Good afternoon bloggies! This will be a brief August update because there’s not a lot going on right now.

Camelot
We are winding down rehearsals for “Camelot” and everything is starting to come together (finally). Even though there’s been a lot of bitching and complaining (I am not without fault here either, and neither is anyone else) it has been a really wonderful experience and I’ve met so many great people whom I probably would never have met otherwise. To update my roles, I am playing Nimue who steals Merlyn’s magic and locks him up for several centuries. In the chorus I am Lady Jane, a lady in waiting in King Arthur’s court, and dance partner of Sir Dinidan (played by my friend Brad). I have two solos in the play, the first as Nimue, and the last as the narrator for the song “Guenevere.”

Next week I, along with fellow actor Ben (who plays Sir Lionel), will be doing a few radio spots at the Cumulus stations here in Columbia, MO to promote “Camelot.” I’ve done television, but have never done radio before so this is going to be a brand new experience for me. Ben’s an absolute hoot, and I think that will make this new venture worthwhile.

“Camelot” opens on Friday, August 20th at 8:00pm at the Maplewood Barn Theatre in Nifong Park. Tickets for adults is $10.00 and children 10 and under get in free. The show will be running the next three consecutive weekends, so you’ve got 9 chances to come see all our hard work come together. Hope to see you there!
http://www.maplewoodbarn.com

Music
I’ve been working on a new song called “I Never Knew.” The song is about the reawakening of the spirit and of the heart. Currently I am working on the lyrics and the melody, but it will be a while before you hear a demo. What I can tell you is that this song mirrors what I have gone through these past few months (as many of my songs do), and I’m using this catharsis to put it down on paper and in music so I can share it with all of you.

School
The Associate’s Degree at DeVry will be winding down next term, and then it’s off to start the Bachelor’s Degree. I can honestly tell you that I am getting severely burned out with college, but I am still maintaining that 4.0 GPA that I’ve worked so hard at to keep. It’s a struggle, but I am showing my daughter that it’s never too late to go after what you want.

Well that’s all for now bloggies, stay tuned as I blog about “Camelot” happenings when we go live next week!

~R

Quite a bit has happened since I posted the first installment of the June update. My cat Ramone was hit and killed on June 12th sometime in the middle of the night. The neighbors found his body and returned it to us. This was not something I wanted to start out my Saturday with, but there you go. It killed me to tell my daughter, but I knew it needed to be done – I am not one of those parents who would tell a child that the cat moved to a farm out in the country or that he ran away. I don’t believe in lying to a child like that. Death is a part of life, and we must take the death, as painful as it is, along with life. It was hard on her, but it was extremely hard on me. You see, Ramone was my cat. I adopted both him and his brother Remo when they were 7 weeks old. Remo took a shining to Zoe, Ramone took a shining to me. So Ramone adopted me as his human, he would cuddle with me, he would sit across my arms as I was typing on the computer. There are times where we would just lock eyes, stare at each other for what seemed like minutes, and then he would tap me on my forehead with his forehead. He did that to me the last night he was alive, it became our thing.

Zoe picked out a lovely spot in the back yard for Ramone’s final resting place, and next spring we will plant flowers there in his honor and his memory. I created a tribute video in honor of Ramone with a compilation of videos I took with my cell phone (videos I had actually forgotten that I took until I was pulling photos off of it). I miss him dearly – what I would give to have him back with me right now…

I auditioned for “Camelot” on June 19th, and got a call not two hours after the audition that they were offering me the role of Lady Nimue and Lady Jane. I immediately and graciously accepted the roles, and I’m very excited about the opportunity to get back upon a stage where I haven’t set foot on in over 20 years. The production is being put on by the Maplewood Barn Theatre and will run 3 weekends starting in August. I will post more details as they arise.