“Oh,” I said with the longing of a peasant girl at the start of a fairytale, “I wish I could take a few months off (from, what, tending to millet crops?) and just write.”
Carelessly, I made my wish. And, in perhaps an equally careless way, it was granted. Now I have to damn-well make the most of it. Right.
The show
Two of the months I’ve been awarded are, for the most part, governed by Princess Cabaret – the comedy cabaret show, already established as a winner with audiences, that I’ve ever-so happily stepped into.
We’re in the middle of a NSW tour – beginning with Canberra and Wagga Wagga last weekend, continuing with Katoomba tomorrow night, and rounding off with a five-day run at Bondi Pavilion next week. Then it’s off to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for all of August. I know, right? Like, wow.
When I first joined the show, barely two months ago, I was pretty sure I’d have fun being a part of it. I’d enjoyed watching it in a few different incarnations since early 2008 and was incredibly flattered to be asked to join them for their Edinburgh Fringe run (truth is, I nearly fell off my chair reading that email from director Brydie). What I didn’t expect, though, was to enjoy it THIS much.
“The audience stopped us in the middle of that song and clapped and cheered!” I exclaimed last Friday night after my first show as Princess Aurora.
“Yeah, they do that,” my castmates dismissed. And then they realised: “Oh wait, you haven’t done this before!”
No, I hadn’t. But I could get used to it. Just waltz into a show that already works? Don’t mind if I do!
So… so far, so good on that front. It’ll be interesting (read: all the more terrifying) to perform in our hometown next week, but hopefully the three out-of-town shows in the lead-up will have fortified me (read: been enough practice for me to stop stuffing up moves in the opening and closing numbers).
We sang for the Canberrans who loved the clever musical jokes. We sang for the Waggan footballers who loved the crass, edgy jokes. And somewhere in between we got lost, nearly ran out of petrol on a deserted road, had a key-locked-in-car scare at a servo, met with a few of bouts of carsickness, and had our bladders nearly explode outside a pub in Yass – which, incidentally, wouldn’t let us in because it was after midnight.
There was also a plentiful supply of car games, including Travel Guess Who (played with personality traits rather than physical attributes. Eg: “Do you use humour to mask underlying pain?” “Do you enjoy macrame?”), 20 questions, the form-the-alphabet-from-words-on-road-signs game, and my old favourite: the song lyrics substitution game (heart = arse, love = knob, baby = c***face, and any place name = Yass). No plebeian I-spy for us.
I was a teensy bit worried before I started this show because, compared in age to everyone else in the cast, I’m less like a princess and more like an elderly post-monarch. But thus far, be it my immaturity or the girls’ grown-up-ness, it hasn’t really factored in. Even amid the ups and downs of taking a show on the road, everyone has been welcoming and generous and a joy to be around both on and off stage.
But don’t tell them I said that – if anyone asks, they’re a pack of bitches and I’m planning to stage a coup on day three at the Gilded Balloon. I may even pee on the floor.
The job
After the whole restructuring fiasco at work, there was only one thing to do: skip the country. Actually, that had been planned months in advance and, in a glorious coincidence, took me right through till two days before the redundancy date. HA!
So I flew off to America and played tourist for awhile with my mum who had never been overseas before. We marked the occasion by springing for a helicopter ride into the Grand freaking Canyon!
After three weeks of city-hopping, show-watching, photo-taking (and sunburning) fun, I landed back in Sydney. The next day, I returned to work where I spent two semi-surreal days answering emails and tying up as many loose ends as I could.
Then it was over. Three years, one month and fifteen days after it began.
Two days later, I was on the road with Princess Cabaret.
Excuse me while I wait for my brain to stop spinning.
I’ve spent most of this week with a nagging feeling I should be doing something somewhere, as opposed to faffing at home. Though I do suspect that’s just where I’ve needed to be. Plus, though it feels like weeks, it’s actually only been two days of genuine bludging.
The words
I did say, though, that I wanted time to “just write”, didn’t I?
Well, now that I have the time… I’m suddenly petrified.
This blog entry alone has taken me days to even build up the courage to start. I figure it’s just because life has been so bizarre (in a good way) of late that I’m “reconfiguring my senses”, to steal a phrase.
But in good news, I re-read the TV episodes I wrote back in April for Script Frenzy and, surprisingly I don’t hate them. The characters still make me smile, and I still like the idea. The writing itself isn’t too horrendous either – especially for something written for quantity over quality. Not sure what to do next, exactly, but I’m hoping my enthusiasm will pave the way to better rewrites and funnier scenes (especially in the bits where I wrote “[insert something undoubtedly hilarious here]”).
In any case, I have time now. Time to make it count, Daley!
