Jere-Rigged

On The 20th Century

Celebrity Sighting of the Day: actress, former talk show host, and out-loud lesbian Rosie O'Donnell, currently starring as Golde in the Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof, coming out of Bolzano's, a newish Italian restaurant right on Shubert Alley, just a bit down 45th Street from the Minksoff Theatre where Fiddler is playing. She was coming out as I was going in. My dining companion swears that co-star Harvey Fierstein was with her, but I did not see him so I cannot confirm.

So I was at The Actors' Fund of America one night only benefit concert presentation of the 1978 Cy Coleman/Betty Comden and Adolph Green musical On The 20th Century at the New Amsterdam Theatre on 42nd Street.

I was there thanks to my friend Jason, who very generously took me as his guest. I was ever so pleased to occupy a seat about midway back in the mezzanine, which provided perfect sightlines for what may turn out to be the theatrical event of the season.

This musical is based on the play Twentieth Century by Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, which was based on an earlier work by Bruce Millholland. You may recall that I saw a terrible production of a adaptation of this play last year. This production was so abominable that I was worried that it had damaged the reputation of the property itself.

I needn't have worried.

This presentation simply sparkled from the first notes played by the orchestra under the direction of Seth Rudetsky. I'm going to try to hit some highlights.

-Director Peter Flynn "staged" the overture and created star entrances for each of the leads and major featured players as they all readied to board the titular train with their luggage, on which was spelled out their names and characters. It was perfect...Brooks Ashmankas' didn't have his character's name anywhere in evidence, and leading lady Marin Mazzie didn't have one at all, but it was a lovely idea that worked in every other instance and really ramped us up for the show to follow.

-The magnificent Kathleen Turner proved to be the biggest surprise of the night with her first act cameo as theatre diva Imelda Thornton in a flashback scene. Everyone already knew that Turner was one of the theatre's biggest stars, but, if I'm not mistaken, this was her musical debut. While I've been a major Turner fan for almost 20 years, I had no idea the lady could carry a tune. Not only can she, she even managed some hysterical movement that was absolutely right for the aging-diva-auditioning-for-an-ingenue that she was playing. Someone seriously needs to mount an Applause, a Coco, or a Woman of the Year for this lady.

-Leads Douglas Sills and Marin Mazzie were just about ideal sparring partners as theatrical producer Oscar Jaffee and movie star Lily Garland. I should have known they'd be so perfect...the relationship between Oscar and Lily somewhat mirrors that of both
Fred Graham and Lili Vanessi of Kiss Me Kate, the female half of which Mazzie played to great acclaim on Broadway and Mack Sennett and Mabel Normand of Mack and Mabel, the male half of which Sills played in Los Angeles in a production that was rumored for a Broadway transfer.

-The concert featured a reunion of four of the original Altar Boyz, playing train porters. Cheyenne Jackson had long since moved on to play the lead in the recently closed All Shook Up and never appeared in the show's commercial production at Dodger Stages. Tyler Maynard is now starring in The Miracle Brothers downtown at the Vineyard Theatre and Andy Karl and David Josefsberg are now in Slut! at ATA.

-The late career triumph of Jo Anne Worley was indeed something to see. I don't know what this lady has been doing since the old Laugh In series went off the air, but she should be doing theatre. The lady is a first rate comedy star. Someone needs to sign her up to play Mama Morton in Chicago or possibly even replace Joanna Gleason in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

So, yeah...it was a great night, one for the ages that I think people will be talking about for quite some time.

Come See Me Perform

There will be several opportunities in the next few weeks to come see me perform. I invite everyone to come out and see me.

Starting this Friday, I will be appearing in a small role in a cabaret show called Around the World in a Bad Mood. The performances are at Rose's Turn in the West Village. Here's the schedule:

9/30 @ 7.00pm
10/7 @ 7.00pm
10/14 @ 7.00pm
10/21 @ 9.00pm

Also, I will be appearing in concert with Village Light Opera in a New York performance of the program that we sang in Vermont this summer. This will be in an auditorium at the Fashion Institute of Technology on Sunday, October 16th. More details to follow.

And there will be a staged reading of The Importance of Marrying Wells, the play I did at Fringe, to benefit Southern Rep, a theatre in New Orleans that was devestated by Hurricane Katrina. So plan to come out and support on Monday, October 24th. Again, more details to follow.

Press Release

Hey! Remember The Importance of Marrying Wells, the play I was in at the Fringe Festival? I just got a copy of the current press release and I thought I'd pass it along for everyone's enjoyment.

Click On This Link

She's Lovely

Celebrity Sighting of the Day: stage actress Jessica Boevers walking on West 45th Street toward the Music Box Theatre, at which she will shortly be playing in In My Life, a new musical.

She originated Philia in the latest Forum revival (the one that starred Nathan Lane) and Ado Annie in the latest Oklahoma! revival.

I worked with Jessica at Williamstown Theatre Festival when she was in the cast of a terrible original musical called Quark Victory that was written by the Reale brothers, who later wrote the awful Once Around the City and the (I heard) pretty good A Year With Frog and Toad.

She shared the stage with Karen Ziemba and John Hickok (playing her parents), Stephen DeRosa, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, and others.

I was on the running crew. Sigh.

Zipping About

I spend the weekend down the shore in NJ visiting my parents and they seem to be fine, recovered from the sadness of CindyMae's death awhile back. I didn't do a whole lot down there, but read and eat and relax. They were traveling to visit friends on Long Island on Sunday, so I took the bus to the city with them and we had brunch at the West Bank Cafe, one of their favorite restaurants in New York, before I pointed them toward Penn Station and the Long Island Rail Road.

Then I returned to my place and dropped my bags and headed out to the Broadway Flea Market to browse the tables for the benefit of Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.

I picked up a bunch of scripts and CDs for about a $1 apiece and life was good. The only celebrities I saw were Lynn Redgrave, Anthony Rapp, Bryan Batt, and Tracie Thom (who is playing Joanne in the upcoming Rent movie).

Then I went and met up with my friend Jason, who was in town to see some shows and have a little vacation.

Jason, by the way, is the King of All Things Bootleg and, as I type this, I'm watching some home movies of rehearsals of the original productions of Mack and Mabel and Follies. Bernadette Peters singing "Time Heals Everything" is just about the most perfect moment ever. No one has ever sung this song better.

What a weekend.

Tell Me A Story

Celebrity Sighting of the Day (Tuesday, actually): actress Jo Anne Worley, who was in town rehearsing for Monday's one night only Actors' Fund benefit concert presentation of the 1978 musical On The 20th Century in which she will be playing the role of Mrs. Primrose. She was sitting in the audience at Stage 5 in the Dodger Stages complex attending a performance.

So, anyway, on Tuesday I scored a free ticket to a performance of The Big Voice: God or Merman? at Dodger Stages. I get the feeling that the two performances this show did this week (it was first seen in NYC at last year's New York Musical Festival) were backers' auditions. We were in Stage 5, which is, during regular performance times, the home of Musical of Musicals.

The show is basically the story of how its actor/writers, Steve Schalchlin and Jim Brochu, met and proceeded upon a relationship. Along the way, we hear about how both originally thought of a religious life, but eventually turned to music and theatre and each other.

The title comes from Brochu's childhood, when he wanted to be a priest and kept waiting for God ("The Big Voice"), to enlighten him on this topic. As it turns out, "The Big Voice" that he eventually heard wasn't God's, but that of musical theatre star Ethel Merman, whose father was friendly with Brochu's.

Schalchlin and Brochu basically tell us their story straight on (so to speak) interspersing personal stories with their original music. Because of this approach, this "musical" seems more like a cabaret show. Which is fine, except that Schalchlin and Brochu seem to want the show to be a full musical. It ran just over two hours with an intermission.

The strongest material in the show was in the second act, when our heroes have written a successful musical (The Last Session), but their relationship starts to crumble. I was a little shocked at the nearly warts and all revelations from the stage, but I suppose that what they must be holding back was probably even more personal.

The score wasn't the greatest or the most compelling, but it was fine. Schalchlin, primarily a musician, seemed a bit uncomfortable on stage acting. Although the presentation style of the performance negated much need for actual acting.

I also got myself a rush ticket to Lennon on Wednesday night and found myself in the first row for the first flop of the new season. This show was also very presentational and I'm sure you've heard the gimmick by now: The entire cast takes turns playing John Lennon at various points...men, women, black, white, old, young.

And...I didn't hate it.

The concept, basically a cleaned up version of Lennon's life told to the audience by a cast of storytellers, worked for me. I knew almost nothing about Lennon's life and really have no idea how accurate the show's portrayal is, but it was certainly entertaining enough.

While everyone take his or her turn, Lennon is primarily played Will Chase and Chad Kimball. Both are compelling performers, but Chase really had Lennon down pat, much more so than anyone else. Though I'd seen him several times before on stage, I'd not realized how adorable Kimball is until I saw him from the first row. He's really really cute in a normal guy kind of way. This is no Chelsea boy, and he's all the more attractive for it.

Actually, the talent on display here was rather formidable. There were Broadway veterans Chuck Cooper and Terrance Mann alongside regular Broadway denizens like Chase, Kimball, and Mandy Gonzalez. I was especially excited to see Julia Murney for the first time since the off-Broadway The Wild Party.

For all the shit tossed his way for this, director/librettist/conceiver Don Scardino kept the show moving so quickly that there was little time to get bored. There was also little time to consider Lennon's wider, bigger ideas, but...eh.

The most serious misstep occured right at the end when a screen descended from the flies to show a short video of the real Lennon singing and playing "Imagine" with wife Yoko Ono. After all we'd seen, it was unnecessary.

Lennon has been criticized because of its delicate handling of Yoko Ono, who has been a strong hand behind the production. Ono does come off pretty positively throughout the show, except in the aforementioned video, in which the real Ono comes across as dour, humourless, and scary.

So it's closing on Sunday. Oh, well. I enjoyed it for what it was, but I won't remember it come Tony time and neither will anyone else. It's better than Good Vibrations (the show Chad Kimball bolted soon after its opening to join this production), but that's not saying a whole hell of a lot.

Too bad you missed it.

Oh, by the way, All Shook Up is closing on Sunday too. Now, that was a terrific show and it's really a shame that that one got such a bum deal. Go see that if you can.

Sunday in the City

On Sunday, I did something I had never done before. I actually walked the entire length of Central Park. You see, usually, I hang out in the lower half of the park, which is right around the corner from my apartment. I just never think to go up much past the area where the Delacorte Theatre is (approximately the middle of the park) because there's really no need.

But on Sunday, I had an audition up at Columbia University for a bunch of directors who are first years in the MFA Directing program there. I was a little concerned about the audition because I was asked prepare a classical monologue. Now, I don't do classical theatre as a rule and am rarely called upon to do classical monologues.

Now, don't get me wrong. I've done them, with varying degrees of success, just not often. So I pulled out my favourite, the opening speech of a restoration comedy dating from 1697 called The Provok'd Wife by Sir John Vanbrugh. It's fun and I can usually remember all the words (if not precisely in the correct order).

In addition to this piece, I was asked to have either a contemporary monologue or 16 bars of a song. Since the song would have to be done a capella, I planned on doing my usual contemporary piece, the famous "Isn't the world full of wonderful things?" speech from Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker. No problem. I can do this one in my sleep.

So I show up at Columbia for my audition. They were running behind, but it wasn't a big deal. I was looking super cute and was working some spiffy hair to boot.

I walked into the room and met 7 or 8 people all sitting at a long table in some sort of flexible theatre space. It could have been intimidating, but I was at the top of my game and was utterly charming and captivating. I was cracking jokes and smiling and was the life of the party. If it had actually been a party, of course.

Those of you who actually know me will just have to imagine me as charming and engaging. It's just something that I can turn on now and then for auditions. Rarely does it work in real life.

Anyhow, I asked where they wanted to begin and, of course, they requested the classical piece. I launched into it and they loved it, laughing in all the right places. Whoo-Hoo!

Then they asked what else I had for them and I got all charming again and told them that I had a contemporary piece, but that I also sang and could certainly do a song for them if they'd like. And, as it turned out, they did like. Yikes! I hate singing a capella! But I was being Mr. Charming Guy, so how could I say no? They said "sing," and I said "ballad or uptempo?" Lucky for my ass, they picked a ballad...ever so much easier to sing a capella.

I did the last 16 bars of Sondheim's "Being Alive," a number I do a lot because it's a fun 16 bars and manages to show some range. It was a little rough in one spot due to a lack of music, but went fine all-in-all.

After my stirring anthem, I was prepared to pack up my things and head out then when they asked if I could do my contemporary piece as well. Wow. That never happens. Really. See, if they don't like you, they usually try to get you out of the room as soon as possible...especially if they are running behind. And, even when they ask you to have a bunch of stuff prepared, you NEVER end up doing more than, say, one of the things you brought in. It's like when you're at an all-you-can-eat buffet...you think you want the roast beef AND the fried chicken AND the macaroni and cheese AND the shrimp AND the soup AND the chocolate cake AND the jello, but when it gets right down to it, you just can't eat all that and most of it gets left on the plate. But I digress...

Again, they loved me and laughed in all the right places. I felt so validated. It was cool.

Anyway, there were more charming exchanges between me and them and I finally left. I feel pretty good about this, even though I have no idea what specific projects these directors are doing or what their timetables are. But, even if nothing happens, I had a really great audition. Yea for me!

After I was done at Columbia, I walked over to Central Park, passing by the Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Tom's Restaurant (the diner used in establishing shots as Monk's, the Seinfeld gang's favorite hangout). I entered the park at 110th Street and Central Park West and wandered down toward the Great Lawn, which is about in the center of the park.

It was so great. I saw parts of the park that I'd never seen before. The crowds weren't as large up there and I saw so many inviting places to sit and read a book or watch the world go by.

When I got to the Great Lawn, I went and joined a picnic being hosted by this guy. I missed most of the food, but it was nice to sit and enjoy the sun and enjoy the company of nice people. Let me see...I know she was there (and she thought I was him. Even though he lives in Los Angeles. Sigh. I don't really mind though...he's cute.) and he was there. Who else? Yikes! Too many names to remember.

Anyhow, after the picnic broke up, I took the time to walk all the way down to Columbus Circle and home. Even though this was a more usual route for me, it was still a great time. I walked through the Ramble and across the Bow Bridge and worked my way over to Bethesda Fountain. Then I headed up to Bethesda Terrace and walked the length of the Promenade for perhaps the last time this season. Is it ironic that one of the best parts of New York City is Central Park?

I wish we had this beautiful weather all year round. I'm not looking forward to the return of winter. I'll miss being able to be outdoors. I'll miss being able to breathe. I hoping to break up our now-usual six months of chilly weather by getting out of town some as I did last year. We'll see.

What a brilliant day. To top it off, I met a date at Island Burger on 9th Avenue for their super duper chili and a guacamole burger. Mmmm... Hadn't been there in ages. Love Island Burger. So Much.

After dinner, we felt the need to walk off some of what we'd eaten, so we headed down to the Ninth Avenue Saloon to talk and drink. I think I really do prefer the divey gay bars to the more upscale ones. They're not as loud and the drinks aren't as expensive. And you can usually find a place to sit.

What a great day.

Overcoming The Block

Did you ever feel blocked? You have something that you want to write about, but you just can't work up the energy to devote the time to it. And you just really can't get past it for awhile. Happens to me now and then.

Totally happened to me on the Two Gentlemen of Verona post. Sat here for days, before finally deciding to dump it. If anyone was expecting something Tynanesque from me on that particular show, I do apologise, but it just wasn't happening. Wasn't feeling it.

Sometimes that just the way it goes.

Dress Rehearsal

Just in from the invited dress rehearsal of Second Stage Theatre's new production of A Soldier's Play off-Broadway at their main stage space on West 43rd Street. This is the play that was made into the movie A Soldier's Story in the mid-1980's, a movie that helped to launch Denzel Washington to stardom.

This production stars Taye Diggs and Anthony Mackie, as well as about 10 other men who make up the large ensemble cast.

I won't say much about it because this was, after all, a rehearsal, but it's a really solid production and is only going to improve once the cast has a couple of days to settle into it.

Definitely go see it if you have a chance.

Updating the Blogroll

So I've added some new blogs over there on the right, all written by friends of mine. Tim is from Chicago, Doug is from Philadelphia, Thom is from DC, and Michael and Andy are here in New York. Welcome to the blogroll, boys.

Go check them out if you have a moment.

As always, if you're reading and have a blog of your own that you'd like linked here, drop me a line.

Scrapbook

While surfing the net recently, I happened across some pictures of myself from a 2001 production of the musical Peter Pan that I did at Yorktown Stage. In a bit of non-traditional casting, I played Smee, Captain Hook's sidekick, a part that is usually played by short, heavy guys. But the low comedy of the role suited me and I was terrific in it. The actor playing Captain Hook and I worked well together and we came up with so much funny schtick that much of it didn't make it into the show as our performances evolved over the rehearsal period. Enjoy!

That's me in the upper right hand corner of the formation. This was our "scary" pirate pose. In retrospect, mine doesn't look as good as I thought it would. Eh...hindsight, you know?

And this is me and Captain Hook in one of our recurring bits, where I "accidentally" get stuck with the hook. Trust me, it was a scream and got huge laughs every night.

The Answer is NOT Blowin' In The Wind

I haven't written anything here about what's been going on at the Gulf Coast. While I've never been to New Orleans, I've always wanted to go.

But, as it turns out, I have some personal experience with hurricanes.

In 1985, I went to the National Boy Scout Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill near Fredericksburg, Virginia. One day after the offical opening of the jamboree, Hurricane Bob suddenly blew in from the Atlantic. And by "suddenly," I mean that we awoke in our tents to a perfectly lovely, normal day and went about our activities as planned. By afternoon the skies had darkened and it looked like rain.

We had no idea. There was no warning.

I remember it as though it was yesterday. I retired to my tent to check that the stakes were strongly in the ground and the knots keeping the whole structure up were strong enough to withstand what I thought would be a thunderstorm.

I had just made one last check of one of the tentpoles and turned around to return to my cot and wait out the storm. Before I could even move, that very tentpole slammed me in the back and threw me across the tent onto my cot, the force of which caused the cot to dump me to the ground. The tent crashed down around me and my tentmate.

We huddled in the mass of fallen tent until the storm passed, soaked to the skin and covered in mud. That day was one of the few in my life when I actually thought that I might die.

We emerged sometime later and I was never clear on how much time had passed. The Hurricane had taken down the entire tent city that was the jamboree. Thousands of Scouts from all over the country and all over the world were sitting there like me: wet, scared, and bathed in mud.

But being good Scouts, we picked up the pieces as best we could and rebuilt as best we could. Local dry-cleaners pitched in to clean and dry our sleeping bags. There was talk of cancelling the rest of the jamboree, a celebration for which most of us had prepared for the better part of a year. That did not happen and things slowly got back to something resembling normal.

And I landed on the front page of The Free Lance-Star, the local Fredericksburg, VA newspaper the next day, Friday, July 26, 1985. Somehow a photographer got a shot of me in the process of pulling my tent out of the mud and that's what ended up splashed across the the front page of the paper. I have a copy framed and hanging in my bedroom.

I have no idea how the photographer chose that moment to capture; I had no idea that he or she was even there till I saw the paper the next day. And I also don't know how I was identified as the Scout in the picture since the photographer didn't get my name.

And I'm glad that it was a photograph and not video. Because I remember the exact moment that was captured on film. It's enough that I was grabbing the tent in a particularly limp wristed fashion (absolutely captured on film), but I was also saying "EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!" as I examined my muddy tent. Not profane, as I had yet to acquire the most colorful parts of my vocabulary, but also not particularly Scoutlike.

If ever you drop in and visit me at home, I'll point out the picture for you. It amazes me to this day. Sometimes I forget that it's me in the picture and wonder about the lanky, impossibly young lad shown there...and whatever became of...him.

Anyway, back to Katrina...

Aside from all the horror of what happened, I wonder about the feasibility of people returning to live in a city, much of which is below sea level. It just doesn't seem...smart...to me. There will be billions of dollars poured into New Orleans over the next few months to assist the people there in rebuilding their shattered city, but what happens when the next hurricane blows in next year, or five years from now, or ten years from now, and the city is flooded again?

Will the American tax payers continue to bail out (literally) New Orleans time and again as nature does what nature does? Now, I know that the Netherlands is an entire nation below sea level that does very well with its system of dikes. But, does the Netherlands sit in the path of major hurricanes year after year? I don't think so. Is it practical to live below sea level on the Gulf coast of the US? I wouldn't have thought so before Katrina hit and I'm inclined to think even less of the idea now.

I say this with all sympathy for the residents of the Crescent City for what they are going through and will go through in the months and years to come. As a New Yorker, I am well aware of how a city can be shattered by a sudden act of violence. But we were attacked by people. New Orleans was attacked by...the weather. Say what you want about the current administration, and we all have, but as difficult as it might be to control terrorism, I bet it's even harder to control the weather.

Now, if a storm like Katrina had hit New York (and I've read that such a thing is only a matter of time anyway), I have no doubt that we would have many similar problems. I have no doubt that this city would sustain much damage. And evacuating would prove to be a huge challenge for most of us. But, even though this is a city of islands, we do sit ever so slightly above sea level and the water would eventually drain back into the rivers and the harbor on its own.

I don't know what the answer is. Do we abandon New Orleans to the sea? That's a hard line to take. Do we spend billions to build stronger dikes so that these people may return to homes in an area where they shouldn't be living in the first place and pray that another Katrina doesn't occur in future?

I don't know.

Being Splendid

So Marc Acito turned out to be as cute and charming as his book would suggest. I throughly enjoyed his reading/signing tonight at Coliseum Books.

The only other person in attendance that I knew was my friend Tim, who came to join me at the last minute, after running into some traffic issues due to traveling dignataries from the United Nations General Assembly meeting, which I hear is going on this week.

As it turns out Marc Acito and I have a mutual friend and I had emailed with that person a bit today and was asked to pass on a message to Marc when I went to the reading. I did this toward the beginning of the evening when he was signing books for people who were there early.

He was so friendly, once our mutual connection was established, he acted as if I was a part of his circle of friends, even though a large group of his actual friends was there to cheer him on. You see he grew up in New Jersey and the fictional town of Wallingford in the book is a thinly disguised version of his actual hometown. Even his father was there to cheer him on.

In between reading selections from his novel, Marc gave us some background on himself and how he came to write the book and the incredible journey that he's been on since.

He really is incredibly witty and smart. I guess that's only to be expected from reading the book. He's sort of like a less manic, more together Ben Stiller.

He even took a cell phone call on the podium from his partner. It was almost like planned schtick. Loved it.

As I was leaving, he was speaking to someone at the table upfront. He called my name (he REMEMBERED my name!) and came over to me to tell me goodbye. I wished him luck with everything and we hugged. Sweet!

So anyway, buy the book if you haven't yet and try to catch Marc on his travels around the country to promote it.

Going To A Reading

Hey, Everybody...I'm here. I've just been lacking the inspiration to write over the past couple of days. I'll get back on track shortly, I'm sure.

This evening, I'm heading by Coliseum Books to see author Marc Acito sign and read from his novel How I Paid For College: A Novel of Sex, Theft, Friendship & Musical Theater. I both got a copy of this for Christmas, as well as gave several copies to other people. It's really terrific and I recommend it.

The reading should be fun and it's absolutely free as well. Who wants to join in? Come one, come all. And maybe we can grab a drink afterward.

Things Are Going

I have to thank everyone for their expressions of sympathy since CindyMae's passing yesterday. I'm still at a point where I have difficult moments, but I'm fine. It still seems weird to me that the loss of a cat can hit so hard, especially a cat who was so old. I mean, it's not as though it was entirely unexpected or anything. But she was a part of my life for 16 years, almost half my life.

Unexpectedly, it's my father who is having difficulty. He's not an overly emotional man, but he has broken down at twice on the phone with me. Before CindyMae came to live with us, Dad was not convinced that having her was a wise move. He saw how upset I was (and I guess others in the family too) at the premature demise of Joey a few months earlier and was concerned that such a thing might happen again. For whatever reason though, he agreed and she came to live with us.

Of course, she immediately sensed that he was somewhat resistant to her presence in our household and decided that his shoulder was the perfect place to nap. Whenever he would sit on the couch, this tiny kitten would climb up on the furniture, and then climb up on my father and go to sleep. It was adorable. And, of course, it immediately won him over and he was hers forever. Well, till yesterday.

He was so upset that he couldn't go in and be with her at the end.

I talked to my mother this morning for the first time since it happened. She was sad, but coping. She was able to fill me in on what happened in the room.

She said that she debated staying outside with Dad, but couldn't bear the thought of CindyMae dying surrounded only by strangers.

The little girl had stayed at the vet's office overnight and, apparently, when Mom entered the room, she perked up and was obviously happy to see her. The staff couldn't believe the change in her demeanor. She never did care for going to the vet and I'd imagine that staying overnight was scary for her.

She was on a table to get the shot and Mom petted her and talked to her till it was over. Mom said it was very fast.

The cancerous tumor that was found was, apparently, so large that she would only have had a couple of days more anyway.

I still can't believe that I'm never going to see her bright eyes again. She had a way of looking at me that I could always tell what she was probably thinking. She would have been a very good actress, you know, had she been human. Of course, most of what she would have thought of me would not have been terribly flattering as I think she viewed me more as an occasional pest who invaded her home.

She used to be afraid of everything. Any little noise frightened her. As she got older, she outgrew that, although thunder still made her want to hide under the covers with my parents. Over her time with our family, she lived in five different houses and made the snowbird commute back and forth to Florida with my parents the last few years.

These last few years, I don't think there was much left that could scare her. :)

I'm unsure of whether my parents will get another cat after this. Though they've lived with a cat around for 25 years, the Florida condo complex where they live in the winter has a rather draconian rule that bans pets. The whole time they lived there, they would sneak CindyMae in and out and hope that no one noticed or cared. That was stressful on them and I think they will think twice about doing that again. It's such a shame.

I keep thinking that maybe I should get a kitten or two myself. It would be difficult, but I think it would be sort of cool.

Saying Goodbye

I got the call from my parents just now.

Our cat, CindyMae, is going to have to be put down. She has fluid building up around her lungs and heart and is basically drowning in her own body.

Things are not well. My parents are barely coherant. I'm holding it together because I am at the Desk Jockey Day Job, but quickly took my cell phone into the men's room when the nature of the call became apparent.

CindyMae has been with us for 16 years. My nickname for her is "Girly."

This will be especially hard on my parents who have had her around with them, even as both of their sons grew up and moved away.

My parents are unsure about whether this will happen today or will be put off a couple of days. If it's the latter, I will go down the shore on Thursday night or Friday morning to say goodbye to her and to help my parents through the aftermath.

Ironically, this past weekend was one of the nicest I'd spent with CindyMae in a long time. She allowed me to hold her and carry her around, something that she generally hated throughout most of her life.

We didn't always get along, this little girl and I. You see, the summer before she joined our family, I had taken the sudden death of our previous cat, Joey, very badly. Joey was my baby and we had had a bond like you read about in books. And I was devestated at his death.

When CindyMae came to us a few months later, I wanted her to be everything that Joey had been and she was having none of it. She was a little princess and didn't like playing or roughhousing or being carried or laying on a person.

If she was feeling especially generous, she might come lay down NEXT to you.

A few years ago, she had a bout with cancer and the removal of the tumor necessitated the removal of her front left leg. That was hard for her at first and she hid behind the furniture a lot because she felt vulnerable with much of her body shaved and with exposed stitches. But she learned to move around just as well on three legs and soon the fur grew back and we almost forgot that she had even had four legs at one time. And she remained cancer-free.

Sometimes, when she'd get annoyed with me for something, she would bat at me with her paw. And I could see her moving left shoulder as if to bat me with the paw that was no longer there.

I remember the cancer time. I was doing Of Thee I Sing. She was in a lot of pain and would spend much of the night...

And, as I write this, I've gotten the call that CindyMae is to be put down today. I'm trying to carry on at the Desk Jockey Day Job as best I can. It's hard. I wish I had someone to go home and cry with.

My father, who called me while my mother and brother (thank God he got there for a visit just after I left on Monday) are in with her and the doctor, is not doing well. I'm not used to dealing with my father being out-of-control with emotions and I don't know how to deal with it. My reaction is to try to be strong, but I don't know how much longer that will last. I do NOT want to break down here at the Desk Jockey Day Job.

I was talking about her cancer. She was in a lot of pain then and would stay up most of the night crying. She couldn't understand, of course, why she was in such pain. Ending her pain was discussed then, of course, but she was otherwise perfectly healthy and the cancer seemed to be contained. So we decided to go through with the operation that turned out to be a smashing success.

I don't know what to do. I think I will head back to the shore this weekend and see what I can do to ease my parents' pain. But what about until then? As always, I have a full week planned and I should carry on, but it feels wrong somehow.

I loved her. She's gone now. I'm not particularly religious anymore, but I said a prayer for her. And I asked Joey to come meet her if there's a place for beloved cats to go after they leave us.

My little girly is gone.

And I don't know what to do.

Getting Called Back By Assholes

So I went to my callback tonight for Eastern Standard.

I trekked out to Long Island City to an apartment (not even a rehearsal studio of some sort) for this callback. I arrived and was given sides and told to wait in another room while the person ahead of me read. Fine.

After a few minutes, the guy comes in and apologizes for making me come all the way out to Queens, but that they've just cast the part.

Asshole!

I had no idea how to react. When I got the callback on very short notice, I rearranged my evening to accomadate them and make it out there. I spent money I don't have on a subway ride across the river to LIC. I got dressed up for the occasion.

Asshole! Fucker!

He said he didn't want to waste my time. I should have said "Too late." I just left as quickly as I could.

They could, at least, have offered me $4 for the wasted train fare. It's not much, but I could have dinner for that.

I know this is New York and people are supposed to be rude asshole bastards, but really now...where is common courtesy?

I hate people!

I hate being jerked around.

Asshole Fuckers!

Callback

I've gotten a callback tonight for a production of a Richard Greenberg play called Eastern Standard. You've probably not heard of it, but it was a big hit in the mid-1980's. I auditioned for this production weeks ago, but had to miss the original callback because it conflicted with a performance of The Importance of Marrying Wells.

That was two weeks ago.

I came home from New Jersey last night to find an email from the producers asking if I could attend another callback tonight out in Long Island City for this production, which opens at the end of the month. Hmmm...

Here what I'm guessing happened...they cast someone else and that person either quit the show or didn't work out in some way. And they are frantically trying to contact everyone from the original auditions that they didn't hate to see who's still available and interested.

Will I do this production if they offer it to me? Of course. Will it be an enormous challenge to learn a huge role in a limited amount of time and play catch up with the rest of the cast? You bet. Will there be a lot of profanity spewed? You can almost set your watch by it.

And will there be any kind of compensation for doing all this, even reimbusement of subway fare? Nah...welcome to New York, where everyone knows that actors will work for free because they require neither food nor shelter nor any of the other necessities that people in other professions deem worthwhile like toothpaste and clean laundry. Who needs to eat? Our art is enough.

I'll keep you posted.

Things I Have Forgotten

And I don't just mean my checkbook and my poof sponge down at my parents' house. Although I did forget those. My Father called me to tell me about the checkbook early this morning, moments after I awoke (late). I was trying to chat with him and digest what he was saying while also doing a little pee-pee dance AND trying calculate how much time I had before I need to be walking out the door to go back to work. Plus, my brain doesn't really function in the morning so much.

It was much worse when I was in high school and had to rise at 5.25am every day to make it to school on time. By the time I got to school for a 7.30am first period, my brain function was only up to the vegatative coma state. There was about a 50/50 shot that I'd retain anything from the first period or two of the day. And if that teacher showed a movie or a filmstrip, I was gone. Zzzzzzzz...

But I digress...

The little poof sponge's absence wasn't noticed till I was in the shower this morning and turned around to grab it and discovered that it wasn't there. Sigh. Luckily there was a spare under the sink.

What else have I forgotten lately...?

Under the category of Celebrity Sighting of the Day, I forgot to mention that I saw Jesse Tyler Ferguson, one of the stars of Broadway'sThe 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee on Christopher Street one day. I was heading to the Lucille Lortel Theatre to do The Importance of Marrying Wells and he was going in the opposite direction. I'm guessing that he'd been to see his Spelling Bee castmate Lisa Howard in Silence: The Musical, also at the Lortel.

In the off-Broadway roundup the other day, I also forgot to mention that, courtesy of Hector, I'd been to see The Dear Boy , part of Second Stage's uptown series, up at the McGinn-Cazale Theatre on the Upper West Side. It was an interesting effort, but the play's four scenes didn't really hang together and create a whole.

That may be it for now...unless I'm forgetting something.

Off-Broadway Baby

Still down the shore and will not be returning until sometime on Monday. Have done little of note here (not surprising...hello...this is NEW JERSEY, after all. Has anything of note happened here since the Lindbergh kidnapping?).

I did attend a minor league baseball game in which the Delmarva Shorebirds, a team in the Baltimore Orioles system, beat the Lakewood Blue Claws, a Philadelphia Phillies affiliate, in ten innings.

I have been putting in a lot of time at the pool. And I've been eating a lot. Gotta love visiting the parents.

Okay, in addition to the Fringe shows I was able to catch, over the last few weeks I have seen some off-Broadway shows that were all fun and interesting in varying degrees. As with the Fringe shows, I don't have the programs with me, so bear with me here.

Thanks to a reader named Rich, I was able to go see Thrill Me, which has since closed at the York Theatre over on the east side. It's a new two person musical about Leopold and Loeb, the famous child killers in 1920's Chicago. This show was enormously flawed, but I still enjoyed it. These guys kills for the thrill of it and the show really went a long way toward humanizing people who might easily have been turned into monsters. One of the show's missteps was it's attempt to have it both ways regarding the homosexual aspects of the story. The show presents Leopold as gay and in love with Loeb and Loeb taking advantage of that by participating in gay sex acts to ensure Leopold's co-operation with his various schemes. But we never actually see the guys do anything or really know what they're doing. How do both of these characters approach whatever sex acts they are engaging in? It's unclear. Loeb comes off as a master manipulator, and, hence, a bit cold, so we never really get into his mind. Does he enjoy his sexual relationship with Leopold, or does it disgust him? Does he view it as a necessary evil? A token bone thrown to a friend? Again, it's unclear.

But, perhaps, the historical facts of this case ARE unclear. I just wish that the writer (who was also playing Leopold) had made more decisions, even with the caveat of "historical fiction." It would have made for better drama, even if worse history.

Then, thanks to another friend, I saw Joy, a new comedy down in the West Village at the Actors' Playhouse. In this play, we hear the story of the one year when our narrator knew pure joy, a time when he was romantically pursuing and involved with a man named Gabriel. In a time when romantic comedy at the theatre is incresingly rare (comedy of the non-musical variety is itself nearly extinct on Broadway), this turned out to be a delightful up and down ride on the rollar coaster of emotions that is churned up when seriously fucked up people engage in the mating ritual. Go see it. Now. I laughed out loud a lot. And at the end, I wanted to be in it, a sentiment that I promptly shared with the director when I was introduced to him after the performance.

And then there was my recent return to Altar Boyz, at Dodger Stages. As you know, my friend Ed Jones was in town. This was a Sunday night, the day before he was scheduled to return to Chicago. Ed saw that I had gotten the cast album for my birthday (Thanks, Randy!!!) and expressed regret that, with his performance schedule, he had been unable to see this, one of the handful of things that he'd really wanted to try to catch while in town. A quick check of the internet revealed that there was a Sunday evening performance and that it began in less than 2 hours.

Dodger Stages is about six blocks away from my apartment, so Ed and I ambled down to see about procuring a pair of rush tickets to the show. We were in luck and got tickets for $21 apiece with enough time to hit Starbucks before the show. Whee!

The show is holding up well and was just as funny the second time. The actor playing Mark was new and almost as good as the role's originator who garnered much attention in the part. The actor playing Luke was doing his final performance and so his fan club was in attendance and he got lots of special attention from the crowd. I understand that the actor playing Abraham was leaving the show tonight, so, as of this writing, there are now only two original cast members still with the show.

Altar Boyz seems to have developed quite the cult following and I was pleased to note that the performance was very full (on a Sunday evening) this far into the run. I wonder if this will continue as the production continues its run or if this phenomenon was based on the amazing charisma of the original cast? We'll see.

It's just such a fun, sweet, funny show. It's remarkable to me that what with all the humour there, the show really isn't making fun of anyone...neither Christians nor boy bands (two groups which, individually, are popular targets, but which, together, must meld into the Holy Grail of comedy) are made fun of here. It's all done with much love. And it's all performed straight (so to speak) in utter seriousness with no winking to the crowds.

So definitely check this out if you haven't and go back if you have. It's worth it.

Catching Up With Jere

So I haven't been blogging all that much over the past few weeks, and I thought I'd try to run down some of the things that have been keeping me so busy. Where to begin?

Okay, well, I had houseguests. My friend Jeff came to town to study improv comedy at Upright Citizens Brigade in Chelsea. He was in town for three weeks and stayed on my sofabed for two of those. He lives in Texas, but now seems to seriously be contemplating a move to NYC. Good for him.

My other houseguest was Chicago's ever fabulous Ed Jones, who was in town for a week starring as Mrs. Olesen in Little House on the Parody at Fringe. Ed was one of the folks who stayed with me two years ago when Hell in a Handbag came to Fringe with Poseidon: An Upside Down Musical. It's always great to see Ed and I was so glad to have him around for a whole week.

You might think it would be difficult to have three people sharing my one-bedroom apartment, but it was actually really fun to have people around for a change. And, of course, given the choice of blogging or talking with friends, talking wins out every time.

I also spent some time catching up with some other Fringe shows. I had been especially interested in seeing the other productions at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, where I performed The Importance of Marrying Wells. I had spent a week looking over props, costumes, and set pieces for these shows and I was curious to see how all this stuff was used. By the way, since I am away from home, I do not have programs for these various shows handy, so I may not be able to name names and give credit where it's due.

Just for shits and grins, I'll start with the show that had all the buzz and had sold out all performances even before the Fringe began. That would be Silence: The Musical, a parody of the acclaimed film Silence of the Lambs. This was, as expected, a terribly popular show and I was lucky to snag a last minute ticket to one of the performances.

And...I didn't much care for it. The score was poor and the lyrics ranged from the servicable to the subpar. For example, there was a song called "I Wish I Could Smell Her Cunt" for Dr. Lecter that was completely unmemorable except for a magnificent pas de deux in the background for Dream Clarice and Dream Lecter. The lyricist seemed to think that simply using words like "cunt" and "fuck" in songs was inherently funny and repeated them over and over again without imagination. What saved the show from being a total disaster was the crisp direction and choreography and the spot-on performances from a game cast led by Jenn Harris playing Jodie Foster as Clarice who was perfect and had all of Foster's mannerisms and speech patterns down pat.

Silence had all the markings of a brilliant 5 or 10 minute comedy sketch bloated to 90 minutes. I was so disappointed.

Unexpected in another way was Weddings of Mass Destruction, a sketch comedy show by Gayco, a gay and lesbian themed comedy/improv troupe based in Chicago. All the members trained at the famous Second City company and broke away from the traditionally hetero improv world to create some queer comedy that was truely memorable. Every sketch was funnier than the last and the six actors each had his or her moment in the spotlight. One that sticks in my mind was when the 3 men donned "pink face" to lampoon the Queer Eye guys as an olde-tyme gay minstrel show. Another winner had a woman terrorizing her friends with a game of Old Maid. You had to see it to believe it. Amazing! I really do hope to see more of this company in the future. (And did I mention that the 3 guys were really cute? The 3 lesbians weren't bad either.)

Another Fringe winner was Go-Go Kitty, Go!, a play with music based on the movie Faster, Pussycat, Kill Kill (or something like that). Wow! What fun! The cast was clearly having a ball and the tone struck here was just right (as opposed to Silence, which was often just wrong).

Fleet Week, a musical that was sort of a modern gay version of On The Town, was another disappointment. The score was, again, neglible, and the cast often seemed at sea (no pun intended). The book, while aiming for zany, settled for insipid and each turn of the plot was more far-fetched then the one before. I was groaning and not in a good way. I was so glad when it finally ended.

And then there was Little House on the Parody, which featured my friend Ed Jones as Mrs. Olesen. If you love the Little House books or tv show, you would have loved this show. And, even if you didn't, this cast was having so much fun and the script was so clever about working in so many little details that you would still have a rollicking good time. I used to watch the tv series now and then, but I was surprised at how many details I remembered and how much of this show made me laugh out loud. So cool!

Anyhow, that's just some shows, there will be more later. And I never did finish up writing about the California trip.

Out of Town

So I left town today and headed by bus down the shore to spend a few days with my parents. They surprised me by picking me up in their new car, a 2005 Honda CR-V. It seems like a really nice vehicle, that they already seem to prefer to the traded-in 2003 Subaru Forrester that they had been driving. There's more room in the backseat, which seems to be important to the parents although they no longer have children at home and rarely use the backseat. I don't get it either.

My parents seem to have succombed to being old people in the sense that they have been downsizing their living quarters and upsizing their vehicle. What is it about the aging process that sparks the need to drive the biggest car one can afford? At least they overcame the urge the buy a Mercury Grand Marquis. Does anyone under 60 drive one of those things?

As soon as we arrived at the parents' house, I got a tour of the latest home renovation projects (new paint replacing some tattered old wallpaper, new doors to the laundry area, and some landscaping, courtesy of my cousin's on again-off again boyfriend). My parents have slowly been redoing this house since they moved here several years ago and it's really quite a showplace now.

We changed clothes and headed for the pool. For the first time ever, we walked the block or so to the neighbourhood recreation building. My parents are trying to do their part to conserve gasoline in light of the skyrocketing gas prices these days. The pool was lovely, if a bit cold, since it's not heated in any way. Somehow, no matter how hot it is, the water remains cold and it takes quite a bit of time to acclimate to it.

But it was nice to swim, an activity I love, but which I rarely get to do in the city. If ever I can afford to return to the gym, I hope to spend a significant amount of time in the pool. If I have any readers with gym connections, I'd certainly appreciate a membership. :)

Now, Mom is making a lasagna for dinner and she has baked me a birthday cake. I think everyone should have a birthday cake on their birthday. Mine is a yellow bundt cake with chocolate icing and sprinkles. Yummy.

I have no idea what I'm going to be doing this weekend, but I'm hoping to make it back home on Monday without having lost my mind. Wish me luck.