Whatever You Do...Don't Go to the Bathroom

After a characteristically long gap, I am now back on the blog! Did ya miss me?

And boy do I have a story for you. Shane and I had a lovely date night scheduled last night - we planned to go out to dinner at the new-ish Japanese noodle place on Pratt Street called Tanuki and see the show THWAK! at Hartford Stage.


Everything was going along very smoothly and we were having a lovely time. The noodle place was fun and the food was good. We also had one of my FAVORITE desserts there. It's called mochi ice cream and at Tanuki they serve it creme brule style with caramelized sugar on top. It's hard to explain and, in all honesty, I like regular mochi ice cream better...but it was still very good!

So then we headed over to the theater for the show. We didn't know where our seats were (don't ask) so when an usher guided us to the cabaret style seating right in front of the stage...and then to the table that was smack dab in the middle of the first row...well, needless to say, we were very surprised. A little while after we got there a very nice couple joined us at our table and we made small talk and sipped drinks while we waited for the 90 minute, intermissionless show to start.

I think you may see where this is going...

A little over 3/4 of the way through the show I noticed Shane had stopped laughing...which was odd because the show was very funny (you should really watch the clips on the Hartford Stage's website...the show is there until August 2!!! ::shameless plug on behalf of my Greater Hartford arts comrades::). I turned to look at him to see if something was wrong and he had a very concerned look on his face. I asked him if something was wrong and he whispered to me the three most dreaded words one could possibly udder while being seated in the front row, dead center, at an intermissionless show..."I have to pee."

Now one might think, "What's the big deal? Just get up and go to the bathroom." Under normal circumstances, even though it's somewhat gauche, this is acceptable. But we knew better. Earlier in the show a woman who was also seated near the front of the cabaret area got up to use the restroom. IMMEDIATELY one of the actors began screaming, "GET OUT!!!! GET OUUUTTT!!!!" and the two launched into merciless taunting (much in the same way stand-up comedians do if you get up in the middle of a show...this show had a similar feel to something like that). It was very funny....but it also made you think "thank GOD that wasn't me!"

So now fast forward to Shane's predicament. He has to use the men's room and we're not sure how much longer the show is. Like a trooper, he tried to stick it out for as long as he possibly could. But just when I saw beads of sweat forming on his brow and a look on his face that made me think he was going to be sick he said "That's it...I'm not gonna make it," got up and walked out. He received some mild taunting but when he didn't respond one of the actors just said, "he doesn't give a shit, does he?" So true...so true. ;)

About 5 minutes later the show was over. Damn. But no matter...we both agreed we had a wonderful time in spite of the jeering.

So the moral of the story? If you're going to see a 90 minute, intermissionless comedy-type show...go potty before it starts or you may just get some unwanted attention.

We're All In This Together

There are a few different things I want to blog about...one being the blackened beef stir fry I made last week (I must blog about all of my culinary accomplishments!) and the other being the Fleetwood Mac concert I went to on Saturday night (I may be deemed some kind of geek for saying this...but it was easily one of the best concerts I've ever been to and I've been to quite a few).

But I'm not going to blog about either of those things right now because I don't have access to the lovely pictures that will go along with them. So instead I'm going to write a blog I've been meaning to write for some time now. A blog about my most recent dramatic endeavor.

For those of you who do not know, I am going to be in a musical at the very end of April/beginning of May this spring. But not just any musical. Oh no. I'm in HIGH SCHOOL Musical. Yes that High School Musical. With real live high school students! How did I get into this you ask? Well it's simple, really. I used to be a part of a youth arts group called the Young People's Center for Creative Arts (or YPCCA - pronounced "Yip-kah") when I was in high school. This group did a musical every summer and I was in such shows as Fiddler on the Roof and Damn Yankees. Ah yes, community theater.

Well this group has continued doing musicals every summer and they have grown into a larger, more organized non-profit. So, just like any other non-profit, they hold fundraisers every now and again. This spring they decided to do a show as a fundraiser...the show being High School Musical. They had plenty of high school students to play the roles but what about the adult characters? Hmmmmm...

So I get an email out of the blue from the director of the organization (and the show, for that matter) asking me to come down and read for the part of the drama teacher Ms. Darbus. After a bit of discussion about rehearsals and what I would and would not be able to make, I decided to just bite the bullet and go for it. It'd been a while since I'd been in a musical and I kind of missed it. So I was cast as the quirky, crazy drama teacher who directs...you guessed it...the high school musical. In the movie the character looks like this:




Interesting. We'll see where I go with this...I haven't decided exactly how I'm going to play it yet. Regardless, this is going to be a fun character to play even if the show is one of those fluffy tween-centric kind of things.

So I get to act! YIPEE! And best of all it's a supporting role so little to no singing and dancing! Or so I thought...

Yes, it's true that I don't have to sing much and the songs I do sing in I only do so in the chorus but dancing...oh the dancing. As many times as I've been told I have a "dancer's body" I must assert - I AM NOT A GOOD DANCER. And really I only have to dance in one (maybe two) songs in the show but BOY is the choreography difficult! The one I'm learning right now is for this scene:

Now we're doing the dance that they do in this video...but we're also doing MORE. It involves being on the ground at times. Madness. After the first full dance rehearsal (2.5 hours, thank you very much) my thighs hurt so bad I could barely go up and down stairs.

If you'd like to see me in this lovely show it will be at East Hampton High School on April 30th and May 1st 7:00 p.m., May 2nd at 8:00 p.m. and May 3rd at 2 p.m. And since YPCCA is all fancy now, you can buy tickets online at www.ypcca.org. I must warn you in advance though, the tickets are $12.00. I think the price is so steep because this is supposed to be a fundraiser. I understand that $12.00 is a bit much to pay to see a bunch of high school students performing a show you probably wouldn't see unless you knew someone in it though, so there will be no hard feelings if you can't attend (unless you are Shane...in which case attendance is mandatory). But I probably won't be acting again anytime soon so if you'd like to catch this rare glimpse at a side of me only people I knew from high school and college have seen, then I'd suggest you attend. I MAY regret extending the invitation...we shall see.

And the Academy Award goes to...

Ok...so it's far too late for me to write a real blog right now...but I wanted to assert the fact that I HAVE NOT abandoned my blog. I miss it dearly, actually. There just hasn't been anything interesting to write about! And now there is...but I haven't had time to write...UGH! So hang in there, friends. I WILL make my triumphant return.

In the mean time, in the spirit of the Academy Awards, I think you should all seriously consider seeing best picture winner Slumdog Millionaire if you haven't already. It's stunning.