Cedar Falls

We arrived safely in Cedar Falls, where Madame Butterfly will be performed due to Theater Cedar Rapids still being under renovation after this summer's flooding. I am now living with Erin Smith, a lovely soprano who plays Little Red in our production, and we have been put up in the home of a fabulous woman named Loree Rackstraw, a former professor and a published author who recently released a memoir about her friendship with Kurt Vonagut!!! Crazy, right? Not only that, but she has original art work by Vonagut, who also happened to be an artist as well as an author. Erin and I have been given something of our own apartment in the upstairs of Ms. Rackstraw's home, with our own bedrooms, bathroom and kitchen. It's just fantastic and I've felt very comfortable and at home here, with a coffee pot and kitchen table I can write at in the mornings.

Over the summer I read the Artist's Way again, which was great because for the first time I really had the TIME to give to it and was working through many things in my artistic life that were able to be synthesized through the process. It has been extremely difficult to keep up with my morning pages so far while in Iowa, and only with starting them up again do I realize how much their absence in my life was negatively affecting me. And perhaps the relaxed schedule has something to do with it as well. ;-)

Our last performance of Little Red was yesterday, and it went well, probably my best vocally... though the comic timing wasn't as sharp since we hadn't run it at all since the Thursday before. Monday's show was cancelled due to the extreme cold and blizzard predictions.

We had a frustrating run of Butterfly yesterday, with a new set, costumes, makeup and orchestra to deal with... Hopefully it will all be better today. It was hard to hear the orchestra, and therefore watching Maestro Kleinknecht is even more important. He's a very clear and giving conductor and easy to follow. But then there are sightlines to deal with (the accusation scene has me in the far back and behind a large crowd, so I have to rely on other people getting the cue visually), obstructions from the set and other people. But you make due. We have only one more run before the show... and I believe it's an open run... and even though I'm just in the chorus, and the chorus isn't in much of the opera, it's still very important to make the show go as smoothly as possible.

Tonight I plan on going back stage and taking pictures of the principles for some possible paintings. I caught this view just before we were supposed to line up for curtain call, where Sorrow runs out to Butterfly an interrupts her suicide attempt. They are framed by the traditional Japonese doorway with Suzuki leaning up against the fram. It was so beautiful. I hope it's recreated tonight so that I can capture it and turn it into a picture.

I just realized that the two operas I'm working on over the next three months happen to be the "opera" paintings I have already done: Butterfly and Carmen. Perhaps I will elaborate on both of them as a series of paintings.

Today, since I have a day off, I will finish my written proposal for RU to skip next semester and come back in the fall. I will submit it with copies of both contracts. I will do the same for Graduate Seminar, including the link to this blog.

I have some great pictures of Little Red's Most Unusual Day that I will post in my next entry...