Edinburgh

Honeslty, the hardest part of this whole year has been blogging. I am getting better at it, but I am sort of a private person, who enjoys putting her ideas in a notebook, and not on the internet, however, since I need to start evidencing my own personal process, I am going to work hard to start blogging on a regular basis. So my goal is to try to post a blog once every two days. If I can manage that, I will be in good shape, the problem is that the internet is a fickle lover, who comes and goes at its own will, and I can be rather impatient waiting for it to work.
I'd go into how I remember a time before my life started to be consumed by the internet, however, I don't think that would be of any interest to any of us.
So I am up here in Edinburgh at the Fringe Festival for the first time. I have been here since Tuesday and so far everything has been an amazing, if not overwhelming experience. On Tuesday, two other members of our six member company and myself settled down in the not so comfortable seats of a Megabus at nine in the morning, from London, destined for Edinburgh. We passed the time comfortably, chatting, reading, ( I did several puzzles of Sudoku) and before we knew it, we were pounding the pavement of this beautiful busy city to find the other half of our company. After a brief tech period at the C venue (C Aquila) site, we walked a mile with all of our luggage back to the flat. Once settled and dinner was done, it was time for a good night's sleep.
On our second day, we woke early to get to the venue in order to have a tech/dress rehearsal. That was all a bit much, as we didn't get into the space when we were supposed to and things were a bit of a curfluffle. After we finished the tech, having not had time for a dress, we went back to our flat, where Lisa and Max and myself spent the rest of the day constructing last minute props and items for the show.
A Note about the show: I realize I should have blogged about this a very long long time ago, but seeing as how I am still trying to gain my bearings as a blogger, I suppose now is a great time to talk about the show.
In February of 2010, a mass email was sent out on our CSSD list serve that was calling for a puppeteer. Very interested in trying my hand at getting a puppeteering position, I eagerly replied to the email and set up an interview with the artistic director of the Empty Box Theatre Company, Ronan.
After a tense few days of waiting to hear back to see if I got the position, an email came through with great news! I'd be joining up with them and we would begin workshoping our show the following Monday. Nervous and socially anxious (as is normal) I went to the workshops, and began to get the feel for the company and immediately I fell in love with this wonderful group of people. They are passionate, kind, creative, and some of the best people I have ever worked with. From that point forward, I began to design and manipulate the main puppet for the show, a little French cardboard made man named Norman Baxter. His story is that when he was a child all he wanted to do was play in boxes, but his mother and father owned a hat shop and they were determined to break him of his box playing habit and make him part of the family business. However, Norman grew up and found employment in the local box factory, ticking and filing boxes away. On this particular day, Norman has the fight of his life with his worst fear and biggest enemy.... A Mosquito! It really is a sweet show that encourages children to keep using their own imaginations.
So here I am, my third day up in Edinburgh and today we had our first performance. It went well, although I didn't feel particularly good about it mostly because this was the first time I had used the newest version of the puppet, plus we have moved the set around so that there is not nearly as much room for me behind Norman. This is fine, I just have to relax, calm down, breathe and remember my puppet has weight and he also breathes. If I remember this, I know that I will be able to take the pace down where I was speeding up and also it will help me to be completely present in the show, not worrying about knocking boxes over....
Being here is wonderful, but it has its drawbacks. Emma and myself are anxious about getting our thesis production on its feet, and after a few stumbling blocks, it looks like we finally might be headed in the right direction. Emma is in NYC at the moment and is trying to sort everything out, and unfortunately I am out of touch, which is hard and frustrating for both of us at points. When I am making a little bit of money, it will be well worth the investment to have an international plan that I can afford so that if I plan to keep traveling and doing work, I can. As I stated previously, the Internet is a fickle lover and also extremely frustrating when you have to depend on it solely as your one source of communication.
I'm learning a lot. I am trying to see how this company functions so that maybe in another year or so, I can bring a show here. Maybe my idea for a Native American driven puppet show. I can't wait to be done with my degree to a great extent because I feel like once my paper is done, the showing is done, and my degree is in the mail so to speak, I can really begin to worry about the things that are next....:)