Mockingbird Hill Cottage

My view from the stairs this morning:

I missed that guy. Truth is, we don’t like to be apart. I suppose that’s because we’ve had to be apart for long periods of time throughout our marriage due to the demands of our careers. And because we truly like being together.

Nevertheless, I was in Hartford for a little over 24 hours on Thursday and Friday, working on Darko’s latest production. I stayed in the same apartment I always stay in, sans any personal touches I would normally add. It felt comfortable and known, even without my decorations.

I saw the production on Thursday night and then worked with one of the actors on Friday. Actually, I worked with a few of them. I’d worked with two of them previously and it was great to see them again. The rest were new to me.

First of all, a note about the production – it’s a new play and it’s really, really good. There are more than a few surprises throughout the evening and the first preview audience was very responsive. The set is incredible. I really liked it. It has a powerful message.

That being said, Darko had me in to work on some specific issues and, as is often the case in this kind of one-time-only situation, I didn’t have much time to do it in. You know what I find interesting? Not to blow my own horn, but I’m at my best in this kind of pressure cooker. I always worry that I won’t say the right thing, that an actor who has never met me will not want to listen to advice from a stranger, or I’ll mess up the opportunity in some way.

But, as Don repeatedly reminds me, I’m really good at this. It’s as if a starting gun goes off and I’m firing on all cylinders. I have to be kind and charming but firm. I have to be efficient and clear and help the actor feel empowered by the information I am passing on. My intention is to be of service and, hopefully, when I leave, the actor will feel better for the encounter. I had an hour an a half in which to work with one actor in particular and also to work on a few specific moments involving other actors that needed clarity.

And then I was done.

I get a high from it – that feeling you get when you know you’re doing your best work and you realize that this is what you do well. This is where you feel you just might touch excellence, if only for a second or two. Don gets it when he does a great audition, when he knows that for a few minutes in a stark audition room, he has the audience in the palm of his hand. After all, it’s what we’ve been doing for decades. We’re able to distill our knowledge and skill into an audition or a coaching session and emerge knowing we were on top of our game.

It doesn’t always work that way. There are hits and misses, but most of the time, it does. And it is a great feeling. It’s easy to forget just how good we are at what we do when we’re not working professionally, when we’re going through our days doing other things.

Yesterday reminded me that I am really good  at what I do. I would normally be uncomfortable at sharing this because I’m basically modest, but I’m still on a bit of a high from it, so there you go.

Back in our BU days, Rick and I used to imagine me being an Emergency Dialect and Speech Coach, dashing down the road in my little foreign car to a theater, giving intense notes, then hopping into the seat of my convertible, once again on the road to another job. We’d laugh and laugh. (We had a lot of these silly scenarios in our heads. Still do.) But that’s sort of what the work I did on Friday was.

It was a good day. And I got of rehearsal early enough to avoid the Friday rush hour traffic! A straight shot down the Interstate from Connecticut to New York.

All good.

Except for the fact that downtown Hartford is like a wind tunnel on the best of days and we were in the midst of a wind event and it was cold and I thought my face would freeze off.  Other than that, it was lovely.

Happy Saturday.