Truth in Monday Musings

That's me, photobombing my two long-time thespian buddies, Kimberly and  Elizabeth Beck, as we get ready for our last performance of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

I completed another play.  I wish I had kept a list of all the plays I had been in since my Freshman in High School, but alas, I have not.  I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say the number is just over or close to 100.  I've been performing for close to fifty years (age 14 to 63) and averaging 2 to 3 productions a year.  Some years there have as many as 5, others years none.  So 100 is not an unreasonable guess.  

This play was very well cast, with some very dynamic performers in key roles, and even people at the top of their game in minor roles.  Like The Addams Family, I was in last year, they were very fortunate in getting just the perfect person for each part.  Conner Griffin was the ideal RP McMurphy, highly energetic and engaging.  Julianna Lacefield set her normally sweet personality aside and became the cold tyrant that is Nurse Ratched.  It would have been hard to come up with a better Chief Bromden than Duke Shiva Nanan.  Benjamin's friend, Brittany Burkett, was a tour de force as Billy Bibbitt.  Everyone was quite extraordinary.

For myself, just my own experiences as an actor, the play experience ranks as fair to middling (AGAIN - JUST MY ACTING EXPERIENCE, THE PLAY ITSELF WAS EXCELLENT).  The quick costume changes were tough on this old dude, as was the fall I had to take.  I played four characters (AIDE WARREN, AIDE TURKEL, TECHNICIAN, DOCTOR SPIVEY) that were consolidated into two characters.  The acting wasn't hard, although I had to be careful not to be too funny as not to distract from the serious content of the play.  Making sure I correctly changed in time and had the right costume on was a real pain.  Most plays I've been have had weeknight rehearsals, but this one had regular Saturday rehearsals. Truth in Monday Musings?  I did not like that all.  I will have to think hard about participating in plays that routinely have Saturday rehearsals, especially without Benjamin.  This is his Senior Year, and if I'm going to spend that much weekend time in a play, I would rather it be with him.

After a decade or so in plays together, Kimberly and I finally had parts where we dialogue together, both playing aides at the mental institution.

Here's Kimberly with the brilliant actress, Julianna Lacefield, who did a fantastic star turn as the bureaucratic and cruel Nurse Ratched.

Community theatre is fun, and it has been a great pleasure and a source of relief from my accounting career, which is rather bloodless and dull.  But it makes no money and is not providing a transition away from being able to completely retire from accounting.

Truth in Monday Musings?

I am not too bad as an actor/writer, but I am monumentally terrible as a self-promoter.

I would rate myself as a B in writing but as a D in self-promotion.  Although my grammar is not perfect, I think I tell fast-moving and interesting tales.  And I do some things to promote my books, but what I do is not very consistent or successful.  I had my books on display throughout the play, but made no sales, not even to fellow cast members.  If I can't figure out how to get more reviews on my books online, they are never going to take off.  They determine where they place your book based on sales and reviews.  Without reviews, no one will ever see the books online unless they are specifically looking for them.

I would rate myself as an A in acting but as an F in ever making money off of it.  I have been completely lost all my life as to how to do that.  I saw a thing about extras for a nearby Stephen King movie (Dr. Sleep), but I found out way too late to do anything about it.  Of course, just being an extra is not quite what I'm after, but at least it would make a little money. With books, I can at least pretend to self-promote.  With acting, I don't even have the pretense at self-promotion.

I would rate myself as an A+ as a voice talent.  I know that sounds like Trumpian-level conceit, but it's the truth.  I can read out loud as well as anybody on the planet.  What I don't have are the technical skills to build my own sound studio to do recordings.  So it remains a dream deferred, but what could be my best chance to make money to lead out of accounting,  And I do nothing about it.

More Truth in Monday Musings - 

I need to lose weight and get my blood pressure under control.  For that, I need to concentrate on myself for a while, get a good structure and routine going.    That means minimizing my outside commitments, particularly in the evenings, until I can get this straightened out.  How long will that take?  Maybe a few months, perhaps a year or more.  I'm not sure.  But when I do come out of it, I want to come out stronger and more confident.

I will continue to write and try to figure out ways to self-promote.  Heck, I might even figure out a sound studio (with Benjamin's help)!

Well, this has turned into to one of my longer posts.  Oh, well.  Like all of my posts, some will be your cup of tea, and some won't.  I have a feeling this will be one of my lower viewed posts.

But that's okay.  I had my say.

Until next time,

T. M. Strait

Return of the Monday Musing!

Early stage construction on One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest which begins this Thursday at 7:30 in THe Studio at the Okefenokee Heritage Center.

Well, I have a little time this morning, so I thought I would return to a Monday Musing.  It's my mix of topics, some of which you may find interesting, and others will make you want to skip whole paragraphs.  Oh, well.

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I am in Hell Week.  That's not quite as deadly as it sounds, but it is hectic.  It's the time of community theatrical production when you have a long series of rehearsals and performances.  It can help improve the play tremendously  (crap! - that's a Trumpian word now, isn't it?), but can also wear some of the performers out before the opening curtain even rises.  We've rehearsed Saturday and Sunday already, and are set for rehearsals Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday nights, and performances Thursday-Friday-Saturday nights, wrapping up with a Sunday matinee.

I'm a little beat already this morning, but I'm not ill.  Thankfully, my accounting work schedule is light this week, so that may help.  It seems incredible to me now, but I used to do this while also working a full-time plus work schedule.  What was I thinking?

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Moving slowly along in my writing goals - some progress on The Extra Credit Club has been made.  Super polishing A Christmas With Pegasus, readying it for publication as an eshort.  Hopefully, I'll have some exciting cover news pretty soon!

Don't forget - Crowley Stories: Swamp's Edge is available now.  You'll want to read this series of stories set in a Southern swamp town!

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Excited to report that Atlanta United will be in the playoffs, and are back in first place!  How much into soccer are we now?  We watched the game via Twitter on the desktop, passing up the Michigan  Wolverine football game that was being played at the same time!

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The Great Limbo Contest that is the Trump administration continues.  How much crap, lies, corruption and foulness will the Trumpeteers take before they turn on him?  The current attempted rape allegations against Brent Kavanaugh are credible enough that they should be thoroughly investigated,  and that's not just a committee but also by the FBI.  This story has history, and the accuser has passed a polygraph test.  If you're in favor of just brushing this aside, you need to take a hard look at your politics and your basic human decency.  The ends do not always justify the means.

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I hope to put together a Fall TV preview soon.  It will not be as comprehensive as prior years, but hopefully, I can hit the highlights.

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The college cavalcade has begun!  Benjamin has been accepted to Georgia Southern!  We are still putting together applications to Georgia College and the University of Georgia.  I'll keep you posted!

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Until the musings hit me on another Monday,

T. M. Strait

Throwing It Back Theater Style

A friend was telling me about a picture from Little Women she had found, a play that we were in about seven years ago.

I wondered, did I have any pictures from that play?

I couldn't find any from my iPhone or on the pictures I have on Facebook, or on my desktop.  I either don't have any preserved, or I never had any to begin with.

I've been in close to 100 plays, and I have pictures from only a fraction of them.  It's getting harder and harder to keep them all straight in my head.  I have some whole plays on VHS tapes.  Yes.  VHS tapes.  We don't even have a VHS player anymore.

So I wondered, what are the earliest pictures I have of productions?

Well, thank goodness for high school yearbooks!  I only have my Junior and Senior years, but they covered the plays I was in during those years.

The pictures in this post are from David and Lisa, a drama set in a mental institution for young people.  I played David, an obsessive-compulsive who did not like to be touched.  His defenses were gradually broken down by Lisa, a teenage girl who behaved more like a four-year-old, played by my next door neighbor, Barabara Bloomfield.  She was Bridgeport High School's finest actress, and whom I aspired to be as good as.

Currently, I am in a production that takes me back to a mental institution.  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest begins Thursday at 7:30 PM at the Studio of the Okefenokee Heritage Center.  It stars my friend who was in Little Women with me, Julianna Lacefield, as Nurse Ratched, the cold and cruel dictator of the mental ward.  This is a role she has long wanted to do, and she is outstanding. I play FOUR roles (combined into two characters), surprisingly none of whom are the mental patients. My good friend, Kimberly Beck and her daughter, Emily (Anne Frank, Juliet) are also in it, as is Conner Griffin, shining in the role of Randle McMurphy (the lead played by Jack Nicholson in the movie version).

I wish I had kept better records, scrapbooks and such, but I didn't.  Now everything is mooshing together in my soggy brain.

Oh, well.  I will continue to pillage what resources I can and preserve them here on this blog.

Maybe this would be easier if I'd had a film career rather than theater.

Don't let the rush of life stop you from preserving memories with whatever you can.

Fly to the Cuckoo's Nest! (or drive, if it is more convenient)

Purlie Productions will be putting on this extraordinary drama starting Thursday, September 20, at the Okefenokee Heritage Center.  The performance begins at 7:30.

There will also be Friday and Saturday performances at 7:30, and a final performance Sunday at 2:30.

A first-rate cast and crew have been put together for this show, including the talented Ingmar Connor Griffin in the seminal role of Randall P McMurphy, and a terrific Julianna Lacefield as the bureaucratic, soulless and overbearing Nurse Ratched.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a thought-provoking show about mental illness, and about the suffocation of institutional control, about forced conformity, about the worth of every human being, about the value of people over rules.  Although a play with a very serious theme, it also has many moments of comedic humor.

This play is for adults only.  It contains profanity and sexual themes.  If it were a movie (oh wait - it was, in 1975, starring some dude named Jack Nicholson), it would be rated R.

It will be performed at The Studio on the grounds of the Okefenokee Heritage Center.

Update: Concerning the argument as to whether the show is PG-13 or R, I personally stand by the R rating.  Often, movies are given an R rating without explicit nudity or bloody violence, but because of the profanity and mature themes. 

The truth is that the rating system is pretty arbitrary, and its subjective standards can be quite puzzling.  So who knows?

The important thing to keep in mind is that this is not in any way a kid-friendly show.  If you have a young person (you set the age for that - I don't) that you don't want to expose to profanity and mature themes, please keep them home.  If you are easily offended, you may want to consider not attending.  It is a significant and well-done show with an important message.  Whatever questionable things they are in the show, I feel are worth it in effectively communicating the message as a whole.

Didn't You Read the Memo?

There it is.  The most chilling five words in the business and bureaucratic world - Didn't you read the memo?

It doesn't matter whether you're in the private, public, or non-profit sector.  Those words said to an employee, can send shivers down their spine, as they quickly try to review in their mind what they've missed.  It could be a change in the dress code, a different office procedure, an adjustment in the software you use, even how you are supposed to address management, fellow employees, or customers.  You've missed something vital, and your supervisor is looking at you with a self-satisfied grin that gleefully says, "Gotcha!"

Some people are more attached to rules and procedures than others.  I'm currently preparing to be in the play. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, where Nurse Ratched controls a mental institution with a cold eye and a firm grasp of manipulating regulations to dominate the patients and staff.  Her desire to be in charge supersedes the needs and health of the patients.

Most of us are fortunate enough not to run across someone as dangerous as Nurse Ratched, but we've all probably had to deal with someone similar.  I know my conservative friends will rail against government bureaucrats, and my liberal friends will berate those who manipulate in large corporations and the business world.  But the truth is they can exist and thrive anywhere, no matter the structure.

Rules and regulations can be a valuable thing.  I'm glad somebody's inspecting the meats, for example.  Workplace safety rules can help protect us all.  It's when middle management uses those rules, both the ones that come down from others and ones they make up themselves, that they become dangerous.

With the advent of email, memos become even harder to track and ferret out.  I get an avalanche of email every day, and sometimes it's hard to search out what may be significant.  There are days where I don't even want to go through all that.  I'd rather concentrate on the work in front of me.  And, of course, that will be the day I hear the dreaded words. "Didn't you read the memo?"

Not all memos are deadly.  Some are just plain weird.  Like one from a manufacturing company I worked for a couple decades ago, with the "You Should be Committed" memo.  It stressed how you should be dedicated and loyal to your job, and come in every day and on time, and that availability to work the varying swing shifts was more important than your commitment to do things with your family.  The fantastic twist was at the end of the memo it indicated that although your complete loyalty was needed, the company still reserved the right to terminate your employment at any time for any reason. Commitment, it seems, was a one-way street.

Another classic was the "As you know, this year Thanksgiving falls on a Thursday" memo.  Yes, it really did say that, explaining that meant that everyone would be expected to come to work on the Friday following Thanksgiving. Yeah.  Uh, maybe you should just let us know when Thanksgiving doesn't fall on a Thursday.  Good luck with that!

There's not much we can do, except being alert that any of these crazy memos could come at any time, from anywhere.  And when you hear those dreaded words, try not to take it too personally.  Just shrug your shoulders, say "My bad," and try to move on with your day.

If you're not a bureaucratic personality, you're always going to be behind the eight ball.  Just grin and bear it, and be happy you're not the one who has to come up with the crazy memos.