Rehearsals have started in earnest for George F. Walker’s Adult Entertainment at Theatre NXS. Last night was the first rehearsal with the entire cast and tonight will be our first run-thru. The first run-thru is also lovingly known as a stumble-thru. There’s no telling what will or won’t happen tonight.

But I forgot a little piece of news. While I was in Texas, I got a call from the director, LR Hults, asking me to play a different role. I was playing Pam – a newly single mother who is still tangled up with her ex-husband, Donny, who is a drunken loser of a cop. Now I’m playing Jayne – a public defender whose given up on herself and her clients.

Jayne is having an affair with Max who is Donny’s partner. Jayne agrees to meet Max in a motel room for a little fling where she convinces Max to do her a “favor” and help her get one of her clients off the hook. Of course, it all goes horribly wrong and the audience gets to watch four people flush their now-shortened lives down the toilet. In typical George F. Walker fashion there’s someone vomiting in the bathroom and there’s lots of blood and muddy clothing because, of course, someone has to get buried. I like this playwright.

Side Note:

There’s an interesting curve ball thrown into the casting too. Max, the guy Jayne is fooling around with, is being played by my real-life boyfriend. (Yes. I have a real boyfriend. I broke up with the imaginary one.) Max gets knifed and Jayne sews him up onstage. This comes after the scene where they do some serious fooling around. In some ways I think I’m more self-conscious about fooling around onstage with my real-life boyfriend than I would be with another actor. And in some ways, it’s a lot of fun because we get to make out every night! Practice. Practice. Practice.

:End Side Note

Life is not boring in Columbia, MO. This past week we saw three theatrical performances and one amazingly awesome pianist. I plan on dogging the performances of Forte and Roe and being everywhere they are playing from now on. I didn’t know you could do those things with a piano. Sutu’s music came to life in front of me and all around me. I wanted to talk to her after her performance and say, “Sutu, I want my daughter to see what you can do because I want her to know what’s possible. I didn’t know what was possible before now.” That’s probably the best compliment I can think of. I hope, I hope, I hope they will be playing before some of our performances of Adult Entertainment.

We saw an evening of Don Nigro’s one-acts performed at Theatre NXS. We saw My Fair Lady performed at Columbia Entertainment Company and we saw Little Shop of Horrors at the Maplewood Barn. Each fun in their own way. I feel very cultured and I’m thrilled that so much theatre, so much music and so much art is flowing through good ole’ CoMO. Here are a couple of reviews of CEC’s My Fair Lady:

‘Wouldn’t it be loverly’ to go to a show? by Bill Clark

Columbia is home to theatre that is beyond compare also by Bill Clark.

What’s the point of this post? I think it’s that art is all around us. In fact, it seems to be coming at me at an alarmingly fast pace. And I’m loving it. The point is that every day we have multiple opportunities to immerse ourselves in experiences that add to the beauty of our lives. Every day is an opportunity to open ourselves up and let the music and the poetry pour into our ears and the colors seep into our skin and every day we can create new opportunities for our communities – wherever those communities may reside virtually or geographically. So, I hope you go wild and let some art in today and I hope you set some of your art free and let it find that person who has been waiting all these years to be filled with your beauty.

“The music is all around us. All you have to do is listen.” ~ August Rush

Tags: Rehearsal, Theatre