Chance = Change

Only a few more hours, that's all the time we've got! Until a brand spanking New Year is upon us: 2007, 2007, 2007! Yikes! And here we all are, Upstate at the House, : Paul, Steve, Peter and me, as well as Steve's beautiful daughter Katie and her guy Nick...also, of course, the dogs...and we will have a good meal together and toast the new year in with a sip of champagne....a quiet passing. A joyous time. Peter's darling parents are in Korea, where it already is 2007, and my brother Richard and his beautiful Barbara are roaming somewhere in Europe, no doubt all having the very best of times, eating the best foods and meeting all kinds of amazing people. So I send them all the very best love and wishes for a great turn of year....and in fact, to all the people I know: HAPPY HAPPY and HEALTHY...may 2007 be the very best year of your lives so far.

GOODBYE OLD YEAR AND HELLO TO THE NEW...may all the changes be benign ones.
Creative and full of love.

...but, that being said,
Here's my wish for a sweet year ahead:

That all the world learns to live in amity,
That no one suffers from great calamity;
That all remember the power of loving,
So that (on the subways), people stop shoving!
That all guns magically turn into ipods,
So no matter the music, we'll stop asking "Why, gods",
Does every man need to kill his brother?
That person you hate now
Could have once been your mother
In another life!! There's no way of knowing,
So instead of hate, make it love that you're showing!
I know that I sound like a dumb "pollyanna",
Expecting mankind to stop its insani-
ty, but I can't help it: this world is too sad,
So therefore we all must make good from the bad!
No one else has the power.
No one else can dare do it!
So in 2007, let's put shoulders to it
And make the world better,
Make the world change its ways!
Let's insist that instead of dark nights there be days
Of sharing and goodness, of caring untold,
That no one be hungry, no one left in the cold.
That people stop killing, that people stop rage,
So that mankind can turn a new leaf, a new page:

(Please everyone reading this, in your comment to this blog entry, name a thing or two you would wish for a better world...thanks! and HAPPY NEW YEAR!) xxev

Labels: Holidays and Slings and Arrows

...well, not exactly "masked" but rather covered in flour and sugar, madly baking and baking and baking some more??? IT IS MOI!!! ME!! I!!! Overcome by the most amazing desire to BAKE!!! And so I have been baking! So many cookies i don't know where to put them all, and covered in so many shades of red and green (with various candy garnishes) that it rather looks like what I imagine Santa's workshop to look like all year round...the cookies look great with our new red dining room walls! It's all so red and elegant and deeply sweet...all that sugar! All that cheer!

And the entire place smells so great! Well, you can imagine...and today i am baking even more..I will start a batch of Paul's Mom's infamous Christmas Rum Balls soon, and even attempt a batch of cranberry scones~. Somebody STOP ME!!! I am a baker...no, no, I am a seagull....no,, no, I am an actress...no...a teacher...no....aaargh!

I even made a fabulously delicious lentil soup for dinner last night, and it was waiting, with fresh biscuits, for Peter to have the minute he got home from the office...all I need is an apron and a shirtwaist dress and i am a latter day Donna Reed...today i am a housewife! And having fun in the mysterious process! Maybe it is all this delicious leisure time i am having as a result of the NYU school term being over...the sudden rush of freedom and free time, filled with no obligations whatsoever...an occasional private student, but not many...and i love this space of time stretching before me..the emptiness delights and scares me, but mostly delights me...I used to not be able to be comfortable with such freedom, and always felt that if i was not booking a commercial or rehearsing a show or performing in one, I was at a loss...well, that has absolutely changed and , ever since returning from Barter a couple of years ago, the thought of an 8-show week still sends a dull chill through me....I would rather sit in my meditation room and stare at the altar, or, as this week proves, do something to delight my husband when he comes home from his long day's work...he does love cookies, so this baking spree of mine is a delight for him...and i will try to find his childhood favorite today: peppermint ice cream!...to go with the fresh baked cookies.

What is this time in my life? Why am I so very content? I feel as if I have found a safe harbor after a life of odd neurotic storming....sure, I have produced a body of work in my career that has some sort of label and I know that I have contributed to people's lives along the way, but when I was younger, and striving so hard to get somewhere other than where I was, I never thought I would know such peace as I am knowing now. A sort of knowing that seemed impossible when I was a younger woman. So BRAVA for aging! I would not go back a single second of time.

I have learned how to bake some sugar cookies without burning the edges. To me, for the very now of now, that is enough...that is plenty.

Labels: Holidays and Slings and Arrows

.....because it feels like Christmas in The Islands! Once, when I was down in Florida visiting my Aunt Evalyn and Uncle Ed at their retirement condo community, I went to a series of flea markets with them, and at one of the markets, I found and bought (for my then lover Chris, the British scientist) an LP entitled A Reggae Christmas, and it had all sorts of fabulous artists on it, like the Marleys,etc...and on the front was a cartoonish drawing of island folk singing and dancing under palm trees decorated with Christmas tinsel! No one had a coat or shoes on and it looked, as it was meant to, silly and incongruous....the music on the LP, by the way, was fabulously good! We not only got a kick out of it, we enjoyed listening to it.

That being said: it is nearly 60 degrees outside and humid, because it looks like rain will pour from a grey glowering sky at any moment....shouldn't it be threatening snow instead of warmish rain? And shouldn't I have to bundle up to go to the Abrams Office (to re-sign contracts) instead of sweating under the thin coat I feel I have to wear as a nod to the Season? Is global warming finally catching up with us?

In any event, Paul, Steve, Peter and I had a nice couple of days Upstate this past weekend, and since Sally and Cyrano were with us they got a good running workout in the side meadow! Peter and I adore to see these little pups run like the wind over the acres, with their little ears flying behind them and their feet barely touching the ground! They look like they're flying! And there is such joy in their faces....Peter and i got to do some much-needed Christmas shopping and even Paul and I had some time together shopping for materials for the Jewel Tree we're making for our living room....instead of a Christmas tree, Peter suggested we try a Jewel Tree of Tibet, with photos of our various mentors floating around it and sitting in its branches...I have had a good time finding various forms of "jewels" to decorate it with, and i love the idea of giving the tree meaning, along with making it a bright and glittery thing to enjoy. I will keep you updated as to its progress...right now I have to run to Abrams and re-sign my commercial contracts! More soon in this blog...now that school is out, I have time to really write!

Oh: HAPPY CHANUKAH!!!!!

Labels: Holidays and Slings and Arrows

...to be jolly, and grateful, and thrilled about many things, but the thing that thrilled me most so far, this Holiday Season, was my ACTING SCENE STUDY CLASS!!! I could not have received a more wonderful gift than the presentation of scenes they did yesterday morning for whatever audience gathered! Shakespeare and Chekov words filled the room, and I am reasonably sure that , if the ghosts of those two geniuses did manage to make it to NYU Campus yesterday, they left much happier ghosts, realizing their works were alive and well in the hearts and mouths of young training actors ! We did pepper the presentation with monologues from more modern sources, side by side with monologues from the two masters, and the mix was a fortuitous one: the event rocked! I was deeply proud of the work displayed .Deeply proud. I wept tears of joy and every so often actually forgot i was watching my students....they really did the work!

The things that were most powerful were the longer, fuller scenes, most of which were from Chekov's THREE SISTERS and UNCLE VANYA and THE SEAGULL.....and the longer SHREW scene, the first meeting of Kate and Petruchio worked particularly well too...so next time, I may try more Shakespeare scenes in the program...we did work on a bunch. But every so often, a monolgue would display particular sensory work or cleverness and awareness of place, and it was a gem...and I don't want to single out work because it was all so damned good! So many steps forward were taken, and i am delighted...delighted...that most of the steps forward were not due to performance adrenaline but rather to the actual groundwork laid in their various rehearsals. So many of them wrote in the final exam about what they learned from the research work we did in class...and how it influenced their approach to the scenes...this specificity of ideas was evident in the scenes and mononlogues...when a fireplace was in the room, the audience knew it! When a mirror was on the wall, they knew just where and how high it was hung! I mean the kids really did their work!

AND I WAS ONCE MORE REMINDED OF THIS: for students of the singing voice, whose passions already run deeply and more connected to the body (because of their vocal training) , working on classical scenes from dramas and comedies written by masters is valuable because it teaches them the necessity of truth in the speaking of large emotions before the singing begins...and the geniuses I refer to (Shakespeare, Chekov, the Restoration guys like Sheridan, other verse dramatists like Marlowe, even the highly poetic Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller,...these men wrote language so beautiful it could be sung! More modern playwrights have also written poetry but the music is different, and for the development of the instrument, I can't help but feel the older writers are more useful. They force the young actor to inhabit a time and place and manner different from their own, and forces them, thereby, to stretch in many widening directions in the use of speaking voice and use of a more open fluid body language.

Again, I WAS SO SO SO HAPPY with yesterday's presentation, and I want my class to know it. We did go back into the dressing room and i did tearfully let them know how proud i was of them....and so many of them simply did not want to leave...they wanted to keep working...I know how they feel...I have felt that too, and it is a sign of growing passion for wht really matters: the work, the power of what the individual actor can do ...SO I SAY TO YOU ALL (if any of you happen to be reading) : We will work togetheer again, I promise. And, to you all, BRAVO!!!

Labels: Holidays and Slings and Arrows

Darling Debbie C. - a well-established member of the Metropolitan Opera Chorus and a friend that Peter and I have come to value - was kind enough to offer us tickets to last night's performance of IDAMINEO and we sat center orchestra for this most wonderful production. Peter has never been to a performance there before so it was a rather celebratory evening, a Holiday night on the town. We both dressed up, and it was fun! And the Metropolitan Opera House was decked out in all of its usual gorgeousness and glory! A reason to be in this City: attending the Met!

Since I have been teaching at Steinhardt, i have become acutely appreciative of what it takes to produce a fully expressive human singing sound, so last night was like being in the best sort of class, learning from the best. I adored every single note that came out of every single singer, because I now know how hard it is to do what they make look so easy! The sounds were glorious, expressive and fully engaged...there was actually good acting going on and the communication was clear and lovely. I saw the direction I hope opera is going in: more natural human emotional telling of the story.... ..more of the singer showing up on the stage, the singer as a person, not just an instrument. I see very little opera ....in fact, I go to live performances so little these days (Peter and I are in such a snuggling time of our life together)...but opera is a part of theater I have little experience in, so I know little of its traditions and history, as far as kinds of staging techniques and acting styles are concerned, however, I am constantly observing what "works", what moves an audience, looking out for that magical element that makes the difference....so last night was one huge class for me, with me as willing student giving the singing voice premier place in the technique and action....I have not yet heard enough glorious live human singing voices to be jaded....I simply adore gorgeous human singing sound...so I was pretty much in the middle of a box of good chocolates last night!
And came away filled with awe at what the voice is capable of.

I was able to be more objective (though hardly more) about the stage direction....and found places I could imagine more useful directorial input....but I have never had to move a singing chorus of 100 poeople around a large stage before, and I have never worked in the tradition of Mozart court opera before, so who am I to say I know anything? It was fun "playing" director though, and imagining....and in some cases, I felt like I wsa seeing genuinely innovative staging. I appreciated so much of what I saw.

And I want to write more about it, but have to get to NYU...meeting with Meg B. to talk about acting classes....as we wind down the semester, I will be downtown a lot...many classes to visit and meetings to attend. My last day of real work there, before the Winter Break, is the 14th...we do a showcase of acting class scenes,etc. that day. My students have been working so hard and are in good shape. I can honestly say I am proud of them. And I like them too! We have worked diligently on Shakespeare, Chekov, scenes and monologues...and the lessons i needed to impart about music and language and connecting it all to the human soul ...well...they seem to have heard me. They do seem to have a clue! A useful clue. This, of course, is a wonderful thing to see....and since they came into the school already gifted, it is nice to understand that they are good enough to open their ears and hearts to what their teachers have to tell them. Smart kids.

I wonder if Rick and Amanda received the SLINGS AND ARROWS we sent them yet....hope the two DVDS get to Abingdon safely. I can imagine them sitting in their wonderful cozy den, in their astonishingly beautiful home, giggling and giggling at what SLINGS AND ARROWS has to offer......a great way to end the year: laughing!

Darling Debbie C. - a well-established member of the Metropolitan Opera Chorus and a friend that Peter and I have come to value - was kind enough to offer us tickets to last night's performance of IDAMINEO and we sat center orchestra for this most wonderful production. Peter has never been to a performance there before so it was a rather celebratory evening, a Holiday night on the town. We both dressed up, and it was fun! And the Metropolitan Opera House was decked out in all of its usual gorgeousness and glory!

Since I have been teaching at Steinhardt, i have become acutely appreciative of what it takes to produce a fully expressive human singing sound, so last night was like being in the best sort of class, learning from the best. I adored every single note that came out of every single singer, because I now know how hard it is to do what they make look so easy! The sounds were glorious, expressive and fully engaged...there was actually good acting going on and the communication was clear and lovely. I saw the direction I hope opera is going in: more natural human emotional telling of the story.... ..more of the singer showing up on the stage, the singer as a person, not just an instrument.

It finally feels like Winter! Though sunny and bright, it is very cold , and the recent tropical days of the false springtime are banished quickly from memory....where did i put that pair of gloves anyway??? So much has been going on since Thanksgiving, I apologize to readers for not writing in a while. And hello to Brian T....thanks for the comment, reminding us how much we miss you too! Please write and fill us in on your life....seems impossible how quickly the years have flown since Barter! So good to hear from you.....and good to know you read this blog, still.

The semester winds down at NYU, and there is a sort of giddy feeling about the time of rest and renewal the Christmas break will bring. My classes have been working particularly hard, as I am sure they have been in all their other classes as well, so the students have earned a good rest in the arms of their family...the more I teach, the more admiration I have for both teachers and students. It is a long and sensitive and difficult road, the road to change and growth. Frankly, I wonder how we all get through it even half alive! And when you are dealing with the human voice, emotions and the communication between people as the center of your training, well...suffice it to say that there is never a dull moment, and if there is, you're doing it wrong!

That being said, we have been romping through such events as my Song Analysis students performing in their first All School Program Meeting (the very words bring fear to the hearts of all!), and came off well....learning much in the process....we have met as a teaching body and have begun to discuss and share methods and approaches...this is the heart and soul of Steinhardt, and i find it not only stimulating but an admirable pasttime: Bill W. insists that we talk to each other and makes it possible for us all to do so. Encourages us, in fact, to have open lines with each other at all times, and so the community of singing teachers (truly some of the best in the City, I believe) and the smaller community of acting teachers are beginning to de-mystify each others' worlds and it can only result in better and better teaching for the students. Quite thrilling.

I have done some radio work, been asked to audition more times than I have been able to accept, but will re-sign with the Abrams Agency on December 13th, at their request. Perhaps in 2007, I can book some on-camera spots, for a change. That would be fun. I simply have not had the time or mind to concentrate on that world at all. The teaching pretty much consumes me right now. And I include in that "teaching", the guiding I am doing with the group at 46-10 Village. Tonight we begin to read aloud MOON OVER BUFFALO! This group is getting pretty good together. We have read A MIDSUMMER NIGHTS DREAM, BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS and many little scenes from other plays, and tonight we add the Ken Ludwig piece to our repertoire! Should be fun. I will work with them a few more sessions this year, and then take off for the Holidays, re-convening at the first of the new year.

Sent off a package today for Rick and Amanda at the Barter: the first two seasons of SLINGS AND ARROWS! They will adore it! This Canadian production about a beleaguered Shakespearean Theater Company (called The New Burbage in the show), is too wonderful for words! Funny and specifically insightful about the world we all know so well: the theater company and its politics and art. Dearly fun. Peter and i felt that Rick and Amanda must see it, so it is our Holiday Gift to them. I wish i could watch it with them. Drink some good mountain 'shine and laugh and laugh with our old pals. I miss them so. But Barter feels like forever away.

We shall spend Christmas Eve at cousin Nancy's up in Westchester, and help Paul and Steve throw a large Christmas Day Open House at their place....Peter and i want to do a Jewel Tree for the Holiday: honoring all the mentors and guides we have benefitted from through the years, and we are in the process of figuring out what we want it to look like...the idea of a Jewel tree comes from the meditation we have done with Bob Thurman of the same name. It is very powerful and beautiful, and seems like the perfect way to honor those we love and close out 2006, while inviting a grateful and loving 2007. So we shall adorn some form of living green thing with photos of those we love and things that sparkle and we shall sit in front of it and be grateful together in the dark night for all the marvelous things life has given us. Especially each other. And everyone else we love. Presents don't seem nearly as important as the sheer conscious recognition of the many gifts we already have.