So, wow, we did that.

Back from Orlando. If that's what it's like to earn your living as an actor, I have no complaints. We performed the same material roughly 350 times in four days, which is hard but not impossible, especially when you're in a cast that knows how to play well and keep things from becoming too rote. For this we were put up in a nice hotel, paid handsomely, and fed--oh, god, it was just an orgy of food. (From the closing parties alone I remember mini-beef Wellingtons, pan-seared ahi tuna, some sort of stuffed pork chop, roast turkey with cornbread stuffing and cranberry relish, beef something else, beef skewers, egg rolls, pot stickers, Caesar salad, many different kinds of sushi, veggie quesadillas, nachos, shrimp-aioli-and-prosciutto wraps, bacon-wrapped scallops, shrimp cocktail, mini-burgers, cookies, cheesecake pops dipped in dark chocolate, chocolate mousse shooters, some other kind of fruit dessert shooters, fruit-and-cheese skewers, and several other desserts. I know that wasn't all of it. I should note that I did not personally eat everything. But still.)

We also saw Rod Stewart perform on the last night. I think we all went in thinking, okay, whatever, Rod Stewart, and came out thoroughly impressed. If I can still move that well and use my voice that well at that age, I should be happy.

Things I learned:
1. For work like this, comfortable shoes are mandatory. Ditto lots and lots of water and hot tea. And it doesn't hurt to pack bubble bath for an end-of-day soak.
2. I still know how to improvise. And I like it a whole lot.
3. When you have to interact with the audience and be fairly aggressive about it, it's much easier if you have some sort of mask. I think by the end of the week we were all wearing sunglasses for that shift. Likewise the sunglasses (indoors) seemed to make it easier for the audience to take the aggression as humor and performance, not an actual threat.
4. When you're actually being paid, you can abandon the actor's traditional starvation mentality of seeing free food in front of you and eating until the food is gone. In fact, in circumstances like this, you should abandon it.
5. Food and pay and Rod Stewart notwithstanding, a good ensemble is still one of the best rewards of this whole game.
6. I should try to get out of Chicago every winter. I think I need more sun than I've been getting.

Came back just in time for the premiere party of "Julie's House," the web sitcom I shot last fall. I didn't actually see the showing--by then I was crashing pretty hard. (I also really hate watching myself on camera, so perhaps I was looking for excuses to leave.) But the feedback has all been excellent. And it feels ridiculously cool to come home from an acting job to see the results of another acting job and get the first start-up e-mails about the next acting job.

There was some more exercise in there--given the quantities of food, I was not about to skip my time in the hotel gym--but I can't remember what fell on what day so I'm just going to omit that report. Today:
Running: 2.5 miles
Biking: 7 miles (and some lovely scrapes and bruises to show for it)
15 minutes upper-body weights