The Seagull.

My drummer has the habit of warming up his hands pre-show, outside. Outside is The Seattle Center. He drums, I smoke for a while and visit with him. Lately, we've had another visitor. A seagull. This lovely bird has been floating down to attend Ron's warm-up.
 I come outside to smoke and witness something amazing.  The bird is completely intrigued with Ron's drumming and his song. The bird comes closer.
I can't get any closer, because the bird then flies away. Not interested in photos. Just interested in the drum beat and the music. (Ron sings.)

This was two days ago. Ron tells me the bird comes back.  Ron was late to 1/2 hour tonight and I was outside. The bird came back. It waited. It wandered around. It looked at me when I played a rhythm with my keys. It flew away. Ron finally came out and the bird returned, wandering around him, listening. Can't get a better picture, the bird is onto me.

But, HOW MARVELOUS!

Trees Of Mystery And Baby Ducks.

I was trying to find a way to Whole Foods and found myself walking in a somewhat industrial, abandoned neighborhood.  Not scary, just not very attractive.  I looked across the street and saw this:

It is a tree growing from inside an abandoned building.  There were actually 2 or 3 trees. No trunks!  Too bizarre.  I got closer:

Can you see the trunk?  That is inside the building. 

The trees have knocked out the upper windows. I couldn't see inside. The lower windows are frosted. Total Twilight Zone moment. I'm trying to imagine the story behind these trees.  Was the building an arboretum at one time? It looks like an old office building. Did workers leave behind plants in their abandoned cubicles? Was it a nursery? Hmm. The trees look so healthy! The true Trees of Mystery!

You will be relieved to know I did in fact find Whole Foods. The Seattle Whole Foods has a different recipe for chicken salad, and I was having none of it!  I left empty-handed. As I exited I looked north, up the street. I could see a body of water!  It was the opposite direction of the Sound. What is this? I had to see.

 

Apparently I'd found Union Lake. Geese grazing.

And baby ducks!

They are really hard to see. Momma Duck forced them into the water before I could get a good picture. Alas.

Another day filled with small adventures. 

These solo sojourns help my head and my body. 

How nice to work in a place where one can wander freely.

Northwest Flowers, And A Surprise!

I continue to wander through the Queen Anne neighborhood in Seattle. It was finally a beautiful sunny day last Monday. I was taken with the brilliance of the summer flowers.

 

So vivid and bright! I love these very large daisies. 

Beauty everywhere I looked. 

I came across a lawn filled with dandelions. Oh, how I love dandelions. I just can not think of these little yellow flowers as weeds. My neighbor boy (long since moved) used to come over to our backyard because we had the "magic" flowers. He loved blowing the dandelion seeds (and spreading more!)

  

I walked to the top of Queen Anne again, then climbed further.  There is a neighborhood above the little town at the top of the hill.  At the tippy top I found some tennis courts and a fire station. Not really very interesting pictures. I did come across the largest monkey puzzle tree I'd yet seen: 

 

I wandered down this little path.  

Then wandered back.  

I really felt like I was in a small town. 

Steep stairs down.
And more very steep stairs.  I treaded carefully! (I trod carefully? - That can't be right.) 

The next day (Tuesday) I was less ambitious. I unsuccessfully tried to find the Whole Foods Market.  I did manage to get to the opposite side of the Seattle Center. This huge sculpture made me stop. 

And, then, of course, I found myself back at the Space Needle. Surprise!  I love the bright bright sun in the photo, but was worried the picture would not turn out, so I took this one too:

Beautiful, eh?  (Thanks to my sister-in-law for suggesting the angle.)

Tomorrow I will find Whole Foods. I looked it up on the internets! At the very least, I will be walking away from the Space Needle.  

Noxious Odors And Changing The World.

Nauseating and confusing smells pervade the Seattle Center this week-end. It is "Bite of Seattle" and there is no escaping the conflicting odors. I could smell it in the booth. Fried fish (great) fried pastries, fried potatoes, grilled meat, burning sugar. GAH! Thousands of people everywhere eating with sticky fingers, and no place to wash up. Yeah, my idea of a good time. I tried to avoid it all, but... it is RIGHT THERE! They are cooking in the breezeway behind backstage. No escape.

I took only one picture and decided not to get any closer. I'll try again tomorrow to give you the full impact of the crowd.  Or... maybe not. Jeeze Louise!

Thankfully, the celebration ends tomorrow. What an old woman I've become! Give me a picnic basket, some "Wet Ones" a blanket and a bit of peace, I'd be happy. Better yet, an al fresco restaurant in Big Sur, with cheery and pleasant looking waiters.

The gluttony I observed today was more than a little bit obscene. The fashion sense even worse!  My friend Frank would have appreciated my fashion police sense.

I am hoping next week will bring less stress as we all try to get into a routine with the show. We are doing one really amazing thing. We are raising money for the Panzi Hospital and for outreach to Congolese refugee women. One of the cast makes a curtain speech and several more go out in the lobby with little boxes. Over the course of two shows we've collected more than $5000 dollars. I've gone out to witness this. My eyes tear. People literally empty their wallets. People write $300 checks. We've set up that cell phone text thing, where you can automatically give $10. It is working beautifully, but we don't have the numbers on that yet. This show will change the lives of many women who've been sexually mutilated, abused and enslaved in the Congo. Remarkable. I am doing a piece of theatre that will physically change peoples lives for the better. Stunning. All the remarkable shows I've done and finally...  a play that has such a profound effect on the audience that people are driven to do something, anything, and to do it now.

What a dichotomy I witnessed today. An apparent bacchanalia, then, an overwhelming care and concern for people thousands of miles away. Western people are a bit mind-blowing.

Theatre will never die. Theatre has more power than we acknowledge. You my dearest actors, playwrights and directors can, in fact, change the world. I'm watching it happen.

Haunted By Angels.

All week I've been saying to myself, "Five weeks left." Then I would think, "Five leaves left." Nick Drake's first album from 1968. The music and the thought of the music makes me calm and a little sad.  But, it is a good sad.

We have 2 shows tomorrow and 2 on Sunday. I haven't done an 8 show week in over 5 years. I have 2 understudy rehearsals a week. I haven't done that since ANGELS on Broadway, 1993! But it is all better than good.

Speaking of ANGELS (Angels in America, by Tony Kushner), I was recently approached through several round-about means, by a student doing her dissertation on ANGELS... She wants to talk to me about the relationship between George Wolfe and Tony and the creation of the stunning achievement that is ANGELS. I've ignored her for as long as I could. (She's contacted the Intiman, she's contacted my friends... persistant!) She will interview me the first week of August. 

In my defense, I've been busy and I've talked to a number of students over the years about ANGELS, been recorded and included in school papers; I've done a web-cast, and, I know all of it is important.

Historic, really. ANGELS is now far in the past for me. I love that I'm so connected with the play, but theatre is alive and moves forward. I've done the same. I'll quote Tony, from Harper's last speech in

ANGELS, "In this world there is a kind of painful progress. Longing for what we've left behind and dreaming ahead." (Or... perhaps more apropos, a line from Prior Walter's final speech in Perestroika, "... and we are not going away.")  

Tonight one of my long lost friends from high school came to the show with her husband, her (grown-up) son and her son's girlfriend. I'm not sure I've seen her in 30 years. I saw her after the show tonight with her beautiful family. Both women were still weeping when I got to them. RUINED is that affecting. Thank-goodness for facebook, and the fact that my friend and I had both posted recent photos of ourselves! She saw me and said, "There she is!" We hugged. It was (good) weird. We'd lost each other for so long. She'd not realized I'd done so much theatre. (She'd read my bio in the program.)  ... She was so impressed I'd done ANGELS. She said she'd had no idea. ANGELS, again, haunting me. 

I'm not complaining.  I'm really not. I was 39 then. I've done so much since, much of it worthy of discussion and examination. Yet, ANGELS haunts me.

I told my husband at the time, 1993-94, "I'm so honored and happy I'm doing this, but I want it to be in the past.  I want to remember it and look back."  I was wishing away my life.  The play was that hard.  Ask anyone, anywhere, who has done ANGELS.  SO Hard. I feel we are all part of a very select club.  RUINED is equally difficult in similar ways. And yet, RUINED is, in its way, far more horrifying.  RUINED is happening now. Both stories are true. One is of the present.

De dil lee.

I was so happy to see my friend tonight, and her comment about ANGELS brought out this blog.  

What I'd really planned to share with you, dear readers, were a couple a three redundant pictures of Seattle!

The Sound... and a park!

A ship on the Sound.



The Seattle skyline...again!

I promise to find a sunny day before I leave.

Missing You.

Day off tomorrow.  Done now until late Tuesday.  What a gift.  I'll start understudy rehearsals on Wednesday.  I'll think about that later.

On some level, I am like Scarlet O'Hara.  "I'll think about that tomorrow."  It works for me.  It allows me to let the day go.  I like the philosophy.. even though it didn't work out so well for her!

I want to live in the moment.  I don't want to wish away the weeks.  I miss my husband and my home, but there is nothing for that.  I need to live here and now, walk, explore, hang out, read.  I need to live here.  I can't spend my days wishing.  That is exhausting.

Well.  I'm thinking maybe it is just time to go to bed and give myself as much of a day off as I can.  I really need to walk.  I should explore more and not be so timid.  I've all of Seattle!

Missing you.
xo

Another Opening.

Opening Night.  A milestone every time.  A marker in the course of our journey.  And now we do the real work of presenting and performing and changing minds and teaching.  Exciting all.

Just now, as I wrote the word "milestone" I had a picture appear in my head.  Something like this:

 Or this: 

Or maybe this: 

I'm not sure I ever connected the concept of "milestone" with the actual reference to a "milestone."

That kind of connection seems to be happening with more frequency lately.  I will try to track the phenomena. The words we use have such meaning; concepts that communicate and breathe life into a discussion. Colorful, I guess. "Milestone" is a colorful word. It tells a story. Love that.

So.  My happy opening! How lovely to be connected with such talented people. How wonderful to be part of a show so good and so telling. How fantastic to communicate the tale to an audience. I am blessed, honored and humbled to be part of the journey my company and I are taking.

I hope you all get a chance to see "RUINED" by Lynn Nottage. It is well worth the ticket price and may change your life.

xo

We Can See You.

This is hard. Theatre is hard. We spend so much time developing audiences, pushing the press to recognize us.. working as we do.. to spend scant moments with y'all.

Some days we are doing life changing work! Some days it is really important. We ask you to turn off your cell phones, but you don't. We ask that you recognize the artists' work on the stage.. the show you've just seen, but you seem to think getting to your cars is more important.

Stop. What have you just spent 50 or 70 or 100 dollars for? Really? How much hubris do you have? Not important enough for you?  

Stop. Clap. At least appreciate the journey these hard working actors have traveled to present you with a piece. YOU ARE NOT AT A MOVIE. You are able to really give appreciation to the work done on the stage. Take a moment. (We don't like standing ovations that are really about getting to the parking lot sooner.)

Ok, this is not the case with my show..  We have legitimate standing ovations. But I see it all too often. YO! You don't have to stand, but at least give the actors the gift of your appreciation, however small that may be. We are not a movie. We are living breathing things right there in front of you, and we can see you.

Holiday!

Cracks me up how many people I know show up on t.v.  I enjoy everyone's work.  I love that they get the money-paying gigs and still come back and do theatre.  I love actors.

I had a great time today at the 4th of July party hosted by my director. I'd intended to stay about an hour and ended up staying nearly 4 hours. It was relaxing, excellent food, even better company. It was fun.

I still have tomorrow to finish what I started today.  How civilized to have 2 days off.  So unheard of in our business.  Makes one feel nearly human again.

It rained here nearly all day.  It was ok.  (I got a little wet, standing in the smoking section...) Hoping you all had a great 4th.  Sending good wishes and love to y'all.

My Company, at a party!

Outside the apartment, The smoking section... In the rain.

My Sound Designer, taking a picture of me... dancing...dancing.

xo

Keys And Pockets.

I have been given three keys.  One is the size of a house key.  One is much larger.  Number 3 key is HUGE.

One lets me into my apartment.  The ginormous one lets me into my apartment building and the simply large one is a Master Key to the Intiman Theatre.  (I once had an "all access" pass to the Tony's. Having a Master Key is kind of like that.)

Keys can be a burden. One has to keep track of them. I place mine in a little blue bowl in the kitchen when "home."  They live in my pocket the rest of the time. My pockets are assigned. Front left holds my lighter and chapstick. Front right carries cash and keys. Back left is for my cigarette case.  Back right holds my debit card, a credit card, my driver's license and my grocery card. The side pocket, a kind of double pocket has my cell phone and 2 pencils, a sharpe, and a pen. Assuming I have a hairbrush in the car, I'm pretty much done and don't need a purse. I love the freedom, and I have everything I need throughout the day, but I do have to unload and take those pants off the minute I am home. The keys are first. They poke me.

I tell my students, carpenter pants work very well for stage managers!

We had our first preview of RUINED tonight at the Intiman Theatre in Seattle. It is a great, great play and a timely and important work. First Preview and a Standing Ovation! I cried when I saw the audience leap to their feet the moment the curtain call began. So moving. I felt proud and humbled to be part of this project. This is what theatre is about. Reaching out. Communicating. Telling a good story really well. It is exciting, mind-blowing and sometimes life-changing. I love it.

Tomorrow, more work, more fine-tuning. This piece deserves the best work of our lives. We will endeavor, reach out, and endure, together.

My keys open doors and give me access.  My keys open the theatre.  My keys tell me I'm welcome, here.