Week Two 6/16 to 6/22

I’m exhausted. Yesterday, Sunday, was our 10 out of 12 tech rehearsal. In theatre, that means “a fucken long ass day.” I had rehearsal from 12pm to 12am, with a dinner break. They fed us Lasagna, oh yeah my diet’s going great here.

Outdoor theatre has many a challenge.

You have to compete with trains, birds, frogs, bugs, and, worst and best of all, the weather. Yesterday was a very rainy day so we kept having to go back inside. We ended up going to Weathervane, a local community theatre with a great space, to practice on our feet.

However, when the weather is on your side, man, it’s such a wonderful experience. Shakespeare under the stars during a cool summer night the way it was originally done and our stage is surrounded by trees. It’s beautiful.

The show’s coming together. We open on Friday with previews on Wednesday and Thursday.

This week I became a criminal. I saw THE HAPPENING, with Tess and Andy, which I really wanted to see and totally sucked, then we snuck into (which I’m pretty sure is against the law) KONG FU PANDAK, which I didn’t want to see, and was absolutely awesome.

On Tuesday I made a Mexican dinner and some friends came over to eat including Terry, the director. They loved it!

On Thursday I agreed to be Andy's, wingman and go to The Valley, a stretch of straight bars. I call this place the Oasis, because it’s like a mirage of civilization in the area. Many young professionals and college students frequent this place. Anytime Andy wants to go there I start singing “Midnight at the Oasis,” which is totally butch, I know.

It was…interesting. I think we stuck out like a sore thumb. You could tell we weren’t from around here or white.

I enjoyed myself. Oh yeah, when the bar tender told us that beer was One Dollar, we both started laughing uncontrollably. In Chicago beer is 4 dollars. Some extremely drunk straight guy bought us drinks and we met 2 girls and a Filipino guy that ended up coming back home with us.

Although that sounds like we had an orgy, that’s not what happened. We just hung out, drank more, talked. They were cool. We’re supposed to hang out again, we’ll see what happens.

On Friday, I went to a Vodka Party at Ron’s house. Ron is cool and there were a lot of OSF people there. He had at least 20 different types of Vodkas and food. It was fun, I didn’t say too long.

On Saturday Andy and I saw Ragtime at the Weathervane (the place I ended up going back to for rehearsal the very next day). This was the first show I’d ever seen there. My director this summer directed that as well. I was impressed. For a community theatre, it was a very good production. I got chills 3 times. Of the community theater work I’ve seen around here, this has been the best.

After the show we went to The Valley bars, “Midnight at the Oasis,” because it was right on the other side of the street. Dane and Chris came to meet me there. Of the bunch of bars they have there we like Bourbon Street.

They had a 32oz mug for 5 bucks, which you got to keep (souvenir!), and a refill at any of those bars and some downtown bars is only 3.50. Yes, it was a bad idea.

After we hung out there for a while. We went to The Square, the nearest gay club to where I’m staying.

This is where things begin to get….hazy. I remember a lot of dancing. Ohhhh, the dancing. I also remember doing a thumbs-down sign towards the DJ booth whenever I didn’t like the song he played. Also, before we left Chris managed to spill an entire bottle of beer on me from head to toe. What did I do? Kept dancing.

We came back to the actor-housing and I decided to make grill cheese for everyone. Yes, it was a bad idea.

The next morning I stood in the middle of the kitchen wondering what the hell happened. What happened?!! It was trashed; dirty plates, chip bags, chips, and cheese EVERYWHERE. Ohhhhh, the cheese. I cleaned it up and tried to nurse my kidneys back to health before my all day and night rehearsal. Needless to say, yesterday was roughhhhhh.

Some more breaking news:

MY BIRTHDAY IS THIS COMING SUNDY JUNE 29!!!!!!!!

I’ll also be playing Roderigo in Othello, now. OSF is doing a guest appearance at a theatre in Cleveland.  I’ll be here a bit longer, but I get another credit and a raise!!

Last thing, my very soon to be roommate and partner in crime Zack txt me to say

“You won’t believe this shit. Dixie Longgate just emailed me because she saw my youtube blog and read your blogspot blog. She says Hi.”

She says hi??!!!! I have been touched by an Angel. And that angel’s a drag queen.