Monday July 18, 2005 - 3:58PM

COUNTDOWN TO MASQUERADE 3

This is the second time i am typing this because i just lost the entire post when i tried to send it to my blog.

I've just got done finalizing my script for the show. I've added some stuff, removed some stuff from MASQUERADE 2 and generally done some re-ordering. It is a little longer than i'd like it, so when i leave here and go back to the house (away from STAIN and their wonderful Peppermint Tea and wonky Wi-Fi connection), i have to do my first read through and figure out where the cuts are going to take place. Of course, now i'm questioning everything about the poems; the endings, the beginnings, the transitions... again...

There is no way getting around that when one puts up a performance such as this one, one holds all the cards... and takes all the risks. Still, it is a miracle of sorts that might happen at the end, a kind of birthing as you give voice to this thing and hope you're ready for it when it comes.

Rigoberto Gonzalez' book "So Often the Pitcher Goes to Water until It Breaks" is phenomenal. His remembrances are daggers, drawn out so slowly and so inexorably beautiful, that one is amazed that hurt could have caused them, so that even as the stories are told, one wants to celebrate as Rigoberto mourns, soar as this brother, sings.

You can get anxious along with me this week as i go through practicing and memorizing, timing and re-timing the show. I'll be here at STAIN every day pretty much until Saturday. Check me out!