Next

Auditions for "Once Upon a Mattress" are this Sunday and Monday. There's a part of me -- that nasty troll that sits on my shoulder and reminds me constantly of how inadequate I am and how self-overrated I can be -- that is feeling great trepidation about directing this show. What if I can't find the right actors? What if the right actors show up, but I cast badly? What if I am terribly short on new clever ideas, and all the ideas I've aready formulated are pedestrian and cliched and and and not clever?

I'm not at all sure I can put together a good rehearsal schedule, even...I mean, how much time is the proper amount for each of the scenes? How much music rehearsal; dance rehearsal; acting rehearsals should I schedule? And how much time is the right amount between repeating scene rehearsals?

It's (mostly) performer's anxiety, but at this moment I have, well, close-to-zero confidence that I can actually do this right; pull this off.

And I had hoped to finish both of the next passes on my novel before beginning rehearsals, but that ain't gonna happen. Still, at least the novel is progressing, and I will (try to) keep it moving even as rehearsals progress.