Houston Day 774 - auditions and heartbreak (and blogging and pools)

"Alas, poor Yorick..."

Whew.  Just finished a run of seven auditions in four days.  Four of them were first-round, the others were callbacks for Hamlet; By the Way, Meet Vera Stark and The Giver.  I love auditioning, as I've mentioned before, but this weekend really wore me down! The nervous energy and crashes both got bigger, like spikes on a graph.  The most enjoyable audition was the Hamlet callback; I was late and stressed out and fluttersy but then I turned around and my beautiful friend Jeff (who played Banquo in Macbeth) was there and it turned out we were reading together - we were being considered for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.  We had a blast.
I'm also struggling with the possibility that I might not get cast in anything, and working through (again) the age-old question of why I pursue this even though it breaks my heart.  And the answer is, because I love it, and because to me excellent theatre is one of the most exquisitely beautiful things in the world, and because the longing and the heart-breaking are somehow all a necessary part of it.

Hope Stone New Orleans

When not at auditions, I've been working at home, either preparing for said auditions, or writing for Hope Stone.  The latest blog post is about Hope Stone's teacher training days, which I took in Houston last year, and which just ran in New Orleans.  I haven't been to New Orleans yet, but I'm enjoying developing an e-lationship with the staff at the Hope Stone there.
I'm also keeping social and doing a pretty good job at fending off those post-show blues.  Jeff and I had a drink after our Hamlet callback, and I caught up with Matt, another Macbether yesterday at Onion Creek - love it that he is as intense as I am and loves to just talk solidly for an hour about the meaning/s of life.  Leslie is moving house soon so we'll help her with that, and the Nickerbekahs are coming over for fourth of July celebrations tomorrow.  (Let's not look too deeply into what I am celebrating - it's probably not American independence, and maybe just the fact that everyone has the day off, and that we have access to Scott and Maggie's pool.)