Today is one of those days where I ask myself, "why the fuck are you in theatre. Are you insane?"
The answer is probably yes, I already know that I need psychiatric help- but that's not the point.

Today was just one of those days. The stars aligned, things went wrong, the shit hit the proverbial fan. After crying for about an hour and a half to my father over the shitstorm of a day, I feel even keel enough to actually describe how it went.

It started with me going to Starbucks and trying to get some editing done. Since I'm getting interviewed by UCLA on Friday, I needed to reread my play. Of course, rereading my play made me wonder what the hell they saw in me. Oh the grammatical errors, or the typos, oh the melodrama. Let's just say that it needs a lot of work.

Anyway, I sat down with my 130 page play and my coffee, ready to do work... only to be distracted by the two men 5 feet away from me talking quite loudly. One of them was my age and was talking about how nervous he was for the show opening earlier tonight, the other was trying to calm him down. Busybody that I am, I listened in. Turns out the nervous guy is one of the new Tribe members for Hair, and was talking about how he was about to go and walk the stage because he was terrified about opening that night. His friend had just been in Ragtime and was trying to tell him that the nervousness would subside and that the show would go great. I of course, was way too invested in this conversation for a normal person, but who cares.

I was then interrupted from eavesdropping by this old man sitting down right next to me. It would have been normal, except for the fact that 5 minutes after he sat down he tapped me on the shoulder and said

"You have a face that's meant to be famous."

My reaction was a "...what?" And he repeated himself.

"You have a famous face. It's a face that stands out."

Flattered and a bit confused, I said thank you and went back to editing.

5 minutes later he interrupted me again, asking me if I was a writer. I told him that, Yes, I do write but that I also am a stage manager. He then launched into a long winded speech about theatre and writing and how his grandson is a lawyer but wants to be a writer.

Then he asked for my email to give his grandson. Fine, I thought. Who cares.

Then, the guy whips out his phone, calls his grandson and makes me talk to him.

It was awkward, the grandson apologized profusely, I laughed it off. Really, it wasn't so much embarrassing as just bizarre. We talked for a bit longer and then at 11:30 I went to rehearsal.

And that's when things got difficult.

In between 5 hours of rehearsal, we were auditioning people. I was running up and down trying to call people. Things were hectic. I didn't eat until 5:00, when I grabbed a sandwich. More auditions.

Got home at 7 pm, beyond exhausted and stressed only to realize that I had to finish a draft of the schedule by 2:00 tomorrow, get a hold of the guy we want to cast, get his bio, find out who's cast as the other character, contact everyone about costuming, contact the costumer about costuming, contact someone about the mess up in the rehearsal schedule, find kelly green gaffers tape, find bright orange cream based makeup, wonder what the fuck I'm doing with my life, cry, explode, lie curled in the fetal position on the floor.

And now, it's 8:30 pm. What have I done? I called my therapist to say hi. Then called my dad and cried for an hour about how I'm stressed and don't know anyone and who put the crazy idea in my head to do theatre. I would have called my mom, but I cried at her the other day, so I figured I should switch it up a bit. Needless to say, I think I burst a blood vessel in my eye, but I also have a few more pointers on how to go about finding a psychiatrist and a primary doctor (with or without health insurance) in this great state.

I haven't done anything. I think I'm comatose. I know that when I look at everything i've done in the 5 weeks that I've got here, I should be really proud of myself but I just can't. If I think I'll cry and if I cry I become completely ineffective. Come May, I don't know what I'm going to be doing, but it'll probably involve sleeping for 20 hours a day for a week straight.



Oh and I'm bringing everyone cookies to tomorrow's rehearsal. So that they'll love me and feel guilty when they make my life needlessly difficult.


P.S. I learned today that scotty was sitting one row behind me (but opposite end of the theatre) during Hair. WHAT. I'm going to bug that boy because I miss him. You hear that?