'm performing Dirty Rotten Scoundrels now) is using the space for their shows.  In the curtain announcement right before the show, the recorded message says "We're pleased to announce the rest of the 2010 Uptown Season will be taking place at the Kalita Humphreys Theater."  I don't know exactly why, but I get chills every single time I hear this.  It is so incredible that I get to walk through the stage door at the theater, initial on the sign in sheet, and walk upstairs to a glorious dressing room.  I can't believe I'm here.  I can't believe I'm lucky enough to perform in this space.  I can't believe I get to dance on a stage that has had hundreds of brilliant performers on it.  I really just can't believe I'm lucky enough to do this as (for now) a part time job.  I'm still just fourth chorus girl from the left, but the fact that I'm in this space is a mental catalyst that propels my theater fetish from hobby to career opportunity, and that makes me giddier than I can adequately express.  Bobby gets tickled watching me talk about theater/doing a show here.  I literally start squealing and smiling and giggling giddily just thinking about it.  Thank goodness he can tolerate my abounding silliness over it because I don't know who else could!

Besides the fact that this show represents so much for me, I've just never been able to just feel so much history in a space before.  At the risk of sounding like a very grateful broken record, I just can't believe I'm here after "trying out this theater thing" a year and a half ago.  I must be the luckiest person alive.

Well, it's just about noon on a Sunday.  Time to go soak up the haunting and glorious air in the Kalita, the genius of Bob Hess and company in the show, and make Mama Cheryl proud at the matinée.  I'm not normally much of a matinee person, but if I haven't made my association between theater and church already (as in theater is my church), what better way to get my Sunday going than to do a show?

Scoundrels: if you're reading this, I am so grateful to be sharing this with you.  Thank you all so much.  It really has been magical.

Apology

I know it's been forever. I am sorry!  Life has been insanely busy.  But very, very good.
I'm totally going to write a real post (and soon)...probably about dream roles and silly business like that...because it has been on the mind as of late..but for now, let me say:

1.  I am playing Anytime Annie in Garland Summer Musicals' 42nd Street.  Lots of tapping.  Lots of fun. Excited.
2.  I might be going to Peru for a week in May if I can scrounge up the funds.  I have a way to get there for $276, so I just need to find a way to have money once I'm there.  Really cool opportunity.
3.  Dirty Rotten Scoundrels has been amazing.  I am smitten in love with the history of the Kalita Humphreys, th stage, even the scary revolve, the beautiful and insanely talented cast, the dancing, the costumes, the wigs, the production team...etc, etc.  I am having a WONDERFUL time and I seriously don't want it to end.  (But when it does, I'll be three weeks out from performing in Carpenter Hall again so I seriously have no room to complain.)
4.  On that note, I am so, so in love with my job. More than ever.  I cannot express the joy performing/theatre/music/dancing bring me.  It is just ethereal.
5.  I have the most beautiful and wonderful friends in the world. I love them.  Life is really good, and I feel like myself again. Mostly.

That is all.

The Greedy Love Post

Just checking in with anyone who reads this thing...I've been getting some emails/texts this week from people I had NO idea read this today.  Want to post a comment just to say hi or tell me if I am utterly boring you or if the blog is worthwhile? I will super-heart you forever!

Thanks pals.

The Tiny Ways You Love Someone: Or Soft Feet

The finest inheritance you can give to a child is to allow it to make its own way, completely on its own feet. -Isadora Duncan

After two days of self deprecation, frustration, and general blue-ness, I have successfully de-funked.

I'm getting good at this.

This is a whole discussion that I could expound upon later, but when I sink into these boughts of mini-depression or sadness, I naturally become more introverted.  (This obviously isn't singular to me.)  I become more pensive and subsequently more artistically minded (generally speaking.)  Daily life merits innermonologues and constant semi-poetic narration (or at least I glorify it to be so) and every event qualifies as a subplot in an indie film.  I'm much more productive in a creative manner when I'm sad or alone--which helps elucidate why most artists/musicians constantly battled depression--that and the fact that they became dissatisfied with the mundanity of daily life; I digress.  Regardless, I've noticed a recurring motif (is that redundant?) in my life the past couple of days--water, cleansing, and catharsis.  (Said observation would not have occurred had I been the happy version of Katharine.  I would have been too busy being happy.)

This afternoon, I watched one of my favorite films: Big Fish.  It wasn't as grand or glorious as I recall it being when I was 14 (13?) but it was still thoroughly enjoyable.  I love Elfman's score, the whimsical nature of the cinematography, the vivid colors, the costumes, the slightly over-the-top nature of it all.  An overromanticized version of an extraordinary biography.  Anyway, for those who don't know the film, Albert Finney plays Edward Bloom--a man who is larger than life, a storyteller by nature--to the point where it's indiscernable what is fact and what is fiction.  The whole point, ultimately, is that it doesn't matter.  Fact or fiction, his stories are what characterize him.

Transition to my life.  Rehearsals continue to be fantastic.  However, all this delicious dancing has marked a triumphant return of what I call "dancer feet."  (This is not a pretty thing.)  This entails blisters, bruises, and callouses.  (Callouses are your friend. For realz.)  At any rate, they are no longer lovely buffed and pedicured; they are janky and unattractive.

(I promise this will all tie in together eventually...hopefully.)

Perhaps influenced by the water/catharsis/cleansing motif in Big Fish, I felt compelled to just soak my calloused, blistered dancer feet in the bathtub.  So I did. And as I washed my feet, poured lotion on them, lathered them, and rinsed them (minding my lovely new decorative additions) I had the strangest memory arise--my grandmama washing my feet, tickling them, and telling me how soft they were as a child.  I remember thinking back then that I wanted them to be well-worn--that I didn't really like the softness.  I always had a problem with being "young" (which is something I'll undoubtedly regret in a few years.)  This doesn't mean that I don't ever act my age or have oodles of immature moments and bad choices; I do.  But I always wanted to be a step ahead--be the mature one.  I was the kid you resented who immediately befriended teachers and your parents.  I hung out in the teachers lounge in kindergarten.  I'd rather sit at the "adult table" than with the kids.  Fortunately and unfortunately, life granted me my wish; I had to grow up relatively quickly.  And bizarrely, I somehow feel as though my feet are indicative of that.  You can tone and lotion your legs till kingdom come, but your feet are a bit more honest--they're bound to give you away.  I don't know that having "lived-in" feet is quite as romantic as I'd envisioned it when Grandmama played with my little soft five-year-old toes or not, but it definitely marks a change of sorts--and clearly represents an interesting bit of nostalgia.

I guess this is sort of a mini-20-something version of Nora Ephron's "I Feel Bad About My Neck" manifesto.  You can fix anything (surgery or not) to defy your age, but your neck is something you can do nothing about.  I suppose feet are the same way.  Alas, I suppose there's not much that I can do about it.  Besides write unnecessary blogs about them, and keep walking.

Heartbroken (Stupid, I Know)

For those following my vaguebooking (vague facebooking), here's what's been happening.

The theatre I've performed most in beginning at age 3 when I had my first dance recital is doing my favorite show with my number 1 ultimate dream role in it.  This is the theatre grandmama and pop took me to every year growing up.  This is the theatre I did my first show in outside of high school.  I found out they were doing dream show about eight months ago.  Since then, I've been doing my very best not to think about it or psych myself out.  Said theatre has a tendency to do the same shows the same way with the same cast over...and over...and over again.  Figured it was all precast with people 10 years too old (at least) for their roles.  Slowly, over the last couple of months, I've been hearing rumors that this isn't the case.  The three roles that I figured would be reprised by the actors/actresses who were too old to play them seven years ago (the last time the show was done) were all supposedly open.  Cue beginning of Katharine freak out.  I wanted it so badly.  Didn't think the odds of it happening were particularly great.  But a lot has changed in the last year.  I've worked in a number of professional theatres in Dallas, I've learned a ton, and gained some confidence.  This is a role I know I could do--well. I could surprise people.  I could challenge myself.

So I went to the dance call. It was very reassuring. I was feeling pretty good. Prepared for audition/callback.  Got called back for dream role. Belted for dream role. Danced for dream role. Read for dream role--well. Very well.  No one else read for dream role all evening.

I get to rehearsal last night, and a girl who auditioned for the season mentions how another actress is indeed precast.
It is silly, I know, but I am absolutely heartbroken.  Crushed, really.  I actually had a shot.  I could've done this show.  I could have done this role.  And not only did I know that, but the director/producer/choreographer/music director knew that too. 

I feel totally and utterly defeated.

And the thing is it's bigger than just this role.  It's the comfort of the theater, the fact that I could've stepped out of the chorus for once and shown people what I can really do, and the fact that I can't imagine me doing anything that would have made my grandmother prouder.  It makes my heart ache thinking about it and all of the attachments I had to this possibility. And the fact that I had it for a little while but I don't anymore.

I'm supposed to go to a couple of auditions this weekend.  This experience has rocked the boat a bit too far, and I have no desire whatsoever to go to these other auditions--at better theatres, mind you.  But it's just not the same.  If cast, I'll be fifth girl from the left (and I know I'm always waxing eloquent about my love for the chorus in a good show and it's true--I really do love it) but we're talking The Full Monty and Joseph and the Amazing Technical Dreamcoat.  This is not Rodgers and Hammerstein or Sondheim.  So we'll see if they happen.

In the meantime, I'm trying to get back the mojo I had going for the last few weeks.  They've been really good weeks, y'all.  Much better than I've had in a while.  I love my friends and I love my job.  SMU hasn't been as much of a beating lately (except for theatre history class today in which I was told "the fact that you love musical theatre is your least endearing quality" but more on that later)...but I've been happy.

I have since deeply delved back into the funk and am trying to put the pieces back together to climb out once again.  This will be a doozy: wish me luck.

The *Perfect* Quote of My Day

There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state to another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life. - Alexandre Dumas

George Bailey

Now, you listen to me! I don't want any plastics, and I don't want any ground floors, and I don't want to get married - ever - to anyone! You understand that? I want to do what I want to do. And Mary, you're....you're...