Black Hole Sun

mmmm. coffee good.

Rehearsal was not a train wreck. I'd say we weren't (and still aren't) totally off book for act 1, but we will be by tonight! The director wasn't there last night, so we have today to finish memorizing.

Eleanor, who plays my mother, has a daughter at Virginia Tech. Thankfully, the daughter was at her apartment when the shootings occurred. And Staman the Stage Manager, (how contrived is that nom-de-internet?) works for the White House, and was at the Convocation at Virginia Tech with the President's Staff earlier in the afternoon.

We had some talk about the murders, the gunman, the convocation, the Virginia Tech Poet Laureate who started the healing chant that Hokies are there for each other. Eleanor had been on the phone constantly, first with her daughter, and then receiving hundreds of calls from family, friends, and acquaintances asking if they were all right. Jane, who plays my wife in this show, said that when the policemen went into the building and discovered the dead and wounded, it was to the sound of all the cell phones ringing - repetitively - and unanswered. And she started crying.

I had avoided the media saturation, but checked in with some news sources, including the LiveJournal Blog that Joe.My.God mentioned. All in all, I didn't have much to add. I certainly didn't want to bring up how much this seemed like "same-shit-different-day," knowing that Eleanor sense of safety had been so nearly shattered.

Drinking hot tea, sitting comfortably in my living room - even if it was a bit cold, and I should have started a fire - we focused on the play. We struggled with dialog, laughed at odd turns of phrases, gave triumphal exclamations on making it through difficult passages, clouded with a mindfulness of loss and fear.

Black hole sun
Won't you come
And wash away the rain
Black hole sun
Won't you come
Won't you come

By the way, my neice and her husband, are going to have a baby.