Phoctober the tenth

Holding out on you

Bloggers generally do not talk about every single aspect of their lives. To do so would be boring and probably even painful for everyone involved.

And it is totally understandable when bloggers do not share something private with their readers. I, however, have been holding out on you in a most sinister way: I have been withholding things from you which are most certainly public, Blogreader. The thought perplexes me as well.

Already, you might have figured out that I never bothered to tell you that my band was doing a semi-reunion at the wedding reception I attended on Saturday. We rehearsed a couple of times, brought our own gear. This wasn't a case of seeing a stage and some musical stuff and playing a spur-of-the-moment set. I knew all about it for over a week without spilling the beans.

Not so bad, if this were an isolated incident. You'd easily forgive me, I suspect, were this my only transgression.

But it gets worse, Blogreader. I have known for weeks now that I will be returning to the stage in a completely different capacity this autumn.

It seems I am doing a play, or a series of short plays presented as a single evening of entertainment.

I meant to tell you. When I wrote that post about finding myself suddenly in Naperville after an extended absence, I was there for the first rehearsal. And I meant to tell you then, but the moment didn't seem right. I didn't know how to work it into that post at all.

And then came Phoctober, and all the activity related to it, and still I did not tell you. Yesterday's "brown room" was actually where we met for the first rehearsal, and still I did not let it slip.

So let me just tell you about it now, if you have forgiven me. I'm in three short plays and also doing a monologue as a part of an actor's showcase running through the month of November. One of them is "Victoria Station," by Harold Pinter. Another is called "Game Theory" and features two men trying to win an adversarial game at a corporate retreat. The third is called "Compatible," and is about a couple finding out that they might be in love. The monologue has yet to be determined.

The irony of doing an actor's showcase after being "retired" for more than seven years is not lost on me. But I am working hard to not embarrass myself or disappoint the director. We shall see.

This certainly is turning out to be an interesting autumn, with me being asked to dip my toe back into both music and theater in completely unrelated requests. Like I'm taking a bite from a sampler platter of every creative endeavor I have ever loved. Or, less blissfully, like I have reunited with several ex-girlfriends. I prefer to try to think of it in the former context. In each case it has been a person from my past asking me if I might be interested in the thing, which I find sweet and more than a little flattering. These people think I am good at the thing they have asked me to do.

Because I kept this from you, Blogreader, I will now share an autumn plan before it is official: I am signing up for NaNoWriMo again this year. If you did not know, this is the thing where you commit to writing 50,000 new words of a novel in the month of November. I'd tell you more, but I'm sure you'll hear all about it in exhausting detail once I am actually doing it.

Busy times.

So, where the hell is the Phoctober post, I hear you ask. It's coming. You needed to know about the play before I got into the images I have selected for today's post.

I am designing a poster for the showcase, and I wanted to do something photographic, somewhat abstract, and evocative of theater. Basest hooked me up with a theater willing to let me run around with my camera, making them raise and lower lights and curtains to suit my whims. They even dragged out a smoke machine when I said I wanted to see the rays of light coming out of the riggings. Such wonderful, helpful people, who I do not thank by name or location because I do not know if this might cause them problems in some way.

So here are some of the shots I got yesterday. The poster will almost certainly be one of the first three, depending on how the copy ends up looking atop them.








Other Phoctobering:

All Phoctober posts from this site.

Kyklops examines the dusk.

Absolute Vanilla and the slow unfurling of a flower.

Taffiny hits a used book sale.

Scarlett takes us to Denver.

It isn't too late to join the fun. Just do a photo post, mention Phoctober, and come and tell me about it in the comments.