FINDING MILES AND FLORA...

On Monday November 10th from 5-8pm we are auditioning children for our upcoming show, The Turn of the Screw. The show will rehearse in mid January, and open January 30th, running till February 22nd at Creative Cauldron in Falls Church, VA.
Below is the official notice with breakdowns:

Be a Part of a World Premiere Musical!
 
Auditions for Creative Cauldron's World Premiere Musical,
The Turn of the Screw, will be held on
Monday, November 10 from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm

 
Auditioners should bring sheet music and prepare a song of their choice to sing.
 
We are looking for one boy and one girl to play the roles of Flora and Miles
 
FLORA – (7-9 YEARS OLD) – The younger and more innocent seeming child. She has spent much time with only dolls for friends. Her brother is often away at school, and she misses him very much. She can seem a little shy at first, and should always appear to be the picture of innocence. She becomes the exact opposite of this at the end of the story, turning into a little demon under Mrs. Jessle’s possession. Strong singer.
 
MILES – (11-14 YEARS OLD) – The little man of the House of Bly. Quite a grown up in a child’s body. An air of sophistication to him.  He is a very knowing child, and can see right through most people. Very mature for his age. He has a devilish streak about him, but must also be able to play total, sincere innocence at the end of the story. Strong singer.
 

***Please note that if chosen your child MUST be available for a workshop reading on Monday, November 17 from 6:30 pm to 9pm as well as all rehearsals beginning in January and performances running January 30th through February 22nd [Fridays and Saturdays at 8PM, Saturdays and Sundats at 2PM]***

Click HERE to sign up for an audition slot.

Click HERE to learn more about the production.

IF YOU KNOW OF A CHILD ACTOR WHO WOULD BE PERFECT FOR EITHER OF THESE ROLES, PLEASE PASS THIS LINK ON TO THEM! 

XOXOXO

SGS

Dana Krueger

Before I was ever a part of the Washington, DC Theatre community, I was an audience member, and one of it's biggest fans.
I first saw Dana Krueger in The Women at Arena Stage in January of 1999. A very good friend of mine who had recently graduated from Shenandoah University was working on the wardrobe crew, and had a comp ticket that she offered me. I was back from winter break, and I can't recall if classes had started back up yet at Shenandoah, where I was still attending, but I loved the film, and there was no way that I was going to miss the chance to see it live on stage. From the moment the show began, till the curtain call, I was enraptured. The cast list of actresses in the show was a who's who of DC actresses, plus many from New York, as well. That wasn't the last time that I saw the show. I couldn't stay away, it turned out.  I saw it several more times, and even hung out backstage sometimes with Kristina, watching the actresses come and go in any number of amazing period costumes.
Outside the entrance to the Fichandler stage, where The Women was playing, there were two green rooms, and two benches in the hallway. Dana played Mrs. Moorehead, mother of the main character in the show, Mary. She has several scenes, but her most important one was the one she has after she learns that Mary has found out that her husband has cheated on her. She visits her daughter to give her motherly advice, and to tell her that she went through the same thing with her own husband. She advises her to "Keep still...keep still when you're fairly aching to move." The several times that I was backstage at The Women, that's just what I watched Dana do. She would come to the bench in the hallway and sit by herself.  She would lower her head, and concentrate on the scene that she was about to do. I was struck by her poise and concentration. When she heard whatever cue that signaled that it was time for her to take her place in the wings, she got up, and entered the wings, focused and calm.
The next time I saw Dana was later that year, in the fall. She played the Beggar Woman in Signature Theatre's 1999 production of Sweeney Todd. This show was really the show that made me say, "Forget New York, I wanna do shows here!" Again, my friend Kristina got me tickets to a matinee and I was blown away.  I recognized Dana's name in the program and saw that she was the beggar woman, and I couldn't believe that the regal woman who played Mrs. Moorehead was this ravenous, insane mess of rags that was twitching around the stage.  The cast was having a pot luck in between shows on the Sunday that I saw it, and Kristina and I joined them in the lobby.
I noticed a lady curl up with a blanket on the floor under one of the tables set up with food in the lobby. I gestured to Kristina and said..."Is she really curling up under a table on the floor?"
"Yeah," Kristina said, "she seems really method."

A brochure from the 200-2001 season.  Dana is on the far left.  Tracy Olivera is far right.

The next time that I saw Dana Krueger, it was in the same rehearsal room that I was in.  I moved to DC in 2000, and was cast in Gypsy at Signature Theatre. I guess I didn't screw it up too bad, because I was cast in Grand Hotel there in 2001. It was here that I walked into the rehearsal room and saw that Dana was also in the show. I spent most of the rehearsal process being intimidated by her. Not that she said anything to intimidate me, mind you, she was just a powerful and concentrated presence in a room. As rehearsals went on, we started working on a long montage sequence where a scene took place downstage, and the ensemble did a charleston that was all in two rows, and very stylized. Dana asked for a broom to use in this scene, as there was no way in hell anyone was going to ask her to charleston with the ensemble. She started sweeping the floor in between rows of dancers. Eric and Karma liked it, and kept it. As the run went on, she began hitting all of the ensembles feet with the broom as she swept by.  Not hard, just enough to let us know she was there, screwing with us. For many of us, it was the first contact that we had had with her, and we couldn't help but laugh under our breath.
This was the first time that I was introduced to her snake, as well. One day during tech, she gestured for me to come to her.  I had never spoken to her privately, so I was quite scared at what in the world she was going to say to me. She spoke in hushed tones and said, "Go take a look in the pot of the stage right plant." Confused, I quickly agreed to go check.  I looked in and saw a small black rubber snake. Baffled, I went back to her and told her what I saw.  "It's mine. He comes with me in every show and goes somewhere on the set."
Show people are full of odd little rituals because we work in the medium of variables. We strive to make so much of this fluid work of art the same every night. Whatever begins a show ritual can become a career ritual as well, if we have learned that doing a certain thing ensured a good performance. The snake was a ritual for Dana.
During the rehearsal process of the show, she also asked for a cigarette as a prop in one scene. She proceeded to steal the scene that she had nothing to do with, as the head maid, other than to be in the background.  She sat in a chair and smoked slowly and decadently. We started noticing what she was doing, and we were all in tears of laughter.
That cast went through a lot together. A little over two weeks into the run of the show was 9/11. The performance was cancelled that night, but we returned the next night, and a discussion night was already on the books.  They proceeded with the discussion, and what ensued was a very cathartic, rage filled, moving performance of the show.  The audience and the cast were both grateful that the show went on that night.  It was much needed medicine.
While Dana wasn't in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum at Signature, my next connection with her came about during the run of that show. Our house burnt down on morning during the run of the show. If I had never really felt what Signature's "family" meant yet, I did that day. Eric took us into his house for a place to stay, and the cast of Forum and staff of the theatre collected money for us to put towards a new place. They also brought donations of just household kind of things; plates, sheets, etc. We were beyond moved, and truly felt blessed, as we still do, to be a part of that wonderful family.
Soon after the fire, I began rehearsals for the next show at Signature, which was Allegro. Dana was indeed in that show, and one of the very first rehearsals, she brought us the most luxurious and comfy feather duvet. We had never had such fancy bedding, and were beyond moved that she had thought to give it to us. That was Dana, though.
To the right we see (left to right): Carl Randolph, April Harr Blandin, Dana Krueger, Eric Thompson, Evan Casey, Lauren Williams, and Tracy Olivera. 
Below we see her illustrious bio in the Allegro program, but the first sentence is the one that encompasses her wit perfectly.

She was smashing in Allegro, as to be expected, and cracked all of us up when her character died. When anyone died in the show, they reappeared on the third raised level of the stage wearing all black. In tech, she came out in a devastating dress and hat (the show on a Helen Hayes Award for Gregg Barnes' costume design.), and proceeded to sit on the floor and smoke a cigarette wile looking down at the action happening onstage and shaking her head disgustedly.

My Fair Lady closed the old garage space that we had grown up in at Signature. Dana was a regal and formidable Mrs. Higgins to Andrew Long's Professor Higgins. Her health took a bad turn during the run of this show, and she had to leave the show for about two weeks. She returned, and she and I began a tradition that I have written about on this blog before.  But it just occurred to me that same quiet poise that she had when I first saw her backstage at Arena Stage, was exactly how she would wait for the curtain call backstage during My Fair Lady. Sitting in her chair, (she always had a chair waiting for her backstage, and you better not be sitting in it), she and I began pantomiming new ways that Eliza would murder Higgins after he asks her where the devil his slippers are. Full story HERE.
The last time that I shared the stage with Dana in the garage was by far the most memorable to me. The Last Garage Hurrah cabaret featured a company of six Signature regulars, (myself, Will Gartshore, Harry Winter, Donna Migliaccio, Tracy Olivera, and Eleasha Gamble). There were different guest performers on different nights. Dana was a guest performer and sang the title song from the musical, Wings, which she starred in at Signature in 1994. It was a breathtaking performance that still makes me weep when I watch it. Her character is describing what she sees as she is dying.  I took a video of a dvd that I have of that night's performance and posted it when Dana passed. There wasn't a dry eye in the house. Her interpretation of that song and character are unparalleled.
The last time that I had the pleasure of sharing the stage with Dana was the opening of Signature's new theatre, with Into the Woods in 2007. Dana played both Cinderella's mother in the tree, and Little Red's Grandmother. For whatever reason, we didn't spend that much time together backstage on that show.  Sometimes there are shows where your backstage and onstage paths rarely cross. This was one of them for the two of us. I was never to share the stage with her again after that show closed.

The last time that I saw Dana was when she performed a comically dirty version of "One More Kiss" from Follies at the Summer Hummer, a fundraiser for the Taking Care of Our Own fund. I saw her perform this for real in the 2003 production of Follies at Signature, and it was beyond gorgeous. Here at the Summer Hummer, the lyrics were changed by her own pen from "One more kiss before we part" to, "One more piss before we fart." This only went to show how easy it was for her to make you sob or laugh till you sobbed. The concentration and laser accuracy that she delivered everything on stage with are qualities that I still strive for every day.  I now try to compose myself in a similar manner to her before I make an entrance on a stage.
The day after I found out that she passed, I found this on my station at Avenue Q. It made me cry, but also made me very happy.  The snake went on the set of Avenue Q immediately. Shortly after, Sunday in the Park with George opened at Signature, and Donna took the snake on loan. It has appeared every night in Sunday in the Park since. I imagine that various numbers of us will pass this snake around from show to show in the future to honor her spirit.

Today was her memorial service at Signature. It was a beautiful service, complete with classical music, opera, and musical theatre. It was filled with touching and funny remembrances of her life and career. I saw some folks that I hadn't seen for many years today in the lobby. Though we don't always see each other as often as we used to, we enjoy the times that we do.
I woke up this morning and before I got out of bed, I was thinking about the fact that I was really about to go sing at Dana's memorial.  That it really was happening.  Then I looked down and saw that I was laying on top of the duvet that she gave us. As I have every night since she gave it to us.
After the service, there was food and drink in the lobby, and before you knew it, the crowd for the sold out matinee of Sunday in the Park with George started coming into the lobby and theatre, and the party started dissipating. Much like the moving, live work of art that theatre is, the memorial's moment was done. It was time for the next show. One can't help but see the comparison to life there. I left the theatre and started to get upset. As I was about to enter the parking garage, piano movers were wheeling out the grand piano that was rented for the memorial service.  There it was, all wrapped up and being carried away by a team of men. As soon as it passed, I walked past a young pair of parents with their toddler, who pointed at it. The mother said, "Yes, that's a piano! It makes music! There it goes - wave goodbye!".

Goodbye, Dana. We will never forget you.
xoxoSGS

I CANNOT WAIT!!!

Rolling Along!

Well...that last post sounded pretty bleak, didn't it? That's the thing about taking care of an ailing pet.  It can drag you down to the deepest depths if you let it. Or you can make a choice to keep fighting and help your fur baby do the same.  And so we have.
Boo started training more in his wheelchair, and after some valiant attempts, we discovered that he needed a four wheel chair instead of two.  He simply lacked the core strength to hold himself up.  We fell into despair for a few days, unable to figure out how to proceed.  We checked the pries of a four wheel chair for dogs, and we clearly couldn't afford one. So, we went to Home Depot and brainstormed together. We bought several pieces, and then brought them to our friend Andrew Fox at Signature Theatre.  He was able to weld on two more wheels for the chair.




I can't ever thank Andrew enough. We brought the chair home and the first day he tried it out, he took eight steps.  The second day, around 15 steps.  On the third day, a miracle happened.  We discovered a female pitbull living around the corner from us, also in a wheelchair. I saw them coming down the street and ran to get Boo and his cart. Needless to say, after seeing another dog in a wheelchair, he understood that this was a thing.  Not just some elaborate torture device.  He took over eighty steps that day.
Soon after, a further miracle happened.  We met yet another dog in a wheelchair.  A dachshund mix named Higgins. We organized a wheelchair dog meetup and the three of them OWNED the sidewalks in Fairlington! Buddha continues to train in his chair every day. He can now walk in his chair without the inspiration of his two buddies. The three of them meet up when schedule allows, but Boo has made it clear that if I fight with him, he will fight as hard as he can.  He is doing as well as he possibly can, and I think this little guy still has some fight in him left. Especially if there is a fine looking black pittbull in a wheelchair walking ten steps ahead.
xoxoSGS

Thursday thoughts.

I am writing this with voice text. I have exciting news to share with all of you. Matt and I have been given a grant. We have been given a grant that will allow us to write five new musicals for the next five years. We are very excited about this prospect.
In other news, Buddha isn't doing so well. He is basically immobile at this point. We continue to train him on his wheelchair. It isn't working so far.
I am working and writing totally out of nostalgia right now. All of my ideas are from my childhood.
I am not sure if this is a good or bad thing. I am simply writing what I know.
Hopefully soon I will get a computer and be able to blog better than I am now.
I miss all of you and hope to write more in the future.
It is a terrible thing to watch your dog declining in health.
I don't know what to do for him. I've done all that I know to do for him.
Please pray for Buddha.

Where's Waldo?

So sorry for the absence! My laptop died. I currently write this from my phone. Which just sucks. I have big fingers, and typing on this tiny touch screen is a chore. I will hopefully get a new laptop soon, or as soon as I can save up to afford one.
I've had so many adventures since we last spoke! I just finished a stay on Avenue Q. What an amazing experience it was! So many stories I could tell you! But not through typing on my phone.
Next up for me is a cabaret at Signature Theatre on July 26th, called Good Times; the TV theme song cabaret, with Maria Egler . After that, " Cabroret" , a masculine cabaret with Chris Sizmore at Creative  Cauldron on August 15-16.
The next show that I am in is Elmer Gantry at Signature Theatre this fall.
In other news, Matt and I have been commissioned by Creative Cauldron to write a musical version of the Henry James classic, The Turn of the Screw. We are in the process of writing it now, and it will premiere on February 2015.
Again, eventually I will save enough to find a refurbished laptop, but until then, coverage will continue to be spotty here.
Miss you guys and miss our conversation here. Hoping it can eventually continue.
XoxoSGS

SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!

It's the day of the big game!!!
Is everybody ready to eat three times the amount of food that you normally would in one evening, scream at the television louder than you ever would, and drink until you are ready to vomit?
Yeah, me neither.
I don't really have anything invested in either team, so what will I be watching on this gorgeous Sunday evening?

Of course.
And before it comes on, and after it is over?

Of course.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    I have been monitoring a weather system that will be coming into the DC area overnight into tomorrow.  While it looked a bit more serious in model runs a day or so ago, it has lessened with further model runs, and now looks to be a trace to two inches for our region.

 Some may see more North and West of the DC Metro area. Overall, not a big deal.

Some people (like 75 by now) have messaged me about this rumored blizzard to hit the Eastern coast on February 8th to 9th. This all started with some early model run being shared around all of social media, and people not understanding that model runs that are that far away from the event are not reliable at all.  We will not have a 25-35 inch blizzard in our area.  Now, that doesn't mean that we won't have any snow, nor does it mean that we will have snow at all. It could be an all rain event. Things will become clearer in the next several days, and I will surely post about it if it comes to anything. For any of you who read this blog, but aren't friends with me on facebook, drop me a friend request - but please - send me a private message telling me that you are a blog reader - otherwise, I might think you are merely one of those friend requests that you have no idea where they came from. I post many updates on incoming weather on facebook, and I don't want to turn this blog into a weather blog. 

I was sad to hear of the passing of Philip Seymour Hoffman today. I first became aware of him after seeing him in one of my all time favorite films, Twister. Soon after that, I saw him again in a film that would become another favorite, Boogie Nights. He has done countless films since then, and earned an Oscar for his performance in Capote.  I think that my favorite performance of his is from the film version of the play, Doubt. He will be missed. 

Ok, that about wraps up this Sunday brunch update. I am about to launch into a crazy week, workshopping a new show, having understudy rehearsals, and more performances of Violet at Ford's Theatre! Till the next blog falls into place...
XOXOSGS

Food for Thought

Saludos, ecuatorianos!
Ok. Things are about to get weird in here.  I'm weird about food.  I don't know why I am, but that's me.  What does this mean?  Ugh.  There are so many things...where to begin...
While I have never been an adventurous eater, I was forced into eating fruits and vegetables when I was being raised. I never liked them.  Never. Ok, there were some that I liked.  I used to eat onions right out of my Dad's garden. I loved corn, of course, but that hardly counts...neither do potatoes. I can do carrots if they are cooked.  I can do green beans, but I don't really seek them out. 
Ok, I almost just put myself to sleep by writing this already - we get it, Steve eats like a ten year old (incidentally, if you google image search "eat like a ten year old", the picture above actually comes up in the results. Yes, you read that right...if you google "eat like a ten year old", a picture of me comes up. Tragic, no?

This isn't about the fact that I eat pizza and wings more than I should. This is about eating in front of people. It's not always something that I am comfortable doing.  I am not really sure when that happened. I'm not really sure why.  It isn't weight related, as internet research on the subject suggested. I didn't have some traumatic public eating crisis, where I was cutting my chicken breast and knocked my water glass flying, etc. And it isn't always...sometimes I am so hungry that I don't care. Sometimes the friends that I am around are so near and dear to me that I don't have the phobia (phobia? has it gone that far?) kick in.  


It's like when I recall a time when I never thought about dirt under my fingernails.  When I was unaware of what my hair looked like on a given day. Things that most people cannot even imagine not thinking about.  Not that I was unaware of any of those things any time recently, I am reaching far back with this one.  But there just came a day when I didn't really enjoy eating out in public. I don't know if it is food guilt at whatever I am eating, compared to what others are eating.  I don't know if it is fear of food being all over my face, or food getting stuck in my teeth (a constant source of terror...I travel with floss always). Whatever the cause, one day that I can't pinpoint, I decided that I would rather get food "to go", rather than dine in. I would rather take it home, or to a private place and eat than in front of others. 


Ok, before I sound totally crazy, follow me here.  You know when you walk into a restaurant, and as you are being seated, you look at what everyone is eating as you are sat?  You know you do it.  Every human does.  The curiosity sometimes spurs us to find whatever we thought we saw once we receive a menu.  "That looked good!", we might think as we unfold our menu. Well, in this tale, I am the dude who's food you just looked at as he was taking a bite. And something about that drives me batty. My hackles go up, and suddenly I am my dog, guarding a treat when another dog comes over. It's an almost primordial instinct...like..."don't look at what I am eating...you can't have it!"...I fully understand that this is an irrational reaction. 


Everyone has a natural curiosity to see what everyone else is eating, because as humans, we eat in a pack like style. From the dinner table, to picnics, to restaurants, etc. We gather around a food source, and we devour it together as a community. I get it.  I even like it from time to time when this weirdness doesn't float into my mind. Street fairs that are full of bite size food, galas that have bite size bits on tooth picks floating around on trays, small dinners with great friends, none of these trigger the weirdness to come on. 
"Whatcha' eating?" someone will ask, and my spine gets hot. Maybe it is food guilt, after all. Maybe if I could respond, "green salad things topped with glucose free tofu, spiced with guacamole and magic fairy dust", maybe I wouldn't be so sheepish about it. But no, it's not embarrassment.  I love what I love, I eat what I eat.  I go to the gym almost every day and never eat large portions of anything.  I hardly ever eat dessert. I have no reason to be guilty under the sun. But still...after heating up my dinner in the microwave at a theatre, and before I can get a bite in before retreating to the dressing room, or somewhere where I know no one will be, someone says.."MMMMM, what's that?", and I can't help but think..."Well, it was Peruvian chicken and sweet potato fries, but now it's something that you are adjudicating before I have a chance to enjoy it."  It is as if someone has had sex with my virgin wife before our honeymoon, and everything is spoiled for me after that.
Again, I realize that this is an irrational response to natural human curiosity. I understand that 99% of the time, there is no judgement being passed on me by anyone asking something along those lines. I get it. I get it. I really do.
I am trying to work through it. The other night, while on dinner break, I went to zPizza and had a slice, plus a few wings, and sat in the bar style booth that faces the window.  I ate as people walked by, every single one of them looking in as they passed, as everyone does while passing restaurants. My pulse increased slightly at first.  I dabbed my face and fingers with napkins after almost every bite, careful to also wipe the corners of my mouth meticulously - (MOUTH CORNERS!!! PEOPLE ALWAYS FORGET THIS AND LEAVE REMNANTS OF THE LAST MEAL THERE!).  My dad used to get food on his face, and when one of us (usually me) would tell him so while at the dinner table, he would respond, "I'm saving it for later." I strive to be more like my Dad in this way. No big deal, make a joke, move on. When I finished my meal, I headed back to the theatre, washed my face in the sink, and obsessively flossed. Baby steps.
Now, before I wrap this mess up, I am fully aware that those of you who read this might write me off as a lunatic. I would too.  It makes no sense. But they say to write what you know, and as I wondered what to write about next over dinner break, someone passed by and asked, "Whatcha eating?". And there it was.  
And yes, you can still ask me out to dinner. I will go. After a drink, I won't care who I am eating in front of. But please...for the love of God...if I have some food on the side of my face, please tell me.  I will chuckle, say, "I'm saving it for later!", and live inside a private hell for 5 minutes as I wipe my face like Lady Macbeth, but I would rather all of this than to not know. 
And by the way...whatcha' eating?
xoxoSGS



***ADDENDUM***
So, before I brought myself to post this, I wanted the opinion of my husband and a few friends.  I wanted someone else to read this and discuss it, Because I was afraid that this whole thing made me sound crazy. My husband summed it up for me in a few sentences. 
"Why is the whole world interrupting your world?", he asked. 
Wow. 
And this is why I write these things and ask these questions, because I don't desire or want these characteristics, but want to investigate and find out why I have them. 
Natascia Diaz came to see me perform in the role of SHRDLU in Adding Machine; a musical at Studio Theatre about 5 years ago.  After the show, she told me. "I understand you now...you are a laser.  You are a fucking laser beam. Your laser focus on something is so intense and scary and perfect, and when you focus your laser, it is the most powerful thing I have ever seen."
In my life, I have many projects that I am working on, constantly. I laser beam on them when I need to get them done.  When I do, nothing else exists. When I tend bar, I am efficient as fuck, because I am focusing on it. When I am on stage, there is nothing else. When I write, there is nothing else. (Witness, a third blog in a row after I have lasered on the fact that I have not blogged in awhile.)
So maybe it isn't so much a food thing as a focus thing.
When I am keyed into what I am doing, I only want to do that, with no exceptions. You see, my husband is a Rolodex, and I am a laser. This is how half of our fights happen.  I focus on one task as he focuses on 20. While I am in deep thought about one task, if something breaks my stride, I am undone. When I am focused on eating, that is what I want to do, with no hindrance or interruptions.
This, again, goes back to ADD. 
While we were writing Night of the Living Dead, I had the entire script in my head.  Matt kept asking me when I would write it out, and I kept telling him that I was working on it in my head. One night, he persisted, and out of frustration, I sat down at the keyboard and wrote the entire thing out in one sitting.  Laser. 
So my husband's insight of me has explained this weird trait. I can focus solely on one thing at a time, and when derailed, I can't deal. I don't like this trait, but it is great to know that I have found the cause. 
When you are my friend, there is no other friend.  When we are hanging out, there is no one else in the world. When I am making love, there is no other love in the world.When I am eating food, there is no other food. When I am writing this blog, there is no other blog. And now it is time for bed...and there is no other bed.
XOXOXOSGS 

 

Unraveled

Good morning, Ecuador!
I have to share something with you that is driving me insane.
Back in August, Buddha was diagnosed with Spinal Ataxia, a degenerative disk disease that is causing what they call "drunken walking" in his back legs. Instead of going ahead with a spinal surgery, which I refused to put my 11 year old best friend through, I did some research to find alternative treatments. That's when we found Dr. Jane, pet acupuncturist.

Dr. Jane deserves her own blog post that is just about her and her work, because she is magic. She began aggressively treating Buddha with needles and a machine that hooks to them, sending minute electric vibrations through them. Before we started acupuncture, Buddha would fall down several times during a walk.  He couldn't lift his leg to pee. It was getting very sad to watch. The difference has been night and day, and he now lifts his leg to pee again, and though now and again he will lose balance, he gets around so much better than before.  He continues acupuncture with Dr. Jane every couple of weeks.
One of the recommendations to make egress easier for him in the house was to replace our thin leopard print rug with something shaggier, so that he could get better traction. Though we love our Norma Desmond rug, we saw exactly what she meant, as Boo was much happier on any other surface than that rug.

I went to Home Depot and found what looked to be the perfect fit for our house.  A white shag rug that looked like it was straight out of the 1960's. Four hundred dollars later, it came home with me. I brought it inside, and Matt and I moved Norma Desmond to the downstairs bedroom, which Buddha seldom is interested in visiting. As soon as we unrolled it, and put the coffee table back, Buddha was in heaven. He LOVES the shag rug, and moves much better on it. Dr. Jane came over for a session and LOVES the shag rug, and thinks that it is the perfect rug to give him more padding and traction in the room he spends a majority of his time in. We LOVED the rug for the first couple of weeks. LOVED it.

Here is where the tale begins to unravel.
We started to notice that the rug was shedding little white threads.  Just a few here and there.  No big deal. That's what the vacuum is for, right? Right.
I go to NYC for a week to workshop a new musical, and notice that I find a few threads of the white rug in the apartment where I am staying.  I laugh, and mention it to Matt on the phone. He laughs, and agrees that it really is starting to get worse, the shedding. It's a phase, we both agree.  It will pass. I board the Amtrack train to come home and find another white thread on the floor of the train by my boot.  And I had been hundreds of miles from the rug for a week.

As the weeks followed, the rug began to shed more and more.  We were about to throw a party for New Year's Eve, and were busy cleaning the house.  We gave the whole house a good vacuuming. We had to pause several times to unclog the bristles of the vacuum from the tenuous white threads. Finally the carpets were clear, and all looked good. One hour later, and before company even arrived, Matt said, "Look at the rug. I can't believe it! We just vacuumed!"

 The crawling tendrils of thread had already creeped back onto the other rugs. We both slumped our shoulders, feeling defeated by the rug and it's millions of creeping children.
But Buddha LOVES it.
 And Dr. Jane LOVES it. Now we LOATHE it.

I have found the tiny white threads everywhere that I have been, and sometimes in places that I haven't been. Friends who visit soon find the threads in their own homes. This rug is trying to multiply and make other little rugs in other homes, and will no doubt try to conquer the world within the month.

I can't help but think of the vignette from the 80's film, Creepshow, called "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill", In it, Stephen King himself plays a man who finds a comet that has crashed in his back yard, and what does he do? He touches it. I mean...people...have we not learned our lesson from The Blob?  When something falls from the sky, LEAVE THAT SHIT ALONE! Before you know it, he begins to grow a plant like moss all over his body.  Anywhere that he walks, anything that he touches, the green growth spreads. By the end, he is barely recognizable as a human, and shoots himself out of misery. I'm not at that point yet, but I reached a breaking point when I got out of bed this morning to pee and found one of the threads...oh yes.  Just where you think. I hear them now, mocking me.

They are even here, at Ford's Theatre. They have followed me. Watching.  Waiting. Slowly observing when the best moment to strike will be.
We continue to fight. Like Sisyphus, we vacuum the rug, we vacuum the rug, we vacuum the rug. We muse to ourselves that we will rent a rug doctor and that will REALLY get all of those threads for good. Then we are weary that it might only make it worse. So as we lose our minds in a never ending cycle of madness, the threads continue to multiply. I just found another one on my leg.  My mind is unraveling along with the rug, and as I empty the vacuum bristles from their tangle of white threads, I can hear them laughing at me, very softly.
Pray for dawn.
xoxoSGS

Life got in the way.

Hey readers! (all 3 of you, inexplicably from Ecuador) I know, I know, I know. I mean...I KNOW.  I never write on here anymore. I get it. I want to, but...you know...Buddha suddenly hits my leg and demands luvins, and I can't focus. Or the phone will ring, and suddenly I am engaged in a conversation about the latest howling puppy video I saw on facebook (the eater of time, the eater of worlds). Or I am engrossed in a movie that I am streaming from my Roku player on Netflix, called Sightseers that is REAL depressing. I could write on here and tell you about it, but...I tweet. And to tweet is easy. I do it on my couch all day long. Tweet, tweet, tweet. But there was a time when I really liked doing this, and wasn't distracted by all of the five million things that distract me in 2014. I am ADD as it is, and this modern technotweety world isn't helping.

And then there is the fact that I am writing other things...things that want to be musicals. They are trying really hard to exist.  And it's almost like my brain thinks that it has an allotted number of words, and I better not waste any here. Which is ridiculous. Contrary to Pat Sajak, you don't really have to "buy" a vowel, they are one of the only things still free.

I also started this place in a pre-facebook, pre-twitter world. This was one of the only cool things that I ever used to do on the internet. And I loved it for the connection to all of you. But somewhere about five years into this block, something changed in the world, and no one left comments on anything anymore. You could argue that it was the content that caused people to refrain, and you might be right. It could be that this blog became a crass commercial announcements page about all of my upcoming shows.  I know it did, actually.  The thing is, it's hard to not talk about your shows, when your shows are some of the only things that you do.

But no, I am not going to take this little piece of cyberspace off of life support. I'm too stubborn for that. I'm gonna grab it by the balls and shake it up a bit. I will be changing my links on the right, because some of them don't even exist anymore. I will be adding new ones that make me happy. Will I get better at writing on here? Yes. Will I do it everyday?  No. But I will do my best to write when something strikes me funny, floats my boat, or tickles my fancy. I will do my best to come here before I run to that cheap and tawdry floozy, Twitter. I will come here first.  Because here was first. Yes, I promise to hold in my tweets.  I will hold in my tweets.

So welcome back, to those who've been before, welcome to those who have not, thanks for the solid support, Ecuador. Love you.  Mean it.

xoxoSGS