SEEKING... the play

Most Fringes have a policy - no latecomers.  Our show started at 11:45 last night and about 2 minutes into the play, we had a latecomer.  We know this because after he tried the door and found it was locked, he pounded and yelled louder than Zach and I were talking on stage.  At first, we tried to improv around him, thinking he'd finally go away, but he kept pounding and yelling.  So, we just stopped and waited on stage, in costume, in the lights.  The techs finally admitted him and his mortified girlfriend.  What else could they do?  But, as you can imagine, the energy was really weird.  No one was sure if something else was going to set him off.  He sat quietly until the end of the show when security informed him that he was no longer welcome at the fringe.  Later, recounting the story, Keira MacDonald (History of Lost and Found and Cocktales) said, "What a compliment.  He really wanted to see your show." Yep.  Guess so.  In any case, I am very grateful to the rest of the audience.  They all stayed and gave us their full attention.  Thank you.

Whew.  It's after 3:00AM.  After flyering and postering for days - we finally opened tonight in Edmonton at 10:00PM.  And, I am very proud to say that we SOLD OUT our first performance! Thank you to each and every person that came to the show tonight.  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Wow.  The Calgary Fringe was one of those crazy theatre times that somehow comes together.  Two weeks ago, I hadn't even met Celine, and Zach and I had been rehearsing for about week.  Now, we've performed the show together six times in front of lovely audiences.  This fringe is pretty small with about 25 shows.  Tomorrow, we drive to Edmonton - the mother of all Canadian fringes with over 160 shows.  I daresay, we're ready.  Bring it on, Edmonton!

After rehearsal Wednesday, our tech went really well.  I can't believe that was the first time we three have run the play together on its feet without scripts.  We rehearsed for about 4 hours today as well. Zach and Celine are wonderful and bring a completely different energy to the piece.  We'll rehearse tomorrow too and then we open at 7:30!  Three days is plenty of time to put up a show, right?

Whichever way you pronounce it - we're here.  Now, when I say we - I mean me and the new cast.  Two fantastic performers from Ottawa - Zach Counsil and Celine Filion will be stepping into Seth's and Marianne's roles since neither of them could do the whole tour <sigh>.  Zach and I drove from Winnipeg with Paul Hutcheson (Third Time Lucky) and his awesome man Peter.  After being stranded on the side of the TransCanada Hwy only 50 km outside of Winnipeg for an hour and a half (long story), we finally made it to a hotel in Swift Current, Saskatchewan where we stayed for the night, swam in the pool, ate a delicious meal at a casino and won a little dough at the slots.  Today, we drove into Calgary (with those huge Rockies in the background) and met Celine at the airport.  Tomorrow is our first day of rehearsal together.  We open Friday.  I better get to sleep.

I spoke to my mother yesterday.  She told me that I need to take a few minutes to update the blog.  And even though she may be the only one reading it, she's right.  Here goes.  Winnipeg is the second biggest fringe in Canada.  The crowds are huge and there are 155 shows.  Some of the reviewers are not normally reviewers and can be downright hateful.  A few of my favorite shows were slammed before they even opened.  Some of the reviews are fair and offer insightful criticism.  Either way, reviews here are really important.  So, as a performer, you can't help but think about them, and you can't help but bring them up in conversation, and it all gets downright exhausting after a while.  We did get a glowing review from Uptown Magazine, and a hateful one from CBC, but frankly, I've seen a lot of the other shows they didn't like, and I think we're in good company.  And now, I'm going to try not to think about them.

It's nice to be back home.  Nathan's garden is ripe with basil and blackberries and kale and chard.  Yum.  He left the afternoon of the night I got back, so we haven't seen each other yet.  :(  Soon.  Very soon.  So now, as the second half of the tour approaches, I have to decide whether to hire two new actors to perform in Calgary and Edmonton, or make this a one person show.  Marianne and Seth will be in Winnipeg, but I'm on my own for the last two.  Many fringe folks have made suggestions or offered to tour with me.  All that's left is to decide.  What's a gal to do?

It was our first day without a show in 6 days today, and we decided to take the day off.  Marianne and I are staying with a lovely woman named Sylvie on the 22nd (penthouse) floor of a building in Ottawa.  We were in our p.j.s watching What's Eating Gilbert Grape? on cable when the entire building started to shake.  Now, I'm scared of heights, and have already had several visions of our imminent demise, as I always do when I'm up high, but today was f-in' terrifying.  When the quake started, we were both trying not to panic, while attempting to recall what the heck one should do in such a situation.  We ended up standing in different door frames (isn't that the correct protocol?) waiting for the shaking to stop.  I was having visions of being buried under a pile of rubble for days.  The shaking went on for about 30 seconds maybe.  Finally, it stopped.  We grabbed a few things, and booked down the 22 flights of stairs to join the confused masses outside and confirm that the shaking was indeed a quake and not a bomb or something else. We have since learned that Ottawa was only 20 miles from the epicenter of the 5.5 scale quake, but no deaths were reported as a result.  (Ask Seth about his story.  He is OK, and thankfully staying on a ground floor.)  It's almost 12 hours later now, and Marianne and I are back in the penthouse exhausted and hoping for a good night's sleep.  Aftershocks are smaller, right?  Eesh.  Wish us luck.

Here we are in Ottawa!  We had our second show here last night, and our audiences are building.  Tonight, we have a show at 11:00PM.  (I love the late night shows because they tend to have a kooky, silly energy.) We're eight shows into the tour, and at the point where we're relaxing on stage.  The characters are listening to each other more and finding new moments of connection.  One of the rewards of doing a long tour is getting to know the show more deeply than a weekend run permits.  It's wonderful to feel the anxieties of opening night melting away and the joys of exploration sneaking in.


p.s. Can't believe we won the Chapter's Best English Text Award in Montreal! Yay!

It's 1:00AM.  I was feeling a bit poopy today cause we didn't have many people in our 5:45 show (those who were there were lovely, though).  Now, dinnertime is a tough sell, so it's not that surprising, but we still wish we had a bigger crowd.  I wish these things wouldn't affect my mood, but they do.  They just do.  Then, when we got home, Marianne read that we'd been nominated for the Chapter's Best English Text Award along with Poison The Well and Shavirez, Gypsy of the Sea.  I thought I'd be going to bed in a funk, but instead, I'm smiling.  Good night! ;>