I am Peremptory

　
     Words given voice require much preparation. Especially Shakespeare. The phrasing, cadence of rhythm, pronunciation, inflection, tone, resonance, adjunct gesture or lack of movement, all demand reckoning long before opening night.
     These are the dog days of Performing. Rehearsal time allotted with cast falls way short of the need. Rehearse alone. Morning, first thought of the day, in the shower then while dressing, on the ride to work, during a walk down a long corridor or after finding a lonely parking spot, during lunch break, on the ride home, waiting for pasta water to boil, then rehearse with the cast in the evening and once more sequestered before retiring and maybe drift off to sleep still running that troublesome phrase from act II.        
   Rote memorization is a great start yet more is needed. To “run lines” with a different purpose toward discovering what is a stake at the moment of the uttered phrase. What do I want to get accomplished by saying this or that and how might those goals effect the sounds? How are the sentences affected by the relationships established (hopefully) with everyone else in the scene?
      All this while fighting our internal demons labeled pride and laziness. Focus thieves such as TV, the internet, smart phones, angry birds, egomania (who me???) loved ones vying for attention, household chores will rob the audience of my best preparation. Good intentions pave the way to hell. (thanks for the reminder mom) I meant to take time but….. It is funny, the more I studied in college the less fear I felt before an exam.
     Certain words taken from every script handed me have been etched forever in my consciousness. So far from this story my favorite is Fear is Treason!
　
See you on the boards,
Stepping lightly on the earth,
T.A. Conway

What Does a Lover Pack?

　
….Roses and Daisies and Jack in the Pulpits….. What do you imagine is a ‘Jack in the Pulpit‘? My first thought was a clergyman giving a sermon. No. Next guess was a “Jack in the box” type flower popping out for warm rays. Close but no cigar. Jack in the Pulpit also know as Arisaema Triphyllum. The Jack in-the-pulpit plant is a particular sex, it may not stay that sex very long. Each autumn, as the flower and leaf buds form for the next spring, the plant decides either to be male or female, and may thus change it's sex every year.

Wow! I wonder if that could catch on in the human genome? This year it is Gucci and Coach next year it is Dockers and Under Armor. This year I pitch next year I catch (leap year anything goes).

So, in the autumn, the plant somehow senses how much food has been stored away. If it's been a good year the plant produces a bud for female flowers and, usually, for two leaves, to make more sugars by photosynthesis. If the year has not been that good, the plant will make a bud for male flowers and one leaf.

SEX. It has fascinated humans since Adam caught Eve bending over to pick up a fallen apple. It has propagated the species, experts say the early clans commingled sperm so the father would be unknown thus all men cared for all children resulting in a stronger group; mortality rates being high. Much has been written about sex from early hieroglyphics to this weeks Cosmopolitan Magazine.

Sex facts in the early 1970’s
1971--The 1st Gay Community Services Center was opened in Los Angeles.
1971--The Florida Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the law that made oral sex performed by heterosexuals a crime.
1973--Sexologist David Reuben recommended oral sex and estimated that 70-80% of American adults practiced it.
1973--The U.S. Supreme Court overruled all State laws restricting a woman's right to abortion in the 1st 3 months of pregnancy.

     This sexual liberation of men and women tossed off the secrecy and constraints surrounding human contact. I recall, like it was yesterday, the first pair of female breasts un-tethered and in motion beneath a thin cotton tank top. Yummmm she was a camp counselor, I was 13, it was the summer of 1970.…Camp Bears’ Nest! My liberated European born Mother was employed as a Girl Scout Leader. Not every boy had three sisters in the girl scouts and six weeks each summer as one of 4 boys amid 450 teen age girls. I still recall a kiss by a particularly developed Senior GS Cadet behind a lean-to (just a little roof shelter thing). My parents left me home the next year onaccounta my burgeoning adolescent mind and body.

        It would be years before I would realize the effect the sexual revolution had on me. All of my adult relationships are in some ways sexually charged. Gay men interest and excite me I just never figured out how the plumbing worked until my preferences were fundamentally set. Women knock me out. With very few exceptions every woman I have laid….eyes on… has enticed my sexual curiosity regardless of age, cultural background, shape or intellect proving the best sexual organ is between the ears. Yes ladies if I’m looking at you my imagination is on fie-yah.

     Unfortunately today we have, as a sexual culture, given the mass media control of defining American sexuality. Political correctness has neutered our growth potential. AIDS, herpes and the lack of prophylactic education has many frozen in fear. Flirting is harassment. A love letter could be used in a court of law. Bumping into a potential paramour twice in the same day could be seen as stalking.
     There is hope. The ever growing internet promises a variety of reliable dating sites, adult home made movie sites, slick sites for every sexual proclivity, and the frequently visited face book will help swing the pendulum back toward reality. C’mon people it’s just a flap of skin.
I am not my penis.

I leave you today with a verse from I Love My Wife….
"Sexually Free":
Free! Sexually free!
Free to lose our guilt - live it up to the hilt
Be a libertine or bust!
Free! Sexually free!
Free to drop the pins - there are just seven sins
And the best one is lust!
Free! Sexually free!
Free to go for broke - making love 'til you croak
Or your pants begin to rust!
See what it is to be satisfied and unfrustrated -
Free and at liberty to be loved and stimulated -
Be unashamedly sexually liberated!

Stepping lightly on the Earth....

Much ado about nothing

     I’ll bet they had a hoot of a time writing this musical. The Duke has a line that contains the phrase “his delights were dolphin like they showed his back above the elements he liv’d in“. Seeking the clearest understanding of the phrase before I try to perform with it I looked it up……… Guess what? That whole speech was lifted from Cleopatra just before she was bit in the tit by the asp. … Yeah the big final act of  Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra Act V Scene II. (I wonder….. should i deliver the line as CLEO for effect falsetto female? would anyone even get it?)
I have another line which includes "Orpheus’ Lute..." Seeking the clearest understanding of the phrase before I try to perform with it I looked it up……… Guess what? That line was lifted from Proteus
to Thurio from Shakepeasre’s Two Gentlemen of Verona Act III Scene II. I wonder how many of the bard’s comedies and tragedies are included within the lines of my fellow actors scripts?

Many will hear few will notice.
Anything went when tossing this musical together;  bicycles, frisbees, telephones, bubbles, balloons, crazy sixties laugh-in dancing, mini skirts, tall red boots, hot sexy people, anti war themes, the me, and peace and love man.

How any of this matters to “The Duke” I dunno

Special Thanks to Jerry for stopping by with his dedicated copy of THE HARVARD CONCORDANCE TO SHAKESPEARE as well as his much traveled copy of The Riverside Shakespeare
　
　

The Voice

Is that how I sound?  It wasn't until mid grade school standing alone on the smooth gymnasium stage listening to the sound of my childs' voice the age of reason completed its turn.  Until then I was unaware that MY voice would be the one thing that I could completely own. There was something empowering in the noises my mouth made at that moment as they bounced around the empty hall only to fall on my ears unfamilar.  Unaware at the time I would fall deeply in love with my voice, this self love made me capable of loving unconditionally today.  Thank you voice.  "You can't love another without loving yourself."(cool line from the opening number)  If only I were a tenor.  How will The DUKE of MILAN sound?  That answer is my focus during these early weeks of preparation. The words, the music, the thoughts and feelings born from the pages of the script and score are my welcome bedfellows and bedfellowettes. I savor the days I get to share with this perfect Cast and a true friend Scott Miller.  Please join me to discover how  "TWO GENTLEMEN VERONA" will change us.

Stepping lightly on the earth,

T.A.Conway