The month of May flew by. After performing an excerpt of my new one-woman show “All the Great New Things to Come” at the beginning of the month, I went on a mini-vacation, came back, and immediatlely started cat sitting for all my friends:
Cat Clients For the Month of May:
Then in mid-May after my family celebrated Mother’s Day, I got news that two supervisors at my work were retiring. This was quite a jolt for me. I consider our office to be a well-oiled machine, so whenever there is a changing of the guards, I get a little nervous.
Change is hard, even when it’s right- it’s still change and it’s stressful. Even if it’s good stress – stress is stress. I worked with one of my supervisors for 16 years. A season has come to an end.
Then I returned to the gym after 3 years:
U-Jam Class!
Also in May, I was taking acting classes down in Redwood City on Wednesday evenings- and that is quite the commute for me coming from Oakland during rush hour traffic, but it was so fun and worth it.
ACTING!!
This is the first time I have taken an acting class that ended with us filming actual movie shorts. Usually acting classes just teach you some techniques and then say, “good luck!” and send you off into the abyss. But Bravemaker Academy actually gives their students experience with making films. I think this is a brilliant format. I was starting to doubt myself thinking maybe I was just a theatre person, but this class has reminded me that I love this medium too. We shot two short films and one of them was written and directed by Los Angeles based Christine Weatherup. She flew up to the Bay Area to work with us.
Speaking of movie sets, also this past month, someone on Instagram, who goes by the name “ScreamStyleSleuth” (a fan of the Scream movie franchise) found a picture of me on set from 1996 when I worked on that movie as a stand in for Neve Campbell. I have never seen this picture before:
It’s me and Deborah (Rose McGowan’s stand-in) during the lighting of a scene at “Tatum’s house”. I know, it’s hard work, ha ha! Look at us, just laying around. Setting up interior shots is so much easier than being outside in freezing cold weather. We had a lot of those scenes too.
The month ended with my family going out to dinner for my sister’s birthday and I also started up my solo performance class again. No wonder I am so tired! But a good kind of tired. I wonder what June will bring.
May 2023:
Theresa Donahoe 