Professional Voice Talent, Amateur Actor and Knitter

Category: librivox

On eating crow…

So after everything I said about the WCT being somewhat picky about casting the leads of plays, I have to take it back. I watched Annie the weekend it opened, and ended up leaving during intermission. Like Once Upon This Island, the casting of the leads left much to be desired. I will say that the three people cast as Miss Hannigan, Rooster and Lily St. Regis were fantastic. They were the only leads who seemed confident onstage and with their lines, songs and choreography. They were also the only leads who seemed to be having fun with their parts (not really difficult with those).

My main objection was to the poor child who played Annie (well, the one I saw that night… the role was shared by two girls). It’s not her fault. I’ve worked with her before and heard her sing, and know that she has a very nice voice, but someone made the decision that she should belt all her songs… and they just weren’t in her belting range, so the result was that she sounded strained and painful.

I decided not to audition for Amadeus after all. I’d only just regained enough energy (after the stress of adjusting to the new job) to get back into my LibriVox project, and I’m on a roll with that, so I wasn’t willing to give up my evenings just yet.

I’m still working on El Dorado, but I’m not as blocked as I was before. The focus hasn’t been on Armand as much as it was in the beginning, so he’s not driving me crazy like he was. I’ve also started two other projects – A Little Princess and Pride and Prejudice. I’ve been wanting to do both for a while, and doing chapters in those was a good motivation to deal with Armand. 🙂 I haven’t put P & P into the catalogue yet, I’m just working on it on the side for now, but I’m five chapters each away from finishing El Dorado and Little Princess , and I’ll be taking it public once I do finish them.

I learned of a knitting group here in Waco a few weeks ago. I’ve been thinking of visiting it. I’m a bit shy of going because I only know one person… and also because I don’t have anything particularly interesting on the needles just now. I’ve got that scarf I started for Ethel last winter still going; and a hat for the Dulaan project. I had bought a whole bundle of a particular yarn… ooh, probably two years ago that didn’t turn out to be how I expected (it said worsted, but it’s much thicker than that), so I figured I could use it up making hats and things for the Dulaan project.

And now I’m off to eat lunch in the Great Hall at Hogwarts. 🙂

Catching up

Life’s been pretty busy since my last post (hence no posts since then).

So, first off, I started the new job. It’s been fairly quiet for these first few weeks. The whole first week and part of the second all I did was read, because they’d ordered me a new computer (a nice, shiny new macbook!) and we were waiting for it to arrive. The rest of the second week I spent trying to install Windows and Linux on it (some of the things I’m going to be working with run on Mac, some on Windows and some on Linux, so I have to have all three OS’s). Then I went on vacation for a week, but I did finally get the various operating systems running when I got back. Since then, they’ve slowly been getting me started on some of the things I’m going to be dealing with. Oh, and kind of cool coincidence, one of the first things I worked on was a problem a professor was having with his website, which he was running with wordpress… so this blog? Not just for fun! Actual work related learning experience gained from it! 🙂

Now back to the vacation. I went out to Mum’s for ten days. This is the first time I’d been out there since she moved to Palmdale and Paul brought the family up, so I got to see the new house, and of course, all the family. The times at home were fairly quiet. The boys are sort of between activities right now, so they spend most of their time online or playing video games (sometimes both). Mum and Natalie and I had fun though. Mum and I usually try to get out to the Hollywood Bowl whenever I visit during the summer, and this year Natalie came with us. We got to see South Pacific, with Reba McEntire and Brian Stokes Mitchell. It was awesome! Then a few days later, we went to see Wicked. I’d been wanting to see this since I first found out that the book was being turned into a musical, so I did a quick search to see if the touring company might happen to be in the Los Angeles area during that week, and found that there’s a permanent (well, probably semi-permanent) production at the Pantages! I treated Mum to both shows for her birthday present. Natalie came with us to this one too. They didn’t know anything about Wicked, but they were excited to be getting out of the house for something other than work. On the Friday before I came back Natalie’s daughter Debbie was playing in the orchestra for a community college production of Once Upon This Island, so we went to that too. Needless to say, after South Pacific and Wicked, this was a bit of a letdown. Maybe if we’d seen that one first. 🙂 I mean, it wasn’t terrible, but it was definitely an amateur performance (I like to think that we’re a little pickier about our lead roles at the WCT… but I’m terribly afraid we aren’t always).

I haven’t been doing much outside of work since I got back. Though yesterday was my birthday and I did get taken out for lunch. Apparently, the Preservation people adopt whoever works in the office across the hall from them, regardless of what department they’re in, so Eric and I get included in all they do. It’s fun, and I’m enjoying getting to know that group better. I used to see them some when they were on the first floor, but we’re in much closer proximity here and it’s easier.

Annie opens next weekend at the Civic. I got cast in it, but then I found out that Linda had cast about 60 kids! I told them that I’d just started a new job and we were starting a big project and that I wasn’t sure how much spare time I was going to have in the evenings (all of which is true), so thank you but I was going to have to turn down the part. I will be ushering, though. Beth is playing Miss Hannigan and I’ve heard that she’s hilarious, so I’m looking forward to watching her.

I’m still working on El Dorado for Librivox. It’s an interesting story, but I keep putting off recording because Armand, from whose perspective most of this story is told, is driving me spare. He’s being such an absolute infant that I keep wanting to smack him upside the head. This one’s longer than the other Orczy book I did too, much longer. I originally picked it because it’s the other book they generally use when they’re making a film adaptation, so I know parts of the plot.

I’ve been searchin’…

For a job, that is. I haven’t had a whole lot of luck, but I did have an interview here in the library Friday before last. They said that they hoped to have the rest of the interviews done by last Friday and make their decision some time this week. It’s now Thursday and I have yet to hear anything, so I’m starting to lose hope. Still, fingers crossed until I know for certain.

I finally finished Tales from Shakespeare on LibriVox, which I’d been working on since March. I didn’t remember them being so dry and dull. The only way I got through was by bribing myself with reading a chapter in a new project every time I managed to finish one of the Tales. The two projects I bribed myself with were What Katy Did at School, which I’ve since finished, and Anne of Green Gables, which I’m about two thirds of the way through. I’m planning on doing another of the Scarlet Pimpernel books next; I’m leaning toward El Dorado, the one where they rescue the Dauphin.

We had a SKVE meeting on Monday and watched How to Steal a Million with Audrey Hepburn and Peter O’Toole. So now we have several new quotes on our SKVE board. And let me just say that Peter O’Toole was hot back then! 🙂 We still need to have our SKVE Music Man intervention with Regan and Melissa, because we never did get our schedules worked out during Mattress, and they can’t keep going through life without having seen Music Man!

Woo!

I just finished four Java programs in two hours! Talk about catching up on the homework!

I figured I should at least look at them, considering I’m going to be tutoring one of my classmates on these two chapters tomorrow. Good motivation to get the work done, I’ll tell you that much.

Now, if I could just find some motivation for recording the rest of Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare! I don’t remember them being this dull when I read them as a kid. Perhaps it’s because I’ve since been introduced to the full glory of Shakespeare’s works, and just can’t do with this cut down prose anymore.

And speaking of Shakespeare’s plays, I had an idea this afternoon when I was having lunch with Jana. We were talking about the upcoming season at the theatre and I mentioned how much I miss doing Shakespeare. She told me she’d done her best to get some into the new season, but without success, and then we moved on to talking about studio shows. And that’s when I got the idea to submit Twelfth Night as a studio show.

I must admit, part of the appeal is because, completely selfishly, I’d cast myself as Viola! 🙂

Jana has bagsed Malvolio. *lol*

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