Lotta F

Last night's performance was Fan-Fucking-Tastic! Had a great crowd of family, friends, neighbors, even people I didn't know. A lot of folks there had never seen me perform before. I had a marvelous time and I think they did, too. I've spoken to a few of them already today and all the feedback is lovely.

I'm the kind of person who likes to get to the theatre early and wait. And wait. And wait. We're only allowed in the room an hour before the show so that curbs my urge to be there half the day but I don't waste time. I arrive a few minutes early, pee, and head in so I can stand on that tiny stage a little bit longer, sing a few more notes, make the space my own. When they're ready to open the house to audience I go downstairs to change my clothes and put on my makeup. Since that only takes about 15 minutes (I just don't know enough about makeup for it to be super fancy) I wind up with a chunk of time with nothing to do.

One of the pieces of feedback I got from the first show was to slow my inner meter a bit so my jokes and ideas had time to land in people's ears. So I thought a short amount of meditation might be a good idea. I sat still, closed my eyes, and my brain took off like it was shot out of a canon. What I do in those situations is choose a phrase to repeat over and over to occupy my brain. I don't recall how I made it into a phrase but I centered myself around the concept of trusting that all the information I needed (words, notes, acting beats) would come to me as I needed it. I get panicked about knowing everything thoroughly and that can lead to me spewing it all out too quickly as though I can run ahead of any chance forgetfulness.

Well, I'll be damned if it didn't work! Several times throughout the show I would get a quick shot of worry that I didn't know the next line or story and as soon as I breathed in the words came right out of my mouth. It was fabulous! Until the final song when I'd said all I needed to say and Daryl was vamping and I breathed in and...nothing. No idea what the words were or the note I needed to start on or even the concept of the verse. Clue. Motherfucking. Free. But, what came to me instead was the ability to just say so, to be honest and make a joke and get the prompt from Daryl (thank goodness!) and then go on to give everything I wanted to the song without being derailed by the glitch.

This meditation thing, I think there might be something to it.

*All photos are by my beloved Mimi Ferraro taken at Don't Tell Mama after my performance in December. My only regret is that I don't have a picture of the two of us together as well.