Cabaret

Last night was the first performance of my senior cabaret, which was attended by a fairly small but very good audience.  Said audience included my parents and Katie (!), who were all also able to see Winter’s Tale, which opened on Friday.  Winter’s Tale, by the way, is going extremely well; while we don’t have packed houses, we are critically acclaimed, and my father, who never wants to see the same show twice, came two days in a row.  My role is small but my stage-time is significant, and I am actually working very hard in the show, hopefully to good effect.  I’m quite pleased.

Anyway, my cabaret also went extremely well.  I was very, very satisfied.  Rodney was there last night, too, which is good, because it went really well.  There were some problems…Parker missed an entrance and John came in early on a line and sort of wrecked the end of a song…but it didn’t matter much.  The only significant thing that didn’t go quite right was I didn’t enunciate enough on some of the faster lyrics; I think that’s the only thing that happened which Rodney might dock my grade for.  But it really wasn’t about the grade.  It was about having an excellent time, and the fulfillment of my four years of training, and to no small extent it was about proving that I can do this.  Which I think I proved.  The other girl who did her cabaret last night was chosen for Lubinhouse, and I did much better than she did.  Which is a horrible thing to think.  But still true.

Lubinhouse auditions, by the way, also went very well.  I was very pleased with the audition I gave, and while I was not surprised that they didn’t take me, I knew that they could have taken me under other circumstances.  Anna says that what I proved with my audition was that the faculty were 100% wrong in failing me in evals, which is good, I wanted to prove that.  Overall, I’m really doing quite well this semester.

Last week was very rough, largely because I was so exhausted.  Also the pent-up stress and nerves probably didn’t help.  The week was marked by prolonged bouts of crying in public, triggered by barely anything — for example, Lizzie looking at me the wrong way Thursday morning in class causing me to sob audibly for the next hour.  But it’s OK.  I think everyone knows I was just trying to do too much.  By far the worst is over now.  Last week I was at the theatre every night with my costars until 1:00, when the building closes and they kick us out.  After tech, no less.  But that’s all through now.

Spring break was excellent, though truncated, because I had to be back here four days early for tech.  I went to Boston for a couple of days, which was very nice, and then to NYC to audition for a summer program (they won’t take me, I didn’t audition terribly well).  In the City I stayed with Alex, whom I truly do adore.  Sometimes I think I’ve moved beyond the place where I want to date him and into the place where it is sufficient that I am one of the most important people in his world.  Sometimes I do not think this.  Either way, he is extremely special and I love him very much.  In New York, I also had the great joy of seeing Ethan for the first time in six years.  I was quite nervous about that, but it went very well, and when we had to say goodbye, he said "We need to be in better touch.  If we can pick up without pause after six years, there’s something here."  He said it.  And I was very happy.

Then I got my first ever traffic ticket driving in Manhattan with Alex the next day to go to lunch.  Which nearly spoiled the whole thing.  But the whole thing was really just too nice to be completely wrecked by an over-zealous cop.

I have one more performance of my cabaret, next Monday, April 2nd.  I’m looking forward to it and not.  I mean, I want to do the show again, I had a ton of fun last night.  And there are people I really want to come see it who didn’t come last night (like, most of my friends).  Anna and Brendan were there, and Eric, and a lot of people from cabaret class, but many of my friends are in Our Town which is in tech right now, so they’re all coming next week.  And people went to see the final performance of another show last night, too, knowing that they could see me next week (Aaron falls into this catagory).  So I want to do it again for them.  But I don’t know what that space will be like, and they don’t have a real piano, and the accoustics are different, and…I just don’t know what to expect.  Plus, then it will be over.  About which I also have very mixed feelings.  But I do want to see Elisabeth.  That will be good.

I have no classes today, which is excellent.  I’m meeting Rachel for dinner for the first time in several weeks, and I’m going to part of the SPIRAL meeting before I have to leave to go to some other cabarets.  Rachel and Max both came last night, too, which was wonderful of them.  Overall the show was very well received.  I’m glad Justin video taped it for me.  It’s really all a bit overwhelming.  But good, very, very good.

–Stephanie