And now, here I am, watching the wedding of Will & Kate, and catching up on my blog. It seems appropriate. I hadn't planned to watch the wedding at all. In fact, I'm exhausted. It's been a long day. My little dog is not well - probably not going to recover - so it's been a trying and tiring day, emotionally. I was sitting here, worried, fretting, looking for some sort of distraction, and naturally, the TV led me to the wedding.
I am a hopeless romantic. You'd think that I might have a bitterness in me towards romance, but I don't. I love it. I am much more cautious, but I still believe. I think fairytales exist, and should exist, and fairytale romances can be real if both partners want them to be. We create our reality, right?
When Kylie was 1 year old, and I had relaxed a little emotionally, I started to seriously think about trying to date again. I sincerely want a home and family of my own, and more children - and would gladly sacrifice all other things for that.
Fate is amazing. It led my boyfriend and me to each other. Is that ridiculously romantic? Everything happens for a reason, even the stuff we think is terrible at the time. I have no regrets, and I have no ill feeling at all towards my ex. Sure, I was angry at the time, but not anymore. Everyone has their own path to take, ours crossed for a moment, and then when it was time, our paths continued in different directions. And then my path crossed someone else's.
My fiance and I come from similar relationship backgrounds. He, too, is divorced, and for the same reasons. We have trust issues. But we also understand each other when that happens. And things are looking up - the trust is growing all the time. Kylie adores him, and he adores her. We struggle. We work through and we heal each other. We are complete opposites, which means we help balance each other, and we also drive each other nuts sometimes. But we understand this, and we sincerely want to be better people and support each other. We make each other laugh. We pick each other up, and we hold each other's hands.
Fairytales are amazing. They are filled with romance and "Happily Ever Afters", but they are not without conflict. A princess who is almost murdered by her step-mother for her beauty, a step-mother who makes a slave of her step-daughter, a girl locked in a tower by a witch as revenge against her parents, and a sleeping spell cast on a princess by a jealous fairy... just to mention a few. Besides teaching us that there is a "Happily Ever After" (which I'm not bitter or smart enough yet to give up on), I think they teach us that we don't struggle alone or for naught: that everyone has a challenge to get through before they are rewarded with contentment, even princesses. And that it may take a while to get there, but it does come, and not without effort. I dunno. It's late and I'm exhausted. I hope it's true. It would be terrible if you struggled for nothing. And you can't be happy unless you let yourself be happy. If you're always frustrated, angry, upset or sad, what kind of person do you think you might be? So choose to be happy. And I choose to still believe in fairytales. So there.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Barbie.
As a kid, I had one favourite toy. Barbies. I played with them until I was 14. I'm not ashamed to admit that. In fact, part of the reason I love the Sims games so much is because they remind me of playing Barbies. I actually describe them as "Barbies for adults". Oh, and I still play the Sims.
I had a lot of Barbies. I kept them all, too, for my future daughter (who knew I'd have a daughter?), and my dad moved them into his shed when I turned 30. I can't imagine why. He and my brother's godfather built me the most amazing Barbie house when I was a kid that occupied most of the space in my room. It was huge... and AWESOME! Unfortunately, it was also brown. My mom informed these two guys that although brown was a great colour for a real house, it wasn't really that great for a little girl's dollhouse, so they repainted it fire engine red (since that was the only "girl" colour that could cover the dark brown). My friends from that time STILL ask me if I have that house when we reconnect. We spent a lot of hours sitting in front of it. I would even decorate it with mini Christmas lights and cotton ball snow ever winter. And I had mini jack o'lanterns... oh, the memories!
Unfortunately, we found out that squirrels and raccoons really like Barbies too, especially when they are in sheds. My beautiful Barbie house and all my toys were unceremoniously chewed up and are no more. But I'm sure that house made a great squirrel or raccoon house too. Why not? My cat used to sleep in it. She'd pull the Barbies out of the beds by their feet and sleep in the Barbie beds in the dollhouse. I wish I had a picture of that. I'm still sad that I don't get to pass on all of my Barbie collection to Kylie, but I've been "re-collecting" it from craigslist and my sister-in-law has some pieces too, so it's rebuilding.
In any case, I got a call one day from my voice over agent saying that I had an audition for the voice of Barbie. It was pretty exciting! And it was only the first of many. I auditioned, and auditioned and auditioned... I read with different people, I got lots of direction and feedback and I tried to give them what they wanted. Then they saw more people for Barbie, and I pretty much figured it had moved on. And then I got another call, did some MORE reads for it, got more notes and feedback, and waited to hear. It was down to 2 people and it was also one day before the official recording start date and I still hadn't heard anything. I got the call later that afternoon that I had booked the job. How exciting - and how terrifying! I was going to get to record a Barbie movie! And I started tomorrow!
What a thrill. Since then, I've been privileged to record a lot of things for Barbie and it is quite possibly my favourite thing yet. And it records here in Vancouver so I can be with my daughter. I got to take Kylie to a movie theatre and watch both "A Fashion Fairytale" and "A Fairy Secret" with my little girl in my arms. I've had so many lovely emails and letters and comments from Barbie fans. I've had one or two not so nice ones too, as I am the second Barbie voice (sadly, some people blame me for that, and also seem to think that I write the movies), but I just auditioned for a job and was lucky enough to book it. Thankfully, the nice people have far outnumbered the not - something for which I am grateful.
I've also done commercials, other cartoons, jingles and more session singing. Doing voice overs is a dream job for me - regular hours (not nights and weekends), time with my daughter and a way to support her, and lots of creative fun! What people may not know about voice over, especially cartoons, is that we do many, many takes, and although the "best" or "most appropriate" take usually is the one used, we do get to play too and try many versions of the same lines.
Plus, you can wear whatever you want and you don't need make-up.
I had a lot of Barbies. I kept them all, too, for my future daughter (who knew I'd have a daughter?), and my dad moved them into his shed when I turned 30. I can't imagine why. He and my brother's godfather built me the most amazing Barbie house when I was a kid that occupied most of the space in my room. It was huge... and AWESOME! Unfortunately, it was also brown. My mom informed these two guys that although brown was a great colour for a real house, it wasn't really that great for a little girl's dollhouse, so they repainted it fire engine red (since that was the only "girl" colour that could cover the dark brown). My friends from that time STILL ask me if I have that house when we reconnect. We spent a lot of hours sitting in front of it. I would even decorate it with mini Christmas lights and cotton ball snow ever winter. And I had mini jack o'lanterns... oh, the memories!
Unfortunately, we found out that squirrels and raccoons really like Barbies too, especially when they are in sheds. My beautiful Barbie house and all my toys were unceremoniously chewed up and are no more. But I'm sure that house made a great squirrel or raccoon house too. Why not? My cat used to sleep in it. She'd pull the Barbies out of the beds by their feet and sleep in the Barbie beds in the dollhouse. I wish I had a picture of that. I'm still sad that I don't get to pass on all of my Barbie collection to Kylie, but I've been "re-collecting" it from craigslist and my sister-in-law has some pieces too, so it's rebuilding.
In any case, I got a call one day from my voice over agent saying that I had an audition for the voice of Barbie. It was pretty exciting! And it was only the first of many. I auditioned, and auditioned and auditioned... I read with different people, I got lots of direction and feedback and I tried to give them what they wanted. Then they saw more people for Barbie, and I pretty much figured it had moved on. And then I got another call, did some MORE reads for it, got more notes and feedback, and waited to hear. It was down to 2 people and it was also one day before the official recording start date and I still hadn't heard anything. I got the call later that afternoon that I had booked the job. How exciting - and how terrifying! I was going to get to record a Barbie movie! And I started tomorrow!
What a thrill. Since then, I've been privileged to record a lot of things for Barbie and it is quite possibly my favourite thing yet. And it records here in Vancouver so I can be with my daughter. I got to take Kylie to a movie theatre and watch both "A Fashion Fairytale" and "A Fairy Secret" with my little girl in my arms. I've had so many lovely emails and letters and comments from Barbie fans. I've had one or two not so nice ones too, as I am the second Barbie voice (sadly, some people blame me for that, and also seem to think that I write the movies), but I just auditioned for a job and was lucky enough to book it. Thankfully, the nice people have far outnumbered the not - something for which I am grateful.I've also done commercials, other cartoons, jingles and more session singing. Doing voice overs is a dream job for me - regular hours (not nights and weekends), time with my daughter and a way to support her, and lots of creative fun! What people may not know about voice over, especially cartoons, is that we do many, many takes, and although the "best" or "most appropriate" take usually is the one used, we do get to play too and try many versions of the same lines.
Plus, you can wear whatever you want and you don't need make-up.
Another Millie... and another Millie... and Broadway Edge.
So what now? It was going to be incredibly difficult to keep performing. Especially since I was now based in Vancouver again. Shows in Vancouver might work...
I had done some theatre in Vancouver before I left, so I had a lot of friends and acquaintances from my time then. I started to do local theatre.
I'd now played Meg in 3 different companies of Phantom, Eponine in 3 different companies of Les Miz, Millie in 2 different companies and Miss Dorothy in 2 other companies of Thoroughly Modern Millie. These shows were getting pretty familiar!
I was asked to do some teaching, and I did. It was amazingly what I needed for my creative side. I enjoyed it. I was inspired. My family and friends encouraged me to open my own studio for Musical Theatre. Before I knew it, through a very zig-zagged course, I had my own school: Broadway Edge Studio. My brother designed the logo. And it has been a learning process in so many ways, besides a teaching one, and continues to be one.
And I also called up my old agent from Vancouver and started doing voiceovers again. I did some commercials and a whole lot of auditions...
I had done some theatre in Vancouver before I left, so I had a lot of friends and acquaintances from my time then. I started to do local theatre.
I did Millie again at Theatre Under the Stars in Vancouver.
And I did it again in the role of Miss Dorothy at the Gateway Theatre.
I'd now played Meg in 3 different companies of Phantom, Eponine in 3 different companies of Les Miz, Millie in 2 different companies and Miss Dorothy in 2 other companies of Thoroughly Modern Millie. These shows were getting pretty familiar!
I was asked to do some teaching, and I did. It was amazingly what I needed for my creative side. I enjoyed it. I was inspired. My family and friends encouraged me to open my own studio for Musical Theatre. Before I knew it, through a very zig-zagged course, I had my own school: Broadway Edge Studio. My brother designed the logo. And it has been a learning process in so many ways, besides a teaching one, and continues to be one.And I also called up my old agent from Vancouver and started doing voiceovers again. I did some commercials and a whole lot of auditions...
Starting Over. Les Miz & Millie again.
The brightest spot in my life was my 4 month old baby girl. She was my saviour in a lot of ways. Without her, I would've gone on in blissful ignorance. And without her, I might have completely collapsed. Because of her, I didn't have time to mourn. A good thing in some ways, a bad thing in others, but it forced me to keep moving at a time I could've stopped completely. She needed me.
I have to admit, I did get angry at first, and I did go a little bonkers. I wasn't totally with it. I started reaching out to people. I started hiding from the world. I switched between both ideas. I went through the stages of grief. Some of it was easy because I felt that the person I married never really existed. Some of it was difficult, because the person I married never really existed. There was a lot of confusion, and sleep-deprivation didn't help.
Every morning I woke up to a smiling face, and my instincts as a mom said to give her one back - so I did. We had fun. I made homemade baby food. We played games. I spoiled her ridiculously because I never wanted her to feel a lack of anything. I worried about her growing up. I felt part of me hurt inside when I read her stories about "mommy & daddy" or saw that on tv. I wondered what it would be like for her. I wished things were better for her. But things were great. She had Grandma and Grandpa and Mommy all together, and her Aunt and Uncle and all sorts of family and friends.
My friends are amazing. Again, I have the most amazing friends. They sent me so much love and support. And they shared their stories with me and their personal struggles, and a lot of them came from single parent homes and turned out to be the most wonderful people I knew, so I knew Kylie would be fine. She was clever and smart and growing and surrounded by love. Tonnes of love.
I threw myself into motherhood. And then sometimes I was incredibly alone. I felt abandoned, even with all my family and friends around me. I also pined for the dreams of family and home and contentment I had always wanted. They seemed impossible now.
As for work, I had no idea what to do. I couldn't imagine going back to New York with a 4 month old, finding a nanny, trying to get a job and doing it alone, with no savings to work with. My agents were very supportive - they kept submitting for me and I flew to New York and LA and auditioned for a few things, but none of it panned out. I wasn't very focused either. I wasn't sure how I would manage it if I actually DID land a job somewhere and had to make a new home with a baby by myself. I focused on Kylie mostly, and I'm glad I did. I made a decision to just be her mom.
When Kylie was just a year old, I was asked to do Les Miserables again in St. Louis with some of my old castmates. My mom agreed to come with me - and it was only for 3 weeks, so we did it. It felt good to perform. It felt good to earn a paycheque. But it felt strange to leave my little girl in a strange corporate apartment with my poor mom dragged along for the ride. Kylie is a great traveler and real adventurer, so she loved the trips. She adapted quickly, and as long as she had Mommy and Grandma, she was happy. And the Backyardigans.
Kylie in the Rehearsal Studio in St. Louis.
Shortly after that, I went down to San Diego to do Thoroughly Modern Millie at the Welk Theatre for 4 months. Mom came too. We drove down with Kylie and stayed at a Holiday Inn for 4 months with a 14 month old. We went to Disneyland a lot. Kylie had her first Halloween Trick or Treating experience in a hotel hallway, but she knew the fellow Millie cast members' doors she knocked on. She was spoiled rotten again.
Kylie's hotel home for 4 months.
I came back to Vancouver with a little bit of money in the bank again, and a more realistic picture of a performing career as a mom. Grandma wasn't going to come with me and become my live-in nanny. This was going to be very hard. I was going to have to find a new way to do this.
I have to admit, I did get angry at first, and I did go a little bonkers. I wasn't totally with it. I started reaching out to people. I started hiding from the world. I switched between both ideas. I went through the stages of grief. Some of it was easy because I felt that the person I married never really existed. Some of it was difficult, because the person I married never really existed. There was a lot of confusion, and sleep-deprivation didn't help.
Every morning I woke up to a smiling face, and my instincts as a mom said to give her one back - so I did. We had fun. I made homemade baby food. We played games. I spoiled her ridiculously because I never wanted her to feel a lack of anything. I worried about her growing up. I felt part of me hurt inside when I read her stories about "mommy & daddy" or saw that on tv. I wondered what it would be like for her. I wished things were better for her. But things were great. She had Grandma and Grandpa and Mommy all together, and her Aunt and Uncle and all sorts of family and friends.
My friends are amazing. Again, I have the most amazing friends. They sent me so much love and support. And they shared their stories with me and their personal struggles, and a lot of them came from single parent homes and turned out to be the most wonderful people I knew, so I knew Kylie would be fine. She was clever and smart and growing and surrounded by love. Tonnes of love.
I threw myself into motherhood. And then sometimes I was incredibly alone. I felt abandoned, even with all my family and friends around me. I also pined for the dreams of family and home and contentment I had always wanted. They seemed impossible now.
As for work, I had no idea what to do. I couldn't imagine going back to New York with a 4 month old, finding a nanny, trying to get a job and doing it alone, with no savings to work with. My agents were very supportive - they kept submitting for me and I flew to New York and LA and auditioned for a few things, but none of it panned out. I wasn't very focused either. I wasn't sure how I would manage it if I actually DID land a job somewhere and had to make a new home with a baby by myself. I focused on Kylie mostly, and I'm glad I did. I made a decision to just be her mom.
When Kylie was just a year old, I was asked to do Les Miserables again in St. Louis with some of my old castmates. My mom agreed to come with me - and it was only for 3 weeks, so we did it. It felt good to perform. It felt good to earn a paycheque. But it felt strange to leave my little girl in a strange corporate apartment with my poor mom dragged along for the ride. Kylie is a great traveler and real adventurer, so she loved the trips. She adapted quickly, and as long as she had Mommy and Grandma, she was happy. And the Backyardigans.
Kylie in the Rehearsal Studio in St. Louis.
Shortly after that, I went down to San Diego to do Thoroughly Modern Millie at the Welk Theatre for 4 months. Mom came too. We drove down with Kylie and stayed at a Holiday Inn for 4 months with a 14 month old. We went to Disneyland a lot. Kylie had her first Halloween Trick or Treating experience in a hotel hallway, but she knew the fellow Millie cast members' doors she knocked on. She was spoiled rotten again.
Kylie's hotel home for 4 months.
I came back to Vancouver with a little bit of money in the bank again, and a more realistic picture of a performing career as a mom. Grandma wasn't going to come with me and become my live-in nanny. This was going to be very hard. I was going to have to find a new way to do this.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Home Again - and the Unraveling of Everything.
There were a lot of things that happened now. I was learning to be a mother. I was learning who this baby was that now depended on me. I was learning who my husband was.
Kylie was wonderful. Maybe I look back at it with rose-coloured glasses, but she was a pretty great baby. She was (IS!) high maintenance, but she was (IS!) good-tempered. Everything about taking care of her I loved.
Her pediatrician was running a lot of tests on her. His office was walking distance from my apartment, but he lost her blood tests (she needed blood tests?) and they had to be redone, and then he requested more. I was getting nervous. I switched to another pediatrician who confirmed what I had suspected. He liked to run tests for money. I longed for Canada and my family doctor.
My husband was American and I was Canadian with a work permit, but not a Green Card, so we applied when we got engaged. It was right after 9/11, so the process was extremely elongated and confused and nobody knew exactly what was going on with immigration. The name changed from the INS to The Department of Homeland Security, and I jumped through a lot of hoops. We finally received our "Green Card Appointment Notice" 4 years later for a week after Kylie was born at 7am. Pretty early! Thank goodness I had a baby.
A Green Card Appointment is where a married couple is interviewed by someone at the INS/Dept. of HS to confirm the marriage is legit and not for immigration purposes. You have to bring in your bank statements that prove you have joint accounts, joint utility bills (who has joint utility bills?), and photos of your wedding and yourselves together in different casual settings to prove you actually are married. All of our finances were communal.
The night before our Green Card Appointment, my husband didn't come home from work. I knew he had a recruiting event, so I figured he'd be home around 9pm. He didn't show up until 4am actually, and he was drunk. I was confused. He wasn't a drinker. It was very strange behaviour, especially since my mom was still with us helping out. He immediately started going through files to get our paperwork together, and didn't have much to say about where he had been except that "everyone wanted to buy me a drink to celebrate my new daughter's birth." Weird.
We went to the appointment and he reeked of liquor. I was totally confused and kind of upset. Anyway, we did the interview and a few weeks later I got my green card. I guess a slightly tiffed couple is more realistic than a lovey-dovey one after 7 years. Ha!
Stranger things happened, and if I ever write a real memoir, it will have a lot more detail than this blog, but one day he came home and said we should move back to Vancouver as soon as we can. I was surprised. We had a lease, he had a job, we had a new baby - but he went ahead and gave notice and arranged for the apartment to go and told me to set about selling our furniture on craigslist. I did. We packed up and got our plane tickets and it all seemed very surreal and very quick. My husband was planning to come back to Vancouver with us this first time, but he couldn't leave work that soon (again, why are we moving right now?), so he was going to return, work another month and then finally join us for good after that. I was totally confused. But I was also sleep-deprived and taking care of a 1 month old baby.
Around this same time, there was the shoe bomber - remember him? So two days before we were supposed to fly out, the new security measures went into effect. No liquids. No anything. We were moving back to Vancouver with a baby, 2 dogs, 2 cats and all of our things and this was looking pretty difficult. Thankfully, the airline understood, refunded us our tickets and we rented a car.
The drive was awkward and silent. There was something wrong and very strange. I remember driving through Chicago and I can still picture the high rise building I was looking at when he told me, very casually, as if he had already told me, that he'd be coming back to Vancouver in 3 months, at the end of the year. Now I was starting to get angry. I asked him why he didn't tell me that before we left, and why we were moving if he wasn't coming for another 3 months? Didn't he want to see his baby growing up? He was going to miss all of her infanthood. We could've just stayed in New York until he was finished with work. He just stuck to his guns and told me that this was better because he could get a cheap place to stay and bank all the rest of his salary for the transition to Vancouver. It all seemed very odd.
We got to Vancouver, and I was so happy to see my parents and my home! We had what was packed into the car, and my husband was going to go back to NYC and pack up the rest of the furniture and baby gear into a POD which would come to my parents' place in the next month. It was the first week of August, and Kylie was 2 months old. He stayed a week and went back to New York.
I started to get emails from him about staying another year in New York. They were offering him all kinds of benefits and bonuses if he would stay. I told him that Kylie & I should move back there then, and he always refused, saying he could bank more money for us this way and we should stay with my parents. I worried about him missing the first year of his daughter's life. He promised to fly back once a month. It just wasn't right.
I loved being home though. There was grass, and parks. Vancouver in August is fantastic - the weather is gorgeous, the food is amazing, and it was BBQs and reunions and family and comfort. My friends and family threw me a baby shower. I love Kylie's face in this picture - she is really unimpressed by the hat. At 2 months old, she already had personality galore. Kylie was doing well and my family doctor was her doctor now. Things were great - except that we didn't have the 3rd member of our family with us.
He didn't come to visit again until October. And this time, I could tell something was very wrong. He dropped the bomb then. "I'm not in love with you anymore." He went on to tell me that he had met a bartender and he was confused because he wanted to follow through on it. He asked for permission to date other people. I was shell-shocked. And then he was gone, back to New York, without much explanation except that he was confused.
The POD had arrived with our things in it - including our files - so I started to look through them. There were strange charges on the bills, there were phone calls to numbers all over the US, 1-800 numbers and all sorts of strange activity. And then, after some help from friends, conversations with people and conversations with him, it all came to light.
He had been having affairs for quite some time. He was a member of dating services, various other services and the homebody husband that I knew had spent a lot of money at nightclubs, bars, jewelry stores and other establishments. All the time that I had been working on weekends and from 6-12am, he had been partying. All the money was gone from the bank accounts. It was over. And everything was gone.
Almost overnight I went from being a successful actress on Broadway to an unemployed, broke, single-mom living with her parents. Awesome.
Kylie was wonderful. Maybe I look back at it with rose-coloured glasses, but she was a pretty great baby. She was (IS!) high maintenance, but she was (IS!) good-tempered. Everything about taking care of her I loved.
Her pediatrician was running a lot of tests on her. His office was walking distance from my apartment, but he lost her blood tests (she needed blood tests?) and they had to be redone, and then he requested more. I was getting nervous. I switched to another pediatrician who confirmed what I had suspected. He liked to run tests for money. I longed for Canada and my family doctor.
My husband was American and I was Canadian with a work permit, but not a Green Card, so we applied when we got engaged. It was right after 9/11, so the process was extremely elongated and confused and nobody knew exactly what was going on with immigration. The name changed from the INS to The Department of Homeland Security, and I jumped through a lot of hoops. We finally received our "Green Card Appointment Notice" 4 years later for a week after Kylie was born at 7am. Pretty early! Thank goodness I had a baby.
A Green Card Appointment is where a married couple is interviewed by someone at the INS/Dept. of HS to confirm the marriage is legit and not for immigration purposes. You have to bring in your bank statements that prove you have joint accounts, joint utility bills (who has joint utility bills?), and photos of your wedding and yourselves together in different casual settings to prove you actually are married. All of our finances were communal.
The night before our Green Card Appointment, my husband didn't come home from work. I knew he had a recruiting event, so I figured he'd be home around 9pm. He didn't show up until 4am actually, and he was drunk. I was confused. He wasn't a drinker. It was very strange behaviour, especially since my mom was still with us helping out. He immediately started going through files to get our paperwork together, and didn't have much to say about where he had been except that "everyone wanted to buy me a drink to celebrate my new daughter's birth." Weird.
We went to the appointment and he reeked of liquor. I was totally confused and kind of upset. Anyway, we did the interview and a few weeks later I got my green card. I guess a slightly tiffed couple is more realistic than a lovey-dovey one after 7 years. Ha!
Stranger things happened, and if I ever write a real memoir, it will have a lot more detail than this blog, but one day he came home and said we should move back to Vancouver as soon as we can. I was surprised. We had a lease, he had a job, we had a new baby - but he went ahead and gave notice and arranged for the apartment to go and told me to set about selling our furniture on craigslist. I did. We packed up and got our plane tickets and it all seemed very surreal and very quick. My husband was planning to come back to Vancouver with us this first time, but he couldn't leave work that soon (again, why are we moving right now?), so he was going to return, work another month and then finally join us for good after that. I was totally confused. But I was also sleep-deprived and taking care of a 1 month old baby.
Around this same time, there was the shoe bomber - remember him? So two days before we were supposed to fly out, the new security measures went into effect. No liquids. No anything. We were moving back to Vancouver with a baby, 2 dogs, 2 cats and all of our things and this was looking pretty difficult. Thankfully, the airline understood, refunded us our tickets and we rented a car.
The drive was awkward and silent. There was something wrong and very strange. I remember driving through Chicago and I can still picture the high rise building I was looking at when he told me, very casually, as if he had already told me, that he'd be coming back to Vancouver in 3 months, at the end of the year. Now I was starting to get angry. I asked him why he didn't tell me that before we left, and why we were moving if he wasn't coming for another 3 months? Didn't he want to see his baby growing up? He was going to miss all of her infanthood. We could've just stayed in New York until he was finished with work. He just stuck to his guns and told me that this was better because he could get a cheap place to stay and bank all the rest of his salary for the transition to Vancouver. It all seemed very odd.
We got to Vancouver, and I was so happy to see my parents and my home! We had what was packed into the car, and my husband was going to go back to NYC and pack up the rest of the furniture and baby gear into a POD which would come to my parents' place in the next month. It was the first week of August, and Kylie was 2 months old. He stayed a week and went back to New York.
I started to get emails from him about staying another year in New York. They were offering him all kinds of benefits and bonuses if he would stay. I told him that Kylie & I should move back there then, and he always refused, saying he could bank more money for us this way and we should stay with my parents. I worried about him missing the first year of his daughter's life. He promised to fly back once a month. It just wasn't right.
I loved being home though. There was grass, and parks. Vancouver in August is fantastic - the weather is gorgeous, the food is amazing, and it was BBQs and reunions and family and comfort. My friends and family threw me a baby shower. I love Kylie's face in this picture - she is really unimpressed by the hat. At 2 months old, she already had personality galore. Kylie was doing well and my family doctor was her doctor now. Things were great - except that we didn't have the 3rd member of our family with us.He didn't come to visit again until October. And this time, I could tell something was very wrong. He dropped the bomb then. "I'm not in love with you anymore." He went on to tell me that he had met a bartender and he was confused because he wanted to follow through on it. He asked for permission to date other people. I was shell-shocked. And then he was gone, back to New York, without much explanation except that he was confused.
The POD had arrived with our things in it - including our files - so I started to look through them. There were strange charges on the bills, there were phone calls to numbers all over the US, 1-800 numbers and all sorts of strange activity. And then, after some help from friends, conversations with people and conversations with him, it all came to light.
He had been having affairs for quite some time. He was a member of dating services, various other services and the homebody husband that I knew had spent a lot of money at nightclubs, bars, jewelry stores and other establishments. All the time that I had been working on weekends and from 6-12am, he had been partying. All the money was gone from the bank accounts. It was over. And everything was gone.
Almost overnight I went from being a successful actress on Broadway to an unemployed, broke, single-mom living with her parents. Awesome.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Mommyhood.
So for the first time since I was 16, at the age of 29, I wasn't doing anything. Well, I was doing something pretty significant - growing a human being - but I didn't have to leave the house to do it. :)
Of course, being me, I couldn't sit idle too long. I started doing calligraphy. I did wedding invitations for random people in New York and advertised on craigslist. It was going pretty swimmingly too - I was getting referrals - lots of business - and I could sit on my couch and watch tv while I wrote out envelopes. I kinda liked it.
I also auditioned for a bunch of stuff, with my big baby belly. Kind of hilarious. They saw me for "Clara" in Light in the Piazza again, they saw me for "Mary Poppins" in Mary Poppins and asked me when I was due.. haha... I was HUGE then. They saw me for a few other things I can't remember. And I did one of the very first tryout readings for "Sister Act" as Sister Mary Roberts with an 8 month pregnant belly. Pretty awesome to be a pregnant nun. I played a pregnant thug in that too. But most importantly, I got to meet one of my idols, Alan Menken. I did "Tale of Two Cities" again in workshop with a big ol' belly, another workshop or two, and Kylie was basically being built in music.
I was kinda starting to like staying at home, doing readings, working on calligraphy and having my evenings free like normal people. I cooked a lot, I got used to heartburn (okay, I never got used to heartburn), and eventually my ankles started to swell. It was completely comfortable. Except for the big belly.
In a way, I had almost "fallen in" to the business as a teenager, and while I loved what I did, I always longed for home and I've always been a homebody. I was never one for the Opening Night parties, the schmoozing or the attention. I just liked to get home and relax on my couch in my pjs. In fact, I was sort of known for being the last one at the theatre for half hour call and the first one out when the show was done. In Les Mis, I had my routine so down-pat, I could beat the orchestra out of there. :) Don't get me wrong, I love performing, I love dancing, acting & singing - but I've never had any desire to be famous. Unfortunately, that's part of show business! I'm totally with Greta Garbo! That being said, I am a very social gal when I want to be, and even though I usually cocoon myself with a good book or a guitar or my piano, I can chat it up sometimes. Plus, my family is incredibly close. It was weird to be pregnant away from them. Vancouver is the whole other coast and another country away from New York.
My baby was due June 4th, 2006. When I told my dad this, he said "I hope she doesn't come on the 6th!" I didn't even think about it until that moment. Oh, right: 06/06/06. Interesting.
I had some weird things happen when I was pregnant. The strangest of all was that I got a sort of tinnitis in my right ear - where the sound I was hearing in that ear was suddenly lower (and almost underwater sounding) than the rest of the sound in my left ear. I can't really explain it. I couldn't even explain it to my doctor. But my head would ring and I would hear things almost in two vastly different tones, styles and speeds on either side of my head. I tried googling this a lot. If anyone knows what this is - please let me know! It came and went and stopped after I gave birth. Other than that, it was pretty routine.
My husband was not a professional actor. We had met in Ft. Worth, Texas on my 23rd birthday, (remember, St. Patrick's Day! It's always a party somewhere on my birthday!), with the cast of Les Miserables to support us. We were together from that moment on - and had been for 7 years. He joined me on the Les Miz tour and worked concessions and as the chaperone for the child actors. When we moved to New York, he got a regular 9-5 job and I worked from basically 6-12am, so we saw each other for dinner mostly. It was fun to experience a "normal" life while I was home gestating - get on a more typical schedule and have more time together. But that time together led to the discovery of all kinds of things.
I had a 72 hour labour. I was determined to not have a C-Section. I went into labour on June 3rd and said, "Yahoo! She won't be born on the 6th!" But it was not to be - I went to the ER quite a few times in the next few days and never dilated enough to be admitted. Well, they said they could admit me, but that it would definitely be a C-Section birth and if I wanted to go and try walking around Central Park, I might have a natural birth. So every time I went home. At one point, they gave me an ambien because I hadn't slept with the regular contractions in over 2 days and needed the strength to push. The last time I went in, around 1am on June 6th - yup - I had the most excited gypsy cab driver ever. He drove the wrong way down one-way streets and was determined to get me to the hospital! It was kind of adorable. They admitted me this time, saying that we were both getting too tired and no matter what, the baby was coming out. I agreed. Kylie's head was just slightly off-centre on my cervix, which is why I wasn't dilating. Uh oh.
I was exhausted. The nurse said I had two options: I could take an oral sedative and when I woke up, I would be groggy and the baby would be groggy when it was time to push; or I could get an epidural and wake up fine. Pretty obvious choice. The minute I got the epidural it was total relief, and I passed out and didn't wake up again until the late morning. Kylie was born on June 6th at 4:22pm, naturally, thanks to my amazing nurse! She rotated me and had me lay in different positions and told me she would get the baby in the right place so I wouldn't have to have a C-section. To the doctor's amazement, she did! And we're still in touch to this day. What an angel.
The minute I saw my daughter's face, the love I felt just overflowed. I had been so curious to meet her. I just wanted to know who this person was that I felt kicking and hiccuping. And here she was. It was truly a miracle. Motherhood was amazing.
Kylie and I were in the hospital for two days and then released. Everyone was there - mom & dad and my mother-in-law, so we had a nice full house and lots of hands to help. My dad stayed up all night holding Kylie - you couldn't get her out of his arms. It was adorable. She was a great baby, and very, very attached right from day one. She still is. I guess we both are. Of course, all babies are attached to their mothers. I'm just being a typical mom.
Anyway, here's where the story starts to get crazy...
Of course, being me, I couldn't sit idle too long. I started doing calligraphy. I did wedding invitations for random people in New York and advertised on craigslist. It was going pretty swimmingly too - I was getting referrals - lots of business - and I could sit on my couch and watch tv while I wrote out envelopes. I kinda liked it.
I also auditioned for a bunch of stuff, with my big baby belly. Kind of hilarious. They saw me for "Clara" in Light in the Piazza again, they saw me for "Mary Poppins" in Mary Poppins and asked me when I was due.. haha... I was HUGE then. They saw me for a few other things I can't remember. And I did one of the very first tryout readings for "Sister Act" as Sister Mary Roberts with an 8 month pregnant belly. Pretty awesome to be a pregnant nun. I played a pregnant thug in that too. But most importantly, I got to meet one of my idols, Alan Menken. I did "Tale of Two Cities" again in workshop with a big ol' belly, another workshop or two, and Kylie was basically being built in music.
I was kinda starting to like staying at home, doing readings, working on calligraphy and having my evenings free like normal people. I cooked a lot, I got used to heartburn (okay, I never got used to heartburn), and eventually my ankles started to swell. It was completely comfortable. Except for the big belly.
In a way, I had almost "fallen in" to the business as a teenager, and while I loved what I did, I always longed for home and I've always been a homebody. I was never one for the Opening Night parties, the schmoozing or the attention. I just liked to get home and relax on my couch in my pjs. In fact, I was sort of known for being the last one at the theatre for half hour call and the first one out when the show was done. In Les Mis, I had my routine so down-pat, I could beat the orchestra out of there. :) Don't get me wrong, I love performing, I love dancing, acting & singing - but I've never had any desire to be famous. Unfortunately, that's part of show business! I'm totally with Greta Garbo! That being said, I am a very social gal when I want to be, and even though I usually cocoon myself with a good book or a guitar or my piano, I can chat it up sometimes. Plus, my family is incredibly close. It was weird to be pregnant away from them. Vancouver is the whole other coast and another country away from New York.
My baby was due June 4th, 2006. When I told my dad this, he said "I hope she doesn't come on the 6th!" I didn't even think about it until that moment. Oh, right: 06/06/06. Interesting.
I had some weird things happen when I was pregnant. The strangest of all was that I got a sort of tinnitis in my right ear - where the sound I was hearing in that ear was suddenly lower (and almost underwater sounding) than the rest of the sound in my left ear. I can't really explain it. I couldn't even explain it to my doctor. But my head would ring and I would hear things almost in two vastly different tones, styles and speeds on either side of my head. I tried googling this a lot. If anyone knows what this is - please let me know! It came and went and stopped after I gave birth. Other than that, it was pretty routine.
My husband was not a professional actor. We had met in Ft. Worth, Texas on my 23rd birthday, (remember, St. Patrick's Day! It's always a party somewhere on my birthday!), with the cast of Les Miserables to support us. We were together from that moment on - and had been for 7 years. He joined me on the Les Miz tour and worked concessions and as the chaperone for the child actors. When we moved to New York, he got a regular 9-5 job and I worked from basically 6-12am, so we saw each other for dinner mostly. It was fun to experience a "normal" life while I was home gestating - get on a more typical schedule and have more time together. But that time together led to the discovery of all kinds of things.
I had a 72 hour labour. I was determined to not have a C-Section. I went into labour on June 3rd and said, "Yahoo! She won't be born on the 6th!" But it was not to be - I went to the ER quite a few times in the next few days and never dilated enough to be admitted. Well, they said they could admit me, but that it would definitely be a C-Section birth and if I wanted to go and try walking around Central Park, I might have a natural birth. So every time I went home. At one point, they gave me an ambien because I hadn't slept with the regular contractions in over 2 days and needed the strength to push. The last time I went in, around 1am on June 6th - yup - I had the most excited gypsy cab driver ever. He drove the wrong way down one-way streets and was determined to get me to the hospital! It was kind of adorable. They admitted me this time, saying that we were both getting too tired and no matter what, the baby was coming out. I agreed. Kylie's head was just slightly off-centre on my cervix, which is why I wasn't dilating. Uh oh.
I was exhausted. The nurse said I had two options: I could take an oral sedative and when I woke up, I would be groggy and the baby would be groggy when it was time to push; or I could get an epidural and wake up fine. Pretty obvious choice. The minute I got the epidural it was total relief, and I passed out and didn't wake up again until the late morning. Kylie was born on June 6th at 4:22pm, naturally, thanks to my amazing nurse! She rotated me and had me lay in different positions and told me she would get the baby in the right place so I wouldn't have to have a C-section. To the doctor's amazement, she did! And we're still in touch to this day. What an angel.
The minute I saw my daughter's face, the love I felt just overflowed. I had been so curious to meet her. I just wanted to know who this person was that I felt kicking and hiccuping. And here she was. It was truly a miracle. Motherhood was amazing.Kylie and I were in the hospital for two days and then released. Everyone was there - mom & dad and my mother-in-law, so we had a nice full house and lots of hands to help. My dad stayed up all night holding Kylie - you couldn't get her out of his arms. It was adorable. She was a great baby, and very, very attached right from day one. She still is. I guess we both are. Of course, all babies are attached to their mothers. I'm just being a typical mom.
Anyway, here's where the story starts to get crazy...
RENT.
So it was back to New York in a whirlwind. And straight into rehearsals for RENT. I was an emergency sub for a Swing who was getting her wisdom teeth out and supposed to be there for only 2 weeks. The cast was wonderful, but so different from the casts I had worked with before. RENT just had its own energy.
Swinging is awesome, so I was happy to do that. And it is kind of hilarious that I was in RENT. And again, it was quite different from anything I'd done before, which made me happy. I think I wrote that in my bio... let me see if I can find it:
"Diana Kaarina played a 19th century ballerina (Meg in Phantom), a 19th century street urchin (Eponine in Les Misérables - final Broadway cast) and a 1920’s debutante (Miss Dorothy in Thoroughly Modern Millie). She’s thrilled to join the current age onstage! Originally from Vancouver, Diana is a songwriter and is working on a pop album."
Well, I WAS working on a pop album. And then I got back to NYC. I covered every female role in the show except for Joanne. I was technically titled the "Mimi/Maureen" swing, but the chances of my going on as Mimi were slim and none. My 2 weeks became a year. I'm not really sure how that happened, but it did. And I went on for every role I was supposed to but Mimi. (Mimi I only did in rehearsals and an understudy concert.) I still have wax on one of my favourite hoodies that won't come out from an understudy rehearsal. I learned that lesson the hard way. Strangely, I don't have many pictures from RENT. I was a Swing so I wasn't in the photo shoots - I think I only have this photo with Jan - after a show!
It was jarring to be home without really prepping for it, but I soon settled back into the NYC lifestyle. Let's be honest here, I am very much a west coast kind of gal. I like to lay back and relax. The quick pace of NYC is great for a little bit, but after a while, I kinda just want to go to Costco.
I did workshops for a few shows: Liberty Smith for NYMF and Tale of Two Cities a few times, Out of the Hands of Children, Womyn in 3... more that I'm sure are escaping me and I'll probably add later. I auditioned for other things. I did some more voice overs in NYC. I booked a job recording a children's CD. I crocheted a lot. I got the nickname "Crochet MacGyver". That's pretty awesome. I bet if I had some yarn and a crochet hook, I could maybe survive any disaster. Edible yarn...
Anyway, one night when I was on for Maureen, I just couldn't keep my balance. I did the "gotta, gotta, gotta..." thing where she keeps flipping her head in "Over the Moon" and I stood up and was completely disoriented. I was dizzy. Strangely dizzy. I shook it off to maybe an oncoming bug or something. We got to "Take Me or Leave Me" and I almost missed a step on the chair.. I was getting more and more dizzy and couldn't keep my balance for anything. This was getting strange. And that's how I found out I was expecting my daughter.
I did RENT until the end of my first trimester. My boobs got huge. My tummy started to stretch my leather pants. It was hilarious. But Kylie kicked her way through the whole experience.
And then... the whole NEW adventure began...
Swinging is awesome, so I was happy to do that. And it is kind of hilarious that I was in RENT. And again, it was quite different from anything I'd done before, which made me happy. I think I wrote that in my bio... let me see if I can find it:
"Diana Kaarina played a 19th century ballerina (Meg in Phantom), a 19th century street urchin (Eponine in Les Misérables - final Broadway cast) and a 1920’s debutante (Miss Dorothy in Thoroughly Modern Millie). She’s thrilled to join the current age onstage! Originally from Vancouver, Diana is a songwriter and is working on a pop album."
Well, I WAS working on a pop album. And then I got back to NYC. I covered every female role in the show except for Joanne. I was technically titled the "Mimi/Maureen" swing, but the chances of my going on as Mimi were slim and none. My 2 weeks became a year. I'm not really sure how that happened, but it did. And I went on for every role I was supposed to but Mimi. (Mimi I only did in rehearsals and an understudy concert.) I still have wax on one of my favourite hoodies that won't come out from an understudy rehearsal. I learned that lesson the hard way. Strangely, I don't have many pictures from RENT. I was a Swing so I wasn't in the photo shoots - I think I only have this photo with Jan - after a show!It was jarring to be home without really prepping for it, but I soon settled back into the NYC lifestyle. Let's be honest here, I am very much a west coast kind of gal. I like to lay back and relax. The quick pace of NYC is great for a little bit, but after a while, I kinda just want to go to Costco.
I did workshops for a few shows: Liberty Smith for NYMF and Tale of Two Cities a few times, Out of the Hands of Children, Womyn in 3... more that I'm sure are escaping me and I'll probably add later. I auditioned for other things. I did some more voice overs in NYC. I booked a job recording a children's CD. I crocheted a lot. I got the nickname "Crochet MacGyver". That's pretty awesome. I bet if I had some yarn and a crochet hook, I could maybe survive any disaster. Edible yarn...
Anyway, one night when I was on for Maureen, I just couldn't keep my balance. I did the "gotta, gotta, gotta..." thing where she keeps flipping her head in "Over the Moon" and I stood up and was completely disoriented. I was dizzy. Strangely dizzy. I shook it off to maybe an oncoming bug or something. We got to "Take Me or Leave Me" and I almost missed a step on the chair.. I was getting more and more dizzy and couldn't keep my balance for anything. This was getting strange. And that's how I found out I was expecting my daughter.
I did RENT until the end of my first trimester. My boobs got huge. My tummy started to stretch my leather pants. It was hilarious. But Kylie kicked her way through the whole experience.
And then... the whole NEW adventure began...
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Thoroughly Modern Millie, Disney & LA...
I came back from Hawaii tanned and a redhead with short hair.
And terrified.
Millie was a dance show! I had just spent 5 1/2 years rotating on a turntable. Uh oh.
My audition process for Millie was pretty painless. I did a lot of calls, I did a work session, I did a few dance auditions, and Rob Ashford laughed at my grab-offs. :) They were pretty balletic, I must admit.
It was another wonderful company. We rehearsed on 42nd Street with the original creatives and they built in some changes to the show on our company. I had to do a lot of dancing. They put me in the opening number, which Miss Dorothy doesn't usually do, because our cast was smaller.
It was a lot of fun going from "the girl who doesn't get the guy" to "the girl who gets all the guys". Eponine was down and dirty and Miss Dorothy was prim and proper. Poverty to wealth, belt to legit soprano, pathos to comedy - you couldn't get more opposite characters than Eponine and Miss Dorothy. I was in acting heaven. Pink acting heaven.
Miss Dorothy was pink incarnate. The original actress in the role was a natural redhead (I think), and I was now an unnatural redhead so everyone wondered if I would also have a long, red curly wig. I didn't. Red still didn't work on me. I was a brunette again, naturally. And I had a cute blonde bob for the opening number. Why do I keep talking about wigs?
Anyway, I made amazing friends again. We teched in Green Bay, opened in Kansas City and we were off. My dresses and costumes were outrageously expensive and gorgeous. I didn't have to wear any dirt. And I got to see a lot of the same cities again for the 3rd time. I got audited by the IRS and had to run back and forth to deal with the INS and Department of Homeland Security while they processed my green card. There was stress and there was glitter.
A year on tour was enough. I had just got married and this quick refresher of touring life was enough for me. I didn't renew at the end of my year and jumped ship in Los Angeles, where I was living with my uncle.
When I was doing Les Miserables, a music attorney had attended the show and asked me if I was interested in singing pop music. He was prepared to set me up with the right people if I wanted to pursue a recording career, and I was just going on tour so I never had a chance to follow through, although I met with a few of them. Now that I was in LA, I contacted him again and he set up some meetings for me there. I started working with a producer there on a demo, but more importantly, I started writing songs again. I had always written songs, even produced a demo of my own on the Les Miserables tour, but now I was focusing on it. It was great - I was really enjoying it!
Now, anyone who knows me, knows I'm a Disney-maniac. I had been an Annual Pass holder for a few years, especially when I was on tour. Anytime I was near a theme park, I was IN the theme park, and it was while I was in LA that I got to do a reading for a Disney musical for their cruise line, Twice Charmed by Alan Zachary & Michael Weiner (shameless plug), and not only that, I got to play my favourite princess, Cinderella! I even got to sing some more demos for them, which I very much enjoyed. But the best part of all is that we did the reading in the theme park studios, and after we were finished for the day, we could just push open the gate and walk into the park. It was the perfect job. Playing Cinderella during the day, and hanging out in Disneyland during the evening. Blissful.
I wasn't in LA very long before I got a call to come back to NYC... and the very next day I was on a plane...
And terrified.
Millie was a dance show! I had just spent 5 1/2 years rotating on a turntable. Uh oh.
My audition process for Millie was pretty painless. I did a lot of calls, I did a work session, I did a few dance auditions, and Rob Ashford laughed at my grab-offs. :) They were pretty balletic, I must admit.
It was another wonderful company. We rehearsed on 42nd Street with the original creatives and they built in some changes to the show on our company. I had to do a lot of dancing. They put me in the opening number, which Miss Dorothy doesn't usually do, because our cast was smaller.It was a lot of fun going from "the girl who doesn't get the guy" to "the girl who gets all the guys". Eponine was down and dirty and Miss Dorothy was prim and proper. Poverty to wealth, belt to legit soprano, pathos to comedy - you couldn't get more opposite characters than Eponine and Miss Dorothy. I was in acting heaven. Pink acting heaven.
Miss Dorothy was pink incarnate. The original actress in the role was a natural redhead (I think), and I was now an unnatural redhead so everyone wondered if I would also have a long, red curly wig. I didn't. Red still didn't work on me. I was a brunette again, naturally. And I had a cute blonde bob for the opening number. Why do I keep talking about wigs?
Anyway, I made amazing friends again. We teched in Green Bay, opened in Kansas City and we were off. My dresses and costumes were outrageously expensive and gorgeous. I didn't have to wear any dirt. And I got to see a lot of the same cities again for the 3rd time. I got audited by the IRS and had to run back and forth to deal with the INS and Department of Homeland Security while they processed my green card. There was stress and there was glitter.
A year on tour was enough. I had just got married and this quick refresher of touring life was enough for me. I didn't renew at the end of my year and jumped ship in Los Angeles, where I was living with my uncle.
When I was doing Les Miserables, a music attorney had attended the show and asked me if I was interested in singing pop music. He was prepared to set me up with the right people if I wanted to pursue a recording career, and I was just going on tour so I never had a chance to follow through, although I met with a few of them. Now that I was in LA, I contacted him again and he set up some meetings for me there. I started working with a producer there on a demo, but more importantly, I started writing songs again. I had always written songs, even produced a demo of my own on the Les Miserables tour, but now I was focusing on it. It was great - I was really enjoying it!
Now, anyone who knows me, knows I'm a Disney-maniac. I had been an Annual Pass holder for a few years, especially when I was on tour. Anytime I was near a theme park, I was IN the theme park, and it was while I was in LA that I got to do a reading for a Disney musical for their cruise line, Twice Charmed by Alan Zachary & Michael Weiner (shameless plug), and not only that, I got to play my favourite princess, Cinderella! I even got to sing some more demos for them, which I very much enjoyed. But the best part of all is that we did the reading in the theme park studios, and after we were finished for the day, we could just push open the gate and walk into the park. It was the perfect job. Playing Cinderella during the day, and hanging out in Disneyland during the evening. Blissful.
I wasn't in LA very long before I got a call to come back to NYC... and the very next day I was on a plane...
Broadway.
We got to New York in January, and a friend from the Les Miz tour sublet us her apartment on the Upper West Side. I had different coloured streaks in my hair and a bunch of pets to haul along with me.
There were Christmas trees on the sidewalks, and I think I ate at Famiglia almost every night. Or had Chinese food.
I think I had a week for my put-in. The stage manager asked me if I wanted to see the show that night after my first day of rehearsal and I politely declined because I didn't have anything to wear. I thought you had to dress up to see a Broadway show. I was so green. Again. He kind of laughed at me and said I would be fine in jeans, but then directed me to Lord & Taylor. :)
Um, of course I went shopping.
Sadly, a few days before my opening night on Broadway, we lost my 17 year old cousin in a car accident. She also loved musicals and wanted to be on Broadway someday, so I dedicated my performances to her and put her name in my bio so her name would be on Broadway. My opening night was very bittersweet. I had so many lovely messages from my castmates on the road and my new castmates in New York, and I was very emotional. My parents had flown out from Vancouver to see me too. They have always been so supportive and amazing.
Things soon settled down to a sort of normalcy. I found a huge apartment in Washington Heights and set about decorating it. And before I knew it, I was a New Yorker. Apparently, I looked just like someone in my neighbourhood named Rosalina, so people would always yell out to me and have conversations with me as if I were her. I didn't learn much Spanish, sadly. As much as I adore and love languages, and even though I know some French, I just have the hardest time with Spanish. I can read Russian for you in an instant. Explain that.
So it was "Les Miserables" in New York, and then it was readings of new shows, workshops of new shows and lots of events and excitement in the Big Apple. I did plenty of publicity, taught some master classes and did some talkbacks, picketed in a strike and sang in malls... you know, that kind of stuff. :) I auditioned like crazy. And I took a month off to get married.
The show closed on Broadway for the first time in May 2003. It was a thrill and an honour to be a part of that closing company. I got to work with amazing people, meet idols and fantastic performers, amazing crew and talented musicians and sadly, see the parting of what had become an amazing family. We still keep in touch, a lot of us. And Les Miserables really was the most wonderful family. I hear say they'd call our theatre "The House of Love." It really was.
When the show closed, I had a month off, so I cut my hair (remember, no wig? They owned that hair for 5 1/2 years!)... and dyed it - of all things - RED! And then I began rehearsals for the National Tour of Thoroughly Modern Millie...
There were Christmas trees on the sidewalks, and I think I ate at Famiglia almost every night. Or had Chinese food.
I think I had a week for my put-in. The stage manager asked me if I wanted to see the show that night after my first day of rehearsal and I politely declined because I didn't have anything to wear. I thought you had to dress up to see a Broadway show. I was so green. Again. He kind of laughed at me and said I would be fine in jeans, but then directed me to Lord & Taylor. :)Um, of course I went shopping.
Sadly, a few days before my opening night on Broadway, we lost my 17 year old cousin in a car accident. She also loved musicals and wanted to be on Broadway someday, so I dedicated my performances to her and put her name in my bio so her name would be on Broadway. My opening night was very bittersweet. I had so many lovely messages from my castmates on the road and my new castmates in New York, and I was very emotional. My parents had flown out from Vancouver to see me too. They have always been so supportive and amazing.
Things soon settled down to a sort of normalcy. I found a huge apartment in Washington Heights and set about decorating it. And before I knew it, I was a New Yorker. Apparently, I looked just like someone in my neighbourhood named Rosalina, so people would always yell out to me and have conversations with me as if I were her. I didn't learn much Spanish, sadly. As much as I adore and love languages, and even though I know some French, I just have the hardest time with Spanish. I can read Russian for you in an instant. Explain that.
So it was "Les Miserables" in New York, and then it was readings of new shows, workshops of new shows and lots of events and excitement in the Big Apple. I did plenty of publicity, taught some master classes and did some talkbacks, picketed in a strike and sang in malls... you know, that kind of stuff. :) I auditioned like crazy. And I took a month off to get married.The show closed on Broadway for the first time in May 2003. It was a thrill and an honour to be a part of that closing company. I got to work with amazing people, meet idols and fantastic performers, amazing crew and talented musicians and sadly, see the parting of what had become an amazing family. We still keep in touch, a lot of us. And Les Miserables really was the most wonderful family. I hear say they'd call our theatre "The House of Love." It really was.
When the show closed, I had a month off, so I cut my hair (remember, no wig? They owned that hair for 5 1/2 years!)... and dyed it - of all things - RED! And then I began rehearsals for the National Tour of Thoroughly Modern Millie...
Les Miserables. And Wong to Kaarina.
It was an open call in Toronto. Canadian Actors' Equity and American Actors' Equity have an agreement - and Les Miserables was slated to play the Princess of Wales with Colm Wilkinson for 6 months that year. That meant they needed to hire 6 Canadian actors.
People were lined up around the block to sing their 16 bars. I stayed with a good friend of mine from Phantom and we worked on some of the music. He was so kind to me.
I got a callback! Vinnie Liff from Johnson-Liff casting, who is sadly no longer with us, gave me a bunch of Eponine material and asked me to come back later and sing it. Of course, I already knew all the songs, just like every girl my age who liked Musical Theatre even a little bit. Ironically, he took me outside and spun me around and asked me why he had never seen me for "Miss Saigon". I think it was because I was still "Diana Wong" professionally, so that worked for a Miss Saigon cast member. Or because I sang "Now That I've Seen Her" for my audition. Huh.
I came back later, sang the material and then they asked me if I knew "On My Own." Of course I did! But the original lyrics, not the later lyrics. I told them I'd do my best, and they started with the intro - "And now I'm all alone again..." instead of "On my own..." as I was expecting. Totally different lyrics, but I stumbled through.
I never know what to think of auditions. Sometimes they are lovely to you, but you don't get the job. Sometimes they are very standoffish, and you do. I had no idea how I did. I flew back home to Vancouver and went back to singing in a band.
A month later, I got the call to join the tour of Les Miserables. I would be doing the "Red Urchin" track and understudying Eponine. I was over the moon. I could not believe how lucky I had been in my career - to be able to be in both of the shows I loved so much as a girl.
Now I had to join American Actors' Equity - and my agent suggested it was time to change my name. Since I didn't look very Asian, "Wong" was confusing people when he was submitting me. I didn't want to just make up a name, so I thought a bit about using "King" which is the English translation for "Wong" and pretty close in spelling. There was a popular recording artist at that time already named Diana King so that idea wasn't going to work. I didn't want to just make up any name and use it, so I suggested using my middle name - the Finnish "Kaarina". The good points: It was my own name. The bad points: It's spelled with 2 a's and it's foreign and confusing for people sometimes (but it's simply pronounced "carina" in English), plus it made my name sound kind of sing-songy and rhymy. It was obvious though. I wasn't comfortable with a made up name, so it was going to be Diana Kaarina. I was called "Anna Karenina" for a long time, but that's okay because I love Russian novels and that one in particular. :)
I got my US Work Permit, joined the cast in North Carolina, and off I went on a new adventure - in a completely sung-through musical!
Up until then, I had still considered myself a dancer who sings. In Phantom, I was doing a lot of dancing, ballet dancing - en pointe! Even in the one show in Charlottetown where I'd been a singer, I'd always had to dance. Les Miserables only had a little waltz in it and a quadrille. I'm not complaining about this -- I just started to freak out. I would be singing. Only.
I showed up to rehearsals in dance gear. Even dance shoes. I didn't even know what to wear to a rehearsal like this. They must've thought I was such a dweeb. I AM such a dweeb, but even I am embarrassed about this one. :) Once again, green green green.
There's another thing: while I was doing Charlottetown and Phantom, even though I was dancing in the shows, I didn't really have time or know where to take dance classes while doing the shows, and I was losing my technique. I could do the choreography for each show, but I wasn't sure I could keep my flexibility and technique in check and, as a girl who once wanted to be a ballerina, that was a painful thought. All those years and hours of training going down the drain. I was worried that I would lose even more technique doing Les Miserables -- so I took every moment I could to stretch, and keep moving in those first few years. Sadly, it didn't really matter. I still lost tonnes of technique. That's all my fault. I could've worked harder at it. Some of the Les Mizzers even asked me to teach some dance classes, which I did, but on the tour it was hard to find spaces in every new theatre and that faded out pretty quickly. And the honest truth is that I am lazy. I knew without a show to force me to dance, I wouldn't make myself dance. But I did kind of try... just not hard enough.
So there are two of my regrets: Not finishing University. Not keeping up my dancing. Please, please, please - if you are young - keep up your dancing! And if you can go to school - do! :)
Now that I digressed - back to the excitingness of Les Miserables! So I was a dweeb, in dance gear, learning a show that had no dancing, and learning it quickly. When I did Phantom the first and third time, they were new mountings so we did a full rehearsal process. When I joined Toronto, I already knew the show so the 1 week put-in rehearsal process wasn't too daunting. I had 2 weeks to learn all of Les Miserables and my understudy track too. Awesome! Actually, I love stuff like this. As a super nerd, learning is fun.
Ironically, one of the notes I always got was to look less like a dancer, turn in my feet, walk heavier in my soles - which didn't help my fear of technique loss - but did help me as an actress. I also did Phantom entirely in a "mid-Atlantic" accent (which is supposed to be a mix between British and North American - as if there was a country in between them with that accent), so I started my first singing rehearsals with that accent. Duh. I really am a dweeb. :)
I loved doing Les Miserables. We got to play 6 months in Toronto - and I got another great apartment in the downtown area. This cast was amazing - we were a total family - and I learned so many amazing things about the business, about the world, about the art.
A little while into my run with the tour, both the Swings left. I was ready to do something new, so I asked to become a Swing and they let me. For those who don't know, the Swings cover all the roles in the ensemble, and sometimes some of the leads for the show so that if anyone is sick, they can step into any of the roles and the show can go on. The great thing about being a Swing is you get to do something new almost every time you are onstage, you get a variety of roles, and you get paid more! And sometimes, you don't have to do the show - you can relax backstage and knit. :) Swinging is awesome.
And then the Eponine left and I was moved into that position. This time I got to use my real hair! :) I was seeing the country, performing in one of my favourite shows, and I got to do all sorts of different roles in the show. It was wonderful. But it was tiring. We moved every week unless we were in a really big city, and I was starting to see some of them for the 2nd time. Traveling is wonderful, but suitcases and packing is tiring after a bit. And only being able to keep what you can carry with you is great, but after 3 years, you long for a home. You're not able to do much of anything else in the business because you are never in one place. I had now been with Les Miserables for 3 1/2 years, just like Phantom. It was time to go home.
I gave my notice and got ready to head for home. And as I was driving home from San Diego to Vancouver, I got a call. Would I want to come and play Eponine in New York?
I was on my way to NYC...
People were lined up around the block to sing their 16 bars. I stayed with a good friend of mine from Phantom and we worked on some of the music. He was so kind to me.
I got a callback! Vinnie Liff from Johnson-Liff casting, who is sadly no longer with us, gave me a bunch of Eponine material and asked me to come back later and sing it. Of course, I already knew all the songs, just like every girl my age who liked Musical Theatre even a little bit. Ironically, he took me outside and spun me around and asked me why he had never seen me for "Miss Saigon". I think it was because I was still "Diana Wong" professionally, so that worked for a Miss Saigon cast member. Or because I sang "Now That I've Seen Her" for my audition. Huh.
I came back later, sang the material and then they asked me if I knew "On My Own." Of course I did! But the original lyrics, not the later lyrics. I told them I'd do my best, and they started with the intro - "And now I'm all alone again..." instead of "On my own..." as I was expecting. Totally different lyrics, but I stumbled through.
I never know what to think of auditions. Sometimes they are lovely to you, but you don't get the job. Sometimes they are very standoffish, and you do. I had no idea how I did. I flew back home to Vancouver and went back to singing in a band.
A month later, I got the call to join the tour of Les Miserables. I would be doing the "Red Urchin" track and understudying Eponine. I was over the moon. I could not believe how lucky I had been in my career - to be able to be in both of the shows I loved so much as a girl.
Now I had to join American Actors' Equity - and my agent suggested it was time to change my name. Since I didn't look very Asian, "Wong" was confusing people when he was submitting me. I didn't want to just make up a name, so I thought a bit about using "King" which is the English translation for "Wong" and pretty close in spelling. There was a popular recording artist at that time already named Diana King so that idea wasn't going to work. I didn't want to just make up any name and use it, so I suggested using my middle name - the Finnish "Kaarina". The good points: It was my own name. The bad points: It's spelled with 2 a's and it's foreign and confusing for people sometimes (but it's simply pronounced "carina" in English), plus it made my name sound kind of sing-songy and rhymy. It was obvious though. I wasn't comfortable with a made up name, so it was going to be Diana Kaarina. I was called "Anna Karenina" for a long time, but that's okay because I love Russian novels and that one in particular. :)
I got my US Work Permit, joined the cast in North Carolina, and off I went on a new adventure - in a
Up until then, I had still considered myself a dancer who sings. In Phantom, I was doing a lot of dancing, ballet dancing - en pointe! Even in the one show in Charlottetown where I'd been a singer, I'd always had to dance. Les Miserables only had a little waltz in it and a quadrille. I'm not complaining about this -- I just started to freak out. I would be singing. Only.
I showed up to rehearsals in dance gear. Even dance shoes. I didn't even know what to wear to a rehearsal like this. They must've thought I was such a dweeb. I AM such a dweeb, but even I am embarrassed about this one. :) Once again, green green green.
There's another thing: while I was doing Charlottetown and Phantom, even though I was dancing in the shows, I didn't really have time or know where to take dance classes while doing the shows, and I was losing my technique. I could do the choreography for each show, but I wasn't sure I could keep my flexibility and technique in check and, as a girl who once wanted to be a ballerina, that was a painful thought. All those years and hours of training going down the drain. I was worried that I would lose even more technique doing Les Miserables -- so I took every moment I could to stretch, and keep moving in those first few years. Sadly, it didn't really matter. I still lost tonnes of technique. That's all my fault. I could've worked harder at it. Some of the Les Mizzers even asked me to teach some dance classes, which I did, but on the tour it was hard to find spaces in every new theatre and that faded out pretty quickly. And the honest truth is that I am lazy. I knew without a show to force me to dance, I wouldn't make myself dance. But I did kind of try... just not hard enough.
So there are two of my regrets: Not finishing University. Not keeping up my dancing. Please, please, please - if you are young - keep up your dancing! And if you can go to school - do! :)
Now that I digressed - back to the excitingness of Les Miserables! So I was a dweeb, in dance gear, learning a show that had no dancing, and learning it quickly. When I did Phantom the first and third time, they were new mountings so we did a full rehearsal process. When I joined Toronto, I already knew the show so the 1 week put-in rehearsal process wasn't too daunting. I had 2 weeks to learn all of Les Miserables and my understudy track too. Awesome! Actually, I love stuff like this. As a super nerd, learning is fun.
Ironically, one of the notes I always got was to look less like a dancer, turn in my feet, walk heavier in my soles - which didn't help my fear of technique loss - but did help me as an actress. I also did Phantom entirely in a "mid-Atlantic" accent (which is supposed to be a mix between British and North American - as if there was a country in between them with that accent), so I started my first singing rehearsals with that accent. Duh. I really am a dweeb. :)
I loved doing Les Miserables. We got to play 6 months in Toronto - and I got another great apartment in the downtown area. This cast was amazing - we were a total family - and I learned so many amazing things about the business, about the world, about the art.
A little while into my run with the tour, both the Swings left. I was ready to do something new, so I asked to become a Swing and they let me. For those who don't know, the Swings cover all the roles in the ensemble, and sometimes some of the leads for the show so that if anyone is sick, they can step into any of the roles and the show can go on. The great thing about being a Swing is you get to do something new almost every time you are onstage, you get a variety of roles, and you get paid more! And sometimes, you don't have to do the show - you can relax backstage and knit. :) Swinging is awesome.
I gave my notice and got ready to head for home. And as I was driving home from San Diego to Vancouver, I got a call. Would I want to come and play Eponine in New York?
I was on my way to NYC...
The Phantom of the Opera.
Growing up, I loved two musicals the most: The Phantom of the Opera & Les Miserables. I think that was pretty typical of every teenage girl from my generation. I loved other musicals too: West Side Story, My Fairy Lady, etc. but those two were the ones that I had seen and knew by heart.
While I was in Charlottetown, Livent called. They wanted me to audition for the role of "Meg Giry" in the Phantom of the Opera. I couldn't believe they actually did remember me! I was over the moon. It was Phantom! I was going to have to work on my pointe work and audition again in September.
When I got home from Charlottetown, I re-enrolled in university. The details in this timeline are getting a bit blurry, so hopefully I'm not mixing them up. It was almost 20 years ago. Yikes. I went back to ballet class and starting working really hard. My audition came - which coincided with their general auditions in Vancouver. People were there to be seen for any openings in any Livent shows and were only required to sing one song. When they saw me come in with my dance attire and pointe shoes, they started freaking out - "Do we have to dance for this? I'm not ready!" I know that feeling so well. Auditions are terrifying.
This audition was especially terrifying. They had me sing for them, and then I had to do a SOLO dance audition and do the opening number en pointe for the Resident Director. I was peeing my pants. I guess I did all right though, because I got the job! I was to start rehearsing in January for the International Tour that was going to Singapore and Hong Kong. I was 19.
So off we went to Toronto, my dad and I this time, and he set me up in a hotel for the rehearsal period. I was so green. I had no idea what a big Production Contract was, and I was just a kid. I didn't come from a show-biz family, and my parents didn't know what to tell me. I learned pretty quickly though. I was also the only "ballerina" in a company of girls from the National Ballet and Winnipeg Ballet, so I was way out of my league at this point - having not taken regular dance class since I left for Charlottetown 2 years before that.
Phantom of the Opera played 4 months in Singapore and 4 months in Hong Kong. It was amazing. They had a challenge finding a shade of blonde that worked on me for my wig, so I had 3 or 4 different wigs with different shades. I'm happy to say I made a better blonde than a redhead. I had an incredible time and loved playing "Meggy". I didn't call out sick once. That is remarkable to me. Mostly because I was young enough to not get sick, and also because I was afraid to call out sick. My understudies must've been so bored of me.
When Phantom finished, I came home to Vancouver and started thinking about going back to school again. All my scholarship money was gone now, and I hadn't even finished one full year of credits. I had money from Phantom & Charlottetown, so I began the process of re-enrolling. I had barely got started when I was asked to join the Toronto resident company of Phantom.
This time I was MOVING to Toronto. Off we went again, and I got my first official apartment, a sweet brand-new bachelor on the top of an old building around Yonge and Eglinton (or Young & Eligible, as they used to call it.) It took a while to find it though -- and I cannot tell you how many cockroaches my dad and I saw in the search.
I loved living in Toronto. I had bought a car, my wonderful "Joe" - a Green Ford Explorer, and I was 20 and on my own. I got some cats. My friends came to visit. I took the subway, I went to Ikea, I made dinner, I did shows - I sewed ribbons on pointe shoes.
Around December, I broke my foot in the middle of the show. The stage for Phantom is full of little trap doors for candles, and I had stepped right on the seam of one. My ankle went over and I snapped my 5th metatarsal. I've got a really high pain tolerance - which is part of being a dancer, I think - so I didn't know how bad it was. I went downstairs into stage management and they started taping it. They asked me, "Do you think it's broken?" I said, "I don't know - I've never broken anything before." So they said, "Well, if you don't know, it's probably not broken." I went upstairs and finished the show.
After the show, the Equity Deputy and the Dance Captain and I walked across the street from the Pantages to the ER. Turns out I broke it. They put me in a cast up to my knee and said I would need to come back for more X-rays. The funniest part of all this? I had worn jeans into the ER, and had to take them off to get the cast. I looked at the nurse and said, "How do I put my pants back on?" She just shrugged and said, "Gee, I don't know. But you're free to go." Thankfully, the Dance Captain had worn stretchy pants, so we traded for the evening and I cabbed it home to my little apartment. I was out of the show for at least 3 months.
I started re-hab, pilates, pool training, and all kinds of things. The doctors I worked with wanted to be sure my foot wasn't just strong enough to walk on, but strong enough to dance en pointe on. The timing couldn't have been better. It was just about Christmas, so I got to go home and spend Christmas there - albeit in a cast - and let me tell you, there is no better way to navigate a mall at Christmas time than in a wheelchair.
As I was recuperating, I started to hear rumours about a National Tour of Phantom that would open in Vancouver about the same time I was slated to go back into the show. Since I hadn't yet performed as a professional in Vancouver, I asked if I could join the tour when I got better instead of going back into the Toronto company. They reluctantly agreed, and I moved back to Vancouver. My dad, Joe & I were going to be driving across the country with boxes of stuff again!
Phantom opened the Ford Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver (now just called the Centre) and quite a few of the performers from the International Tour were in the cast. We had so much fun - and I made so many great friends.
Unfortunately, the National Tour only ended up playing a few months in Vancouver. They had been hoping for an extension, but the sales didn't support it, and hadn't booked anything further. We were done. Guess I should've stayed in Toronto. At this point I had spent 3 1/2 years with Phantom of the Opera. It was time for a new adventure!
I started to sing in a restaurant, I sang with a rock n' roll cover band, and I started to think about going back to school. I wrote some songs and the bass player in our band placed one of them in a movie - I joined SOCAN. I got more involved in pop music and song writing.
And then a friend of mine from Toronto called and asked if I wanted to come out there and audition for "Les Miserables"...
While I was in Charlottetown, Livent called. They wanted me to audition for the role of "Meg Giry" in the Phantom of the Opera. I couldn't believe they actually did remember me! I was over the moon. It was Phantom! I was going to have to work on my pointe work and audition again in September.
When I got home from Charlottetown, I re-enrolled in university. The details in this timeline are getting a bit blurry, so hopefully I'm not mixing them up. It was almost 20 years ago. Yikes. I went back to ballet class and starting working really hard. My audition came - which coincided with their general auditions in Vancouver. People were there to be seen for any openings in any Livent shows and were only required to sing one song. When they saw me come in with my dance attire and pointe shoes, they started freaking out - "Do we have to dance for this? I'm not ready!" I know that feeling so well. Auditions are terrifying.
This audition was especially terrifying. They had me sing for them, and then I had to do a SOLO dance audition and do the opening number en pointe for the Resident Director. I was peeing my pants. I guess I did all right though, because I got the job! I was to start rehearsing in January for the International Tour that was going to Singapore and Hong Kong. I was 19.
So off we went to Toronto, my dad and I this time, and he set me up in a hotel for the rehearsal period. I was so green. I had no idea what a big Production Contract was, and I was just a kid. I didn't come from a show-biz family, and my parents didn't know what to tell me. I learned pretty quickly though. I was also the only "ballerina" in a company of girls from the National Ballet and Winnipeg Ballet, so I was way out of my league at this point - having not taken regular dance class since I left for Charlottetown 2 years before that.
Phantom of the Opera played 4 months in Singapore and 4 months in Hong Kong. It was amazing. They had a challenge finding a shade of blonde that worked on me for my wig, so I had 3 or 4 different wigs with different shades. I'm happy to say I made a better blonde than a redhead. I had an incredible time and loved playing "Meggy". I didn't call out sick once. That is remarkable to me. Mostly because I was young enough to not get sick, and also because I was afraid to call out sick. My understudies must've been so bored of me.When Phantom finished, I came home to Vancouver and started thinking about going back to school again. All my scholarship money was gone now, and I hadn't even finished one full year of credits. I had money from Phantom & Charlottetown, so I began the process of re-enrolling. I had barely got started when I was asked to join the Toronto resident company of Phantom.
This time I was MOVING to Toronto. Off we went again, and I got my first official apartment, a sweet brand-new bachelor on the top of an old building around Yonge and Eglinton (or Young & Eligible, as they used to call it.) It took a while to find it though -- and I cannot tell you how many cockroaches my dad and I saw in the search.
I loved living in Toronto. I had bought a car, my wonderful "Joe" - a Green Ford Explorer, and I was 20 and on my own. I got some cats. My friends came to visit. I took the subway, I went to Ikea, I made dinner, I did shows - I sewed ribbons on pointe shoes.
Around December, I broke my foot in the middle of the show. The stage for Phantom is full of little trap doors for candles, and I had stepped right on the seam of one. My ankle went over and I snapped my 5th metatarsal. I've got a really high pain tolerance - which is part of being a dancer, I think - so I didn't know how bad it was. I went downstairs into stage management and they started taping it. They asked me, "Do you think it's broken?" I said, "I don't know - I've never broken anything before." So they said, "Well, if you don't know, it's probably not broken." I went upstairs and finished the show.
After the show, the Equity Deputy and the Dance Captain and I walked across the street from the Pantages to the ER. Turns out I broke it. They put me in a cast up to my knee and said I would need to come back for more X-rays. The funniest part of all this? I had worn jeans into the ER, and had to take them off to get the cast. I looked at the nurse and said, "How do I put my pants back on?" She just shrugged and said, "Gee, I don't know. But you're free to go." Thankfully, the Dance Captain had worn stretchy pants, so we traded for the evening and I cabbed it home to my little apartment. I was out of the show for at least 3 months.
I started re-hab, pilates, pool training, and all kinds of things. The doctors I worked with wanted to be sure my foot wasn't just strong enough to walk on, but strong enough to dance en pointe on. The timing couldn't have been better. It was just about Christmas, so I got to go home and spend Christmas there - albeit in a cast - and let me tell you, there is no better way to navigate a mall at Christmas time than in a wheelchair.
As I was recuperating, I started to hear rumours about a National Tour of Phantom that would open in Vancouver about the same time I was slated to go back into the show. Since I hadn't yet performed as a professional in Vancouver, I asked if I could join the tour when I got better instead of going back into the Toronto company. They reluctantly agreed, and I moved back to Vancouver. My dad, Joe & I were going to be driving across the country with boxes of stuff again!
Phantom opened the Ford Centre for the Performing Arts in Vancouver (now just called the Centre) and quite a few of the performers from the International Tour were in the cast. We had so much fun - and I made so many great friends.Unfortunately, the National Tour only ended up playing a few months in Vancouver. They had been hoping for an extension, but the sales didn't support it, and hadn't booked anything further. We were done. Guess I should've stayed in Toronto. At this point I had spent 3 1/2 years with Phantom of the Opera. It was time for a new adventure!
I started to sing in a restaurant, I sang with a rock n' roll cover band, and I started to think about going back to school. I wrote some songs and the bass player in our band placed one of them in a movie - I joined SOCAN. I got more involved in pop music and song writing.
And then a friend of mine from Toronto called and asked if I wanted to come out there and audition for "Les Miserables"...
It begins... more information than anyone could possibly care about... and the Charlottetown Festival.
I was born Diana Kaarina Wong on March 17, 1975 (St. Patrick's Day) in Vancouver, BC, Canada, in what was once Grace Hospital. It snowed a little bit that day, my mom always likes to tell me. She also likes to tell me (a la ABBA) that "I was a dancer before I could walk. She said I began to sing long before I could talk". Love that lyric. And seriously, thank you for the music. I am half-Chinese (my dad was born in Hong Kong) and half-Finnish (my mother was born in Finland) so I am first generation Canadian. I have one younger brother. He's pretty cool, but don't tell him I told you that.
I was raised on the old movie musicals and don't think I could love Fred Astaire more. I would spend every moment I could watching classic movies, movie musicals and idolizing people like Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth, Ann Miller, Cyd Charisse, Priscilla Lane.. the list could go on and on. Other than that, it was Disney movies all the way - which are also musicals! I love to sing.
I learned to play the piano, took voice lessons & also studied very, very seriously to be a ballerina. In fact, that was my first goal - dance. I took 6 classes a week, sometimes 8, and spent my summers dancing from 9-3pm. I made all my friends, neighbours, cousins, brother - anyone I could drum up - do shows with me in my living room or backyard. I wrote songs, scripts, stories, you name it. With my love of old movie musicals and voice lessons though, it was inevitable that I would end up in Musical Theatre. And I did. (My brother was an amazing athlete - and because of him, I was asked to try-out for a AAA Girls Softball Team. I guess they thought athletics ran in the family. Boy, were they surprised! I am a terrible athlete! I cannot play softball. Suffice it to say, I didn't make the team.)
I started to do community musicals when I was 16. I also got an agent through the help of one of my acting teachers and, since Vancouver is not a huge union theatre town, I did commercials and radio & cartoon voice overs instead. I got to sing a duet on the Variety Club telethon with Bob McGrath of Sesame Street! I did toy commercials and probably the best known thing I did in animation as a teenager was "Ranma 1/2: Big Trouble in Nekonron, China." I was the annoyingly-whiny-voiced "Lychee" in that movie (but she's pretty darn cute!). That's her with the big blonde hair on the DVD cover. So I joined ACTRA/UBCP when I was pretty young, with my original maiden name, Diana Wong.When I was 16, I auditioned for my first big professional production, "Miss Saigon" which was to be produced in Toronto. The director I was working with on a community musical got me an Equity appointment, which was incredibly kind of him (as I wasn't), and I went (despite the fine print that said "No one under age 18 will be considered"). They asked me how old I was - and that was the end of that.
Shortly after that, I auditioned for Livent - their big production of "Show Boat" was being mounted, and I got a callback and went to Toronto! Very exciting. Unfortunately, they pulled me aside at the end of the audition and told me I was too young, but they would keep me in mind for other things and would be in touch. I wasn't convinced. Ah, well.
I auditioned for the Charlottetown Festival's production of "Anne of Green Gables" - a big deal here in Canada, and... this time I got it! I was going to be in the ensemble as "Tillie Boulter" and understudy "Diana Barry." My mom was terrified. By this time I was 17.
I have always been an enormous nerd. I was teased for it. I studied all the time, did my homework at lunch and recess and got straight A's and scholarships like crazy. I loved school. I went to "The District Incentive Program" for Jr. High, which was a specialty school for inspired learners and only had 80 students. That's how nerdy I was/am. So when I realized I would have to graduate early in order to fly to Charlottetown and do this show, my teachers were fine with giving me the extra work. I worked like crazy, headed out to Charlottetown in the beginning of May and wrote my provincial Grade 12 exams in a neat little school in Charlottetown at the same time as they wrote them back home, while being watched by the Vice-Principal whose name was "Windy." Kind of cool, really. And I got my Canadian Actors' Equity Card with the name Diana Wong again. But I missed my graduation ceremony and "prom." I was too nerdy anyway.
Charlottetown was a blast. I have never danced harder choreography in my life in a musical. Jacques Lemay, who worked with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, was the choreographer/director and we pirouetted our way through the numbers. Partway through the rehearsal process they realized they didn't have an understudy for "Anne". They asked me to come in and sing for it, and surprisingly, I got it. At the time, I was a much stronger dancer than a singer, and I wasn't entirely confident with singing either. I was the only choice, I think. :) Thankfully, I never had to go on that season!
When I came home, I had scholarships and awards from Graduation, so I enrolled in UBC and started to study Linguistics and Russian. I did more voice over & tv stuff. And a few months later, I auditioned for Charlottetown again and got it - so I had to withdraw from school. I went back to do another season in the same role and this time I DID have to go on as "Anne" - and boy, did I make a terrible redhead. Seriously, it was not convincing at all. My singing was more confident though. So much more confident that in the second show (Charlottetown did 2 shows in rep when I was there) I was made a singer - not a dancer. I still credit Jacques Lemay for having confidence in me and trusting my ability to be a singer. I had "dancer's fear" - but he pushed me to go forward and gave me a few solos. Thank you so much for that, Jacques. I remember him in rehearsal telling the Musical Director, "Don't worry. She can do it." The thing I learned though, doing one show as a dancer and one show as a singer is that being a singer is fantastic! As a dancer, you are the first one at rehearsal and the last one to leave, you rehearse non-stop and work your heart out. You bow first and you are exhausted, if not from the dancing, from the costume changes! As a singer, you rehearse for a few hours, get a specialty bow and have time to relax and have fun in the green room. If you know me at all, guess which one I preferred. I'm lazy. I like to sit in the green room.
I loved Charlottetown and my time out east immensely. I hope I get to go back there one day. I made some amazing friends, some of whom I've run into in the business all over the world. I learned how to do a professional show, I had to understudy the lead, which terrified me but made me much more confident, and I got the first real push to switch from a "dancer who sings" to a "singer who dances." I had an apartment, rent to pay, bills to pay, groceries and food to make, and I was 17-18. My mom was still terrified.
More to come...
Blah-ggity Blah-g Blah...
Well, hello. I guess this first entry will be a sort of introduction. Here goes. I've tried this blogging thing before, and just like a journal, I get distracted and it gets abandoned not too long after the fact - but I've got my fingers crossed this time. For me, already over-scheduled and much too busy, to decide at this moment to start a blog is probably not the smartest decision, but it goes along with starting a "schedule", (something I have never been that great with) and so it may actually succeed! And it may force me to keep to my schedule.
Quick facts:
I am very spontaneous.
I am very creative (read: scattered & random).
I have too many ideas.
I have far too much going on.
Naturally: start a blog!
Okay, there is an ulterior motive to all of this. I've been asked a few times to write the story of my life so far - some people think it might be inspiring, some people think it's just kind of interesting, some people think it's been entirely unfair. I think it's kind of interesting, and it might actually make people feel better about themselves to read about all the crazy things that have happened to me. It's a cautionary tale, a learning experience and maybe a little bit inspirational? I hear, "You should write a book about your life!" pretty often, but I'm not sure anyone would buy a book about some chick they don't know. I hear, "You should write a screenplay!" also, and I have the same answer. A blog? That might be more realistic. We'll see if it gets any hits, and go from there before I take their advice and attempt a book - a memoir? Really? At 36. Yikes.
So, the purpose of this blog:
1. To tell my story so I maybe don't have to re-tell it over and over and direct people instead to this blog.
2. I have a lot of students who are interested in how I got started & get a lot of emails asking for advice. Hopefully, this is a good place to give that advice and help folks out. :)
3. To maybe, possibly, post recipes? Thoughts? Experiences? Anything?
4. This is probably going to be a very random blog.
5. I do some interesting things for a living and I'm the mother of a really cool little gal, so sometimes I have interesting things to say about that.
6. I have a wacky sense of humour.
7. I LOVE (LIVE FOR) music. So there might be some of that here too.
8. Crafting & Cooking.
9. I'm starting to sound really boring. :)
I wrote a few interesting blog entries a long time ago on my Myspace page that I might include here too, since people really seemed to respond to them. Probably better than this entry anyway. Ha.
Okay. I think that about does it for an introduction. Not much point in describing myself any further, as I'm about to start chronicling my life up to date. Oh, and the names of those involved will be changed/omitted/whatever to protect the innocent - or the internet-cautious!
Are you still reading this? Maybe you'll read the next part too then!
I'll start with a brief overview of my career thus far, and then I'll get into the juicy stuff.
Quick facts:
I am very spontaneous.
I am very creative (read: scattered & random).
I have too many ideas.
I have far too much going on.
Naturally: start a blog!
Okay, there is an ulterior motive to all of this. I've been asked a few times to write the story of my life so far - some people think it might be inspiring, some people think it's just kind of interesting, some people think it's been entirely unfair. I think it's kind of interesting, and it might actually make people feel better about themselves to read about all the crazy things that have happened to me. It's a cautionary tale, a learning experience and maybe a little bit inspirational? I hear, "You should write a book about your life!" pretty often, but I'm not sure anyone would buy a book about some chick they don't know. I hear, "You should write a screenplay!" also, and I have the same answer. A blog? That might be more realistic. We'll see if it gets any hits, and go from there before I take their advice and attempt a book - a memoir? Really? At 36. Yikes.
So, the purpose of this blog:
1. To tell my story so I maybe don't have to re-tell it over and over and direct people instead to this blog.
2. I have a lot of students who are interested in how I got started & get a lot of emails asking for advice. Hopefully, this is a good place to give that advice and help folks out. :)
3. To maybe, possibly, post recipes? Thoughts? Experiences? Anything?
4. This is probably going to be a very random blog.
5. I do some interesting things for a living and I'm the mother of a really cool little gal, so sometimes I have interesting things to say about that.
6. I have a wacky sense of humour.
7. I LOVE (LIVE FOR) music. So there might be some of that here too.
8. Crafting & Cooking.
9. I'm starting to sound really boring. :)
I wrote a few interesting blog entries a long time ago on my Myspace page that I might include here too, since people really seemed to respond to them. Probably better than this entry anyway. Ha.
Okay. I think that about does it for an introduction. Not much point in describing myself any further, as I'm about to start chronicling my life up to date. Oh, and the names of those involved will be changed/omitted/whatever to protect the innocent - or the internet-cautious!
Are you still reading this? Maybe you'll read the next part too then!
I'll start with a brief overview of my career thus far, and then I'll get into the juicy stuff.
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