2003-01-25 - 4:42 p.m.

Not so much a staged reading as a gigantic clusterfuck

So today I was at a rehearsal for what will be not so much a staged reading, as a form of mass torture.

You see, a staged reading is this thing where you get actors to sit around in chairs, and read from scripts. The idea is to show off the play/screenplay/whatever, without having to go through the expense and hassle of rehearsing and staging a full production.

Now, if you, say, decide to have the actors in a staged reading move around the stage, in costume, with props, while they read out of their scripts, that's not so much a staged reading as it is a crappy production of the play where it looks like nobody knows their lines.

If, in addition, you decide to introduce all the blocking (that's the moving around bit), and costumes, and props, during what was billed as a dress rehearsal, and if furthermore, the rehearsal is completely disorganized, and nobody takes it seriously, or pays attention, and there are three chiefs contradicting each other, and nobody really knows the songs, anyway, and it generally looks like the world's largest clusterfuck, well that's neither a staged reading or a half-assed production, that's pretty much the world's largest clusterfuck.

I'm ashamed to be a part of this travesty that's masquerading as a staged reading. I'm embarrassed to even consider getting up on that stage. I don't want anyone I know to see it. I want to quit. I'd give my right arm to quit. If I hadn't made a commitment to do the show, or if I was a less moral/honorable/stupid/whatever man than I am, I'd be out the door so fucking fast.

I'm absolutely beside myself, and I wish I'd never had anything to do with this fucking thing.

~*~

Plus, tonight I'm going out to dinner with Mom so she can try to set me up with her jeweler's daughter.

I love my mother, but she has *no* idea what I look for in a woman.

It's going to be a long night, and when I get home, I'm going to drink.

That is all.