Starting a new blog practice

Trying something new here. I'm not sure if I'll ever make this blog live again, but I've been missing reflecting on my life and career.

Right now we're deep into rehearsals for Philip Glass' "Fall of the House of Usher." It's a fascinating piece, a mostly faithful adaptation of the short story by Edgar Allan Poe. It's my first Glass opera and really my first exposure into Glass' music at all, and I've found that I really do love it. With so many repeating phrases, you begin to feel in a kind of a trance, which is perfect for the content of this piece. My character, Roderick Usher, invites an old childhood friend back to his house, where things are not going well. He explains that an illness has come over him. He's sensitive to everything. Lights, clothing, sounds. His sister Madeline is doing even worse. She walks around the house in a near-catatonic state. In the opera she is able to communicate only by singing "ah."

We're doing the piece on a rotating stage, which lends itself perfectly to heightening psychological confusion and sometimes terror. Our director, Kade Schmidt, works in a very acting-oriented way, and the work we've done has been super intense, but all the same rewarding. Two weeks to go!