Proof that I am insane

I've just accept a part in play #6 for this season. I'm definitely living up to my blog's tagline: The Adventures of a Thespian Mommy. This show will start rehearsals the week that my current show closes. It will run through May 24th, which will mean that I've been in rehearsals and/or performances for 9 months straight. It's no wonder my house is cluttered.

I'm very excited about this role: it's a great character who is on stage for all but 3 or so pages of the script. It's a role I've wanted to play since I saw the show on Broadway in 2002, and will no doubt be the meatiest thing I've done all year. Not to mention the fact that I am fast becoming too old to play the part. The play is being produced by a community theatre the next town over, and I'm excited to not have a 45 minute (or more!) commute every night down into the city, but there are some hesitancies as well. It's true that it's impossible to make a living as a stage actor in New Orleans... there just aren't enough theatres that pay enough to get consistent, well paid work. Even so, all but one of the theatres I've worked with in Louisiana have paid at least a little something. It gives me a greater sense of being professional. For this show I know I won't get paid. In fact, since we'll be north of the big lake, I know I won't even get a review (and don't even talk to me about eligibility for the city's theatrical awards). I worry a bit that directors in the Big Easy may not take my work up here seriously. But I know that artistically this will be good work for me... a challenging character with lots of depth in a beautifully written, Pulitzer Prize winning play. Working with people who are doing it for the pure love of theatre.

I think it's going to be a great ride.

By the way, this play happens to be the same play that No Mother Earth just did. She played the other female part. Maybe we should do an international staging of it, and we can play sisters!