Thursday, November 29, 2012
A life's year in review.
Hey! I'm posting junk again!! Go me!!
Since my birthday has just come and gone, I thought I should start this up again.
I just celebrated my champagne birthday. Yup, 28 on the 28th. In good birthday fashion, I was stuck prepping for an event for school. As I was cutting tags for caramel apples, a class mate asked me what I had accomplished in my last year of life. It was an interesting question I had never been asked before. What have I done? Then I took a moment and realized, hell! I've done a lot this year!
This year I wrote something. Not just anything, I wrote an entire play. 60 whole minutes of my blog-like blabbering was put to paper and put out to the public. A whole lot farther than this blog has gone. I wrote a play. I directed this play. I financed this play. I produced it, supported it, and went through all the highs and lows, fun and sheer chaos of being responsible for a piece of art.
I also challenged myself further than I ever thought I had to. A mere 10 days before we were to hit the stage, I had an actor abandon the show with no explanation or discussion and I was forced to take her place. I had to perform scenes that were fun, but also heart-wrenching and personal, scenes that I had never intended to perform because of how hard they were to write alone. But I did it. I got on that stage (and memorized a script in 9 days! Bam!) and I poured out my heart and felt those emotions all over again, and every night for 7 shows in the 2012 Toronto Fringe Festival. Certainly a learning curve of worst-case-scenario. I am proud I did it, and impressed I survived. Thankfully, I had the amazing support of my cast and crew pushing me to succeed and being the best help line a girl could ask for.
I not only wrote/directed/performed in my show, I also had a show that was successful! Well, we made about $80 each, but hey! It worked and I wasn't in the red, so I call that a success for a first timer!
This year also brought on more education. I am now back at school for event management. Being back to a school certainly isn't glamorous, or even fun at times, but I'm learning a lot and I'm surrounded by smart, funny, and exciting people every day, and I get to be challenged further than having to remember what's in a Burt Reynolds shot as I tend bar.
Finally, I've taken the step to live on my own for the first time. I have my own little space, my own bathroom, my own mess, and me and jerk cat are making it on our own. It's quiet at times, and sometimes lonely, but I like having the freedom of having a full space to call my own, my privacy, my world. Hell, my sanctuary free of pants!!
Writing it down makes it seem small, but l of these were huge. I've pushed myself and had pretty much everything thrown at me.
And I survived.
27 was a ride. Ok, 28, show me whatcha got!!
-janeovision
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Saturday, July 7, 2012
one down! My Drunk Play Survives!!
WE DID IT !!!
Yup, we have survived our first performance with the 2012 Toronto Fringe Festival!!! Especially with the chaos and turn of events in the past 2 weeks, I am exceptionally proud of my cast and crew!!
Unfortunately, we had an actor leave the project 10 days before opening night. This was a sudden shock, but thanks to my amazing cast, we were able to step it up and I stepped in as her role. I can't say I'm not disappointed with her behaviour and shocked at this surprise lack of professionalism, we have no choice but to wish her luck in the future and hope this is a learning process for her future projects.
I have to say, I could not do this without my cast and crew. I had to pick up the script 10 days before we opened, and, even though I was the one that wrote the play, I was not expecting to be the one to perform it. I love that my cast pushed me to rehearse, to do the scenes I was dreading, to make me work, and force me to take off the directors hat and start acting again.
Last night was our first show. I am so proud of what we've done!! There were a few flubs, but that's what the first show is for!!! When it comes to Fringe, I always take the first show as the Dress rehearsal. We get all the mistakes, the screwed up cues, and all the line fuck ups out of the way in the first show. Once that's done, the next 6 shows are gonna be nothing but gravy!!!
So six more... come see our show at 7:30!!!!
But first... After all the work, all the stress, all the rehearsals, and none of the sleep, I can't believe it has all finally happened. My work, my goofy blog writing transformed into a real play has become an actual production that people are seeing. It's been almost a year of work and the last 3 monthes of lots of work, money, and dedication to something based on my drinking, my friends drinking and the life I've been living in my 20's. I have to say that after everything is said and done, I'm proud of what I've written, proud of my cast, proud of my stage manager, and proud of the final product.
This show rules. I'm not sure that the media and reviewers are going to say, but in the end, I'm a proud little mama.
That being said,
-janeovision
Yup, we have survived our first performance with the 2012 Toronto Fringe Festival!!! Especially with the chaos and turn of events in the past 2 weeks, I am exceptionally proud of my cast and crew!!
Unfortunately, we had an actor leave the project 10 days before opening night. This was a sudden shock, but thanks to my amazing cast, we were able to step it up and I stepped in as her role. I can't say I'm not disappointed with her behaviour and shocked at this surprise lack of professionalism, we have no choice but to wish her luck in the future and hope this is a learning process for her future projects.
I have to say, I could not do this without my cast and crew. I had to pick up the script 10 days before we opened, and, even though I was the one that wrote the play, I was not expecting to be the one to perform it. I love that my cast pushed me to rehearse, to do the scenes I was dreading, to make me work, and force me to take off the directors hat and start acting again.
Last night was our first show. I am so proud of what we've done!! There were a few flubs, but that's what the first show is for!!! When it comes to Fringe, I always take the first show as the Dress rehearsal. We get all the mistakes, the screwed up cues, and all the line fuck ups out of the way in the first show. Once that's done, the next 6 shows are gonna be nothing but gravy!!!
So six more... come see our show at 7:30!!!!
But first... After all the work, all the stress, all the rehearsals, and none of the sleep, I can't believe it has all finally happened. My work, my goofy blog writing transformed into a real play has become an actual production that people are seeing. It's been almost a year of work and the last 3 monthes of lots of work, money, and dedication to something based on my drinking, my friends drinking and the life I've been living in my 20's. I have to say that after everything is said and done, I'm proud of what I've written, proud of my cast, proud of my stage manager, and proud of the final product.
This show rules. I'm not sure that the media and reviewers are going to say, but in the end, I'm a proud little mama.
That being said,
-janeovision
Friday, June 15, 2012
Info and officialness for My Drunk Play
Official is official.
With our show creeping up very quickly, it's time to share my cast and crew!! Some would've share. This much earlier, however being as superstitious as I am, I wanted to hold out until I knew they were going anywhere.
That being said,
Janet Davidson - Actor
Jenn Viens - Actor
Aaron Kagan - Actor
Steve Shand - Actor
Allye Vice - Stage Manager
This crew has been incredibly fantastic, helpful, patient, and overall just so wonderful in working and developing this show. They are awesome. So you should come see the show and enjoy the awesomeness that they are!!
The dates:
Friday, July 6th 8:45pm-9:45pm
Saturday, July 7th 7:30pm-8:30pm
Monday, July 9th 1:00pm-2:00pm
Wednesday, July 11th 5:45pm-6:45pm
Thursday, July 12th 11:30pm-12:30am
Friday, July 13th 12:00pm-1:00pm
Saturday, July 14th 6:15pm-7:15pm
Closer and closer. Stressing out. Excited. Panicking with joy and terror.
-janeovision
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
With our show creeping up very quickly, it's time to share my cast and crew!! Some would've share. This much earlier, however being as superstitious as I am, I wanted to hold out until I knew they were going anywhere.
That being said,
Janet Davidson - Actor
Jenn Viens - Actor
Aaron Kagan - Actor
Steve Shand - Actor
Allye Vice - Stage Manager
This crew has been incredibly fantastic, helpful, patient, and overall just so wonderful in working and developing this show. They are awesome. So you should come see the show and enjoy the awesomeness that they are!!
The dates:
Friday, July 6th 8:45pm-9:45pm
Saturday, July 7th 7:30pm-8:30pm
Monday, July 9th 1:00pm-2:00pm
Wednesday, July 11th 5:45pm-6:45pm
Thursday, July 12th 11:30pm-12:30am
Friday, July 13th 12:00pm-1:00pm
Saturday, July 14th 6:15pm-7:15pm
Closer and closer. Stressing out. Excited. Panicking with joy and terror.
-janeovision
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Tuesday, June 12, 2012
A letter of apology to my friends.
A letter of apology to my friends.
Hey gang.
It's been a while. Like, seriously. I haven't seen a LOT of you in a long, long time. Please know that I am not ignoring, avoiding, or ditching you in any way. It's been quite a busy month.
Working at my bar has become quite busy in the past month. With his lovely weather now upon us, work has become increasingly busy. 2 patios, serving and bartending, I'm the one pouring your beers and ordering you that round of shots. You have no idea how much I wish I was the one taking that shot with you, rather than the one pouring it. And trust me, watching you sip cider on the rooftop patio while I'm stuck behind the wood seriously blows.
Along with this, rehearsing my show for the Fringe festival has eaten up any other free time I might've had left for sleep and eating. Rehearsals at least 4 times a day, organizing publicity, sets, props, and praying my amazing cast is ready in time and my show isn't running over its 60 minute time limit, I don't have much time left.
This week adds an another task. NXNE. Don't get me wrong, I love what I've been doing with fringe, and I love NXNE, and don't even need sleep. But I must be honest, I miss you guys.
I miss hanging out in the park. I miss grabbing drinks. I miss texts I find at 11am from you guys sent at 4am because I fell asleep mid-text as we were joking about the drunken adventures of the night before. I miss lunch dates, dinner dates, snakes n lattes, baseball games and concerts and dance parties to Whitney Houston.
I miss my friends. Hope you miss me too. I love my life right now, but I can't wait til July 17 when we can really hang out again.
Hang outs in 5 weeks? It's a date.
-janeovision
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Hey gang.
It's been a while. Like, seriously. I haven't seen a LOT of you in a long, long time. Please know that I am not ignoring, avoiding, or ditching you in any way. It's been quite a busy month.
Working at my bar has become quite busy in the past month. With his lovely weather now upon us, work has become increasingly busy. 2 patios, serving and bartending, I'm the one pouring your beers and ordering you that round of shots. You have no idea how much I wish I was the one taking that shot with you, rather than the one pouring it. And trust me, watching you sip cider on the rooftop patio while I'm stuck behind the wood seriously blows.
Along with this, rehearsing my show for the Fringe festival has eaten up any other free time I might've had left for sleep and eating. Rehearsals at least 4 times a day, organizing publicity, sets, props, and praying my amazing cast is ready in time and my show isn't running over its 60 minute time limit, I don't have much time left.
This week adds an another task. NXNE. Don't get me wrong, I love what I've been doing with fringe, and I love NXNE, and don't even need sleep. But I must be honest, I miss you guys.
I miss hanging out in the park. I miss grabbing drinks. I miss texts I find at 11am from you guys sent at 4am because I fell asleep mid-text as we were joking about the drunken adventures of the night before. I miss lunch dates, dinner dates, snakes n lattes, baseball games and concerts and dance parties to Whitney Houston.
I miss my friends. Hope you miss me too. I love my life right now, but I can't wait til July 17 when we can really hang out again.
Hang outs in 5 weeks? It's a date.
-janeovision
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Monday, June 11, 2012
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Casting success!!
So casting has come and gone. I must say, I am very excited for future rehearsals!!!
My cast and crew is a collection of people that have not only blown me away in auditions, but are also old friends that I have worked with and have been great partners in previous projects. I'll hold off names for now, but I will announce my fantastic Stage Manager, Allye Vice. She is a writer herself, director, stage manager and has toured with other Fringe shows. We worked together in productions in University, and I am thrilled to have her by my side again. She knows how I work and I know how she works, and I am so excited to have someone strong enough to deal with my chaos and create this show!!
We have already done our first read-through this previous weekend, and official rehearsals start this week. This will be my first show focusing on monologues, not so much dialogue and character interaction. This is making me realize the amount of work I have made for myself, but I am excited for my cast and crew, who are excited too, and beyond supportive of the process. They are even helping me with the script (which I asked for!) and helping me workshop certain scenes that need it.
Already I have so much support. From my cast, my SM, my friends, family, even strangers.
Last week I sat down with a guest at work for a beer (they bought me one, so I joined them for a drink haha) and I started talking about the show. He was so excited about it, and he never even met me before. But his incredible enthusiasm about my 20 second blurb blew me away. He was excited. He was excited about me, and about what I've done. He hasn't even seen it, and He was beyond enthusiastic. Having a stranger excited for me was amazing. Having support from strangers is the most terrifying and wonderful thing I've experienced so far.
This is getting big. This is becoming real. And I couldn't be more excited.
-janeovision
My cast and crew is a collection of people that have not only blown me away in auditions, but are also old friends that I have worked with and have been great partners in previous projects. I'll hold off names for now, but I will announce my fantastic Stage Manager, Allye Vice. She is a writer herself, director, stage manager and has toured with other Fringe shows. We worked together in productions in University, and I am thrilled to have her by my side again. She knows how I work and I know how she works, and I am so excited to have someone strong enough to deal with my chaos and create this show!!
We have already done our first read-through this previous weekend, and official rehearsals start this week. This will be my first show focusing on monologues, not so much dialogue and character interaction. This is making me realize the amount of work I have made for myself, but I am excited for my cast and crew, who are excited too, and beyond supportive of the process. They are even helping me with the script (which I asked for!) and helping me workshop certain scenes that need it.
Already I have so much support. From my cast, my SM, my friends, family, even strangers.
Last week I sat down with a guest at work for a beer (they bought me one, so I joined them for a drink haha) and I started talking about the show. He was so excited about it, and he never even met me before. But his incredible enthusiasm about my 20 second blurb blew me away. He was excited. He was excited about me, and about what I've done. He hasn't even seen it, and He was beyond enthusiastic. Having a stranger excited for me was amazing. Having support from strangers is the most terrifying and wonderful thing I've experienced so far.
This is getting big. This is becoming real. And I couldn't be more excited.
-janeovision
Friday, May 4, 2012
My drunk... Blog?
So, long time.
What have I been up to, you ask? Oh, not much. Working, moving, writing a play. Y'know. The usual.
Yup. I have written a play. All those drunken adventures myself, my friends and complete strangers have been on have now been compiled into a 60-ish minute play. All your drunken stories of hookups, screwups, mishaps and adventures have been collected by me and put into theatrical form!!
I started this adventure last summer, writing a scene or two while drinking in the park with friends. I wasn't necessarily planning on making anything big, just wanted to kill some time now that my fringe fest show last year had wrapped up. As I was writing, I kind of liked what I was getting on paper. That's surprising, as my writing is usually crap,, or so said every single one of my profs in university.
So I applied to fringe with a barely written play, with hopes of maybe I'll get in and have something to do. November 28 rolled around and I got the email. I got in.
Well crap. Now I have to write a play.
Since then, I've even collecting stories and putting them on paper. Documenting nights out and the scandals that came with the drink.
4 months later, and a play is written. I have a play that makes sense, and might actually be pretty good!
Today I found out my venue, cast my show, and begin the chaos of putting up a show for the fringe. I'll be using my blog as my venting pad for it, as well as keeping you updated to the happenings of the play and how it's progressing (or not, we'll see lol)
So I have a play. It's a drunk play. It's called, 'My Drunk Play'. Let's see how this pans out.
-janeovision
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
What have I been up to, you ask? Oh, not much. Working, moving, writing a play. Y'know. The usual.
Yup. I have written a play. All those drunken adventures myself, my friends and complete strangers have been on have now been compiled into a 60-ish minute play. All your drunken stories of hookups, screwups, mishaps and adventures have been collected by me and put into theatrical form!!
I started this adventure last summer, writing a scene or two while drinking in the park with friends. I wasn't necessarily planning on making anything big, just wanted to kill some time now that my fringe fest show last year had wrapped up. As I was writing, I kind of liked what I was getting on paper. That's surprising, as my writing is usually crap,, or so said every single one of my profs in university.
So I applied to fringe with a barely written play, with hopes of maybe I'll get in and have something to do. November 28 rolled around and I got the email. I got in.
Well crap. Now I have to write a play.
Since then, I've even collecting stories and putting them on paper. Documenting nights out and the scandals that came with the drink.
4 months later, and a play is written. I have a play that makes sense, and might actually be pretty good!
Today I found out my venue, cast my show, and begin the chaos of putting up a show for the fringe. I'll be using my blog as my venting pad for it, as well as keeping you updated to the happenings of the play and how it's progressing (or not, we'll see lol)
So I have a play. It's a drunk play. It's called, 'My Drunk Play'. Let's see how this pans out.
-janeovision
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
New Year, New Post, New Rant.
Ah 2012. welcome to a fresh start!
This year has started with some ups and downs, dealing with the never ending job hunt and the terribly consistent rejection letters and calls, along with the colds and flus that come with cold weather and warm scarves and toques.
This year I'm going to work on a bit o positivity. Towards the end of 2011, I felt like a bit of a downer (and let's be honest, I was) about the world around me and the not-so-fun circumstances that arose in the closing months of the year. Shit hit the fan, negative upon negative seemed to keep stacking and it weighed me down. But I ended the year on a high note with family on a nice vacation and I came back with determination to start fresh and keep trying. I applied for school again, I'm excited about a new theatre project I'll be working on, and I'm looking to the future. Even in this new year, I have already had setbacks, with a potential job falling through, and pretty rough bouts of illness (yea, I was a baby about it) but this is a work in progress and I will keep looking to the future, the good stuff!!
Although I must be clear about this new positive outlook: Just because I'm going to be more positive, doesn't mean I'm not going to vent about the negative out there. Seriously, some of you do some really dumb shit, and I'm going to let you know about it.
If I don't vent this shit out I'm going to explode. I need my balance to keep positive, this is how I'll find it.
-janeovision
This year has started with some ups and downs, dealing with the never ending job hunt and the terribly consistent rejection letters and calls, along with the colds and flus that come with cold weather and warm scarves and toques.
This year I'm going to work on a bit o positivity. Towards the end of 2011, I felt like a bit of a downer (and let's be honest, I was) about the world around me and the not-so-fun circumstances that arose in the closing months of the year. Shit hit the fan, negative upon negative seemed to keep stacking and it weighed me down. But I ended the year on a high note with family on a nice vacation and I came back with determination to start fresh and keep trying. I applied for school again, I'm excited about a new theatre project I'll be working on, and I'm looking to the future. Even in this new year, I have already had setbacks, with a potential job falling through, and pretty rough bouts of illness (yea, I was a baby about it) but this is a work in progress and I will keep looking to the future, the good stuff!!
Although I must be clear about this new positive outlook: Just because I'm going to be more positive, doesn't mean I'm not going to vent about the negative out there. Seriously, some of you do some really dumb shit, and I'm going to let you know about it.
If I don't vent this shit out I'm going to explode. I need my balance to keep positive, this is how I'll find it.
-janeovision
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