My Wonderful Vaginas, (l to r) Theresa Cole, Feyi Babalola, Anna Kare and Julie Barker
So, after all the weeks of hard work, rehearsing through Skype, promotion, nerves, tears and belly-laughs, Melabeau Productions’ show, The Vagina Monologues is over.
I had a wonderful time. It is one of the most empowering, eye-opening, liberating pieces of theatre and I am so glad that we did it. I give myself a huge pat on the back for my casting decision; Anna Karen, Julie Barker, Feyi Babalola and Teresa Cole formed a formidable team, each very different yet with an almost tangible rapport on and off-stage. Working with them was truly delightful. It would have been nice to have had full houses for every performance, I won’t deny that, but feedback from every audience was so positive and congratulatory and seeing so many men in the audience – probably about a third overall – was very encouraging.
But there’s been no peace for the wicked. I hardly slept on Saturday night. Although the run was over, the whole show was still going round in my head and I had to get up very early so did the waking-up-every-ten-minutes-convinced-I’d-overslept thing. Of course, when the alarm clock went off at 6am, I was in a really deep, sleep, dreaming that I’d gone to see my house in Dagenham and all the windows had been bricked up and about a dozen Council workers were milling around and wouldn’t tell me what was going on. That’ll teach me to eat cheese at night!! I had to drive to Kingston where I spent the day taking part in Molly Ann Fairley’s promotional video shoot, which I enjoyed very much and met some great people.
The journey home was a nightmare, though; the one and a half hour journey taking almost three hours! Needless to say, it was an early night and a lovely lie-in on Monday morning. On Wednesday we will, hopefully, complete casting for Into the Woods Jr, another Melabeau production, at the Brentwood Theatre in October. Auditions have been great and I’m really excited about this one, too.
And I’m getting on with the writing!! HOLIDAY READS 2 came out on Kindle last week. It’s another book of quirky, twisty short stories which I hope you will all enjoy. I’m re-working the pilot episode of Singles’ Holiday the TV series and I am moving forward with my next novel, working title The Banjo, which is all about growing up in Dagenham in 50s and 60s.
And I’ve heard this morning that one of my cousins is going to start blog!! Yes!! I am not going to steal his thunder but will encourage and promote him all I can.
Life’s good!
A huge pat on the back as you worked hard directing VM and yes I was stuck in traffic on the way home too from Molly’s video. I too had plenty of sleep on Monday