coaching — Page 27

I’m Not Looking Out the Window. I’m Not.

April 4, 2016 at 8:58 am by Claudia

I won’t even share a photo of what’s happening today.

No, I won’t. The shades are drawn, allowing me to live in a fantasy where everything is green, it’s warm outside and there isn’t 4 inches and counting of wet snow on the ground.

I’m not kidding. I worry about my plants as there was a hard freeze last night. Late yesterday, I saw icicles hanging from my climbing hydrangea; caused, no doubt, by water dripping from the shed roof. I ran outside to break off as many of the icicles as I could without damaging the plant even more.

I stressed much of the evening over my garden and the lilac buds and the leaves on the rose bushes and the daffodils and then I just had to let go. There’s nothing I can do.

It’s friggin’ April 4th and there’s snow on the ground!!!

Okay. Deep breath.

4-4 office

I’ve been slaving away up in my office, working on the Russian names and pronunciations, chomping on no salt potato chips, drinking lots of water because Don is always on me to keep hydrated, stopping every so often to look at my pottery…

4-4 cabinet

because it makes me happy. The wind was relentless yesterday. It was gusting up to 50 mph for over 12 hours. This little hideaway on the second floor is beautiful, but it is in the same place in the house as the den and that means that the winds whip across the front of the house, rattling the windows and generally making me feel like I’m in a wind tunnel.

After several hours of this (and this is part of a string of days where the wind has blown like this for hours and hours) I cried uncle and came downstairs.

What would calm me down, I wondered?

4-4 colored pencils

Aha!

So, I grabbed all my coloring paraphernalia, and went at it. Coincidentally, Don was doing the same thing in the living room. (He’s sick of ‘elevating his leg.’ I don’t blame him.)

4-4 coloring

Finished. I just do the basics, you know. Some of the coloring I’ve seen is incredibly intricate, with subtle shading and layering of colors. Gorgeous work, believe me. But I have basic skills and the whole idea is to relax, right? So I don’t allow myself to feel any pressure to expand my skill set. I just color.

It’s for me, after all. I quite like it.

I still haven’t heard from the book giveaway winner. I’ll give it a couple more days before I pick someone else.

Happy Monday.

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On the Road: Day Off

February 1, 2016 at 8:16 am by Claudia

2-1 quilt

It’s Monday. My day off. No lolling around for me, though, I have to type up lots of notes for the actors after yesterday’s run-through of the play, I have to go grocery shopping, I have to do laundry, I have to pay bills and I have to go to the post office. Then it’s back at it tomorrow with another day of individual actor coaching and another run-though. We’ll be running the play almost every day now as we head toward the end of the week and the move onstage.

I made it through the day yesterday and, though I was fighting pure exhaustion after my night of too-little sleep, I went out to dinner with some old and new friends and had a wonderful time. I’m so glad I did. A truly lovely evening with lots of great conversation and lots of laughter. And you know I love to laugh.

I’m thinking, looking at the schedule, I’ll be able to get home for a couple of days this weekend. The actors move onstage on Saturday and the first day of tech is on Sunday. I usually stay away from the first day of tech simply because it’s not about me and my work. It’s about lights and costumes and sound and the set and all the new elements that are being added to the production. It’s not fair to the actors for me to be taking any notes on their speech and voice – they’re concentrating on other things.

But I’ll be there off and on for the second and third days of tech – that’s when I can start taking notes on the actor’s voices and how well they carry in the theater space, as well as how clearly they are articulating the text.

2-1 globe

I picked up this little globe at the Museum gift shop the other day. I love globes and this one is just the right size for the desk here in the apartment and the desk back home. It sits on a pretty wooden circle.

I have to get moving. Too many things to accomplish today!

Happy Monday.

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Sunset: City Edition

January 30, 2016 at 9:31 am by Claudia

As I was walking back to the apartment after rehearsal yesterday:

1-30 citysunset

1-30 citysunset2

1-30 citysunset3

That’s Trumbull Street, by the way, not Bull Street.

It seemed like every few seconds I saw some incredible view of the sunset and whipped out my iPhone to record it.

No one else seemed at all aware of the staggering beauty of the sunset (though I’m sure many were.) But no one else was taking any pictures. End of the work week, tired, on their way home – I’m sure all of those things were at play for the commuters trying to get out of the city and back home again.

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It’s all in the timing, isn’t it? I happened to be walking home at the perfect time. Any later, and it would have disappeared.

It’s not the end of the work week for us, of course. Sunday is the end of our week. On any given day lately, I find myself confused as to what day it is. This morning, I slept until 7:15, so it was light when I got out of bed. I looked out the window wondering why the parking lot across the way was empty.

Beat.

Oh…it’s Saturday.

Three more weeks after this one. We’re heading into our last week in the rehearsal rooms and then we’ll be moving onstage. Three and a half weeks isn’t a whole lot of time in which to do table work, stage the entire play, work with the actors, and have several run-throughs before hitting the stage. I don’t know how Darko and the cast and stage managers and crew do it. In the old days there was more rehearsal time available. But it’s a costly endeavor, and most non-profit theaters have had to cut back on rehearsal time. Certainly, way back when I was working at the Old Globe, there was more time allotted for the rehearsal room. But every theater I know of has had to cut back.

So, I’d use the word ‘miracle’ but it really isn’t. It’s hard work and planning and dedication and drive and all the things that theater artists do without blinking an eye to create a fully-realized production.

Some of you have recently asked me what I do when I’m working on a play and what ‘coaching’ means (in my case.) I’ve written about it before on the blog and this post (from 2009, when I was working at the Old Globe for 10 weeks) pretty much covers it.

Book review on Just Let Me Finish This Page today.

Happy Saturday.

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I’m Not Looking Out the Window. I’m Not.

On the Road: Day Off

Sunset: City Edition

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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