Maybe I'll post more often, but at least the embargo is ended and I can talk about books or whatever I want again. Speaking of books, I haven't read anything in a couple of weeks, and its been heavenly! I have been concentrating on clawing my way back onto the stage. I auditioned for the 2008 season at Theatreworks, a really good local company, and am planning on several more in the weeks to come.

I am called back for production of Man of La Mancha in Saratoga this weekend. Though I went to their general auditions last summer and put down "The Governor" as my objective, they have called me back for Don Quixote. I want to do theatre because I need the outlet for self-expression, sure, but more than anything to create a sense of community I feel I've been without long enough. Not that I don't want to work in the major companies around the Bay, but I'll do community theatre, if that's what it takes. And if this company wants to consider me for a part I'd never cast myself in, well, I can't turn them down just yet.

Men are at such a premium here, and men who have big voices and know how to use them are so rare at the level of the Saratoga Drama Group (I know...I know...and it looks like Patio Playhouse, too) that they practically fell over themselves rushing up to me after my audition. If they are gonna do La Mancha, they have to have someone sell "The Impossible Dream" to the old ladies. (They are foolishly going to do Ragtime in the fall, in a community where every show has to beat the bushes something fierce to find one black man--who knows, maybe I'll get to play Coalhouse Walker?) Chief among the rushers was a man who, if I get cast, will probably become a friend but who I now refer to as "the big queen." He was adamant that I take the Quixote callback seriously "because then I can play Sancho." Well, the big queen is very involved in the theatre scene here--he is an in-demand accompanist, a costume designer, and EVERYONE knows him.

At the Theatreworks audition today, I was feeling froggy so I jettisoned "If I Love You" (can't get from the "d" of "loved" to the "y" of "you" on a g-flat and piano, to boot--I need voice lessons) and decided to do the last half of "The Impossible Dream." More Brian Stokes Mitchell, less John Raitt. So I did, and I did it well. Leslie asks if I've done the role before and I said "no," and she remarked that she'd heard there was a 6' 8" Quixote at some theatre in the south bay recently. I smiled enigmatically.

Clearly, the big queen has been projecting his desires onto anyone who will listen, as he had been the audition accompanist for Theatreworks earlier in the week. Well, I hope he gets his wish. If I do get cast, I shall be desperate to make my size work for me and not get in the way.