Houston Day 159 - it's my birthday, apparently

in the Miller dressing room

What a fun day.  We had a Tom & Huck show at the Miller Outdoor Theatre this morning, which is a beautiful big theatre kinda like the Sidney Myer Music Bowl.  And to be honest, the dressing rooms with the lights around the mirrors kinda made my morning.
The first genuinely cold day I've seen since we left Melbourne didn't keep too many people away, and we had a meet & greet with the audience afterwards, which swelled my ego nicely.  (You try being humble after crowds of adoring children look at you with those big shiny eyes and say they liked the show.)

Shemica and Alex backstage at Express

After unloading the set and bumping in for tomorrow's show back at Express headquarters, the cast and Sammie went out for lunch.  I think I'm a little bit in love with everyone.  We're working fairly well as a team (albeit with chronic lateness) and having lots of fun in between times.  At the restaurant Alex pulled what is apparently a regular trick of his and pretended it was my birthday so I got free dessert and the wait staff singing at me.  I laughed so hard I couldn't breathe.

Drums for our Music class at Hope Stone

It was nice to blow off some steam at lunch.  Also went shopping with Bekah yesterday on one of her rare days off, so that was nice too.  I feel like I'm working really hard and kind of just keeping it all together....I got home from Hope Stone last night, went up to Lucas and said "What's for dinner? I'm starving!" to which he replied, "Um, I don't know, I'm going out tonight.  Aaron's picking me up in fifteen minutes..." and my brain slowly ticked over...Lucas getting picked up by a friend...for an event I wasn't invited to...meant I was supposed to be busy somewhere else...crap, Sound of Music rehearsal, forty-five minutes away!  But we're at the stage of rehearsal where we're starting to run large chunks of the show, and they didn't get to anything I was in til after I was there, so no-one minded too much that I slipped in half an hour late.  BTW, I just found out I'm understudying Sister Margaretta, which is cool.  But it does mean yet more material to learn, with Tom & Huck still not completely under my belt and Rudolph starting next week....But what am I complaining about.  I love it.  I mean, I hate learning lines, but I love having so much to do.  And I think freelancing suits me well coz I get bored easily.  At last, feeling a little bit more like I belong here.  And the "no day but today" mantra is still reminding me to enjoy each day without having large existential crises all the time and some giant standard of what my life is supposed to be like looming over my head.
I've taken some more photos so you can get some more visual ideas about what my life looks like here! Click this link.

Houston Day 157 - first school shows! & I'm a dinosaur...

I just took off my visitor pass from Patterson Elementary School and realised it says "raptor" up the top.  I had no idea I was a raptor.  I'm cooler than I thought.
We had back-to-back shows of Tom & Huck at a school in Houston today.  They went pretty well.  The version of the original script that we've cobbled together worked ok, and it was fun watching the kids scream when I told Tom Sawyer "I love you" and kissed him on the cheek.
Working with Express is in some ways similar to Tony Bones in Melbourne and in some ways different.  At Tony Bones, Tony pretty much ran everything - creatively, administratively, on and off stage.  Express has more staff - Tracey the Artistic Director, Pat who is Tracey's boss, Shirley the guest director, Benito the Stage Manager, Sammy the MD, Marshi the costumier and Vincent (aka the alien choreographer), plus a cast of four and Nick & Rita in the office.  This means there is much more opportunity for miscommunication, which is frustrating, but it feels more like being a part of a team, which is life-giving.  It also means that people tend to have a stronger idea about what their role in the team is and their place in the hierarchy, which to me is a relief.  It also makes bump-in and -out much easier on the body! It feels more relaxed at Express, but I'm glad I worked at Tony Bones first so I learned how to snap into hard work mode.  This process has been hard.  There is this reluctance I feel in the team...I guess because we've pulled this show back from the brink of having no cast and almost being cancelled.  We keep giving off subtle signs that it's just too much hard work.  E.g., we're unable to start rehearsal on time.
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I wrote the above yesterday and didn't get around to posting it.  Got a call from Benito today to say I'm definitely in the Christmas show, starting rehearsals on Monday.  Hopefully it will be at least as fun as Tom & Huck, and somewhat easier and more organised!

Houston Day 156

I.  Am.  Exhausted.  Seven hours of Tom & Huck rehearsal today.  We finally have a fourth person in the cast, so we've had two days to work on the new version of the show for back-to-back shows at a school tomorrow.  It's fun, and I really like the other cast members, but it's exhausting, like all good shows are! If you're not completely whacked at the end, it's not an interesting show!
In other news, I submitted my new voiceover demo and a video to an agency here in town, and I got in to see them next week! The recommendation from the voiceover coach really helped too- he's with the same agency and he called them on my behalf to make sure I wasn't just an anonymous package on someone's desk.
Tonight we're going to see the dress rehearsal of Fidelio with the comp tickets I earned lightwalking at the opera last week.  And somewhere between now and 9.30am tomorrow I need to go over my lines for Tom & Huck.
I've been kinda homesick the last few days, but it's manageable at the moment.  Sunday we were talking about Christmas and it hit me that I won't be spending it with my mum and sisters, so that was a few tears, and then an afternoon eating comfort food and watching a movie.  There's a song in Tom & Huck that sounds kinda like "I still call Australia home" and it used to make me sing it, but I decided to stop coz it's just too sad & I need to focus on the show, not how much I miss Australia!

Houston Day 155: News from the War Zone

It's been three days since the Mosquitoes declared war on the Residents of Texas.  They're freakin everywhere.  Their attack mechanism is dastardly.  They hide until a Resident walks outside, then swarm around him or her, and even hide on his or her clothing to gain access into buildings (formerly safehouses for Texas Residents, but now falling fast to the Mosquitoes).  In response, residents have been practising the government-mandated swatty-slappy-spinny walk, although this issue has divided the community.  For example, I met two parking garage attendants who used their free hands to practise the swatty-slappy-spinny while forced to work on the frontlines, and yet the guy next to me at the bus stop this morning refused to join me in the swatty-slappy-spinny. You are not cooler than me, guy in black.  And this was after I had already sustained wounds to the neck, face, head, feet, back and legs, including parts of my back and legs covered by clothing.

There is no escape.  Pray for us.

Houston is the fourth-largest city in the U.S., a hub of wealth and the arts, and filled with trees that look lovely on the beautiful sunny days.  And yet, sometimes I feel like I am living in a post-apocalyptic version of far north Queensland.  Tropical bugs and other creatures, almost zero foot traffic, roads of appalling quality, rubbish public transport, and until recently, unbearable heat.  Sigh.  I have heard both good and bad things about Houston, and they are all true.

Houston Day 151

I am blogging on my shift at Hope Stone, listening to the cute three- to five-year-olds in their creative movement class.  One of them just remembered the word "allegro", which I find very impressive.  And one of my teen kids just walked in wearing makeup, which is unusual for her, and it's thrown me and now I can't remember her name.
This morning I was trying to figure out why I was feeling so unmotivated to do anything productive and then realised that I probably have licence to be tired right now, what with a hardcore rehearsal of Tom & Huck (with the alien choreographer) yesterday followed by a dance class last night.  So I took it easy this morning before going to another Tom & Huck rehearsal.  I drove the alien choreographer to his house afterwards...or tried to but missed the exit, so he directed me to Hope Stone and caught a bus home.  I'm catching his vibe a little more now, and I really enjoyed rehearsing with him today.  Now tonight it's off to Sound of Music rehearsal.
I had a good chat to the creative movement teacher before her classes started and she was asking me how I've been getting to know the theater scene in Houston, and I realised that I'm slowly putting faces and names and places to all of those things I read on the internet before I even got here.  It's cementing more and more in my mind that I want to apply for the Master of Fine Arts program at the University of Houston, but I need to actually meet the people there before I mentally sign up for it.  Plus I need to look at the tuition fees and figure out if we can afford it.  (Remind me again why Americans dislike economic socialism??? They just love overpriced degrees they have to pay off before they're ready???) The Head of Acting has said he's happy for me to come in and view a class and chat to him about it, but Tom & Huck rehearsals are kind of preventing that at the moment.  Hopefully after next week the show will be up and rehearsals will calm down.

Houston Day 150 - my mum's alive and I haven't been arrested

It's cold! What's happening to the Houston I've come to know and love? I think it was hotter in Melbourne yesterday than it was in Houston! Damn you all! I've been secretly gloating while you've all been whingeing about the weather, and now...enter the fall...
I often don't feel stressed, but notice my behaviour as if I'm a very well-informed outsider and conclude that I must be.  E.g, just under a year ago, fairly soon after we decided to move to Houston, I wasn't really feeling anything about that decision, and then I broke a small mirror while cleaning the house, and cried for half an hour.  So, I guess I'm busy enough at the moment, because I've started having bad dreams.  A couple of nights ago I was arrested by the Iranian government because I was behaving in a manner not accepted in an Islamic country (I'll leave that up to your imagination), and last night my mum got stabbed to death.  Still, I so much prefer work stress, manifest in dream-world harm to myself and my relatives, to the kind of bored existential angst that I've been experiencing.  Sorry, Mum.  Hope you don't mind if I text you every morning just to check you're ok.
The Adventures of Tom & Huck is the cause of all this stress.  The company's organisational and communicational skills have left a lot to be desired, but things are picking up this week with the introduction of a plain-speaking, clock-watching, decision-writing-downing Stage Manager.  There's also a new Choreographer, but he often gives me the feeling he's from another planet.  Almost everyone else on the team has worked with him before, and so that's nothing new to them, and apparently they enjoyed watching me "experience" him for the first time.
But each day this week I've reminded myself, "no day but today", and it allows me to try and deal with the challenges of each day without it becoming a question of my whole life's point or worth or success.  It's also caused me to rediscover how crazy I am about my husband.  You know how y'all think Lucas is funny and silly and smart and great to be around? Well, I get that every day! And yes, sometimes he annoys the crap out of me.  We've developed this stupid little bedtime ritual where he turns the dimmer on our bedroom light up and down for about five minutes before we go to sleep, and it pisses me off somethin terrible, but it at the same time it makes me giggle.  It's also thawed the ice on some conflict a couple of times, because even when we're hurt or seriously angry at each other it helps us remember we're really good at laughing together.

P.S.  I'm well aware that I used the phrases "y'all" and "somethin terrible" in the above paragraph.  You try living in Texas and working in about three different accents every day and not becoming some strange hybrid language monster.

Houston Day 148

So far the "no day but today" challenge has made me a little more productive, and less shy about talking to people.  I went and hung out at the crew table at the Opera today instead of hiding away in a corner :)  A large part of the conversation was about how Obama wants us all to be communists, by someone who clearly hasn't experienced how good socialised healthcare is, but other than that it was fun to chat.  And I'm going to sign off really soon so I can get my video submission to a prospective agent done.
The weather is beautiful now.  It's still hot but nice to be outside, and the evenings are actually quite cool....standing outside Jones Hall on Saturday night at 10.30pm was the first time I've been cold while outside for about five months! Lucas and I went for a lovely walk yesterday after our semi-regular breakfast at the Yale St Grill & Gifts, and then I went shopping with Bekah and Janette (a dancer who I've met at Hope Stone and Houston City Dance).  Hooray for Old Navy, and the Whole Earth Provision Company....good shops.  New pants.  Hurrah, coz it's still too hot to wear jeans.
p.s. Thanks to all from Melbourne who send me nice long emails to catch up on things!