hit parade

so, the first weekend is done. four shows. fun. the matinee on saturday was questionable — strictly blue hair. no laughing. and the house was only half full.

saturday night was better and my mom, stepdad, and grandma came and they loved it, so i loved it because by this point i am hungry for praise (praise ho). my gram might come to watch it again. she is so sweet. i love her. and she loved the play.

anyway...

there are a lot of "real" actors in the play. or "real" performers. people who've been acting forever. people with their MFAs. people who've moved up from l.a. people who've done more productions than they can count.

one of the guys, his mom is a famous theater person in nyc -- he said he has met every black actor who's made it for the last fifty years or so. sidney poitier? i asked, skeptically. yep. denzel. yep. remembers denzel from when he was a child. and on and on.

the woman who plays my mother is a real kick in the pants. she had a gold record back in 1957 or so called "rebel." she toured with bob hope twice in korea. played vegas for years— when the flamingo was the only hotel. she's done over 250 commercials — from "underalls" to being with mr. whipple for "please don't squeeze the charmin."

and then there's us newbies.

my newest theatre phrase: when the stage manager says "places in 3 minutes" you say "thank you three." or when she says "places" you say, "thank you places."

meanwhile, today was the mardi gras parade.

because slo has deemed mardi gras too dangerous, too drunken, too debaucherized (debaucherlyful? debauchtastic?), as well as too bead- and boob-centered, the mardi gras parade was changed to sunday afternoon.

the local paper's headline was "party like it's sunday afternoon!" .

so it was on sunday afternoon, and that did put a damper on things, but there was still a good turn out. i was part of the bikerider contingency. and we wore funny clothes and decorated our bikes and threw beads.

truly, though the great part of mardi gras is, when else do you get to wear fishnets and ho boots? in san luis you don't have much opportunity for it. so you gotta grab it while the goin' is good.

our crew gives you an option: ride a bike or come on skates. next time i'm going on skates. one of the guys wore his bright blue speedo, sunglasses, rollerskates and his guitar slung across him. on his back in lipstick were the words "love! love! love!" he looks like leonardo di caprio with black hair. he was the parade-spotlight-hog and thank god for him. i think he did the route a minimum of three times. by the end he had quite a few dollar bills stuck in the elastic of his speedos.

but now i'm exhausted. so tired. and i have all of this personal stuff to do that i never had time for. and must got to work very early. sooooo...