Teaching

Practice makes truth

My brother Tim and I have been talking about running lately, partially because my book club just read “Born to Run.”  Tim’s a fan of the book.  I am now, too.   The conversations also are happening because Tim has taken to snapping pictures on his runs in the Pacific Northwest.  He is a photographer, so these are not your average look-at-this-cool-leaf photos.  I like that each of his running stories has a different angle.  That’s the thing about running–so many angles to offer.  Of course, it helps to have a top notch visual artist interpreting those angles.

My voice students have been hearing me quote my singing interpretation of “Born to Run” the last few weeks:  Practice being confident.  Practice telling stories.  Practice believing that singing is easy.  Practice those for long enough, and you’ll forget you’re practicing.

“Lesson two,” Caballo called.  “Think Easy, Light, Smooth, and Fast.  You start with easy, because if that’s all you get, that’s not so bad.  Then work on light.  Make it effortless, like you don’t give a shit how high the hill is or how far you’ve got to go.  When you’ve practiced that  so long that you forget you’re practicing, you work on making it smoooooooth.  You won’t have to worry about the last one–you get those, and you’ll be fast.” (Born to Run, Christopher McDougall, page 111)

Theatre

Say it again

My friend who is pregnant for the first time excitedly told me a few weeks ago that she’s experiencing everything in a new way. I was kind of jealous.  It’s fun to experience life differently.  I think it wards off complacency.  With the coming Spring and my artistic pursuits, though, I guess I shouldn’t be jealous.  As it turns out, I’ve been noticing things too.

Actors and directors are always talking about listening, which is funny because half the time conductors are telling you NOT to listen.  If you do, you’re likely to fall behind the orchestra and the music falls apart and the conductor makes faces.  In non-singing theatre, in order to really engage on stage, you need to be listening to your scene partners and let your lines fall naturally.  Acting 101.  Well, I swear I’ve been listening, but every once in a while, I hear something I’ve heard a million times in a completely new way.  Like a pregnant lady, I guess, without the expectation.

We performed The Glass Menagerie last Friday for about 100 high school students.  I’m playing Laura.  As a few of the lines came out of our mouths, I felt the profundity of them for the first time: “Say, you finished high school?” my Gentleman Caller asked.  “I made bad grades on my final exams,” I said.  “You mean you dropped out?”  I stopped, “I never went back.”  Wham.  Tennessee Williams wants you all to stay in school.  Did you hear that, students?  Oh, I hope they heard it the way I did that day.

I’ve been listening differently, too, in the context of the various projects I’ve been working on simultaneously.  Some Union Avenue Opera folks and I were at an elementary school performing Little Red Riding Hood the other day, and as we started singing, I realized that Little Red’s mother says a lot of the same things that Laura’s mom says in The Glass Menagerie.  Fortunately for her, Little Red makes out better than poor Laura.  And every time the Gentleman Caller tells Laura that “being different is nothing to be ashamed of,” I think of sweet, sweet Ferdinand who discovers the very same thing in UAO’s other children’s opera, Carmen and the Bull.  He makes out better than her, too.

My parents heard my brother sing with the Atlanta Symphony Chorus last weekend.  It was Bach.  They  found it fascinating that Bach would write an aria that lasts 8 minutes, but only has 2 lines of text.  Why sing the same 2 lines over and over again for 8 minutes?

Maybe Bach wants us to sing and hear the same words in a new way each time, too.

See how the glass shines?
The Glass Menagerie at Insight Theatre Company. Photo © John Lamb.

Uncategorized

Like mother, Like daughter

Growing up, my dad referred to my mom as The Wicked Witch.  It wasn’t because she was mean or green.  Nope.  It was, quite simply, her Halloween costume one year.  Maybe she should have stuck with something bolder, like Super Woman…or perhaps gentler, like Snow White or Rainbow Brite.  Really, anything that didn’t have anything to do with a witch.  Alas, she did not have that foresight, and the nickname stuck.  So did the melting jokes.

A few years ago, everyone in my parents’ office filled out questionnaires.  It was a game.  They anonymously answered questions about themselves and then everyone else had to guess the identity of the question-answerer: one of the office-place-community-development-fun-interactive-morale-boosters they enjoy.   One of the questions asked was, “Which actress would play you in a movie about your life?”  My mom had a hard time with that one.  I told her it was obvious: she’s a prettier version of Susan Sarandon.

I went to an audition a few weeks ago, and when I was finished with my song and aria, the auditor asked for a monologue.  I told her I had a few to choose from, and she excitedly asked for the Wicked Witch’s “Poppies” monologue from The Wizard of Oz.  When I finished, she said, “Has anyone ever told you you look like Susan Sarandon?”

My first thought was, “Wow, that’s nice.”  My second was, “Does that mean you’ll hire me?”  The third was, “Wait ’til I tell the Wicked Witch.”

Dorothy landed a house
My version of the Wicked Witch this year in the Variety Children’s Theatre’s production of The Wizard of Oz.
Out of the Box

Christmas in my head

I sang a wedding last weekend.  While we were waiting for the ceremony to begin, the trumpet player confessed to me that the Little Drummer Boy always makes her teary…especially the bit about having nothing to offer, but here you go, little baby, take my drum.

I then made my own confession:  I cry when the bride comes down the aisle.  The bride and groom might be complete strangers, and I might not ever see them again, but still: little puddles of salt water in my eyes.  I used to sing Kurt Weill’s Saga of Jenny in my head when that unmistakable, sneaky burn of pre-tears kicked in.  It’s a good, upbeat number with funny lyrics, and it immediately takes me to a happy place in my head.  The problem is, I start thinking about dancing too, and I don’t trust myself.  I might accidentally get up and let the spirit move me, which would be decidedly bad.

But my sensitive trumpet player had brilliant advice: Think About Santa Claus.  You know, fat, jolly man with whiskers and a happy Ho Ho Ho.

It worked.  Bride in sight.  Burny tear feeling.  Fat, jolly man with whiskers.  Little smile.  Flood averted.

Thanks, Santa.

And Santa, in case you need to keep from laughing sometime, try thinking about a bride walking down the aisle.  It helps if you throw the sounds of a trumpet and some strings in the background.

Cabaret

Cinderellas for hire

Leave a comment

We’ve performed this show a couple of times now, once at Old Warson Country Club, and once as a house concert for 60 Union Avenue Opera patrons.  Our little story has taken on a life of its own, and we’re ready to share it again and again and again.

What’s not to love about 5 completely different Cinderellas?  One is sassy, the next a little dumb (actually, a lot dumb). There’s the overthinker, the mopey one (she’s French, of course) and let’s not forget the most important–the romantic Cinderella (she had her wedding planned long, long ago).

Oh, sweet Prince, what to do with this bevy of beautiful maidens?

Teaching

Variation on a theme

Leave a comment

I think it’s funny when a thought or an idea keeps appearing once it’s first recognized.  Take my recent post on “Carmen and the Bull” as an example.  The show synopsis that I ended up using reads thusly:

Join in the fun as a singing, dancing, traveling gypsy befriends a little bull, his mom and most unlikely of all—a bullfighter! Using the music from the opera Carmen, and loosely based on the beloved story Ferdinand the Bull,Union Avenue Opera’s education team delights young and old audiences alike with a new depiction of a timeless theme: Be True To Yourself. As it turns out, when Ferdinand is the best version of himself, good things happen to everyone involved!

I flipped open the most recent Runner’s World a day after writing about the children’s opera.  Literally the first thing I saw was an ad for the new book, “To Be a Runner.”  I almost laughed when I read the book description:

Dave Davies interviewed journalist and author Pete Hamill on Fresh Air yesterday, and I think I actually DID laugh out loud when Hamill replied to Davies’ question about the author’s changed drinking habits (and not, incidentally, because drinking habits are funny):

But from the professional and personal standpoint, a lot of it was about trying to find out what was there as a writer because my ambition was not to be better than Faulkner or Hemingway or anything like that. It was to be the best version of myself that I could conceivably be in the time I had on the planet.

I guess we’re all trying to figure out how to be the best versions of ourselves that we can be.  A timeless theme?  Yes, indeed.  It’s showing up everywhere.

Soprano | Teaching Artist