|
BigRedEO
|
read my profile
sign my guestbook
Name: Eric
Country: United States
State: Ohio
Metro: Cleveland
Birthday: 9/14/1963
Gender: Male
Interests: Rollercoasters ; theater ; travel ; Disneyland/Disneyworld ; songwriting ; movies ; Ugly Betty ; Men In Trees ; Desperate Housewives ; Brothers & Sisters ; Amazing Race ; One LifeTo Live ; Lost ; Will & Grace ; Dead Like Me ; Wonderfalls ; Annie Lennox ; Linda Eder ; Anastacia ; Manhattan Transfer ; HEROES!!
Tuc Watkins!
Hugh Jackman!
Jason Statham!
Josh Turner!
Emma Kennedy and Suburban Shootout!!
Watching Britney implode!! YAY!!
Expertise: DEBATING RIGHT-WINGERS, ULTRA-CONSERVATIVES AND BIBLE-THUMPERS!!
Occupation: Computer related
Industry: Business
Message: message me
Member Since:
10/2/2004
 True  Premium
|
| Favorite Links |
|---|
Please visit my Facebook page as well!
____________________
Please visit my friend Adrea's webpage! Peruse her catalog! Buy something!
____________________
Also visit my cousin Suzie's page - buy something - cool accessories made from "reclaimed" materials!
____________________
My sister and her husband do a lot of painting in their spare time. Here is a link to photographer's page where she has posted some of my brother-in-law's paintings, available as prints:
____________________
PLEASE CLICK HERE TO PROVIDE FOOD FOR ANIMALS IN SHELTERS! YOU CAN CLICK ONCE PER DAY!
____________________
Following are my friend Nikki Hornsby's various pages. She was my landlady when I last lived in California. She is a fairly well known country singer and member of the Academy of Country Music. She's had #1 hits in Europe! Her music is country gospel style. First is her link page:
Next is Nikki's MySpace page. You can listen to her music here:
And finally, here's her Cafepress page where you can buy related Nikki merchandise!
____________________
This is actress and author Emma Kennedy.
Following is the link to her website. She is a British actress whose website I discovered accidentally and she is very good about keeping in touch with her fans and keeping them up to date. She is also a writer and her blog entries are very funny!
____________________
This is the website for the UK TV Show "Suburban Shootout", which is where I discovered Emma. Great show! But the site hasn't been updated since Series 2 was released. There has not been a Series 3.
____________________
Pink Martini is a wonderful orchestra/big band. They are a bit hard to describe, so please visit their site and discover them like I did!
____________________
One of my all time favorite TV shows. Only 4 episodes aired of the 13 episodes made. The whole series is available on DVD and definitely worth the rental or purchase!
____________________
My new car!! She's mine now!! She looks just like the one in the stock photo below - gold with roof rails and sunroof! Click on the photo to see the models available. I got the LT2 with all the options I've ever wanted in a car - factory-ordered brand new - and I got her for $1,800 below invoice!!
____________________
This is my favorite real estate company. They specialize in unique home and condo conversions, with things like churches, fire stations, and old warehouses that have been converted into homes:
|
|
SubscriptionsSites I Read
|
|
|
|
| Much as I'd like to update this every day, I'm not finding the time. I've just started rehearsals for another show. And this after I'd told myself I don't want to do two shows at a time, here I am doing it again. But I was asked if I could do the 2nd show and I said yes. It is 4 small parts in this 2nd show - and one of the parts I even get to read from the script while speaking into a microphone, so that's fine with me. It's just that I'm missing that relaxation you usually have during the week once a show opens. Luckily, the next show is at CVLT, so it's only a mile away. And luckily tonight I don't have to be there, considering it's supposed to start snowing at 8am today and not stop until some point tomorrow evening.
Got snowed in Opening Night. Headed to the theatre on Opening Night and it was only just barely starting to snow. By the time we got out of the theatre, there was about 4 inches of snow on the car. That's almost 2 inches of snow an hour. None of the roads were plowed. We headed just a couple blocks away to a restaurant to all have drinks after the show and I knew then that I wasn't going to make it home. I have a standing invitation at a friends' house to crash there any time during the run where the snow is bad, so I called her from the restaurant and she said to head on over when I was done. I was only at the restaurant for an hour and had to brush another two inches off the car when I was done. Just made it to her house and crashed there for the night. Getting the car out the next morning was another story!
I took some pictures with my cell phone of the snow outside. It was at least a foot, maybe closer to 15 inches down there in Hudson. These are just outside her front door. Notice how high it's actually piled on the chairs.
Out in her backyard -
And my car on the right in this picture -
They usually have a neighbor who gets their snowblower out and does their driveway, but the neighbors snowblower broke down, so nothing was off their driveway. It took me going back and forth several times just to try and get her backed up and turned partway. Finally, she and her husband had to come out with a snow shovel and many attempts with them pushing my car before we got it out of their driveway.
I had an appointment that morning at the dealership to get my headlamp replaced and I wanted a couple other things fixed - the turn indicator would no longer properly reset and there is a kinda whiny rattle from the two lowest settings of the heater/air conditioner. I wanted them done while it was still under warranty - or while I THOUGHT it was still under warranty. Turns out my warranty is 3 years/36,000 miles. 3 years would have been May, but my car is at 38,300 so.... not covered!! $200 later, and didn't even have them bother with the heater, she's better again.
The show went fairly decent, even for not having a drummer Saturday night. There were a couple places with dropped lines - I was guilty of one of those on Saturday night - criminy - but overall went very well. Poor turnout for an Opening weekend though. Don't know if the bad snow was to blame on Opening Night, but still only about 50 Opening Night and 80 Saturday night, in a house that holds 188. Hope it picks up as the run goes along!
| | |
| We are finally there = Preview Night.
Last night was NOT good. It started out great. The timing was good, the tempos were right, our energy was up. Then there was a dropped line and from there it was as if whatever could go wrong did.
I had several moments of pure stupidity. At the end of my first song, it took so long for anybody to say anything - because some people wanted us to hold longer at the end of songs - that I thought it was my line and I started saying a line from Act II without even realizing it was from Act II. Then finally the correct line came out and I was completely lost. Could not figure out what the hell had happened. Someone had picked up my prop off the ground on top of that. I was just lost. I went offstage before it finally dawned on me that I had said my line from Act II. Went back out and had to grab a replacement prop from somewhere else so I could use it when I needed it later.
Then during Act II, I forgot another prop - a cord to tie around a monk's robe that I am supposed to hand to someone else. I ended up trying to pull my own robe off to give to him, but the double knot became a problem and by that point I was so frustrated that I'd done two completely stupid doofus moves.
I am tired, tired, tired. Am considering asking for a vacation day tomorrow because even though I got 6 hours sleep last night, it feels like I only got two hours. And my voice is starting to show it. Cracked several times on stage last night. Am not hitting some of the very high notes that I can usually hit.
We have our Preview Night tonight. They bring in a busload of people from a retirement village to see the show. And then Opening Night tomorrow night. I am very surprised at the sales for Opening weekend - they are very minimal. I'm used to places where the Opening weekend is practically sold out well in advance, but I was told by someone who does shows there that they get a lot of walk-ups. I also don't think they offer subscription series to people (I could be wrong). At other places that offer subscriptions, the subscribers like Opening Weekend, so they reserve their seats well in advance. We only show 28 sold for Friday night and this is a house that hold 188. And we have 59 pre-sold for Saturday night. But since I haven't done a show here before, who knows? Maybe they get something like 75 walk-ups a night for all I know?
Anyway, time to try and drag my sleepy, sleepy self out the door and to the train. At least I'll get another half an hour sleep on the train ride in to work!
| | |
| I am debating taking a vacation day this Friday. As tired as I am this morning, I may need it. After the 35 minute drive home from the 9 - 10 hour day we had yesterday, I almost could not get out of the car. My back felt like I'd wrenched it in some way. I don't know what moves it is that I'm doing in this show that are causing me the back pain, but I am always sore when I get home. Did not help that most of yesterday was spent on my feet. Even when we're offstage, there isn't a lot of time offstage and no place to sit.
But all went well, considering - considering that Thursday night was rather painful with lots of missed entrances, dropped lines, etc (ALL were guilty, myself included). I think everyone really did their homework in our two days off and tonight we'll find out how well we do on our feet in case there's yet another giant silent gap where nobody know whose line it is. I think that is one of the drawbacks to our not having done enough run-throughs - if we had done enough run-throughs, everyone would know it decent enough to be able to cover a line or direct a person toward their line when it was forgotten. Hopefully, we'll get to that point by Thursday.
My only prayer is that we are NOT given notes right after each rehearsal, that we are allowed to leave as soon as we finish that last song of Act II. I will have no voice left if we have to sit through notes every night this week. I am praying that we are allowed to leave as soon as each run-through is done and notes are either e-mailed to us, or typed up and taped to the dressing room door the next day. I will desperately need as much sleep as I can get this week and every extra few minutes I can get will keep me from collapsing and more importantly, keep my voice from going out before Opening Night.
Some people last night were pushing that we have a 6:30pm call tonight through Wednesday. No. I NEED to have dinner. Considering that I work in downtown Cleveland, I do not make it home until about 5:45 - 6pm, which gives me maybe 30 minutes to make and eat dinner before I am back in the car at hopefully 6:20pm, just making it to the theatre by 7pm. I can get into costume pretty quickly and be ready to go pretty quickly, just as long as everyone else is ready to go and not dilly-dallying around. Let us get going right away, let us take only 5 minutes in between acts and then please let us go home without notes so we can drop into bed right away. Considering my alarm is set at 5:15am and I barely drag myself out of bed by 5:45am, I'm going to only get maybe 4-5 hours sleep every night this week. That is why I am considering a vacation day on Friday, just so that I have enough rest for Opening Night.
I'll take whatever help I can get!
| | |
| Last night, in the middle of my solo for Act I, I had a total brain meltdown. I could not for the life of me remember the frickin' lyrics. I had sung the song in the car three times on the way down to rehearsal and remembered the lyrics just fine, but got up there and it was if things had spilled out of my brain. On top of that, there is one line that I sing in two different songs - "There's a red hot heck of a future for me." I reprise that line later in the show during another song, but the melody that is sung is slightly different the second time. I kept trying to sing it the way it should be done in the second song and I don't know why. Which put me completely off where I needed to be melody-wise at that point in the song. Which stressed me out and made me forget my lyrics all together. It doesn't help that I'm in panic mode. In most shows I am completely off book one week before Tech Sunday and since I am not anywhere as comfortably off book as I would like to be at this point, I am freaking out.
It also doesn't help that I have several external stressors which are distracting me that have nothing to do with the show. And it doesn't help that I'm only getting about 4 or 5 hours sleep a night. Hard as it is for me to do right when I get home from a rehearsal, I need to learn how to jump straight into bed. That would give me around almost 7 hours sleep. I really wish I could take a week's vacation next week and concentrate solely on the show. Instead, I will have to make sure I do nothing but run lines and lyrics this Saturday. Friday night, I have to meet with my financial advisor at Ameriprise after work, which will probably be another stressor for me. We may try to have an extra rehearsal Friday night, but I would have to get there as soon as I can after meeting with the financial guy downtown. I hate talking or worrying about money, but it's a reality. You know, as wonderful as it would be to win $1 million or more, I would be quite happy to win about $25,000 right now. Between closing on the condo earlier this year, having my TV die, my computer die, my tooth die and my most recent ER visit all happen at once, I'm starting to freak just a little more. On top of that, one of my headlamps went out on my car last night. That means I have to try and schedule a repair appointment for this Saturday, which means more of my time NOT spent on memorizing lines and lyrics. I did need to get my car in anyway - the warranty expires in May and my turn indicator is no longer properly resetting, plus my heater/air conditioner fan is making this sort of whiny rattling noise. Those two items should be covered under my warranty, but I doubt the headlamp is. Wonder how much a new headlamp (bulb only) is going to cost me? Wonder if I can look it up online?
In the meantime, as soon as I got home last night, I re-recorded my cue tape for Act I, only this time, besides saying all my cues and leaving room to say my lines, I sang any and all lyrics that I have to sing in Act I into the tape (just acapella) so that I can play this tape driving to and from the train station and to and from rehearsal and I can either just listen to the lyrics, or sing along with them.
Here's hoping to God I don't have another meltdown.
| | |
| We staged the last of the numbers last night - although now they want to add some things to one of the numbers and we'll be doing that tonight. One of our performers was sick, which was unfortunate. He is one that I am worried about line wise.
We did get a chance to run Act II for the first time ever last night and I was surprised how much I did know. I think what really helped was how I recorded my lines. When I memorize lines, I record all of my cues and then leave a blank space for where I will say my lines. I decided to redo all of my Act II cues over the past weekend and I added singing all of my lines within songs. The CD for this show only has 8 songs. Another 5 or 6 of the songs are missing - and they are the harder songs. The authors were worried their songs would get out on the Internet, or some such crap, so they didn't include all of the songs. That just makes trying to memorize the hard songs all the harder. Any musical that I do, I get the Original Cast Recording and on my iPod I put any song of which I sing a part onto one playlist. On my train ride to and from work, I put those songs on an endless loop so I get through them 4 to 6 times each day. For this show, I sing all or part of 5 of the 8 songs on those CDs and I've been listening to them over and over on the train. But I have 3 songs which I barely know and of which I sing all or part of the lines along with everyone else and I don't have them memorized. Singing them onto my cue tape was a good idea. I play it in the car everywhere I drive. That way I can say my lines opposite my cues, but then sing along or listen to the words for each song I'm in. That really seemed to help for Act II. Now I just need to do the same for Act I because there are 3 songs in Act I that I don't know the lyrics to at all. I MIGHT have known them by now through repetition at rehearsals, but repetition is the one thing we have NOT had for this show.
This is why you need at least 8 weeks of rehearsal for a musical. We only get 6 weeks. 6 works for a non-musical, but is just barely going to cut it for this show!
Luckily last night I discovered I really have only two sections where I still need to pound away at the lines and I learned that for the most part I know my lyrics. I just need to be able to say the same for Act I!
| | |
|
