SHEsaysWITHaSMILE.blogspot.com

last year, our performance of the vagina monologues, directed by elesia cambra, at the bankhead theater in livermore SOLD OUT! and helped raise $30,000 for the tri valley haven.

i will not be able to participate as a cast member in 2009, but will still be doing what i can behind the scenes, promoting, posting flyers, selling tickets..

VERY FUN though, to learn some of our performances from last year have been uploaded to youtube (thanks! my carolyn..)

so above is a link to my 15 seconds of fame.. such a great memory for me

and i mean that two ways. the regular way, like.. it is such a great memory for me

and this way too: i still have this part memorized -what a great memory!-

when your brain is slippery like mine, memorizing is tricky, tricky business. but i want to tell you that the director, lisa cambra (AKA: goddess of everything) recently sent me an email that said.. "can't find fact #2 monologue anywhere -do you have a copy?"

and i didn't even need a copy! i was able to type out my part (fact #2) write there in the email.

it's said in layman terms by neuroscientists that, "what fires together ~ wires together"

and what that means is, it's the really big emotional events in our lives that stick in our memory; SyNAPse together

this was a really big deal for me.. my acting debut.. and I LOVED the parts i was cast to perform

and when i recited fact #2 to a packed theatre, and heard the audience laughing ( fire!).. i think it locked those lines in my brain forever. (wired!)

I DID IT! -and i must share here, i came very close to dropping out. -very close.

because during one of the dress rehearsals; i had a nervous breakdown.

and i mean quite literary here NERVOUS and BREAK-DOWN. it must of been that all my insecurities, nervousness, enormous self-doubt, excitement -all the emotions/stress that go along with motherhood, plus.. sleepless nights, back-to-back practices and performing for the 1st time in a new theatre, they were all accumulating inside me without my full knowledge and needed release

so what happen was..

what happen was.. there all of us were, on stage at the bankhead for a full -complete- dress rehearsal, start to finish and opening night is like.. real soon.

and everyone is practicing their blocking.. improving their volume.. taking final direction.. etc.

and you must know here, that the vagina monologues is both HILARIOUS and POIGNANT.. so as a cast member, as you listen to the various monologues you go from wanting to cry about a painful truth to wanting to laugh at funny fact

and what happen to me, is that i started to giggle where sadness belonged

what trigged it.. is actually pretty funny. you see, jean.. she was rehearsing one of the more serious, grave, very sad/tragic monologues, about victims of katrina i think

and as part of her very serious monologue she shares some horrific statistics and facts and then says something like, ".. and it was shocking how little people did to stop it"

only my brain heard, "and it was shocking what little people did to stop it "

and that's what my brain saw too: little people.

lots and lots of miniature-sized little people out to save the victims of katrina. and i felt a case of nervous giggles coming on