well yes is meant to be an actor-blog but...

Kate and El have been doing so much else for the company that I can't in good conscience ask any more of them. There has been a lot of suspense this week, as El sprained her ankle Tuesday. Would she be able to walk for opening? Check. But what about doing all the fights, etc? It would be so sad to see all that beautiful choreography (really the most fun part of any "Shrew" anyway) go awol. As of tonight, final dress, the only thing missing is two carries of Kate. Im sure they'll be back for next weekend. Troopers, all of my lovely ladies. *sniff*

Why we love the Bay Area theater community

This is the most lovely hell week I've ever had. First of all, the show has absolutely blossomed in the past few days. Then, when we realized we couldn't fit our set into our rehearsal space, Cal Shakes graciously let us use their space (thanks Ava and Jean-Paul). Then, our designers were working their asses off, and actors chipped in to help finish details, and designed like pros themselves. (Gotta love how multi-talented all these women are!) As a result, the show really feels like an ensemble creation, like something that everyone involved feels is precious and is working together to nourish into being. That's just how the company started, and just how I could only have dreamed my final show with the company would be. Feeling profoundly grateful and proud tonight.

Why we call it hell week

Took the truck to the indoor rehearsal space, all ready to do a full dress/tech. Set? 3" too tall for the ceiling there. I need to say, this is not all that tall a set. Sigh... it's always something during tech. We really need to work with that thing. However, the run, once we finally got going, was lovely. I heart my actors.

Kate's diary: a history of injustice

When just a child, I found a gleaming stone.
A diamond, my wandering dreams it named.
My sister seeing it, cried and cried
she called it hers and quickly lied:
"oh father,father she has my stone!"
Plucked it was from my loving hands
and given as penance for her tears

My mother held my head to heart
and gave peace to anxious trials
Her arms softened my raging fears
and pulled from me a smile
but heaven stole her warmth from me
and lay her body cold
she left me aimless here to flow
and sink to muddy guile

When my body gave way to womanly form
the doors of liberty broke around me
trees no more could be my haven
and every weasling man bloomed quick
into wedding bands heavy and thick
my father dreamed of airing house
of the breath and weight I put there in
But then my heaving heart let fly
the anger breaking from my pores
and I raised to heaven a hellish din
I hoped my waning freedom to win

yet fate holds dear the trick
of giving the carrot with the stick
Fire found fire and burned white hot
it melted fear, revenge and thought
and though I could deep grievance bear
I'd rather flowers of loving peace wear

Crunch time... and awakenings

This weekend in Dimond Park rehearsing, we had an avid bunch of kids watching. They left a birthday party to come see a stop and go rehearsal! Less than a week from opening—the time we are all trying to cram in the last great ideas, realizing all the things I've done wrong (why on earth did I place everyone in front of Grumio in the second scene?) and making everything picture perfect. Luckily, inspiration is striking. Actors are realizing that they do really know those characters, and this cast seems to feel each other's timing very well. It was also our final day outdoors with the set, so luckily some things didn't work well—meaning we have identified the potential problems already and have time to fix them. As usual I wish we had another few days to rehearse, but it really was a fun show today even as a rehearsal. Nice women, nice play. Our unofficial motto is "kickass women, kickass plays", and we've got a few more days to make the transition from these lovely actors to those awesome characters, and it's looking good.

If it be thus to Dream: or Actor Kate's delusions of destructions

So i know I have the same name as my character (though I am more often cursed than curst) but there is a point where one wants to leave the wooing and shrewing behind and settle down to peaceful slumber.
Everyone's had the "oh my! the play's about to open and I'm naked without money in a desert in Tunisia and my camel ate my passport then dropped dead!" dream, right?
But I have now evolved to a more complex state of what doctors may--one day--call sub-conscious-narco-drametus obsession. As I slept last night, two characters from the play snuck into my dream. Petruchio and Hortensio joined me in a quest to find *inhale*... something! i do not remember what and the "what" is not what's important for "whats" in the end are usually found wanting. Rather it is the Quest that drives a dream and no Quest could be complete without side kicks. Thus, in a wonderful change of positions (perhaps stemming from a deeply repressed need to control even false semblances of proto-masculine figures) Petruchio became my side-kick and Hortensio downgraded even further to the side-kick of the side-kick. And so we began our Quest for the "what."
The thing about "Whats" is that everyone wants them. So in a Quest for a "what" you inevitably have to battle nazis, ninjas, crusaders, magicians,rabid puppies or possessed kittens. In the case of me and my hapless cast-mates, we had to battle traffic. Yes, hoards of taxi-cabs, scratched-up Mercedes,vengeful Minis, and hellish hybrids dogged us through the streets. We ran and dodged over boulevards and through alleys while massive collisions followed in our wake. No CG rendering could ever live up to the vivid destruction that lay behind us.
With amazing agility I saved Hortensio from a raging Hummer and tossed a clue to the location of the "what" to Petruchio in that same glorious leap. Then the three of us took on a beast of a Caddy with monster shocks and battled our way through a place that vaguely resembled Union Square. (If I could control dreams I would have definitely put a cable-car chase in at this point, but instead...) The ground gave way beneath us and we found ourselves in a dark labyrinth of a parking garage. At this point I think Hortensio was hit by a yellow Beetle with a peace sign on the side. Don't worry, he lived. We carried him (or he levitated?). Next, Petruchio was clipped on the leg by Sharon Stone's limo (Ok,so I just made the limo bit up). At this point, I have one side-kick hobbling like a crab, the other is semi-conscious and levitating, and I only have one measly clue about the whereabouts of the "what." But never fear, Kate will persevere!
Somehow I get a light-saber-like object and slice my way out of the parking garage which it now appears in on the top of a sky-scraper. I and my trusty, but road-rag'ed, companions stand staring at the abyss below when suddenly I'm pushed from behind. Then as is always true, the dream ends without satisfaction. The "what" remains out of my reach and the identity of my pushy assailant remains unknown. Was it a vehicle returned from the dead or could it,would it possibly be one of my own dear comrades? Ah I shall never know.
So what did we learn from this little tale about Theatre, shrews and the meaning of life?
That the malevolent manifestation of destruction symbolizes the downfall of the human endeavors to master their globalized over-birth of technology?
or perhaps... that when a mind is singularly focused on inhabiting a performance the theater reality can become interwoven into all aspects of one's life.
Or...more likely, the moral is that you should never trust a person who's name ends in "io"
-Kate

Why theater is so addictive...

There comes a period in almost every rehearsal process when everyone sucks and loses faith and vows not to invite their friends to see the show. It is inevitably the moment when they are forced, screaming, off book for the first time. When trying to remember lines without your script safety-net, they lose their balance again and again, they swear loudly and with feeling, and every ounce of momentum, joy and focus leaves the room. And then, just when I too begin to lose faith, they start to know their lines, and the show takes this magical leap forward, not back to where it was before they dropped script but way beyond, to a place of infinite potential. And man, does the joy flood back into that rehearsal room. That started happening last night, and tonight it was in full force—people making exciting choices, bringing in ideas I had never seen before, even making me hear the script afresh. And I've heard this thing five million times—taught it, been in it, directed it, had a scene from it at my wedding and so on... And you know, that feeling of extreme, group relief that we're not all just fools feels really really good.