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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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"...

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.