If you were to look up into our second-floor apartment from the street right now, you would see a hulking female figure in the window.
My roommate and I are both 5 feet and change, and while I'm the bosoms in said relationship, I have nowhere near the magnificent rack that is now back-lit in my dining room.
...I made a fat-suit this week. And it (she?) is now atop my dressmaker's form in the midst of our dining room, which serves as our studio. I'm dressing this fat-suit in a purple seventeenth-century dress made from JoAnn Fabrics sari fabric (something else I'm in the process of creating). Why, why, you ask, would someone dress a fat-suit in something so ostentatious?
Well, the answer is simple.
THERE WERE FATTIES IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY, TOO, KIDS.
And by that, I clearly mean, "It's for a play".
I am designing "Or,", a zany comedy about Aphra Behn and how she really liked spying and writing plays and having rambunctious, brainy sex with English royalty. And other people.
This fat-suit is for the character of her benefactress, and I think it's on stage for all of approximately 2.5 minutes, or 150 seconds.
But it's comic gold, those 150 seconds. And it's all about the fat-suit.
The chronicles of two young theater professionals, as they plunge into the depths of the Boston theater world.
Sunday, September 25, 2011
Elevator Personalities (and the obligatory first post)
What happens when you put two Geminis (born a day apart) in a Boston apartment with two sewing machines, two ironing boards, lots of floor space, and overlapping interests in theater, literature, and life?
A) A lot of projects, sewing and otherwise.
B) Too many stories, catchphrases, and "That's what she saids!" to count
C) A dining room so full of patterns and pretty fabric that we actually end up picnicking on the kitchen floor for about half our meals.
D) Books, books, and more books.
I'm the Gemini/Cancer half of our Gemini pair. I haven't decided whether I want to be an actor or a designer. All I do know is that I want to take up tap classes again really soon, and that I couldn't have asked for a better first month in Beantown.
I've been working wardrobe for the Lyric Stage Company's production of Big River. A Twenty one person cast, with multiple costumes = lots of laundry, and many moment of light headedness from riding up and down in the Lyric elevators. I should mention that the Lyric shares a building with YWCA and Hotel 140. We also use the establishment's communal washers and dryers, located on the twelfth and fourteenth floors. I've made some "elevator friends" in my many trips up and down.
There's Smoky, an smarmy looking Italian who always gets on at the 10th floor and rides with me to 14. His usual greeting is "I should have known it was you!" He always smells like cigarettes, and I think there must be a balcony on floor 10 that offers easy smoking access. Then, Sunny. She lives on fourteen, like Smoky, and is a short, hispanic woman with glasses. She speaks softly and energetically. The second time I ran into her, I told her I was doing laundry for twenty one people. Her response: God bless you. IShe was holding a shopping bag full of yellow crysanthemums. She collects them from the surrounding office buildings when the landscaping teams pull them out to change the flower beds. She saves them, roots and all, and puts them in water. While Smoky remembers me, I'm not sure that Sunny does.
The third elevator regular I run into must have been a jazz pianist in another life. He wears Fedoras, white suits, and sunglasses inside. His voice has a rasp to it both from too many cigarettes and from laughing about life a little too much. I first met him the day one of the two elevators was down. Everyone was waiting twice as long as usual, and on the ride down from fourteen, I swear we stopped on every floor. Jazz Pianist was laughing up a storm, getting to know a little about everyone in the elevator. When I said I worked in the theater, his big-toothed response was, "You're a star, ain'tcha? Ain't we all stars?" I see him occasionally, always smiling, always in sunglasses.
These elevator characters are just minor additions to my adventures at the Lyric, which include epic battles with topstick, the ongoing tiff between me and the dryers, dressing the Nonesuch, tar and feathering sports commentary, and all the other everyday absurdities of working at a theater. Too many stories to recall, but I know there will be more to come.
On the audition front, I have been to one audition for Avenue Q at the Lyric, and on Tuesday, I have an audition for Wild Swans at the A.R.T. If someone had told me that within a month of being in Boston I would be going to auditions, I would have laughed. Laughed and laughed. But, being in this city, around these wonderful, talented, people (including my roommate), has been invigorating. Why wait? I'll never get cast by sitting around my apartment.
My consistent thought before falling asleep: I'm doing it. I'm actually doing it.
I promised myself I would go to three auditions before December. By Tuesday, I'll be two down. One to go. I'm doing it. By God, I'm actually doing it.
A) A lot of projects, sewing and otherwise.
B) Too many stories, catchphrases, and "That's what she saids!" to count
C) A dining room so full of patterns and pretty fabric that we actually end up picnicking on the kitchen floor for about half our meals.
D) Books, books, and more books.
I'm the Gemini/Cancer half of our Gemini pair. I haven't decided whether I want to be an actor or a designer. All I do know is that I want to take up tap classes again really soon, and that I couldn't have asked for a better first month in Beantown.
I've been working wardrobe for the Lyric Stage Company's production of Big River. A Twenty one person cast, with multiple costumes = lots of laundry, and many moment of light headedness from riding up and down in the Lyric elevators. I should mention that the Lyric shares a building with YWCA and Hotel 140. We also use the establishment's communal washers and dryers, located on the twelfth and fourteenth floors. I've made some "elevator friends" in my many trips up and down.
There's Smoky, an smarmy looking Italian who always gets on at the 10th floor and rides with me to 14. His usual greeting is "I should have known it was you!" He always smells like cigarettes, and I think there must be a balcony on floor 10 that offers easy smoking access. Then, Sunny. She lives on fourteen, like Smoky, and is a short, hispanic woman with glasses. She speaks softly and energetically. The second time I ran into her, I told her I was doing laundry for twenty one people. Her response: God bless you. IShe was holding a shopping bag full of yellow crysanthemums. She collects them from the surrounding office buildings when the landscaping teams pull them out to change the flower beds. She saves them, roots and all, and puts them in water. While Smoky remembers me, I'm not sure that Sunny does.
The third elevator regular I run into must have been a jazz pianist in another life. He wears Fedoras, white suits, and sunglasses inside. His voice has a rasp to it both from too many cigarettes and from laughing about life a little too much. I first met him the day one of the two elevators was down. Everyone was waiting twice as long as usual, and on the ride down from fourteen, I swear we stopped on every floor. Jazz Pianist was laughing up a storm, getting to know a little about everyone in the elevator. When I said I worked in the theater, his big-toothed response was, "You're a star, ain'tcha? Ain't we all stars?" I see him occasionally, always smiling, always in sunglasses.
These elevator characters are just minor additions to my adventures at the Lyric, which include epic battles with topstick, the ongoing tiff between me and the dryers, dressing the Nonesuch, tar and feathering sports commentary, and all the other everyday absurdities of working at a theater. Too many stories to recall, but I know there will be more to come.
On the audition front, I have been to one audition for Avenue Q at the Lyric, and on Tuesday, I have an audition for Wild Swans at the A.R.T. If someone had told me that within a month of being in Boston I would be going to auditions, I would have laughed. Laughed and laughed. But, being in this city, around these wonderful, talented, people (including my roommate), has been invigorating. Why wait? I'll never get cast by sitting around my apartment.
My consistent thought before falling asleep: I'm doing it. I'm actually doing it.
I promised myself I would go to three auditions before December. By Tuesday, I'll be two down. One to go. I'm doing it. By God, I'm actually doing it.
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