A flea-bitten circus

Ladies, Gentlemen, Margie:

Welcome to charming Ashfield, Massachusetts (yes, you guys, I DID learn how to spell it eventually. Through trial-and-error).

Population: Small enough that people know we're Double Edge interns because they haven't seen us before and we're under the age of sixty.

Population: Small enough that we, all innocent eight of us, are being persecuted by the local library because of crimes committed by previous interns WHOM WE HAVE NEVER MET. Good ol' Puritans and their grudges...

Population: Largely farmers, largely dairy farmers. Next door to 551, our house, is a farm that raises sheep and chickens, who apparently get murdered every morning between the hours of 4 and 6 a.m. One of the sheep sounds like a very bored collegiate male. You'll hear, "(high pitched) baaahaaahaaaa, (medium high) baaahahahaaa, (high pitched) baaahaUUUUUUUUUUUUUH." (That was Regular Sheep getting interrupted by Math Test Frat Sheep).

We live with two cats, Abdullah and (best guess at spelling) Julenar.

Julenar is morbidly obese. Her favorite pastimes are lying in the middle of the stairs when you're carrying something really heavy, getting yelled at for jumping on the table, and miscalculating her own tremendous mass, thus causing her to crash heavily into stationary objects when running frantically around the living room.

For a while, three of us thought Julenar was pregnant. She exhibits all the symptoms, down to the weird patchy balls of fat hanging off her belly. We treated her really nicely for a day before finally double-checking with one of the permanent residents who informed us that, no, she was spayed and just incredibly overweight. He suggested that we start complimenting her on her figure, so she'd be inspired to keep herself up better. He suggested, "Oh, Julenar, you're so slim. What a lovely tummy." We have instead taken to shouts of, "Stop eating my cereal, fatass!"

Abdullah is this, like, 1920's mobster cat who sneaks out all the time and won't take no guff from nobody.

It is because of Abdullah that we now have fleas.
Though, I have to admit, there's something satisfying in being able to claim that I am now literally a flea-bitten actor.

Last night, two of the other interns and I went to see a local puppet show called, "Once Upon A Compost Pile." Ashfield is scary into the green movement. This show was... and I mean, I'm a fan of composting myself, as my previous downstairs neighbour will gladly tell you over a beer, but... awkward. Charming, but very decidedly coo-coo bananas.

Mother-son team, presenting a show in three acts. Act One: Their life up to this point. No joke. Recap of their life. Act Two: VERY INTENSE puppet show about how the girl puppet (played by the mother) should stop approaching non-composters with ten page flip-charts and should instead "let her hair down" and do something FUN with composting, like... oh, did you guess it? Write a puppet show. Act THREE. The puppet show she and her puppet son wrote. Encore: Puppet comes into audience and very aggressively asks audience members if they compost. He first asked this really cute old lady, who, unfortunately for her, didn't compost. This was especially uncomfortable as she was the next door neighbour of the mother. A tea date was promptly set up. The second victim was yours truly. APPARENTLY, composting isn't enough. What was my favorite PART of the decomposition process. What was my favorite MICROBE. These are the sorts of questions, folks.

So that's all for now, I think. I need to ration out my stories because it's really rare that we leave the ten-mile radius of Ashfield and I need fodder enough for two more months.

Oh-ho-HO. Very important closing note:

Ashfield Hardware: Home of

FIFTY. CENT. HOMEMADE. ICE CREAM, Y'ALL.

God blurss Ahmurica?

Love ya's.

Westmass. (Read: Westmss)

Oh, boy. I don't think any of us were expecting this. 

There comes a time in a girl's life when she realizes that she needs to tone down her imagination. She needs to stop fantasizing about things before they happen because they inevitably will not be what she's dreamed about. I think a lot of women have this revelation because they're tired of figuring out how crappy their significant other actually is, but for me, it's happened most with trips and adventures. It's not so much that they're WORSE than what I'd wanted or BAD or something, just very, very different. Sometimes, much better than I could have hoped. Sometimes, a bit of a letdown.

Before this trip, I calmed myself. I said, "Molly, do NOT get attached to an image of a, like, a tribe of free-thinking thespians who could absolutely dominate the world of theater if they weren't so grounded and generous. Also, do NOT imagine a gorgeous, sacred working environment with every instrument and costume and carpentry tool known to humanity. And, most specifically, DO NOT UNDER ANY CONDITIONS believe that you will make friends with any of the other interns. That's not what this is ABOUT, Molly. In fact," I said to me, sagely, "in fact, just try not to think about it too much at all."

But, of course, I DID think about it, and, of course, I imagined all those things.

And guess what? THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT THIS IS. It's creative boot camp. The ensemble members are INCREDIBLE, the setting is already breathtaking and it's only going to get better because have I mentioned FALL IN NEW ENGLAND, and there are at least two other interns that I'm hands-down sure I'll be lasting friends with.

We trained twice today, two hours apiece. It's constant movement. Right now, things are a little difficult because we're really following our leading ensemble member's movements, but I think it will become more free-for-all later. 

I'm too worn out to write much right now. I have wi-fi, so I'll be able to keep in touch much better than expected. 

Trips to New York and Boston will be organized!

And guess what? Guests are welcome. Just. So you know that.

Love you.

Post-birthday pre-semester jitters.

Leaving tomorrow for my semester in Ashfield. I'll study with Double Edge Theater, whose mission, if you're interested, you should google. I've been doing a very poor job explaining.

I was originally to study with them last spring and then drop out of school to pursue my dreams of being a homeless artist, reeking of integrity and week-old Kraft cheese, hounding the streets of Baltimore or Scranton or something in the name of artistic freedom (and Kraft cheese, who in this version of the fantasy I would be a spokesperson for), but things changed, as they do, and I'm now going THIS semester, coming BACK to NIU, and then taking a few more classes the semester after I initially would have graduated. So... best of both worlds, right? RIGHT!?

Remember Krymov, who I gushed about in my Russia posts? Or threatened to gush about? Don't think I ever got around to saying what I found so fantastic... anyway, he IS fantastic and his WORK is fantastic, and Double Edge is the closest thing there is to an American equivalent.

What I like about Krymov's actors and imagine I'll like about Double Edge's (I've never actually seen a production of theirs. Leap of faith...) is their commitment to movement, courage and the body. I like performances best when I can hear the actor gasping for breath, or see them sweating. My favorite kind of onstage acting is visceral, messy stuff, full of snot and fear and real, true excitement and maaaaybe a little blood, if the moment is right (a guy in Russia was delivering a really active monologue during one of the weirder war shows I saw there, and he fell off the table he was jumping on and smashed his mouth on a chair. One of the other actors, in a line a few minutes later which I can only assume was about being calmer and more rational soldiers, stuck his fingers into Actor 1's mouth and wiped real, human blood on the table. This was not planned. It was unmatchably powerful). I'm very interested in watching this style evolve and taking part in as much of it's early stages as I possibly can. I think it's a pretty new approach to stage performance.

Double Edge and Krymov also champion the combination of multiple art forms, which I think has been a long time coming. They both use Environmental Theater, a type of staging that involves landscape and audience movement/involvement (the stage's response to Hollywood's 3D obsession).

So aside from the incredible training we'll participate in alongside the Double Edge company, I and the other interns will have ample time to pursue our own artistic projects. While I'm there, for example, I want to work on an idea I have for a one-woman show that is in VERY early stages (PAINFULLY early, please ask me no questions about it or I may burst into tears of frustration). I'll let you know what the other interns are doing.

I'm terrified, excited, and juuuuust a little ready.

See you guys in December! Wish me luck and bravery!

Love y'all.