A day of auditions began at 6:30 this AM in which I trudged down to Equity to stand in line for a chance to warble at an EPA (Equity Principal Audition (in other words, if you're wanting a big part,)), where you sit until 9 am when the monitors start to sign people up for a three minute slot in which you can do anything at all. The line snaked through the entire building and ended in a large studio. A large, resonant studio that quickly began to fill to capacity.
Lucky me, I was sandwiched between two theatah types that are the reason the Apple gods created iPods.
One; the scarf-wearing, tea-drinking HUMMER who feels the need to warm up in front of all the other jaded hopefuls and two; the loud-talking, regional theatre socialite who--in the guise of a salutation, always steers the banter back to him/her (in this case him)-self with a few quick, unsuspected fishtails that generally involve the verbal opening gambit, "How ARE yooooooou?!?!?!? OOOooooohMyGoshIHaven'tSeenYouInSoLOOOOOOOOOOONG!!!! (insert chirpy jumps and hand clapping or (if you're across the room) the toddler wave) OhMyGOOOOD, you look GREAAAAAT! OhMyGod!!!! Your BUTT is sooooooo CUUUUUUTE in those JEANS!!!!! So--Are you working??? Well, IIIIII'm doing a showcase that's me I perfect Casting for a film, me. I just think that I am SO right for the me I perfect aaaaand you KNOW... me perfect high b flat me, that I just perfect soooo me me me me"... ad nauseum.
All this delight in a room in which Helen Keller can hear you change your mind.
I just sat there feeling forty. Forty... FOUR OH... Okay... Four THREE in this case... but I rounded down.
Forty. It's the new black.
Or as my friend calls it, "the age when you don't have to do what you don't want to do and you don't have to offer an explanation".
I'll drink to that.
At any rate, the line began it's slow, inexorable wind through the Family Reunion of everyone you have ever loved/hated/screwed/been screwed over by/dodged/adored/despised/obsessed over/stalked/been stalked by and are now fatter/thinner/older than (okaaaaaaaaay, The Equity Lounge) herded and shushed by a nice, but slightly stressed-out monitor, to the table where I was told at long last that... all the times were taken and there were only alternate positions left. Lovely...
Couldn't do that, because I had a commercial (I, me) audition across town. Thankfully, that seemed to go extremely well... But it's mornings such as these that make me consistently reassure myself that I should not chuck it all and move to Saugerties to grow vegetables and become a hippie.
... Again.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not knocking that life. I love it up there, but it still feels as if there are a few things left to do. Here.
Like buy really powerful earphones...
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Addendum and Requiem
Just so as not to seem like an abject snob (I am, I just don't want to SEEM like one),
my "cultural void" and "dumbed down New York" comments from the previous blog are due to the fact that Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs/Broadway Bound revival at The Nederlander closed after only six days.
Shock.
A New York where shows like Rock of Ages stretch on "Now and Forever", but where Neil Simon cannot keep a show open for more than a week confounds me. I have nothing specifically against Rock of Ages, mind you, but the zeitgeist seems to have distilled.
I cannot help but be despondent and nostalgic for Dorothys Parker and Kilgallen, Dick Cavett, Eric Sevaried, The Round Table... hell, even Prohibition had some things to write about. I worked an event at a museum recently where the main act was someone I had never heard of, singing (sort of) songs about anger, instant gratification and self-aggrandizement all while in a ball cap that covered her face and painted into a shiny, gold bustier so far up her butt, it looked more like traction than a corset and speakers spitting out distorted sound to a room full of hipster doofuses... that I was cleaning up after.
Okay...
I realize that simply keeping an online blog is a form of self-aggrandizement, and being anyone's Hazel is demanding at best, but I also remembered an event at Lincoln Center where Barbara Cook had to stop singing to tell her audience to stop talking.
I still love New York with my whole heart, but I wonder where we're all going... those of us who still love theatre and the alchemy it completes in the human spirit, when it works. (Thank god for Jude Law's current sold out Hamlet)
Is art imitating life, or is it simply marketing?
my "cultural void" and "dumbed down New York" comments from the previous blog are due to the fact that Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs/Broadway Bound revival at The Nederlander closed after only six days.
Shock.
A New York where shows like Rock of Ages stretch on "Now and Forever", but where Neil Simon cannot keep a show open for more than a week confounds me. I have nothing specifically against Rock of Ages, mind you, but the zeitgeist seems to have distilled.
I cannot help but be despondent and nostalgic for Dorothys Parker and Kilgallen, Dick Cavett, Eric Sevaried, The Round Table... hell, even Prohibition had some things to write about. I worked an event at a museum recently where the main act was someone I had never heard of, singing (sort of) songs about anger, instant gratification and self-aggrandizement all while in a ball cap that covered her face and painted into a shiny, gold bustier so far up her butt, it looked more like traction than a corset and speakers spitting out distorted sound to a room full of hipster doofuses... that I was cleaning up after.
Okay...
I realize that simply keeping an online blog is a form of self-aggrandizement, and being anyone's Hazel is demanding at best, but I also remembered an event at Lincoln Center where Barbara Cook had to stop singing to tell her audience to stop talking.
I still love New York with my whole heart, but I wonder where we're all going... those of us who still love theatre and the alchemy it completes in the human spirit, when it works. (Thank god for Jude Law's current sold out Hamlet)
Is art imitating life, or is it simply marketing?
Logistics, Mayhem, Mussels, Curtain Up, Light the Lights
Took the car last night to retrieve the roommate from his month-long trip to Hawaii and Napa... No, not a bit jealous... anyway, couldn't find the entrance to the Van Wyck Expressway and ended up well past Jamaica and heading out to Long Island... In the dark... In the rain, clutching the steering wheel like a life raft and nose to windscreen with demented stress.
For those who know me, ever since I got back from extended stays in Australia and South Africa, I can't for the life of me seem to remember how to drive in the US. I mean I know how a car operates and all, but it's the left hand drive thing that gets me now. I had my own car in Oz and was distinctly proud of myself for figuring out how to drive on the other side of the car, on the other side of the road in about five to ten minutes without much drama.
This hubris was of course repaid manifold by my current and complete inability to remember how it works on this side of the pond--compounded with a trip to the Poconos last May where, I swear to almighty God, I plowed straight into a very large dead deer in the very-visible center of the highway (current roommate didn't warn me because he thought it would be stressful--the man has a level of calm about some things that approach Zen) and ripped off the rear fender of his car... also in the night... also in the rain... While this led to a conversation party piece that refuses to die, said roommate still had me handle his parking while he was away and also had no problem with me volunteering to come and fetch him from JFK. That's either extreme trust, or a willingness to gamble that might need a support group.
At any rate, got him and his lost luggage home and--as Hawaii-to-East Coast jet lag is the kind that will not die (despite a week in Wine Country), I had made a dinner that I could marinate and prep the hell out of in order to just get it on the table: Moules a la Marinieres, Pear Salad with Julia's phenomenal vinaigrette and a Salmon marinated with soy sauce, fresh squeezed orange juice (still had 'em from last weeks excursion down Juilienne Lane with that Duck), ginger, honey, garlic, tomato, salt, pepper, etc., and a bottle of Pinot Grigio.
...and a Flexeril.
Tonight, I put on the Armani tux that has been gathering dust since August and head out to the Broadway Premiere of Ragtime and the subsequent and apparently final opening night party at Tavern on the Green.
Nero fiddles his last here in the Big Apple for that grand old tradition. Glad to have at least made it to two. As Old New York fades into less attractive, dumbed-down New York for the cultural void who think Rodgers and Hart is a department store, I can at least fuel my Kitty Carlisle Hart fantasy of being part of the Old/Aulde version if only for a wee while.
Even though Armani on the F train is more than a little sad.
For those who know me, ever since I got back from extended stays in Australia and South Africa, I can't for the life of me seem to remember how to drive in the US. I mean I know how a car operates and all, but it's the left hand drive thing that gets me now. I had my own car in Oz and was distinctly proud of myself for figuring out how to drive on the other side of the car, on the other side of the road in about five to ten minutes without much drama.
This hubris was of course repaid manifold by my current and complete inability to remember how it works on this side of the pond--compounded with a trip to the Poconos last May where, I swear to almighty God, I plowed straight into a very large dead deer in the very-visible center of the highway (current roommate didn't warn me because he thought it would be stressful--the man has a level of calm about some things that approach Zen) and ripped off the rear fender of his car... also in the night... also in the rain... While this led to a conversation party piece that refuses to die, said roommate still had me handle his parking while he was away and also had no problem with me volunteering to come and fetch him from JFK. That's either extreme trust, or a willingness to gamble that might need a support group.
At any rate, got him and his lost luggage home and--as Hawaii-to-East Coast jet lag is the kind that will not die (despite a week in Wine Country), I had made a dinner that I could marinate and prep the hell out of in order to just get it on the table: Moules a la Marinieres, Pear Salad with Julia's phenomenal vinaigrette and a Salmon marinated with soy sauce, fresh squeezed orange juice (still had 'em from last weeks excursion down Juilienne Lane with that Duck), ginger, honey, garlic, tomato, salt, pepper, etc., and a bottle of Pinot Grigio.
...and a Flexeril.
Tonight, I put on the Armani tux that has been gathering dust since August and head out to the Broadway Premiere of Ragtime and the subsequent and apparently final opening night party at Tavern on the Green.
Nero fiddles his last here in the Big Apple for that grand old tradition. Glad to have at least made it to two. As Old New York fades into less attractive, dumbed-down New York for the cultural void who think Rodgers and Hart is a department store, I can at least fuel my Kitty Carlisle Hart fantasy of being part of the Old/Aulde version if only for a wee while.
Even though Armani on the F train is more than a little sad.
Friday, November 13, 2009
Another grey, November day here in Gotham. Every time this weather that I love so much hits, Joni Mitchell's "Urge For Going" plays on endless reel in my brain.
Worked an event last night for The Margaret Meade Film Festival at The Natural History Museum.
Margaret Meade??? Film Festival??? That's like... The Jane Fonda Salute to Okra...
I couldn't help but wonder exactly what films were being shown. I was surprised to see that there is a theatre within the museum that is the size of a small Broadway house. I've been coming to this museum for 26 years and I still find rooms within rooms. Weird. I used to have a recurring dream that I would find some secret corridor in my Grandmother's house and they would lead to rooms that no one ever uses or knows about. Slightly sinister, but that's the nature of the recurring dream.
Love the old museum... even though last night 8 different kinds of cheeses were crushed and mashed into the carpets. Enough to put you off your dairy.
Worked an event last night for The Margaret Meade Film Festival at The Natural History Museum.
Margaret Meade??? Film Festival??? That's like... The Jane Fonda Salute to Okra...
I couldn't help but wonder exactly what films were being shown. I was surprised to see that there is a theatre within the museum that is the size of a small Broadway house. I've been coming to this museum for 26 years and I still find rooms within rooms. Weird. I used to have a recurring dream that I would find some secret corridor in my Grandmother's house and they would lead to rooms that no one ever uses or knows about. Slightly sinister, but that's the nature of the recurring dream.
Love the old museum... even though last night 8 different kinds of cheeses were crushed and mashed into the carpets. Enough to put you off your dairy.
Monday, November 9, 2009
The Mean Reds, Flour, Butter, Sugar and a Dash of Salt
Truman Capote's main character in Breakfast at Tiffany's complained of the Mean Reds--which are the exact opposite of the Blues... Leave it to those mean little Southern writers... they sure knew how to turn a phrase.
The dinner is paid for, cooked and put away and with nothing on the horizon but a farewell to friends and the temp, gym, audition, lather, rinse, repeat grind stretching endlessly through the holidays... It's nice to have a kitchen (such as it is) stocked with staples.
I may not be able, at the moment, to do what I came back to this town for, but hell... I can FEED people! Strangely enough, it's food for the soul as well to watch someone put something you've added egg yolks, sugar, butter, semi-sweet chocolate, strawberries and a currant glaze to into their mouths and for a split instant, see something pre-empt the nicety they were going to utter and watch them be transported. It may only be for an instant, but it's gratification of a very deep kind to know that you have not only provided sustenance for someone, but taken them--if only for a nanosecond, somewhere memorable.
God made butter and sugar, combined them... and saw that it was GOOD.
A-MEN!
The dinner is paid for, cooked and put away and with nothing on the horizon but a farewell to friends and the temp, gym, audition, lather, rinse, repeat grind stretching endlessly through the holidays... It's nice to have a kitchen (such as it is) stocked with staples.
I may not be able, at the moment, to do what I came back to this town for, but hell... I can FEED people! Strangely enough, it's food for the soul as well to watch someone put something you've added egg yolks, sugar, butter, semi-sweet chocolate, strawberries and a currant glaze to into their mouths and for a split instant, see something pre-empt the nicety they were going to utter and watch them be transported. It may only be for an instant, but it's gratification of a very deep kind to know that you have not only provided sustenance for someone, but taken them--if only for a nanosecond, somewhere memorable.
God made butter and sugar, combined them... and saw that it was GOOD.
A-MEN!
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Dinner is Served
Last night I had the final dinner party before Thanksgiving. God love Mastering the Art of French Cooking because three of the four courses were on the table, even though La Julia suggests only serving one per party. Moules a la Marinieres (Mussels steamed with butter, vermouth and shallots), Caneton a l'Orange (Duck with Orange Sauce) which, may I say, is an involved little bitch to make--served with Petits Pois a la Francaise (Little Peas, French Style) and Tarte Fraise with five artery blocking egg yolks and semi sweet chocolate as the base for the Strawberries.
Great company, lovely wine and I think I sat down for about twenty minutes total. The problem with gourmet food is that without a sous chef, you are rarely present at your own dinner party. Up, down, deal with the overflowing honey in the oven that is smoking the living room up worse than Custer's Last Stand, smile, gracefully move about so as not to cause panic while you put out the fire caused by alcohol burn off and hope to Christ that you are not serving a half cooked duck since you are trying to build a bit of a chef's rep with your nearest and dearest and not a trip down Botulism Lane.
Luckily, things seemed to go smoothly-- if not a trifle slow, down to the last served Espresso...
God love patient friends and two wheels of baked Brie with honey, almonds and apples rather than only one.
On to Thanksiving/Christmas/Hannukah...
Fa la la la laaaaaaaaa la la la oy...
Great company, lovely wine and I think I sat down for about twenty minutes total. The problem with gourmet food is that without a sous chef, you are rarely present at your own dinner party. Up, down, deal with the overflowing honey in the oven that is smoking the living room up worse than Custer's Last Stand, smile, gracefully move about so as not to cause panic while you put out the fire caused by alcohol burn off and hope to Christ that you are not serving a half cooked duck since you are trying to build a bit of a chef's rep with your nearest and dearest and not a trip down Botulism Lane.
Luckily, things seemed to go smoothly-- if not a trifle slow, down to the last served Espresso...
God love patient friends and two wheels of baked Brie with honey, almonds and apples rather than only one.
On to Thanksiving/Christmas/Hannukah...
Fa la la la laaaaaaaaa la la la oy...
Friday, November 6, 2009
The Maine Event... and Other Opinions.
Well... I'm not a political person, but in lieu of the latest electoral events in Maine, California, my native state of Florida (as opposed to state of mind--which is anything BUT Floridian), Arkansas, etc... it's time to drop my two cents into the offering plate. Read on if you like.
What on earth gives voting people the right to think that they can legislate someone's personal relationships second tier by not granting them the same rights as any other couple--and to do it based on something as biologically random as gender. In a world where the discovery of lasting love is becoming more endangered than the Dusky Seaside Sparrow, to narrow-mindedly decree from a self-proscribed perch that YOUR love is superior and somehow more legitimate than another's and to use the law to crowbar your bigotry strikes me as the newest and and by far the lowest level of organized bigotry and stupidity. And certainly fear.
From my point of view to argue that same sex marriage "is one more step on the ladder to child abuse" is inane.
We are talking about consenting grownups here, folks... Not "See Jimmy's baby sitter touch him inappropriately".
And while we're on the subject--if you are going to use the Christian religion that these voters always use to back up their lunacy:
New Testament:
"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression."--1 Tim. 2:11-14
................................................................................................
I cite these quotes rather than come up with new ones as people who have denied rights to others consistently use both The Bible and the founding fathers as a bully pulpit from which to spew some of the most ignorant, misinformed and fear based rhetoric I have ever heard and have now lost my patience with hearing
For me this DEBATE is over. It is no longer on the table for discussion. It is something to be fought for and won. Not earned. It was earned simply because we exist.
Act Up used some ways to get attention that I didn't agree with, but they also shouted the following, "We're here, we're Queer, get USED to it" and guess what folks... we ain't goin' anywhere... except the front pages as this wages on. When it works, you'll find that America is a very loud nation. Lots of constitutionally protected free speech going on out there.
I don't believe in violence to get the gig. Ghandi, Dr. King, etc... I fervently believe that this was the right idea. Perhaps a bit slower in coming to fruition, but certainly more wholesome and with less residual anger.
My fervent hope is that one day--in the hopefully not too distant future, whom one loves is as much a non-issue to one's fellow man/woman as the weather.
When the time comes that the parades, the PRIDE weeks, etc. become nostalgia rather than controversy--that is when we will yet again have another amazing example of The American Experiment moving along.
Grace and Peace,
Preston
What on earth gives voting people the right to think that they can legislate someone's personal relationships second tier by not granting them the same rights as any other couple--and to do it based on something as biologically random as gender. In a world where the discovery of lasting love is becoming more endangered than the Dusky Seaside Sparrow, to narrow-mindedly decree from a self-proscribed perch that YOUR love is superior and somehow more legitimate than another's and to use the law to crowbar your bigotry strikes me as the newest and and by far the lowest level of organized bigotry and stupidity. And certainly fear.
From my point of view to argue that same sex marriage "is one more step on the ladder to child abuse" is inane.
We are talking about consenting grownups here, folks... Not "See Jimmy's baby sitter touch him inappropriately".
And while we're on the subject--if you are going to use the Christian religion that these voters always use to back up their lunacy:
New Testament:
"Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression."--1 Tim. 2:11-14
| I Corinthians | 11:3-15 | Man is head of woman; only man in God's image |
| 14:34-35 | Women keep in silence, learn only from husbands |
| Ephesians | 5:22-33 | "Wives, submit . . ." |
| Colossians | 3:18 | More "wives submit" |
| I Timothy | 2:9 | Women adorn selves in shamefacedness |
| 2:11-14 | Women learn in silence in all subjection; Eve was sinful, Adam blameless |
Church writer Tertullian said "each of you women is an Eve . . . You are the gate of Hell, you are the temptress of the forbidden tree; you are the first deserter of the divine law."
Martin Luther decreed: "If a woman grows weary and at last dies from childbearing, it matters not. Let her die from bearing, she is there to do it."
And, as I recall, Y'shua ben Joseph (AKA Jesus) had NOTHING to say on same sex realtionships at ALL, but he had PLENTY to say about divorce and god knows THAT is legal and even accepted now.
3 Some Pharisees came to Jesus, F428 testing Him and asking, "Is R690 it lawful for a man to divorce F429 his wife for any reason at all?" 4 And He answered and said, "Have you not read that R691 He who created them from the beginning MADE THEM MALE AND FEMALE, 5 and said, `FOR R692 THIS REASON A MAN SHALL LEAVE HIS FATHER AND MOTHER AND BE JOINED TO HIS WIFE, AND THE R693 TWO SHALL BECOME ONE FLESH'? 6 "So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate." 7 They said to Him, "Why R694 then did Moses command to GIVE HER A CERTIFICATE OF DIVORCE AND SEND her AWAY?" 8 He said to them, "Because of your hardness of heart Moses permitted you to divorce F430 your wives; but from the beginning it has not been this way. 9 "And I say to you, whoever R695 divorces F431 his wife, except for immorality, F432 and marries another woman commits F433 adultery." F434
So--there go female Governors (Sorry, Sarah Palin--your chomosomes prohibit you from having dominion over men--WHAT? It's in The BIBLE!!! I'm just sayin'!)
Women fought for and WON their emancipation. Part of the reason for it being so overdue in its arrival were the views of the people who held to the above biblical strictures.
All I'm saying here is that if you are going to use The Christian Bible to prescribe the national laws, I don't really think that cherry picking through your most sacred writings is going to win any points with The Guy you are ultimately trying to impress.
What I see, when I look between the lines, is that to allow same-sex marriage would bring a new definition into the national paradigm and Americans have always had a very difficult time with allowing for difference and tolerance-especially where race and sexuality are concerned (we were initially settled by Puritans--despite their T-type make up)
In a nation later formed by Deists (and yes folks, that's what the founding fathers were), adhering so strongly to CERTAIN aspects of a religion in order to shape that nation's laws goes completely AGAINST what they were trying to accomplish.
While the concept of homosexuality may have been something totally unknown, perverse or foreign (I find that hard to believe considering it's been around as long as Adam & Steve met at that very first Tea Dance) to founders of this country, laws of oppression were NOT. A new nation conceived in liberty--not the archaic laws of The Middle East thousands of years ago, is a nation in which the majority does not get to decide the inalienable rights of the minority.
And speaking of the above; for my FINAL quote of the day -
l, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801
Thomas Jefferson - who also wrote HIS translation of The Bible said the above.................................................................................................
I cite these quotes rather than come up with new ones as people who have denied rights to others consistently use both The Bible and the founding fathers as a bully pulpit from which to spew some of the most ignorant, misinformed and fear based rhetoric I have ever heard and have now lost my patience with hearing
For me this DEBATE is over. It is no longer on the table for discussion. It is something to be fought for and won. Not earned. It was earned simply because we exist.
Act Up used some ways to get attention that I didn't agree with, but they also shouted the following, "We're here, we're Queer, get USED to it" and guess what folks... we ain't goin' anywhere... except the front pages as this wages on. When it works, you'll find that America is a very loud nation. Lots of constitutionally protected free speech going on out there.
I don't believe in violence to get the gig. Ghandi, Dr. King, etc... I fervently believe that this was the right idea. Perhaps a bit slower in coming to fruition, but certainly more wholesome and with less residual anger.
My fervent hope is that one day--in the hopefully not too distant future, whom one loves is as much a non-issue to one's fellow man/woman as the weather.
When the time comes that the parades, the PRIDE weeks, etc. become nostalgia rather than controversy--that is when we will yet again have another amazing example of The American Experiment moving along.
Grace and Peace,
Preston
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