Yesterday was a day of various hysterics.

They almost turned off the electricity in Arizona, the word that went around was that the head of the Phoenix office had to physically restrain the guy from the electric company from turning it off and plunging them into darkness.

Somehow I feel that that may have been a slight exaggeration, especially since what he faxed me was a turn-off notice for tomorrow.

So I was working and working and cutting checks and entering invoices and fielding emergency phone calls and running and to-ing and fro-ing and it was all just this constant level of tension that never ceased.

And in the middle of the muddle, I suddenly had to start dealing with my show. Not the show that I am directing now, but the show that I will be directing in September, Patrick's show.

I'm doing it as a special project at Love Creek, you see, and those are produced by Le, and the playing space is rented by him, but all of the casting and everything is done by the director. I had a chance to do it this month, but I decided that I wanted two actors, Kelly and Omar, who were unavailable due to being in Midsummer, so I pushed it off till the fall.

Well, yesterday I got an email from Le forwarding an email from another director doing a special project in which she listed her cast, one of whom was Kelly. "Haven't you cast yet?" he asked, "Have you changed your mind about doing the show? I thought you needed Kelly!" which made me frantically start making phone calls, "Please do my show too, Kelly, please please please!!!!!" and while I was at it, left messages for Omar and Huda and Ann as well. I wanted Winni, but she is in another member's project, so I thought of Ann.

Kelly called me back right away and accepted, thank goodness, and told me that Omar had had a family emergency and was out of town, so I didn't and don't expect to hear from him right away.

In the middle of all this, it occurred to me a way to be able to stop begging Patrick to write another show, as well as get rid of my only casting difficulty. I did need three men and four women, and in order to give everyone two roles I needed another play with two characters who could be played by the actors who played the older man in Tiger and one of the women in Penny Drops.

Also, however, I was having difficulty thinking of actors to play the two roles in Tiger, since it needs a young, beautiful man and an older, powerful man who don't mind kissing each other onstage. I thought of an older actor who has the quality needed for the older man, and is gay so the kissing thing is fine, but is remarkably picky in what roles he chooses, so the second script would have to be written before I could even offer him the first role, and if he turned me down, I don't know that many actors in that age range with the right quality. And nor do I know that many extremely young actors either, so I couldn't even begin to think of someone for the other role.

It occurred to me, though, that if, instead of getting a new play, if I just cut Tiger and have Omar be the only man, playing the role in On the Way Home as well as Clerestory and Winchester, and having Kelly do the younger sister in Penny Drops, then all of my problems would be solved and I'd have two less actors to deal with. So I called Patrick, and he said no problem, cut away, and suddenly everything was great!

Except for the fact that Huda turned me down. I was talking with Cynthia in the middle of this, as mentioned that if Huda couldn't do it that I'd ask Vicki, and suddenly she got all actor-y at me, "Vicki! You have a role that you want to offer Vicki and you didn't think of me?!" "Well, you're a little old for Penny Drops..." "How the hell old do you think Vicki is?!" and of course the thing is that Vicki is a trifle old for that role as well, especially since Kelly, with her very very young quality, is now playing the younger sister, but she is perfect for Clerestory, she's the one that I saw in my head when I read it for the first time.

Anyway, I called Vicki, who also turned me down, as she is recording an album, so I gave it to Cynthia, and she said, "Well, I'll read it and see what I think." "Hey, you were the one whining about not being considered, now you're all 'I need to read the script'?" "Look, I never said I'd do it, I just said that I should be considered!" "Well, here I am, considering you, now read the damn scripts!"

So I have Kelly, I'm waiting to hear from Cynthia, and Omar and Ann are out of town, and suddenly I'm up and running on this piece! Who knew?

So anyway, back to working working working running diffusing bombs cutting checks and blah and blah and blah, and it suddenly occurred to me how much I didn't want to go to rehearsal that night. So I didn't.

I mean, the official reason as well as the true reason was that I was stuck at work with all these crises, but another true reason was that I am completely sick of this show and of my actor and I just couldn't bear the thought of all the bullshit that I would have to go through trying to watch them fuck around that I said to Cynthia, "Um, I'm really stuck here at work, do you want to do the rehearsal without me?" and she said, "O yeah, you know how he wants to do a run touching Greta, well, if that's how we're doing that run, we'll all touch each other, and let's see how that works!" so I left her happily in charge of the rehearsal and worked until 10.30p.

I can't wait until this show is over. I never want this long of a rehearsal period again, I'm bored stiff.

Today's horoscope:
Emotional matters change rapidly. Roll with the punches and don't expect to end up in the same mood as you start your day.

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Last Updated Fri 20 July 10:40:09 2001