La Ronde - LA

La Ronde... ...and ronde and ronde again...

Jobs my friends have: A List

• midwife / Douala
• chef
• sexual health educator
• military intelligence
• consultant
• sommelier
• principle oboe in the Chilean Philharmonic orchestra
• lawyer
• clown (actually... a few clowns...)
• diplomat
• diagnostician
• many mums and dads! 
• journalist 
• limo driver
• opera/wedding photographer
•      wedding/food photographer
•           theatrical photographer
• stunt man
• 3rd grade teacher 
• English teachers (3)
• award-winning drag queen
• grant writer
• spinal surgeon 
• sound designer and engineer
• nutritionist 
• world-renowned cabaret diva
• college professor (4)
• literary agents
•      theatrical agents
•           opera agents
• doctor of linguistics (working in dead and dying languages, attempting to maintain and develop worldwide programs to implement [or re-implement] native languages in their communities of origin.)
• COUNTLESS actors,
• singers,
• musicians,
• dancers,
• visual artists,
• performance artists,
• composers,
• writers,
• acrobats,
• directors,
• designers,
• producers,
• production people. . . of course . . .

With your permission m'lady, I'd like to "La Ronde" again*...

About to embark on another exciting theatrical experiment! In early 2011 I participated in the Off Broadway revival of Hello Again by Michael John LaChiusa based on Arthur Schnitzler's 1897 play, La Ronde, and I am so thrilled to announce I shall be joining one of my oldest friends and collaborators Michael Arden in his contemporary, Los Angeles-centered adaptation of the the piece as "The Actress."

Here is the info: 

* * *

Recently, Charlie Sheen indicated via Twitter that he was most definitely planning to attend a night of La Ronde, the adults-only LA theater experiment set for July 18-22. Not bad for a pilot production most people around town have yet to learn about...

THE PLAY:

Originally written by Arthur Schnitzler in 1897 and first printed in 1900 for his closest friends, Reigen, also known as La Ronde explores and scrutinizes the sexual morals and class ideology of its day through a series of encounters between pairs of characters (shown before or after a sexual encounter). Drawing from characters across all levels of society, the play offers social commentary on how sexual contact transgresses boundaries of class. In this production we take a look at these morals and ideologies as they reflect modern American culture.

THE EXPERIENCE:

One evening in July (18-22), people receive instructions to show up at a certain location in Hollywood not knowing who will be in the play, what's going to occur or where they might end up, simply knowing they must "Leave your inhibitions at home!" Only 12-14 people will watch each night’s performance, staged at at ten different locations where a cast of about a dozen actors, dancers and performers will put on the provocative live-performance pastiche.  

In this site-specific pilot workshop production of La Ronde, streets, insides of houses and places unimaginable become stages for a series of events not soon forgotten: a secret, sexy party planned just for you. A post-show soiree directly following each performance allows the audience to meet and mingle with the cast, creatives and fellow audience members. Make a friend... Take one home...

The small, invite-only, audience becomes a voyeur in the scenes, sometimes inches away from the performers. Utilizing storytelling through the mediums of music, dance, theater and even film, it is our goal to transport the audience literally and metaphorically through the private lives of the characters invented by Schnitzler and reinvented in 2012 Los Angeles.

* * *

*So, to off-quote the great Danny Kaye  from The Court Jester,

     "With your permission m'lady... I'd like to La Ronde again..."

Twenty-Nine

It has become an annual tradition (with myself, and I do suppose with all of you) to share my birthday reflections. I must say, this year, both the day itself and the reflection has snuck up on me.

Soooo.

29.

Hello there.

29:

The atomic number of copper

The number of days in a lunar month

The track from which the Chattanooga Choo Choo train departs in the Glenn Miller song.

Saturn's number of years to orbit around the Sun

 29 is a Markov,  Perrin, and Størmer number.

A beautiful prime number (technically the tenth prime number, a twin prime pair with thirty-one, the sixth Sophie Germain prime, a Lucas prime, a Pell prime, a Pillai prime, the 10th supersingular prime, and an Eisenstein prime!) Plus a tetranacci number. YO. 

The number of letters in the Turkish, Finnish, Swedish, Faroese, Danish and Norwegian alphabets.

"$29.00" - A on the album Blue Valentine by Tom Waits.

AND, the iiiiiiiiinfamous N-29 night bus that got me home so MANY a time from Central London all the way north to Wood Green. 

*

You know, every seven years we have a complete new body of cells-- our bodies are literally fully transformed, our cells completely turned over, a complete body chemistry change and a need for unfolding. Twenty-nine is the first step in external integration with the rest of the world. 
It is a cycle. 
It does not come to "get you." 
It comes to present you with an opportunity.

And every age has special things to be known, understood, and worked with. There is no time in your life that does not have validity.

This year I know I actually felt my cells turning over--every single one of them. My mind, my body, my outlook, my spirit, has been transformed. As I stand here, a new body, a new self, I also realize that for the last 20 years or so, I have been in "survival" mode: frankly, using achievement and a driving sense of life purpose to keep away pain and fear.

I am no longer surviving. This year (through particularly uncomfortably difficult inner work), I healed those wounds. I am moving into a phase of life where I can expect more than survival. I can choose to thrive. To build a positive life, throw light along the dark and unknown tunnel of the future full of the knowledge that there is nothing to fear that I have not already met, seen and conquered.

...That is the best birthday gift of all.
To look ahead with such extraordinary inner peace...
              and excitement.