A High Silk Hat and a Silver Cane

The trip to Tennessee has been settled, and though I have exactly the number of days I asked for between rehearsals, four days simply does not seem like enough time! That said, with flights on the 13th and 18th, here is my itinerary so far:

14 Thu: Dentist and storage; evening free
15 Fri: Pick up Dad from Nashville airport (unless Jake does this)
16 Sat: Riverbend Festival in Chattanooga with Kenny and Doug
17 Sun: Father’s Day. Plans TBA.

Happily, Tullahoma is situated roughly equal distance between Nashville and Chattanooga; sadly, the distance is not short.

As Gryphon noted after the last post, Chattanooga’s Riverbend Festival is suffering greatly from the competing dates and popularity of Manchester’s Bonnaroo. Still, Riverbend is a tradition among my friends and we have tentative plans to attend the final night. That the only familiar name on the bill that night is Alan Parsons Live Project is pretty sad (sorry, Gryph, no Kimbrough on Saturday), but we’ll all enjoy the post-Fest fireworks and a late night stop at Waffle House.

And HOLY CRUD! Did I really schedule my trip home for the week of BONNAROO?!? There will be no getting anywhere! We must be crazy to drive through that traffic to Chattanooga while The Police, Fountains of Wayne, Junior Brown, Mavis Staples, Ziggy Marley, Pete Yorn, and Widespread Panic (to name just a few) are playing right in our backyards! And other exclamations as well!

On the 19th, I'll hit the San Diego ground running, returning to rehearsals for both AASD shows.

On Sunday, we met for our first reading of the revised second (longer) script -- and my small part grew three sizes that day. While this means the script, in which I’ll play 4 distinct characters, is now a much better showcase for me, it also means more rehearsal time and throws a spanner in the works on another project – the pursuit of a paying stage manager’s gig.

Don’t misunderstand: the acting gig is preferable and I’ve no desire to get caught in the “she’s a techie” cycle again, but the money would have been nice and, as I’d already offered my services, it was awkward to remove them.

Of course – and this gets complicated – I’d offered the services partly to network with the author, who is also an AASD Fest coordinator and the producer of the next show for which I plan to audition. If there’s anything to the theory that name recognition is a subliminal help, George Soete has been inundated with mine. Yet, if I were to be cast in the show he’s producing, the rehearsals for it would be another conflict for stage managing the show he’s written.

And that, in this crazy business, is just how it goes.

Hi diddle dee dee
An actor's life for me