Things have been busy this week.
Rehearsals are continuing apace for The Bully up at Vital Theatre Company and I encourage all of you to come see the show. And bring kids if you have access to any.
I'm also working hard to squeeze in my hours at the Desk Jockey Day Job so that I can continue to pay for (or at least make minimum payments on) the rest of what's going on in my life. If ever the DJDJ felt like a complete waste of time, it's right now when the hours I spend there could be so much more productively used elsewhere. But them's the breaks. The thing you hate the most is the only thing that pays enough money to survive.
I'm also up for two separate voice-over gigs, both of which will likely need to scheduled around Bully rehearsals and the DJDJ. It will be terrific if I can score these jobs because extra money is always welcome, but it's just more stuff to be scheduled into an already overwhelmed calendar.
I discovered today that I had inadvertantly scheduled myself to volunteer usher for two different productions at the same time on Sunday. Not cool. I'm working on rescheduling the one that's NOT a major Broadway production of a new play by a writer whose work I admire.
Oh, and, lest we forget, Christmas is coming. Lately, I've come to empathsize with the protagonists of John Grisham's novela Skipping Christmas, in which a suburban couple decide to completely forgo the hustle and bustle of the holidays for once and take some peace and quiet for themselves and go on a cruise by themselves instead. The chaos that ensues, courtesy of their friends and neighbours, is hysterical and only makes me identify with these people all the more. I just try to forget the book's ending in which these steadfast characters finally do capitulate to society's demand that they celebrate the holidays in a "normal," traditional way. I understand that Skipping Christmas was made into an awful film last year or the year before starring Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis. I haven't seen it, but give the book a whirl if you have a chance.
Anyone need a sublet in midtown Manhattan for Christmas/New Years? I'm also in the process of finding someone to take the apartment during my annual holiday sojourning, in this case from December 22nd-January 1st. It's a nice apartment, in a great neighbourhood, and very cheap. Want details? Drop me a line.
Also...please do not take this post to mean that I don't want to hear from each and every one of you. Getting invites for drinks or movies or whatever, even if I am forced by previous committments to decline, is a very nice way of knowing that I haven't been forgotten. Don't not invite me to your gathering because you assume I'm busy. I am, but, as is often the case in my life, every committment seems to require the exact same spaces of time. This means that there are times when I'm running non-stop and times when I'm sitting home alone doing nothing in particular.
So call or email me, and let me know when people are meeting up for drinks or hanging out watching movies or whatever. Some things I might be up for doing at any given time: catching the newest Harry Potter movie, seeing the Rent movie again, and acquiring cheap tickets to Harvey Fierstein and Rosie O'Donnell in Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway. But I'm always up for suggestions.
Oh, and come to my show.
ADDENDUM: In the catalogue of what's going on over here these days, I managed to forget one thing. I'm also meeting with a director this week about taking part in a reading of a new play. Exciting stuff.
So I finally got out to the film version of the Broadway musical Rent last night. I'm pleased to report that the theater was PACKED with people of all ages and no one seemed confused about the fact that they were attending a musical (the ads for the film, like the first blast of adverstising for the film version of Chicago, have been non-commital on that idea).
Oh, just in case you've been living under a rock or in a cave for the last 10 years, I'm guessing that this post will contain some spoilers about the film and the show in general.
I was VERY concerned about the ages of the cast and how these people, most of whom are now in their mid-30's, were going to play characters in their early-to-mid-20's. While they were certainly old for their roles even originally, one of the saving graces of the stage is the illusion of distance. Without the benefit of closeups, even an actor approaching his or her 50's can look youthful and vibrant and 20-something from a distance(see: Martin, Mary).
Just so we're on the same page, the originals are Anthony Rapp as Mark, Adam Pascal as Roger, Idina Menzel as Maureen, Jesse L. Martin as Tom, Wilson Jermaine Heredia as Angel, and Taye Diggs as Benny. The newcomers are Rosario Dawson as Mimi and Tracie Thoms as Joanne.
But I needn't have worried. These actors have a sort of agelessness about them and only one character has her age mentioned anyway, Mimi, who claims that she's 19 (cough...cough...yeah, right). And I think it's safe to assume that she's rounding down a bit. It does strain credibility for Roger to guess that she's 16, but since that particular scene occurs during a power outage and under candlelight, I'm prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.
Speaking of people, not realizing that this would be a musical, I was shocked to my senses during the film's first moments when Anthony Rapp as Mark starts singing the opening number on his bicycle while rapiding cycling through the streets. I'm not certain what I was expecting, but that wallop of realism blew me away. On the whole, it was very very odd to see these characters singing these songs in somewhat realistic settings. If you are familiar with the original production, which has been running in New York, elsewhere, and been touring for almost 10 years, you will remember that it takes place on a unit set that is mostly just representational of the many different locales in the show. I was fighting the realism for a while, but eventually gave in and really came to admire how artfully most of it was done.
The cast is still amazing. I saw most of them do the show the first time I saw it and, to be honest, none of them, with the exception of Anthony Rapp, who is in one of my most favorite movies, Adventures in Babysitting, made much of an impression at the time. I didn't care for the show then and it took me quite a long while to come round to its charms.
This time around, I was able to see nuanaced performances and a comraderie that could only come from having done the show together for such a long time. Menzel, in particular, is luminous. In every shot, she positively glows and she reminded me of no one less than a young Streisand in that glorious unconventional beauty sense. And this physical representation was highly appropriate for a character who seems to be an object of desire for everyone she meets no matter the sex or sexuality.
Rapp has gotten his runaway arms under control and his Mark is now a most interesting study of alienation and loneliness within a group of close knit friends. Even during the most upbeat numbers like the famous "La Vie Boheme," I could detect a note a sadness in his portrayal stemming from being the only character in the piece and in their little group who is alone. During "La Vie Boheme" all the leads are dancing on a table and it's painfully obvious that there are three couples and one single guy. I didn't quite get it before, but Mark is definitely a role that I want to take on at some point.
Adam Pascal gives a better performance here than I've ever seen him give on stage, despite the most laughable hair ever. I really hope for his sake, that it's a wig and that he didn't have to walk around with that thing on his head for the duration of filming. He gives Roger a real sense of character rather than just stalking around being tragic all the time, which is good since Rent really doesn't bother with much development for any of its characters.
The newcomers Thoms and Dawson fit in pretty seemlessly, even if Thoms seems a bit young for her commanding butch dyke role.
Does this movie have problems? Yes, it does, but none that seriously threaten to sink the project. It's more as if director Chris Columbus either didn't read or didn't fully comprehend the original script before okaying some changes. But I know you want a rundown, so here goes:
-Setting the movie in 1989-90, rather than 1995-96 as it is on stage...huge error. I understand the impulse since that was when Jonathan Larson started work on the piece, but the text of the show is very mid-90's from the laments about living at the end of the millenium to Thelma and Louise to the beeper-reminded AZT breaks. Actually, Columbus could have gone for a more timeless feel and simply eliminated reference to the year altogether and let the audience draw their own conclusions, but he did not.
-moving Maureen's protest/performance art piece indoors to a sort of gym/multipurpose room. The whole point of it is that it's to protest the homeless getting thrown off a vacant lot. Also, the piece is staged as a full out multimedia extravaganza, which also goes against the nature of what it's supposed to be.
-the changing of the some of the minimal backstory for some of the characters. While it was an interesting one-off joke to set "Take Me As I Am" at a country club commitment ceremony thrown by Joanne's now-supportive parents, it came at the expense of the amusing voice mail messages that, in the show, deliniate a strong daughter standing up to her strong parents about her sexuality. Come to think of it, all traces of Joanne as the busy and quite successful attorney are gone as well.
-Actually following Roger to Santa Fe. While I'm not sure how exactly Columbus could have gotten around this, it was hysterical to watch the grungy Roger trying to make it against scenes of wide open desert. At one point, he just seems to be wandering in the desert singing. He looked so ludicrously out of place that it was no wonder that he went scampering back to New York so quickly.
-Roger and Mark's squatters apartment that is the main setting of the show is WAY too nice in this film. As soon as I saw it, I thought "Man, what a great apartment! And they pay NOTHING to live there?!" No wonder they want to stay so badly. Isn't it supposed to be a converted loft space in an old warehouse or something? Plus I never really got a sense of how cold it must be when Benny shuts off the heat.
-Adding Maureen in the dream tango section of "Tango: Maureen." Again, I understand the impulse, but it robs Menzel's Maureen of a sweet biker chick first entrance that totally befits the diva she is in her own mind later on in the movie.
-The axing of Roger's speech totally calling Mark on his lone-wolf-with-a-camera bullshit. Does the ubiquitous camera isolate Mark or is it his excuse for isolating himself? We're unsure because Pascal and Rapp never got to play this moment on screen. This is a really senseless cut since it really serves to crystalize Mark's character and his function both in the group and in the show.
-Heredia's first number, "Today 4 U." Boy, does this totally not work on screen. Not sure why really other than that it's totally over the top. Later on in the film, Heredia pulls it in, but this moment is too too much.
Oh, and I was also curious about how the film would handle the one disingenuous moment in the play, the moment toward the end when Mimi succombs to illness and then, for no reason at all, comes back to life. I'm convinced that Larson would have changed this Disney ending had he lived to see the show performed, but, since he didn't, we're stuck with it. And the scene was a mixed bag. The first part was beautifully handled as Dawson goes limp and you can see the cast making the assumption that Mimi has passed away (after all, they have been in a frenzy contacting 911 and finding blankets to make her comfortable...they know how sick she is and how close to the end). Then the camera pans down and you notice her fingers twitch, something the cast, from their vantage point, cannot see. So the audience becomes aware at that moment that Mimi has only fainted rather than died. Unfortunately, this lovely scene is followed by Dawson sitting up on the table as though nothing whatsoever is or ever has been wrong with her and speaking clearly and coherently. What? Huh?
So I need to see this movie again. I feel like I spent a lot of time watching it just marveling at its very existance, rather than actually watching and listening to it as a film. I don't feel like I got everything that's there and I want to see what will be revealed upon future viewing.
Who wants to go with me?
After leaving the Frick Collection, Greg and I wandered through the park and down to Times Square, where we proceeded to pick up rush tickets to In My Life, a new Broadway musical written, produced, and directed by Joseph Brooks, the author of the ubiquitous '70's anthem "You Light Up My Life," as well as the 1980's London megamusical Metropolis, and a bunch of commercial jingles, at the Music Box Theatre.
We were curious about this show because it's truely the most maligned show on Broadway right now. Not only were most of the reviews pretty poisonous, but word of mouth has also been weak. For whatever reason, and I suspect it's the vanity project nature of this one. Producing your own show and directing it yourself may be a great way to maintain control and ensure that the project reflects your singular artistic vision, but it also lends itself to charges of a grossly inflated ego run amok. I myself think that it's almost always preferable to have at least a couple of pairs of eyes and brains focusing on the material as it develops so as to increase the chances of someone always having a clear head and being able to evaluate the piece without being emotionally wrapped up in it.
Anyway...
In My Life tells two parallel stories, one grounded in reality and one a wacky absurd comedy. In the first, Christopher J. Hanke plays J.T., a musician with Tourette's Syndrome who meets Jenny, a drifting, directionless romantic, played by Jessica Boevers. Their unusual love story, fraught with misunderstandings and drama, forms the backbone of the show. The second story is that of Winston, a flamboyant, over-the-top angel, played by David Turner, who happens to catch wind of J.T. and Jenny's unfolding story and decides to use it as the plot of a heavenly opera that he is putting together for God. Yep. It turns out that in heaven they play not only showtunes, but opera as well.
And...I fuckin' loved this show. Did you hear me?! I LOVED LOVED LOVED the show. I don't care what you've heard or what you've read. Greg loved it too, by the way. We had said early on that we were hoping that this might be another Epic Proportions, Dream, or Swingin' On A Star experience, where we ended up loving a piece that had basically been dismissed by the whole theatre community. And our hopes were answered. We were captivated from the curtain and thought the show was a little gem that does not deserve the continual drubbing it seems to get in the media.
Brooks' score is of the soft pop/rock variety, but doesn't employ the relentless screaming and driving pop beats that characterize many shows whose scores inhabit this world. His libretto sketches in the characters in a sort of shorthand with little actual development, but it doesn't matter because he hits all the important points. For example, when J.T. tells Jenny about having Tourette's, she responds that she already knew because a college roommate had had it and that she's fine with it. And they move on. It's a lovely scene that spares us 15 minutes of Jenny learning about Tourette's, getting used to it, and finally accepting it before the show can move on to other things. The show's not really about that anyway.
The show's vision of heaven as a large filing room with endless drawers from floor to ceiling (think of that warehouse in the final shot of Raiders of the Lost Ark), provided humour and a touch of sadness as it becomes clear that God, a schlubby guy in a backward ballcap, is mainly uninterested and indifferent to the world he created on Earth. Turner's daffy turn as Winston keeps the ball rolling and keeps heaven from getting too maudlin for its own good.
This show has a lot of points to make and a lot of stories to tell and I have no idea how it manages do all it does with a running time of less than 2 hours. The cast is amazing...Hanke and Boevers have a delicious chemistry, even when things don't look good for them. Turner almost, but not quite manages to steal the show as Winston. The featured players here all have their moments and all managed to create quirky memorable characters even in a few moments of stage time.
The universe of the show is such a wacky one that sometimes you just have to go with the absurdities...like God, who prefers to be called Al, "auditioning" for Winston's opera by accompanying himself while singing a commerical jingle extolling the virtues of Voltswagens. Or Winston's idea of adding drama to J.T. and Jenny's story courtesy of a bunch of sexy pirates.
Certain aspects of the plot here seem to mirror William Finn's A New Brain, but I didn't mind that. There's room for more than one show featuring songwriters suffering from health issues in their brains.
So I urge everyone to go check out this show before it closes. I applaud Joe Brooks for believing in this project and using his considerable fortune to give it a chance to find an audience. Don't believe what you've hear or what you read.
I loved this show...every damn bit of it. I want to see it again. I want to be in it.
GO!! NOW!!
So the day is here. Our national day of Thanksgiving.
I'm sitting here in my parents' kitchen in New Jersey switching between the parade in New York and the one in Philadelphia. At the moment, former American Idol finalist is wailing away (or rather lipsyncing to himself wailing away) with backup dancers in Philadelphia.
My mother is working on the turkey.
I'm sitting here in a bathrobe.
Is it wrong to tire of high school marching bands? They all sound the same to me. I don't care how far they came to participate in the parade.
The Philadelphia parade is sponsered by the WPVI-Channel 6, the local ABC affiliate that also broadcasts it. Channel 6, like ABC, is owned by the Disney Corporation and Disney has basically turned the parade into a huge commercial for themselves. They just took a break from the parade to do a remote from the Animal Kingdom park in Orlando to tell everyone about the place.
Now, in New York...a marching band from somewhere in the Poconos doing "Defying Gravity" from Wicked. Ugh. Now Tommy Tune is doing "Talk to the Animals" from the upcoming tour of Doctor Dolittle that he's trying to salvage.
As I mentioned before, I accompanied my parents to an ecumenical Thanksgiving church service last night. Does it bother anyone else when churches try to religious-ize what is essentially a national holiday? Don't religions have enough holidays of their own? I know that part of the traditional giving of thanks is giving thanks to God and that's fine if that's what you wish to do. But this holiday has NO religious significance whatsoever. If a holiday is created by an act of government, it's not religious.
Hey! Kristin Chenoweth was on a float in New York with a bunch of other people from her home state of Oklahoma lipsyncing to herself singing Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Oklahoma!" from that musical. I would have thought, since she not tied to performing 8 shows a week in a musical this year, that she'd have headed home to visit her family for the holiday.
I just picked up Chenoweth's newest album, the one that features mostly church music. It's actually quite nice and the production is as flawless as the lady's singing. For the theatre fans, she throws in "Taylor the Latte Boy" as a bonus track. It's a nice song that she apparently sings fairly often in concert, but it's totally out of place on that album. I'm hoping that she gets back to theatre music for the next one or maybe does some operatic stuff, rather than sticking with the churchy material.
I've been told to go take a shower before the guests start arriving. More later.
Well, I'm down the shore in New Jersey.
I've been here about 8 hours, one of which was spent attending an ecumenical church service with my parents. The best part was the cantor of a local synagogue who sang his portion of the program. That was actually pretty cool. Do they get to make up their own tunes to go with the text? If I were a cantor, the service would sound like a slow night at Marie's Crisis.
There has already been one sojourn to Target.
Dad proudly informed me that they now get Logo on their cable system and told me which channel on which to find it. I haven't had time yet to check it out.
But I don't feel like killing anyone, least of all myself. Yet.
I'd call that progress.
Before I decamp to New Jersey for the coming long weekend, I thought that maybe I should write about the past weekend, something I haven't yet had a moment to do. Between work and rehearsals (which are going quite well, thank you), I just haven't had a lot of time to sit and write.
Anyway, my friend Greg was in town from suburban Philadelphia and Saturday afternoon we entered ourselves into the ticket lottery for The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee on Broadway at the Circle in the Square Theatre. Surprise! We won! Or, more precisely, HE won. We were thrilled to get the tickets, even though I was a little apprehensive when I saw that they were on an extreme side of the theatre, the only true thrust space on Broadway.
But I was curious to see how the show translated to a thrust from the proscenium of Second Stage, where I saw the off-Broadway production ages ago. You may recall that I loved the show at Second Stage and I loved it again on Broadway. Most of the cast has stuck with it and they are simply extrordinary. I was laughing and crying with these "kids" all over again. And I want to be in this show really badly.
And the big question? How does this very proscenium entertainment fit into a thrust? Well...truthfully...not very comfortably. While director James Lapine has managed to have the cast pay token respect to the sides of the auditorium, the material itself works against being presented in this format and, on the auditorium left side at least, we got a lot of backs a lot of the time.
This became more of a problem thanks to the muddy sound design, which, even though all the actors were all wearing microphones, managed to obscure lyrics as soon as whomever was singing turned away. While I can appreciate a true-to-life quality in sound design (after all, people's voices do change when they turn away from you), I'd really rather understand all the lyrics. Thanks!
So what does this mean? Well, the show is still fabulous and I can't recommend it highly enough. It is not well served by the choice of venue, but if you can sit as close to the center as possible, you should be fine. If you want to resort to the less expensive lottery tickets, you will still have a grand time...just keep in mind that you won't be getting the complete full Spelling Bee experience.
Later on that day, Greg and I got half-price tickets in Times Square to see the Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall. This is the world famous annual holiday show that stars the Rockettes, probably the best known dance troupe in the universe. The Christmas Spectacular was the opposite of Spelling Bee in every way. The sound was so perfect that it was like listening to a CD. And even though we saw the live orchestra (strike was settled, thank God), it sounded like the entire show was pre-recorded.
The Rockettes were great, as usual. The show itself plays like a 90 minute theme park holiday show. I was...underwhelmed. See, this thing should be a topical revue, sort of like a neo-Ziegfeld Follies, based around the theme of Christmas. Whomever puts the show together should solicit a number or two from as many theatre composers as want to participate. It could be an annual showcase for new writers. And the sketches could be great fun for up-and-coming playwrights, as well as more established names.
As is, it's a fun, undemanding tourist attraction. But I think New York deserves better.
Sunday morning, Greg and I went over to the east side to the Frick Collection, one of the nicest museums in the city. I love this place because it's not completely overwhelming and can be seen in a couple of hours. Supposedly, it's the collection of turn-of-the-last-century robber baron Henry Clay Frick in his former home on Fifth Avenue exactly as he had arranged it. So it's not exactly a "museum" per se, but a "collection." Right.
It's a great place, but if you pay close enough attention you start to realize that the place isn't the temple of verisimilitude that it's made out to be. Basically, everything's the same as when Frick was alive except what isn't. And what isn't seems to be a pretty significant portion of the Collection.
But no matter...it's still a great place to visit and I recommend it. Go check it out.
After the Frick, Greg and I did something that turned out to be an unexpected surprise, something that neither of us had exactly anticipated.
And it requires its own post. Later.
You must go see the new Handbag show that a bunch of my friends are producing, directing, and starring in. Actually, it's probably even worth a special trip to the Windy City. Wish I could go. Here's the press release...
HELL IN A HANDBAG PRODUCTIONS PRESENTS
JUDY’S SCARY LITTLE CHRISTMAS
at Strawdog Theatre
3829 N. Broadway
Chicago, IL 60613
Previews: Friday, December 2 at 8:00 PM
Preview admission: $15.00
Opening Night: Saturday, December 3 at 8:00 PM
Opening Night Admission: $20.00
Admission: $15.00 - $20.00
Runs: Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays at 8:00 PM, Sundays at 2:00 PM
Special Wednesday Performance on December 21 at 8:00 PM
PLEASE NOTE: There will be no performances on December 24 or 25
Special New Year’s Eve Performance: Saturday, December 31 at 8:00 PM
New Year’s Eve Admission: $25.00
Closes: Saturday, January 7 at 8:00 PM
For reservations call (312) 409-4357
Hell In A Handbag Productions, who brought you POSEIDON! An Upside Down Musical and SCARRIE-The Musical, is proud to present the Chicago premiere of Judy’s Scary Little Christmas.
Judy’s Scary Little Christmas features Jennifer Connelly (Reverend Scott in POSEIDON! An Upside Down Musical) as the one and only Judy Garland. Hell In A Handbag Ensemble Member Tim Howard directs this twisted, but loving look at the holiday television specials of yesteryear. Jeff Citation Winner (choreography - Pinafore!) and Ensemble Member Brigitte Ditmars choreographs, with musical direction by Peter Storms.
The year is 1959, and Judy Garland has gathered a bevy of her celebrity friends to join her in celebrating the holiday season on her comeback television variety special. Things take a twisted turn when a mysterious guest crashes the party … taking one and all on a mystical journey beyond legends and legacies. Featuring original music and lyrics by Joe Patrick Ward and a book by James Webber and David Church, Judy’s Scary Little Christmas is a fantastic trip to the bygone days of Hollywood.
Judy’s Scary Little Christmas also features Hell In A Handbag Ensemble Members Derek Czaplewski as Bing Crosby, Brannen Daugherty as Liberace, David Cerda as Joan Crawford, Brigitte Ditmars, Ed Jones and Michael Miller.
Rounding out the cast are Trista Smith (Ms. Collins in SCARRIE-The Musical) as Ethel Merman, Richard Banden, Loren Connell, Adam Keune and Ben Osbun.
Critics have called Judy’s Scary Little Christmas:
“Magical! A Side-Splitting Parody! Wickedly Funny!” – The Los Angeles Times
“The most bizarre deconstruction of a genre I’ve ever seen! Hilarious!” – LA Weekly
“A non-stop hoot! If Rod Serling and Gerard Alessandrini joined forces to write a 1959 CBS TV special it would undoubtedly resemble this giddy but affectionate confection! Critic’s Pick!” – Backstage West
“The most hilarious play to see this season. A surreal snow globe highball, a Hollywood Christmas card from beyond the grave!” – Portland Mercury
“Wonderfully strange! A true holiday treat!” – The Hollywood Reporter
And if you tell them I sent you, David Cerda and/or Steve Hickson will give you a big kiss on the lips.
Tim and I went to see the Roundabout's Broadway revival of Eugene O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet at Studio 54 tonight.
If you're familiar with the O'Neill style, you know exactly what to expect here: A long, talky play without a heck of a lot of plot. This one was shorter than most of his work, only 2 hours and 45 minutes with intermission. I'm not an O'Neill fan (heresy, I know), and I'd never even HEARD of this play before.
Cast, led by Gabrial Byrne, was terrific, but I couldn't tell if the lack of pacing, especially in the first act, was an actor problem, a director problem, or a text problem. This play is a glacier and I just don't know what I would have done to pep it up some. But, in some ways, that's just O'Neill.
Okay, it's a terrific evening if you like that sort of thing. If you're a Byrne fan or an O'Neill fan, go. If you like wacky musical comedies with singing and dancing monkeys, then this just isn't the show for you.
So I will most likely be in the market for a new Desk Jockey Day Job sometime in 2006. It's not that I especially want to leave the current position, but I'm just not making enough money and I don't actually forsee, because of some unusual restrictions on the position, that happening anytime soon.
I haven't actually put much effort into finding something new, because I hate the idea of putting that much time and energy into something I don't really want to be doing anyway. But don't get the wrong idea...I work hard at my day jobs, I just don't care about them.
While I won't disclose here the details of the current Desk Jockey Day Job, I have years of experience as an Executive Assistant here in New York working in a variety of industries and for many different kinds of principals on levels ranging from Vice-President of Something or Other straight up to President and CEO.
Does anybody out there cyberspace need anyone? To give you an idea, here's some of what I look for in a Day Job:
-Flexibility. I need my employer to understand that I'm an actor and that I will need a certain amount of flexibility to audition and rehearse as necessary. In the past, this has taken the form of coming in late, leaving early, or taking a longer-than-usual lunch break to accomodate whatever it is that I need to do. The time missed is then made up as soon as possible by coming in early or staying late or some combination thereof. Also, should I get an out-of-town gig, I need to be able to bring in and train a temp for the period that I would be gone, which would be an unpaid leave of absence for me, of course.
-Benefits. I haven't had even basic health coverage in at least two years. Scary? Yes, I suppose, but I'm so used to it that it barely registers with me anymore.
-Salary. I can live on surprisingly little actual money, but I would need a salary that would cover my basic expenses. The amount I would consider fair would depend on the nature of the position and the hours required.
-A Midtown location. I live in midtown Manhattan and being able to walk to work at my current position has saved me much money over the past year and a half. If I had to go back to taking the subway each day, that would have to be taken into consideration with the salary.
-Casual Dress. I work best in a casual dress work environment. It's a simple equation: When I'm comfortable, doing anything becomes easier. And I'm comfortable in jeans and a tee shirt. I don't do suits, unless the job comes with a clothing allowance or a high enough salary to pay for them. Ties are useless pieces of clothing that serve no function and actually hinder movement and constrict the neck. There's no need to wear them for 8 or 9 hours at a clip. Unless the position involves a high level of contact with the firm's upper class customer base, I don't see the need. I've never had anyone hang up on me or refuse to return my email because I wasn't dressed properly. I suppose that Business Casual is a compromise, but nothing beats casual.
-A Lack of Office Politics. To be frank, I don't do office politics. I show up, do my job, expect others to do theirs, and go home to my real life. There's nothing so important about a day job that I'm going to participate in turf wars or oneupsmanship or any of the petty little games that go on in offices all over the city. Just not worth the energy.
Anyhow, any and all of these requirements are flexible to a certain point. I can be as flexible with an employer as the employer can be with me. And I'll talk to anyone about any position. No harm in talking, right? Ideally, I'd like a position that would start during the first quarter of 2006 and I would need at least 2 weeks to give proper notice to the current boss.
Ideas?
Yet another brilliant episode of South Park tonight. I have no idea how Matt Stone and Trey Parker keep this show so fresh. Tonight's target was the Church of Scientology and one of that organization's most famous members, movie star Tom Cruise, lately more famous for his bizarre public behavior than for his movies.
Absolutely fuckin' brilliant, right down to the end credits. If you missed it, keep an eye out on Comedy Central for reruns.
By the way, rehearsals for The Bully are going quite well so far. The company seems very nice and we're all genuinely having a great time. I look forward to getting to know them better as our work progresses.
So I've gotten cast in a new show!
It's a new musical called The Bully at Vital Theatre Company up at the McGinn-Cazale Theatre on the Upper West Side. We will run at various times from December 17th-February 5th, mostly on Saturdays and Sundays at 1.00pm and 3.00pm. Tickets may be purchased here.
So...those of you who are wont to do so have plenty of time to come up with excuses for why you didn't come to see me in a show yet again.
But, all kidding aside (Hmmm...I was kidding, right?), I really would love to see as many people as possible come up and see this. The show is really cute and I think it's going to be a lot of fun.
Wow...I'm so honoured that people find their way to this blog while doing internet searches for topics related to the Broadway theatre.
Like this one:
"jason danieley" + photos + shirtless
I'm sure that there are tons of shirtless shots of Danieley around since he was one of the original stars of The Full Monty on Broadway. Hope this person found what he or she was seeking.
And I'm even more excited for the person who found me while looking for:
Good luck with that (and forward me anything you find please).
But this last one? I don't think I even want to know:
pictures of bernadette peters fucking
Sigh.
Remember the director in the Columbia MFA directing program that I've been working with now and then on projects. The movement piece that I was in on Wednesday did not go terribly well. There was a major technical snafu when the music just never started...twice. Yes, we had to restart the piece twice before the person running sound figured out the problem.
I'm embarrassed to admit that this development threw me for a loop and I managed to screw up a pretty neat piece of business that had worked every time in rehearsal. And, to make matters worse, the instructor evaluating our work was Anne Bogart, the famous director who heads the MFA program at Columbia.
Ugh...
Anyway, today's project was a scene from Antigone in which I played Creon. We got the text last night and did the scene this afternoon. It was a crazy stressful time of three actors trying desperately to simply memorize words for a director who was working hard to actually elicit performances from us.
We rehearsed from about 6.45pm to 10.00pm last night, then I went home, dropping into a bar on 10th Avenue en route to wish my friend Peter a Happy Birthday. Then after quickly returning home, I stayed up till close to 4.00am working on the text.
The three of us showed up at the theatre early to run lines and get final notes from our director. To say that the three of us were stressed would be the understatement of the week. We were stumbling through the words while also trying to process director notes.
And the performance ended up so much better than we thought it would. We were paraphrasing like mad, but there were a few lines that did resemble what was on the page. I ended up chopping one particularly long speech in half. But we got through it.
Oh, and in the Happy Coincidence Department...the actress playing Ismene was Becki Kollenberg, who was also in Rudolph the Red Hosed Reindeer, a musical I did in Chicago with Hell in a Handbag Productions in 2003. We had a lovely time catching up and it was great to work with her again.
If there are actors out there reading this who are interested in making contacts with up and coming directors, this guy needs all sorts of people for all sorts of projects. Drop me email and I'll put you in touch.
Oh, my God, I'm so glad that it's over.
Even though I seem to watch an incredible amount of TV (thanks to my DVR), I don't watch a lot of lot sitcoms these days. I don't really know why. Most of them just don't seem to appeal. But two that I do watch and love, even though they are totally cheesy, are ABC's Freddie and Fox's recently returned Stacked.
Coincidentally, these shows air at exactly the same time. Again, thank goodness for the DVR.
I love how ABC promotes their show at every turn as being about the comic antics of it's TWO stars, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Brian Austin Green, while somehow still calling it simply Freddie. I love that while the grandmother obviously understands English, she speaks only in Spanish that is subtitled on screen. I love that I can never remember which actress is playing Freddie's sister and which is playing his widowed sister-in-law, even though one of them is Madchen Amick, forever enshrined in televisionland as Twin Peak's Shelly the Waitress. And which one of those women is the mother of the girl? I also love the ever-so-slight homoerotic tension between Prinze's and Green's characters.
Prinze is such a warm comic presence (who knew?) that I love spending time watching him as a regular guy who has found himself in the midst of craziness. He feels like somebody real that I can (shocker!) relate to as if we could actually be friends. If this character is a riff on the real life Prinze, I am suddenly seeing what Sarah Michelle Geller saw in the guy. I had just always figured that he must be amazing in bed and that she probably got enough intellectual stimulation at work on Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Huh.
I originally started watching Stacked because one of its supporting players is Marissa Jaret Winokur who rocketed to stardom as the original Tracy Turnblad in the musical Hairspray. I had no feeling at all about Pamela Anderson, not surprising since I'm hardly her intended audience. Imagine my surprise when it was revealed that Anderson not only has a sense of humour about herself and her image, but also has a way with a punchline. If you happened to catch the charity roast of Anderson on Comedy Central awhile back, both of these qualities were evident there as well.
The writing on this show can be sophomoric, but I expect they will evolve beyond "everyone's in love with Pamela Anderson" stories soon if the show lasts. And they could really use a gay character to bridge the "gap" between the intellectually inclined characters and the put-together fabulousness of Anderson's, someone who can be witty and smart while still knowing about fashion and hair gel.
And there's this very cute actor on the show called Elon Gold. I was not familiar with the guy before this, but who cares? He's really attractive in a nerdy nebbish sort of way, which is just up my street. He reminds me of someone and I can't quite put my finger on it yet. I thought for awhile it might be him, but I'm not sure.
Anyway, if you happen to be home on a Wednesday night, check your brain at the door and give one or both of these shows a shot.
And if you happen to work at Stacked, I totally want an audition for the gay character you introduce when you realize how sensible and workable my idea is. Thanks!
Got another call from the Columbia MFA directing student that I worked with a couple of weeks ago on that cutting from Orestes. This time, he's working on a movement piece that he's presenting to Anne Bogart on Wednesday.
The music of choice is Fatboy Slim's "Weapon of Choice," which you might remember for the video, which featured actor Christopher Walken dancing through an empty hotel. Before today, I'd never seen this video, though, of course, I had heard of it. It's pretty cool...mainly, I suspect, due to its having been directed by Spike Jonze. The song itself really isn't much and you really have to strain to make out most of the lyrics.
As before, I'm really trying to not stress over this. But the director's concept sounds really cool...if I can pull off his vision.
On Friday night, Jim and I had a great time hanging out during what turned out to be a terribly bisexual evening.
We met up and headed out for dinner and ended up at, of all places, Hooters. I had never been to a Hooters before, despite the fact that the famous chain has an installation just a couple of blocks from my apartment. In fact, if you've seen the 1999 Adam Sandler movie Big Daddy, in was this very Hooters location that figures in that film's finale. I've walked by this place a thousand times, but had never gone in before Friday night.
And it was actually quite fun. Yes, our waitress, LaDonna, was dressed in the iconic skimpy orange and white outfit (uniform? costume?), but we were sitting on the outdoor porch enjoying the autumn weather and LaDonna was also wearing nude-colored stockings which must have been a big help keeping her warm. She was also wearing a really cute necklace.
And the food was actually excellent. The menu was simple, but with a lot of good choices and much different from the standard chain restaurant menu that you'll see in any Applebee's, Friday's, or Bennigan's anywhere in the country.
LaDonna offered Jim and me each a choice of two different magnets, displaying the season schedule of the either the Giants or the Jets. My response to that was "That's football, right?"
Then we left Hooters and headed way out to Brooklyn to catch the Brooklyn Family Theatre production of The Wizard of Oz starring our friend Hector Coris as Dorothy. Oh, wait...no. That's not right. Hector was playing The Cowardly Lion and whichever Kansas farm hand (Huck? Zeke? Zep?) corresponds with the Lion. I always knew Hector was a Friend of Dorothy, but Friday night really confirmed it.
The production was really cute and employed the script premiered by the Royal Shakespeare Company and later presented by Paper Mill Playhouse, at the Theatre at Madison Square Garden, and on tour around the country.
Hector was terrific in the show and really channeled Bert Lahr, the role's originator. It was so much fun to watch. If you happen to be in Brooklyn over the next couple of weekends, go check it out.
Then Jim and I returned to Manhattan and dropped into Marie's Crisis in the West Village, where we drank a bit and belted out show tunes till about 2.00am. This was also fun, even if the place was packed. I hadn't seen Marie's this crowded in quite a while. I was a little uncomfortable at first, but the crowd did thin out after awhile.
Always fun at Marie's.
So the hetero experience of Hooters was balanced out by the way homo Marie's Crisis. I'm calling Oz a draw since the show was clearly aimed at a family crowd and children were abundant.
Plus, it was out in Brooklyn. ;)
After Marie's, Jim and I went back to catch trains home, which were taking forever. Finally he just came back to my place to crash since the odds for getting some sleep were much better than continuing to wait for an E train to take him back to the Kingdom of Far Far Away, Queens where he lives.
It was really great fun and I really needed it after the hellaciously busy week I'd had. Can't wait for another such night in future. Who wants to come?
I got a call from my father yesterday telling me that one of my former Scoutmasters had gotten busted for trying to solicit a young boy for sex over the internet. He expected that I was going to be surprised. I was not.
No, the guy never touched me.
As sick as he is, he would never have been that stupid. Any Scoutmaster who came after me would have been dead meat in so many ways that I'm not surprised the guy never made a move on me.
But, as I found out just a couple of years ago, he did do something to a friend of mine. My father was surprised that he'd never heard this from me, but my friend told me that he was pretty traumatized at the time (so much so that he lied to investigators and said that nothing had happened just to avoid getting into it) and that he had put it behind him and to not spread the information around.
Dad then surprised me by telling me that there was suspicion of this guy at the time, but that nothing could be done because there was no proof. Luckily, I was only in that particular troop for a few months.
I left messages for my friend letting him know what happened. I also told him that he might want to contact the police and let them know what happened to him years ago. I suspect that the more people who come forward the easier it will be to put the guy away for a longer period of time.
What a shame that things like this have to happen.
So I've been to the theatre and been just too busy to write about it all. Let's go to the recap...
Week before last, I finally caught up with the three-year-old Movin' Out at the Richard Rodgers Theatre on 46th Street, right off Times Square. By the way, this particular evening turned out to be my last date with the guy who later told me how conflicted he was about deciding to date someone else instead of me. Yeah...conflict THIS.
Anyway, as you probably know, this "musical" is actually a full length dance piece directed and choreographed by the one and only Twyla Tharp to the music of Billy Joel. Many of the Piano Man's hits were here (though not the one I just invoked) played live by a band led by Joel sound-alike Michael Cavanaugh.
And it was really terrific! The story (a group of friends from Long Island graduate from high school and face the world of the 1960's) was at points hard to follow, but, just like at the ballet, there is a synopsis in the program. The dancers were breath-taking, even if two of the leads were out in favor of their matinee counterparts.
I had an interesting reaction to the Billy Joel music. Many were the times when the dancers would be performing to some instrumental piece or other and I would be rapt with attention when Cavanaugh would launch into some Billy Joel standard that was recognizable enough that even I knew it...and that pulled me right out of the story for awhile as I thought "Oh, there's a Billy Joel song."
The most amazing aspect of Movin' Out has to be the show's Marketing Department. These amazing people, whomever they are, have managed to sell a dance piece to a mass audience on Broadway for three years, as well as on tour all over the country. And, make no mistake, the theatre was PACKED on the midweek evening I saw the show. Congratulations, Folks! You all deserve a raise.
I also trekked down to suburban Philadelphia to catch my best friend Greg as Father in a production of the Stephen Schwartz musical Children of Eden. He was terrific and the production was excellent around him. The Eve/Noah's Wife was especially terrific. There were some mis-steps, but I really did enjoy this production of a very flawed musical.
Then it was back to the city to meet Amy in the East Village for a performance of Harvey Finklestein's Sock Puppet Showgirls at Ace of Clubs down in the East Village. This show is pretty much exactly what its title suggests...a live version of the campy fun '90's movie Showgirls using sock puppets.
It was fun, but would have been even better had there been more of the movie in their show. But I suppose it's hard to parody something that is already a pretty over the top parody of itself.
I saw the Finklestein company do their A Puppet Christmas Carol in Chicago in 2003 and it was cool to catch up with them again here. Showgirls is now closed, but if the Christmas Carol show comes to New York, I'd advise checking it out.
Regarding the event planning job that I had scheduled this week, I was able to come to a decision with which I can live. I must pass on my thanks to everyone who weighed in with advice. I took what everyone said under consideration and decided to go ahead and do the job on the revised terms for the following reasons:
1) I had already committed to it. Yes, it could be argued that when the terms of the deal changed (very much to my own detriment), my commitment was null and void. But I don't operate that way. When I say I'm going to do something, I do it. And that's whether I've said I will attend your performance, help you move, or show up for work. It frustrates me to no end when other people don't do things they have told me (and, in some cases, promised me) they will do. In my world, if you can't or won't do something, don't say you will just to appease me or avoid an argument. Trust me...the argument will only escalate and get uglier when you ultimately don't do whatever it is you've said you will. And, in this case, I made a committment to this company to work on this event. Yes, they are screwing me, and probably others, out of hard-earned cash, and no, I have no idea how the folks responsible sleep at night, but that doesn't matter. It will most probably affect how I deal with this firm in future, but, for this job, I will honour my committment.
2) I really do need the money, even if it's not as much as I should be earning for my time and labour. Simply put, some people can afford pride and some cannot. I can't. I don't really care for leading such a desperate, marginal existance, but that's the reality right now. If anyone would like to make a contribution to upgrading the status of my dubious solvency, feel free to get in touch...either via a comment here or by email. I won't go so far as to create one of those dubiously popular internet "tip jars" that I see on some blogs, but you may be assured that assistance is greatly appreciated.
Let me just say that there are two issues at hand with this firm, with which I've had no problems in the past. One is the money issue and the other is how the change in schedule was handled. First of all, I'm a New Yorker...I can handle rudeness. It doesn't shock or appall me, it's just how some people are. But, if I am working for you, and you treat me badly, you'd better be paying me a more than sufficient wage for the privledge. If I'm being compensated fairly, I can take quite a lot of abuse and have. Conversely, if you are NOT paying me very much money, you'd better be sweet as pie and treat me like the VIP that I am to you. You'd better be understanding when I have an issue and bend over backwards to accomodate me if there's a problem. That's your row to hoe in exchange for saving a few bucks on my salary.
I'm a reasonable guy and don't create problems or stress where there need be none. I'm a hard worker and, though the above paragraph may portray me as a little princess in need of coddling, I assure you that that is not the case. I rarely have problems or issues, which is why, on the rare occasion when I do, I expect such things to be handled appropriately.
So, yes, I'm doing the job, shutting up about it (for now), and going home.
So I got an email today from someone I'd gone out with a handful of times that he'd unexpectedly met someone else and could we please be friends.
I refrained from going all Sally Mayes on his ass.
At least he didn't just disappear like the guys usually do. There was another guy about a month or so ago who I didn't hear from for a bit so I emailed and he responded that he was killer busy due to traveling for the Jewish holidays in September. I said fine and to call or email me when he was back in town and we'd plan something. He agreed. It's now November and I have yet to hear from him. Pussy.
This most recent guy seemed genuinely nice and genuinely conflicted about this situation, so perhaps friendship will indeed happen. But that ball's in his court.
But why do these men ALWAYS pick the other guy?