Hey Universe,

I know you wend in mysterious ways. But this is just so say that I'd really like a full time acting job as part of a great theatre company, that does good work, pays a living wage and gives some time off for vacation now and then.

Thank you.

If one were to create a web-editing business, including checking for broken links, spelling/syntax errors &c- how would one market that? Are people already doing this?

I want to take my red pen to the frontier world of the Internet.

***

Yesterday I spent the day at the beach. It was glorious. Then there was a family bbq.
Today there's going to be a walk in the woods, a bridal shower upstate, and a bbq with my theatre family.

***

Last weekend of summer!
Live it up.

The funeral was hard, I cried large amounts. My cousin's son, who is not yet school age (and who calls me Easter Bunny after seeing me play the title character in The Velveteen Rabbit), handed me a tissue halfway though the mass. Michael was a wonderful support.

Afterwards, the wedding: complete with high school acquaintances. I had much whiskey and wine, and some dancing. Leaves were falling in the eighty degree heat, and the bartender was named Socrates. I miss my aunt, I always will. I have so much love for the newly wed couple, and they have much more for each other. The circle of life.

I haven't updated facebook because this pain feels too private, and yet it seems strange that there's no mention of funeral on my page- only mention of the wedding celebration.

I feel quiet and content this evening.

Michael's job situation is up in the air. There's going to be massive layoffs, and since there's no way to know how it's going to play out, he's investigating other options. Since his job offers greater security (and benefits) it might mean moving. Since we don't know when or where to, that's a bit stressful.

The more I read mention of computer files or internet search history being admitted in legal cases, the more I get worried. Thought crime is a slippery slope. Even libraries aren't safe since the passage of the Patriot Act. One should be able to read and investigate all manner of things without having motives proscribed. It makes me nervous.

Things are unsure in this world. Three sharp deaths so far this year. We only have now, to make the best of it.

I have an audition on Thursday and am planning to see my nieces next weekend.

Livejournal- do you believe it's been almost ten years?

The price one pays for pursuing any profession, or calling, is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.

- James Baldwin

I love theatre. Which means, as Ani says, I am debted joyfully.
I will succeed as a theatre artist. The question is only how.

I struggle with the business. I struggle with the way people's bodies affect the stories they can tell. Some of these are true to life, but more often they're not.

I really struggle with the capitalistic nature of the business. How it often doesn't matter what show you've seen five years ago that moved you, but that we must continue to relentlessly consume, consume and see everything out this season. Everything new and fresh and be practically encyclopaedic, as opposed to enjoying it for what it's worth.

I struggle with image, and how one is only supposed to present in clothes that look new. Women are supposed to present in a skirt, with heels and full makeup. This is is often after waiting from 5am to noon, and they may be dismissed after thirty seconds in front of the auditors, or sometimes a brief glance.

I struggle with consistency of image. The world around me is fluid. I would like to have short hair, long hair and then go back again- but because of the specificity of how our bodies influence the roles we play, I must choose one type and live that type and only that.

I struggle with body hair. I love rocking my short red hair and my long pit hair. When I see it in the mirror, I feel proud. I like what it signifies to a niche community. I loved it when Amanda Palmer rocked it on the Oscar carpet. I also love my leg hair, and how Monique rocked it on the Oscar carpet.

I told someone I love how I think leg hair sometimes looks so lovely under stockings, like a faint cursive. And he thought I was being sarcastic and added that it was gross.

To play the game it means to subsume these manifestations of my critical thinking.
But in an actor's role, I don't know when I could bring them forth again.

Here's something I want to tell you:

My next performance is a staged reading of John Patrick Shanley's play, Moonstruck
Sunday, February 13th at 7pm
Elmwood Playhouse
Nyack, NY

I play a Patricia, among other characters.
Isn't that rich?

My favorite discovery of last year is Andrea Gibson...



She's a wonderful slam poet who makes me stop my million miles a minute thought train to pay attention to the thinking and feeling of her performance journey, which is such a gift in this world. I am so grateful I found her. I found her on tumblr, so I'm sharing her with you.

What was your best artistic discovery of 2010?

How restorative indeed to put in long hours doing good work, and then sit around a table in a warm and relaxed place, eating good food and laughing about life and its trials!

Closer opened this weekend. This project has involved so much work. Being responsible for the project since its inception has given me new appreciation for the other artists who work very hard to create, to produce, to make something happen.I brought the show to the table, held auditions, cast, ran rehearsals, scavenged for props, recruited technical personnel, designed marketing campaigns, created lights and costumes and made it happen.
Each show is its own resume.
Together, all the elements breathed life into this clay.

Just today I was assisting with navigating actor transportation, fetching props, running lights & sound design, greeting guests with front of house management, spiking set pieces, training new crew, sewing a split seam and adapting next week's rehearsal schedule.

And then the performance happens. And people like it, really like it, and I am so proud to present good work. And then the dearest friend who came to see the show suffers the death of an aunt. And then to be able to laugh and relax in the company of these stranger friends. And there at the end of the bar is someone who I thought about dating four years ago- many texts later to realize our schedules were incompatible.

There is nothing nobler.
My Gods I am rusty at writing blogs.
I am second guessing every sentence.

I have been tumbling and tweeting and not writing long form love letters to you.
I tumbl here: storiesbybrady.tumblr.com

And here is the quote I just posted, from Ira Glass

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.
(via Rabbit Write’s interview on Gala Darling)

So the important thing is that I did it. I made a good show happen. I will make greater art happen, but this art is pretty damn good.

And you should see it! Of course you should!

The play is called Closer, it's by Patrick Marber, and we have three performances left: Friday at 8, Saturday at 8 & 11pm and Sunday at 4pm.
We play at the Nyack Village Theatre, which is on Main Street in Nyack and tickets are available at www.nyackvillagetheatre.org

(City people, I'll help you navigate public transit to get to my beautiful rivertown)
The space is up a steep flight of stairs, so it is not very accessible to people with kinesthetic limits and the play contains sexual situations that could be triggering.


( And Then... )

I want to be completely true to my values and yet be well loved.
*
Theatre
Woods
Good Food
*
Yeah.

I miss the feeling of being young and invincible.
I miss that passionate energy of really believing that if you crossed your fingers and toes and knees, squeezed your eyes shut and wished really hard: that if enough people wished really hard, we would really transform the world. I miss underestimating big corporate interests.
I think that's what I miss.

Which is not to say that I've given up! I'm still fighting the good fight, freelancing here and there for organizations I believe in, and I'm directing a show!

Closer goes up November 12, 13, 19th & 20th. It's going to be a BALL. I have great actors and we are going to tell a story like you've never seen before. We are going to tell a story that is the equivalent of squeezing our eyes and wishing hard. We are going to tell stories that change the world.

Cuz that is what I do.
Booyakasha.

People causing deliberate pain to other people.
I can't bear it. I can't understand it, I don't want to, and I shan't. There are times you need to assert yourself, and so you cause pain, and there are other times when pain is caused: but pain that is caused just to hurt, just to feel the power of making someone else more powerless. I don't like it a'tall.

Which is why I won't watch many horror movies. As soon as I see someone's pleasure in brutual revenge violence, the celebration of that particular madness, it makes me want to disconnect, and then reconnect and fight even harder for happiness at the end of the rainbow. For everyone.

This is why I sobbed the way a child sobs, with deep racking cries and hot tears, after I saw the latest Batman.

So I am probably not the person to direct the Halloween Horrorshow. And I might not attend that cool theatre company's revenge fantasty (now extended!). I'm somewhere else.