Work is it's own cure. You have to like it better than being loved. - Piercy

I'm doing a reading of Cymbeline with a company I've never worked with before: Shakespeare Saturdays.

I got the audition appointment at the last minute. A Shakespeare company I had worked with before sent out the notice to its email list, and I received it at almost midnight the night before the audition. I emailed the artistic director, and thank goodness for blackberry culture* sometimes, because she had checked her email and let me know I had the appointment before 11am.

I went to work (a children's birthday party in Westchester) and then flew down 87 to upper Manhattan. The audition was less structured than I was used to, and certainly less formal with some polite chitchat (email, facebook culture, headshots). I did my Shakespeare monologue (Desdemona), and she asked me to sing sixteen bars a capella and I went with the tune in my head "I Remember". She asked me to dance as I sang the second time, and it was so much fun and my voice was so much more resonant.

And I was cast! I was asked to sing The International Year of Astronomy Song (Up, Up in the Sky) for a Planetarium Lecture Series. And I'll be playing Guiderius in Cymbeline. Quite exciting.
The performance is on March 28th at 1pm.

Soon after I found out that a surprise party, my wedding shower, had been planned for the same time. I've always wanted a surprise party, but I also want to continue to do great theatre work and I had committed to this show. It was an obvious choice for me, and now the date's been rescheduled. Some family didn't understand- it's a major life event! it's a surprise! But the people who understand my passion understood.

I twittered about it, surprised and excited.
And then the other day, the same company asked me to perform in their concert. I was so tickled to have been asked. Until they told me the date: the same date as my wedding.
This was a no-brainer in the other direction. I couldn't cancel my wedding for a concert.

I'm sure that it's not always this easy. But this time, it was.

*Is the plural of the device "blackberries"? or would it be "blackberry's"? Notice my convenient rephrasing.