Starving at Midnight, with a Beautiful Opening Show!

Yes, I am absolutely starving! I have gotten sick of being soft around the edges, ever since I turned 18 I gained about 25 lbs and have maintained between 155-165lbs, so now I'm watching what I eat! More on that later. To the main event, my show Hello, Dolly opened tonight! Yay! I'm so freaking excited, it was awesome despite a few mishaps, my hair was gorgeous and people came that I knew and I absolutely love love love being on stage! I forgot how good it feels to be part of a cast, telling a fantastic story. Storytelling is built into our blood as humans, we tell stories to remember and to learn, also for entertainment. I can't describe the euphoric feeling when I'm on stage having done something really well or in the middle of a performance, it's like flying!

As mentioned in my previous entries, I have 5 costumes, which was expanded to 6 tonight as i had to step in for someone who wasn't there. It was ok, we made do and I got to dance an extra song! I lost one of the props I was supposed to bring on though, a roller chair that is absolutely crucial to a song, and I only have about 5 seconds between taking a table off and bringing the chair on that I can afford to spend. I spent about 2 minutes looking for this stupid chair in the dark backstage though, meanwhile they have started into the courtroom scene and Horace is sitting on the steps without his chair! Finally I found it, some bright soul decided to put the thing onstage BEHIND the huge group of people crowded to stage right. I snuck on, got it, then came out and placed it on stage for Horace to sit on, Phew! Later I was told that in my rush to find the chair, my police outfit didn't get buttoned up and my tie was on crooked so I really looked like a mess. Stuff happens though and it was definitely worth it!

About 2 months ago I streaked my hair bright pink thinking that it would wash out by show time. It mostly has, there are 2 or 3 spots where it is still highly visible in kind of a flamingo pink. I curled my hair in little tight ringlets and when I was done, there were three curls of pink! Nothing I could do about it though, so I was the slightly pink-haired cast member. No one could tell from the audience but my cast members found it highly amusing!

I love being on stage, there is absolutely nothing that compares to it. I think you either love or hate performing in front of people. Now, there's a big difference between speaking in public and performing in front of an audience. Most of that is preparation time, but I have a deathly fear of public speaking. there's a point though, when I've rehearsed enough and suddenly the butterflies are gone, and it's like soaring. I guess the best way to describe it is when a huge bubble rises up and bursts little rays of sunshine in your chest, it's just amazing! I wish I could sing better, there are so many musicals in Utah that if I could sing well enough, I'd have parts coming out my ears. It was awesome though to be in the ensemble and to have people tell me afterwards that I was like a ray of sunshine onstage, the others were smiling but I was beaming and I kept drawing people back to look at me. I love it, and I guess it shows!
Now I'm hungry and still wired. This is a really long blog, but what ev's, love ya'lls and let me know what cha think of being on stage!

Oh, and in hungry news, I just watch what I eat and maintain enough calories per day to lose about 1.2 lbs per week, which is all I can really lose because of my sedentary job and I'm not supposed to eat less than 1200 calories per day. If I don't exercise, about 1350 will let me lose 1 lb per week and somewhere around 1500 is maintaining. If I exercise, I can eat more (although I found I tend to triple the amount of calories that I burned through exercise if I don't watch this, don't know why) My biggest thing is I tend to overdo dinner and then go back for midnight snack. I'm learning to put my food on a plate so I can see how much I'm eating exactly, and to eat a larger breakfast with snacks so I don't get to starving mode and want to scarf everything. Harder than it sounds after a rousing rehearsal, but I ate 3 brownies already and if I eat anything else, I will be over my calorie limit, and I've already eaten so healthy today! Oatmeal and a lettuce sandwich (lettuce instead of bread, still had the meat and tomatoes) and home-made ribs so they're healthier and a potato and asparagus salad. So delicious and healthy! Just gotta watch those evening and late night scarf sessions!

Bruises Just Mean You Worked Hard

Yesterday was the beginning of what theatre people affectionately call, "Hell Week" for my show. For the uninitiated, Hell Week is the week prior to the first show and is filled with extra long rehearsals including 1st and 2nd dress and Tech. The characterizations of Hell Week are as follows:
     -Extremely long hours
     -Last minute scrambling for costumes
     -At least 4 meltdowns of various actors
     -Countless bruises and other injuries due to unsafe conditions
     -The losing and finding of almost every prop
     -Various other insane situations that cause the director to age 5 years before your eyes

While the cast of Hello, Dolly here at Farmington Woodland park is great, they are also inexperienced and young. This creates a perfect catastrophe when no one knows what they're supposed to do! Regardless, rehearsal was a lot of fun last night and I now have the following list of costume items (in addition to the two dresses and police uniform I already have!) to assemble by tomorrow:
     -Black bow tie
     -white button down dress shirt
     -mauve button down dress shirt
     -pantaloons
     -cane
     -mauve full circle skirt
     -white hair ribbon
     -police hat
I play 4 different characters and need at least 5 costumes for this show. Let's see if I can name them all. I'm Mrs. Rose, a Sunday Clothes dancer, a Swing dance performer in the Parade, a Waiter, and a Policeman.

As we were practicing the waiter's gallop last night, we have a toss right in the middle that scares the bejeebers out of most of us. I'm on the catching team, and my left forearm was repeatedly pounded by the poor girl being tossed through the air. I have a nice welt and a bluish bruise today that will undoubtidly continue to swell. I also have a skinned knee from slipping on the cement, torn dance shoes, multiple bug bites and you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way.

Thoughts of the day

So today I'm just going to ramble on for awhile. I have a lot of thoughts and it seems that they need to be put down on paper.

It's summer, and I'm working a lot and trying to fit vacation in. I have a lot of things I want to do like get in shape, learn to sing well, act, and write a book. I have come to the conclusion though that only rich people can do everything they want to do, because 90% of my time is at work or asleep, I don't really have a social life except for a few activities if I can manage to squeeze them in and people I talk to on the phone or Skype.

Thinking about dying my hair pink again, I had pink streaks before and I think I want a few more after my show, Hello Dolly gets done. It will be fun to try again anyway!

My show, Hello Dolly as mentioned above (Hello, Dolly! to put in properly) is running July 30, 31st and August 1-4 at Woodland Park in Farmington UT. It's an outside show, so come prepared with a blanket or a lawn chair, I think entrance is $5 and it starts at 7pm or something like that. I don't really know, I just show up for the rehearsals :)

I have decided that my body solidly protests losing weight, and I will always be a mildly overweight slightly pretty girl. I have worked out for 2 weeks and eaten healthy and all I have succeeded in doing is gaining 3 lbs. I can do that when I'm sitting on my butt doing nothing so lets see, to work out or not to work out... Options here seem to be pointing on not working out. Life is unfair in that way, I'm going to keep running and stuff for another two weeks and see if I get any results.

The Aurora, CO theatre shooting just happened, and that's scary. I was at the midnight showing of the same movie in a theatre far away, and it's just surreal to me. I have friends that live in Denver and Aurora, so luckily no one I knew was there at that time.

I say theatre because that's the proper theatre way to say theatre. Don't mess with me on this.

Finally, if you love someone, is that enough? I mean, say you really really really loved someone, but there were certain differences in your belief and wants out of life that were keeping you apart. And say that other person broke promises to you. Is love enough to fix all of that? I don't know, I actually don't think so, it's like love taunts me saying, "Look, you were happy and sad and stressed all at the same time, want to be that way forever?" Not really. If this is about you, I'm rambling, it's nice to say something and have fictional people listen. (nobody reads this blog anyway)

So yeah, that's my thoughts for today. Sorry for anything depressing, comments on working out, how to create more hours in a day, hair, theatre shows, and love are all appreciated. Comments on politics not so much.  Thanks!