I am tickled that my first real role was Marian the Librarian in The Music Man, and this, I hope and imagine, will be my last role. "Middletown. We've got you coming and going" is one of my lines in the play! And I have to memorize it by Monday. So, um, goodbye.
But I have some more memorization to do. And I'm not as quick a study as I was when I was younger. And for some of my lines, I am supposed to be reading. So I will have to actually be reading the actual lines, because it's sort of impossible for me to look at one set of sentences in a book and appear to be reading other ones out loud. I know. I'm supposed to be acting. But...my eyes, my eyes!
Supposedly (well, actually), it was World Poetry Day on Thursday. But, because my brain is muddled in Middletown (and generally), I missed it. Only, I sort of didn't. By failing to post my poetry book review at Escape Into Life on Wednesday, during my "elastic week," I actually did something poetic when I posted it on Thursday, March 21, 2013, World Poetry Day!
Happy almost National Poetry Month! I hope you will participate in the Big Poetry Giveaway. We're in the fourth year and I want this to be the biggest one yet!
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to the next issue of Escape into LIfe!
Do you truly hope it's your last role?
ReplyDeleteI marvel at people's ability to learn lines. Even when I wrote them myself, I have to rewrite them by hand several times, and recite them aloud several more times, before I feel I can command them. And I still feel like I'm winging it when I stand up in front of people.
One of my favorite things is going to see Taffety Punk here in DC, where they sometimes replicate the Shakespearean experience - plays put on in a day.
Hope you have 42 great days.
Bob
Thanks, Susan. I should indeed do that. I hope I get it together in time!
ReplyDeleteBob, I love the symmetry of coming in as a librarian and going out as a librarian. I imagine I may still have some performances in the local cemetery, bringing to life people who died/got buried in our town (sort of a real life Our Town experience), but I feel myself shifting more and more toward just the writing. We'll see.
And my very first experience onstage was as the little girl in The Time of Your Life, directed by my dad at Kearney State College. My dad is directing Middletown, too. More symmetry. More synchronicity.
Also, Bob, that "winging it" quality is a sign of great acting!! The audience gets to feel like you are saying these words for the first time!
ReplyDeleteOooooh, I love getting my ducks in a row and the brief, if false, impression that I'll have some control over the next six weeks. I'm doing the same in an attempt to weather the last six weeks of the spring semester, which always feature 10x the number of activities as the last six weeks of the fall.
ReplyDeleteGood luck on the play. Sounds delightful.
Thanks, Sandy! Yes, it's such a lovely play. And, yes, I've learned from experience that I have, pretty much, no control over anything. But it feels good to be personally responsible, at least, for...what I am personally responsible for!
ReplyDeleteGood luck in this place! Sounds like a wonderful time. Keep us posted on all the success and backstage hijinks..
ReplyDeleteA play! How brave. I had to look up slattern, but now I am glad I did. That is a good word.
ReplyDeleteOh, yay, Rowan! I love to hear about people looking up words. If you like learning about words, click the Confessions of Ignorance on the blogroll on the right-hand side of my blog!
ReplyDeleteAlso, I first learned of the word "rowan" as a name when I met a girl in England with that name. Later, I wrote a short story called "Rowan" named for the main character, a little girl.