A magical opening night

Well, isn’t it amazing how theater always seems to fall together at the end? It’s a mystery! But I felt pretty good about our production of “Kafka Dances” before going into opening night, so I ended up feeling great afterwards!

It started with showing up at the theater to get ready for the show and finding out that the show was already sold out! The audience that ended up coming could not have been better. They had such a wonderful energy, and from the very beginning of the play they laughed along with the show (as an audience would hopefully do, in this case!).

The cast for this show is great—all of the actors on stage have an immense amount of theatrical experience, so we all feel comfortable in the support we can give each other on stage. The cast consists of Jeff McCamish as Franz Kafka, Schatzie Schaeffers as his fiancé, Alice Welling as his mother, Mark Robokoff as his father, and me as his sister. We were directed by Dick Reichmann.

The evening closed with a reception, which was just great. To top off the magic of the night, as I was driving down my road, almost to my house, tiny snowflakes started to fall. There wasn’t enough to even stick on the ground, but it seemed to be the perfect end to such a night.

We were fortunate to receive a good review in the Anchorage Daily News, which you can read of you wish, and here are some photos from the show!






All photos from this post ©Oliver Korshin, 2005

I have a place to live in Minnesota!

Hey everyone! If you hadn’t read my entry about my future plans, then maybe you hadn’t heard I’m moving to Minnesota! I’m heading out there in January, and I’m going to be living with my aunt, who just recently moved there—and yesterday she found an apartment for us to live in! How exciting is that? It’s perfectly situated between the downtowns of both Minneapolis and St. Paul, and is technically in the city of St. Paul. The rent is good and includes heat, AC, water, and trash… considering the winter, I’m thrilled that rent covers heat as well!

I’m getting excited about the move. But moving to there means I’m leaving here, which will have to be an adjustment. I have such great friends here that I’m going to miss. I have incredibly talented friends who are going to be doing theater projects that I’m going to wish I could be a part of. I have little cousins and children of cousins that I’m going to miss growing up. I just love Alaska… I’m sure I’ll be returning someday; it just seems inevitable.

But for now it’s Minnesota ho! Well… in a couple months :)

On the brink of greatness

We’re heading into the final days of rehearsal before our production of “Kafka Dances” opens this weekend. Our official opening is on Saturday, October 22nd, but we’re having preview audiences on Thursday and Friday beforehand, so we really only have 3 more rehearsals before we have an audience! How do I feel? There’s always that part of me that thinks, “omigosh, are we going to make it?” But I do feel that things are going well. The playwright, Timothy Daly, has come up from Australia to visit Alaska and be at the opening of the play. He was at rehearsal tonight for the first time… and I was just a little bit nervous! I think we all were. I feel pretty good about what we are doing with the play, but there’s this little part of me that was worried that Mr. Daly would see what we have done with his work and be disgusted ☺ Fortunately, that didn’t appear to be the case.

I’ll hopefully be posting some pictures sometime soon, but for any of you who are in the Anchorage area, please come and see the show (it’s always nice to have an audience!). Tickets are $15 at Cyrano’s Off-Center Playhouse on D Street between 4th and 5th. You can call ahead to reserve tickets or buy them at the door. The run is from October 22nd until November 19th—so come if you can! For those of you who can’t, I’ll try and get pictures up as soon as I have some.

While I’m plugging shows, I also want to direct locals to go see Theatre for Young People’s production of “The Witch of Greythorn” at the Wendy Williamson Auditorium. This Friday, October 21st, is opening night, and they will be running for two weekends—fun and scary stuff just in time for Halloween!

Some thoughts on being sick

I’ve just recently been recovering from a cold of some sort. It seems inevitable that when the seasons change, all of a sudden I get sick. I’ve noticed a pattern I have when I’m sick:

1) I start to feel a cold coming on, but I tell myself that it’s just my imagination, and if I think positively enough I will not get sick.
NOTE: While this is not always the case, it does sometimes work, hence continuing the cycle of my thinking this every time I start to get sick.

2) I clearly get sick, and suddenly all desire and will to do ANYTHING goes out the window. I can’t even be useful in my house by doing laundry or something.

3) I start to feel guilty because I’m sick. I start thinking that I wasn’t a positive enough thinker (see note 1). I start thinking that I’ve done stuff to set up my immune system to be weak (not enough sleep, not enough down time). The tricky thing is that one of these things could be true! But often they’re not and I feel guilty anyway. I also feel guilty if I’m missing work, no matter how bad I feel. I feel less guilty when a doctor has said I’m very contagious… but then I feel bad that I’ve spent the money :)

4) Resignation happens. I’m sick and there’s nothing I can do about it… except drink lots of water and chicken broth, which I proceed to do. Once I get to the resignation part, I’m fine, and I’m typically getting better by this point.

All in all, being sick sucks. You feel physically bad, and then there is a whole hoop of emotions to jump through as well. I hope I can manage to stay healthier this flu season…

Some time I cherish... and I wish I had a garage

Well, it’s official! Today was the first day I had to scrape the windows of my car. It happens every year—the leaves start to turn yellow, the days start to get shorter… and then pretty soon it’s getting colder and I start wishing I had a garage! At least there’s not snow… yet… I think we all need to take a moment…

On a happier note, I wanted to comment on something special: the gathering of friends. I think that I’m very fortunate in Alaska to have such an extended group of friends that have become an addition to my family. It is what I most miss when I am away, and it is what I will long for once I’m in Minneapolis. This extended group of friends and I started gathering together to watch the TV show “Lost” last year. My friend Matt has TiVo, and he started storing up episodes of the show, which we would periodically get together to watch on a Sunday. It has become something I look forward to. And while it revolves around a TV show, this is not the source of the joy we have in getting together, which was emphasized when we ran out of episodes between seasons and still ended up getting together. My friend Shane commented how it feels like a family gathering, which I agree with. It starts with Matt sending out an email ahead of time, proposing the Sunday to watch and asking for ideas for food. Inevitably, some wonderful souls volunteer to provide portions of the meal, and we end up with plenty of food. We always start watching the show too late, because we’re all chatting away, but when we do get around to watching the show, we all get caught up and scream at the TV when the show leaves us with a cliffhanger. There are usually at least 15-20 people there, and it’s wonderful. I’m sure other people have similar types of experiences, but those of you in the group I’m talking about know how much I love you—and will miss you when I’m gone!

Added functionality

Hello everyone! I've added a little functionality to this site, so that you can receive an email each time that I add an entry to my blog. This way, you won't have to keep checking--I mean, who knows how often I'm actually going to be adding entries to this? It's an email list that I maintain, and I will send out a brief message letting you know that an entry has been made and what the topic is. You can simply delete the email, or you can click on a link to come to my blog :) If you would like to be added to this list, simply go to the bottom of this page and enter your name and email address. The list is maintained and only viewable to me, so you won't be getting spam... except the messages from me :) If at some point you decide you would rather not be on the list, you just enter your name and email address and click the unsubscribe button. So sign up if you wish! I hope everyone is well in the world :)

My Complex

I have discovered a complex that I have: wearing glasses. This really bothers me, because I don’t have anything against glasses. I see people wearing glasses, and I think they look great (especially those thick frames, some people just look great in those). I even like the glasses that I wear and think they look pretty good on me.

So why is it that when I put on my glasses I’m transported to being the awkward 13 year old that I used to be? I can’t help it. As soon as I put on my glasses, I start to feel 13 again. Here’s something I’m sure most everyone will understand—we go through an ugly stage, do we not? We’re growing at weird rates and we don’t really know who we are yet. This was hell for me. And it didn’t help that I was this mega- skinny, big- glasses- wearing, trying- to- get- over- the- last- horrible- perm- in- my- hair girl. If I was a braver person, I would now share a photo from that time… but I’m not—do you see how big a complex this is?

Anyway, like everyone else, I began to come out of that ugly, awful state at some point…and it seems like it was, coincidentally, around the same time that I got contacts. So you see, I equated glasses with ugly, awkward girl. How unfair is that? And what’s strange is that it’s not primarily about how I look, it’s a feeling inside… it’s so strange…

The reason all of this has come up is because I’m getting ready to get LASIK surgery on my eyes in late November. I have to wear my glasses between now and then so that my eyes adjust to their normal shape. So far I’ve been wearing my glasses for a little over two weeks.

I am happy to say that a lot of the time I don’t even notice. I mean, they are a pain in the normal ways that glasses are (getting finger prints on them, fogging up when entering buildings), but most of the time I’m perfectly fine. In fact, my eyes are not blood-shot, like they normally were with contacts. Every once in a while, that awkward, ugly girl sneaks in. But I’m starting to face this part of me. I see more and more kids that I can equate to how I was at that time, and I can look objectively at them and see how wonderful they are… maybe just a little awkward, but is that so bad? So, all in all, I’m seeing these two months with glasses as therapy. I’m hoping that by the end I will have embraced that awkward girl in me and seen the beauty that she had.

Can anyone else relate?

My future plans

Well, several people as of late have been asking me what my future plans are. Future plans can be a lot of pressure! But fortunately I have some plans at the moment... and I'm looking forward to when they become reality :)

As you may or may not have heard, I did not get into graduate school, as I had hoped. So at that point I had to decide what to do. I am a firm believer that even when things don't turn out how we want, something else comes along that ends up being even more beneficial for us. So I tried to keep open to possibilities. At some point a few months back, I was in a Baha'i study course with a few other people, including my Aunt Tim. She mentioned that her sister, my Aunt Shelly, was planning on moving to Minneapolis. You see, Shelly is an amazing actor who had been living in Atlanta. Tim mentioning this to me opened up the thought... "I wonder if Shelly would mind if I moved in with her and tried this whole acting thing?" So, I asked :)

Thankfully, Shelly was more than okay with having someone to share the rent with (and hopefully happy to have me around)! So, I am planning on moving down to Minneapolis in January! Apparently Alaska was not cold enough for me. I'm very excited about it. I'm also terrified, but excited about being terrified too, if that makes any sense :)

Right now in Anchorage, Alaska, I'm working for an oil company here as a technical writer, creating training materials for some new programs that they have developed. The project should finish before I leave in January. I'm also currently in rehearsals for a play called "Kafka Dances". I'm playing the part of Kafka's sister, and I think it's going to be a great production. For those of you in the Anchorage area, it opens October 22 down at Cyrano's Playhouse--come see it! For the rest of you, I'm sure I'll be posting pictures at some point.

Well, that's enough for now :)

Valdez Theater Conference

Back in June, I was able to go to the Valdez Theater Conference, held in... well Valdez, Alaska! This was the thirteenth year of the conference, and it has been amazing the three times I've gone. The conference's main focus is developing the work of new playwrights; therefore, people who have written plays from around the country (even from around the world) submit a play of theirs, hoping that it will be selected to be at the conference. Those that are accepted are then scheduled to have a reading with assigned actors in front of an audience and are able to get feedback. Each play has a few people in attendance who have been invited to be responders who give advice on what is really working and what isn't, with reasons behind all of it. Comments are then opened to the rest of the audience and there is a small discussion about the piece. The benefit of this is that a playwright has an opportunity to hear his play read outloud and gets feedback on what types of reactions he is getting from an audience. Many playwrights take the opportunity to tweak what they've written based on some of the good advice that they've gotten.

So! I'm not a playwright, but I am an actor. I've gone to this conference in the past to read in plays. It's a lot of fun. Additionally, in the evenings the conference has plays performed. This year I had the honor of performing in two different evening performances. The first performance I was in was called "Alaska Tales", and it is a show compiled by the cast that tells stories and sings songs that focus on Alaska's history. It's a very fun show, and since the nature of the show is storytelling, the atmosphere is very intimate. The audience sings along with songs when they know them, and we all just laugh and have a good time.

The actors that are up there with me are some of my best friends in Alaska. In the photo to the left you can see (from l to r): Shane Mitchell, Erin Dagon Mitchell, Leif Sawyer, Elle Janicek Delaney, Petra Banks, Kristen Fernandez, Dennis Cleary and myself.




But there is one more! Don't worry Wayne! I didn't forget you! Wayne Mitchell (a certain twin to someone else on the stage) is the final cast member. I can't stress how much fun this show was, and the audience had a great time as well.





Here are some other photos from the show:









The second evening performance that I was a part of was a series of four short plays that were submitted to the theater conference in the past, and the evening was called "Beyond the Veil". I was in the first play of the night called "Exit Cute Ed" by Luke Krueger. Elle Janicek Delaney played my sister-in-law, and she is trying to get me out of the house to go somewhere... and the play reveals where that somewhere is--I'm not going to spoil it for you! This is a photo of Elle and me with the playwright, Luke Krueger, who was also able to attend this year. The photo at the top of this blog entry was from the play, and here are some other shots as well.














If you would like to see more pictures, particularly of the other shows that were performed in that same night of plays from past playwrights, you can click on this Shutterfly Album to see a bunch of photos.

There is so much more that I could share, but I fear that this is getting just incredibly too long. Needless to say, the conference was amazing. For anyone who is connected to theater, I highly recommened going to this conference.

Why hello there!

Okay, so I've succumbed to the world of blogs. In principle I think blogs are a great thing. I enjoy reading other people's blogs. So why haven't I started one sooner? Well... frankly, my life isn't that interesting! So why have I started one now? The truth? I wanted to add a comment to a friend's blog and so I signed up so that I could do that. But maybe this blog thing isn't so bad... I guess time will tell whether I keep it up or not.

Now I'm off to add the comment to my friend's page...

Lindsay, over and out