Tuesday, January 31, 2006
So sad...
...Wendy Wasserstein died....she was only 55....complications of lymphoma, the Times said....so sad.
Wendy and I shared many adventures at one point of our lives together....when Paul D.was running Playwrights Horizons with Andre B....she adn I would sit on various front porches and talk about life and being in love with men who happened to be gay...we shared a laugh or two...she was a deeply smart and gifted woman, and did much to contribute to the expression of our Age....she will be missed....rest in peace, Wendela...
so sad....
Wendy and I shared many adventures at one point of our lives together....when Paul D.was running Playwrights Horizons with Andre B....she adn I would sit on various front porches and talk about life and being in love with men who happened to be gay...we shared a laugh or two...she was a deeply smart and gifted woman, and did much to contribute to the expression of our Age....she will be missed....rest in peace, Wendela...
so sad....
Sunday, January 29, 2006
Gloomy Sunday....
...but happy heart....every day with Peter is a precious one in my life....we both slept late, because we ate and drank late into Saturday night with our friend Paul Johnson, after he sat at our baby grand for hours, working with me a bit, and with Peter lots and lots, since Peter is the real singer and has an audition coming up ....sometimes i feel like I could audition in my sleep (which no doubt I have done without meaning to) I have auditioned so much....Peter is , relatively speaking, new at it and is forming a valuable alliance with this gifted coach , so I sat and did needlepoint, happily watching my exceedingly gifted husband work and work and work...he really is soooo good! And it's not just the "wifey" part of me that thinks so...in fact, because I am so close to him, I tend to be even more critical than normal...so when he is really hitting his stride and working to his potential, there is nothing more thrilling to me..and he did that last night for hours! He and Paul Johnson work so well together. THey really make it happen...Paul's ability to gently but insistently coach and peter's listening are creative together.
Also, I made a scrumptios pot roast and it was making the house smell so yummy all through the work session....we sat down and ate it with a good bottle of wine after work was done...we talked and talked into the night....had grapes and Godiva chocolate liquer for dessert....more talking and talking...Paul Johnson is a special man.
Meeting Wendy Waterman for a matinee of TOUCH OF THE POET at 2:00 today...then she and I will have dinner and catch up on life....Peter may join us.
My wonderful private class of students has grown and I have consolidated them all onto Tuesday nights....works better that way and is more efficient. Such good things are happening for them all, as they struggle with what it is like to devote their young lives to this business we are all in....and it makes me feel good to know that the pains i went through at their age are now enabling me to help them through this time in their lives....certain ones of them I included on a MARY POPPINS list to my friends the composers are being called in to audition,(Anthony Drewes obviously forwarded my request to Tara Rubin, which is so special of him)and this is making them and me happy! And dear Tara listens! That is special too. WHEN WE ALL BAND TOGETHER TO HELP EACH OTHER-- THIS IS THE WAY IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE! Too idealistic of me? No. We must all help each other in any way we can in life. WIPE OUT COMPETITION and HELP WITH INDIVIDUAL FULFILLMENT! Because if it is meant to be (the part for you) then it is meant to be...! we must all pitch in and be generous as we can be and help.....i don't think I could have survived this long in show business if I honestly did not feel this way is the right way to think.
Anyway....off to get ready for "Con Melody" and the gang! Gabe Byrne! Yummy!
xxev
Also, I made a scrumptios pot roast and it was making the house smell so yummy all through the work session....we sat down and ate it with a good bottle of wine after work was done...we talked and talked into the night....had grapes and Godiva chocolate liquer for dessert....more talking and talking...Paul Johnson is a special man.
Meeting Wendy Waterman for a matinee of TOUCH OF THE POET at 2:00 today...then she and I will have dinner and catch up on life....Peter may join us.
My wonderful private class of students has grown and I have consolidated them all onto Tuesday nights....works better that way and is more efficient. Such good things are happening for them all, as they struggle with what it is like to devote their young lives to this business we are all in....and it makes me feel good to know that the pains i went through at their age are now enabling me to help them through this time in their lives....certain ones of them I included on a MARY POPPINS list to my friends the composers are being called in to audition,(Anthony Drewes obviously forwarded my request to Tara Rubin, which is so special of him)and this is making them and me happy! And dear Tara listens! That is special too. WHEN WE ALL BAND TOGETHER TO HELP EACH OTHER-- THIS IS THE WAY IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE! Too idealistic of me? No. We must all help each other in any way we can in life. WIPE OUT COMPETITION and HELP WITH INDIVIDUAL FULFILLMENT! Because if it is meant to be (the part for you) then it is meant to be...! we must all pitch in and be generous as we can be and help.....i don't think I could have survived this long in show business if I honestly did not feel this way is the right way to think.
Anyway....off to get ready for "Con Melody" and the gang! Gabe Byrne! Yummy!
xxev
Friday, January 27, 2006
THE MERRY WIDOW...
....is a sumptuous thing, and when Franz Lehar wrote it, he must have been conscious, he had to have been aware, of the purely erotic and sensual musical themes he was loading it up with! I have had the most fun working on the Steinhardt production of it with Bill W., because the singers' voices are wonderful, they are alive and young and sexy and ready to explore the work....and James Cunningham is a great rehearsal pianist! Well, he's a lovely pianist of any sort, but to have him playing these rehearsals is a treat....and since Bill asked me to come in to discuss with the cast the ways to open their physicality up and fill the stage with the sort of sensual style such an operetta requires - the utter "take stage" size it takes to command the wonderful sweep of the story and the music together - this particular music is a real ally in the process: if they can let it into their bodies, half the battle is won...last night I worked with some wonderful people: Crystal and Gabe who play the Widow and Danilo, are lovely....such beautiful voices...gorgeous to look at...all I did was give the Widow a fan to play with, and corrected a few diction things that opened her vowels...and all i did with Danilo was to give him a real operetta "entrance', showing him how not to be afraid of his power as a star player, and we were off and running...the whole evening was about this cast (or at least the part I got to work with last night), understanding that what they have naturally as performers is enough to fill a stage...all they need is to find the actorly actions and objectives to concentrate on, to PLAY, in order to simply unlock what is naturally within ithem...and once I gave them an actual action and obstacle to overcome, they all opened and opened large! It was amazing to watch....
In the process, the voices got bigger too because they had something else to concentrate on besides singing! Their total bodies became engaged! They focused on the actual work of being actors and their fears seemed to disappear...
The real hero of the event for me is Bill W.....and here's why: he is secure enough with his own ego and artistry to allow a genuine collaboration with another artist...he not only let me in the mix to help the performers in ways he knew I could, but he sits and listens and learns from me, as I sit and listen and learn from him...and the real beneficiaries of Bill's generous spirit? The cast of players in THE MERRY WIDOW...Bill is a genuine educator. And a spirit striving for his own growth as well....i am grateful to him for letting me in so generously. I commend him for being so open and willing to learn. He "rules" his department with a human and liberal hand. He is one who is not afraid to admit he does not know it all. And, in this there is strength. Again I say: I am grateful.
We dine with David S. tonight. I just finished reading FANNY'S FIRST PLAY, by GBS...terrifically funny and fun.
In the process, the voices got bigger too because they had something else to concentrate on besides singing! Their total bodies became engaged! They focused on the actual work of being actors and their fears seemed to disappear...
The real hero of the event for me is Bill W.....and here's why: he is secure enough with his own ego and artistry to allow a genuine collaboration with another artist...he not only let me in the mix to help the performers in ways he knew I could, but he sits and listens and learns from me, as I sit and listen and learn from him...and the real beneficiaries of Bill's generous spirit? The cast of players in THE MERRY WIDOW...Bill is a genuine educator. And a spirit striving for his own growth as well....i am grateful to him for letting me in so generously. I commend him for being so open and willing to learn. He "rules" his department with a human and liberal hand. He is one who is not afraid to admit he does not know it all. And, in this there is strength. Again I say: I am grateful.
We dine with David S. tonight. I just finished reading FANNY'S FIRST PLAY, by GBS...terrifically funny and fun.
Thursday, January 26, 2006
One of the Long Days....
......is what yesterday was...you know...one of those days when you wake up really early,mentally "pack" your meager city bags for the tasks ahead (no wonder i see so many of those small rolling suitcases trailing behind so many actors and actresses these days...a new wrinkle since i was away at Barter: the urban travelling actor) ...anyway: so you lie there in your comfortable bed wondering how long can a day be, and then you have to heave yourself up into it and greet it with all the energy it takes to get it going....
Which in my case, yesterday, was not so very hard, since my first appointment of the day was with my 15 NYU students down at Steinhardt School of Music, and I love them! Except, as of yesterday, there are now 16! One more young woman came aboard, and we are glad to have her! The class, a mere 2 and a half hours, could be 4 hours and it would still feel short, because there is so much passion and gift in that room! All the way from James Cunningham, the amazing pianist, to the very least of the young talents in the room, there is enormous exciting potential, and so the time flies by all too quickly...i genuinely like these students. They apply themselves with respect and thoroughness, and are gentle with themselves and with others. They love love love what they do, and are thrilled to see ahead into what is possible....and yesterday was the first day we held class that it was not raining! So i enjoyed my walk from the subway stop at Chrsitopher Street over to West 4th even more than usual. I stopped for my morning coffee in the lovely cafeteria at the Student Union Building...my NYU ID now gets me in there and it is such a nice way to start the day...because the building , new and sparkling, is such exciting architecture....open, spacious and inviting.
So class flew by...and then after takihng care of paperwork and organization in what I am now calling my new "office" (actually it's simply the 12th floor conference room, whenever it is not in use), Bill Wesbrooks and I went to lunch at a favorite place of ours. We had such a stimulating talk, as we always do, and he filled me in on a lot of the history of Steinhardt, finally putting into perspective for me how it relates to NYU as a whole, who the Steinhardts are, and other valuable things for me to know about this estimable school and its mission. Interesting. He also filled me in a bit more on who all the various players are and how they work together, pulling all the various departments together into the larger entity. NYU is so huge!
I like Bill W. very much. Aside from the fact that, after a relatively short exposure to my methods and energies, he liked me enough to trust me with a class of sophomores (which shows a useful intuition on his part), I also like the way he organizes his thinking, which enables him to run a complex school in an efficient and creative way...i like his taste...i like his mind and intellect. He pulls no punches, says what he thinks and is one of "right to the point" people who get the job done well. And there is a respect with which he treats his students that resonates with them. Never inappropriate or familiar. Just supportive and wise. They adore him. I have yet to hear one single thing from any student that is not respectful and admiring. Other students I have known do not show that same sort of respect, and waste no time in blaming their teachers for all the ills of their lives...I have yet to see that sort of behavior at Steinhardt. In line with that, my kids come fully prepped, song learned and coached, required paperwork completed (I give them a Circumstance Report to fill out for each song).
I am learning things from Bill. My teaching is being influenced by this too.
Tonight, I go to his MERRY WIDOW rehearsal at Loewe Theater, and he wants me to coach the principals , much the way I worked with a couple of them a few weeks ago...he has offered to not only give me program cresit for this work, but to pay me as well!! That's nice. I look forward to this work tonight.Just being on the stage with those glorious young voices will be fun!
Anthony Drewe and George Stiles sent my name to Tara Rubin as a request: they want me to audiiton for the role of the Housekeeper in MARY POPPINS, which is coming from London to NYC in the late Fall...how sweet....when Peter and I were in London last year, the boys also got us their house seats for MP, and we took them out for wine before the show...it was wonderful...what Ants and George have done is compose new music to add to the familiar movie score to further theatricalize the show and make it thrilling...it totally succeeds...NYC will adore it...and if am meant to play "Mrs. Brill", which seems right up my particular alley, then I will do so..sweet of them to suggest me.
Got off my topic...the long day...well...such are my meandering ways....suffuce it to say: i did not get home til 10 pm last night...and Peter, the same, so we ordered Chinese, ate and fell into a welcoming bed! I ache from all the walking! Ah, New York City life! And the aching famliarity of ending a long day with delivered Chinese! God Bless those men on their sturdy bicycles! What would we do without them?
Which in my case, yesterday, was not so very hard, since my first appointment of the day was with my 15 NYU students down at Steinhardt School of Music, and I love them! Except, as of yesterday, there are now 16! One more young woman came aboard, and we are glad to have her! The class, a mere 2 and a half hours, could be 4 hours and it would still feel short, because there is so much passion and gift in that room! All the way from James Cunningham, the amazing pianist, to the very least of the young talents in the room, there is enormous exciting potential, and so the time flies by all too quickly...i genuinely like these students. They apply themselves with respect and thoroughness, and are gentle with themselves and with others. They love love love what they do, and are thrilled to see ahead into what is possible....and yesterday was the first day we held class that it was not raining! So i enjoyed my walk from the subway stop at Chrsitopher Street over to West 4th even more than usual. I stopped for my morning coffee in the lovely cafeteria at the Student Union Building...my NYU ID now gets me in there and it is such a nice way to start the day...because the building , new and sparkling, is such exciting architecture....open, spacious and inviting.
So class flew by...and then after takihng care of paperwork and organization in what I am now calling my new "office" (actually it's simply the 12th floor conference room, whenever it is not in use), Bill Wesbrooks and I went to lunch at a favorite place of ours. We had such a stimulating talk, as we always do, and he filled me in on a lot of the history of Steinhardt, finally putting into perspective for me how it relates to NYU as a whole, who the Steinhardts are, and other valuable things for me to know about this estimable school and its mission. Interesting. He also filled me in a bit more on who all the various players are and how they work together, pulling all the various departments together into the larger entity. NYU is so huge!
I like Bill W. very much. Aside from the fact that, after a relatively short exposure to my methods and energies, he liked me enough to trust me with a class of sophomores (which shows a useful intuition on his part), I also like the way he organizes his thinking, which enables him to run a complex school in an efficient and creative way...i like his taste...i like his mind and intellect. He pulls no punches, says what he thinks and is one of "right to the point" people who get the job done well. And there is a respect with which he treats his students that resonates with them. Never inappropriate or familiar. Just supportive and wise. They adore him. I have yet to hear one single thing from any student that is not respectful and admiring. Other students I have known do not show that same sort of respect, and waste no time in blaming their teachers for all the ills of their lives...I have yet to see that sort of behavior at Steinhardt. In line with that, my kids come fully prepped, song learned and coached, required paperwork completed (I give them a Circumstance Report to fill out for each song).
I am learning things from Bill. My teaching is being influenced by this too.
Tonight, I go to his MERRY WIDOW rehearsal at Loewe Theater, and he wants me to coach the principals , much the way I worked with a couple of them a few weeks ago...he has offered to not only give me program cresit for this work, but to pay me as well!! That's nice. I look forward to this work tonight.Just being on the stage with those glorious young voices will be fun!
Anthony Drewe and George Stiles sent my name to Tara Rubin as a request: they want me to audiiton for the role of the Housekeeper in MARY POPPINS, which is coming from London to NYC in the late Fall...how sweet....when Peter and I were in London last year, the boys also got us their house seats for MP, and we took them out for wine before the show...it was wonderful...what Ants and George have done is compose new music to add to the familiar movie score to further theatricalize the show and make it thrilling...it totally succeeds...NYC will adore it...and if am meant to play "Mrs. Brill", which seems right up my particular alley, then I will do so..sweet of them to suggest me.
Got off my topic...the long day...well...such are my meandering ways....suffuce it to say: i did not get home til 10 pm last night...and Peter, the same, so we ordered Chinese, ate and fell into a welcoming bed! I ache from all the walking! Ah, New York City life! And the aching famliarity of ending a long day with delivered Chinese! God Bless those men on their sturdy bicycles! What would we do without them?
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Extremely Alive and Well...
...is George Bernard Shaw in NYC!!
At least a love for his words....for his plays! THE SHAW PROJECT is off and running and if last night at the Players CLub is any indication, it will be popular..
David Staller, a smart and passionate man, gathered together such a fine combination of actors for this first reading , ARMS AND THE MAN, that when we all congregated onstage in the assigned seats he put our names on, the chemistry bubbled immediately and with only one read-through under our belts, and never having read it on our feet before, the play took on a life of its own and the place was soon rocking with laughter...and it was SOLD OUT! Yes, it was FREE ADMISSIOON (Shaw believed in FREE THEATRE), and that may have helped bring people in, but the sort of people who filled the Players Theater last night were the sort that could and would well have paid for seats...all sorts of theater notables, critics, writers, actors, producer sorts, theater people, real theater people....and they adored, i mean vocally ADORED what we had to put in front of them....Mark Kudisch,Nancy Anderson, Malcolm Getz, Cynthia Harris...I mean it was a stellar group ...Alison Fraser, Nick Wyman, George Irving, me (of course) and Victor Slezak reading the fun narration...Peter, whom David S. adores, was good enough to run the sound for us, since David had adorned our entrance and exits with lovely Chopin polonaises,etc....he really produced the event wonderfully well...food for us all in the Equity Room upstairs in the Club, official lanyards and nametags for all his staff (Peter included), clever Shaw charicatures used as signs all over the club...every detail done right and well...genuine tasteful entrepenurial spirit...we all felt proud to be a part of it.
And then, the audience roared! And gave a partial standing "o" at the end...they really enjoyed themselves, and Shaw was undoubtedly rollicking in his grave...
The next reading is February 27, and David has asked me to be a Narrator again...i will gladly do so...and Peter will have a role in this one: FANNY's FIRST PLAY...
Again at the Palyers Club...all sorts of New York "names" have expressed interest in reading, and Howard Kissel, the critic, who opened last night's festivities with a short talk on Shaw and the rightness of such a thing as THE SHAW PROJECT at this time in NYC, will maybe even read the part of "The Critic" on the 27th of February. I had ample opportunity to talk with Howard K. last night and boy is he interesting! I like him, and we also got the feeling he enjoyed being a part of the group instead of being as he usually is: outside it...after all, Shaw was the premier theater critic of his day...it seems only right that we have our very own fusty, literary man in the group, right?
We had such a good time last night. I could feel the dust in the Players being blown about as we allowed the spirit of Shaw to come through us all...a fresh gust of Shavian wit, clearing away the cobwebs of dis-use...that lovely Gramercy Park townhouse where the Players Club has lived for decades, is just the right spot for bringing GBS back to life...it felt just right. The right era, the right furniture, the right feel. I can hardly wait for the 27th! Meanwhile, David and his partners in producing will keep building the Gingold Company into something he has always dreamed about, I think..and they are doing it with care and good taste...nice people with a mission.
It is because of David's liberal Democratic leanings and his admiration for Shaw's political soul that he wanted to embark on THE SHAW PROJECT to begin with...Howard Kissel was right: this is an important time for Shaw to revive in NYC...what he had to say about the foibles of his time, the greed and short-sightedness of his contemporary politicians, all can be applied to what we have going on in our country today. It is ever thus, and we need brilliant minds and wits to remind us to be vigilant and careful....it helps that he reminds us, while making us laugh at ourselves as well.... Bravo Shaw. Bravo David for creating THE SHAW PROJECT.
At least a love for his words....for his plays! THE SHAW PROJECT is off and running and if last night at the Players CLub is any indication, it will be popular..
David Staller, a smart and passionate man, gathered together such a fine combination of actors for this first reading , ARMS AND THE MAN, that when we all congregated onstage in the assigned seats he put our names on, the chemistry bubbled immediately and with only one read-through under our belts, and never having read it on our feet before, the play took on a life of its own and the place was soon rocking with laughter...and it was SOLD OUT! Yes, it was FREE ADMISSIOON (Shaw believed in FREE THEATRE), and that may have helped bring people in, but the sort of people who filled the Players Theater last night were the sort that could and would well have paid for seats...all sorts of theater notables, critics, writers, actors, producer sorts, theater people, real theater people....and they adored, i mean vocally ADORED what we had to put in front of them....Mark Kudisch,Nancy Anderson, Malcolm Getz, Cynthia Harris...I mean it was a stellar group ...Alison Fraser, Nick Wyman, George Irving, me (of course) and Victor Slezak reading the fun narration...Peter, whom David S. adores, was good enough to run the sound for us, since David had adorned our entrance and exits with lovely Chopin polonaises,etc....he really produced the event wonderfully well...food for us all in the Equity Room upstairs in the Club, official lanyards and nametags for all his staff (Peter included), clever Shaw charicatures used as signs all over the club...every detail done right and well...genuine tasteful entrepenurial spirit...we all felt proud to be a part of it.
And then, the audience roared! And gave a partial standing "o" at the end...they really enjoyed themselves, and Shaw was undoubtedly rollicking in his grave...
The next reading is February 27, and David has asked me to be a Narrator again...i will gladly do so...and Peter will have a role in this one: FANNY's FIRST PLAY...
Again at the Palyers Club...all sorts of New York "names" have expressed interest in reading, and Howard Kissel, the critic, who opened last night's festivities with a short talk on Shaw and the rightness of such a thing as THE SHAW PROJECT at this time in NYC, will maybe even read the part of "The Critic" on the 27th of February. I had ample opportunity to talk with Howard K. last night and boy is he interesting! I like him, and we also got the feeling he enjoyed being a part of the group instead of being as he usually is: outside it...after all, Shaw was the premier theater critic of his day...it seems only right that we have our very own fusty, literary man in the group, right?
We had such a good time last night. I could feel the dust in the Players being blown about as we allowed the spirit of Shaw to come through us all...a fresh gust of Shavian wit, clearing away the cobwebs of dis-use...that lovely Gramercy Park townhouse where the Players Club has lived for decades, is just the right spot for bringing GBS back to life...it felt just right. The right era, the right furniture, the right feel. I can hardly wait for the 27th! Meanwhile, David and his partners in producing will keep building the Gingold Company into something he has always dreamed about, I think..and they are doing it with care and good taste...nice people with a mission.
It is because of David's liberal Democratic leanings and his admiration for Shaw's political soul that he wanted to embark on THE SHAW PROJECT to begin with...Howard Kissel was right: this is an important time for Shaw to revive in NYC...what he had to say about the foibles of his time, the greed and short-sightedness of his contemporary politicians, all can be applied to what we have going on in our country today. It is ever thus, and we need brilliant minds and wits to remind us to be vigilant and careful....it helps that he reminds us, while making us laugh at ourselves as well.... Bravo Shaw. Bravo David for creating THE SHAW PROJECT.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
A Shaw Sunday....
...because the amazing David Staller has managed to get off the ground in a naturally stylish manner his idea for what we are calling The Shaw Project: to produce a staged reading of every single thing GBS wrote for the theatre, and to accomplish this catalogue of reasdings over the next two years, here in NYC, on the stage of The Players Club Theater downtown on Gramercy Park....tonight is rehearsal for the first one: ARMS AND THE MAN, and I will be one of the Narrators...Victor Slezack will be the other...
THE SHAW PROJECT
www.theshawproject.com
a reminder of our first reading
Monday January 23 7PM
The Players Club
16 Gramercy Park South
FREE
reservations 212 475 6116
ARMS AND THE MAN cast
Malcolm Gets - BLUTSCHLI
Nancy Anderson - RAINA
Marc Kudisch - SERGIUS
George S. Irving - PETKOFF
Alison Fraser- LOUKA
Nick Wyman - NICOLA
Cynthia Harris - CATHERINE
Victor Slezak. - NARRATOR ONE
Evalyn Baron - NARRATOR TWO
David has used this Shaw thing to get a production company together called Gingold Productions, in honor of his mentor Hermione Gingold, with whom he was friends before her death years ago...I admire David's creativity and strength, as well as his good taste. I am glad to be of help to this old friend. Tomorrow, we shall do it for the public...
Received a wonderful email from Perry Morgan, and, as ever, he keeps Peter and me in the loop of information concerning himself and Jo Hall, his gifted wife...we were pals at the Barter...and i miss his sweet smile...I am determined that we will work together again one day. Rick R. and Amanda A. Will be on town soon, for casting and costume stuff....can hardly wait. Also, according to an emial I received, there will be a memorial thing for Alice White at the Barter Theatre in March...I am planning to be there. The problem is: once I get back down there, will I be able to pull myself away to come home? I guess it's good to love a place so much, even if one cannot be there! It's good to love, period! A place, a person, an idea...
Thursday night, I will go back into MERRY WIDOW rehearsals at NYU and assist Bill W. in whatever ways he needs me to...I do hope I am helping.
Gorgeous NYC Sunday outside!
THE SHAW PROJECT
www.theshawproject.com
a reminder of our first reading
Monday January 23 7PM
The Players Club
16 Gramercy Park South
FREE
reservations 212 475 6116
ARMS AND THE MAN cast
Malcolm Gets - BLUTSCHLI
Nancy Anderson - RAINA
Marc Kudisch - SERGIUS
George S. Irving - PETKOFF
Alison Fraser- LOUKA
Nick Wyman - NICOLA
Cynthia Harris - CATHERINE
Victor Slezak. - NARRATOR ONE
Evalyn Baron - NARRATOR TWO
David has used this Shaw thing to get a production company together called Gingold Productions, in honor of his mentor Hermione Gingold, with whom he was friends before her death years ago...I admire David's creativity and strength, as well as his good taste. I am glad to be of help to this old friend. Tomorrow, we shall do it for the public...
Received a wonderful email from Perry Morgan, and, as ever, he keeps Peter and me in the loop of information concerning himself and Jo Hall, his gifted wife...we were pals at the Barter...and i miss his sweet smile...I am determined that we will work together again one day. Rick R. and Amanda A. Will be on town soon, for casting and costume stuff....can hardly wait. Also, according to an emial I received, there will be a memorial thing for Alice White at the Barter Theatre in March...I am planning to be there. The problem is: once I get back down there, will I be able to pull myself away to come home? I guess it's good to love a place so much, even if one cannot be there! It's good to love, period! A place, a person, an idea...
Thursday night, I will go back into MERRY WIDOW rehearsals at NYU and assist Bill W. in whatever ways he needs me to...I do hope I am helping.
Gorgeous NYC Sunday outside!
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Screaming on Billboards....
......which is what you will see me doing on behalf of a new cleaning product, if you live in NYC, LA, Chicago or Atlanta....but more on that later....
First Song Analysis Class at Steinhardt yesterday and it was early morning and fun, despite the monsoon weather we had, with 55-mile-an-hour winds blowing water and wind into going-to-work faces from early morning on...I got downtown, umbrella sturdily defending me against the onslaught, at around 7:30...two hours before students would arrive....sat cozily in a coffe shop organizing my thoughts and energies...got to the 9th floor studio where class was scheduled, organized the chairs and the piano so there was plenty of room for the normal relaxation stuff i start with..and soon the 15 students began to wetly arrive...the two and a half hours flew by..songs were sung, names more or less learned, and a few souls opened...their voices are superb, each and every one already well-trained with so much potential for more...i loved hearing each and every one of them sing...and there are already a few who have a sense, a good sense, of inhabiting the song in a personal way...further work should be revealing. Next class Monday morning. Song lists prepared, with voice teacher approval....and we shall start with Group One...Song Analysis...
After class, I got a call from Toni D'Iantonio, a casting director I had seen the day before for this particular print job, and although Abrams Artists are interested in sending me out on print "go-see's",they did not send me on this one...rather Kathy Rossiter gave them my name, and the night she came over to read her new one-woman show for me and a few other folks, she told me to expect a call to audition...well they did call, I did audition, and I did book the spot, which was shooting that very afternoon after class, at R/GA on West 39th Street,....I was quoted a very nice bit of money for what turned out to be only 20 minutes work in front of a still camera, and after i clued Abrams people into the deal, they clarified the contract for usage,etc. Turned out to be very nice. And the people I met in connection with the shoot were extremely interesting and good to me. Nice people.
Seems I am part of what they are calling a "guerilla campaign" for this new SC Johnson cleaning product to do with showers and in an effort to reach the single guy who lives alone market segment, they are going to run an online campaign for people to enter a contest called "The Dirtiest Bathroom"....people are to send in photographs of what they consider the dirtiest bathroom they have ever had or seen...and as a come-on, there will be these billboards and tear sheets all over 4 large cities, for a period of 4 weeks, with a mom screaming as she sees her son's dirty bathroom shower stall....and that is me! A screaming momma! Funny, of course, but screaming, nonetheless...and that is that!
The money. as i said, is very good.....and actually, the job itself was fun...I wonder if anyone will draw a moustach on my upper lip in any of the towns....oh well,I'll never know....
Cynthia A. and I worked on our proposal for an out-reach program we are developing for the Stella Adler Studio...a very interesting bunch of ideas that, if it gets going could help so many young people.
Peter and I have this glorious weekend ahead of us to get a lot done around our apartment. YAY!
First Song Analysis Class at Steinhardt yesterday and it was early morning and fun, despite the monsoon weather we had, with 55-mile-an-hour winds blowing water and wind into going-to-work faces from early morning on...I got downtown, umbrella sturdily defending me against the onslaught, at around 7:30...two hours before students would arrive....sat cozily in a coffe shop organizing my thoughts and energies...got to the 9th floor studio where class was scheduled, organized the chairs and the piano so there was plenty of room for the normal relaxation stuff i start with..and soon the 15 students began to wetly arrive...the two and a half hours flew by..songs were sung, names more or less learned, and a few souls opened...their voices are superb, each and every one already well-trained with so much potential for more...i loved hearing each and every one of them sing...and there are already a few who have a sense, a good sense, of inhabiting the song in a personal way...further work should be revealing. Next class Monday morning. Song lists prepared, with voice teacher approval....and we shall start with Group One...Song Analysis...
After class, I got a call from Toni D'Iantonio, a casting director I had seen the day before for this particular print job, and although Abrams Artists are interested in sending me out on print "go-see's",they did not send me on this one...rather Kathy Rossiter gave them my name, and the night she came over to read her new one-woman show for me and a few other folks, she told me to expect a call to audition...well they did call, I did audition, and I did book the spot, which was shooting that very afternoon after class, at R/GA on West 39th Street,....I was quoted a very nice bit of money for what turned out to be only 20 minutes work in front of a still camera, and after i clued Abrams people into the deal, they clarified the contract for usage,etc. Turned out to be very nice. And the people I met in connection with the shoot were extremely interesting and good to me. Nice people.
Seems I am part of what they are calling a "guerilla campaign" for this new SC Johnson cleaning product to do with showers and in an effort to reach the single guy who lives alone market segment, they are going to run an online campaign for people to enter a contest called "The Dirtiest Bathroom"....people are to send in photographs of what they consider the dirtiest bathroom they have ever had or seen...and as a come-on, there will be these billboards and tear sheets all over 4 large cities, for a period of 4 weeks, with a mom screaming as she sees her son's dirty bathroom shower stall....and that is me! A screaming momma! Funny, of course, but screaming, nonetheless...and that is that!
The money. as i said, is very good.....and actually, the job itself was fun...I wonder if anyone will draw a moustach on my upper lip in any of the towns....oh well,I'll never know....
Cynthia A. and I worked on our proposal for an out-reach program we are developing for the Stella Adler Studio...a very interesting bunch of ideas that, if it gets going could help so many young people.
Peter and I have this glorious weekend ahead of us to get a lot done around our apartment. YAY!
Monday, January 16, 2006
Fresh Beginnings...
...after a weekend of "lying in", so to speak...a weekend of cuddling and cake-baking...Peter's birthday yesterday, and all he asked for was for me to bake him a cake...and so I baked him a cake! Vanilla, with vanilla icing! Decorated in blue..and with love. It was a yummy cake, and sweet. Just like Peter..yummy...and really so dearly sweet. We slept when we felt like it. Ate more cake. Watched football (it was his birthday after all....so even I watched football) and slept some more...we had a quiet good time. That was, of course, after my teaching two hours in the morning. Kim A. flew up from Boca Raton to prep for her college auditions. And she did terrific work in the four hours I worked with her. But after Kimmy left, that was when our birthday sloth began! And we wallowed delightfully in it! Deeply cold outside, and sleeting wet rain. SO snuggling down inside our cozy home was even nicer than usual.
It was a Sunday stolen frm Time.
So today, with the sunshine clearing the way, it does feel like a fresh start.
Ruth Selman called me this morning, and it was so nice to hear frome her. Today is her 84th birthday. And for most of those years, she has been indefatigably working for peace in the world. The premier Montessori peace educator. Pat Yonka's mentor.
And now she and her husband Jerry are back home in NYC (after living in Florida for years) living in an assisted living facility on 46th Street, near their son Matty Selman, the writer. ANd I am so glad Ruth called to wish Peter a Happy Birthday. I want to visit with her and talk about her life. She has lived an interesting one.
A gathering at our place tonight to listen to Katherine Rossiter's one-woman piece she wrote....I have been discussing the development of it with her, and we have been having fun discussions...she's a bright, funny and articulate woman with lots to say and has been dogged in her pursuit of a conversation with me, until finally I stopped and listened: I really must do that more often: stop and listen. I like Kathy so much. And I think her talents are vital. So I am glad to help. Should be fun tonight. I really must blog about how I have been feeling lately about this theatrical community and how I have been feeling about my place in it....so much to write about as ever. So much.,....but right now: I must go work off that cake!
later....ev
It was a Sunday stolen frm Time.
So today, with the sunshine clearing the way, it does feel like a fresh start.
Ruth Selman called me this morning, and it was so nice to hear frome her. Today is her 84th birthday. And for most of those years, she has been indefatigably working for peace in the world. The premier Montessori peace educator. Pat Yonka's mentor.
And now she and her husband Jerry are back home in NYC (after living in Florida for years) living in an assisted living facility on 46th Street, near their son Matty Selman, the writer. ANd I am so glad Ruth called to wish Peter a Happy Birthday. I want to visit with her and talk about her life. She has lived an interesting one.
A gathering at our place tonight to listen to Katherine Rossiter's one-woman piece she wrote....I have been discussing the development of it with her, and we have been having fun discussions...she's a bright, funny and articulate woman with lots to say and has been dogged in her pursuit of a conversation with me, until finally I stopped and listened: I really must do that more often: stop and listen. I like Kathy so much. And I think her talents are vital. So I am glad to help. Should be fun tonight. I really must blog about how I have been feeling lately about this theatrical community and how I have been feeling about my place in it....so much to write about as ever. So much.,....but right now: I must go work off that cake!
later....ev
Sunday, January 15, 2006
Letter to the Editor...
.... of the Bristol ,Tennessee paper, January, 2006:
Dear Community:
I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, so in my blood runs pride of place for the South.
When my husband and were asked to be part of the Barter Theatre Acting Company , the thrill of such a committment kept us in Abingdon for almost 4 years, and in my capacity as Associate Artistic Director there, I learned respect and love for the people of your region. Part of my heart is there still and always will be.
So, when we heard of the hate crime perpetrated in the lawn of our fiends in Bristol. a chill ran through me as I realized such a thing - such a horrible thing- coul dhappen in a place I call my own.
Make no mistake: the 3 boys who burned that Menorah flag on the Lnd's lawn may have been filled with glee and pride as they lit the match (and bragged about it to their friends) but what they were really filled with was hate, pure and unfortunately simple. The sort of hate learned from early on. A homegrown sort of hate.
To cloak this hideous crime behind any other label is to give lie to the fact that something evil is running in the blood of the community and unless appropriate and vigilant actioon is taken, the community will forever be weakened and unable to move forward.
THe jewish Community in the area must be brave and face facts: anti-semitism is alive and well in Bristol. The Christian COmmunity must make its ethic real: erdaticate whatever hate may be brewing for the "other" in your midst by educating your children with proper notions of love, fellowship and true respect for all who are unlike them.
The world is wide. Those 3 misguided boys who burned that flag just made Bristol a narrower place. HATE CRIMES MUST BE SEEN FOR WHAT THEY ARE AND NOT TOLERATED. Like the corporal illness it it, cure the hate with education, enlightenment and , yes, prayer: pray that such a thing never happen again.
Respectfully,
Evalyn Baron
Dear Community:
I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, so in my blood runs pride of place for the South.
When my husband and were asked to be part of the Barter Theatre Acting Company , the thrill of such a committment kept us in Abingdon for almost 4 years, and in my capacity as Associate Artistic Director there, I learned respect and love for the people of your region. Part of my heart is there still and always will be.
So, when we heard of the hate crime perpetrated in the lawn of our fiends in Bristol. a chill ran through me as I realized such a thing - such a horrible thing- coul dhappen in a place I call my own.
Make no mistake: the 3 boys who burned that Menorah flag on the Lnd's lawn may have been filled with glee and pride as they lit the match (and bragged about it to their friends) but what they were really filled with was hate, pure and unfortunately simple. The sort of hate learned from early on. A homegrown sort of hate.
To cloak this hideous crime behind any other label is to give lie to the fact that something evil is running in the blood of the community and unless appropriate and vigilant actioon is taken, the community will forever be weakened and unable to move forward.
THe jewish Community in the area must be brave and face facts: anti-semitism is alive and well in Bristol. The Christian COmmunity must make its ethic real: erdaticate whatever hate may be brewing for the "other" in your midst by educating your children with proper notions of love, fellowship and true respect for all who are unlike them.
The world is wide. Those 3 misguided boys who burned that flag just made Bristol a narrower place. HATE CRIMES MUST BE SEEN FOR WHAT THEY ARE AND NOT TOLERATED. Like the corporal illness it it, cure the hate with education, enlightenment and , yes, prayer: pray that such a thing never happen again.
Respectfully,
Evalyn Baron
Friday, January 13, 2006
A Changing View...
...is happening....Paul gave me a book to read about the Dalai Lama, written by an admiring and persistent Chinese-American journalist, and the intimacy of it, the clarity with which it presents this superb human being, this Spiritual Master, is making me see things around me in an entirely different way...and i mean that as truthfully as I can say anything....an entire switch of perspective....
That being said, and since I am unable to articulate apiritual things nearly as clearly as one day maybe i will be able to, I shall continue to tell the story of the things happening in this one humble life... the particular life as it unfolds amazingly before me...
John H. and Melissa O. are wonderful wonderful, wonderful...and Peter and i had the most wonderful time with them, talking far into the nights, and early in the mornings, over strong coffees...it was was such a good reminder of enlivening friendships....and we are so happy for their happiness. They both fairly radiate with the discovery that , yes, they are entitled to be really truly happy. And that they have found that true joy together. Nothing more powerful. Peter and I were both empowered by their presence, and their visit was far too brief....but oh so good.
My class at NYU starts Wednesday morning. I coached some of the MERRY WIDOW actors this morning...two of the most beautifully voiced and gorgeous young talents i have ever worked with...Bill W. asked me come in and get them into a more playful space working with each other.,,it was so much fun. So easy, really, since the basis for their training is so good, full of breath and already passionately awake through singing properly and fully. We worked easily together for a short time. I look forward to more. I am awakening to the excitement of a new venture, and young artists new to me. The opening of new stories to discover. Their lives.
I've already heard from a number of them, in response to an email I sent them introducing myself (after Bill W. wrote an initial letter, so sweet) and they now know what is expected of them that first day. It was so easy. Our conversation , which will last a full semester, if not longer, has begun, and I am excited.
I have written a letter to the editor of the Bristol,TN. paper, after our friends the Lands told us of a Menorah flag burning that happened in their front yard. Bob suggested i write a letter, strongly urging the community to consider this HATE CRIME for what it is, rather than sweep it under a rug of community silence...I did as he asked, and got a call immediately saying they will be printing it. I shall put it in my next blog entry...for now...I need to get back to the Dalai Lama....
xxev
That being said, and since I am unable to articulate apiritual things nearly as clearly as one day maybe i will be able to, I shall continue to tell the story of the things happening in this one humble life... the particular life as it unfolds amazingly before me...
John H. and Melissa O. are wonderful wonderful, wonderful...and Peter and i had the most wonderful time with them, talking far into the nights, and early in the mornings, over strong coffees...it was was such a good reminder of enlivening friendships....and we are so happy for their happiness. They both fairly radiate with the discovery that , yes, they are entitled to be really truly happy. And that they have found that true joy together. Nothing more powerful. Peter and I were both empowered by their presence, and their visit was far too brief....but oh so good.
My class at NYU starts Wednesday morning. I coached some of the MERRY WIDOW actors this morning...two of the most beautifully voiced and gorgeous young talents i have ever worked with...Bill W. asked me come in and get them into a more playful space working with each other.,,it was so much fun. So easy, really, since the basis for their training is so good, full of breath and already passionately awake through singing properly and fully. We worked easily together for a short time. I look forward to more. I am awakening to the excitement of a new venture, and young artists new to me. The opening of new stories to discover. Their lives.
I've already heard from a number of them, in response to an email I sent them introducing myself (after Bill W. wrote an initial letter, so sweet) and they now know what is expected of them that first day. It was so easy. Our conversation , which will last a full semester, if not longer, has begun, and I am excited.
I have written a letter to the editor of the Bristol,TN. paper, after our friends the Lands told us of a Menorah flag burning that happened in their front yard. Bob suggested i write a letter, strongly urging the community to consider this HATE CRIME for what it is, rather than sweep it under a rug of community silence...I did as he asked, and got a call immediately saying they will be printing it. I shall put it in my next blog entry...for now...I need to get back to the Dalai Lama....
xxev
Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Visitors From Down South....
...and they are John Hedges and Melissa Owens, our much beloved Barter colleagues on break between seasons...we meet htem today after their matinee of LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA and have supper before seeing BRIDGE AND TUNNEL on our press tix from the show's press agent....and then John and Meliss will spend a few nights with us...and we shall talk and talk and talk and talk....
Of course the rest of this week has turned out to be incredibly stuffed with activity for both Peter and me, and that will necessarily shape our time with our friends, but since they will be staying here, in our pretty Purple Room, we can at least share late night cups of tea and talk some more....with the year they had last year, the soap opera melodrama of their separate and together relationships, and our being absent for the whole thing, there will be lots of good old fashioned gossip in all the talk as well...so happy they are here...so glad we will see them as much was we are able to...
Shaping up class for beginning at Steinhardt ont he 18th...Bill Wesbrooks has veeb very helpful, and I have already sent out emails to the class with their first class assignments for that very first meeting...Bill sent them all an email introducing me to them, so my mail would no be a surprise...Bill has also asked me to stop by his rehearsals for THE MERRY WIDOW at The Loewe Theatre and do some on-site coaching of a couple of his leads...if my Friday schedule permits, I will gladly drop in and help if I can. Imagine: THE MERRY WIDOW! These kids all have such vocal chops already. Impressive.
I sent my letter of resignation yesterday to the CAP 21 Board. Time for that part of my life to be done. SO much I could have said, but I kept it to a nice simple statement of purpose, and thanked all for all I have learned there. The strangest part of all is the way the attendant friendships have stopped evolving. This is a source of some hurt, because my friendships (I thought) contained love, and love often surprises me in the different shapes it does take. Often so unlike its very self. I am amazed. And less innocent.
But, oddly, not less loving.
Paul gave me a book to read about the Dalai Lama...I can hardly wait to start it.
News from the South: friends of ours, a marriage containing a Christian and a Jew, had a Chanukah flag in their front yard for the holiday...three terrifying boys from the area burned it in their front yard. The community is reacting appropriately,shocked and dismayed, but that it even happened scares me. For so many reasons. I do realize that bigotry and hate are not confined to the South of this country. Of course not, But, when i think of things burningin peoples' yeard, I think of Southern men in white sheets...right? RIght. So, even my mind, filled with admiration for the South, goes there and is sad...Again, hate is not a regional thing...it is in humans no matter where we are...but...well...you get my sad point.
The boys, I am told, bragged about it. Stupid and hate-filled.
So, onward, and upward, please.
Peace.
Of course the rest of this week has turned out to be incredibly stuffed with activity for both Peter and me, and that will necessarily shape our time with our friends, but since they will be staying here, in our pretty Purple Room, we can at least share late night cups of tea and talk some more....with the year they had last year, the soap opera melodrama of their separate and together relationships, and our being absent for the whole thing, there will be lots of good old fashioned gossip in all the talk as well...so happy they are here...so glad we will see them as much was we are able to...
Shaping up class for beginning at Steinhardt ont he 18th...Bill Wesbrooks has veeb very helpful, and I have already sent out emails to the class with their first class assignments for that very first meeting...Bill sent them all an email introducing me to them, so my mail would no be a surprise...Bill has also asked me to stop by his rehearsals for THE MERRY WIDOW at The Loewe Theatre and do some on-site coaching of a couple of his leads...if my Friday schedule permits, I will gladly drop in and help if I can. Imagine: THE MERRY WIDOW! These kids all have such vocal chops already. Impressive.
I sent my letter of resignation yesterday to the CAP 21 Board. Time for that part of my life to be done. SO much I could have said, but I kept it to a nice simple statement of purpose, and thanked all for all I have learned there. The strangest part of all is the way the attendant friendships have stopped evolving. This is a source of some hurt, because my friendships (I thought) contained love, and love often surprises me in the different shapes it does take. Often so unlike its very self. I am amazed. And less innocent.
But, oddly, not less loving.
Paul gave me a book to read about the Dalai Lama...I can hardly wait to start it.
News from the South: friends of ours, a marriage containing a Christian and a Jew, had a Chanukah flag in their front yard for the holiday...three terrifying boys from the area burned it in their front yard. The community is reacting appropriately,shocked and dismayed, but that it even happened scares me. For so many reasons. I do realize that bigotry and hate are not confined to the South of this country. Of course not, But, when i think of things burningin peoples' yeard, I think of Southern men in white sheets...right? RIght. So, even my mind, filled with admiration for the South, goes there and is sad...Again, hate is not a regional thing...it is in humans no matter where we are...but...well...you get my sad point.
The boys, I am told, bragged about it. Stupid and hate-filled.
So, onward, and upward, please.
Peace.
Friday, January 06, 2006
Laughing at Oneself...
...HAS to be the key to sanity....LAUGHING LOUD AND LONG! At the silliness, the vulnerability, the arrogance, the presumption of one's Self....hello SELF! YOU ARE STUPID! OR at least silly, to think you have control over even those things that seem so simple, so expected....
SO there I was, fresh and dewy-eyed from writing my New Year's Blessings to all of you, feeling good about the day ahead....y'know, one of those days when the right clothing seems to jump out of your closet for you to wear, and you look good in them, and the hair works right,etc....I had a busy day ahead and I ws feeling good about it..prepared...ready. Even for my 10:30 audition for FANNY HILL that my dear friend Ed Dixon had prepped me on the day before..he wrote it, wants this delightful piece of his to work, was glad I was coming in for the role of "Mrs. Brown"...etc....and I was happy abou the prep I had done on it....actually looking forward to presenting what I had to Jimmy Brennan, director (who I know and have worked with), Dennis Grimaldi (Producer, who I have also worked with) and of course Ed....I even wore a new pair of shows.....! COmfortable, pretty,I was goood!
THen, all of a sudden I WAS LATE (and I am never late for anything)...and in the rush, my new prety green suede comfortable left shoe tore and my foot was gfalling out of it (on 40th Street, no less), and there I was at Ripley-Grier Studios, a familiar place,...out of breqath, out of time (or so I thought), so I rushed stupidly into the room, not wanting my friends who I respect to be kept waiting any longer than I had already kept them.....
They were welcoming and warm and cordial and dear...I was rushed out of breath, apologetic and flustered, as I calmed down long enough to pull an unorganized pile of stuff out of my otherwise pristine bag, to do the one song that ,over the years has gotten me job after job after job after job,...a simply thing, which I had simplified even further for this audition because the main thing would be to sing Ed's delightful song from the show...so i give it to the young (!) pianist, whose name I have mercifully forgotten....(for the first time I noticed the pages were coming apart in the taped-together version I trailed out...dear me...)...and I centered and focused...and ...whaddya know? THE YOUNG GUY COULD NOT FOLLOW THE ARRANGEMENT! He simply played awfully, did not keep up with me, lost his place...I did not even get through the first verse before i gracefully forgot a lyric, looked pleadingly at the table of colleagues before me and siad: why don't we just do "Ed's song, okay?....I allowed this upstart pianist guy to totally throw me off my game...I mean: HELLO?????? Who was that crazy lady singing in the center of the room?
Sadly, it was me....
ANyway, I persevered...apologized (yet again!!!!I mean come on!!!)for my shabby shoe....we all even made jokes about it and how the character would wear such shoes,etc...I mean that room, half filled with dear men who knew me , and the other half filled with youngsters who ust have thought I was a bag lady from hell...well,
SO there I was, fresh and dewy-eyed from writing my New Year's Blessings to all of you, feeling good about the day ahead....y'know, one of those days when the right clothing seems to jump out of your closet for you to wear, and you look good in them, and the hair works right,etc....I had a busy day ahead and I ws feeling good about it..prepared...ready. Even for my 10:30 audition for FANNY HILL that my dear friend Ed Dixon had prepped me on the day before..he wrote it, wants this delightful piece of his to work, was glad I was coming in for the role of "Mrs. Brown"...etc....and I was happy abou the prep I had done on it....actually looking forward to presenting what I had to Jimmy Brennan, director (who I know and have worked with), Dennis Grimaldi (Producer, who I have also worked with) and of course Ed....I even wore a new pair of shows.....! COmfortable, pretty,I was goood!
THen, all of a sudden I WAS LATE (and I am never late for anything)...and in the rush, my new prety green suede comfortable left shoe tore and my foot was gfalling out of it (on 40th Street, no less), and there I was at Ripley-Grier Studios, a familiar place,...out of breqath, out of time (or so I thought), so I rushed stupidly into the room, not wanting my friends who I respect to be kept waiting any longer than I had already kept them.....
They were welcoming and warm and cordial and dear...I was rushed out of breath, apologetic and flustered, as I calmed down long enough to pull an unorganized pile of stuff out of my otherwise pristine bag, to do the one song that ,over the years has gotten me job after job after job after job,...a simply thing, which I had simplified even further for this audition because the main thing would be to sing Ed's delightful song from the show...so i give it to the young (!) pianist, whose name I have mercifully forgotten....(for the first time I noticed the pages were coming apart in the taped-together version I trailed out...dear me...)...and I centered and focused...and ...whaddya know? THE YOUNG GUY COULD NOT FOLLOW THE ARRANGEMENT! He simply played awfully, did not keep up with me, lost his place...I did not even get through the first verse before i gracefully forgot a lyric, looked pleadingly at the table of colleagues before me and siad: why don't we just do "Ed's song, okay?....I allowed this upstart pianist guy to totally throw me off my game...I mean: HELLO?????? Who was that crazy lady singing in the center of the room?
Sadly, it was me....
ANyway, I persevered...apologized (yet again!!!!I mean come on!!!)for my shabby shoe....we all even made jokes about it and how the character would wear such shoes,etc...I mean that room, half filled with dear men who knew me , and the other half filled with youngsters who ust have thought I was a bag lady from hell...well,
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Springtime in Winter
...as a kind New Year's gift, Nature is giving us 40-50 degreee weather in January, albeit wet, but not cold and almost inviting the buds to come on out on the trees...but not quite...I've a long and fully busy day today,but am moved to not start it quite yet, but rather to sit at my desk and give all you who read this blog a gift from my heart: my New year's wish for you:
In this year 2006, I hope that:
Health, both mental and physical, be yours to appreciate...
Creativity and Art be in your lives with a fullness of joy and delight that those two things uniquely bring...
Love fills your heart, even for those you don't particularly like....
Knowledge fill your heart as well: that what we have here in our lives is the opportunity to know what is truly MAGNIFICENT..all we need to do is look and listen....
Stillness and calm make themselves known to you, so you are better able to look and listen, even in the middle of the traffic of your days...
Prosperity....in every way imaginable...fill your experience.....
Gratitude and forgiveness become part of your daily diet....
And , finally, I hope you all strive to create something that has never existed in your lives before now....whatever it may be...a new poem, a flower new to your garden, a child, a meal unlike any other you have ever prepared, a book you need to write finally comes out of you...a door you have never dared to open: OPEN IT..fears that have filled you, vanquish them, creating more space in your soul...CREATE...and give it to others...
Well, there! For you!
xxev
In this year 2006, I hope that:
Health, both mental and physical, be yours to appreciate...
Creativity and Art be in your lives with a fullness of joy and delight that those two things uniquely bring...
Love fills your heart, even for those you don't particularly like....
Knowledge fill your heart as well: that what we have here in our lives is the opportunity to know what is truly MAGNIFICENT..all we need to do is look and listen....
Stillness and calm make themselves known to you, so you are better able to look and listen, even in the middle of the traffic of your days...
Prosperity....in every way imaginable...fill your experience.....
Gratitude and forgiveness become part of your daily diet....
And , finally, I hope you all strive to create something that has never existed in your lives before now....whatever it may be...a new poem, a flower new to your garden, a child, a meal unlike any other you have ever prepared, a book you need to write finally comes out of you...a door you have never dared to open: OPEN IT..fears that have filled you, vanquish them, creating more space in your soul...CREATE...and give it to others...
Well, there! For you!
xxev
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
SOULS GROWN DEEP
...an evocative title. Elyzabth W. has always had a wonderful way with titles. Her titles intrigue. Her titles barely hint at what the play is really about, and yet, after knowing the play, you realize how the title adds to the resonance of the play itself. Clever. From a dramaturgical point of view, and I will discuss this with Elyzabeth at our first meeting, I am not sure why this play has this title yet, but am willing to trust her on it. One of the many things we will talk about as we enter into the next few weeks of work on it, heading into the Alabama Shakespeare Theater's Southern Playwriting Conference....or is it a Festival? Hmmmm...
Spoke with Nancy Rominger ,Artistic Associate at Alabama Shakes, and they will fly me down after my class on Wednesday February 1st, and I'll spend the remainder of that week in rehearsal with Elyzabeth, the actors, and director Janet Cleveland, doing whatever needs doing in a dramaturgical way....nighttime discussions of the work's development...a reading performance of it on that Saturday....then fly home again on the following day, ready for my Monday morning class...
A new adventure for me. A new sort of creative output, with an entirely new bunch of artists, except for E.W.,,,I think she is glad to be having me, someone she knows and trusts, there to talk to...and I'm looking forward to it.
Lunch with Mark Lamos tomorrow...figuring it out, I realize Mark and I have known each other for 30 years. Well...hmmm..I don't know what to say...30 years...and it feels about that long since I've sat across a table from him and caught up on life...i have always loved him so much...he is one of the brilliant ones, and I 've admired his artistry almost as much as I've loved him personally. He's just had both hips replaced, so that after years of pain, he is finally happily pain-free...walking with a cane, which can only add to his mystique...he's one of those with a mystique, at least as far as i have always been concerned...but soon he will toss thoses away and walk easily. Tomorrow at Sarabth's Kitchen...lunch with Mark.
Then a weekend of visitors: Wendy Mathis Parker arrives, for discussions with peter about the music he will write for her Jamestown piece for the Barter Players...we will dine with her on Friday night...Wendy's one of those wonderful dividends from barter: the BACKSTAGE stringer critic who i finally convinced to come to Barter (which is on the other side of the state she generally covers) and in so doing, we all became great friends. She is a funny, sweet and gifted woman, and oddly, we warmed to each other as soon as we met...I look forward very much to seeing her.
THEN: John Hedges and Melissa Owens, also from Barter, will be here and spend some of the week in our Guest Room....that will be nights of endless staying up, drinking, talking and talking and talking....really can hardly wait....seeing how their lives have come together after both spouses split on them...well, it's a true love story in the flesh and it makes me happy to think of seeing them together...I will buy tequila and we shall do shots in their honor! Yipee! Ole (with the funny little accent over the "e")!!!
My private classes will start up again on the 17th...seems everyone wants to come back and keep working...especially the actors who went away on jobs and want to get their feet back on NYC ground...we will all first meet here at home, around our piano,discussing each goal for 2006...focusing...and relaxing into the absolute possibility that each goal can be accomplished. These are talented people. There are no reasons to expect otherwise for each and every one of them. And i look forward to seeing them all. I will make it like a party, but we will get work done.
SOULS GROWN DEEP....that may be a lyric from a spiritual...in any event, it is a nice gathering of words...SOULS GROWN DEEP.
Spoke with Nancy Rominger ,Artistic Associate at Alabama Shakes, and they will fly me down after my class on Wednesday February 1st, and I'll spend the remainder of that week in rehearsal with Elyzabeth, the actors, and director Janet Cleveland, doing whatever needs doing in a dramaturgical way....nighttime discussions of the work's development...a reading performance of it on that Saturday....then fly home again on the following day, ready for my Monday morning class...
A new adventure for me. A new sort of creative output, with an entirely new bunch of artists, except for E.W.,,,I think she is glad to be having me, someone she knows and trusts, there to talk to...and I'm looking forward to it.
Lunch with Mark Lamos tomorrow...figuring it out, I realize Mark and I have known each other for 30 years. Well...hmmm..I don't know what to say...30 years...and it feels about that long since I've sat across a table from him and caught up on life...i have always loved him so much...he is one of the brilliant ones, and I 've admired his artistry almost as much as I've loved him personally. He's just had both hips replaced, so that after years of pain, he is finally happily pain-free...walking with a cane, which can only add to his mystique...he's one of those with a mystique, at least as far as i have always been concerned...but soon he will toss thoses away and walk easily. Tomorrow at Sarabth's Kitchen...lunch with Mark.
Then a weekend of visitors: Wendy Mathis Parker arrives, for discussions with peter about the music he will write for her Jamestown piece for the Barter Players...we will dine with her on Friday night...Wendy's one of those wonderful dividends from barter: the BACKSTAGE stringer critic who i finally convinced to come to Barter (which is on the other side of the state she generally covers) and in so doing, we all became great friends. She is a funny, sweet and gifted woman, and oddly, we warmed to each other as soon as we met...I look forward very much to seeing her.
THEN: John Hedges and Melissa Owens, also from Barter, will be here and spend some of the week in our Guest Room....that will be nights of endless staying up, drinking, talking and talking and talking....really can hardly wait....seeing how their lives have come together after both spouses split on them...well, it's a true love story in the flesh and it makes me happy to think of seeing them together...I will buy tequila and we shall do shots in their honor! Yipee! Ole (with the funny little accent over the "e")!!!
My private classes will start up again on the 17th...seems everyone wants to come back and keep working...especially the actors who went away on jobs and want to get their feet back on NYC ground...we will all first meet here at home, around our piano,discussing each goal for 2006...focusing...and relaxing into the absolute possibility that each goal can be accomplished. These are talented people. There are no reasons to expect otherwise for each and every one of them. And i look forward to seeing them all. I will make it like a party, but we will get work done.
SOULS GROWN DEEP....that may be a lyric from a spiritual...in any event, it is a nice gathering of words...SOULS GROWN DEEP.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Ahhhhhhhh....
...the ever present, evergreen, always open , always welcoming PARIS HEALTH CLUB!!!!
I have been a member of this neighborhood health club for so long that when i first came to NYC, shortly after joining it, as all the Upper West Side actors seemed to do, I actually shared 20 minutes or so in the hot tub with CLIVE BARNES!!! The drama critic for everything at that time...I mean there we were sweating together in our bathing suits, being extremely human (and dare I say humid?) as we whirlpooled the aches away! I'll never forget that....one of those pivotal NY moments...when I really got that I was living here at last!
And it has been ever thus...I have been a member of this sturdy spa for three decades now, on and off...depending on my willingness and location of work....and now I find, as I grow old along with my love (the Paris), I need it more than it needs me!Though it never fails to make me feel wonderfully and warmly welcome...oh that sauna room in the dead of winter....God bless it indeed!
And i have gone to strenuously workout every single day since Christmas, it seems, because the holiday festivities so did me in with food and alcohol that if i did not go work out I felt like I would simply sit, grow fatter and die with no effort to do otherwise...so the club, the club, the club...whew! And I can hardly wait to go again tomorrow...now this is extremely unusual for me..so i can only figure taht I am getting wiser in my old age and I am finally listening to my body as it tells me what to wisely do to keep IT happy...and functioning in any way well.
I hail the wonderful and determined PARIS HEALTH CLUB...why it is named that I will never know, though it is next doot to the Paris Apartments...but why are they named that? No clue....it certainly seems Parisian in no way whatsoever...not an accordian or beret to be seen, nothing faintly atmospheric and artistic in either the apartment building or the club...but, ah well...a badge of honor nonetheless: I belong to the Paris Health Club,,,,,so there! You silly New York Health and Raquet people you! Feh Who needs chrome and shiny steel machines when you have the crumbling tiles and historic stretch rooms of the actorly Paris....ah! if those walls could talk! I am so glad it is only 6 blocks from my home!
I will go to the Alabama Shakespeare Theater for a few days at the end of this month to help dramaturg Elyzabeth Wilder's new commissioned play for their Southern Playwrights Conference...title: SOULS GROWN DEEP....i feared my NYU teaching schedule would keep me away from the necessary week's committment to do this, but both Elyzabeth and the director Janet Cleveland are fine with my tardy arrival in the process, and Elyzabeth and I will work here at home anyway before then....I so like this play she has written about the quilting ladies of Gees Bend...she has found a core for the story that I admire.
More on that as it develops...
I have been a member of this neighborhood health club for so long that when i first came to NYC, shortly after joining it, as all the Upper West Side actors seemed to do, I actually shared 20 minutes or so in the hot tub with CLIVE BARNES!!! The drama critic for everything at that time...I mean there we were sweating together in our bathing suits, being extremely human (and dare I say humid?) as we whirlpooled the aches away! I'll never forget that....one of those pivotal NY moments...when I really got that I was living here at last!
And it has been ever thus...I have been a member of this sturdy spa for three decades now, on and off...depending on my willingness and location of work....and now I find, as I grow old along with my love (the Paris), I need it more than it needs me!Though it never fails to make me feel wonderfully and warmly welcome...oh that sauna room in the dead of winter....God bless it indeed!
And i have gone to strenuously workout every single day since Christmas, it seems, because the holiday festivities so did me in with food and alcohol that if i did not go work out I felt like I would simply sit, grow fatter and die with no effort to do otherwise...so the club, the club, the club...whew! And I can hardly wait to go again tomorrow...now this is extremely unusual for me..so i can only figure taht I am getting wiser in my old age and I am finally listening to my body as it tells me what to wisely do to keep IT happy...and functioning in any way well.
I hail the wonderful and determined PARIS HEALTH CLUB...why it is named that I will never know, though it is next doot to the Paris Apartments...but why are they named that? No clue....it certainly seems Parisian in no way whatsoever...not an accordian or beret to be seen, nothing faintly atmospheric and artistic in either the apartment building or the club...but, ah well...a badge of honor nonetheless: I belong to the Paris Health Club,,,,,so there! You silly New York Health and Raquet people you! Feh Who needs chrome and shiny steel machines when you have the crumbling tiles and historic stretch rooms of the actorly Paris....ah! if those walls could talk! I am so glad it is only 6 blocks from my home!
I will go to the Alabama Shakespeare Theater for a few days at the end of this month to help dramaturg Elyzabeth Wilder's new commissioned play for their Southern Playwrights Conference...title: SOULS GROWN DEEP....i feared my NYU teaching schedule would keep me away from the necessary week's committment to do this, but both Elyzabeth and the director Janet Cleveland are fine with my tardy arrival in the process, and Elyzabeth and I will work here at home anyway before then....I so like this play she has written about the quilting ladies of Gees Bend...she has found a core for the story that I admire.
More on that as it develops...
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Happy New Year....
...is actually a quiet thing...oh sure, cities like New York, and others everywhere, large and small, like to make an enormous noisy thing of this particular passage if time....we need to control it somehow, i guess...and perhaps by making it as loud, drunk, free-wheeling and crashingly filled with light gives us the sense that we are actually controlling the passage of that thing we call time...of course, Time, its own creature, goes inexorably on with or without us, and seems to benignly smile at us when It sees us cavorting around in Times Square, and wearing funny hats...drinking to forget what we've done or to face what we are about to do...It smiles down and around us...not with condescension, but with the wisdom born of...well, born of itself: TIME. TIME. All of a sudden...POOF!!! The seconds have
travelled by,and.....we are in another year of life!
I remember as a kid...probably a teenager out on a noisy drunk date, I remember that moment i realized it was such a quiet thing. The midnight hour.. WE celebrate it.It does not celebrate Itself. It simply IS. DOES...continues. And I remember, perhaps on the same date..I remember realizing that Midnight is not all that late at all! Hitherto that point in time, I had experienced 12:00 MIDNIGHT as the forbidden frontier past which I had not much travelled....so, a New Year's event in my life probably was also the occasion for my growing up in a particular way: I understood that time fies, and that life is short....one fateful New Year's Eve, in Atlanta ,Geogia, in some Ladies Room at some club or something...I remember that so clearly. How is it that some memories stay with us like that? I think because something shifted...and i was different after that moment of understanding. I think I became sadder. Wiser.Thus, sadder.
Ah, the sad drama of the awakening teenager Yep. Sounds like me.
All that being recalled, Peter and i had the most wonderful evening last night.
We entertained one friend and one friend only: Chris Keeslar, from around the corner. Worn out by so much Christmas activity, we felt like being home, and in passing Peter had mentioned to Chris to come over....and so...as it happened, that's what he did! And three bottles of Champagne later, plus some delicious foods we prepared to nibble, I had gotten to know this man better and, I feel, acquired a new friend!! AS IT HAPPENS, Peter has known Chris K. since he was 5 (FIVE!!!!) years old!!! They grew up together in the same Detroit suburb, and went to the same schools,etc.!!! Paths diverged. Almost two decades pass. And all of a sudden, Chris initiated a search for Peter (since he too was now in NYC being a book editor), and what do you suppose? They discovered that yet again, they live AROUND THE CORNER FROM EACH OTHER!!!! Half a block , if that!!!! Yes, a true story! So, right away, they began hanging out this year, and playing pickup basketball games in a local court, and sharing computer games...BOYHOOD REVISITED! But also, getting to know
the men, the wonderful men, they each have become.
I found it comforting somehow, to share the New Year's Eve with this particular old friend of my young husband. And the three of us chatted away the hours...dare i say: seriously talked, really talked, about a wide range of things, and it was good.
A very good quiet thing. The horns blew, the lights flashed, and the hats were tossed, mere blocks away, down at the brilliantly illuminated Times Square...one million people squashed together to feel the throb of being human...and we talked the time away, until it was 2006. We barely noticed it. But of course we did make note. How can we not?
Even the people who stubbornly refuse to stay awake to mark the passage of one year to the next, are marking it in their own ornery way, right?
I have to witness it. Rather like a car wreck. Tick tock...things come...to pass.
It has been a swell week...we went to the movies with Paul and Steve and we saw a wonderful thing: MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS, starring Dame Judi Dench, Bob Haskins,et al..and it was so much fun...directed by Stephen Frears, in an extremely romantic, lush, colorful and nicely sentimental way... I so enjoyed this true story of a rich woman who boughtm, renovated and presented shows in an old rundown prewar London theatre....lovely.
See it if you can. Wonderful costume designs. Lovely acting. FUN.
And today, we dismantle our dear Tree and put it out on its cold street corner. Sad. But , again, a quiet thing. A part of the passing of time as we know it. So, we shall dismantle slowly. Especially since Peter is still a' bed, Sleeping It OFF!!
Hey, you all: THE BEST OF EVERYTHING IN THE COMING YEAR TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU! BE WELL, HAPPY, CREATIVE, HONEST and BRAVE!!!
travelled by,and.....we are in another year of life!
I remember as a kid...probably a teenager out on a noisy drunk date, I remember that moment i realized it was such a quiet thing. The midnight hour.. WE celebrate it.It does not celebrate Itself. It simply IS. DOES...continues. And I remember, perhaps on the same date..I remember realizing that Midnight is not all that late at all! Hitherto that point in time, I had experienced 12:00 MIDNIGHT as the forbidden frontier past which I had not much travelled....so, a New Year's event in my life probably was also the occasion for my growing up in a particular way: I understood that time fies, and that life is short....one fateful New Year's Eve, in Atlanta ,Geogia, in some Ladies Room at some club or something...I remember that so clearly. How is it that some memories stay with us like that? I think because something shifted...and i was different after that moment of understanding. I think I became sadder. Wiser.Thus, sadder.
Ah, the sad drama of the awakening teenager Yep. Sounds like me.
All that being recalled, Peter and i had the most wonderful evening last night.
We entertained one friend and one friend only: Chris Keeslar, from around the corner. Worn out by so much Christmas activity, we felt like being home, and in passing Peter had mentioned to Chris to come over....and so...as it happened, that's what he did! And three bottles of Champagne later, plus some delicious foods we prepared to nibble, I had gotten to know this man better and, I feel, acquired a new friend!! AS IT HAPPENS, Peter has known Chris K. since he was 5 (FIVE!!!!) years old!!! They grew up together in the same Detroit suburb, and went to the same schools,etc.!!! Paths diverged. Almost two decades pass. And all of a sudden, Chris initiated a search for Peter (since he too was now in NYC being a book editor), and what do you suppose? They discovered that yet again, they live AROUND THE CORNER FROM EACH OTHER!!!! Half a block , if that!!!! Yes, a true story! So, right away, they began hanging out this year, and playing pickup basketball games in a local court, and sharing computer games...BOYHOOD REVISITED! But also, getting to know
the men, the wonderful men, they each have become.
I found it comforting somehow, to share the New Year's Eve with this particular old friend of my young husband. And the three of us chatted away the hours...dare i say: seriously talked, really talked, about a wide range of things, and it was good.
A very good quiet thing. The horns blew, the lights flashed, and the hats were tossed, mere blocks away, down at the brilliantly illuminated Times Square...one million people squashed together to feel the throb of being human...and we talked the time away, until it was 2006. We barely noticed it. But of course we did make note. How can we not?
Even the people who stubbornly refuse to stay awake to mark the passage of one year to the next, are marking it in their own ornery way, right?
I have to witness it. Rather like a car wreck. Tick tock...things come...to pass.
It has been a swell week...we went to the movies with Paul and Steve and we saw a wonderful thing: MRS. HENDERSON PRESENTS, starring Dame Judi Dench, Bob Haskins,et al..and it was so much fun...directed by Stephen Frears, in an extremely romantic, lush, colorful and nicely sentimental way... I so enjoyed this true story of a rich woman who boughtm, renovated and presented shows in an old rundown prewar London theatre....lovely.
See it if you can. Wonderful costume designs. Lovely acting. FUN.
And today, we dismantle our dear Tree and put it out on its cold street corner. Sad. But , again, a quiet thing. A part of the passing of time as we know it. So, we shall dismantle slowly. Especially since Peter is still a' bed, Sleeping It OFF!!
Hey, you all: THE BEST OF EVERYTHING IN THE COMING YEAR TO EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU! BE WELL, HAPPY, CREATIVE, HONEST and BRAVE!!!
