Opening night jitters

M. and I open a play tonight. It should be exciting, and it'll certainly be fun, but it's the first show I've ever done outdoors and I'm a little nervous, not least because I don't trust the 300-year-old grandmother-in-law of the director who is running the sound cues. I have to sing a duet, pretending to be an Italian opera star. And the music cues have never yet been correct. That, and phones tend to keep ringing when they've already been answered.

Deep breaths. It'll be fine. I've been adding more and more Italian muttering for comic effect, and I just pumped my dear friend Y., the Siciliana, for offensive things to shout, like "vacagare" and "figlio di una grandissima puttana." It's in middle Wisconsin, this show, so I doubt any delicately-eared Italiophones will be in attendance.

And now I've been talked into doing another show, which starts rehearsing as this one runs. It'll be a blast; it's Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged, and I'll get to work with a very good friend. But I'm sposed to be writing more diligently on my book, and this'll mean not going to see my sister and baby nephew in August. Ah, the sacrifices we make for the art.

But happily, the new season of Battlestar Galactica finally starts this eventide. I'm recording it, of course. Anyone geeky enough to want to discuss it can feel free to post comments.