My Love Letter for LPT

Let me reiterate what I ended my last blog post with....
2011 can go fuck itself!

Another loss in my life has occurred, this hot day in August.
Beloved theatre I grew up adoring, Le Petit, has unfortunately been handed over to the Brennan's.

When I was a wee girl I would go see every single production at Le Petit.
I still have all of my programs from every show I had ever seen there.
It was my dream to get to play on that stage one day.
My absolute dream.
Many of us who are from here had the notion that if you had gotten cast in a Le Petit production...you had made it in New Orleans theatre.
I, gratefully, grew up, and my dream came true.
I got to perform on that big, beautiful stage.
I got to experience all the ghosts.
I got to sing along with the orchestra.
I got to smoke in the alley on stage left.
I got to stand on the balcony and have people yell questions on why I was dressed so funnily (i.e. my Indian costume from Damn Yankees)
I got to watch Cecile hand sew a new costume in the length of an intermission in the ladies dressing room.
I got to watch the Saints win the Super Bowl in Muriel's!
And so so so many other things that I was given the opportunity to do because of that wonderful theatre.
Mr. Marmalade, Taste, Weird, The Night of the Iguana and Damn Yankees were the last shows i did there.
These are some of the most important shows to me because these were the shows that gave me most of my current friendships.
Taste and Marmalade are the reasons I got to be in The NOLA Project.
Which is my other family.



Le Petit did all of this, and so much more than I could ever express in the written word.
Theatre is the only thing I'm good at.
It's the greatest love of my life.
And Le Petit was one of the places I got to nurture that love.
And for that, I will forever cherish that building and all the people I have because of it.

"Stay: the most charming word in a friend's vocabulary."

Hello everyone.
How are we all doing.
I know...I don't hardly write in this any more...
It's been a busy year.

This summer has been incredibly lovely though, seeing as though I haven't been doing a show.
After Norman Conquests closed, and Romeo and Juliet was postponed till December, I have had a nice little break since June.

That will all be over in August when we start rehearsals for Is He Dead?...which is our co-production with UNO.

Mark Twain farce.

90% of my lines are asides to the audience.

It's going to make me very happy!

So.

With all of this free time I have had I've spend many many hours watching TV on the netflix/hulu.

One Sunday, Kristin and I watched so much 30Rock that hulu actually stopped and a pop up asked me if I wanted to take a break.

Sad.

I have also been watching this past season of The Office over at Yeargain's house.

And last night I finally got to the episode where Steve Carrell leaves the show.

I cried like a small child.

Ugly crying.

It was embarrassing.

I just cannot handle people moving away, or having a friendship be altered in any sort of negative way.

It's really something that has always been extremely difficult for me to cope with.

All those abandonment issues I have, I guess.

And this year...and it's only half way through...has been a rather difficult one in terms of friendships.

Michael died, Zach and I got all fucked up, and now Mark and Andrea are leaving.

And apparently Michael Scott leaving the Office was the impetus for my catharsis....

Mark, Andrea and Zach have become three of my very best friends since Zombie Town last June.

Usually not more than a day goes by without me getting to see or talk to them.

So when things change, I get very sad.

Things between that boy and I have been extremely rough for about the past three weeks...and I have been a big hot mess about it.

I know things will get better, and we will be fine, but I feel like I lost one of my best friends. Being around him used to make me very, very happy.

Now, I just feel sad when I see him, or think about him.

And, again, it will get better, and I will be fine, it just won't be the same...for a long time.

And now stupid Routhier and Andrea have to go and move to Orlando for a year.

I don't know what AJ and I are gonna do without our Tracey's partners.

Mark is one of the most amazingly talented, loving, warmest humans I have ever met.

He's just a big barrel of hippie love.

And I adore him, and all his goodness.

The love I have for Andrea is almost inexpressible.

Who else is going to mock my lack of line learning, and my awkwardness and tell me how beautiful I am all in one sentence?

And I'm pretty sure she's the only republican I've ever kissed on the mouth.

I know it's only for a year, and it's only Orlando, and I'm already planning a trip to visit, but I still like my people where I can see them.

And I can't see my people in Florida.

I don't know why I felt the need to write all this nonsense into the interweb...

I just want them to know how much I will miss them.

I think this is a very obvious trait about myself, but, my friends are my most precious possession.

I'm rather obsessed with them...all of them.

I don't pick good fellas to date, but I pick the best friends to surround myself with.

And I know I tell them I love them every day, and most of them say it back...

But, I don't use that term lightly.

I love them.

So. Much.

And I truly appreciate my friends more than I could ever fully let them know.

So, please, no one else die or move...ok?

I'd really appreciate it.

Oh. Right.

And Le Chat closed.

So, yeah...2011 can go fuck itself.

So much time has passed.

.

Had an amazing Fanny Pack themed birthday bash.
I actually couldn't believe that approximately 40 people bought, found or bedazzled fanny packs and wore them in a public place for an entire evening.
The most useful part of it was that since Mardi Gras was right around the corner everyone just used their fannypacks for the parade route.
You're welcome, everyone.


And I've also been engulfed in theatre land for the past couple of months.....

We were remounting The Night of the Iguana for UNO all during January and February.
Then we got to take a lovely little trip to the sprawling metropolis of Amarillo, Texas to perform our wonderful show on the anniversary of his death.....creepy!
Unfortunately, the day I got there I became insanely sick.
I could barely get out of bed...I felt like I needed to crawl out of my skin.
I couldn't eat anything...and I really only left the hotel to go see other school's shows.
I was beginning to worry how well I would feel for our performance on Friday....
I knew Beau was freaking out silently because James Yeargain was also super sickly with allegies and such.
I finally made myself go to the urgent care in amarillo, which was a whole other level of hell to deal with.
And it only took about 2 hours before they could figure out what to do with me and let me know that on top of everything I was severely dehydrated and thats the main reason I felt like death.
So i got some meds and shots and I woke up Friday morning and I felt like a million bucks.
I ran into Beau's room and said, "I FEEL AWESOME IT'S LIKE A TENNESSEE WILLIAMS MIRACLE. HE DIED ON THIS DAY SO I COULD PERFORM!!!!!"
We performed the show and it was going amazingly. The audience was so involved and with it, it was just delightful to get to perform for people who really understood and enjoyed everything that went into the production.
Unfortunately, as the show went on James' voice started to just go...and as we know, that poor baby never left stage in the show.
So, Beau is in the wings next to me and he's like...
Beau: "Ok....figure out a way to make James drink a glass of water."
Me: "BUt this is the dinner scene, I'm bringing on a drink cart. The whole point of the scene is he is supposed to refuse a drink from me..."
Beau: "Yeah......I'm gonna need you to just make all this work."

So....I made my entrance...walked up behind James and said, "Here baby, have some water...sounds like you need it."
And the audience burst into laughter.
That's the benefit of performing for other performers....they knew exactly what was going on and they knew that had to be done.

The next day we got an amazing response.
So many awesome things said about the whole production and all our work.
It was truly satisfying to have such a lovely response to something we have all worked so hard on for such a long time.


And then in April I started rehearsing for The Norman Conquests
It is I think the hardest thing I have ever attempted to do.
So many lines, so many props, so much blocking.
It makes my brain hurt so much just to think about it.
I generally have a good cry about it once a week.
Rehearsals are going really well, and I think we are in a super place right now....I'm just so overwhelmed.
It's gonna be super hilarious and great though.
The cast is extraordinary and just swell to work with.
I'm going to be very happy for everyone to come see it.
Especially since most people I know are gonna come on the EPIC SUNDAY OF THEATRE.
Which is where we do all three plays of the trilogy in succession at 11, 3 and 7.
AHHHHHH.
Going . To . Be . EPIC .

NOLAProject is doing Midsummer in the Sculpture Garden. It is going to be stunning and funny and great.
I've seen one rehearsal and I am going again tonight so I can judge more thoroughly.
Everything I have seen has been beautiful though.
It opens THIS FRIDAY! And runs all the Fridays in May.
GO SEE IT.
I'm very proud of everyone involved, and super proud that the company is getting the opportunity to do this event.
We are also going to be doing Romeo and Juliet inside the museum in August.
Which I am very excited I will get to be a part of since I am so jealous I couldn't play in the outdoor one...
Even though I would much prefer to be inside instead of rolling around on grass.


So yeah.
Thats about what my life has involved for the past few months.
Whole lot of line learning.
I also enjoyed some French Quarter Fest.
And some Jazz Fest.

I am definitely looking forward to a very long break.....very long.
Can't wait till December.
I don't think my little brain can handle much more....

"It's the metal......"

Hello everyone.
It has been a very, very long time.

3 months actually.
A lot of things have happened in these past few months.
Lots of stupid fun times with all my friends during the Chrismakuh break.
Lots of wonderful plays have been produced and watched.

Including the NOLA Project's Almost an Evening.
We opened two weekends ago and have been having great houses and responses.
And as A.J. so lovingly told me last night...the two shows the company has produced that ended up in the black were the two shows I have been a part of.
So Yeah.
Can't kick me out of the company just yet, fellas.

I've also started re-rehearsing for The Night of the Iguana because it did indeed get moved on to the second round of the Kennedy Center American College Theatre festival.
Which is a lovely honor, and I'm so happy for Beau because his show was quite stunning.
It is just a whole fuck ton of work to remount a show that you did 10 months ago.
And a show that is so intense and line heavy and just a lot of investment for the people involved.
But, it's trucking along nicely.
And we've got six whole days left before we perform it in front of an audience...
We should be so golden.........

We take Iguana to Amarillo at the end of the month.
I can't wait to go there.
I can't really admit that I am excited about going to Texas, but I am.
It's going to be a week of nothing but theatre.
No work, no school, no stress about anything.
Just watching plays and doing plays and scenes and drinking some Rolling Rock.
I cannot wait.

The other major thing that has occurred over these past few months has been something that happened just this past weekend.

And this is where my blog entry takes a turn for the worst.
I apologize.
I just need to get some stuff out of my head.

Michael Tramontin passed away on January 29th.

I have had the amazing pleasure of being friends with MIchael since I was about 13 years old.
He is one of my oldest and dearest friends that I have.
We did tons of shows together in high school.
He and Keith were basically my other brothers.
We were a very inseparable trio.
He was one of the funniest guys I had ever met doing shows at Rummel and we immediately became friends.
I would just laugh hyterically watching him and Keith doing things up on stage, or sitting in the audience next to him.

One of my favorite things we did together at Rummel was the Christmas show our senior year.
We had a lot of amazing sketches we wrote including a Back to the Future sketch, complete with original theme song.
But my absolute favorite thing we did together that year was a Scooby Doo sketch.
I was playing Velma, obviously, and we were searching for the Phantom of the Opera....
And the all of a sudden we found him, being played by Michael, and we just proceeded to sing Phantom.
It was so weird and random and hilarious and the only reason we did it was because we both really wanted to sing that song.
So we wrote an entire sketch around it.
And it was pretty brilliant.

We all graduated high school and Michael went off to AMDA in New York.
I was very sad because he was one of my best friends and I'm very selfish, I like everyone where I can see them.
That summer he came back in to town and we did a Rummel Alumni production of Rumors.
Michael and I played Lenny and Claire Ganz.
We were a ridiculous married couple.
Best on stage hubby I could have ever asked for.
My favorite thing from this show was when Michael is doing this huge two page mono loge at the end of the play...trying to sum up the entire play...he is running down the staircase and he trips over the last step and kind of rips the front off the bottom step.
THat happens, and as we all know, I can't keep a straight face on stage, so I immediately start laughing.
Michael runs back up the stairs and this time when he comes down the stairs he jumps over the last step and everyone on stage just lost their shit.
And everyone in the audience was going pretty nuts.

The next summer we did Hayfever together and played Sorel and Simon Bliss and that pretty much solidified our brother/sister bond.
We had always called each other brother and sister, and the show just made us constantly do it in a british accent.
We were strange kids, what can I say.
I still am.

Michael finished up at AMDA and came back down to New Orleans.
At the time he was getting back in to town we were having auditions for Cabaret and JPAS.
And I knew that the director needed to see some more guys for the show so I convinced MIchael to go to the call backs with me and just sing for Kris.
He sang for a Kit Kat Boy and got cast as the Emcee.
I was so happy and proud of him.
I knew how fucking amazing he was and now all of NOLA theatre was going to realize it too.
The show was, to this day, one of the most fun theatrical experience I have ever been a part of.
I have never felt more of a rock star in all my days....but it was nothing but theatre and having a good time.
And we had a really, really good time.

Then MIchael was asked to be in The Buddy Holly musical we were doing, and play Ritchie Valens.
The show was ridiculous to begin with, and Michael took that role and ran with it.
He would limbo on stage, and every night he would just say the most random things in a terrible latino accent.
The absolute best was on the closing night, the night we taped, so thank christ it is on film, right before he starts singing La Bamba he just says into the microphone "I HAVE SALSA RUNNING THROUGH MY VEINS!"
And everyone lost their minds.

I have so many other amazing stories from other shows that we did before and after that.
But its just too many to share.
I think you get the picture of the type of person he was.
He was simply awesome.
And even though he hadn't been living here for the past couple of years, just sporadically visiting, we still talked at least once a week.
And he always sent me text photos of things he thought I would think were funny or things that reminded him of me.
And I did the same for him.

I have never had a person this close to me die.
When you are as young as we are you don't think your friends are going to go to sleep and just not wake up.
You never, ever think that.
So when I got the news last weekend I was completely devestated.
I still am completely devestated.
I am overwhelmed with sadness.

It's a strange hurt losing a friend.
You kind of just expect family members to pass away.
It's weird, but true.
Not any less painful, but expected.
At least for me.
It is so much harder for me with this because family you are given.
My friends, I pick.
And I pick very carefully.
Let's be honest....I don't like that many people.
And I chose Michael a long time ago.
And I wanted him around for a long, long time.
I always said at my wedding I wouldn't have bridesmaids...I'd have brides men because I have this wonderful male support system in my life.
And now I'm gonna be one short.
And I am just so very sad about it.

I love him so very much.
And he will always be my brother from another mother.
I will miss him every single day.
And I will never look at salsa without getting a little teary eyed.