ends and beginnings and in betweens

thanks to everyone who came out to my play! i know last night we had to turn away a lot of people because we were all filled up and i'm sorry for anyone who came all the way out and had to go find some thing else to do in times square ;)

course you could have walked up the street and caught my friend jon hill's debut on broadway in Superior Donuts. jon is an awesome actor and i am very happy for him. the reviews have been especially positive towards him--not that we pay attention to such things.

the last time jon and i worked together was in Six Degrees of Separation (yes, the one turned into a will smith film). it was such a pleasure to work opposite jon back then. i think that was a classy production, if i do say so myself. and it's nice to remember that i don't have to always play the "crazy" characters, but can sometimes pull off a little grace too-as i hopefully did with Ouisa.

it is good to remember that show today. as an actor, we collect all these lives inside of us, all these experiences. in a "regular" person i suppose this is multiple personality disorder. but, i'm an -occasionally- unabashed pretentious artist. today is one of those days.

the characters i've been, especially the ones that have really hurt, the ones that have reached in and ripped apart my gut--whether because of the way she was written, or the difficulty of bringing her to life, or the complete fun of her--they seem to live inside me somewhere still. now i'm not completely crazy or that pretentious. i don't go around hearing their voices in my head.

but every now and then, you remember something you, the character, said or did or lived--and it hits you in a whole new way, now in the present, in the "real life."

like today, reflecting on... well all of it-me, my friends, my colleagues, my freaking life. and thinking of jon reminded me of some things ouisa said and how it felt to say them and mean them...

I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The president of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I find that extremely comforting that we're so close, but... I also find it like Chinese water torture that we're so close, because you have to find the right six people to make the connection...

and these days, maybe even more important than that famous speech...

How do we keep what happens to us? How do we fit it into life without turning it into an anecdote? With no teeth, and a punch line you'll mouth over and over for years. "Oh, that reminds me of that boy..."

sometimes i think the things i say on stage are more true than the things i say in life.
what does that say?

researching Lorena Bobbit...

in my current show (come tonight! 7:30pm!), i play a manic-depressive, psychotic actress on the edge of a nervous breakdown. yeah, big stretch, i know.

my character goes to some extreme lengths to get her point across. she does not, however, pull a "lorena bobbit." thankfully.

i am rather disturbed to read about Brigitte Harris, who researched the bobbits in order to attack her abusive father and "keep him from hurting her neices." hey, i'm not judging her. years of rape and abuse will do that to a person. she was just convicted of manslaughter for castrating, then strangling her father. but not only did she castrate and strangle, she admitted to cooking the evidence on a stove because she had learned, via the online research, that a penis can be reattached.


wow.

bad ideas, good ideas, and the baby cage

ah, judgement!

me, i judge myself a lot. too much. certainly for an "artist." even with our opening night coming off really well, i battle.

maybe i'll just blame it on society. this, after all, must be the "opinion decade" - sort of like the "me generation" all started going, yeah it's all about me so let me tell you about everything else. but hey i love my daily show just like everyone else--though i could do without perez.

LIFE has a great collection of "dumb inventions" - old photographs of some inspired creations that didn't really get off the ground. i think they are being awfully hasty calling some of these "dumb."

here the "baby cage." now i say why not? especially in the city, babies should get some time outdoors. some fresh air and stimulation.


like the cat veranda, the cage lets the baby take in all the sights in a safe environment.






i also appreciate this cigarette holder built for two, though it is easy to understand why this just won't work anymore. i mean there just isn't anywhere to sit with your beau and enjoy a smoke, while holding hands and gazing lovingly! no restaurants, no buildings or bars, now in new york they are even banning streets and -gasp- the parks! what's the point in sharing a cig holder at home? just not as fun.


when it comes to art, who can say whats a bad/good idea? there's the Thriller musical--yes MJ's "thriller" expanded for all your dancing zombie pleasures--in development now. and london's Enron is transferring to broadway--that's right "the notorious energy company and the 2001 financial scandal that engulfed it!" then there's the new york times review of daniel craig and hugh jackman's A Steady Rain that suggests "But it’s hard to avoid thinking that had they chosen to recite the alphabet in counterpoint (which might have been more fun), their joint appearance would still generate ticket sales unknown for a straight play..." hey, i bet we could make that arty and serious.

for the record i will say our play, Manhattan Fable, is a very good idea- ghosts, re-envisioned shakespeare, kisses and all.

saturday night live's "f-bomb"

i never watch SNL anymore. it's too bad. i used to love the show when i was little. i remember being super tiny and watching the repeats with my parents. in my cable-less apartment, i have indulged in the box sets of the first couple of seasons. while they aren't quite as hilarious as i remember, they are really damn good. and mostly because the troupe of players and writers weren't trying to be funny all the time. it wasn't the punchline driven format that SNL has become over the last several years. they did scenes back then, real acting, even if they weren't very good at it. the best part of SNL today seems to be the digital shorts--well take a look at the awesome short films of the first 3 seasons of Saturday Night Live. these films had a hell of a lot more depth than "mother lover" - and i admit that was a funny bit.


filmed not long before belushi died

i highly recommend the box sets, which give you great unedited versions of the episodes. secret shopper tip: look for them at target, where for some inexplicable reason, they cost half as much as even amazon.com.

i wish i could have been a member of that early troupe. they worked raw, cheap, and dirty. but they had an audience.

SNL has been in the news quite a lot recently, and not just about some Sarah Palin moment. first they fired their "fat" actress after barely a season--though to be fair i think they fired both their 2 new women, one "fat" one "thin." then this saturday was the premiere of the new season with one new replacement woman. it happens that during a sketch about biker chicks, she accidentally said "f*ck". the show is, suprisingly, not time delayed for the east coast. so, thought they bleeped it for the other markets, the "SNL f-bomb" became headline news. i saw the clip and it's not even worth reposting here. it's boring actually. she meant to say "freaking" and didn't. but now everyone's talking about it and the new actress, who would have likely been looked over otherwise--as most newbies are for several episodes.

regardless of the quality of SNL writing, i think this actually speaks much more to our current news media and ridiculous standards regulation. what is it that makes a story hot? do audiences really care about something like this at all??

maybe i'm the one out of it. maybe today's audience really do need some paltry risque moment to cough up their time, attention, and $.

then again, take a look at the tv lineup, heck even broadway, and producers are falling over themselves to provide that moment that will get butts in the seats, eyes on the prize. for goodness sake, in last season's Hedda Gabler at roundabout, Mary-Louise Parker opened the play by facing the audience completely nude. i'm talking full frontal nudity, completely randomly. luckily our very old subscriber base objected before opening night and for the rest of the run parker began the play with her back to the audience. but does any of that account for ticket sales? it's hard to see why else the director put the moment in.

now my own show this week is hoping to get the seats filled. what do we do to drum up the headlines, the audience? stripping is a pretty regular occurrence. saying "f*ck" really doesn't mean a thing in contemporary theatre. walk into just about any off-broadway house and it's like stepping into a quintin tarantino film. heck, that's probably why it slipped out of Jenny Slate's mouth.

manhattan fable-icious

here's the poster for my upcoming show

it's a very short preview run, with potential to move to a larger house


i'd love to see some friendly faces!