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Heading Out

January 10, 2019 at 9:35 am by Claudia

Sometimes, since I don’t always take pictures the day before, I realize I have nothing on hand and I have to grab my phone and take a picture right before I’m about to write the day’s post.

That’s what this is.

A slice of life.

I have to drive to Hartford this afternoon. I’m spending the night in one of the apartments – actually, I think it’s the one I used to stay in – and that means I have to take some coffee, filters, filter holder, and half and half with me. The amount of stuff I have to pack for just one night is mind-boggling.

It will be strange staying in that apartment, yet not immediately hanging quilts and/or rearranging the furniture. Though there might be a wee bit of that, just because I can’t help myself. In some ways, it’s easier if you’re traveling to be there for a longer period of time.

Anyway.

I’ll see the first preview this evening and then I’ll work with the actor tomorrow afternoon. Then I’ll head home in Friday rush hour traffic – oh, goodie! I’m grateful for the work, of course, and the chance to see Darko again, as well as the company manager and stage manager, who are old friends of mine. Grateful to be earning a little more money as times are tight again for us. I was just saying to Don this morning that it was nice not to have to worry about money when he was earning an ETM paycheck. We got more than a little spoiled by that, even though we weren’t doing anything extravagant. Now, it’s back to reality, with my brain constantly calculating and re-calculating what we have, what bills need to be paid, what has already been spent – basically the things that most everyone has to do on a daily basis.

I’m grateful I’m not a government worker who has been furloughed and is worried about paying the mortgage, all because a petulant child wants to get his way. I can’t imagine the stress they are going through right now.

The winds kept up for over 24 hours and even my husband, who is not bothered by wind, had had enough. The gusts were so loud last night that they rattled our bedroom windows. Now we’re headed for some very cold weather over the next four days.

I’m thinking of taking my iPad with me and not my laptop. Writing a post is way too frustrating on the iPad and I have no idea what my schedule will be tomorrow morning, so I won’t post on Friday. I’ll be back again on Saturday.

Happy Thursday.

Professional Challenges

January 9, 2019 at 11:01 am by Claudia

The wind woke me up during the night and it continues this morning. We’ve had at least three gray days in a row, lots of rain (which we do not need at this point – it seems the ground is always saturated) and fronts moving in and out.

January and February are the hardest for me. March is better because I know “green” will soon be on the horizon. But now? A stark and barren horizon, the excitement of the holidays gone…it gets tougher the older I get.

I’m sitting at my desk at the moment. Don needed to have something printed out, so I came up here to my trusty travel printer, printed it, and stayed to write my post. He has an audition today.

I had another professional problem crop up last night. One of the shows I’ve been working on – I’m currently doing a bit of work on three shows – threw a spanner in the works. It’s a smallish budget dialect show that’s going to start previewing at the end of this week. I’ve been in to work with each of the actors one-on-one and the next thing to do would have been to go to a run-through or preview performance to give the actors some feedback on their dialects. If the show was a bigger budget show, I would have gone to a couple of run-throughs as well as a couple of preview performances. Anyway, I get the daily rehearsal calls via email and there were four, count ’em, four run-throughs last week and I wasn’t called in for any of them. Then I got an email asking me if I wanted to attend a tech rehearsal or a preview and I responded with a yes, suggesting an early preview performance. I heard nothing. So, I contacted them again with the intention of firming up the date so I could also schedule work on the other shows. The response from the stage manager (who was only the messenger) was that they had been informed that the budget for the dialect coach had been used up and therefore they couldn’t use me. Keep in mind, I’ve only been there three times.

I was not happy. And I told them so. No coach would ever not see a run-through or an early performance. I had not been informed that there was a limit to my work, though I knew it would probably be 4 or 5 days of work. I had promised the actors that I would be back. My response to the powers-that-be was to the point: my reputation depends on the quality of my work. I don’t abandon the actors. Thinking that the actors would think I didn’t care, that I simply stopped coming, troubled me. So I asked that they tell the actors in no uncertain terms that none of this was me, that all of it was due to budget. And they are going to do that. The director, actors, and stage management are lovely people, thoroughly professional – this is not on them.

It took me a long time to get here, but I stopped being a people-pleaser several years ago and took ownership of my professional work and career. I don’t have an agent protecting me like Don does. I don’t have a manager. It’s me and only me. So I demand my fee and if they can’t pay it, I decline the work. And I won’t tolerate crap like what happened last night. I was angry, but I was also very calm. I wasted no time in responding and I cc’d my response to two other people so that the facts would be clear.

Voice coaches (except for my Shakespeare work with Darko) are bottom of the budget in most theaters. They have lots of money for sets and costumes and music and everything else. Yet, they choose to do a dialect show and only budget a small amount – if anything – for a coach. I’m over it. And luckily, I’m at the age where I’m able to turn things down if necessary. It’s a lot harder to do when you’re dependent on freelance jobs to cobble together an income.

But for a time recently, I was working on Broadway and off-Broadway at the same time. That was sort of wonderful.

I know I mentioned this before, but Darko’s last year as Artistic Director of Hartford Stage is this year. He’ll be done in June. I will no longer have work there and, though I won’t miss being away from home for five weeks, I will miss the enormous pleasure and honor of working with Darko and the rather nice fee I got for that work. No longer having that to count on makes a difference in our income here. But Darko was there for seven years and that’s a long time for that kind of intense commitment. He deserves to move on and I’m truly happy for him. He has been a loyal friend and colleague.

So things are definitely changing as to my work and income.

And if you’re thinking that they’ll still use me, they won’t. New Artistic Directors bring in their own people. That’s the way it is and the way it should be. Hartford Stage has been dealing with budget cuts as well (like every regional theater) so paying me what they did for Shakespeare work is no longer happening. I wasn’t called in for this season’s Shakespeare. They actually had to do Shakespeare without a voice and text coach. (Darko wasn’t the director, by the way.)

I’m actually fine about this transition. I’m just filling you in on the changes ahead.

This has ended up being longer than I had planned!

Anyway, I am going to Hartford on Thursday and Friday to see the show that Darko is currently directing and to do a little work with one of the actors. It may well be my swan song!

Okay. Have to go.

Happy Wednesday.

Piano Update

January 8, 2019 at 11:33 am by Claudia

I spent a little time playing the piano yesterday afternoon after Adam finished tuning it. Boy! I haven’t played for a while and I’m going to have to work on my technique. And I was tired, so I didn’t have a lot of patience. Nevertheless, how wonderful to finally have a tuned and repaired piano!

It does need more work, however. That’s the bad news. The springs to the dampers are not in good shape, so when it’s played it has a live sound that would never do for a concert pianist but is okay for me and the average pianist. I want to save some money to get that done in the future. It would involve Adam and his co-workers actually taking the piano to his studio to work on it. It’s very involved, detailed work that is best done on site. It would cost about as the same as the work we’ve just had done, which, considering the meticulous work involved, is pretty reasonable.

It will have to wait. In my heart, I want to have the piano restored to its full power. Adam said that since it’s nearly 80 years old, none of this was unexpected.

I’m very impressed by Adam’s meticulous work and I trust his expertise. We’re so fortunate to have found him! My girl is getting her beautiful sound back, slowly but surely.

Adam working on the pedals.

Aren’t pianos beautiful? I never see this bottom section. Some dust removal was required.

And Adam did play some jazz – a version of “Stella by Starlight” – unprompted. I have it on video but I don’t feel comfortable sharing that on the blog. I don’t have his permission. It made me very happy to hear him play our piano.

This is my music cabinet, found at auction right after we moved here.

Mostly sheet music, with some dollhouse wallpaper and artwork that we wanted to keep flat.

And I played a bit of this little ditty.

I’ve never named the piano; it’s just my piano/Grandma’s piano.

We watched another screener last night, The Wife, starring Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce. I don’t want to say much about it if you haven’t seen it. She is wonderful, as is Pryce (who I got to see onstage many years ago.) Both of us had real problems with parts of the screenplay and with plot devices that didn’t serve the story or the actors. But Close is simply lovely and powerful in this role and I can see why she won the Golden Globe.

We’re waiting on more screeners – very slow getting to our mailboxes this year. My friends who are SAG members are having the same problem.

Happy Tuesday.

Heading Out

Professional Challenges

Piano Update

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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