The Duck's Nest: online home of mizducky

Our play got a rave review!

San Diego Theatre Scene -- Review by Kathleen Downs (subbing for Hitch).

Our contribution to the fourth weekend of the North Park Playwright Festival got a rave! Ours was "The Committee," the first play after intermission--scrolled down a little ways on the linked page and you'll see it. Yep, I was typecast as "the artsy one." We totally nailed the banter the night the reviewer was there. Kudos also to our play's director, Mark Zweifach, for drilling us relentlessly so that the banter really snapped like that.

Yes, Virginia, there is an underground warehouse party scene in San Diego

... and I caught up with it courtesy of my friend Dale, who forwarded to me this Facebook event notice. There I found a cool environment with all the classic amenities, including retro cartoon video projections, lots of chill-perches, and an energized crowd dressed in festive attire ... plus an incredible performance by an outfit called the MarchFourth Marching Band, which comports itself like a cross between a Mardi Gras band and a mobile Cirque du Soleil.

Click on the thumbnail images to check out a couple of samples of the scene -- admittedly blurry, taken in low light on my cell, even after tweaking in Photoshop. But you'll get the idea.

 

Yay! I got a part in a new play!

And I mean, literally, a new play. The North Park Playwright Festival puts on short (ten minutes or less) plays never previously produced--it's a chance for aspiring actors and directors as well as aspiring playwrights to get in the sandbox and do stuff. It's put on by a wondrously idiosyncratic labor-of-love theatre enterprise called the North Park Vaudeville and Candy Shoppe. The festival will run every weekend in October; the playlet I'll be in, called "The Committee," will run the last weekend in October. Several of my theatre friends are also involved in this thing, one way or another. Watch this space for more news (including ticket availability and show times) when I get it.

"Hair," North Park Theatre, 8/14-8/16: Sign of the times

I couldn't help cracking up when I saw these signs posted at the entrances to the auditorium of the North Park Theatre tonight. Haze, huh? As in that purple haze all in my brain? Groovy, maaaaaahn...

There was indeed a smoke machine haze hovering over the stage for the entire evening. There was also a whole bevy of folks, with some really terrific voices, belting their way through all the hits of this venerable tribal love rock musical. I laughed at many points, and teared up at several points, and it was not just from nostalgia. It's impressive how well Hair has held up. San Diegans, you should go. It's only playing this weekend. It'll make you smile. For more information: www.Hair-SD.com.

Okay--who planned this crazy week?

It all started off so reasonably. First off, months in advance, I agreed to help cater a fundraising cocktail party this Saturday. Then, several weeks back, the sketch comedy/improv group I belong to scheduled a performance for this weekend--but it was for the Friday and Sunday, so I said hey, that works, I can handle that. Then a couple weeks ago, I get a call from a recent cat/housesitting client, asking if I could do that again for her this weekend. I took a deep breath, remembered I needed the money, and said yes--hey, I have to sleep somewhere anyway, I'd just be sleeping someplace other than home, plus playing with some kitties. And then, just last week I get a call from a fellow church member saying an elderly congregation member had a need for a long-term part-time caregiver--to start ASAP. Like, this Wednesday and Friday. I swallowed hard on that one--but see previous remembrance of needing money; plus I realized this was exactly the kind of additional long-term gig I'd been looking for to provide cashflow during school. So--again I said yes.

And so here I am, having run from piller to post all day today, about to run out the door again in 15 minutes, looking at more of the same through Monday at leasst, finding on my lips the paraphrase of Spock's quote that always comes to me when I find I've agreed to some crazy situation: "It seemed the logical thing to do at the time.

NaBloPoMo: I'm in for August - "Tomorrow"

Hokay, so as part of my project to re-bootstrap my esprit-de-corps about Life, the Universe, and the Job Sitch by means of blogging, I have signed up on the blogroll of National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) just in time for their August theme, which is "Tomorrow." Of course, as NaBloPoMo themselves say, the theme is optional--but what could be more apropos to my get-a-grip-on-life project than focussing on tomorrow in a positive, affirmation-laden way?

But also of course, my inner Smartass, when confronted with that theme, can't help but hear bad parodies of that song from "Annie" running through its figurative head -- a song which is almost too easy to parody, being on the verge of self-parody already. And I can't imagine I'll be the only NaBloPoMo blogger who immediately goes here, either--it's just way to easy.

But but, as an old drag queen friend used to say to me, "It's not pretty being easy."

So herewith, a couple parodies I found on YouTube that made me smile--first, a classic from Forbidden Broadway:

And here, a drag Cawfee Tawk style parody (the actual song kicks in at a litte after 1:30; there's a few bits of "not-safe-for-work" language, and of course you need to be okay with drag humor):

And always remember ... no, not any lyric from that damn song--rather, the more enduring "She who laughs, lasts."

Little miracle du jour: acting class

Attended my first session of an on-going acting class held at San Diego's LGBT Center--and had a blast! The instructor had me cold read a monologue from Blythe Spirit -- the over-the-top spiritualist Madame Arcati. I had seen my church's theatre group do this play just this spring, with a friend of mine totally kicking butt as Madame Arcati, so I knew what I was in for. I put on my best overly-posh Brit accent with a little Julia Child thrown in, and had at it ... and the instructor loved it. Said if I'd walked into an audition and did that in a cold reading, he'd cast me in a heartbeat. Oh that felt good!

Then he started tweaking my performance here and there, which was a good thing--I've noticed that my challenge in receiving direction is to figure out how to take direction that way, to get my head and sense-memory to let me alter what I'm doing in response to instructions.

So I'm pretty jazzed about this class, not only for the potential to learn more, but also to keep myself psyched about acting, and creativity in general. Count it as another little miracle to keep me forging ahead. (The only bummer is that the instructor will be going down to Mexico for several months, so the class will take a hiatus until April. I can wait ... or find another thing to keep me psyched up.)

Today's little miracles

I can't say I'm much of a Grateful Dead fan, but once in awhile the refrain of their song "I Need a Miracle" gets stuck in my head. You see, I've got my share of dreams, and I'm doing all sorts of little things to inch my way towards those goals. But visible progress can sometimes be so hard to come by that it's easy for me to get the blues, or even just the blahs. And that's when I hear that silly refrain: "I need a miracle every day." Not a huge miracle--though that would be nice. Sometimes just a little miracle, some tiny sign that I'm actually getting somewhere, is all that I need to get out of the blahs and feel psyched all over again.

I had a couple such little miracles in the past few days. For one, the director of the community theatre group with whom I performed last summer contacted me along with a handful of other people to do an advance readthrough of a script he's considering for this July. I realize that this does not constitute any kind of a promise as to getting the part I read, or even that the play will even be done ... but like they say, even to be nominated is an honor.

Then this afternoon, I went into a branch of my bank and ran into a young woman I'd met through another theatre group--turns out she works at that branch. She had seen me audition for another show put on by this group, and enthused about me joining this group's weekly improv sessions. I tell you, it does the old ego a world of good to have someone tell you how awesome they think it would be if you joined their group. (Plus I'm not ashamed to mention that I though she was pretty cute ... )

Anyway, two little ego-stoking miracles, totally unsolicited, totally demonstrating that all these little seeds of projects I'm scattering hither and yon are actually falling on something resembling fertile ground. It may be a good long while yet before any of these seeds come to fruition, but it's nice to see at least a little sprouting action.

P.S. New super-short dykey haircut! I'll see about a photo op tomorrow.