I've been working hard to get myself out of town this weekend. In the morning, I'm heading out to Newark Liberty International Airport to get on my flight to West Palm Beach, via Atlanta.
And, apparently, there's threat of some kind of winter storm hitting in the morning. Ugh. I'm hoping I won't be stranded in Newark. That would suck.
This is my annual pilgrimage to visit the parents and then, afterward, I'm flying to London to see Tim and audition for some drama programs.
Looking forward to it, but, of course, there are dozens of things that need to be done before I can go.
But it'll be fine.
So it's been a pretty slow week around here. There was no temp work at all, so I've spent my time running about doing errands, working on monologues and songs, and hitting some auditions here in town.
While it was nice to have free time to do some things that needed doing, I'm growing a bit concerned about the money situation. With me going out of town next week, now is not the time to not have an income.
But, this too shall pass.
There's not much to write about here and I'm just not feeling the urge to write at the moment.
We'll see how this goes.
I've been to the theatre.
Big Surprise, I know.
Try to contain yourselves.
I was lucky enough to win tickets last weekend to a couple of productions of the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players' current festival at City Center. If you're not familiar with this organization, they are a professional company specializing in the work of Gilbert and Sullivan and twice a year they offer a revolving repertory of a selection of the operettas. The ones I caught were their current productions of The Pirates of Penzance and Princess Ida.
Pirates is the only G&S piece that I've had the pleasure of appearing in. I know it really well. Years later, I still know most of the harmonies. When you learn it, that shit sticks with you, let me tell you. And I pretty much hated most of NYGASP's production. None of the leads were right (something I questioned at first, but which I'll get back to later) and the few moments of pleasure were derived from members of the ensemble who were able to find characters and moments to play within the greater context. There was WAY too much anachronistic (Thanks, Mike) schtick going on. It felt like the company was so bored with the material as written that the only way they could face going out on stage to do it yet again was to add in all this stuff. And all that does nothing for me, but pull me right out of the moment. Suddenly, I see an actor trying to be clever rather than a character in a situation.
If you really must add schtick to G&S, there's a better way. Check out the movie version of the 1980 Public Theatre/New York Shakespeare Festival revival of The Pirates of Penzance, which starred Kevin Kline, Angela Lansbury, Rex Smith, Linda Ronstadt, George Rose, and Tony Azito, most of whom had originated their roles when the production opened in the park and later transferred to Broadway. There is tons of stuff here that's not on the page, but ALL of it, each and every bit and piece of business (excepting one really in joke that NYGASP, inexplicably, borrowed for their production as well), is in character and in period, or, at least, not overtly contemporary.
My Favorites? Well, off the top of head, keep an eye on the horizontal mast thing that's on the pirate ship in the opening scene. If you pay close attention there's a little sign mounted there that says "Watch Your Head." And, of course, Kline proceeds to knock right into it later in the scene. Hee! Another lovely Kline moment is when the Major General enters and everyone cheers him...there's a look of dawning realization from Kline who interjects "Hey! That's the same as the 'Pirate King' tune!" Hysterical! And there's many little throwaway things like this all through the movie that just make it a delight, despite some flaws.
Anyway, enough of that...
I'd never seen a production of Princess Ida before, and I'd heard that it's one of the weaker of the writers' efforts. And, truthfully, sure, I found it to have some problems. But, on the whole, I really enjoyed it. The leads, many of whom were the same actors I'd felt were so miscast in Pirates, were terrific here. They were obviously cast for Ida and then shoehorned into Pirates.
It's a really good production, head and shoulders above Pirates. Maybe the creative staff put more effort into this to compensate for the weaknesses of the material. Whatever they did, it worked. Even the G&S disease of having singers facing front rather than being in the scene worked better here (Oy, yet another annoying non-stop problem with Pirates) and seemed like a more organic part of the staging.
Really liked it. So glad I got to go.
Oh, and I'd never sat in the orchestra at City Center before since I only ever go there for Encores! productions. Seeing something from the ground floor there is a totally different experience, dare I say an...intimate...one. Wow...
I also swung by Broadway last weekend and got myself a cheap ticket to Rock 'n' Roll, the new Tom Stoppard play at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. Despite the title, the play's not really about rock and roll music. What's it about, you ask? Communism in Czechoslovakia. I'm not kidding. And do you know how good I am? I didn't even have to look up the spelling of that, even though the country no longer exists. Thanks go to Mrs. Maria Lazar, my 10th Grade World Cultures teacher.
Okay, so this is Stoppard. It's a 3 hour talkfest about politics and philosophy. Welcome to Stoppardland. I enjoyed it mostly, but the play was at its most engaging when the actual characters took center stage to work through their stories. There's a stageful of interesting characters here that somehow get lost in the political rhetoric for long stretches.
Okay, I'm not making this sound appealing. Truthfully, it's not for everyone. Stoppard really isn't. If you like this sort of thing (and a lot of people do), you'll love it. If you don't, you may find yourself bored to tears.
I discovered tonight that someone I once knew is a contestant on a reality show. Given the current state of the Writers Guild of America strike, I'm guessing that all of us with soon either know someone on a reality television show or actually be on one ourselves.
Meet Ronnie Kroell. He's one of the contenders on Bravo's upcoming show Make Me A Supermodel. When I was doing a musical called Rudolph the Red Hosed Reindeer in Chicago a few years ago, Ronnie was dating a guy in the cast. I didn't know him well, but he was around with Keith (his then-boyfriend) at the various parties and I did get to know him a little, enough that we emailed a bit with each other during and after my time in Chicago.
Of course, I noticed that he was hot. That's a given. But to be honest, I was more into Keith, his boyfriend and my fellow cast member. He always seemed really nice though and they seemed like a really cute couple. "Cute" is actually an understatement...you know how those unbelievably hot guys always seem to find each other? Yeah, this was a case like that. When they were in the room, you just didn't know where to look first.
Apparently, they broke up and went their separate ways shortly after our show closed. And I've lost touch with both. Obviously, Ronnie is doing well. I had heard that Keith left Chicago and relocated to Boston, but who knows?
Small world, isn't it?
I may have to watch this show and see how Ronnie does, although, to be honest, I have little interest in the creation of models. I do occasionally watch The Janice Dickinson Modeling Agency, on the Oxygen channel, but that's more for the hot mess that is Janice Dickinson herself. By the way, is it my imagination or is Janice Dickinson mellowing? Lately, she just seems more sensible and level-headed, less diva-tastic. Anyway, more and more I find myself agreeing with her thoughts in her "talking head" interviews. How odd, right?
Hey, is anyone interested in subletting my apartment for the month of February? It's a pretty sweet place in a TERRIFIC location. Pass the word. Any interested parties are welcome to drop me a line. Just click on my name at the bottom of this post.
Thanks!
Can't believe I've had so little time since New Years to write. There's been stuff going on, but, truth to tell, I've just been lazy about it.
My best friend, Greg, came to town for New Years and we spent some time catching up with movies and television. Over the course of a couple of days, we saw Sweeney Todd, Juno, Atonement, and Enchanted. It was nothing compared to our usual New Years Day marathons, but this year's had to be truncated somewhat because he had to get back to Pennsylvania and work the next day.
I can heartily recommend the first three, but neither of us really cared for Enchanted. It had cute moments, but was filled with some really lazy screenwriting. If you're whole movie is going to be built around the differences between two realities, you have to obsesrve the rules of BOTH realities. For example, there's a scene of Amy Adams, as a cartoon heroine newly dropped into Times Square, getting swept by the crowd into the subway. In the next scene, she emerges at a particularly seedy part of the Bowery downtown...so, we're to believe that not only did she go for a ride on the subway with no money, she transferred from one line to another en route to her destination.
Don't even get me started on a witch who uses her evil powers all the time...except at the film's climatic moment to prevent her own defeat and destruction. What? Huh?
We also watched the entire series (thus far) of Pushing Daisies, a show that Greg had been raving about and which I was saving up on the DVR. Love this show! Definitely check it out whenever the WGA strike ends and scripted television gets back on track. Whimsy isn't dead, ya'll.
Since New Years, I've been temping some.
Oh, and I had my first drama school audition. It did not go as well as I'd hoped. The school took a bit of a different approach to the day than they had told us they would, and the change threw me off my game a bit. So embarrassing to admit, but mostly my own fault, of course.
But I was able to learn from the experience and take away some knowledge that I'm fully intending on taking into my next one. So that's a positive spin on the whole situation.
So what else is going on? Not a whole lot.
I've seen some theatre. I'll write about it later.