While relatively tedious to compile, I’ve come to love these year-end reviews.  They remind me that I actually make a living at my craft, no matter how insecure I get during the course of the year about my abilities or accomplishments (or seeming lack thereof).  Lists like these remind me that I am doing what I love, and am being rewarded for it.  Lists like these remind me that my career choice bought me passage into my very first house, all on my own, and keeps me there.

Because let’s be honest – there is always a point (or five) in the year when I panic.  I think, ohmygod, they’ve finally realized that I’m a total fraud and NOW I WILL NEVER WORK AGAIN.  EVER.  This happens regularly.  Without fail.  And then I end up inexplicably landing another incredible gig and think, oh, well, okay – maybe I’m not that bad.  It is a joy and an honor to be so lucky.

Without further ado, my performance highlights of 2011:

January
Continued part-time work at the Science Museum of Minnesota on the Science Live team – performing live science demonstrations and science-related short plays for museum audiences.

Marketplace Events spots – third year running.  Ty Pennington and me on national TV and radio urging you to attend home shows across the U.S.  TV commercials aired on HGTV and ABC and their affiliates.  Recorded at Audio Ruckus.

VOs for General Mills, but I took very poor notes about this, and have no recollection of what it was for.  My guess is that it was, perhaps, some pickups for the 42 spots I did back in December for Progresso Light Soups, Yoplait and Yoplait Light Yogurts, and Big G Cereals national TV spots.  Note to self in 2012: take better notes.  Recorded at Babble-On for Shout! Creative.

February
Script workshop and stage-direction reading for public presentation of Carson Kreitzer’s new play, Behind the Eye, as part of The Playwrights’ Center’s Ruth Easton series.  Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and commissioned by the Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park for a world premiere in April.

Not much else to report other than travel to Florida.  It was warm.  I remember needing that.  Oh yes, and travel to Madison, WI, to teach museum-theater techniques to institutions across the U.S.

March
VO for the trailer of TRIUMPH67, an independent feature-length film that went on to become the official selection of the Twin Cities Arab Film Festival.

Spent the day in studio at Minnesota Public Radio (MPR), recording the voice for a sultry character in The Winner, a pilot for Minnesota Stories – a new program dedicated to showcasing Minnesota writers.

VO for Target – a short film about inclusiveness called You Make Us.  Recorded at Audio Ruckus.

April
Table-read of a new script by Patrick Coyle at The Jungle Theater.

The Winner, recorded in March, airs twice on Minnesota Public Radio.

May
VO for Cadillac.  With Laurence Fishburne.  I played his talking GPS.  Recorded at Babble-On for Fallon.

I bought my very first house, all by myself.  I think this is what officially makes me an adult, but I’m still not quite sold on that idea.  The only reason I’m including this here, amongst my gigs, is because those VO gigs are what made this possible.

June
Script workshop and stage-direction reading for public presentation at the Playwrights’ Center of Scratch, a new play by Shira Naharit.

Started rehearsals for Minnesota Middle Finger, Ben San Del’s Minnesota Fringe Festival entry.  Yes, Fringe is in August.  We started way, way early because of everyone’s insane schedules.  I think when all was said and done we only had 12 rehearsals.

July
VO demos for Hormel, recorded at Modern Music/Fischer Edit for BBDO.

Co-wrote and produced a short satirical 1950’s-style educational film, The Wonders and Worries of Nanotechnologyon behalf of the Science Museum of Minnesota for The Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net).  Film + Production by Teddy Media.

August
2011 Minnesota Fringe Festival, and my performance in Ben San Del’s Minnesota Middle Finger with the incomparable John Middleton and Tim Hellendrung.

VO spots (more, again) for Marketplace Events home shows with Ty Pennington – TV and Radio.  Continued airings on HGTV and ABC.  Recorded at Audio Ruckus.

Three-day script workshop at The Playwrights’ Center of Outcasts of Eden, a new play by Andie Arthur.

Served as host/barker for the AFL-CIO Labor Pavilion at the Minnesota State Fair, on behalf of AFTRA.

Cast in kaotic good productions’ The Cooking Show con Karimi & Comrades: Viva Las Roots! to be presented at Intermedia Arts in October 2011.

September
Cast as both Anne Bonny and Mary Read in the Science Museum of Minnesota’s next major exhibition, Real Pirates, as well as cast in the publicity crew for advance event appearances.  Exhibition opens mid-February 2012.

Attended the 7^th annual Ivey Awards – Minneapolis/St. Paul’s version of the Tonys.  Very, very swank.  Very, very inspiring.  I know I said that last year, but I still mean it.

VO spot for General Mills – radio spot for Yoplait Yogurt in the NYC market.  Recorded at Audio Ruckus for Shout! Creative.

October
Cast in The Peanut Butter Factory’s next production, Rajiv Joseph’s Gruesome Playground Injuries – a two-person show with Adam Whisner to be presented late winter/early spring 2012.

Went on a three-day writing retreat to northern Minnesota with the company of kaotic good productions’ The Cooking Show con Karimi & Comrades: Viva Las Roots! to create character and storyline.

VO narration for short documentary Does Every Silver Lining Have a Cloud?, a look at the effect of nanosilver on the environment, created by the Museum of Life + Science in Durham, North Carolina, on behalf of the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net).  Recorded at Babble-On.

VO for the National Marrow Donor Program’s annual council awards ceremony recognition film segments.  Recorded at Aaron/Stokes for Blue 60 Pictures.

Script workshop and stage-direction reading at the evening performance of Sarah Gubbins’ new work, The Water Play at The Playwrights’ Center.

Performances of kaotic good productions’ The Cooking Show con Karimi & Comrades: Viva Las Roots!at Intermedia Arts.

November
Performances continue of kaotic good productions’ The Cooking Show con Karimi & Comrades: Viva Las Roots!at Intermedia Arts.

Got my eyes did.  Yep.  Lasik.  No more contacts or glasses.  This changes everything on stage and in the recording booth, for the better.

Spent the day at the Hennepin County Courthouse, serving as a key witness in Faegre & Benson’s mock trial program.

December
VOs for Marketplace Events Home Shows with Ty Pennington – fourth year running!  Recorded at Audio Ruckus.

Appeared on Kare 11 News morning program as Anne Bonny, marketing for the Science Museum of Minnesota’s Real Pirates exhibition opening February 2012.

Script workshop and stage-direction reading at the evening performance of Kira Obolensky’s new play, Vasa Lisa at The Playwrights’ Center, co-presented by Ten Thousand Things.  Workshop in preparation for a late-spring full production by Ten Thousand Things.

Epilogue
2011, you treated my career well, and for that I thank you.  2012, we’re going to roll up our shirtsleeves and till this soil for continued growth.  My last major career goal was to make my living as an artist, which I have been doing for the last few years; it’s time to dream bigger dreams.  And then run to catch them.

In 2010 I made my living in front of an audience and behind the mic.  And for that I am so deeply in awe.  So deeply grateful for my fortuity.  While our economy is not nearly as bad as 2009, it’s still in terrible disarray and record numbers of people are still unemployed.  Even so, I was able to make a modest living via my profession; a modest living that didn’t require me to engage in morally questionable behavior (the kind where one would accompany a raised eyebrow with ‘actress’ in air-quotes).

Without further ado, my performance highlights of 2010:

January

• Voice-overs for ParentAwareRatings.org (listen).
• Voice-overs for St. Catherine University (listen).  Turns out a friend heard the spot multiple times and never realized it was me until I mentioned it on Facebook.  I kind of like it when that happens.
• Finished the six-month run of Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition at the Science Museum of Minnesota.  I spent part of my weekdays engaging with the general public as Nurse Evelyn Marsden – sharing, in a darling English accent, her experiences aboard the ship in the first-class cabins and hospitals.  I was sad to say goodbye to her.
• Voice-overs for Marketplace Events -  2nd year in a row (listen).  Ty Pennington and me on national TV and radio urging you to attend home shows all around the U.S. (watch)  TV commercials aired on HGTV and ABC and their affiliates.

February

• Began rehearsals for the Science Museum of Minnesota’s next exhibition – The Dead Sea Scrolls: Words That Changed the World, wherein we would perform a three-minute introductory monologue for visitors every 7.5 minutes.  In all honesty, it was mind-numbing, but the visitors were mostly appreciative.
• Interviewed by Minnesota Public Radio’s Chris Roberts about my line-memorization techniques – ultimately compiled into a clever on-air story and accompanying slideshow with fellow actors Steven Epp, Mo Perry and Clarence Wethern.
  
• The Big Oscar Crunch 2010 – wherein I try to see as many of the Oscar-nominated films as humanly possible before the awards ceremony.  The fun of doing it that way is not only seeing excellent movies, but actually feeling invested in more than just the red carpet.
• Started rehearsals for Spring of Freedom/Summer of Fear – a new Iranian play by Ali G. Ravi , produced by Table Salt Productions.
• VO gig for Carlson Companies – got to put Nurse Evelyn Marsden’s darling English accent to good use.

March

• Devastated to drop out of Spring of Freedom/Summer of Fear due to a harrowing family crisis which, because it apparently wasn’t bad enough, led to a nasty case of shingles.  Yes, shingles.  Probably the worst three weeks of my adult life to date.
• Called in by the lovely Barbara Shelton at Bab’s Casting to audition for a new WB pilot Mike and Molly.  The network was looking for someone 30 pounds overweight.  I was exactly that (not anymore, thanks to a newfound love of yoga), and so happily went in.  Between the script (and the eventual casting choice), it became quite clear that LA thinks 30 pounds overweight is the same thing as obese.  Surprising?  Not really.
• Called in by the Guthrie Theater to audition for the role of Eunice in Streetcar Named Desire.  Almost missed the e-mail because I assumed it was Guthrie marketing spam and was about to delete it.  Didn’t recognize the sender’s name, though, so opened it.  Close call.
• VOs for Nexxus demos/animatics.  These are voice-overs for a concept by the ad agency for the client.  If it gets approved by the client, the agency then films the spots.  Since I almost never watch commercial TV, I have no idea if these ever made it though the pipeline…my guess is no (especially since many of these were the same as, or similar to, the ones I did in April 2009).

April

• VOs for Nexxus demos/animatics – two more sessions.
• Public reading of Casa Cushman, a new work by NYC’s Tectonic Theater Project (the folks who brought you The Laramie Project, at the University of Minnesota Nolte Center.

May

• Crickets. Both figurative and literal.  Aside from live science demonstrations at the Science Museum of Minnesota, it appears that I did nothing performance-related in May.  And I went camping.
• On Tuesday, May 11, amongst of a jumble of scheduled meetings and things to do, I found written in my calendar, “Hell-cat Maggie and Slops McConnell.”  I have no idea what that means, but I think it’s funny, so thought I would share with anyone who is still reading by this point.  Kiss, kiss.

June
More crickets.  Figurative.  See May.

July

• Started rehearsals for See You Next Tuesday, my very first show with Walking Shadow Theater Company.
• Three-day script workshop of Trista Baldwin’s stunning Forgetting at The Playwrights’ Center.

August

• 2010 Minnesota Fringe Festival, and my performance in Walking Shadow’s critically acclaimed See You Next Tuesday.  I was so excited to be back at the festival that I advance-purchased an Ultra Pass, with which I ended up only seeing three shows due to an emergency hospital visit and an emergency vet visit.  2010 was not turning out to be a great year for health.
• VO spots (more, again) for Marketplace Events home shows with Ty Pennington – TV and Radio (listen).  Continued airings on HGTV and ABC.

September

• VO spots for General Mills – TV tags for Totino’s Party Pizzas (listen).
• Attended the (somethingth annual) Ivey Awards – Minneapolis/St. Paul’s version of the Tonys.  Very, very swank.  Very, very inspiring.
• VO spots for General Mills – TV tags for Progresso Soup (listen).

October

• Obscenely busy month that had almost nothing to do with performing.  Included business travel to San Francisco for continued work on behalf of the Science Museum of Minnesota for NISE Net (Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network), with a little leisure travel to San Diego and LA on the side.
• No! Wait!  Because of my General Mills VOs in September, this is the month that I was required to join the Screen Actors’ Guild (SAG)!  That’s right, I got my SAG card in October.  October was not an actorly loss, after all.

November

• Started rehearsals for a three-week, 30-hours/week workshop of Casa Cushman – in collaboration with NYC’s Tectonic Theater Project, choreographer Carl Flink, University of Minnesota Department of Theater Arts and Dance, a couple other U of M departments that I can’t recall at the moment, and The Playwrights’ Center.
• Sent live the brand-spankin’-shiny-new leighahorton.com.

December

• Performance of Casa Cushman at the Northrop Auditorium.  This was a wild ride, and at the end of it all, despite some crazy-cray-cray, it was kind of awesome.  And I kind of loved it.
  
• VOs for General Mills (42 in total) for Progresso Light Soups, Yoplait and Yoplait Light Yogurts, and Big G Cereals national TV spots.  I just about died and went to heaven.
• VOs for Marketplace Events Home Shows with Ty Pennington – third year running!
• Authored and published a children’s book for NISE Net, Alice in Nanoland, which, as you read this, is being mailed to 200 informal science education institutions (science museums, children’s museums, etc.) across the nation in the 2011 NanoDays kits.  What a curious little experience that was.

And there we have it!  The months of 2010 demonstrate both feast and famine and average out to healthy; December being, by far, the most entertaining (well, for me, anyway).  I continue to stand, mouth agape, at the wondrous profession I have chosen and the beautiful trajectory it has taken thus far.  I cannot wait to see what delightful paths await!

One of the most important actresses of her time, Cushman was famous for her interpretation of the leading MALE roles in Shakespeare. Cushman continually challenged Victorian notions of gender in her stage portrayals of male characters and of strong, androgynous female characters. Cushman also played the man in every area of her life. She gathered around her an incredible circle of emancipated nineteenth-century women: painters, poets, sculptors and literary women, many of whom she financially supported. She had intense love affairs with several of them.

Fondakowski’s project is based on the collection in the Library of Congress of over 1,000 unpublished letters, written by Cushman to Emma Crow, the transcription of which has been a ten-year labor of love by scholar Lisa Merrill. Many of Cushman’s letters to Crow include the directive: “burn this letter,” but they were not burned. Preserved, they chronicle a passionate Victorian-era lesbian love story before such love was thought to exist.

Featuring NATHAN CHRISTOPHER • ANNIE ENNEKING • LEIGHA HORTON •  CHARITY JONES • EMILY KING •  GREG PIEROTTI • KELLI SIMPKINS  • SIGRID SUTTER  •  REGINA MARIE WILLIAMS

Casa Cushman is being developed in partnership with Tectonic Theatre Project, with support from the University of Minnesota’s Imagine Fund, Institute for Advanced Study, and Department of Theatre Arts & Dance.

Free, but reservations recommended. To reserve seats please call 612-624-9183.
For more details, please visit The Playwrights’ Center Events Calendar.

Yep – that’s this Friday at 7 pm, and this Saturday at 3 pm.  It will be a staged reading with provocative choreography by Black Label Movement’s Carl Flink, gorgeous costumes, and lovely stage pictures developed by the ensemble and Tectonic Theater Project company members.

In addition to general ensemble work, I portray the firey Matilda ‘Max’ Hays – Charlotte Cushman’s first longterm lover and spouse.  The Max who, in my rehearsing hands, is terribly clumsy.  And unfortunately that’s not a character choice.  It’s a problem.  A funny problem, but a problem nonetheless.

In general, I think of myself as relatively graceful.  But once you put me in a corset and very large hoopskirt, add a mirrored room, a choreographer, and some dancers, I become terribly, terribly clumsy.  I’ve knocked things over.  I’ve fallen over.  I’ve fallen over things I’ve knocked over.

One afternoon found me attempting a choreographed move where I sit on a bench, lay my head into Charlotte’s lap, then widely swing my legs over the back of the bench (intentionally baring bloomers and all), before standing and continuing off in the opposite direction.  Sounds simple enough, right?  I mean, hell, I practice yoga – I can balance! And it was simple, in theory, until I misjudged the distance between my rear and her lap (compounded by the wonky physics of a hoopskirt in motion) got off balance, and ended up doing a face-plant onto the floor in front of her.  And of course it had to be in slow-motion.  Hilarious?  Mortifying?  YES!  Yes, it was all that AND MORE!

Another rehearsal brought minor destruction.  I was entering closely behind Charlotte: step, step, step, step, RIIIIIP.  We freeze with huge eyes.  I let out a tiny “sorry!” and hang my head in bewildered shame.  I had stepped on the lead’s hoop skirt and given it a very new, very large hole.  What the hell?!

I’ve taken to lamenting in my deepest, most pathetic register, “Clumsy Max is sorry.”  I don’t know that it helps any, but it certainly makes me feel a little better.  Laughing at myself is a sweet, sweet salve.

This is my second tango with the script, as the playwright was in residence at the University last spring and I was invited to perform in the public reading then.  I loved the script.  Loved, loved, loved it.  All three hours of it.  Before that first read, Leigh jokingly referred to it as The Lesbian Mahabharata.  Around hour 2.5 I understood why.

And as of last night, I still love it.  All however-many-hours-there-are of it.  I love the Victorian era, I love works with a strong female lead, and I love works with multiple strong women (even in their weakest, darkest, most questionable moments) all the better.  Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition gave me my first taste of exhaustive historical research for theatrical purposes, and this new play continues to feed that beast.

Last evening also brought the joy of meeting and chatting with some of the most talented actresses in the Twin Cities, and at one point I found myself engaged in a discussion about being a transplant.  It turned out that I, like the others, find that the majority of our friends are also transplants.  We were all in agreement about how it’s so bloody difficult to get beyond Minnesota Nice and really know people here.  And how Minnesota Nice will smile at you with razor teeth to make sure you’re no shinier than anyone else.

Turns out, I’ve discovered, that many in the Minnesota theater community are willing participants in Tall Poppy Syndrome – the cultural phenomenon where those who flourish get cut down to size – where one’s success is greeted by another’s resentment.  Where, as Garrison Keillor put it, “all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average,” and I’ll add, “and NO ONE steps out of that line.”

Now, I will argue that I am no tall poppy in need of any kind of lopping, and yet from time to time I have found myself on the receiving end of those metaphorical garden shears.  Not outright, mind you, they’re Minnesota garden shears, after all.  They’re, you know, covered in nice.  The kind of nice that makes you want to recoil and grow a nasty set of thorns for protection.

The way I see it is this:  you and I are not in competition with each other and we never will be.  Because even though we may be the same “type” and go out for the same roles, you and I will never, ever bring the same thing to a role.  And so if the director hired you, then he obviously wanted your skills/personality/looks/voice for this job.  And not mine.  That’s not a competition, that’s a best-fit.  And I can’t wait to see what you’ll do with the part, because I’m looking to learn.  I’m looking for inspiration.

Dammit, this community needs all the tall poppies it can get!  We should encourage each other to grow tall.  Intellectually, artistically feed one another. We need to encourage and support and collaborate and benefit and love.  Because, in the words of Paul Wellstone, “we all do better when we all do better.”

But be warned, I’m not going to support you if your tallness turns you into a dick.  In that case, I might even take an extra moment of consideration in front of the Round-Up.  No tall dick-poppies allowed.

***

Casa Cushman
Northrop Auditorium, University of Minnesota
Friday, December 10 – 7pm
Saturday, December 11 – 3pm

The past year brought a load of work, a load of appreciation for the work I was getting, and one giant, lazy attitude toward writing about it.  Of particular note, midway through 2009 I was able to make a return to performing for a living.  “What?  What do you mean?    Actresses in the Twin Cities aren’t filthy stinking rich and famous?!”  Surprisingly, no, not so much.  See, periodically a girl like me is obliged to suck it up and take a part-time “day job” to keep some steady cash rolling in while filling in the rest with voice-overs and stage work.  What is this world coming to?

What happened was this: in June I was cast as Nurse and First-Class Stewardess Evelyn Marsden in Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition at the Science Museum of Minnesota, as well as joined the museum’s Science Live Theater cast. When at the museum, but not in 1912 costume, I bust out my mad knowledge of nanoscience to thwart an Evil Scientist From The Future, as well as demonstrate the important properties of surface area by blowing giant fireballs and discussing chemical reactivity.  It has been a joy to perform regularly for the (what by now must be) thousands of audience members taking an interest in science.  Additionally, I am responsible for coordinating and moderating public forums for adults about nanoscale science on behalf of NISE Net (Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network).  Moreover, it’s less than part-time, and voice-overs and stage work really ARE filling in the rest.  Even in this wretchedly hobbled economy.  My stars are indeed lucky.  And I thank them regularly.

So here, for posterity, are my performance highlights of 2009:

January
Marketplace Events spots – Ty Pennington (that dude from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition) and me on TV and radio urging you to attend particular home shows here and there in the U.S.  TV commercials aired on HGTV and ABC and their affiliates.  Read more about my sister’s hilarious request.

February
Nothing of note – sometimes that’s a good thing.  Looks like I was in rehearsal.  Not always a good thing.

March

• Performances of Adam Szymcowicz’s The Captivity Plays at the Bryant Lake Bowl
• After 18 months of pain in the form of oral torture, treatment was completed and my braces were removed.  I was rewarded with awesomely perfect teeth and new-found confidence.  Join me in reliving my happy dance.
• Supervalu spots – radio spots for grocery stores around the U.S. – Albertson’s, Lucky, Supervalu, Shaw’s/Star Market, Cub Foods, Jewel-Osco, Kroger, Hornbacher’s, etc.

April
Nexxus spots – I don’t believe these were ever aired – just voice-overs for a concept by the ad agency for the client.  If it was approved by the client, the agency would then film the spots.  Since I almost never watch commercial TV, I have no idea if these ever made it though the pipeline…my guess is no.

May

• Played Nerve 123080 in full-length feature film, The System, with Voices Media, Inc. – the same folks who brought you the award-winning web-series Chasing Windmills.  Devilish early morning feats trumpeted here.
• Joined Twin Cities AFTRA Board.

June

• Caroline or Change, The Homosexuals’ Guide to the Universe, Tiny Kushner – now these didn’t involve me at all, save for my presence in the audience.  But I found the first two to be incredibly moving, incredibly powerful pieces of work.  And I was thrilled that Minneapolis was able to honor such a fantastic playwright in this way, and that such a fantastic playwright got to workshop a brand-new play in our fine city.
• Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition opens at the Science Museum of Minnesota.  This is my new “day job” wherein I get to spend part of my weekdays engaging with the general public and informing them about Miss Evelyn Marsden’s life and the hospitals aboard the ship in a darling English accent. Personal ship preparation stories here.
• United Health Care spots – my first political spots, something about calling your congresspeople somewhere in New England. Connecticut maybe? Urging you to take a particular stand on some kind of health care legislation.  Don’t remember the particulars, but got to work with the guys at Shout.  And I absolutely adore Mark Benninghofen, so it was a joy.

July
Joined the Science Museum of Minnesota to work on NISE Net (Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network) projects – both performing live stage plays and demonstrations that deal directly with nanoscale science, as well as coordinating and facilitating adult public forums about nanoscale science.  This is only 10 hours per week, and I love it.  And it makes me feel a little closer to my scientific heroes of audio over at RadioLab.  And to paraphrase the words of my delightfully brilliant colleague Michael Ritchie: I realize that my day job can never be bad, because I work in a place with musical stairs.

August

• Fringe Festival fail – this was hard.  This was very, very hard.  The Ministry of Cultural Warfare, the company I have both figuratively and literally sweat and bled for since 2000, planned to do a show.  Due to a Perfect Storm of really crappy circumstances, I had to remove myself from the process, and we ultimately had to back out of the festival at a late date.  It was heartbreaking, and the fallout was equally heartbreaking.
• Marketplace Events radio and TV spots – the plus side of August was that Ty Pennington had some more home shows to promote, so it was back into the studio to add my special female aural sparkle.
• The Minnesota State Fair – I spent an afternoon as host of the Labor Pavilion at “The Great Minnesota Get-Together.”  They gave me a wireless mic, put me in a Green building and the adjacent pavilion, and let me loose amongst the various Labor kiosks and the throngs of fair-goers.  There was trivia, there were hand-crafted on-the-spot copper roses, there were nurses and flight attendants and machinists and steel workers and everything in between.  At the end of my shift, they snapped a photo which made its way into the national AFTRA magazine.

September
I spent nearly half the month on the road, traveling to Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco – this was for my work with the Science Museum of Minnesota on behalf of the Nanoscale Informal Science Education Network (NISE Net), and it was incredibly inspiring.  It did indeed involve some performing, but it also involved meeting with social scientists to consider the social, political, and ethical implications of nanoscale science, and how to get audiences considering these aspects, as well.  We also met for the purpose of setting goals for years 6-10 of NISE Net’s grant funded by the National Science Foundation, and it involved learning how other organizations engage audiences in learning about nanoscale science.  Inspiring, and the locations were fantastic.  I love the Pacific Northwest.

October
Lead role of Hannah in Table Salt Productions’ inaugural show, Burned at the Gremlin Theatre.  Nothing like spending an hour before each performance putting glue on my face, letting it dry and manipulating it and coloring it to make it look like nasty scar tissue.  While it was a serio-comic post-apocalyptic tale, it was a joy to make a foray back into dramatic work.  Read a little more about it.

November

• Workshop and public reading of Dog and Wolf – an incredibly well-crafted, powerful,  and riveting play about a Bosnian refugee by Catherine Filloux, in which I played the lead, Jasmina.  This play is being produced Off-Broadway this February.
• My first public nanoscience forum about privacy, civil liberties, and nanotechnology.  It was a small group of about 15 people, but helped me get my feet wet.  Now that I’ve done something in the accepted mold, I can hack it and make it more interesting, accessible, and engaging.  Watchout Twin Cities – you’re about to get schooled in nano.

December

• more Marketplace Events spots – this time for home shows around the U.S. in 2010.
• Caribou Coffee spots – The tone and delivery in these spots makes me feel like we’re sitting on a front porch swing, lazing the day away.  And they’re all about handcrafted oatmeal.  And I got to spend some good time with my friends over at Babble-On Recording studios.  I love those engineers.
• General Mills spots for Tuesday Taco Night - you know you’ve made it when your VOs keep getting interrupted by a mariachi band.  Plus more time at Babble-On!  Whee!

Plenty to share for January already – but it’s a new year, so it gets a new post.  Here’s looking forward to a peaceful, prosperous 2010.  And I’ll actually work on getting all of these 2009 (and future) voice-over spots posted for your listening pleasure.  It’s not as hard as I make it sound, and yet here we are.  Soon, I promise.

As if there ever was any doubt whatsoever – I am the stereotypical “needy” actor. If I remember correctly, my last director opted for the term “psychotic.” Lovingly.  It’s important to remind myself of this, lest I wind back up in the downy comfort of denial – “no, no –I’m different.  I hate needy actors.  I consider myself one of the few performers who can actually function normally in civilized society.”  Because man, that warm blanket is co-ZY.  And it is a harsh awakening to have that ripped off the bed.  Which happens.  A lot.

In times like these I’ve learned that my calendar is one of scant wormholes back to this particular reality (and God bless Moleskine). An hour spent with my little black book, a pad of paper, and a pen is easily worth several weeks of therapy.  I leaf through, page by page, writing down all my performance projects since the start of the year.  That said, I invite you to join me in an exercise for sanity – behold this year’s accomplishments, thus far:

1/04/08 – Voice-over gig for the Kansas City Lottery
1/07/08 – Joined AFTRA
1/28/08 – Voice-over gig for LifeTime Fitness
2/07/08 – (and onward) Performed in the Twin Cities Chekhov Festival
2/23/08 – Performed “Mrs. Man of God” in Columbus, Ohio
3/01/08 – Performed as the Red Carpet host for the Shack Nasty Costume Ball
3/24/08 – Performed in a round-table reading at The Playwrights’ Center
4/06/08 – Performed via video in Gremlin Theater’s “Everywhere Signs Fall”
4/21/08 – Performed in a round-table reading at The Playwrights’ Center
4/30/08 – Voice-over gig for Landscape Structures Inc’s GlobalReleaf Project
5/07/08 – Voice-over gig for Cellular South
5/10/08 – Performed as a defendant in Faegre + Benson’s mock trials
5/12/08 – Performed in a round-table reading at The Playwrights’ Center
6/11/08 – Voice-over gigs (two) for Target (HP Pavilion and Toshiba Laptops)
7/11/08 – (and onward) Performed in “Slasher,” as part of The Playwrights’ Center’s annual PlayLabs series
8/11/08 – (and onward) Rehearsed for + performed in “Wellstone!”
9/05/08 – Voice-over gig for Kona Grill
10/07/08 – Performed in a round-table reading at The Playwrights’ Center
10/29/08 – Voice-over gigs (seven) for General Mills’ Totino’s Pizza products
11/16/08 – Begin rehearsals for and performance in “A Christmas Story” in St. Croix Falls, WI

Add to that nine other “close calls” and castings that didn’t work out due to schedule conflicts, and that’s not a bad year.  Big breath in…..ahhhhhhh, reality.  So nice to be home.

High schooler Jason Bock is planning another summer of sleeping in and avoiding his parents – that is, until he and his snail-collecting buddy Peter Schinner are drawn into inventing a new religion, which leads them to dangerous and unexpected consequences. So goes “The Book of Shin,” by Michael Maupin, a screen adaptation of Pete Hautman’s novel Godless, which won the 2004 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature.

ScriptNight, a public reading series of Minnesota Screenwriters’ Workshop, will present a staged reading of the screenplay at 7pm Mon May 1 at Mixed Blood Theatre. The reading is made possible through a special arrangement between Screenwriters’ Workshop, Michael Maupin, Pete Hautman and his agent.

Please feel free to come down and take a listen! I haven’t yet read Godless, the book on which this screenplay is based, but the story conveyed by the screenplay is quite wonderful. Hooray for wonderful young-people’s literature and their screen adaptations! It’s no Flying Spaghetti Monster, but hooray nonetheless!

I was just notified of Justin Maxwell’s stage play this morning, and know nothing about it except that I was requested by name and that it will be held at The Playwrights’ Center. Justin and I e-mailed a couple of years back when he was interested in working with the Ministry of Cultural Warfare on a conceptual/interactive/web/theater project that I couldn’t quite grasp (see, I still can’t), and then met in person when I did a reading at The Playwrights’ Center that he moderated last year. After all this time, I’m honored that he remembered me; I’m really curious to hear what he’s cooked up.

And finally, and nothing to do with new scripts, I am starting formal singing lessons this week. I’ve been getting more and more musical roles on stage (and this last one seriously rocked the freaking casbah) but I need training; and from that, confidence; if I am to continue to grow as a performer. If there’s one thing I learned in this life, it’s that I’m never done learning – so lessons it is.

I think half the battle with singing onstage as Feste was just believing in myself. Especially after years of people indirectly telling me that I couldn’t do it. Now I’ve raised some eyebrows and have proven to myself that I belong in a damn fine house; I just need to learn how to build it so that the roof doesn’t fall in on me. My goal with these lessons is to end up with some engaging, appropriate, polished audition pieces for my repertoire – and then knock ‘em dead at auditions. Mint, please.

More updates, with links, to come. Until then, we can dream, can’t we?