AAAAAH!!!! I’m so glad I worked on myself emotionally yesterday because I was overjoyed to have put our show on today. When something went “meh” I felt my feelings and moved on. I could hardly keep my smile inside when we finished the show.
We got a standing ovation, and my grandpa, who is a Colonel, said I’d make a great one. I also love it when people I know are taken aback by my aggression in this show. I am by all accounts a fun and goofy person, and Arbuthnot is the antithesis of that, so it’s fun hearing about their shock.
While I don’t do theatre for the applause, I do feel the need to interrogate them about whether they liked it. I feel less pressure, however, about asking them how I did. In shows past, I’d incessantly question people about whether they liked X or understood Y. For maybe the first time, I know I did well and that I’m telling the story faithfully and to the fullest extent. I truly just want to know whether they liked the show overall. Did you laugh? Who did you think it was? The entire point of the show is to tell a story, and while I don’t need approval, I would love to hear that it impacted you and showed you something.
On a more clinical note, I think my clarity was great today and I found myself in the moment more consistently! My focus was on the world around me, and the most I ever did before going on was prepping my body, not inserting emotions into my head to demonstrate to the audience I’m happy/mad, as I’ve done in productions before. I could have been more vocally healthy when I yelled today and my intimacy scene could have used some more vocalizations. But, overall, I’m proud of how I did.
