Diary Friday

Next installment in the Picnic adventure!

Part 1. The audition
Part 2: The callbacks, getting into the play
Part 3: First meeting with the director
Part 4. The calm before the storm … the time before rehearsals started … memorizing lines, etc.

And suddenly – it was time. Rehearsals began. The whole TS-dating drama noticeably recedes – the second I start rehearsals. And I can hear a new tone come into my voice. It might be just me that notices it – because I know myself well – but I can see that things were almost immediately different for me, and I jumpstarted myself up to another level.

OCTOBER 14

Here I am in the Theatre (second rehearsal). We’re taking a break now. Diary, I am so excited. I love everybody in this play. I have learned more in the past few days than I have in my whole 4 years in Drama class. God, I’m loving it. I have to go into detail, but later. I love it! I have rehearsals Mon, Tues, Wed 6 – 11. And I have a COSTUME FITTING tomorrow at 3:00!!

Later: Okay, I don’t think I’m gonna have time for a diary. Yesterday, I had a rehearsal 10 to 5 and today we had a rehearsal 10 to 5 – but I don’t care. I am having the time of my life. These rehearsals are so intense. I am so tired. But I LOVE IT.

And the people – they’re the best part. Oh, I want to get into details, but I can’t. I don’t have time. [And then I proceed to go into detail anyway]

Okay, I have to tell you all their names. Lenny is playing Bomber. Joe C. is playing Howard. Jennifer C. is playing Irma. Joanne F. is playing Rosemary. Joanna F. is playing Madge. Eric is playing Hal. Linda Murphy – Mrs. Potts. Tina T. – Christine. Brett is playing Alan (he is my absolute favorite). Liz is playing Flo. [Liz!!! She’s one of my best friends to this day. Amazing!!]

They are all so great. I don’t feel like a leper at all. I am a member of this cast. I have quite a lot to learn, but they don’t judge me. It’s so relaxed!

Brett is hysterical. Some of his facial expressions!

I’m just looking forward to getting to know them, be friends with them. Brett is only a junior too – so he’ll be there next year. From the first time I saw him at auditions, I liked him. He was nice to me from the start.

God, I am so grateful that I am getting a chance to act in this play.

And I love Liz and Eric and Jennifer and Joanna (who plays my sister).

I am learning so much. And my part is WONDERFUL. I don’t know how many times I have read the script!

Yesterday and today were heaven. I was scared to death yesterday for the first rehearsal. Lately, it’s been surprising me how shy I really am. I am really desperately shy and horrendously awkward socially. The more awkward I get, the shyer I get, and vice versa. So anyways, yesterday’s rehearsal was in G Studio. I got there – everyone else had come (not Kimber yet) and Michelle (Kimber’s assistant) introduced me to everyone. Everyone else knew each other so she sort of said, “Everyone – this is Sheila O’Malley -” and she introduced everybody to me. Everybody just smiling really nicely at me and saying, “hi, Sheila” – who cares if I’m in high school! I can’t help that.

Yesterday was just – it was all so new but so much fun. We all sat in a semi-circle in front of Kimber. I learned so much: get into DETAILS. Kimber said today, “A mediocre actor enters the stage from the wings. A good actor comes from somewhere.” So every time a character would go off stage, he’d say, “Where are you going?” All these questions, things to think about, discussions about the period when the play took place (1952), discussions about Kansas – the small-town where the play takes place.

Diary – I have a large part. Millie is a big part. I can’t believe it! I didn’t realize it until I yellowed in my lines.

Most of why I love it so much is cause of the PEOPLE. It was like- blow me away. I felt so welcome, just totally at ease at once. I have this feeling that Brett and Eric will be very prominent people in my future entries. I swear, after high school, guys like them are culture shock! [Eric went on to become a little bit famous. He was a regular on “Caroline in the City” – he was on “Frasier” – and every time I’d see him on television, I would remember how kind he was to me, back then … how friendly, sweet, and nice. He’s good good people.]

One bad thing: it’s gonna be hard to be in this play with them. I get crushes so easily.

Brett is such a riot. He plays Alan – Alan is my only real friend in the play so Brett, when we’d come back from breaks or whatever – he’d grab me around the shoulders, or pat my knee if I was sitting, and say, “Hey, buddy!” He is so funny – I just watch him having a conversation with someone and his facial expressions are enough for me to just lose it. I mean, it’s not like I’m gonna ask Brett to the Sadie Hawkins or anything, but I just – with the whole cast, actually – it’s so neat – we’re already friends. I really like them all.

Yesterday after rehearsal I started to walk home. I was just a little ways down the road and I heard this car beeping behind me – I turned around and it was Brett, in his brown car – he called out the window, “Do you need a ride somewhere?” I called to Brett, “Where are you going?” So he told me and it went past my house, so I said okay. I got in. He turned down the radio so we could talk.

He’s a wicked wicked nice person.

I asked him abouit his high school and everything. He was asking me about my school – He has this wide mischievous smile. I said something like, “Well, my school is really small, so everybody knows I’m in this play.” He smiled at me. “Yeah?” “I mean, I went to auditions just like – scared to death …” And he grinned at me and said, “I was watching you audition thinking: Man, she’s got balls.” I said it would be all right to drop me off at the end of South Road, but he went, “Oh no – I’ll take you home.” So he did.

He’s so nice. Everyone is. Like on Saturday, everyone was making plans to go out to lunch together – I was sitting alone – I suddenly felt rather out of it, and Joanna turned to me, “Come on with us, Sheila!” So I went out to Del Mor’s with them all – It makes me feel warm inside. Hoepful. Happy. Just really good. Rehearsals make me feel really good. Knowing these people and knowing Kimber make me feel good.

And – just working on Millie, asking questions, dissecting lines, learning techniques that never occurred to me before.

Today was just as good, if not better. Today was when I sort of got to know them a little – Kimber is so great. So kind and intelligent. I am learning massively much.

OCTOBER 16

Yesterday was a joke. I started crying about everything. I think it hit me how much I’m doing right now. It’s unbelievable. It just totally enveloped me. I was frazzled. I had to be in 2 places at once. I couldn’t get a ride from one place to the other. Picnic, Hans Christian Andersen, Antigone (our drama class play whose dates coincide with some of my Picnic performances – great) – the retreat, homework, work, my birthday – I had a costume measurement at 3 after school – and had no way to get there. Finally Kate – my friend, my wonderful friend, offered to drive me up since she had driven to school anyway. Okay, that calmed me down but then – Mrs. M wouldn’t let me go! She said that she would do my scene first to let me go. But then she did the Ugly Duckling skit first. Diary, it was horrendous – I was backstage, going, “Why won’t she let me go?” And it was creeping to 2:35, 2:40 – It was infuriating. Mrs. M started getting into interpretation with the other skit – why couldn’t she have let go then – I know my lines – I was practically crying backstage. Nothing was going right. My life was crazy hectic and shitty. All I wanted to do was run from the room and LEAVE.

Finally, we did our skit – I admit, I was rushing the lines – but it was 10 of 3. I don’t need work on interpretation, and if I do – she hasn’t told me.

On our way up to the theatre, we hit every red light in our path, and we were behind this man who drove (literally) the damn speed limit. It was just one of those times I couldn’t take it all – the only thing to do at a time like that is drop everything and take a breath. But I couldn’t. I had to RUN into the theatre. As I ran up to the front door, Eric came out and grinned at me. “Why here so early, kid?” (He calls me kid. Oddly enough, it doesn’t bug me. I like it. It’s a fond way of saying it.) I cried, “I’m very late!” and ran inside. Then I could NOT find the costume shop. I tore all over the damn building. I wanted to scream.

Finally, I got it over with, went home, and lay down. I had rehearsal that night at 6:45.

Diary, I’m doing a talk at the retreat. [The relgious retreat I was going to be “on staff” for – I was SO excited about it.] When Betsy told me, I just stood there, and my talk is MASKS – I can’t wait. I was praying really hard about it – especially with everything going on. I don’t want everything to become unfun. I can’t let the retreat become a burden. I want to be able to forget about my craziness while I’m there – I want it to be great. It’s a Godsent coming right in the middle of November.

Last night’s rehearsal totally calmed me. I walked out of it feeling peaceful through and through. And happy. I found an inner calm that I have to maintain. I mean, no matter how much crazier my life gets – if I keep an inner peace, a balance … At the 8:00 this Sunday [That would be the 8 pm mass at our church] Kate and I were sitting in the balcony, and suddenly – my God – it hit me – eternity. Heaven. God. I’m too much of a bland human being to even try to comprehend what forever is. I felt just a little bit of the massiveness of forever – eternity. I just sat there thinking, “Oh … dear Lord … oh … dear Lord …”

My life will never go haywire if I remember that. Oh, life is confusing, and eternity is even more so – but I know it’s so!

After rehearsal last night, I went outside to wait for my dad. It was about 10:00. There were billions of stars, and it was chilly, and beautiful, and perfectly quiet. I sat outside alone, and I was so happy. I felt so calm. My day was royally an awful terrible day. But rehearsal made me calm.

I have a crush on Brett. But it’s not like it matters to me. I have crushes on people constantly that I don’t even think about. Like Keith, or Andy. But they don’t matter. Or – not that they don’t matter – but the crushes I have on them don’t take over my life. That’s what it is with Brett. He is hysterical and nice and relaxed and makes me feel at home, and is just a really nice guy. (I don’t think that sentence was parallel.) I have met so many neat people – who accept me. When I arrive at rehearsal, everyone hails me, “Hey, Sheila!” I am included, you know? I mean, half the time I don’t know what they’re talking about [hahahahahahaha] – but I don’t mind listening. I’m not shy with them either. I am completely happy with all of them!

I just came home from rehearsal – and our next rehearsal we’re gonna block it. We’ll get to move around!

I came into the theatre yesterday and Liz skipped over to me and hugged me. “Hello, Millie!” Brett always just calls me “buddy”, “pal”. I sat next to Brett during Monday’s rehearsal. We all have notebooks up there to take notes. Rehearsals are so interesting. We read through the scenes in monotone. That is so hard. It’s so hard not to inflect and interpret. [This is part of the Meisner method. Start off with the script in monotone. Read the lines in complete monotone – until you finally HAVE to break free and express the feeling in the voice. Kimber trained us in the Meisner method.] I’m finding that when we drop the monotone – the acting and interpretation and the feeling of the lines come easier. The trick is that during the monotone, you keep your voice dead – but inside – keep the inside alive. Kimber says that that way you feel so much more – You don’t start interpreting the lines only one way. And while I’m doing monotone – I can feel that – I feel every nerve I have straining against the monotone. I feel things without worrying about how I say the words. It’s a neat feeling but it’s still hard.

At rehearsal, I am happy. During the first rehearsal, we were all sitting and running through the script, and suddenly – out of nowhere – I almost started crying. I just started thinking:

GOD I AM SO HAPPY.

My day is very long. It starts at 6 am and ends at 11:30 or midnight. But oh! I am smiling as I write!! School is making me hyper this year. I hate it. School now holds nothing for me. I mean, my reasons for going to school are: Kate, J, Beth, Mere, Betsy, Anne, Steph — But what I look forward to is outside of school. TS [hmmm. Member him?? He has been noticeably absent all of a sudden!!] and REHEARSALS. I haven’t talked to TS since last Saturday – I talked to him on the phone. Just dumb stuff. It was nice to hear his voice though. Sadie Hawkins is Friday. I decided against asking him. I actually thought about it. My first reason: I do not like the Sadies anyway. I think it’s queer. And juvenile. Why should I ask him to something I wouldn’t have fun at anyway? I mean – that’s crazy. I’ll ask him to something we both can have fun at. Also – after TS and I left DW (hee hee) we went and visited Matt in his frat. My first time in a frat. I was tres nervous). Wow, did those people scare me. I still don’t know why. I think, looking at the people strolling by – I suddenly was thinking: “These boys are no boys. They are men.” I mean, Matt is sweet – he’s so – all of TS’ friends just – I don’t know. TS and I went into Matt’s room but Matt wasn’t there, so we sat down to wait. TS wanted to give his script to Matt – then when Matt came in, he hailed us both. “Hey! Sheila! How are you?” Acceptance that I was there. My self-image really sucks. I immediately think that everyone’ll be like, “Sheila? A boyfriend?” Matt was nice to me. He and TS are so cute together – they’re so close. And Matt is excited about the movie too. I don’t think I said a word the whole time we were there, but just listening to the two of them – God. I felt infantile. Meek and inexperienced and totally naive. TS drinks. If I let it bother me – I’d go around being bothered at everyone. In fact, I’m not against it for myself – I want to know what it’s like. But – at the frat – I just felt so young. Not youthful and chipper [Don’t ever say the word “chipper” again, Sheila, okay?] but young and stupid. Matt told TS where he can get a fake ID. They were talking about a friend of theirs who grows marijuana and sells it – Then this guy strolled by with nothing on but a towel. TS leaned over to me and grabbed my head to put his hands over my eyes.

That frat really freaked me out. It just hit me that those guys are men and what the hell am I doing? None of them will want me. I was talking toBetsy about it – about how inexperienced I felt – and she said, “There’s always one thing you can say: No. And don’t worry about TS. He’s not a user.” I’ve been feeling so scared about going with someone – I said, “Betsy, I know I’m not ready for any of that” and Betsy said, “TS knows that.” When she said that, it made me feel so much better!!

And then I think about Brett, and I feel confused – like “How can I have a crush on someone else NOW?” I feel guilty. I mean, nothing has really happened between TS and I except conversation – but I can’t help it. Diary, I’m only 16. I just don’t think I’m ready for a COMMITMENT. No. I know I’m not ready. I’ve never even gone out with anyone – how do I know what or who I want? Commitment – at this point, even if TS and I were set – I would have a crush on Eric, and a crush on Brett – and how can I help it? Why should I help it? Kate said to me, after I told her some story about reherasal, “I’d be wondering about you if you didn’t have a crush on those guys!”