wonderful

{Dorothy and Toto get to know the Scarecrow}

i am currently seated in my overstuffed leather armchair. 

hair back in a bit of a ratty ponytail, toes bare. my grey t-shirt speaks my weekend to a t.

defying gravity. 

this weekend, i walked down the yellow brick road with a fantastic cast of 45. 

we made magic. 

in this world we created, scarecrows can sing and men made of tin can wander through the woods. lions can skip and little girls can become puppy dogs with the help of a little black makeup. 

poppies are dangerous. trees are fierce. witches can be good or bad...well, only two. giant mystical wizards might be a little less than they appear. 

and ruby shoes have magical powers.  

we also made a family. 

i sit here, a green t-shirt drapped over the arm of my comfy resting place. 

45 Sharpie-scrawled signatures. 

who knew that yellow bricks could cement hearts like this? 

this technicolour magic lingers still. 

{melting...she's melting}

i'm crying now. i miss them already. they took my heart and painted it silver.

i have brains, a heart, and courage aplenty.

it was wonderful. 

to my incredible cast and crew: 

who can say if i've been changed for the better, but because i knew you, i have been changed for good.

{i promise that there are more pictures from the show coming soon. these are just two of my favourites that have been posted so far, and i wanted to share them with you.}

Ruby

I regard the theatre as the greatest of all art forms, the most immediate way in which a human being can share with another the sense of what it is to be a human being. ~Oscar Wilde

Today is another OZ! rehearsal.

I know I haven't blogged about it a lot since it began, minus a small introductory post, posted in a fit of intense exhaustion the night of auditions

Really, I think it's because I at one point was trying to keep my personal life away from this blog. I didn't want to be the kind of person who chronicled the details of my day-by-day existence, simply because that wasn't the point behind this blog in the beginning.

But honestly, this show means a lot to me....maybe even more than any other production I've worked on thus far. That's a hard thing to say, given how many shows I've been a part of in my almost twenty-one years of life, but I think it might be true for this one.

OZ! is a bucket list item that I've finally managed to check off.

Number 43: direct my first musical. 

We open in one month from Tuesday. My 21st birthday, September 23rd, will be spent fulfilling a lifelong dream. 

It has been so incredibly hard. Much harder than I ever could have envisioned at the beginning. And I'm sure that, as this show continues to progress, I will have more and more and more and more and more moments of varying levels of emotion.

Every director has a roller-coaster that we ride from the very first day.

Yes! This is going to be amazing!

This is NEVER going to get done.

We are so far ahead!

I can't do this; it's just too hard!

I know that I have already run the gambit of these feelings more than once, and I promise that I will be doing it again in the near future. 

I have cried so many tears to my Love in frustration over this show.

I have hosted small one-person dance parties in my kitchen in the utter elation of success. 

It's what happens in theatre. 

It's a dream come true.

And so, as the weeks pass and rehearsals come heavy and fast, I will continue to click my ruby-clad heels together and whisper

there's no place like home.  

Bucket

In dreams, we enter a world that's entirely our own.  ~Albus Dumbledore, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban


I have a Bucket List. 


Actually, I think more people have bucket lists than they're willing to admit. 


After all, at first glance, it might seem silly to have a little list of all our secret hopes and dreams...


...some tiny, some huge, most insignificant to those around us.


In fact, I never planned on sharing my own personal Bucket List with the world. My list is eclectic, artsy, random...maybe, to any eye that isn't mine, it might even seem trite or foolish.


But then a post & fabulous Bucket List themed giveaway over at (life's too short not to)wear red shoes inspired me to stop being so selfish...so insecure...so uptight. I bear my soul on this blog all the time...no reason that I cannot share my dreams with the world, as well.


And so...here is a sampling...a taste, if you will...of the dreams I must meet before I "kick the bucket," some of which were born when I was a very little girl.

1.       Visit every continent AT LEAST once (North America and South America have been achieved...the rest are still to come)

2.      Read every Brian Jacques novel ever written

3.      Visit “The Wonderful Wizarding World of Harry Potter” AND buy my own wand.

4.      Cook my way through “The Art of French Cooking” by Julia Child

5.      Have dinner at the “Eagle & Child” in C.S. Lewis' booth

6.      Take AT LEAST one semester of classes at Oxford University

7.      Go skydiving, bungee jumping, or SOMETHING that requires me to leap from a very high location

8.      Visit every state in the Union.

9.      Adopt a Peruvian child

10.   Get a tattoo

11.    Learn how to make French macaroons PERFECTLY

12.   Have a handwritten-letters penpal with someone I have never met in real life.  (Grace Doolittle, June 30^th, 2011)

13.   Visit the Holy Land

14.   Write a novel that actually gets published.

15.   Make it onto the New York Time’s Best Seller list

16.   Learn how to French braid

17.   Ride an elephant

18.   Perform as the Witch in Into the Woods

19.   Perform in Wicked as ANY role

20.  Visit the Eifel Tower

21.   Visit Machu Pichu

22.  Have dinner at Caprial and John Pence’s Supper Club

23.  Meet Paula Deen AND cook with her

24.  Meet J.K. Rowling

25.  See Owl City in concert (June 30^th, 2011, Summerfest 2011)

26.  See Imogene Heap in concert

27.  Attend culinary school

28.  Get. My. Degree.

29.  Stand on a Broadway stage

30.  Meet Douglas Gresham AND have a conversation with him

31.   Meet Adam Young AND have a conversation with him

32.  Take an art class and actually apply myself this time

33.  Get to the point that I am reading my Bible every day habitually

34. Perform in "Les Miserables" in some capacity

35.  Direct a theatrical performance (Hansel and Gretel, Opening Night 9/24/2010)

36.  Open my own Etsy shop

Yes, these things may seem silly. Odd. I know they are truly a random collection of dreams, woven of my own heartstrings and overly vivid imagination. 


But I don't care. 


These are my dreams. These are my goals. 


And you can't make me smaller. 


My heart is just too big.


Let go of the world you know, and plug in the party lights / Soak your cares in the solar flares that light up these island nights / Orange eclipse, I can taste your lips in the citrus afternoon / If you can fly, don't stop at the sky, / 'cause there's footprints on the moon ~The Yacht Club, Owl City