No witness, no weakness, and no regrets

Learning a part for a play is hard. You have to learn lines, blocking, cues, etc. and at the same time create this real and viable character. Some people succeed where most do not. To me, it's 50/50 chance of acheiving this. It not only depends on the work you put in, but a lot of it is just the situation at hand. Chance plays a big role, direction, fellow actors, sets, costumes, timing...there are so many other factors that play into the other 50%. So, needless to say, creating a role for a show is a huge undertaking.

Now imagine having to do all of that in a completely different language.

Thus is "Children of a Lesser God".

We basically have to learn a completely different language in 6 weeks and perform a show with the same character development and truth and honesty while still worrying about all the other outside factors. It's a difficult task that many have told us (to our faces) was impossible. Yet we are crazy enough to try and attempt it. I think we are doing fairly well right now. Thankfully the second language I'm learning is ASL because that was my foreign language in high school, so I came in knowing quite a bit more than the average person. I'm getting it down pretty well. I know 87% of Act 1 and am learning Act 2 right now. We finished learning all of the signing for the show, so now we are at the next step up which is implementing them while developing our characters.

So needless to say I'm very stressed. "A Night with Beaver" is opening tomorrow too, which I'm not really stressed about but I will be thankful when I have one less thing to worry about. They are turning out a lot better than I thought. And I'm sooooooo glad I got bumped up to The Old Woman in "the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe" because that is a character actress's dream part. I've gone way over the top with roles before, but this takes the cake, and I absolutely love that. I get to basically lose my mind onstage. I'm not satisfied with my performance unless I walk backstage after the scene and am gasping for breath. Then I'll accept it.

Well, back to the grind. A mental breakdown may be coming soon, we shall see.