Friday night's show went well, but near the end of Act II, I come running on for this one long scene and then got the WORST foot cramp I'd had in a while.  I'm trying desperately to remember all of my lines without bending over in extreme pain.  We're wearing sandals and I was stage left and it was my left foot, so I kept turning to Brian, who was on stage with me, but pivoting so that I could bend/stretch my left foot at the same time until the pain went away.  I don't know how I managed to remember all my lines while doing that!  And at the very end, a sound cue for me went "missing", but I just acted as if I'd heard a noise and kept going.

Slept nice and late on Saturday, got some things done around the house, left early to buy someone's birthday present, then headed off to the theatre.  Very good show, but we ran out of "smoke" at the end for a particular special effect.  No worries, it will be refilled for the remaining two weekends!

Our biggest house so far was Saturday night - around 88 people.  But in a house that holds 188, it still looks small.  I'm hoping that the crowds get bigger in this house as shows go along - plus maybe the weather is keeping some regulars away.  The one thing I like about this theatre which very few other theatres do in Northeast Ohio is they want you to come out in costume almost right away and talk to the people as they leave.  I love doing that.  I had a couple of other actors blatantly say to me when I complained we weren't doing that at another theatre, "God, your ego that big you need to go out and get your congratulations?"  I said, "Rude much?  No, I believe that in community theatre, most of the patrons want to meet us and they want to see us in costume to remember who we were.  It not only keeps the subscribers coming back, but I always say 'Thank you for coming and PLEASE tell your friends to come see it!'  That way, you are making the regulars happy and you're encouraging them to help you sell more tickets.  Don't you want to play in sold out houses and to help the theatre make money?"  The two actors then became rather sheepish and I walked out since I was back in regular clothes by then. 

Yesterday, I went to see the matinee of "In The Heights."  It's the musical that won the Tony for Best Musical a year or two ago.  All I've seen or heard of it I saw on the Tonys and I liked what I saw, but I also found out that an actress who I knew from the L.A. company of "Cats" 25 years ago was in this touring production (thank you Facebook!).  So I wanted to see her.  She was in the ensemble and wasn't on very much, but she is also understudying three roles.  The show was terrific - a blend of hip-hop, rap, traditional ballads and LOTS of Latin rhythms.  Some of the most amazing dancing I've seen and the energy was outstanding!  I got a picture of the set with my cell phone about 10 minutes before the show started - it was a gorgeous set.  It came out a little blurry, but I did it in a hurry.  The show takes place in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan.

I met April after the show and she said there is a possibility she might go on for one of the three roles she understudies.  I told her to please let me know, but because of rehearsals and shows I would only be able to go Tuesday night or to the Saturday matinee.  I would love to see the show again and I'd love to see her in it.  I could not imagine being able to be ready to go on for three entirely different roles all the time!

Gay men are mean.  Just plain mean.  Too many of them suffer from what I call "The Oscar Wilde Syndrome."  This goes beyond them all needing to look the same - badly frosted faux-hawks, rings on every finger except the ring finger, rectangular tortoise-shell lenses on their glasses, really awful facial hair.  This is about the insults.  And it's why I don't like gay bars.  People you've just met in gay bars will start right off with the insults.  And with the "girl", "she", "girlfriend" thing.  I don't like that.  I'm a man, thank you.  I suppose if I had a lot of gay male readers, I'd get tons of angry comments and things like "You are just a self-hating, insecure bitch, aren't you?"  But that might be because I hit it a little too closely.

There is this one-up-man-ship amongst gay men - both the effeminate and "butcher" gay men.  They all want to out-insult the other queens around them.  It's sort of this, "Look at how quick I am with the cutting wit" attitude that I just HATE about them.  And when one of them gets out a really good insult, there's a lot of "Ooo, no she di'nt!" and "Grrrrrlll!!" and "Fierce!!!"  They actually applaud each other being mean.  It's a sort of an "I am so intelligent and so witty and so catty all at the same time" sort of thing that I just cannot stand being around.  It's one thing for good friends to throw out teasing insults at each other - when you know each other well and you can joke about it and you know you are teasing each other.  But I meet so many gay men who are like this right off the bat and it just irks the shit out of me.  I'm thinking that the next time it happens, I'm just going to ignore it and turn and walk away.  I came very close to doing that at one point in the past couple months and wish I had done it.

This also brings me to another issue - one which probably WILL give the "boys" ammo to call me a self-loathing "hater" - I don't like queens.  Let me clarify.  I LOVE drag queens.  When they are all about performing and going all out, I love it.  But I hate queeny men.  And I don't understand where it comes from either.  I am a man who is very comfortable in my masculinity.  I don't "butch" it up.  I don't try to be "manly" or more "butch" than I am.  Yes, I can be a little kid when I want to be.  Yes, every now and then I might throw out something just a little queeny.  But I have never used the word "fabulous" in a serious way.  I'm okay with how I dress, even if it's just jeans and a T-Shirt.  I don't care about the latest fashion.  I'm too old for some of that crap.  And I don't get queeny men.  Just be a man.  So many of them talk the way they do because it's what all their friends do.  I'm a man who likes men, so be a man.  Don't try to be a woman.  If I wanted to be with a woman, I would be with one.

Not really sure what got me started on this kick, but I guess it is the fact that I thought about my circle of friends - now I SHOULD say that I don't want to qualify/quantify my friends on whether they are gay or straight.  That is not important to me.  But I was just thinking about the fact that after both of our performances this weekend, there were obviously a few gay men in the audience both nights and they seemed to be having a good time and looked like friends who've known each other for a while - both nights I saw various groups like that.  And the only two gay men I would even consider to be friends in my life I now see maybe once a year, if that.  That's probably because one of them was SOOOO insulted when I asked if it was Pergo on his remodeled kitchen floor years ago that it turned me off from wanting to be around them very much after that....

That brings up something else I hate about gay men - status.  They want to show everyone they have the best cars, the best clothes, the best house, the best vacations, the best body, the best everything.  I call it the Big Fish In The Little Pond Syndrome.  As gay men, we spend most of our young lives at the bottom end of the totem pole - bullied, taunted, beaten.  And when we finally come out and find a circle of friends like ourselves, it then becomes all about being the Alpha Dog.  You are finally in a group of your peers and now that you have the chance to be the Big Dog, you take it.  Hence all the insults - the scrambling for Top Dog in the group.  And hence the pursuit of being and having the best.  I think that's what drives so many of them (perhaps I should pursue a Psychology Degree and write about that as my thesis?).  I remember a long time ago when I was living in L.A. and I knew a guy who was a financial advisor and I talked about how so many gay men have all these material things and show it off.  He said that most of the gay men he advised were in hock up to their eyeballs - many in debt for $100,000 or more.  But boy do they present this "I got it all" image. 

Even sadder amongst many gay men is an adage they use - "Live fast, leave a beautiful corpse."  It's a sort of Logan's Run attitude.  They want to be remembered for how beautiful they are.  They compare it to Marilyn Monroe and James Dean - immortalized at the peak of their good looks.  And so many gay men pursue drugs and/or don't care about HIV because of that attitude - never mind the fact that drugs and AIDS will ravage them more than old age could.

Wow, now that I read this, if some right-wingers were to come along, they'd probably love to use this as "See??  See how they are???  He admits it!!!"

But I am only talking about the gay men that I have met at gay bars for the most case.  I'm sure there are probably a lot of gay men out there that do not fall into those categories.  I think the problem is that the gay men I would like to know are the ones who are probably like me - sitting at home, wondering where that guy is, not wanting to get out there because of the Queeny Meany Oscar Wilde Boys that are out there waiting to pounce.  No, we all sit at home wondering where the MEN are.  The nice men.

I'd like to know where they are, too.

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!

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!

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!

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 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!