I want my lifestyle to be fabulous. Here is my day in my ideal lifestyle:  I wake up and slip out of bed and walk to the balcony overlooking a gorgeous water front with tons of greenery and flowers. I do my yoga as the sun slips above the water horizon. After which I head downstairs where my breakfast is ready (by my chef) scrambled eggs, french toast, avocado, grapes, bacon orange juice and water. I  join my love who is planning our 3rd vacation to France. As we finish our breakfast his car arrives and he heads to the studio and I head to my  dance class for some cardio, meet with an NYU college buddy at St. Regis Hotel for lunch, then head out to a technical rehearsal for: HERE’s where the dream splits: 1. Tech rehearsal with my band for my sold out show or 2. Photo shoot for the Broadway show I’m starring in.

I want to live the life of being flown all over to perform. Once I got those few tastes of being flown to sing and having the food, clothes, transportation, and hotels taken care of, I fell in love. That is truly a life that I could get used to! Having a driver take me to rehearsal and my performance, and enjoying whatever city I’m in. Or being in the whirlwind of a production that I’m starring in. Granted I haven’t been on Broadway yet but when I am I can only imagine the multitude of things that go into the production of it! I love seeing the light designers and the costume crew, scenery and tech crew  on top of the actors rehearsing and musicians warming up! I love all those elements coming to together to create that MOMENT! The whirlwind of activity from so many different ppl towards one common goal-ME!  just kidding….but, you know….WHY NOT? If not towards me, why not towards a production featuring  me? But why me, you ask? Because I have so much to share! I have the passion, energy, talent, and light to entertain and inspire! I do it in my daily life without much effort because it was something that God blessed me with. But I am ready to entertain MORE. I’m ready to inspire MORE. And I’m ready to face on the silent fear that paralyzes and keep telling it that I CAN. I know what steps to take to get what I want and better: I KNOW what  I want!

I’m ready to grab hold of these reins and have the ride of my life!

Actually, I don’t really feel like partying. Or sipping Bacardi. Or really doing anything in particular. Just reflecting about where I’ve been and where I am and where I’m going. Is that weird?

When I woke up, it felt like a weird Christmas. Like a Christmas with no tree or gifts. Even tho my father wakes me up singing an off tune Frank Sinatra rendition of Happy Birthday before he goes off to work and my mom knocks down the door singing in her fancy fancy voice bearing card and gifts, when compared to my younger birthdays it doesnt….compare. They  were different. I guess because I’m different. I’ve grown and matured.  I remember 8 specifically, getting dolls and books and money and a little mermaid handheld video game, and jewelry and a birthday party. and CAKE. And in Highschool, the Balloons…oh the balloons. College; the alcohol and dancing out at the club/bar.

Bu since 25, I’ve just been reflecting and eating. lol This year, I went to Pancake House which was really all I wanted. Then I went to a line dancing class with my mom and Jamila then got a leg/Brazilian wax (which was AMAZING) and talked on my video AIM with my love until I fell asleep. Perfect birthday.  It really was. And I didn’t need any balloons.

but a cake would be nice…

2. sometimes despite the effort and passion you put into a performance, ppl will not enjoy it. There is nothing you can do about the result of your work. Just the quality of YOUR work.

3. When you feel too tired to go on, just think about the audience. People showered got out of their houses, bought the tickets and put on nice clothes to see the show. When I realize its not about me but my service to people (and God) that helps me muster up the strength to go on and with prayer, that supernatural strength will come from GOD!

4. Always find something new in the script/story. Find new things to focus on and discover and play on stage. Then it will never feel like WORK.

5. Never underestimate the compliment or smile or applause of an audience member. Who KNOWS what they have been going thru or what the performance meant to them. As a wise man told me, all we have is TIME. When someone takes time out to acknowledge your work, appreciate it. It is golden and you can get that time back. Even if you didn’t think the performance was great, its more than just what you think.

I’m going to miss my BBS cast. Nancy’s giggle and loving discipline, Anna’s selflessness and readiness to help us with everything, Dan being 100% Dan, sitting out on my patio and doing yoga, going from apartment to apartment, cooking up storms, drinking post show wine with the roomies, watching Family Feud , So you Think you can Dance and Glee with the roomies, GOOFING OFF backstage, going to the beach and laying out, Walmart runs, dancing and laughing until my voice was raw in the dressing room, hair shopping, Disney world, driving the van, the girls night out at Cafe Iguana, so much!! This was truly a blessing and the WONDERFUL thing about it all is that WE ALL KNEW. We KNEW it was special and we ALL had such beautiful energy and we all appreciated every moment. we truly were a family and I’m more HAPPY to have experienced it than SAD that it has ended.  I know have a larger family to visit and meet up with in NYC/FL.

So now….I’m home. Chicago. I missed it. The smell the sights, my family, my home, my friends. I have so much work to do though. Its overwhelming. I have boxes that haven’t been unpacked since i graduated from undergrad because I’ve always been on the go, dropping off stuff at home and going to Gurnee, IL, NYC, FL, or Cohoes. Now that I have  worked out my “pack rat” syndrome by having to move and pack lightly all the time, I can happily and easily dump evertyhing in my room and make it liveable. Or at least usable for my parents. I think it will be very symbolic too, to clear out the old and make way for the new.

Make way!

I am just waking up and I have this poem on my mind by e.e. cummings. At first I didn’t get him when I first discovered him at 11  but now, at 25, he speaks a language I understand!

i thank you God for most this amazing by E. E. Cummings

i thank You God for most this amazing
day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees
and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything
wich is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,
and this is the sun’s birthday;this is the birth
day of life and love and wings:and of the gay
great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing
breathing any-lifted from the no
of all nothing-human merely being
doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

…and it’s put to music. A chorus with tone clusters and rising and swelling harmonies that literally made me WEEP when I listened to it.

Over the last few days, a couple of things have been revealed to me:

LISTEN to people.(Don’t just remain silent as you formulate your next response or formulate an opinion about what they are saying. Listen to what it is they are saying. You learn a lot about them by what they say.)

Take nothing PERSONALLY. (If someone “does something to you” chances are they are doing that to everyone. That “something” is just what they DO. Take yourself off your self-built pedestal

that is all for today.

Peace and Blessings.

Well,  guess where I am?? I am sitting outside my bedroom in the patio, in the sun in South Florida. YES it IS November 2nd and yes I am slightly getting sunburn on my left arm and sweating a little bit but I LOVE IT!!! I am out here doing Bubbling Brown Sugar at Broward’s Stage Door Theatre and it is AMAZING. Every singe day, I am so grateful for being where I am doing what I am doing and the moment I start getting comfortable or complacent or bored, I think about those desolate times in NYC in my apartment crying and paralyzed with fear and uncertainty about my future and next move. I think about those days I’d spend indoors on craigslist and random job sites looking for jobs. I think about those  days and I am suddenly drowned with gratitude.

The Lord/Universe/Eternal Light/Jesus is blessing me and aligning me to my path. Not long after I graduated, I heard back from Bubbling Brown Sugar, the Color Purple tour and Dreamgirls in Cohoes. I literally passed out unconscious in my room and nearly drowned in my tears of, what else, GRATITUDE.  I WAS SET. correction I AM SET for about a year starting in Feb. THREE SHOWS in a row including a TOUR!! And what makes it so much more amazing, that is exactly what I prayed for, asked for , meditated on and expected. I wanted to be in BLACK SHOWS, learn about myself as a woman and performer, inspire and bless ppl thru my musical medium and travel and LO and BEHOLD, every single request has come to pass. Never again will a pray and ask and wait for something and not expect it. How dare I doubt the possibility of greatness.

Dreamgirls was AN EXPERIENCE. It was a beautiful MESS and I met some wonderful people. The production was one of the most challenging in my life and I remember panicking about nearly everything offstage right before I came on, will my dress be zipped, will I dance out of these shoes, is my wig on backwards, is my mic out, will my voice come out, will I have enough time to quick change into my other wig, dress, shoes, and gloves. But no matter what happened, as soon as I stepped on that stage Lorell was ON and IN the scene. I had such amazing chemistry with my Jimmy (Don). I didn’t have to ACT like I loved him and nothing felt FORCED. He truly spoiled me because everything we did together and everything I did with him was so organic and natural. Plus, I was always blown away by his talents! That was such an enriching experience. The town and everything else was so shady so the cast really bonded through our common struggle! But I feel like those are ppl that I will always have in my life that I can always come back to.

Bubbling Brown Sugar now, is amazing and I have never felt so grateful in every moment of my life. Like right now as I type, I’m at the kitchen table with my roommates who I have so much respect for and we are all eating and talking about life. Each of us come from separate backgrounds but we all have performing as a passion in common and we were each strategically placed here. With a specific purpose. And I discovered mine at this last performance!

Our audiences are typically white haired audiences because Florida is like the land of the old. But in one particular performance, I broke down the 4th wall and looked out at the audience and saw the faces of the ppl that were enjoying the performance and nearly BROKE DOWN in TEARS onstage. Each of their faces were LIT UP with LIGHT AND JOY that I had never seen before! It was like their youth was restored and a special vigor was penetrating their body!  They laughed and sang and danced and shook their booties and threw their head back and clapped off beat!! In the opening and closing song there is a line: “Bubbling Brown Sugar, JOY is what its all about” and it resounded so loudly in my mind. THIS IS WHAT IS IT ALL ABOUT. This is why I do what I do and why I will continue to perform for as long as I can on this Earth. IT BRINGS JOY. And I saw that joy manifested in each of the peoples’ faces like an illuminating light and infectious dance. THIS very reason is why I perform on stage. TO spread the JOY of the Lord. To provide an escape to an imaginary land of adventure, fantasy, or in this case, memory/past . And everytime I look out, I see the audience members singing along to the old 20′s and 30′s songs, tapping their knees and shaking their shoulders. I saw this one woman who had to have been about 90 year old with this frozen smile of GLEE and reminiscence, and for “God Bless the Child”, she closed her eyes and tilted her head back with a flight smile of remembrance, and at the end of the finale, her little shoulders were shaking and eyes were lit up with the magical JOY. At the curtain call, her daughter helped her little feeble body stand and she gave us a standing ovation along with about more than 2/3 of the audience. I’m sure that other 1/3 would have stood up if their knees were willing because the shouts were overwhelming! MY GOD!! What a RUSH it is doing this show!

During the BIG SAVOY dance break, I looked over onstage and saw my cast all dancing with their sparkling costumes and dazzling smiles and talents oozing all over the place and almost began to levitate with the energy and joy and POWER that was onstage. This show is such a HIGH. And I’m so priviledged to be a part of this cast.

NOT TO MENTION my very first reviews, which were outstanding!! I WAS SO SHOCKED because literally the performance before those reviews came out, I ran off stage at the end feeling the most depressed about my performance. I felt it was an awful performance and I was so disappointed in myself and ashamed that I wasn’t able to give more and LO and BEHOLD, I received this review:

“The incandescence named Allison Semmes is currently electrifying Broward Stage Door Theatre’s resurrection of the Harlem Renaissance jukebox musical Bubbling Brown Sugar.

Semmes is actually a supporting actress here. Even in a cast of 16, however, she stands out with a polished Broadway voice, toothpaste ad grin, flashing eyes and amped-up flair evident in her angular body language and vivacious delivery. Near the end of the show, she delivers a Duke Ellington torch song so affectingly that it actually raises goose pimples”-Sun Sentinal www.stagedoortheatre.com/brown 

Whatever was plaguing me must have been delusional or trying to break me down before I read that review. Even though we aren’t supposed t read our reviews, this one will be the ammunition I need to fight those doubting depressing feelings I have and questions toward whether or not I need to keep going. It was speak directly to those demons that try to tell me I’m not good enough or that my performances are weak. Even though it is ONE person’s opinion, it is that tangible reminder that some people out there recognize and are moved by my humble efforts. Because sometimes, I forget. I forget that I am doing what I LOVE and that I shouldn’t be so hard and tedious and JUDGMENTAL about my offering. I forget that my smile and pouring out of my joy and laughing and dancing on stage and actions are noticed and are enough. That I don’t have to overdo myself or fight to be seen…..wow….REVELATION.

So I move forward and stronger woman. A more confident performer. And though there may be reviews that are nice, there may be ppl that walk away from the show not as moved, there may be ppl that didn’t receive as much joy as other, if ANY. But what matters to me is that I offered it in sincerity, effort, and truth and I can only pray that SOMEONE left with that light and dance that I witnessed in so many of the audience members in Coral Springs.

I’m ready to go forth and share this light to as many people that will receive it. Lord lead me into my season! I’m READY!

I’m in the process of re-discovering/re-inventing myself. I guess this is typical when you enter the quarter-life crisis. I’ve always been Allison of course! But after I graduated, it hit me: I’m no longer a student.  Ok, that’s obvious but this was mind-blowing for me. If I’m not a student, WHAT IN THE WORLD AM I?? And this question arises when someone I meet asks that dreaded question: “So what do you do?” I typically respond, “I’m a grad student at NYU in musical theatre.” That usually gets  oohs and ahhs and raised eyebrows. But weeks after I graduated, the cat got my tongue… “I…uh…graduated from…NYU (waiting for an ooh or ahh)…” They respond, “oh, so what are you doing now?”…I’m not working and I’m not on Broadway or TV yet, which is supposed to come the day after graduation. So what do I say?? Until I booked my four gigs (which will be discussed later) I give them my hippie, ambiguous answer: I’m just enjoying life right now. Enjoying the summer and the first time I’m not in school”. That should give me some time to get it together and come up with an acceptable answer.

I now realize my answer may never be “acceptable”. And gosh darnit, that’s ok! That’s the life that I choose. Odd jobs, temporary stays, traveling, performing, and nothing conventional and traditional, rather exciting, random, and interesting learning experiences.

And so far, so good…