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?

o o my

Standing in the subway station waiting for the notoriously late a train- the station is full of people trying to get back uptown from times square probably to Harlem and Inwood. A man calls out to me "Obama !" strangers are calling put to each other. New Yorkers are speaking to people they don't know, high-fiving and crying. Jews and African Americans, chubby white girls and skinny emo boys. I just watched an older woman beat on a stranger's thigh sitting across from her on the train.
They are dancing in the streets. Fire works shooting off.
People have screamed till their voices are gone. They are weeping. We are weeping. The train which is usually only full of drunk and sleeping people, tonight has people discussing "what happened" in that state what "prop " passed in this state. It is euphoria, elation, and, yes, hope- that things will change, that we have a future ahead of us, that we are not condemned to war and hatred. Yes, it may only be fancy words and smooth speech but we have a need, a yearning for something better. In our own group , the room got silent, intense as we waited for the "president elect Obama" to take the stage. In the anticipation someone would explode with a whoop of uncontained astonishment and the rest of us would sush them furiously, afraid to miss anything. When he took the stage -you could feel the sense of history happening, surreal and wobbly. I felt the pages of history being written, the burden of the past and the weight of the future. Generations to come will read this moment in bland acceptance not recognizing the event for what it is.
This woman across from me can't contain herself. She shakes and tosses her head, looking around for a Obama button. She calls out to the girl getting off" have a great 4 years"