When I began this post I was in bed...and it was 7.45 in the morning...so the conference must be over! Never have I spent 9 more sleep-deprived days. Never has life changed so quickly in such a short space of time. I had thought I would share details on this blog day-by-day...to keep my sanity in check, but we were simply too busy, and I lost my mind. I'm not sure in which master class or practice room I left it, but I'm content for it to remain there. It was far too narrow to hold all I'll need for the next phase of this journey.

The lessons culled from the 5 master classes on the first 3 days of the week are clear. They range from appropriate material, to commitment to a text, to personal projection, to channeled emotion, but when I try to summarize them in bullet points they too become too narrow to cover the vast terrain of self-awareness that unfolded. I'm also glad to say that, in the course of working with such a wide range of talents and personalities, I have learned (and begun to inhabit) the realm of 'in control' as opposed to 'controlling'. (GT is more than delighted to hear this ;-))

The faculty were wonderful - truly supportive and deeply caring, but major surgery without anesthesia is incredibly painful no matter how kind the surgeon. I can think of only a very few people in the group who did not experience a fairly major emotional upheaval (and sometimes more than one) in the course of the program. And, in the final performance, those that didn't grow emotionally seemed to leave exactly the same as they came. Would I want to go through it again? No. Will I? Yes. Should anyone who wants to sing with commitment and honesty? Yes.

My first upset was early in the program (I've always been very precocious), in the master class with Julie Wilson, Pam Tate and Michael Joviala. I sang Sentimental Journey - a song I grew up hearing my mother sing and that I thought I knew well. The lights were on, but nobody was home. I missed a key change and came in a third below. I was made to run (literally) for the train, and I realized I really wasn't ready to get on. Everyone congratulated me for achieving in the first class what some folks don't get to in 5 years of acting classes, but breaking down isn't one of my favorite pastimes and, although I'd managed to leave a bit of my baggage at the station, I was still overweight for the journey.

In the second class with Sally Mayes, Jason Graae and Shelley Markham, I sang Keep Young and Beautiful. It was there that I became aware (with help from the great faculty and my super classmates) that I had issues with the impending big-figure-change birthday and that I needed to connect with the "me" other people see and not the one I've already dressed in grey with a lap blanket in the rocker. I sang into the dressing room mirror (and I really hate looking at myself in a mirror). I did press-ups on the makeup bar. And I lay on the floor singing Happy Birthday until I could sing KY&B and feel only the irony. (They asked me to sing Happy Birthday because it's a song everyone knows...but even in that song choice there was irony.)

By the time I was ready for the 3rd master class with Sharon McNight, Faith Prince and Alex Rybeck, I was playing it uber-safe. In retrospect, that was a huge mistake, but I was in ''protect me'' mode, never realizing that the tighter I wrapped my arms around myself, the less able I would be to catch myself when I fell. I picked something I'd sung a few months ago, but when Faith looked up and smiled during the opening bars, everything went out of my head. Although I think I did a reasonable job with Being Alive at the fund-raiser in May, it was DOA that morning. The reason for singing it well in May (feeding homeless men) had charged me with energy and commitment, but, in that basement dressing room Master Class, I had no soul. When I'd finished, I was asked why I'd picked the song. As I began to answer, all the faces from that May night rushed before my eyes; all the emotion I share with those people and for our purpose welled up and I was at it again.

Between the various master classes, the days were peppered with panel discussions on working with music directors, building a show, comedic writing and technical considerations. Freed from the most remote emotional consideration, I took to these hours like a fish in the water. Then an entirely unexpected tsunami hurled me even deeper into the darkness of self-doubt. The speaker was talking about a range of relatively innocuous technical considerations when, as an aside, he mentioned the list of overused songs they keep at the bar in his club. Whenever someone sings a song on the list, the tech crew races to the bar for a shot. Later he mentioned another song that is currently being sung every other day by naive wanna-be's. I had sung two of the three songs - one for my audition and one for my song before the entire group. On any other day, I would have enjoyed the laughter, but, in that already rattled state, I could only think that I had made a terrible mistake. I was totally out of my league, wasting the money, time and support of people I loved. The memory of some East Coast prep school boyfriend of the 80's telling me how much he enjoyed my company because I was refreshingly naive welled up and won the battle. I decided to play it as safe as possible, get through the program and come home. When i got to Chicago, I would stop singing and just focus on work - both professional and for the causes I support. The piece for Master Class 4 that night would be the safest one in my book.

Master Class 4 was with Tovah Feldshuh, Pam Myers and Mark Burnell. I'd auditioned with I Want to Be Bad (accompanied by Mark), and it was by far the safest piece in my book. They stopped me before I'd even finished the verse. I was then asked to sew something while I sang (not so much an act but an action). Then I was asked to access all the sensuality I was repressing and bring it up for the big screen cameo. My forehead was held so i couldn't use my face so much to sing. Tovah has a great observation - people who are sexy and then act sexy just make sexy redundant. Guilty as charged, but I'm so uncomfortable being sexy that I often parody sexy as a safe place to be. I'm still working on the self-awareness these exercises liberated (and no doubt will be for many years to come), but just being able to exist with economy of motion is a terribly liberating way to sing; almost as liberating as knowing to sing in a conversational key rather than a ''don't you just love my voice!" key. That was a great night for our performance group of 8. Everyone made great strides, and there were some truly stellar examples to illuminate the process. I retired for the night determined to see the course through and, maybe, just maybe, to continue singing when I got home.

Master Class 5 was with Laurel Masse, George Hall and Tex Arnold. I sang Come on Strong, a little known Van Huesen and Cahn piece, which contains the delightful lyric ''I want to see harlequins". They loved the song, but I was still too stiff. I ended up singing the piece channeling Samantha from Sex in the City. George Hall has to have the most delightful countenance on the planet, so it wasn't hard to try to charm him. Things ended encouragingly, but I was still holding my security blanket tightly around me.

I know it sounds as if i spent the entire 3 days of master classes in tears...I didn't, but I shed enough to wash away an exterior wax that had yellowed over the years. Now, a little distance away, I can see some of what I discovered. It will take time to explore more fully this strange new territory, but the path is much clearer.

The next post will focus on the process that began Wednesday evening, as our group of 13 put together our show. And I think you can tell from the tone of this post that, although the early days were incredibly difficult, the ending was happy.