The craziest week

I've been paralyzed by the weight of all the stuff I've had to write about, and it's just putting me further and further behind. I may expound on some of the events of the past seven days more later, but here's what I've got for now:

Hamlet arrives

Hamlet had its preview and opening, and it's going very well. We were still tweaking down to the last minute because, you know, it's freaking Hamlet. The cast is all wonderful, and Jeff and Liz in particular have taken some extremely bold choices and molded them into a unique and authentic Hamlet-Ophelia relationship. And how about Katie "Girldenstern" Ford being on the cover of Style Weekly? Stop it, Marcellus!

Great cast; I love them all. Three more weeks of Hamlet coming. [Andrew takes a breath.] Deep and slow, big guy.

New computer

This is the first blog entry I've typed on my new MacBook. I'm enjoying the heck out of it, climbing a steep learning curve, and certainly appreciating the long battery life (as I did in fact leave my charger at home). What stinks is that I had planned to get a sleeker, sexier, more powerful model, but learned to my dismay that it didn't come with a FireWire port. That's effing ridiculous. Mac is the preferred platform for digital audio and video applications, and they release a model without the high-speed port that camcorders and digital mixers all use?! Given a choice between buying up $500 or buying down $300, I descended. So my standard MacBook delights me despite my dissatisfaction with Apple. I'm still getting my Mac feet under me. And she still needs a name.

So is there a connection between switching from conservatives to Obama and PC to Mac? It seems like there should be.

RTCC Awards

What a thrill and a joy it was to be there on Sunday night! A big chunk of the Richmond Shakespeare contingent sat in the back, being the bad kids. It was quite a challenge chatting with the stupendous Sarah Cole to my left and with the lovely Liz in the row in front of me. I'm still a little sore from all the turning and twisting and leaning.

It's very relaxing to go to an awards show when you know you have absolutely no chance of winning. I truly own the experience of "It's an honor to be nominated." Two of the people I was most rooting for, Stephen Ryan and Becky Cairns, did win, and I was happier for them, I think, than I would have been for myself.

When the names were being announced for "Best Direction," Sarah jumped to her feet and screamed, "THAT'S MY DATE!" I win.

Sarah, mother of two, was wearing her prom dress. It was big on her.

Virginia Center for Architecture

I feel bad that I forgot to make a bigger deal with this, but I was a lecturer at the Virginia Center for Architecture's "Fresh" series on Tuesday night. I was asked to talk about creativity for 40 minutes. Jeez, twist my arm.

I have been working on a book about acting called The Five-Tool Player equating the five physical tools baseball players develop with five improvable tools for actors. This seemed like a good opportunity to kick-start that and begin to put a framework together.

It went very well, and was nicely received by a diverse audience of about 30. It was interesting how much they wanted to ask and talk about queer theatre issues, and where the line is between an edgy performance and selling tickets. I'm hardly an expert on these issues, but I'm pretty sure I bloviated convincingly.

What surprised me was how many audience members talked about how much of the material they could take personally, to apply to their own careers and lives. I didn't expect that, and it will definitely shape the writing of the book. You know, when I get all that free time to do that.

Phillies - Rays

If the Phils don't start getting some hits with runners in scoring position, it's going to be over in five.

December surprise?

Uh, I can't talk about that yet. But it's going to be cool.