LTYM Blog Blast: Screaming Down The Hill

Yesterday was one of those days where I lamented not being independently wealthy. Our Misti's Listen To Your Mother show went off at 3pm my time. I thought of her in her bombshell dress watching all her work (and that of her team) come together. Friends posted updates and sent pictures and I know there will be more to come but if money (and time) had been no object I'd have been there. By the same token next week I would fly her here. Even if she didn't want to come (she's said she does) I would trick her onto a fancy private plane and have a car meet her at the airport and deliver her right to the show with mimosas to sip along the way.

You see, this year of Listen To Your Mother firsts is ours to share. Each should be deeply in the other's business regarding all things LTYM. Last year I confided to her that I was auditioning and I explained the whole process and when she cared enough to research my desire she found a show close to her and she auditioned, too. She got in last year and I didn't but at least one of us did, right? Encouraged by our respective region's LTYM teams I auditioned again this year and Misti threw her hat in the ring to start up an Oklahoma City show. We both won the shiny carnival prize and it's been a fantastic experience to share it even from so far away.

While I eagerly await more recaps and pictures from Misti's show I'll be preparing for the NYC show next Sunday (have your tickets yet?). I've been handed a second round of edits, I'm only halfway through clothing myself for the performance, and I have some courage that needs screwing to a point that sticks, if you know what I mean. I write a lot. I perform a fair amount. Reading out a personal essay, though, that's not so much my wheelhouse. Most of the time even having someone else read my essays aloud is an experience from which I find it hard to recover.

Now you'd think that, given the company I'm keeping in the NYC show, it would be even harder to share these feelings. This isn't a collection of half-assed musings carelessly chosen and tossed together. There is much to live up to here. The essay I'm reading is about my very personal choices in relation to motherhood and I'm reading it to a group made up largely of mothers on Mothers Day. You'd think it would be terrifying and, to some extent, it is but this group (both locally and nationally) is so strong, so diverse, so full of an energy I can't describe that it feels, well, not easy but easier, to be sure.

Last year when I told Misti about LTYM I could only send links and words. Now I have the opportunity, not with her unfortunately, and not with all of you but with a fair number, to share the actual sitting-in-the-room experience of Listen To Your Mother. I've heard from a few of my friends that they're coming and I'm thrilled and honored and so excited that they will bet there. I want more, though. I always want more. So, if you're on the fence or you know someone who is or if you haven't even considered it but I can twist your arm now, please buy a ticket and come take this ride. Sure, I'm scared to get on the roller coaster but as long as I've got friends screaming down that first hill with me I know I'll have a great time.

With less than a week to go until our show a bunch of people are writing about Listen To Your Mother today in a Big Blog Blast. I'll be updating as I can with links to those pieces.

First a link to the cause that NYC is supporting, Family to Family

Fellow NYC castmate, MaryBeth Coudal (2nd photo)

Another castmate,  Kim Forde (visible in 1st photo) (includes giveaway)

NYC Producer Holly Rosen Fink (with giveaway)

2012 NYC cast member, Estelle Sobel Erasmus (another giveaway)

Our director, Amy Wilson

Our co-director, Shari Simpson

An interview with cast member, Barbara Shriever Patrick

Giveaway by Onica at Mommy Factor

Giveaway by Kim Bongiorno

2012 cast member, Ilana, of Mommy Shorts is doing a brilliant photo challenge with a book giveaway and some tix to LTYM. You have to go check this out.

Another giveaway by KiwiCanadian at Mama Goes BAM

Couple more tickets up for grabs at Old School/New School Mom

*Pictures taken by me at LYTM NYC's rehearsal last week.