Just Call Me The Phoenix. Or Call Me From Phoenix. Or Call Me In Phoenix, Except I'm Not There.

This post is so overdue and outdated it’s got a perm and feathered bangs. Seriously. But considering the fact that seldom do I have really good news to share, and even more seldom is it related to what actually means the most in the world to me (in addition to sex and stinky cheese, that is…but not together, that would be way too messy), so overdue or not I’m still gonna toot my own horn and I’m gonna do it with gusto damnit!

Except that every time I sit down to write I get distracted by far more important things like, umm, knitting. And biting my fingernails. And imagining what we could do to fix up the bedroom if a) we had any money and/or b) I actually cleaned it enough to find the floor on my side of the bed. But as I’m really trying to stop procrastinating writing down something, anything, for this here neglected, torn and tattered excuse for a blog, I might as well rally the forces and muster up a little excitement here.

The weekend before last, I was on stage! Yes, it’s true, believe it or not. I know its been so long that you probably thought I wouldn’t even know a stage if one mugged me on the street, and frankly I asked myself that very question on numerous occasions…in fact I was so certain that my creative juices had run dry and my acting muscles so atrophied that artistically I resembled nothing more than a metaphoric shrunken head. Or a raisin. And the two always looked kind of similarly frightening to me.

Let’s rewind before I launch into more hideous metaphors (as I’m prone to do when tired. Or typing. Or breathing…). The adventure began because my friend Buff (named so for his role in the show we were both in when my brother died, which if that won’t cement a friendship for life, I don’t know what will) ditched my birthday party. The rat. I sent out what I hoped were cute thank you e-cards through evite (because evidently once you hit 31 you suddenly are under the mistaken impression that you possess manners you never did heretofore) and they were automatically sent to everyone who had responded yes, whether they were a no show or drank me under the table while I mumbled a faint cry for a huge pink sombrero and more guava Margaritas. Buffster was the former, and being the awesome friend he is, he immediately called. Being the even awesomer friend he is, he asked if I would like to participate in Core24 – a 24+ hour (excluding sleep time) theatre project with a company he’s involved in. Of course I immediately became an overly thankful bastion of desperation, so ecstatic was I to finally have a scrap or two to feed the actor in me.

And it was much more than a scrap or two, let me tell you. First and foremost, it was one helluva fun ride. We all met (by all I mean actors and writers) at the theatre at 10am, where the parameters were drawn out of bags. Each 10 minute play shared a similar theme, line, and prop, and each playwright then chose their own genre and their own actors. The theme was drawing the curtains, the line was Vengence is mine sayeth the lord, and the prop was a 3 hole punch. My playwright chose farce – my least comfortable genre. This turned out to be such a gift, though, as I went farther out on a limb than I normally would have gone, taking risks right and left…and best of all, I was funny. They laughed from before the first line right up until the end blackout. And all this from having only Saturday night to rehearse a bit and learn the script (the final ending of which we didn’t even receive until past 11pm…yikes!), Sunday day to rehearse until our 5:30 “tech” onstage, and working with an actor who didn’t know his lines but was a fabulous improviser (except when he forgot key business) from whom you never knew what you’d get….and it was gloriously fun and challenging in a good way! Everyone I met that works with this fairly new company was incredibly nice, and funny and smart, and it was all in all exactly what the doctor ordered.

And best of all, better than the compliments on my performance I received, better than the great laughs the house gave during the performance, better almost than stinky cheese, was the fact that no one, not one single person involved in the whole thing, invalidated me as an actor because I haven’t been performing much at all in the last 2 years. No one. Just me. Everyone else seemed to be pretty much of the opinion that its par for the course as a New York actor, and everyone’s gone through ups and downs like that career wise…whether due to personal tragedy or just plain old growth time. That was priceless, internets. Absolutely priceless.

Wearing a French maid costume with cowboy boot slippers was pretty fun too.