Guthrie Theater

Show: A Christmas Carol

It's the week of rehearsals before tech. This is the time when we 'run' the show to get a sense of flow and whether the story is coming together. I can't believe how fast the time has flown! I feel like I just got to Minneapolis, but already, rehearsal time is dwindling away. Sometimes I just spend the day tracking which character I am and where I'm supposed to be. And now with the run-thrus, I get to watch all the people I'm understudying and track their blocking. I've got 4 characters running thru my head...all of them wearing Nike shoes and running really fast.

BUT!!!!! Oh the joy of watching the veteran actors! It's amazing how mesmerizing they can be when they want to be. Ray (Scrooge) is such a wonderfully calm man off the stage...there's a serene-ness about him...never seems to push anything. And yet when I'm on stage and begging from 'Scrooge', that serenity becomes a grounded-ness that's unfathomable...deep, still, dark water. It's rather frightening to be on the receiving end of an angry Scrooge. When we do the end scene for Act I where Scrooge is screaming to go home, Ray means it...and I, offstage, believe it so much that I too start to tear up in the eyes a little. Of course I hide it enough so no one makes fun....after all, we're working. But during the private times, when I let the story get away with me, it's all magic. Nothing but.

Minneapolis is still cold, and being from California, I've discovered I'm a winter wuss. If THIS is their FALL season, I'm screwed when it starts snowing. I'm wearing 5 layers of clothings already. 6 when I go biking. I'm finding that Minneapolis is a lovely place for bar-hopping: Grumpy's, Bullwinkle's, Maxwell's, Psycho Suzi's Motor Lodge. And another discovery, Minneapolis is the land of tater-tots.

Awesome. Tater-tots! I could eat a whole basket EVERY DAY if my arteries could take it.

That's it for now.