Alaskan Cock

I have to take the first half of my Written Comprehensive Examinations in Music History this morning. A professor from the Music History department at KU sent me 6 essay questions before he left work yesterday, in an email, and I am going to eat some breakfast, take my shower, probably meditate a little bit to quiet my nerves and pick 3 of the six questions and write and hour on each. This is decidedly the more difficult portion of the test in some ways as it highlights very easily the extent to which one may not know the actual history behind things and their correlations. The second part of the test, the part I will be taking on Friday, is more about memory and regurgitation—also unnerving but in a different way. At any rate, if I pass and have my '"Writtens" behind me, it will take an amazing amount of pressure off of me as I continue onto the next step. Funny, some of the things that I have to do nearer the end are actually less stressful. In fact, the supposed shining moment of the whole process, my lecture recital, is the least stressful as it showcases what I can do better than memorizing a bunch of facts and dates: sing.

My choir director last night said something very peculiar. I have been receiving a lot of compliments on how funny my little role that I play in this new musical is. The role is type casting gone mad. I play a very queeny make-up artist who runs around continuously trying to fix the hair of a television star. I guess I should take a picture of my outfit. The Woman of the Year, the musical, is set in the 80s and I am wearing hot pink and leather pants, a studded fanny pack, with a large can of hairspray hanging off its belt. It is an annoying part to play, in my opinion, but I, of course, cannot let the audience know that and try the best I can. I guess it's funny. So, in the worst kind of unintentional, backhanded compliment to date, my choir director and I are leaving the theatre at the same time, and I say, "With the look of things, I will be better known in this theater for having played a gay make-up artist than having sung the Russian Singer in Anatevka." "Yes", he says, "that's because you do this way better."

Huh? What an ass. He was always the one who was so impressed at the way I sing that part (see "operatic porno" from a previous post.) Plus, I have gotten a lot of serious comments on the Russian Singer. I get compliments on this bit part, too, mind you, but it is not to be taken seriously. Geez. This is so typical of working in a theatre, though. If you continue to do something well, people lose perspective and long for a new kind of flavor to the same old meal, even if they have been eating Coq au Vin and a baked Alaska the whole time. (I guess if I were a meal, I would be more like fried chicken. A good fried chicken, mind you, but fried chicken nonetheless.) That is why people flock automatically to anyone new in the theatre. There is an automatic fickleness about the artistic character that is very emphasized in a situation like a German theatre. But, I have talked about that in the past.