I lost my brother three times.
The first time was when his grief and anger came between us, but I held onto the hope that we’d mend the rift and he’d come back.
The second time was when drugs and alcohol turned him into someone I didn’t know, but I held onto the hope that he’d get clean and he’d come back.
The third time was the last time he used, and my heart is now broken because he is never coming back.
Yes, I totally fell off the blogging wagon. And the running wagon. And this is probably going to be a short post, but it will definitely not be the last. I’m on the road again.
So, why did I fall off so many wagons?
Well, after getting a PR in the Star Wars Half Marathon, which was a mere week after running 48.6 miles in the Dopey Challenge, I guess I sort of came down HARD from my racing high. Sure, I ran two 5Ks in March and PRed one of them, and I ran a May the Fourth Star Wars themed run with the local Hash Hound Harriers, but that was pretty much it. I mean, after accomplishing so many running goals, I wasn’t sure what else to do.
So, I decided to switch things up a bit. I did a full two months of Insanity while rehearsing and performing a show, and ended up catching the nastiest upper respiratory infection during the last week (which took over two weeks of antibiotics to clear up). But once that was behind me, and so was the week-long antibiotic-induced migraine, I put on my running shoes and hit the pavement again. And I’ve been running every other day since. I’m also throwing in some Insanity: Asylum workouts (I’m just a glutton for punishment), mainly because it’s summer in South Florida and the weather is not always conducive to running, but it feels good to be back out there, even when it feels bad.
I also have new goals, which include a sub-5 marathon, which is totally doable, as proven by my barely over 5-hour first marathon after having run 22.4 miles in the three days immediately preceding it. Plus, there’s that elusive sub-2 half marathon that I am determined to run this upcoming season, if not during the Wine and Dine, then during the next Star Wars Half. Of course, Tony and I are registered for the Rebel Challenge, so we’ll be running 6.2 miles the day before the Star Wars Half, but running in California is just such a sweet experience that I’m positive the Force will be with us.
Aside from running, I’ve also begun focusing on my writing and really challenging myself as an actor. I’ve already tested out some new audition material, I’ve stuck it out through dance calls (even though I am one of those people who can’t learn choreography quickly, I REALLY need rehearsal time), and I’ve sung my way through a show even when it hurt too much to swallow. Each audition and casting has become an opportunity to play, to show what I can do, to give a free performance to the folks behind the table or camera, and to do my best. If I’m not what they are looking for, hopefully I at least made them take notice, and I simply move on to the next opportunity. Right now, I’m fortunate enough to be working. And later, when I’m not working, I’ll be honing my craft in other ways.
What is very clear is that I am a work in progress, and there are always new goals to achieve, be it in acting, running, writing, and everything in between.
As long as I keep putting one foot in front of the other, I can keep moving forward, and that’s all that matters.
I did it.
A year ago at this time, I was still suffering from the effects of a terrible case of mononucleosis and barely able to make it from a hotel room to the finish line bleachers where my husband was crossing to complete his first full marathon, the one that we were supposed to have run together.
This year, I ran 48.6 miles in four days, the last 26.2 of which was part of my first ever full marathon. The fact that I completed my first full marathon after running a half marathon, a 10K, and a 5K in the preceding days seems rather dopey, and it should. Because it was part of the Walt Disney World Dopey Challenge, and I managed to complete it after 6 months of training, obtaining 6 medals in the end, one for each month, I suppose. And I was even able to walk afterwards!
Seriously, I was in more pain last week after an hour-long HIIT workout that my husband signed us up for (and I still haven’t quite forgiven him for, but I digress), so I am thoroughly happy with my results. And I want to do it again.
No, really. I want to do it again, and this time with actual time goals. Yeah, I said it. Next year, in celebration of both my husband and I turning 40, I want to run 48.6 miles in 4 days with time goals. Call me competitive, but it is what it is.
Now, what those of you who are reading this (if anyone is actually reading this) are wondering is probably this: what was it like to run the Dopey Challenge? Well, first of all, getting up at 3 a.m. every morning to make it to the corrals in time made me wonder (and even post on Twitter) why it’s not called the Sleepy Challenge. I mean, to be honest, the getting up at 3 a.m. was probably the hardest part of the whole ordeal. Sure, my quads were already sore by the time I got to the half marathon (but that was partly due to the freakishly cold weather during the first three races), but the sleep deprivation was the biggest obstacle. My poor husband Tony, who participated in the Goofy Challenge, came to the first two races to cheer me on and suffered from the 3 a.m. wake-up calls, too.
But let’s break it down race by race, shall we?
First, there was the Walt Disney World 5K.
The only folks who were timed during this particular race were the Dopey Challenge participants, which was sort of unfair. But given the ridiculously frigid temperatures during this particular race, I would rather it had not been timed. Honestly, it was nowhere near my best 5K. Now, I had the idea to run as Belle from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, and I made some last minute purchases and changes to the costume to accommodate the predicted chilly forecast. The forecast, however, did not come anywhere close to what the actual temperatures were on that frigid morning. My first half marathon was run in sleet, and I think I was warmer then than I was during this 5K. In fact, when I finally got to my corral, I was jogging in place to keep from shivering violently, and a fellow runner took pity on me and handed me a hand-warmer packet that I kept clenched in my fists for the entire 3.1 miles. I have no idea who that generous guy was, but if someone who was in Corral B is reading this and remembers giving a hand-warmer to a petite redhead in yellow, I would like to take this moment to say, “Thank you,” once again. The blessed gift managed to keep my hands warm during the race, however, my legs and feet were numb until about 2.5 miles into the race, so I had no idea how fast or slow I was going until the very end. Originally, I had intended to actually race my 5K, but that became impossible with the cold, so I merely finished at 27:10, my 7th fastest 5K pace, a decent 8:37, but not the time I was hoping for. To make matters worse, I had a migraine for the rest of the day, but it went away in time for the next day’s race.
The Walt Disney World 10K was for the dogs, but in the best possible way.
I was invited by my dear friend and runDisney running buddy Arianne to participate in a 101 Dalmations run for the Walt Disney World 10K organized on Facebook. I was assigned #57 Princess Gem, and I put my costume together at the last minute, ironing on the letters and spots as the original 101 Dalmations movie played in my living room. Arianne, her husband Kevin, and I all went to the staging area together with my husband Tony, our photographer, and he snapped the 101 Dalmation pre-race photo before we all headed to our frigid corrals. While a few degrees warmer than the previous morning, the 10K was still incredibly chilly, and this time I had the opposite reaction to the cold once the race started. I was going much faster than I had originally intended. While I had planned to race the 5K, my goal was to run a very slow, very easy 10K in preparation for the half and full, so I wanted to keep my pace well above an 11 minute mile. My first mile was a 9:32, so I stopped at the first photo op I could find, which was, ironically, the White Rabbit from Alice and Wonderland. Pointing to my watch with the time-obsessed rabbit was the perfect moment to capture, and it slowed me down considerably. I ended up finishing the 10K faster than I had planned, but still my slowest official 10K, at a 1:06:27. But I took a lot of pictures along the course, and saved my legs for the half marathon. And since it was Tony’s birthday, and we were going to spend some time in the parks to celebrate, I was glad to take it slow.
Tony’s birthday dinner at the Brown Derby restaurant
My second Walt Disney World Marathon Weekend Half Marathon was my second slowest half, but stupidly fun.
This was the first of the four races that I got to run with Tony, and it was so much fun to do the half marathon as the duo R2-D2 and C-3PO. We received so many comments from fellow runners and even though this was our second slowest half marathon, and it was still crazy cold, we had a blast and remained with our corral through the entire race. There was a woman running with a “Monster” jacket who we would pass during our hard run intervals, and then she would pass us whenever we slowed, so when we were about five miles in and running through the entrance to the Magic Kingdom, she joked, “We’re just going to keep passing each other the whole way.” Later on, during the straight stretch to EPCOT, Tony called to her as we passed her while she took it slow, “See you later!” Sure enough, we did, although I think we came in ahead of her at the finish line. But all I could think about the whole time was saving my legs for the marathon, because even though I had been running for three days, by the time I crossed the half marathon finish line, I was still not halfway done with the Dopey Challenge, and my quads were already burning from running in the cold. I had run 22.4 miles, but I still had another 25.2 miles to go.
Which brings us to my first full marathon.
There were folks who said I was crazy to run my first full marathon at the end of the Dopey Challenge, and they were probably right. However, I did it, and Tony PRed it, so to the naysayers, I say, “Ha!” I did it, in spite of the bitter cold at the start of the race, in spite of my stomach and bladder both demanding attention at only the 3rd mile (and a four minute wait for the port-o-johns), in spite of my headphones dying just before mile 19, in spite of the rain that poured steadily through miles 20-22, and in spite of becoming the cheerleader to battle Tony’s fatigue for the last 3 miles. We crossed that finish line hand in hand, with tired legs and elevated spirits. I collected all of my medals, waited in the rain for a completion photo with Dopey that I never got to take because of the weather, ordered some souvenir shirts instead, got back to our cozy cabin and cooked some breakfast (at 12:30 pm), took a nap, and then went back to the parks for dinner and photos at Hollywood Studios and Illuminations at EPCOT.
The next morning we checked out of our awesome cabin at Fort Wilderness, hit the last two parks for finisher medal photos, and then headed home. Tony isn’t sure if he will ever do the Dopey, although he is contemplating the idea of doing it for his 40th birthday. On the other hand, I am ready to do it all over again. In fact, I’m going to start saving for it now. Sure it’s expensive, and it’s really freakin’ dopey, but to go from mono to Dopey in a year is sort of life-changing, and it is proof that sometimes you can do the impossible.
And I want to do it again. But for now, I have the Star Wars Half Marathon in just four days.
I’m totally going to crush it.
Try not. Do, or do not, there is no try. And never tell me the odds.
One of these days, probably after the Star Wars Half Marathon, I am going to get that Yoda quote tattooed on my body as a reminder that “there is no try,” but for now, I’m doing a fairly decent job of living the concept. I have been doing and doing and doing, and while I was incredibly tired this week, I just keep on doing. And when I’m not doing, it’s because I’ve made a conscious decision to stop and rest instead of “trying” and failing to do something. For example, I really needed a few days off this week, so I simply took them instead of “trying” to get work done and making excuses for my fatigue and lack of focus. I had a sore throat and body aches for three days, so I made a conscious decision to “do” my body good by resting and recovering instead of “trying” to push through as I always did. And as a result, I woke up this morning feeling great and able to run a strong 7 miles.
By choosing to “do” instead of “try,” I managed to get in 39 miles last weekend in my last long training block before the Dopey Challenge while also working and closing a show. The fact that I only got 2 hours and 41 minutes worth of sleep in between my 12 mile run on Saturday and my 22 mile run on Sunday made my accomplishment all the more surprising to myself and reinforced the notion that a commitment to “do” gets results, no matter what. Because of time constraints and knowing that I was going to have to strike a set on Sunday night, I made the choice to run more than 20 miles but not to run the full 26 miles on the training schedule, and as a result, I ran a solid 22 miles in 4 hours and was able to tear down a set for 2 hours later that evening. Of course, by then, my knee had decided that enough was enough, and I called it a day at 7:30 pm, but I got through it, and I’m confident in my ability to run the Dopey, and that’s all that really matters.
My adherence to the wisdom of Yoda has affected more than my race training, however. As rough as 2014 has been in many ways, it was a year for major accomplishments in my career as an artist. I directed Shakespeare’s Othello with surprisingly positive results. I acted in two plays that were both well received by critics and audience members. I received a Silver Palm Award. Gidion’s Knot and my performance in that play appeared on four “Best of 2014” lists. I was cast as a minor recurring character in two seasons of Nickelodeon’s Every Witch Way. I finally participated in the 24-Hour Theatre Project. I have reprised a role in two one-act festivals. I was called back for several shows produced by theatre companies who have never called me back before. And while I am currently only booked for only one production in 2015, I am confident that there will be more to come, either in theatre, television, film, or directing. Why? Because I’m training for it. I’ve started reading more plays, practicing new and old monologues, doing more staged readings, taking every opportunity to “act,” to exercise my creative muscles, the same way I exercise my body regularly. And I keep challenging myself. This year I directed my first professional Shakespeare production. What will I do next year?
Who knows? But I will keep on doing. And loving every minute of it.
At the conclusion of Friday’s opening night, I said to a director for whom I have worked and have an incredible amount of respect and admiration, “I feel like I just gave birth.” She replied with a knowing look, “Yup. That’s what it feels like.” On Sunday, when another director for whom I have worked and admire immensely asked me how I was holding up, I answered, “It’s been crazy. I was a mess on Friday, totally stressed out.” She nodded and said, “When you’re the director, everything rests on your shoulders. Everything. You get the credit and the blame for what works, and what doesn’t.” God only knows but I have felt that burden of responsibility from the beginning, but even more so after the first review came out.
Unlike Iago, I have no external “seeming” to hide behind. My heart, and even my soul, are on my sleeve right now, leaving me feeling vulnerable and anxious.
Having just made my professional South Florida directorial debut with nothing less daunting than Shakespeare’s Othello, I can honestly say this: directing is hard, directing Shakespeare is harder, but directing a Shakespearean tragedy is a bitch. The language, the length, the underwritten characters and overwritten dialogues, the language, the five-act structure, the constantly changing settings, the language, the fight scenes, the layered complexity… oh, and did I mention the language? I speak, of course, of the blank verse, the rhymed verse, the iambic pentameter and troches, the enjambments wherein the actor must examine punctuation closely, the capping rhyming couplets that evoke Hallmark cards when poorly executed, and the random songs, but also the prose, which is more complex than anything written in the last 200 years. Shakespeare’s writing and all of his invented words (because who would not simply make up words when the existing lexicon just will not do?) are difficult for even the most skilled actor to speak with any sort of natural delivery, and as both an actor and a former teacher, I am only too aware of this.
From spewing prophetic rhyming couplets as a witch in Macbeth to tackling multiple characters in Henry V, I have fought my way through many a daunting monologue. In Henry V, I actually looked upon Katherine’s French scenes as a blessing for several reasons: 1) I did not have to get my mouth around Shakespeare’s typical blank verse or prose, 2) Shakespeare wrote in very poor French, so any errors in my delivery could be attributed to the flaws in Willy’s own text, and 3) the scene was a comic one in which the poor princess was trying to learn English, so any stumbles or awkwardness served the scene instead of hampering it. Such is not the case with most Shakespeare.
This was never more evident than when I was in the classroom. As is the custom in many an English class, I would often assign roles to students to read aloud when tackling the Shakespeare curriculum. However, when it came to Mark Antony’s 3.2 speech in Julius Caesar, Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech in Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet’s speech to the players, and most of Iago’s manipulations in Othello, I would deliver those myself, infusing the words to the best of my ability with all of the meaning, beauty, and weight they required. And I would know immediately if I had succeeded. I would either see the light of comprehension in the eyes of my students, or the dull fog of confusion. Happily, I got better with time and practice, and I grew confident enough to direct my students in productions of Shakespeare’s comedies. And just as in the classroom, I knew immediately if I had succeeded if the audience of high school students who had been herded into the auditorium by their English teachers roared with laughter at the antics of Bottom and the other rude mechanicals in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, or, as was the case in one particular performance, got to their feet with remarks such as, “Oh no, she didn’t!” and “Uh-uh, GIRL!” during the Hermia and Helena fight.
Success in directing Shakespeare’s comedies was just as easy to gauge once I left the teaching profession. The audiences laughed, or they didn’t. In the case of Much Ado About Nothing (which comes back into my life every few years, it seems), they needed not only to laugh, but also be touched by the blossoming relationship between Benedick and Beatrice as well as the grief Hero feels when spurned at the altar. This proved slightly more challenging from a directing standpoint.
However, Othello took the concept of a directorial challenge to an entirely new level. There is comedy, yes, to break the mounting tension, but the heart of the play is the tragic destruction of a man and the victimization of everyone around him due to the calculated manipulations of an intelligent sociopath. It is a play with a high on-stage death toll, a character who has to be perceived as honest by everyone around him even as he’s secretly plotting their demise, and settings in two different locations in the Mediterranean. Oh, and blood. Lots of blood.
Adding to the challenge, we rehearsed in one space and moved to our performance venue a mere three days before opening. The creative team worked around the clock to raise and assemble the set (beautifully and swiftly constructed almost single-handedly by Antonio Amadeo), gather whatever missing prop pieces and costumes were necessary, design the lights and sound for the show, and eliminate sight-line issues.
Were we a success? Only time will tell. One review is out, and the praises in that far outweigh the criticisms. Additionally, several friends in the audience enjoyed the show (in spite of not being fans of Shakespeare), and several patrons stopped me to praise the show this weekend.
If it was a success, then an enormous thank you must go to my Assistant Director, Shannon Oullette, without whom I’m not sure this show would have ever come together. Once rehearsals began and she understood my vision for the show, she and I practically shared a brain. She would pull people aside and give them the notes that I had written down without me even telling her, and if she spotted a problem, I would instantly come up with the solution and vice versa. She also gets credit for making all those final cuts to the script that got us down to a 3-hour running time, since I was too deep in the forest to see through the trees by then.
Further thanks go to Noelle Dibble, the Stage Manager, who has kept this massive machine running more smoothly than I could ever have imagined. Likewise, Sabrina Gore somehow pulled triple duty on this show, working as the company’s Managing Director, the show’s costume designer, and playing Emilia flawlessly without going to pieces. I also have to thank Skye Whitcomb for both playing Iago and being the company’s Artistic Director (and the reason I directed this show in the first place), Troy Davidson for being my Othello, Faiza Cherie as Desdemona, and the rest of my incredibly fabulous cast: Rayner Garranchan, Seth Trucks, Bradley Wells, Jennipher Murphy-Whitcomb, Mark Hetelson, Tim Gore, Christopher Mitchel, Reginald Pierre-Louis, Kandace Crystal, Juan Gamero, and Daryl Patrice Fortson.
And of course, when it comes to whatever further criticisms may fall upon on the production, I’m here, ready to take all of the slings and arrows. After all, such is my duty.
At least they can’t take my Silver Palm away.
It’s been quite a while since my last blog, but then it’s been quite a busy few weeks. I didn’t even get a chance to recover from the 24 Hour Theatre Project before I was playing Amy Winehouse for a second time, prepping to begin Othello rehearsals, and running the Disney Wine and Dine Half Marathon. Then I went straight into directing Othello, revisiting my Nickelodeon character, and going to castings and callbacks in between making sure I fulfill my duties to the dubbing studio. More than once in the last two weeks I have found myself pleading for more hours in the day.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m more than excited to be as busy as I am, particularly because of what has been exhausting me. Here is a “selfie” visual illustration of the last few weeks, with photos from Halloween, Boxer Shorts, half-marathon training, Nickelodeon, and the end of the first week of Othello (in that order):
(The bottle of wine is Coppola Director’s Vintage, symbolic.)
Then, of course, there was the whirlwind 12th Wedding Anniversary trip to the EPCOT Food and Wine Festival and the Disney Wine and Dine Half Marathon. I ate and drank a little too much on Friday, paid for it on Saturday, recovered enough to run a half-marathon a mere 10 seconds slower than my personal best even in a steady downpour that made it one of the most uncomfortable races ever (nothing like crossing the finish line with frozen feet and sodden clothes in 52 degree weather), and enjoyed the rest of the Orlando theme parks Sunday and Monday. My husband and I even made it into the RunDisney Wine and Dine recap video! 🙂
The next few weeks shall truly prove my mettle, or test my mettle, since I’m not sure what the proper saying is… and I’m directing Shakespeare (weep, Willy, weep). Not only will I be rehearsing for the next six days straight, but I will also be having production meetings, auditions, dubbing sessions, more Nickelodeon shoots, and this weekend’s beastly back-to-back runs of 10 miles on Saturday, 23 miles on Sunday. Chances are, I will not be blogging again until a week from today (if I survive), so until then, I leave you with the song that will help me get through this Herculean week:
I am on my way – I can go the distance!
I don’t care how far – Somehow I’ll be strong
I know every mile will be worth my while
I would go most anywhere to find where I belong.
The title to my blog, the opening lyrics to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody,” are the words that have been racing through my head since Sunday morning. I guess it’s fitting that on Saturday night I added “Bohemian Rhapsody” to my running playlist, as I only had three hours and five minutes worth of music, and I wanted to make sure I had at least four hours in preparation for Sunday morning’s 20 mile run. Who knew?
When my alarm went off at 5 a.m. on Sunday morning, I got up and did my usual pre-long-run routine, which included caffeinating, weighing myself (because I have to get an accurate calorie burn on my Runkeeper app, of course), putting on my running clothes, filling up the camelbacks with water, and hydrating with coconut water. I didn’t grab my phone to strap it into my armband until about 5:20, at which point, I saw a text from my friend Kaitlyn: “Congratulations on your Silver Palm!!!”
Even though I’m used to getting up at the crack of dawn to run, my brain is not usually fully awake even when I head out the door, so I’ll confess that I stared blankly at my phone for about 30 seconds before I called out to my husband, Tony, who was just putting on his running shoes, “I got a Silver Palm?” Yes, it was a question, because I could not comprehend the text in front of me. My husband, of course, replied with, “What’s a Silver Palm?”
For those of you who, like my dear sweet Tony, are supporters and enablers of my acting addiction (because seriously, who else but an addict quits a legitimate career after ten years to become a full time actor?) but may not know what it is either, The Silver Palm Awards are given out every year in recognition of “Outstanding Contributions to South Florida Theatre.” So obviously, I could not wrap my head around the idea that I might have actually received one of these awards. After all, I was the girl who went to magnet schools from elementary through high school for music and theatre and snagged a bunch of academic achievement awards, but never– and allow me to repeat this with emphasis, NEVER!– received any sort of recognition of any kind in the arts. As a college student and later professional educator, I again received recognition in the fields of English and Education, but the artistic achievement awards all belonged to my students. This was never a sore point with me, because after all I did not quit my teaching job to win awards as an actor; I quit my teaching job because I simply wanted to be an actor. Or, more accurately, I quit my teaching job because, deep down in my core, I am and have always been an actor, and as much as I loved teaching, I NEEDED to act.
And with each and every opportunity I receive that allows me to continue to act, I have a single goal: do the job to the best of my ability so that I can tell the playwright’s story and move the audience.
This year, I was blessed with two amazing opportunities, both of which came with additional blessings.
The first was Have I Got a Girl For You, which was not only a fantastic play by Josh Mesnik, but it was a play that allowed me to do something I do very well: play multiple roles in a single show. Because I both studied and taught mime, I happen to be a very physical actor, and as a result, even my very first professional acting job in South Florida theatre was actually playing three different women in a single play. Since that first outing, I’ve taken on the multi-track challenge many times over, from children’s theatre to Shakespeare to absurdist allegory. This time around, I had the incredible privilege of working with the amazing Michael Leeds as my director, who honed and polished my portrayals of each of the eight women in this one play so that each character was a real human being and not a caricature. In addition, the other three actors in the play are just so amazingly giving, talented, and wonderful to work with, and when it came time to close the show, I was absolutely devastated. I wanted it to go on and on and on forever, just so that I could keep on working with Mike Westrich, Sharyn Peoples, and Larry Buzzeo on a show that was so much fun it never felt like “work.” It was physically exhausting, to be sure, but each performance felt like the end of an awesome race, not a job.
The second theatrical gift of the season was Gidion’s Knot, which was as emotionally exhausting as Have I Got a Girl was physically exhausting, and was the single most terrifying theatrical endeavor I had undertaken at the time. A two-hander, staged in the round, and set in a classroom, this play about child suicide pushed me harder as an actor than I had ever been pushed. Again, I was truly blessed to have an incredible director in Ricky J Martinez, who allowed Patrice DeGraff Arenas and I to engage each other and the text in a verbal and emotional boxing match night after night, and again, forced me to be raw, honest, and truly in the moment of every second of the 75 minutes we were on stage. It was the most vulnerable I’ve ever been, and I can only thank Ricky, Patrice, and our truly lovely SM Jennifer Lehr for making such a devastating play one of the true highlights of my life as an actor.
These two productions, back to back, were more than I ever could have wished for. I was proud of my work, grateful for the opportunities, and thankful for those who helped make my performances happen.
And when I went online at 5:20 a.m. on Sunday, not surprisingly to disprove the text on my phone, since that’s how deep my disbelief ran, I read this: “CHRISTINA GROOM, for her outstanding performances in GIDEON’S KNOT (New Theatre) and HAVE I GOT A GIRL FOR YOU (Island City Stage).”
I have to say, the fact that I ran 8.5 miles on Saturday could not compete with the giddy energy flowing through my body, and Tony and I ran the first 13.1 miles of our 20 mile run just a minute under our PR half-marathon pace. After I hit my wall at mile 17, Tony kept me going by calling me “Mrs. Silver Palm,” and giving me high-fives, which got me to mile 20, even though I’d gotten less than five hours of sleep the night before. And after we got back home, I was struggling to wrap my brain around two previously inconceivable ideas: I had run 28.5 miles in a weekend, and I had been recognized for an “Outstanding Contribution to South Florida Theatre.”
And I hadn’t even gotten to the 24 Hour Theatre Project yet! By the time I arrived at Palm Beach Dramaworks at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, I was already running on fumes, but I was just so excited to be a part of the experience that I somehow made it up and back to West Palm Beach twice in order to be a witness to the whole selection process and then, of course, the rehearsal and performance. Again, I was blessed with the experience of working with Michael Leeds, this time as a writer, Margaret Ledford as director, and the talented Nikki Fridh, Joe Kimble, and Michelle Brino. I was playing with the grown ups, I had been invited to the cool kids lunch table, I was finally a part of something I’d been dreaming of for years! And the best part is, it was all for a good cause: to help cover the medical costs for longtime theatre supporter and champion Dana Castellano. We all wore teal ribbons, Team Chaos shirts, and there was so much love in the room during the performances that I felt truly honored to be a part of it.
The funniest part about this whole weekend is that I still feel like the outsider, the awkward one who doesn’t quite belong, as though this whole experience has been just a dream and I’ll wake up tomorrow to find out that I was never invited to hang with the cool kids, that I never received any sort of recognition in the arts, that my achievements are still measured in miles run and past academic glories.
But even if that’s the case, and this is “just fantasy,” it was a truly incredible dream.
This weekend was an incredible endurance test for me. I had production work for Othello, voice overs, and a rehearsal for an event taking place tomorrow evening. In addition, I also had to cover 7.5 miles on Saturday and 17 miles on Sunday for my Dopey training (yes, I am still a week ahead of the training schedule in order to give myself some potential wiggle room in case Othello makes a few training runs impossible to squeeze in). Somehow I managed to do it all, and I’m still conscious, although I did take a one-hour nap this afternoon before rehearsal. I think the key to my survival this weekend was really embracing the carbs during the evenings before our two long runs, and while I may have overdone it a little bit (as proven by the scale this morning), I was able to conquer 24.5 miles in a weekend and still do my job as an actor!
Saturday’s run was slow and easy compared to the Sunday run. Even though it was technically supposed to be a walk, I’m not sure how anyone has the patience to walk 7.5 miles. Instead, we set a 2:2 walk/run interval to keep from tiring out our legs the day before a 17-miler, and even with all that walking, we were able to do it at an 11:33 min/mile pace. The slow interval on Saturday paid off on Sunday, because I was able to maintain a solid 10:32 pace for the first 14 miles of the run. Unfortunately, the last two miles were painfully hard. Battling a head wind for the majority of the run had taken a toll on my legs, and the temperature had climbed to about 83 degrees by the time I hit the Hollywood Beach Boardwalk. As a result, my pace dropped dramatically, and I ended up finishing the 17 miles at a 10:42. The important thing, however, is that I finished, and I was more than able to walk around for the rest of the day. I even celebrated the run with a mimosa brunch!
Fortunately, tomorrow’s performance as Amalia in Freakshow requires me to be the woman with no arms or legs, which will allow me to give my legs a bit of a break tomorrow once the pre-show mingling and festivities are over. Then, I run again on Tuesday and Thursday, rehearse a one-act on Wednesday, do more voice-overs, work on dubbing scripts, hammer out more preproduction work for Othello, see as many plays as I can before they close, maybe shoot some more TV scenes, and hopefully go to some castings. And then in three weeks, I get to put in back-to-back 8.5-mile and 20-mile training distances.
I’ll be fully recovered by then, I’m sure. And in the meantime, I get to have some freaky fun.
So, now that I’ve finally caught up on all the work that had to be put on hold this past week while I was on set, I can finally update this blog. Of course, I can’t say too much about what I was doing on set (NDAs, etcetera, etcetera), but I can say that I was on the set of Season 3 of Every Witch Way, it was a location shoot, I spent nearly all of Wednesday in varying degrees of physical torture, and I had a TOTAL BLAST! Even though I had a horrific migraine both yesterday and today because of muscle spasms in my neck and shoulders that were a direct result of the aforementioned varying degrees of torture, “Mrs. Jones” was still happy to be back with the Iridium High folks for a brand new season.
It was a challenge to squeeze my training runs into my schedule, that was certain, but I managed, somehow, and I’m now looking at a weekend full of crazy long distances and crazy intense commitments. Over the next two days, I have to record voiceovers for three hours in Miami, rehearse a staged reading in Fort Lauderdale, and have an Othello production meeting thankfully near my house.
Poor Othello has been getting the short end of the stick these past few weeks, but that’s about to change. I need to get a prop list ready, a rehearsal schedule locked in, and several other details hammered out ASAP. Which is why this blog is going to be an incredibly short one.
Unlike my runs this week.
Anyway, I leave you with this image of Mrs. Jones in Season 2.
Last night while I was driving home from Delray, the cover version of the song “Mad World” began playing on my iTunes Movie Soundtrack playlist (thanks, Donnie Darko) and I found myself quite unexpectedly having a major breakdown in my car. I was not even on the Sawgrass Expressway yet, but the tears started pouring down my face as a million and one doubts and fears came crashing down on me, which was oddly appropriate considering Tears for Fears wrote the damn song that now had me bawling. However, long after the song had ended, I was still crying in my car, and then I continued crying late into the night and well into the early morning once I was back home.
So what provoked this tearful breakdown, other than a melancholic millennial cover of an 80s tune? I wish I could say. It’s not one specific thing, or even a list of things. Instead it’s some nebulous emotional trap that I’ve come to refer to as the artistic quagmire. It’s the realm of the doubts, fears, misgivings, feelings of worthlessness and failure, and every other dark emotion that I struggle against constantly. Picture the Swamps of Sadness from The Neverending Story swallowing Artax, the white horse. Only I’m Artax, drowning in all of these emotions, and I just can’t fight against it no matter how hard my rational mind keeps pulling and cajoling and pleading as Atreyu did.
Instead I see the growing collection of rejection emails, the cancelled shoots, the endless stream of castings and auditions that lead to nothing, the whole of 2015 stretching out like an apocalyptic wasteland, the feeling that I’m always the outsider looking in, the kid who’s never quite cool enough to sit at the lunch table, the terror of realizing that the one project ahead of me has become my personal Mt. Everest and I’m not truly prepared to survive the climb, or even make the return journey if I do succeed. And even as I struggle to keep from being sucked into the emotional muck, there is the pure physical exhaustion of training for the biggest athletic challenge of my life while prepping for the biggest professional challenge of my life, and still going to castings, auditions, rehearsals, VO recordings, meetings, and other people’s shows, all while still trying to pay my bills with a day job that is demanding in its own way.
It’s funny really. And sad. And proof that I really do have the wacky emotional makeup of an artist. An artist’s life is a roller coaster, all of the time. We are never traveling a straight, level path, not even when one exists right in front of us. Instead we climb and plummet, twist and loop, bank and wind, and all because we simply don’t have the capacity within us to do anything else. Even as a child, my parents always teased me for being a “worrier,” and about always stressing over things even when there was nothing to stress about. It’s true, but I can’t shut my mind off, no matter how hard I try. Which is why I’ve always been physically active. Before running, I rode a bike, and before biking, I used to rollerblade 8 miles three days a week, anything to channel the anxiety, to counteract the depression, to allow myself to ride the roller coaster that was my life without permanent injury.
Besides, it’s harder to get stuck in the quagmire when you’re constantly on the move, right?
Still, there are moments when, in spite of your best efforts and your brightest smiles and your constant motion, the quagmire ensnares you anyway. That’s exactly what happened last night, and even though I’m still trying to cleanse myself of the residue left behind from being trapped so deeply, I am profoundly grateful for the community of artists who came to my rescue, who understood what I was going through, who gave me encouragement when I needed it most, who made me laugh through my tears, and in some cases delivered a stern Cher-esque slap to the face accompanied by a metaphorical, “Snap out of it!” To be honest, I’m still a bit overwhelmed and humbled by the responses of those who took the time to reach out to me and pull me out of the darkness. I’m grateful, too, for my husband, who let me cry in his arms after coming home with chocolate to help cure me from my own personal Dementor attack, who listened and comforted and supported me into the wee hours of the morning, and who made sure that Fizzy was tucked in beside me when I finally went to bed.
Because Fizzy understands me, too.
Groomie's Groove 