Tonight on a very special Blog: Twins separated by a shipwreck! Cross-dressing and secret identities! Love triangles! Pirates! Bolts and shackles! Promise of revenge! Or maybe just guest blogger Melissa Hmelnicky...

Hi there - Melissa here - and I will be playing Maria in the upcoming production of Twelfth Night! Released from rehearsal early for being on particularly fabulous behavior this evening (those that were not so well behaved were made to stay and run scenes and songs...or scenes WITH songs - oOOOoooOOOOOOo what a punishment for the evil, EVIL Megan Reichelt, Grant Cloyd, Jacob Yeh, and Teresa Spencer!**), I thought I might pop my head in to say HELLO to the Wandering Souls blog-reading crowd!

As Becky mentioned, rehearsals are now underway. I know that they are WELL underway by looking around at my room as I type this. Clothing is not put away (we are going to pretend that normally they would be), there is a Norwegian Island Pine named Charlie that is in desperate need of some watering, and countless books and other debris from my life are scattered and homeless. I have not been around to deal with the normal, humdrum, tasks of daily life because I've been visiting Illyria - by way of Edmund Burke School - with quite a bit of frequency. The result is a messy room but a happy heart and well-worked brain.

The first clump of rehearsals aside from the initial table read were workshops about themes. Workshop numero uno was led by our loverly director-man, Andy. From the themes we identified in that workshop, each cast member chose one on which he/she would present during the last week in July. Themes included: Friendship and Loyalty (Lex), Power and Water (Megan), Love and Obsession (Me - I'll share more on that in another blog), Healing (Teresa), Homelessness (Jacob), Disguise and Deception (Grant), Grief and Loss (Julie), and Mental Illness (Luke). We were asked to ponder these themes and bring in items, pictures, literature, songs, etc. and then present around our themes using what we brought.

This was a fantastic exercise not only in delving into the text to mine it thematically, but for cast bonding and building. For, though the presentations given were entertaining and informative, the conversations that came of them were golden. Without going into nitty-gritty details, it was a wonderfully personal way of learning about the people with whom I'll be working for the next few months and I fell in love a little bit with each of them.

The next two workshops were led by outside guests Deborah Kirby and Oran Sandal (I might touch on these in later blogs). Both were challenging, intense, and uplifting days. I love being physically and mentally worked and stretched and neither Deborah nor Oran went easy on us. Also - I learned my lesson that when asked to create a movement and sound - ask WHY. Chances are it will need to be repeatable for a length of time and to avoid DEATH it might be important to choose wisely...

Now we are actually blocking scenes, getting offbook, etc.. Personally, I'm working on NOT LAUGHING at the shenanigans of Belch and Agueface. I figure "getting it out now" is what I'm doing when I break at present...it's still early on...and they are both pretty dang funny, I'm not gonna lie. But I think Lex and Luke will be shocked when I am finally able to full-on bust out the stone-face. I eagerly await that day...

I've said it before and I will say it a thousand times more before October rolls around: I am absolutely thrilled to be a part of this production and with this particular cast. Not to get too gushy - but I think this is a cast of truly beautiful human beings who happen to be beautiful artists as well and I am pleased as punch to get to work with them.

On that note - I'll be writing more later, but "for this night to bed and dream on the event. Farewell."

In laymens' terms: buttery bar OUT!

~Melissa

** Maybe I lied a little here... while I was on fabulous behavior this evening (as always) - Maria does not appear in the scenes being run in the last part of the evening and THAT is actually why I was released early.