Several of us clowns had our husbands and children in the audience of the 5:30 show. We could hear the three-year-old laughing and commenting from his front row seat. A younger three-year-old was scared. My Kid was thrilled by a visit to the light booth after the show. We had a little party. It was fun.
Month: October 2009
Thoughts alone walking to the subway after the show
I was mortified, on the way home, when I realized I had not gone back and hung up my cape properly. I must be a little OCD because I thought about it all the way home. I had gone straight from the stage to the upstairs dressing room where the props are kept, but Kendall was busy in there and I didn’t want to bother her. I tried to hang it on a wire hanger, but the cape was too heavy and so I hung it quickly on the coat rack and left, carrying the prop candle down into the dressing room. I dressed and chatted and left the theatre thinking of how when I was younger, at Annex, there was always someone going out for a drink after a show, but we were young and single and mating. Now with trains to New Jersey and the outer boroughs to catch and babysitters to relieve and husbands to see before they fall asleep only the people who had guests in the audience went out. Everyone else rushed home, a process beginning at 11:30 p m that could take more than an hour.
On the way to do the show tonight I passed a poster for the currently playing puppet version of “The Women of Troy” as I opened the door and went down the stairs, through the gunmetal grey narrow basement hallway, past the broken piano and up the back stairs to the sound of the music from “Radnevsky’s Real Magic” playing in the other theatre on my way to the dressing room I share with 10 other women clowns. Are we in a variety entertainment ghetto?
Looking forward to tomorrow’s show
My Kid will be there and so will the children of the other women clowns who have offspring old enough to sit through a live performance. My technically minded daughter is also looking forward to getting a closer look at the light booth.
The Audience Was Full of Family and Friends
My Kid and other offspring of the clowns on stage were in the audience today. That was fun. We could hear the little boy laughing and commenting. A younger one was scared for a moment. My Kid was thrilled by a visit to the light booth after the show.
Hmmmm
I was thinking of the comments from an actor who came to the show last night. He also does some stage clown work. He’s youngish white male from a traditional background. He was blown away by the female energy he felt coming from the stage. The thing that is surprising to me is that it is a surprise to anyone. It’s a small stage, a small audience a dozen performers and a lot of different images. Except for the point at which I was completely filled with anxiety over the higher stakes of promoting this production and trying to take the troupe to the next level, it is not a particularly ambitious production. This is not the first time we have filled the stage with women in red noses riffing off cultural images. Yet, the actor was surprised that he fell “a little bit in love” with all of the clowns even though they were all very different. None of them presented herself as a proper ingenue or leading lady. Hmmm.
This morning I googled a bit looking for artist moms and I found some websites and some blogs by and about women who are combining visual art with parenting. One essay about a documentary film about artist moms described how their art was just as good as the work of male artists in Soho galleries or at the MoMa where less than 5% of the permanent collection is art made by women. Apparently these women-artist-moms could combine making art and having children, but the aggressive self-promotion of the male art world was the aspect of a prominent art career that these women may have let slide (or they promoted themselves and nobody cared so they stopped wasting their limited energy, or they made compromises by being choosing to raise a family far away from the centers of art and criticism. Hmmm.
During this Clown Axioms rehearsal process, it was the marketing aspects of the production that threatened to put me over the edge. Hmmm.
And so I make peace with being unknown because self-promotion is not always worth the stress.
Is that why so many of the successful artists are men while the majority of practitioners are women?
Hmmmm…
things to look forward to
We’re not yet up. I’ve just gotten to the point where I suddenly realize that the coffee I have consumed this morning is not enough and I must have food now. However, in the time since we woke up but didn’t get out of bed except to make coffee, we’ve bought tickets to see Barack Obama at the Hammerstien Ballroom on Tuesday October 20 and I have signed up to write a novel next month on the NaNoWriMo website.
Opening night went well
We had a full house and they laughed.
Afterwards I talked for a few minutes with some of my friends, from Jef Johnson’s Clownlab, who came together to see the show.
One of the guys was quite impressed with all the female energy. He said he fell in love with all of the women and we’re all so different. It’s not something one sees on stage very often. (I Wish I’d seen “The Women” on Broadway.)
I didn’t start to feel nervous about the show until I was on the subway platform alone waiting for the train to take me into Manhattan.
Before that it was a regular mommy day. There was a publishing party in My Kid’s class. The Husband and I grabbed breakfast together at a diner after the classroom event and before The Husband went to his office. We had a chance to talk.
Then I came home and got some writing done. By the time I was finished it was almost time to go pick up My Kid from school. I got her Girl Scout vest, and then set it down again in my search for something else. I took My Kid and two friends to Girl Scouts and learned that the mother who had planned to be there as another adult had an emergency so I stayed. I had to leave before it was over to get something to eat because I hadn’t had lunch and I had planed to eat and go over my notes for the show while My Kid was at Girl Scouts.
After that was over, My Kid and I came home. I wouldn’t stop at the toy store or anywhere else because I needed to get home to get ready. We talked to a neighbor mommy and kid we hadn’t seen in a while just as we got to the house. I ended up taking a shower to wake up. Then I put on my makeup before I left because the dressing room at La MaMa is so cramped.
The Husband got home after seven and I left at 8:00pm for the 10 o’clock show.
When I returned home at 1:00 am, My Kid was asleep on the couch, still fully dressed. She had fallen asleep trying to wait up for me.
Nobel Committee to America; Please Be On Your Best Behavior
The world is watching us and begging us to think of others. That is what the Nobel committee has said so effectively by giving the Nobel Peace Prize to President Barack Obama before he has even done anything.
I fear, that they fear, that we, the self-absorbed people of the United States of America (Congress, lobbyists, protesters, everyone) are going to continue to squabble like kids in the back seat of a car, screaming and crying over who got the biggest piece of candy (or healthcare or bank loans) while Daddy is trying to avoid a freeway accident and Mommy is trying to find the exit on the map of an unfamiliar city on the way to a very important family wedding where everyone is supposed to look pretty, act nice, and for God’s sake behave.
Technology is Failing Us
I woke up at 5:30 am worried about video tapes that have never been transfered to DVDs
Tonight after dinner, I wanted to upload a photo of myself to go with my bio for the syndicated blog that I am behind on because I got distracted by the PR for the clown show that opens tomorrow.
It’s not going to happen, the uploaded photo, bio and blogpost (which is written and waiting patiently in a file) will not go online again on this day as I had planned–yet again.
The Husband, my tech support, is tired and going to bed now. He can’t help me anyway now. His personal laptop is at TechServ awaiting a new part.
My Kid is crying… for a number of reasons; a Band-Aid that’s hard to pull off, a classmate who may not have played well with others, a science lesson which was measurements AGAIN! (instead of chemistry–good luck with that one, you’re in 4th grade!)
“You’re crying like you’ve been left in the woods.” says The Husband.
I am reminded of the fairy tale-themed clown show that I’m in. It opens tomorrow. We have the day off after our dress rehearsal last night.
That’s it.
Call it a night.
I feel guilty for beings so self-absorbed as to type on my laptop before everyone else has fallen asleep.
I have to stop now.
Tomorrow is another day.
Tomorrow is opening night.
Clown Axioms at La MaMa in New York City!