Regarding the dream:

Well, for those of you that know a little about me, one of the first things is that I have a truly terrible memory. I've also been active in community theater for about 5 years. I shoot for the small roles, the ones with few lines to memorize, but it doesn't always work out that way.

The way that I manage to not blank out is to quickly skim over my lines just before I go onstage - otherwise, if I don't bring it to the surface, I will completely blank out. And even if I do, most of the other actors are *really* good - they can tell that there's trouble and improv until we get back onto the track of the script.

So anyway, there was this one role I got that was a lead, in a play called "Over the River" (I think), which was basically about this 20-something guy that lives with his Italian grandparents, and he struggles with love and independence and family issues... anyway, on the final night of the show, my director caught me skimming over my lines backstage, and he said that if I don't know them by now, I'll never know them. So I stopped skimming.

At the final few minutes of the play, my character has to give this long, bittersweet monologue to the audience, about his grandparents.

And I blanked.

I stared out at the audience, and the audience stared back at me (as audiences are apt to do), and this seemed to go on for about five or six uncomfortable minutes.

And then I started talking about my grandparents. Not my character's grandparents, mind you - MY grandparents. After I rambled on and on for a few minutes, desperately trying to find a way to bring the play to a close, knowing that there was nobody else on stage that could "save" me, I somehow found a thread and got back on track.

I later found out that the "five or six uncomfortable minutes" wasn't nearly as long as I thought, and that the audience didn't even know that I had blanked. (Strange how perceived time is so variable, isn't it?) So they might not have even known just how badly I was butchering the memories of my character's grandparents.

But the dream - that nightmare - it can come true...

- Eni"It's Jimminy Cricket's doppleganger!"gma