Next Day!

What did I do with myself for the last week of my life? That's a good question. I have no idea. Time passed quickly, some shows were seen and I have no idea how an entire week went by.

Early in the week, my friend Sally got comp tickets to Oleanna through her internship at EST, so I was her plus one. I'm very proud of David Mamet, because he currently has two shows on Broadway. New goal for myself: star in a Broadway show and have a show that I wrote running on Broadway. Best of both worlds. So A-1 Dave!

Oleanna was very good. It's a he-said/she-said story in which the girl comes across as CRAZY because she accuses a professor of sexual harrassment when he clearly never touched her, and the afteraffects of that accusation. Very interesting. But it's written in typical Mamet-style, so the dialogue is very rapid and half-finished. The main complaint that I had with the show was that Julia Stiles stalled the rhythm a few times, which was no good. She had lines that were written to be cut off, but she didn't have anything to say past what was written, so it sounded awkward. But it was ninety minutes with no intermission, which is Nick and my preferred method of seeing a show, haha. But you can give me Save the Last Dance or 10 Things I Hate About You any day of the week.

On Friday, Nick and I saw In the Next Room (or the vibrator play). Yup, it's about what you think it's about. (And the parenthetical statement there is actually in the title of the play - I'm not just elaborating for your benefit or indulging myself in my love for parenthetical statements.) It's by Sarah Ruhl, who is one of my recently-discovered new favorite playwrights. Her plays are funny and engaging and touching and beautiful. This play took place in the late 1800s and it talked about the cures used to fix "hysteria" in women before the turn of the century. Very interesting because it was also historically accurate. And the end of the play was poignant and beautiful. Highly recommended. And it SNOWED. I'm a sucker for precipitation on stage. And clearly so is Broadway this season.

The rest of the weekend was nondescript. I was on call on Saturday, and Nick worked all day, so I spent most of the day doing nothing. I had my seminar in the morning, and we worked our monologues for the first time. Everybody did really well, so it was a successful seminar. I got the first line of mine out then completely BLANKED and had to start over, which was not cool. Let's hope I never do that in a real audition. For real.

(Speaking of: I'm going to a real audition on Saturday! Non-equity open call for a national tour of Tales of a Fourth-Grade Nothing. Children's theatre? Ummm, I'll take a paycheck.)

Saturday night Nick was still working, so I spent the evening watching the Farmington High School Marching Band perform at States. I was able to stream the performance live online, which was AMAZING. I am SO PROUD of my little seestor.

And Sunday I got to spend some time with Adam Cuthbert, blast from the past from high school. He was performing in New York as part of GVSU's New Music Ensemble, so we got a chance to walk around the city and I kept him from getting horribly lost. I also saw his performance which was crazy, unusual, new and fun, but mostly crazy.

Most importantly: today. GRAND DAY. My scene partner and I did a half-and-half of our scene and it REAFFIRMED why I do theatre. It was amazing. SO MUCH FUN. And I've always had trouble with anger on stage and making it real instead of a flat, contrived anger. IT HAPPENED TODAY. For literally twenty minutes after finishing the scene, I still kept feeling the adrenaline rush and my whole body was shaking. It was amazing. And Irma loved it, so don't worry - I didn't cry this week, haha.

And then we went to the Next to Normal lottery and Nick's name was the first one called! And my name was the eighth one called, so I didn't even need the tickets! So we got to see Next to Normal and it was FANTASTIC. Alice Ripley is still INSANE, but she has got a serious set of pipes. For real.

The story was devastating and haunting and beautifully written and the two females in the show were the epitome of perfect. LOVED IT.

Following which, we were on our way to Jamba Juice when we saw that the Bernadette Peters Benefit had just let out of the Minskoff Theatre next door. So we hung out for a while and took some photos of: Martin Short, Mary Tyler Moore and BERNADETTE.

All in all, BEST DAY EVER.

Still missing you all! Love, Kelly

PS: Sad news - I ended my last post with the plan to see Aida at the Metropolitan Opera. Unfortunately we did not get tickets. But we plan on seeing Turandot next week. And everybody loves some good Puccini.

PPS: The title is a reference to the fact that I saw two shows with "Next" in the title. Not that this is being written on the next day. There was apparently some confusion, haha.