odellio

Would you rather (again)

Would you rather:

Fart nitrous oxide (laughing gas) -OR- drool listerine?

Notice live maggots in your candy bar after you have eaten two big bites -OR- find a few pubes at the bottom of your Caesar Salad?

Good times!

It was a good night at rehearsal last night. We did some really good work and had a lot of fun in the process. As each day goes by I get more and more excited about this show and I love my cast.

In other news there was a reception at CPH last night. We had some UofH Architect students there. Their big final project for this year was to design a theatre. Some of our board members gave them our requirements. Last night we saw 13 very different and very amazing theatre plans. There were a couple (one in particular) that I was absoultely in love with. It was so exciting!

Moan & Groan

I am so friggin tired. I gorged myself on the biggest baked potato known to man for lunch. I am on carb-coma-overload. I can't even go home and nap. I have to let Izabel out, feed her then go right back up to the theatre to let the Architecture students in for the reception thingy tonight at CPH. Why did I volunteer for that???

Would you rather.....

OK - so I had this calendar last year and used to put these in my daily emails. I thought they would be fun to share again. Here are a couple for today:

Would you rather never be able to experience orgasm -OR- perpetually experience orgasm?

Would you rather have a unique venereal disease where, whenever you kiss someone they transform into a Japanese soldier who thinks WW2 is still on -OR- have a nervous compulsion whereupon meeting the parents of a date or spouse, you say quite happily, "Hello. How are you? Give me the salmon NOW or I will destroy you."?

Rehearsal

OK, so we had rehearsal last night. We staged "Confession", "Birthday Bitch", and "Quiet Night at Home". We were on the Main Stage because the Black Box is being used tonight for a reception thingy and let me tell you. It's rather difficult to block 14 people in a crazy "Rent" style number about confessing on a set that is arranged for "Arsenic & Old Lace". To top it off I had left home without my staging notes so I was totally winging it. We got the basic traffic pattern down, but there will be lots of tweaking once we get our own set up. Speaking of, I need lots of help building!!!

My latest show

I'm directing the Houston premiere of an off-Broadway smash called "bare" (formerly known as "bare: a pop opera"). We started rehearsals last week and we play June 6 - 21st. I am beyond excited about this show. I have been following it for years. I love the music and the emotion of the story. I have a wonderful cast which is great because we are generating national attention. I heard from one of the producers of the original L.A. production. He has been following our production blog and is super excited. He told me he would more than likely be here to see the show, possibly with the writers and some of the original cast in tow. Today I heard from Damon Intrabartolo (he wrote the score and co-wrote the book). This is all so surreal to me. Not only am I doing a show that I love and have been passionate about for years, but I am also generating excitement around the US and have grabbed the attention of the writers and producers and original cast. All I can do is hope we put on a great show. And I hope our board of directors wake up and realize what a huge deal this is, and make some effort to help me out when I request a mic system for the theatre. I can almost hear their old bones breaking in protest right now.

God forbid we would spend $2000 on a mic system that will benefit everyone. That may mean we take away $2000 from producing a show that 15 other Houston theatre's are doing this year.

Anyway...tickets for my show are on sale now. We are expecting (HOPING) to sell out.  www.countryplayhouse.org

"Before I Die"

I love to read. I just never seem to be able to find the time. I love getting lost in a good book, though and yesterday, I decided I was going to start one. Would I finish it? Probably not before my show opens since I am so busy with that through June, but I needed to read something other than a script. If any of you have been to my house you've seen my book shelf full of books. Little treasures that I buy and horde. I put them on a shelf with intentions of cracking each and every one of them open, but time doesn't always allow that. I have more books than time, but that is ok because they'll always be there waiting for me.

Last night I picked one off the shelf. It is called "Before I Die" and it is by Jenny Downham. I had read a couple of reviews on it back in November and picked it up at Barnes & Noble and then put it on the shelf with all of my other books. When I cracked it open I was hooked after the first chapter. It's about a 16-year-old girl fighting leukemia. The doctors have told her there is nothing more they can do for her. So, she puts a list together of 10 things she must do before she dies. Sex is number one. After she accomplishes that (sex) things start happening to her and her life takes off. I know that this all sounds depressing, but seriously I sat down to read just one chapter and instead read eight. The story moves quickly and it's very alive. Tessa's journey to accomplish everything she wants (needs) to do before she dies is thrilling. I do recommend it.

ANTM bites it

So a major guilty pleasure of mine is "America's Next Top Model". Yeah - I know...but it's true. Anyway, I am watching last weeks episode and Anya just bit it. HARD. She walked off the bus and fell flat on her face. I'm not talking a little stumble, I'm talking full body fall to the ground. How many times did I rewind that? At least 5. If any of you know me you'll know that Erin and I live for these moments. Nothing makes us laugh harder. And that is dangerous because when one of us starts the other gets going and it just builds....now I am laughing really hard again.....see what it does to me?

Samantha Who?

OK, I will admit - I love TV. It's a nice escape from the world, especially after having a long day. I don't always get to watch things "live", though. Thank God for DVR. I seriously love my AT&T U-verse. I can record 4 shows at once and watch them anytime I want. So, today I get home from working box office and played with my dog a bit then settled in to watch 3 episodes of "Samantha Who?". Let me tell ya, if you haven't seen the show, you really should. Gene Smart is hysterical and Christina Applegate is so cute. It's light and fun and I love it. It always leaves me wanting more.

Cloverfield

So, I saw "Cloverfield" back on January 18, 2008. Opening day...I even left work early to catch a matinee of it. I loved it. I thought it was brilliantly done. It's a pretty basic movie - not much substance at all and the characters are pretty flat, but the idea of shooting a large-scale monster movie as if it had been shot on a hand-held camcorder was awesome, and it totally worked. I had been following the hype since I saw the preview when I went to waste 2 years of my life seeing "Transformers" (OK, so it was only two hours but it seriously felt like 2 years. I'm still angry that I wasted my time and money on that crap). I bought the movie ("Cloverfield") at Best Buy and watched it again this afternoon. I was amazed at how much more I saw this time. You definitely need to watch it more than once. So, yes, I highly recommend it.