Things that Go Dreamy

Ok, first: Three Hole Punch has been accepted into the Chicago Improv Festival which is huge and exciting news! Had to let you all know.
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The past few days have been rough around the edges, clawing at the binding on my day planner trying to escape. I've had far busier weeks, but I feel knocked for a loop anyway. I imagine it was mostly the -- falling action surrounding the show at Thacher ending. (I almost just called it the postictal state which might have been more appropriate, the show then becoming something like an artistic seizure I had one night in this metaphor).


The stuff of dreams.
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I've been dreaming very vividly. I had a sequel to a dream I had a month ago about President Obama. But more often I dream of people I know, waking up feeling as though I just spent the last few hours in their company. Feeling like they just left my apartment. I chalk it up to sleeping hard after a month of not sleeping at all.
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Last night I had the night off completely and so after an eight hour shift and then dinner I put Left and Leaving up on iTunes, lit a stick of incense and crawled into bed with Motherless Brooklyn. By 6pm I was asleep. I had set an alarm against this so that I could still have a productive night.

Here is the key to taking naps in the evening (for me). I absolutely can't go to bed in the light and wake in the dark. It disorients me too much. It has induced actual panic attacks at the worst, and at the very least leaves me feeling foggy and generally useless.
The way I learned to combat this is to sleep with the lights on. It works every single time.

In this case, it hardly mattered because I slept through the alarm. I woke up at 10pm, completely oriented and decided to "nap," more. At 1am I called it an actual night, shut off the light and set my alarm for 5am.

Thus began a strange and unwieldy dream in which I was in various settings, but in each setting the time was between 2am and 4am and I was awake because I had gone to bed too early. I wandered around college campuses and my childhood home interacting with other insomniacs, including one where I just chatted with my Dad as he folded laundry.

At 6:30am the sun woke me up and I realized, to my dismay that despite twelve hours of good sleep I had missed my alarm and would have to take a cab to get to work on time.

I didn't touch a drop of caffeine today. And still going strong.

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

The first show was wonderful. A few glitches, but everything was handled with the grace and professionalism I hoped for. I loved watching everyone's characters really come to life once they realized there was an audience out there.

"You did a great job holding it together when the audience laughed at your slapping Theseus," I told one girl.
"That wasn't me," she said with genuine wonder, "it was like it was Hippolyta doing all the work."

Students who had been mumbling now projected. Students who had been phoning it in really hammed it up. "They loved it when I got into it!" exclaimed the actress who played Helena. She had been too self conscious to act "dumb," in rehearsals, but once she got her first big laugh began flipping her hair and rolling her eyes to beat the band.

Eliciting laughter from a crowd is like magic, or like a drug. Once you realize you can do it you become hooked. This is always part of my dream for my students: that they understand how they can effect people with art (and specifically comedy), and that they strive to find new and interesting ways of doing it.

We're doing the show again Monday night at 6:30pm. You are all sincerely invited. That's how proud of this I am.

Show Time

* Apologies to anyone using Google Reader, I deleted a draft of this post but Google Reader published it anyway so you may be getting a repeat here.

Today was the first time we ran the entire play with music, costumes and a full cast. I'm pretty pleased with the results. The Upper Elementary students we pulled in this week to learn the non speaking fairy roles are great. The set pieces all came together, and we've transformed the gym into a woodland wonderland. I stayed late today to hang all the lights myself and to do the wiring for our ancient lighting board.

One of my favorite parts in the show is when Pyramus and Thisby die in the play within a play. Originally, just having gotten off of Gorefest, I promised the kids we could use blood packs for comedic effect. Realizing the floor of the gym was just redone, I later took it back but explained why red ribbons have the potential to be even funnier. They got it right away and watching P and T dramatically die with their red ribbons (Pyramus' forgotten in his pocket until he drags on his death too long and Quince has to enter and remind him to draw it; and Thisby's tucked inside the actor's mouth) kills me every time. (Hopefully their parents have a similar sense of humor.) Meanwhile, because I talked up the blood packs so much the Adolescents have now taken a keen interest in Gorefest and during downtime ask questions like "but what was the poop made of?" and "Can we audition next year?"

Everyone has grown completely into his or her role, and as hoped, the students have taken a lot of ownership over the show. They have ad libbed lines (yes it's Shakespeare, but we decided from the beginning that nothing was sacred), and added details to the show that make it their production as opposed to some cookie cutter junior high shakespeare pageant. I tried to showcase some of their other talents as well. For example, we have a piano covered in vines on stage for the whole show and the actress playing Egeus also plays a Fairy-type wizardly presence who provides music and seems to charm the audience to sleep and then rouses them when the night is through. One of the students has been filming rehearsals and told me he is preparing to make a DVD of the show with behind the scenes bonus features. He's twelve.

Bottom line is that these kids are all amazing. They have worked really, really hard over the past two months. I only see them twice a week and usually only in their own classroom. Over the past two weeks however, we have built a set and they have mastered the volume needed in Thacher's polished wooden gym. They look great in their costumes and they have every comedic moment in the show down pat, with room for vamping. The show goes up tomorrow and they are absolutely ready for it. So ready that I wish we had a longer run. Maybe we can take it on the road.

I've been extra tired without my normal days off from work, but it's all worth it. The show is going to be wonderful. These kids and their families have a lot to be proud of.

Mmmmm Soft Places

Not a lot of time to write anything substantial today. All my free time went to sketch writing for the new IA Mainstage show. At work, I costumed A Midsummer Night's Dream almost completely, which was unexpected. The students were super excited for their new digs. I have found that in school play directing there is a distinct kind of science to the production schedule, even in a truncated time period like the ones I operate within. The costumes are neither revealed nor handed off until all the lines are learned and the play has been run at least once off book. Then the costumes are a reward. However, it's my preference to wait until the show has been run several times off book with me nit picking and nagging the kids until they are almost sick of the show. Then WABAM! Costumes. Something to make the old new, and to rekindle the energy of the production process.

After work Keith and I drove to the MSPCA to pick up a sad package: the cremains of Princess Sabrina Diamond Fluffbottom. I haven't seen Keith in ages, but he emailed me and asked for the ride. I was happy to oblige and sad that I didn't have more time to spend. Keith told me the story of the night she died which had us both close to tears by the end. R.I.P Miss Fluffbottom.
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Three Hole Punch got another positive mention in a blog this week. The salty and dapper Neil Reynolds of Code Duello and IB Mainstage plugged our show's final week.
Code Duello is one of my all time favorite improv shows. I have seen them several times in Boston, and once in New York. The first time I saw them was at the Cantab during a Bastard's Inc. show. I immediately wondered, "If I get good enough will I get to work with those guys?" Even now, I can't believe I know Matt and Neil. When we were all at the DCM last summer 3HP sat for their set and talked about how crazy it is that we have the luck (and blessing) to know them. Needless to say, because my love of their show borders on fanaticism I am floored by Neil's plug and by the kind message he sent to us personally.
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In the interest of full disclosure, I should tell you all that my 13 day stretch of work got a nice little break up on the seventh day, Saturday. I took an early train to work, and after a harrowing experience involving a wheelchair, an old man, a discarded mattress and a can of soup in a plastic bag I arrived at work out of breath and sore, but still early for my shift. Ashley had shown up early too, but found out she was not on the schedule. Because the supervisor couldn't approve a float nurse (due to some program wide belt-tightening), Ashley was told she'd have to go back home. Since she needed those hours and I needed the time off she was easily talked into taking my team for the day. Before I knew it I was back at home cleaning my apartment and writing sketches. By noon I had accomplished so much that I even let myself take a nap before church and then had dinner with my adopted grandparents.
People ask how I handle working so much. The answer is that I count on miracles like Saturday all the time.