What's the Best Way to Manage Heart Break?

Check into heart break hotel and be the lead in one of the most amazing stories and musicals of all time!

I’ve been blessed to be working so diligently on such a challenging and wonderful role with an incredibly talented cast. I mean really. It’s heart stopping. It’s not possible to be feeling sad about love when you’ve got this amazing tenor singing in your ear lyrics like, “all the world is only you and me.” “today the world was just an address a place for me to live no better than alright, but here you are..” I don’t care if it’s fake, you can not be sad! Ok, so the whole dying thing kinda puts a huge wrench in the whole experience, but nothing’s perfect.

We ran the whole show recently. Each time it gets better, but the Chino scene is still a mess, and I’m still finding so so so much anger and I can’t find the sadness. I keep hoping that it’s going to come, but so much is going on in my mind and my brain that it’s feeling not real. Plus, I have this haunting voice in my heart that keeps reminding me of college, and how I felt so unsuccessful. It’s discouraging. I don’t know. I’m feeling a little bit confused. Plus, I have this other big thought on my brain at the moment.

Should I move to New York in January?

A lot of my theatre friends have slowly jumped off the ship into the big apple, and just today I got an email from one of them that said, “I’m moving to New York in January. Do you know anyone who wants a roommate? Hey, maybe you can be my roommate.” She was probably joking when she wrote it, but it really got me thinking…. Maybe it’s time I move to New York. Sure, I don’t have my card yet. Sure, I could use a couple more big roles, but I’m net getting any younger. Plus, I have no REAL ties here in the bay area except my relationships, and it’s only going to get harder to make the big move.
I’m seriously considering it.

We Ran the Whole Show

We ran the whole show! I didn' t know we were going to go through ACT 2 so I hadn't gone through my script.
So I had to call line a bunch. Ugh! That's annoying. I didn't want to have to call line, but I did. My singing was all off and just messed up.

It's ok.
Next time we do it... it will be better

Love of MY Life

The hardest scene in the show for me is the one where I’m with Chino and he’s telling me how Tony, the love of my life, killed my brother. It’s really difficult to get to the place where I can really relate to that type of loss, and then go into a fit of anger and rage when the killer comes to my bedroom window. This Friday, I think I found my motivation. Instead of saying, “He killed your brother.” He should say, “He stole your cell phone” because when I left my cell in a cab this Friday, I fell apart and started crying and screaming while chucking all my crap around my apartment. – yes, like a crazy person.

The worst part about the whole thing is that I knew it 5 seconds after I got out of the cab, but I couldn’t turn around and chase the cab down. Oh, it didn’t help it was Friday and lost and found was closed until Monday. So, there I am stranded without my cell phone. I counted down the moments until I could get it back from Yellow Cab prison, and the entire weekend made me actualize just how deep my dependency goes.

So this morning I geared up for operation –Saving-Private-Cell-Phone and headed towards the ends of the Earth, (or errr San Francisco – but, seriously, same thing !) to conquer Yellow Cab Prison. This can’t be part of San Francisco I thought as I parked my car on the gravel road and headed towards the lost and found office walking amongst the broken cabs. – There have been so many times when I myself wanted to smash in the windshield of a cab, and there was something mildly satisfying seeing those broken cabs.

They did not make finding the lost and found office easy, but eventually I was reunited with my greatest treasure and I feel restored.

Life as a Singer

It turns out - I can’t read. Oh, and I should definitely trust myself a little more than I do because everyone else CAN read and learned that I did NOT have to be at rehearsal until 9pm last night. All I had to do was sing “I Feel Pretty” in front of people who have already heard me sing. So, the pressure was off – until I have to. Yet, I’ll be a little more prepared this time and I’ll be a little more grounded.

From the comments of my last post and the conversations I had last night, I wanted to clarify a few things about my anxiety I have about singing.

I’ve always loved loved loved loved to sing since I was the mere age of 5 years old and just because I sang on the way to P.E., randomly bust out into song on the streets or have the tendandcy to sing at the most random times during rehearsal does not by any stretch of the imagination make me a good singer. It just makes me a crazy person who loves to sing. There is a difference – fine line, but a difference. I am not one of those lucky crazy singers that came out of the womb singing not crying. I might have thought I was singing, but really, I was just shrieking. Never have I ever had one of those freak voices that was just plain talented… it took a lot a lot a lot of hard work and a lot a lot of practice.

The only thing that really kept me going was my sheer love for singing because I have a list of stories that would make any normal person run away in complete utter humiliation. For example: in Jr. High School, I auditioned for EVERY SOLO EVERY YEAR. At the time, I thought I was pretty lucky, but now when I think about it I really really looked on the bright side because every year there was about 10 solos offered. In the 3 years I spent there I got 3 of them. In 6th grade I got the first line of the Chanukah song, and in 8th grade I got to sing a verse for the graduation concert. The real humiliating moment was my 7th grade solo in the 50’s concert. Ooo, it was humiliating. The entire Jr High group of singers puts on this 50's bandstand type of event, and then they perform it at schools in Southern California. It was a WHOLE Elvis song, and the rest of the “cast” sang back up behind you, but you also had to do these adlib parts. So, before my audition, I spent DAYS thinking of the best adlibs for the audition. I did, I had the best adlibs, but I couldn’t sing the song. So, the solo was given to someone else. The teacher said I had the best adlibs but I was “flat on all the parts of the song and I kept just getting flatter.” Well, turns out that the original soloist couldn’t do the tour. So, she asked me to sing the solo during the tour. WHAT A PLEASURE! I was so thrilled and I practiced for WEEKS. When it was my turn to sing the song at a concert in front of AN ENTIRE SCHOOL OF ELEMENTRY KIDS or whatever, I crashed and burned. I mean it was horrible it was HORRIBLE. I think I even dropped out because I could tell it was like the tone-deaf child singing in the shower for the entire world. I even overheard people talking shit about me after the performance. It was all anyone could talk about. Cause Jr. High wasn’t hard enough right?

Then in high school, I just had to have the most talented boyfriend ever (well at least I thought so) and all my friends were just the CREAM of the crop when it came to singing and acting. I always stood in a shadow wishing waiting and hoping it would be my turn, and I’m not sure why but people still had faith in me, even though, I crashed and burned over and over and over. I used to be in a quartet, and I was the WORST one. I NEVER sang my part right and the coach at one point threw her hands up in the air with me because I couldn’t even sing the basic melody to a song with out going flat. I pulled the entire group down. I knew it, they knew it, but they were my friends and they knew I was working so hard. I think the national anthem was the only thing I managed to get, but when we sang “Yesterday” I was the one singing the melody and I dropped out because I was singing bad notes. I might as well have been singing “Jealous Guy” cause that’s what it sounded like. I managed to get the lead in the high school play my senior year, but I didn’t sing… I screamed.

College things started to seriously turn around for me. I started singing pretty aggressively with a very talented teacher. I started having recitals and I started playing leads and I had a few bad notes, but things started to really pick up for me in those 4 years I lived up in Santa Rosa. My self – esteem was clearly an issue, and I got in my own way all the time. I still fight in this battle, but we’re talking about YEARS of humiliating singing experience’s here.

After college, it took some time before I found the right teacher, and NOW in just the 1.5 years I’ve been with her, my voice and life has completely changed. I started in choruses, moved to understudy’s and now I’m singing Maria in WSS.

Three things never changed for me in the entire process: 1) I love to sing. 2) I never stopped working or trying even amongst the tears. 3) People believed in me, and they believed in me when I didn’t. –I’m still not sure why.

I still work HARD at singing, don’t get me wrong, my story is not over. When I got to my voice teacher, she called me her charity case because I wasn’t of the caliber she usually taught. She doesn’t feel that way any more she thinks of me as her protégé esk type of student and that “I’ve come so far.” So, when a fellow cast member came up to me after rehearsal and said, “have you always been a great singer?” I meant it when I said, “No.” And you’ll have to forgive me if I have mild hesitations and anxiety to sing in front of people who are extremely talented.

I Feel.. Forgetful

Sorting huge piles of laundry this morning, I thought to myself, I'll just put these two loads in before my 9pm rehearsal tonight. Continuing to pack for work, I forgot my rehearsal shoes, my script, and forgot to pack my essential cup I use to transport tea back and forth. Mieya, I'll do it when I get home after shopping at Victoria Secrets.

Come to find an email from a friend of mine, "I saw someone in your show yesterday and he can't wait to work with you tonight." What? I'm coming in at 9pm tonight to work on "I Feel Pretty." Let me just check my......schedule.....that's sitting on my kitchen table. DRATS!

"No problem," says Google Docs who safely has stored my schedule into every computer I own.

"Oh," I reply, whew I don't have rehearsal cause I'm not in Act 1 Scene 5 "America" Wait, wait, does that say Act 1 Scene 5 into "America?" Ugh, what is Act 1 Scene 5? Let me just check my......script.....that's sitting on my kitchen table. BEVERLEY!

Drying the tears from my face and picking me up from under my office desk, Myspace says, "Don't worry. You can just stalk cast members and ask them."

Sure enough, Act 1 Scene 5 is the 80 minute Balcony Scene jam packed with non-stop kissing, caressing and singing with Tony and Maria. So, I would have waltz in at 9pm watching Tony singing to his own arm. Egads! Crisis averted.

However, tonight will be the first night that the entire cast gets to hear my voice, and my voice singing the Maria material. I knew from day one that this day would take a lot of mental preparation for me including tea drinking, line studying, song practice and focus. I work so hard to get a role, I get one, I jump for joy and think, Oh God, people are going to hear me sing.

Having other people in the cast hear me sing is worse than having audience members hearing me sing because the audience members can run and hide from you after the show, and it's so dark out in the audience you can not see their facial expressions. It's a win - win situation here, but your fellow talented actors staring at you in rehearsal makes me want to jump out the window. Causually walking into work today thinking that I'm just gonna sing with my "girls" but nooooooo, the day has come!

Feel the fear and do it anyway. - someone famous said that...

Practice with Potential.

"I stopped singing in grade school because someone told me I sucked," says my masseuse during my 90 minute massage that accidentally turned into 60 minutes. The words shook me to my core until she said, "I didn't know why I stopped singing until I worked it out in psychic therapy." Um, I hope you can't read minds also because I'm starting to feel mildly uncomfortable laying naked on your table. 40 minutes later and more relaxed then ever, I started contemplating the idea of potential. When is it ok to rely on potential and when is not?

My amazing eye-brow goddess said to me once, "Potential is a mind-f*ck" when referring to our oh so awesome boyfriends. We quickly spiraled into a conversation of how life is too short to be using the phrases: "putting up with" or "he's working on this." I left feeling totally side swiped and blind sighted by potential in a lot of aspects in my life. Always hoping, waiting and wanting in eager anticipation for "something" to happen. Filled with thoughts of "stop waiting" - "don't settle" - "it's never gonna happen" - "things don't change," I walked away feeling more alone then ever.

Yet, I've heard "you've got potential" used to describe myself so many times that I couldn't imagine how things would be if I didn't believe I had it. If I didn't believe that I could change or if I wasn't hopeful, then... oh, I can't even think of the then.

So, I'm not a quitter... sadly, I'm not a quitter. I'm filled with too much hope.

You wore your suit...

...and I flocked like a bee to honey.

I'm here, and I've been writing. I've been writing one of those letters. You know, the letters that you sit and spend WEEKS writing and perfecting to describe exactly how you're feeling; then you never send it.

Here's the opening paragraph to one of mine:

As the days pass by, it has become painfully obvious that my words will never reach your ears, but these emotions that have infected my heart, body and soul and must come out in one fashion or another. That lurking eminent feeling of loss looms over me and fills me with dread. Yet, for the first time, in a long time, wrong or right, risking or not, sad, elated, scared and excited, I just plain don’t care. This is who I am. This is how I feel and I'm going to tell you about it.

aaaaand scene.

These letters can be extremely therapeutic for a young dramatic lady spending her days reflecting tenaciously on her current state of mind. I started writing this letter in a very different place. I had the hopes to actually give this letter a home, but then it happened. I felt it in the pit of my stomach and I could not control it. Up, up, up it came and out went the word vomit. That disgusting, nauseating and vile-should-be-kept-to-yourself words dripping with all this feeling came out, and I was done. Now three single spaced typed pages later, I lay at the bottom of the bathroom floor dry heaving words. Type. Type. Type. delete - delete - delete - delete - delete. (sigh)

Regardless, is it really safe to be actually inking these type of things?

It's that constant debate. What's too private for the Internet? Should you really be writing it in your journal? If you write one of those letters then should you burn it later?

It's pretty hard for me to edit myself when I'm puking up words, so, I use my journal or write those letters and then stick it in my journal. I have a few safe people on journal burning duty if anything were to happen to me. Yet, I'm still not convinced that my words will never be unread, but should I care if I'm dead? - That's how I rationalize it. I won't care. I'll be dead.

So in the meantime, it all comes out to help organize the emotional roller coaster I take myself on, and if anyone were to read it, I would say: It's your own fault! I didn't open the journal and say please read this.

What's Your Heroine?

I watched the movie “The Basketball Diaries” last night and still almost 24 hours later I have this nauseating feeling eating at me slowly as the images of a beaten Leonardo Dicapro replay over and over behind my eyelids, and the sound of “It hurts. It hurts,” ringing loudly in my ears.

Still, even writing about it makes me feel sick to my stomach, and it probably wasn’t the best time in my life to be watching it. After the movie, he said, “See. We have no problems.” While some people watch those movies, they let themselves feel better about their concerns mulling over in their mind, I do not. I tend to start asking the questions, “What’s my heroine?” Don’t get me wrong. I by no means can even begin to understand the struggle of someone who is fighting that type of an addiction. I by no means mean to come off saying, “Oh you’re a heroine addict? That’s nothing, listen to my relationship problems.” That’s not what I’m saying at all.

Instead of letting the movie give me perspective, I start thinking about all the negative forces in my life that I let consume my everyday life, and at what cost? How far am I willing to go, and most importantly, what is it going to take to get out? I think that glaring black and white moment is going to come, and I’ll know exactly what to do because the universal “they” knows how to handle bad situations and the solutions have been there all along with sayings including: “say no to drugs,” or “If your husband beats you, leave him.” “education is important.” Then the grey comes along and I think: just one more time because it’ll never happen to me. Then the one more time never comes, and the battle of the misery commences; the misery I created and continue to allow. Then the suffocating thoughts of “maybe I’m wrong” “this is where I want to be” “I’m not the only one” surround me, and the sea of doubt drifts away with me standing on the shore thinking – “I’m ok. This is my choice. I just need 5 dollars maybe 20.”

The iphone .05

http://twitter.com/beverleyviljoen

It's very addicting. You can even text your updates, and it feels like you have an iphone. At least that's what I tell myself.