It does take two to blog. I hear the words of my mother in my head, "Roneet, what are you doing? Don't just sit there with your teeth in your mouth! That blog isn't going to wright itself you know?"
Ok so ive taken some artisitc liberty with my motherisims. But if she were to comment, in this tone, on my blogging skills, it would probably sound something like that....except in reality she would probably add something about the spelling too.
moving on.....
SO what. is. up?!
Hijab Tube is coming to an end. We actually extended one more show day (this monday) in the end. We had the possability of extending a week but there just wasn't enough interest to make it worth it. I guess this one school is paying a lot for two shows to make this happen. A-ok with me, its not like i got anything else giving me money, so what am i going to say? no? pah!
So monday will be our final shows. Bitter sweet i'd say. It was a great experiance, fun, intense, challenging, tiering, exciteing etc...i would like to seperate exauhsting out from the rest of those adjectives and underline it. maybe more than once. Not only was the show a high energy show lots of costumes and quick changes you wouldn't believe, but early morning, lots of waking up to sit in a van, a different bed each night when on the road, not much down time, loading and unloading the set twice, sometimes 4 or even 6 times in a day (and we are not taking feathers and foam here, try metal bars soddered together). Not only was the show physically tiering, but also mentally and emotionally, this coming from the Jew who the majority of the questions were not personally directed at. In hindsight it makes a lot of sense that the more religiouse and immegrant populations we performed for would have strong reactions to the more libral american and feminist view of Islam that the play portrayed, but i don't think the show or the poeple involved were prepared for it. I think the responcibility lies with the teachers and schools for not preparing those specific groups for western ideas of performance, for one thing, in some cases, as well as our side not insisting that this show is not for just popping in and haveing some good ol' educational theater experiance for students, its a lot of info all at once and audiances are asked to pay attention and be engaged. I mean this is all good, and what theater is about, don't get me wrong, i just think that we as actors had to endure some back lash that was not expected and it would have been nice to have been prepared. In short, we had audiances that called out at the characters, completely walked out within the first scene, and directed personal comments about being a bad muslim to one of our actors.......this was hard. But i would like to add that we also had students come up and tell us how much this meant to them, to see someone like themself on stage, to share that as they walk down the halls of their highschool people will ask if they are hiding bombs under their Hijabs and other hardships they have had to endure, and to thank us for coming and performing this at their school. The interesting thing is that i think across the board the people who came to talk to us after the shows were all muslims, rarely did we get a white bread american to come up and say wow i learned alot thanks for cleraning stuff up for me, which i think that was what this play was really meant for. I think second season of this show might go a lot smoother so i guess this can all be chalked up to first run of a new play with a lot of contraversal material.
Up next?
The Trial of Mother Teresa. also a play that hits high on the scale from 1-contraversal.
We are starting run throughs which have been a little lack luster really. This play has been hard to peice together for all of us it seems. Putting the scenes together has been interesting becuase of the nature of the play. rehearsal time was spent rehearsing scenes that don't come together chronologically in the run of the show. (sounds familiar huh? Table For Six anyone?) I have been working hard on being a youthful 87 year old global icon in death - peice a cake i tell you!
I am excited for the show, next week we start tech rehearsals, i guess that means we meet in the theater?? i will love being able to just walk to rehearsal instead of driving out to no mans land.....probably isn't but it feels that way to me without having explored or any knawledge of the surrounding area, we rehearse in a sort of wearhouse that has some offices and a karate place in it. An underground cement box has been our reherasal hall. Excited for my family to come and see this one. Too bad i'm not getting paid.
I've got a couple of auditions in the wings. Someone is doing a production of Most Massive Woman Wins (a play i saw performed i think my first year of college during DP's maybe?) for the fringe fest. That audition is next week. And i have a call back for After Juliet, another play i am slightly familiar with. These would both perform end of summer.
In the mean time i am looking for sublets for Guy and I for the summer. It seemed like a good idea for everyone and this way i will get a little feel for living here on my own, which i feel isn't a bad idea at this point. Craigslist is a frusterating world, but rent is far, far, far did i say far? cheeper than NY which is beautiful, we're just dealing with entirely different numbers here.
Also i have been given the job as a camp director for two weeks at the JCC here. I am super excited. Its not that big a deal really, I will be directing/teaching/hanging out with 5 young girls (at this point. it was supposed to be like a full size camp but due to JCC camp conflicts and bad schedualing, ultimatly, it will probably be about 5-8 kids) age range 3rd grade to 6th grade. The original plan for the camp was to put on Fiddler On The Roof Jr. Clearly that is not possible with 5 girls so probably i will take advantage of having such an intimate group and allow the kids the luxury of haveing a say in what they do for the two weeks. Be it wright, be it rehearse with a performance goal in mind, be it play lots of fun theater games, whatever. So i am excited about that. I love working with kids (and, of course, i love Fiddler) so how could this be bad. I also i get paid, so no complaints.
This weekend there is lots going on and not being so tired and around has been fun to be apart of whats been going on for my cousins and family here. Tonight the boys and i went out to a movie while aunt and uncle took a night out. (We saw Star Trek, loved it!) Zander has started Baseball so ive been going to his games and taking him to practice on the way to rehearsal. There are end of the year concerts and play to see and tomorrow is the elemntry school's yearly fund rasing carnival which should be fun provided weather is good.
Right now it seems as if Dorothy and toto might show up any minute. It rained several days this week, was warm and sunny in between, and right now we are having a "cold blast". This place is crazy!
Well i guess thats it for now.
Hope all is well out there.
Missing you,
Roneet
This was in the living room area at the amazing, adorable, high character, and a little haunted bed&breakfast we stayed at in New York Mills, MN. This was such a fun and nice change from the motels.
In Pelican Rapids, MN this pelican has been repainted and reads "Minnesota State Bird The Loon"
A picture of the Minneapolis skyline as we return home at sunset.
We went to the original first ever Super 8 Motel located in Aberdeen, SD.
One of the well equipped high schools left signs and water in dressing rooms for us. Some of these HS theaters were really something to write home about. Spangenberg had nothing on some of these theaters.
This was the first restaurant we stopped at on our first out of town gig. Also the last restaurant we stopped at on our last out of town gig. We actually went back to the same city and same motel. This place was not only a bizarre experience in itself, but had great fries and fabulous 2$ drink specials!
