Middle of it all

Nine rehearsal/acting things over six days this week, I guess that's how you get better.  Had two tonight, and two on Thursday.  We didn't get to our scene last night, but did the monologues, we will do a mock audition with them next week.  My center of gravity has crept up again, I think I must be in my head too much, and also, I'm afraid of falling and hurting myself:  guarding, I suppose.  Need to do something about that, it's affecting my work, my characters need to move more freely (or in the case of the monologue, move at all.)  Thinking about animals, and which one might the character move like...tried one for the Lady M tonight, haven't decided on the other.

Went over the new film script.  I have no lines in this version.  Normally, I'd find that difficult, but it's an interesting character, and probably easy to find an action for her, so I'm feeling connected and grounded in the scene.

Also, reading "Station Eleven" by Emily St. John Mandel.  It's my current bus read.  Very engaging; she's a really good writer.  I have to finish it soon, as there is a wait list for it, so I can't renew it.  I'd seen a friend's review of it.  It's about a post-pandemic world, where modern civilization has collapsed, and small groups of people remain here and there.  The main character is an actress with a travelling caravan of musicians and actors that move from town to town, the caravan itself being home.  It goes forward to the post-collapsed world, and then backward to the time before, following the life of an actor and his associates in ealier days.  I'm about half-way through.  (Reminds me a lot of "Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play," by Anne Washburn, which I've mentioned previously when it played at ACT.  It has a similar feel, where people are survivng on memories, and how memory becomes apochryphal over time.  A world of danger, where you don't know who you can trust.)

Finally dealing with all these health things in the next couple of weeks.  Nervous, but I guess it's better to know. (And I don't feel like being chastised, which is the bigger dread.)