London Still

Don't threaten my love of Murder, She Wrote. I will cut you.

2012-01-29T08:46:00.002-05:00

I recently received a letter from a new friend. He is in "the biz" but I did not know that, and our paths had never crossed in real life until Christmas Eve, when they crossed at the holiday party of a mutual friend. And, to be specific, by "real life" I mean the very strange thing that happens when you are an actor, where conversations go like this:

Him: Hi, I'm M, nice to meet you.
Al: Hi I'm Al.
Him: Hi.

[four minutes of totally "Muggle" type conversation occurs--about LA, the holidays, and 90s television {including a reference to Lady Aberline from Mister Rodgers}, followed by--]

Him [cont]: Oh yes, I saw you.
Al: "Saw" me?
Him: On SVU. Yes.
Al: How?
Him: ...I...watch... television.
Al: Right.
Him: You were great.
Al: Thank you.

Him: I mean I've seen you in other theatre things... like Hello Again [the hostess of this holiday party was also in Hello Again]...and you know, Master Class.
Al: Right. [it dawns on me, taking me by surprise, once again, as it always does, that a lot of people see an actor--a lot more people than an actor will ever see...think on THAT...]
Him: Anyway!

And then we proceeded to dissect the ENTIRE CANON OF 80s and 90s pop culture for the next two hours.

Recently I received the following email from him:

Al Silbs. Happy 2012.
I have to tell you – and I don’t want you to be overwhelmed… I don’t want things to get awkward or anything… but… in the near-month since our meeting, I have definitely found myself watching Murder, She Wrote and… I mean. Al. I just don’t know. It really doesn’t live up to my childhood memories. Like, in my mind it was just MacGyver except with Cora Hoover Hooper. But. It’s REALLY not. And they’re all in Maine! I’m just a little conflicted. I mean, I was able to watch all 7 seasons of Family Ties recently – and it totally lived up to my warm sense-memories. But, Murder, She Wrote? I’m not as sure.

Maybe I just caught some clunker episodes? But …I feel like you might dispute the notion that there are clunker episodes to begin with. So, I’m not sure.

I think you might be alarmed by my festival of underlining in the previous paragraphs. It’s a work-habit, but then I started thinking – this is a chick who pays attention to syntax and details, I have to keep it consistent. So now it looks like I’m e-mailing you a term paper.

How are you? How’s Astoria?
M

[**crickets**]

JB reflects my *exact* emotions to this email

"How are you?"
"How's Astoria?"
Is this man OUT OF HIS MIND? How can he flippantly ask HOW I AM when he has attacked my love of Jessica Fletcher so profoundly? [mouth sputters!] Pah pah pah! Does he think I will forgive him?! Does he think he can flatter me so simply because it is evident that he follows me on "The Twitter" closely enough to know that I am choking my blog readers with English lessons as well as unnaturally re-interested in Murder She Wrote enough to record it every day onto my DVR and watch it obsessively because Jessica Fletcher is a friend who never lets you down?! [waves her arms and stomps around in Lucy Van Pelt-style fury.]

I needed a moment.
So I took it.
I did breathing exercises and I got a grip.
Then I responded.
Thus:

Whoa.
Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa whoooa. (I hope you could hear that the last "whoa" section was sung to the first few lines of "She Loves Me"....)

I don't know what to say.

I mean. What do I address first?

The fact you opened with Al Silbs?

Your consistency with the underlining?

Or...
The "term paper" you wrote?

And SPEAKING OF "WROTE"....

Who. Do. You. THINK. You. Are?

Look.
MSW is not good. And it is not just "Family Ties and Next Gen are not good but really just dated but heartwarming nonetheless" WAY.
It is actually pretty bad.

...M? Jessica is SO disappointed in you...
I will throw 80-90s TV a bone: there was totally a "style" of prime-time drama that was akin to the comparison of "people once, in recent memory, dressed up to travel on an airplane and now they wear their pajamas." (Thank you Reading Rainbow, thank you Marina Serkis and Gates MacFadden, thank you the entire cast of Diagnosis Murder for reminding us that this is ACTING...and by the way please send this memo to David Caruso because he clearly did *not* get that memo....)

But I firmly (!!!) believe MSW falls under the category of "so bad it's good" in a car crash way, as well as "entertaining purely because of nostalgia" way. It is entertainment that falls in the Venn Diagram of CSI: Miami with Magnum PI. Yay-- someone was eaten by an alligator in the Everglades but the short shorts and mustache makes it all palatable. Plus the frozen face of Angela Lansbury at the end as the credits roll fills me with Pavlovian glee.

There is a word for this kind of entertainment in England-- camp. It is CAMP. It is light, fluffy, virtuously clunky, terrible television that goes down as smooth as doughnuts for dinner-- delicious, too sweet, and you are hungry five minutes later.

The End.

[Angela Lansbury freeze frame]

*

Basically, this is the message I want to send: do not threaten my love of Murder She Wrote. I will, and I truly mean it, I will cut you.

Ex Libris

2012-01-25T09:00:00.000-05:00

You all know about my blind, manic, intense passion for books. You are familiar with my desire to take you to school and get all blah blah blah about second person narrative and rant endlessly about the importance of a book cover, of the order of the Narnia novels, and what books to indulge in at what time of year.

I read.
I read a lot.
And I write.
And I love on books.... hard. I eat them. I am, as Anne Fadiman would say, a carnal lover of books-- taking them into the bath, marking the margins, breaking the spines, loving the body of my books as hard and fast as I love the soul which is their words.

But you know what else I do?
I sing.
So... why not combine these passions and write an all new cabaret show?
Why not bring it to the fanciest and swankiest nightclub in New York City?
Why not sing an entire show based on my love of books, writing, reading, letters, book inscriptions, libraries, librarians, basically--bibliophillic ECSTASY... my very favo(u)rite thing.

And (!!!) why not invite my dear friend Anthony Andrews to join me (in an indulgence or two based upon the books of TH White and George Bernard Shaw perhaps...)? It is going to be a veritable feast of words and music.

Join us.
Do.

Words for Interlochen Center for the Arts

2012-01-19T13:23:00.001-05:00

"Sometimes a kind of glory lights up the mind of a man. It happens to nearly everyone. You can feel it growing or preparing like a fuse burning toward dynamite. It is a feeling in the stomach, a delight of the nerves, of the forearms. The skin tastes the air, and every deep-drawn breath is sweet. Its beginning has the pleasure of a great stretching yawn; it flashes in the brain and the whole world glows outside your eyes. A man may have lived all his life in the grey, and the land and trees of him dark and somber. The events, even the important ones, may have trooped by faceless an pale. And then – the glory – so that cricket song sweetens his ears, the smell of earth rises chanting to his nose, and dappling light under a tree blesses his eyes. Then a man pours outward, a torrent of him, and yet he is not diminished.

"And I guess a man's importance in the world can be measured by the quality and number of his glories. It is a lonely thing but it relates us to the world. It is the mother of all creativeness, and it sets each man separate from all other men.I don’t know how it will be in the years to come. There are monstrous changes taking place in the world, forces shaping a future whose face we do not know. Some of these forces seem evil to us, perhaps not in themselves but because their tendency is to eliminate other things we hold good. It is true that two men can lift a bigger stone than one man, and bread from a huge factory is cheaper and more uniform. When our food and clothing and housing all are born in the complication of mass production, mass method is bound to get into our thinking and to eliminate all other thinking. In our time mass or collective production has entered our economics, our politics, and even our religion, so that some nations have substituted the idea collective for the idea God. This in my time is the danger. There is great tension in the world, tension toward a breaking point, and men are unhappy and confused. At such a time it seems natural and good to me to ask these questions. What do I believe in? What must I fight for and what must I fight against?

"Our species is the only creative species, and it has only one creative instrument, the individual mind and spirit of a man. Nothing was ever created by two men. There are no good collaborations, whether in music, in art, in poetry, in mathematics, in philosophy. Once the miracle of creation has taken place, the group can build and extend it, but the group never invents anything. The preciousness lies in the lonely mind of a man.

"And now the forces marshaled around the concept of the group have declared a war of extermination on the preciousness, the mind of man. By disparagement, by starvation, by repressions, forced direction, and the stunning hammer-blows of conditioning, the free, roving mind is being pursued, roped, blunted, drugged. It is a sad suicidal course our species seems to have taken.

"And this I believe: that the free exploring mind of the individual human is the most valuable thing in the world. And this I would fight for: the freedom of the mind to take any direction it wishes, undirected. And this I must fight against: any idea, religion, or government which limits or destroys the individual. That is what I am and what I am about. I can understand what a system built on a pattern must try to destroy the free mind, for that is one thing which can by inspection destroy such a system. Surely I can understand this, and I hate it and I will fight against it to preserve the one thing that separates us from uncreative beasts. If the glory can be killed we are lost."

- John Steinbeck, Chapter 13, East of Eden

There's nothing quite like a real book...

2012-01-15T16:00:00.001-05:00

Where memories go...

2012-01-09T17:19:00.000-05:00

Have you ever wondered where memories go?

Do you suppose memories are stored in a kind of great Library? Like the ones of antiquity, and a comprehensive card catalog (filled with time-worn cards all dog-eared, fingered, and browned with age) notates the time, and place and subject of each encounter, vision, smell and feeling in alphabetical, or chronological, or other kind of order of significance. And as you collect more and more memories, the aisles and rows of books all magically lengthen! They expand alongside our experiences and nothing, not even our less than impressive lunches, or boring school lectures, or the scent of a stranger’s perfume, goes uncatalogued. Prim librarians with pinched mouths shush you as you run up and down a long unexplored aisle, children you recognize guide you to sections of the place you thought were long destroyed. These guides often sit you down and insist you pour and pour over the pages of newly rediscovered volumes, or point the way toward your favorite titles, reminding you (harshly or gently) that you may have your favorites, but there are millions of unexplored volumes, not to mention a world beyond the library itself, begging to be explored.

From the time I was little, I always clutch fiercely onto ordinary moments. If I shut my eyes tightly and memorized every detail, I could paint and re-paint the moment with white-knuckle accuracy, then will myself to remember, over and over again. Writing it down felt like cheating, so I would stare and think and contemplate and document with my mind alone as I stored more and more details away, terrified that even one might escape me.

Would I remember the way I wept on my first day of school at El Rodeo School (in First Grade) when Tara Pascal denied it was the first day of Fall and called me a liar? Would I recall how I cried because I didn’t know anyone at my new school, and because my Mom had told me it was the first day of Fall, and I felt so alone? Or how Mrs. Divine held me and told me it was indeed, the first day of fall, and that everything was going to be alright?

Would I remember the taste of a Flintstone's push-up ice cream? the way the card board would get soggy, the way my heart sank when I reached the bottom?

Or recall being disheartened every time that girl Rebecca beat everyone else to the gold shoes in the dress-up box in pre-school?

How about the exact way mom’s eyes changed in the light?

Or the way my skin stuck to my Dad’s black leather work chair as I spun round and round accompanied by the beats of his vintage IBM typewriter?

What of all those seemingly forgettable everyday moments?
The thought of losing even one iota, one single shredded oddment, one miniscule scintilla, petrified eight-year-old me.
No matter how unremarkable they were,
even then
I wanted them.
I wanted them all.
I still do.

But would they be there in twenty years? Would the bookmarks of my discarded volumes remain in their place, right where I had left them? Or, like all natural things would I return to find them turned to dust? Disintegrated by time and neglect? Might I return to the Great Memory Library to find that entire sections had been destroyed by a fire, or ravaged in a flood, or sold off to another city to pay for modern repairs?

I have been told that I have a photographic memory. But nearly thirty years of life on I have really only ever managed to hold onto what feels like a few measly scraps...

Neuroscientists say every memory is actually the memory of a memory, and every time we remember the same memory, it gets distorted slightly over and over again until at some unnameable point, all we are left with is the skeleton of truth draped in the fabrics of our imagination.

The Great Memory Library

Glove Love

2012-01-01T19:29:00.001-05:00

Sometimes it is called “The Land that is Shaped Like a Hand.”
That would be because it is.
Some people call it “The Mitten.”
Some “The Glove.”
All of these are equally valid and as far as I am concerned, inter-changeable.
But one thing remains constant: whatever the identifier, my love of the state of Michigan is forever, steadfast and true. The real deal. Real like Ross loving Rachel. As a real a thing as Henry James’ The Real Thing. Or Tom Stoppard’s The Real Thing (Or Vanessa Williams’ or Kurt Andersen’s or ...) Like the French loving cheese… like teen-vampire love…

Michiganders legitimately, and with a full sincerity free from all whimsey or irony, declare where they are from in Michigan by referring to the area on an actual real-life hand.

Examples,
    “I am from Bad Axe,” this fictional Michigander will say to you in a flat-vowel-ed Michigan accent (so flat, in fact, that you will swear they just said “BEE-ad EE-ax”). And you, after deciphering what they just said, and being a Normal-Non-Michigan-Muggle-type will reply,
    “...Where in Christ is that?”
And they, smiling as broadly as their vowels in a manner in which only Michiganders can, will reply,
    “Why, it’s in the thumb!”
And then, this person will without question get out their hand and SHOW you exactly where they live on their portable hand-map as if you didn't know where a thumb was located, but perhaps you don't and these people are so friendly they really don't mind the demo.

Um… isn’t that the most charming thing you have ever heard?

                        ...Like, in the whole of your life?

*

Okay, now, all that said, here is how you do the Michigan Hand shake…that I may-or-may-not-have, made up.

The entire act is what I like to call…

[*drum-roll please*]

GLOVE LOVE.

[: ::confetti:: :]

To mirror, of course, the Glove Love in my heart that shall never die. (Not even if I give birth to a werewolf baby...)

STEP 1 - PRESENT THE “GLOVE”

Hold up your right hand in front of you (recommended distance is approximately 10 inches from your face, perpendicular, as if touching a window before you)

STEP 2 - DECLARE YOUR “GLOVE LOVE”

Say aloud, “Glove Love” to the handshakes’ recipient, followed by a sincere, generally appetizing look that evokes anything from flirtation to unwavering brotherhood, or everything in between at once.

STEP 3 - INVITE THE “GLOVE LOVE”

Instruct your recipient to match your upheld hand as one might do in a “mirroring” exercise, and feel the “love” as your hands touch.

STEP 4 - TAKE IT “U.P” A NOTCH

If you are really feeling the Glove Love, then you need to take it up a notch, and by UP, I mean the “U.P” and by the “U.P,” I mean the Upper Peninsula.

Invite the recipient to “Upper Peninsula me!” by extending your left hand sideways and crossing it over and above your already presented hand (thus, vaguely resembling the Northwest geography of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan) and having them match that in the same, intoxicatingly adorable manner. (Have you taught James Earl Jones my now not-so-secret handshake...? Um... because I have. So you can stop making fun of me and buzz off! Because a certain Michigan-native named James Earl Jones loved it. He hand flirted with me by interlacing his fingers post “Upper Peninsula” and laughed that signature “HA HA HA!” laugh he did at the beginning of Coming to America. He loved it. HE GLOVE LOVED IT...)

STEP 5 - BASK.

Do.
Do bask.
Go on…
Bask in the love…

…The Glove Love.

A Telegram

2011-12-29T15:54:00.000-05:00

Shura returned that night to find him slumped in his chair, his head buried in one hand, a telegram in the other.

     "Mikhail," she said, “whatever is the matter?”

But it was clear to her—only one thing could cause her husband to bury his head so. Mikhail remained motionless, unable to rise to her question and so, allowed her to take the telegram from his hands herself, read it and know for certain: Gershom, wrote Rabbi Syme, was dead. His estate and entire amassed and untouched fortune, left solely to his nephew Mikhail, awaiting him, where his name still hung above the door.

Shura folded the telegram and placed it on the desk.

     "Mikhail," she said, kneeling before him and placing her hands upon his lap in consolation, "what would you say to one another now? After everything?”

     "My uncle would only ask whether I made money or not,” Mikhail replied, eyes fixed on the telegram now laying upon the desk, “That is all he'd want to know."
     "Come now, I'm serious."

Mikhail sighed and closed his eyes, not wanting to snap at her, but unable to utter everything swelling within him in a single explanation; the wicked, pulsing shadows of all that had occurred between him and his uncle Gershom.
     "When I first met you," he answered, "what I had done—far more than attempting to teach or proselytize or even simply survive—what I was truly doing was nothing greater than running away from home..." He blinked heavily, "...like a common, petulant child. I disappeared into the night on a steam train that carried cargo freight never to be heard from again.”

She beheld her husband and her heart roared. She scarcely recognized him— so contorted was his person with the recollections of a shattered youth. Not even labor and cold and exile burdened him more greatly than the memory of his uncle and all that had, and perhaps more crucially, had not, passed between them.

     “According to that” he indicated to the folded telegram “Gershom looked for me for months. But I am certain that is all he would want to know if I ever returned."

He stood and moved toward the desk, his shoulders encumbered with pondering, and he absently piled and covered papers (as he often did to protect Shura from the knowledge of his work), returning again and again to the telegram itself detesting every rush of feeling surging through him.

     “Money conjured up a fog around my uncle. It can do that to men. Some men. My uncle applied himself so—” his voice caught here, his words either being deliberately selected or stuck within his throat, “So passionately, I suppose, to the acquisition of money, that he quite forgot me.” Mikhail snatched his eyes from the telegram, and looked upward and out the window. “If the thought of me ever burst through that fog, then another thought crept with it: that I, his nephew, was merely an imposition.” Mikhail shrugged his shoulders, which silently told her things were better this way. “—And now I plot the extinction of private property and Gershom leaves me his entire fortune. Funny, isn't it? That. Neither one of us out of spite.”

She sensed her limitations and her insides wrenched. Goodness, Shura thought, acceptance is so broad a thing. She believed his peace.

Still, she noted how quietly he wore and wore a groove into the desk with his thumb.

The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 9, A Sophie and Sharon Christmas

2011-12-25T20:30:00.000-05:00

Merry Christmas everyone!!

In My Life: Victoria

2011-12-23T00:40:00.000-05:00

Victoria Hinde

London, England

2009

Winter Reads: A List

2011-12-15T06:01:00.002-05:00

[cue: deep-baritoned voice over...]

Winter.

[cue: windy sounds]

The dim days of earth's sabbath are before you.

[cue: record scratch]

Did I ever tell you that my New York apartment is called "The Winter Palace?" No? Did I not do that because it reveals how violently dork-faced I am, that I actually love AllThingsRussian so profoundly that I have named my apartment after the winter residence of the Tsars of Russia? Well! (I say to all you cooler-than-though scoffers) Well! At least I am consistent. At least I faked left and swung left.

Anyway, here in The Winter Palace I don't rely on the calendar or the weather to let me know that winter is here (also, here in New York, that would be particularly ineffective as it was 60 degrees last week...) My winter traditionally kicks off with:

A viewing of Bill Murray in Scrooged. (Because this is the one time of year when Bill Murray and I spend time together with a movie that is not What About Bob?)
Setting up my sweet little lopsided Christmas tree as well as a portable menorah given to me from a big black bag by an enthusiastic Orthodox Jew in the middle of Leicester Square 5 years ago.
An attempt or two at making the best of watching winter sports on television (because sometimes you have been taken hostage and/or are tied to a pole and forced to watch curling).
A Google Image search for "Peppermint Schnapps Office Drunk-Fest." (Because there may not be snow on the ground, but there is always time for a pointless Google search featuring the non-word "fest"...)
Preparing the sofa: for me to be curled up before it all winter long beneath a snuggle-y duvet, curled around a book.

[cue: Tchaikovsky's Waltz of the Snowflakes

aaaaand cue:

: : :::snow::: : :]

It is winter.
You will be cold.
You will, at times, be housebound.
You will sip delicious hot beverages.
You will endure terrible winter sporting events on television (if you are dating anyone from Minnesota...)
You will warm your apartment with the oven in desperation (because central heating is sooo un-New York).
You will catch The Latest Animal Cold/Flu and give it to your friends.
But you will have books.
And a good book on a winter's day will make your heart warm, your imagination alive, and your afternoons better than enduring the Nordic Combined when you are watching winter sports (only because your cable has inevitably gone out...)

Here are some winter reading suggestions, for the only season that begins with "WIN."

*

original cover. nice.

1. The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe

I won't bother to go on and on (and on) about The Narnian Order Debate again.

[pause]

...But I will passive-aggressively say that this FIRST novel in The Chronicles of Narnia is winter reading perfection: a snow-laden magical land discovered in the back of a wardrobe that leads to the adventure of a lifetime for four young children in war-torn England. There are talking animals, an evil Snow Queen with both a carriage and a bone to pick with Goodness (not to mention an endless supply of poison brain-washing candy), a war against Evil and a journey back home to England.

If you have only seen any of the lovely film adaptations, you are missing out. Go get it right now (and make certain you love the cover because there are many to choose from, some far better than others, and honestly? it matters...)

I also want to say this for good measure: I am not a religious person, but I am a person of great individual (though unspecified) faith, and despite the ownership the religious community finds in these stories (which I do not, and I encourage all of you to not begrudge, for they were written by a beautiful man of great faith), I admit that I never connected to them on that level.
     As a little girl and as an adult I relate to Narnia on the level of an inquisitive child whose life was happy, but not without a constant, low sonorous note of tumult represented by my father's illness. This allowed me to identify greatly with the Penvesies-- who were happy children surrounded by great unrest in their country and their world.
     Full of hope, I was always ready for a fairy tale that fostered a faith in myself more profoundly than in any particular Deity, and encourage anyone else to mine the books for more than what is "on the label."
     My point for religious and secular readers alike is this: just as traveling to Rome, to Italy, to Europe itself, is not merely about a trip to the Vatican, a trip to Narnia is as fulfilling and rich as we have the vision and openness for it it to be.
Narnia is for us all.

"But what does it all mean?" asked Susan when they were somewhat calmer.
"It means," said Aslan, "that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of Time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation."

Little Women
by Louisa May Alcott

Ah! One of my favorite Christmases in literary history begins on page one: sisters Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy March are discussing what they might buy themselves for Christmas if they only had the means (as the March family did in the days before their father went into the Civil War), only to remember all the things they could give to their selfless mother, Marmy.

But of course, Little Women is one of the most beloved books of all time, chronicling the four inextinguishable March sisters as they struggle through poverty, miss their soldiering father, and cope with the harsh realities of life as they grow up in an often frigid New England (in both literal and social climate). Louisa May Alcott based much of this story on events and people in her own life and the prose, dialogue and swollen feeling that drapes each character she describes (and clearly loves) is as endearing and readable as it is passionate.

Rebecca
by Daphne DuMarier

Rebecca is a novel by Daphne du Maurier. When Rebecca was published in 1938, du Maurier became – to her great surprise – one of the most popular authors of the day. Rebecca is considered to be one of her best works.

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again" is the book's famous opening line, and from here its unnamed narrator reminisces about her past. It is evident at the beginning of the novel that Maxim and the second Mrs. de Winter now live in some foreign exile. The events recounted in the book are in essence a flashback of the narrator's life at Manderley.

Its heroine, symbolically nameless, comes to Manderley and finds herself competing with the ghost of her husband's dead wife. The heroine has recently become "Mrs. de Winter," but Rebecca was "Mrs. de Winter" first, and the novel shows us the heroine's attempts to escape the dead wife's shadow, even as the sinister servant Mrs. Danvers dresses her in Rebecca's clothes and urges her to kill herself and leave the house to the ghost.

Rebecca is a classic of modern gothic and psychological, and suspense literature. Gothic fiction is characterized by picturesque settings, an atmosphere of mystery and terror, and a hint of violence and the supernatural; Rebecca exemplifies the genre. The action takes place in the hallowed mansion of Manderley; the book encompasses a murder, a terrible fire, and features a sinister servant; finally, the entire story is pervaded by the unquiet ghost of Rebecca herself.

Plus, in typically gothic fashion, the weather mirrors the characters' moods (which is why it makes the Winter list!): a fog descends when the heroine is confused and depressed; Maxim kills Rebecca on the night of a terrible storm. A mansion consumed by fire? The (Freudian field-day) romance between an older man and a younger woman? The lurking, secret-enshrouded presence of a first wife? 19th Century fiction heaven! This story comes full circle, bringing us back to the present where we began, having been led us on a gothic adventure of psychological and supernatural intrigue. Read it. (Especially before you see my bestie Sierra Boggess and the great Tam Mutu as Mr and Mrs DeWinter this Spring on Broadway. Just saying...)

If on a winter's night a traveler

by Italo Calvino

Let's talk for a moment abouta little literary function called the second-person narrative.

Okay. It is a narrative mode (not the story itself, but the way in which a story is told) where the protagonist or another main character is referred to by use of personal pronouns ("I," "They," and all other substitutes for proper nouns) in the second-person, giving the impression that you are being simultaneously addressed directly by the narrator, as well as being in the shoes of the narrator themselves.

Traditionally, the employment of the second-person form in literary fiction has not been as prevalent as the corresponding first-person and third-person forms.
Here is a little chart:

Personal Pronouns

Pronouns	Nominative Case	Objective Case	Possessive Case
1st Person	I, we	me, us	my, mine, our, ours
2nd Person	you	you	your, yours
3rd Person	he, she, it, they	him, her, it, them	his, her, hers, it, their, theirs

In Second Person Narrative the narrator does NOT speak of themselves as in First Person Narrative ("Last night I dreamed of Manderley again..." - from Daphne DuMarier's previously mentioned Rebecca)
or in the uninvolved entity of the Third Person Narrative ("When Jane and Elizabeth were alone, the former, who had been cautious in her praise of Mr. Bingley before, expressed to her sister how very much she admired him." - from Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice)

Second Person Narrative has the quality of addressing you directly, and though not as popular in literary fiction, is hugely prevalent in other literature such as in the case of a "How To" book, guide books, song lyrics, self-help books, do-it-yourself manuals, interactive fiction, role-playing games, and advertisements. ("You have alertly seized your opportunities and are now on the first rung of the ladder..." - from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying)

Al, I hear you asking, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?

Second Person Narrative is rare in fiction and this is 'SPN' at its finest. Calvino shows that the novel is capable of endless mutations. If on a winter's night a traveler turns out to be not one novel but ten, each with a different plot, style, ambience, and author.

The narrative is about a reader trying to read a book called If on a winter's night a traveler.
That's right. The book is about a person attempting to complete the task you yourself are currently attempting to complete as your are reading it. ...freaky...

But wait, there's more! In this "playful postmodernist puzzle" described by The Telegraph (in one of it's "100 novels everyone should read" list)
Every odd-numbered chapter is in the second person, and tells the reader what he is doing in preparation for reading the next chapter.
The even-numbered chapters are all single chapters from whichever book the reader is trying to read.

Trust me: it is weird and wonderful innovative contemporary fiction, and full of magic.

The Master and Margarita
by Mikhail Bulgakov

Look.
People.
. . . Comrades:
Winter is clearly the most opportune time to spend curled around a juicy piece of Russian Lit-- and truly Russian lit could be its very own post. You all know how I *feel* about allthingsrussian (reiterated in the nerd-faced naming of my apartment) so you have to understand how seriously I took this singular selection. I could use this spot to ask you why-the-heck have you not yet read Anna Karenina? Or stuff quote after quote of the humanity and whimsey of Gogol down your throat like a rotten Soviet potato ration. I could melt your hair with the heat of my passion for the gorgeous prose of Pasternak. I could shove Pushkin's poetry in your face...Push-kin would, quite literally, come to Shove...kin... (...Iamsosorry...)

Regardless, Comrades!
None of it could compare to the weight of my insistence that (she cringes slightly) if you read no other piece of Russian literature in your entire life, you must make certain it is The Master and Margarita. (But... that said, please read more. Please. I am certain my best friend Arielle who also loves allthingsrussian--including if not especially her Russian literature professor husband-- would be happy to make you a reading list even more insanely detailed than this one.)

The Master and Margarita (Мастер и Маргарита), is a novel by the great Mikhail Bulgakov which he began writing in 1928 and which was finally published by his widow in 1966, twenty-six years after his death, led to an international appreciation of his work. (In fact: Bulgakov had to rewrite the novel from memory after he burned the draft manuscript of this novel, and a destroyed manuscript of the original is an important element of the plot.) Initially banned by the Soviets, it is now regarded as a classic of Russian Literature, and many critics consider the book to be one of the greatest novels of the 20th century.

Its plot, woven around the premise of a visit by The Devil to a (fervently atheistic) 1930s Moscow in the Soviet Union. The premise was considered to be too far a departure from socialist realism (the state approved mode of writing. Fancy that.) But below the twisty, windy, delightfully bizarre-o plot, this great work is a withering critique of Soviet society and its literary establishment.

Thanks to picturesque descriptions (especially of old Jerusalem), lyrical fragments and outlandish "no rules" style, the piece is appreciated far beyond it's philosophical undertones, transcending to a soaring example of "out-there," psychological, brain-melting storytelling, sardonic wit, high artistic flourish, as well as a pure literary technical prowess.

A frame narrative structure (a technique characteristic to story-within-a-story formats such as in The Princess Bride, for example, where a main narrative is presented for the purpose of setting the stage for a more emphasized second narrative), involves two characteristically related time periods and/or plot lines. In the case of The Master and Margarita: a retelling of the gospels alongside a description of contemporary Moscow.

In what I consider to be perhaps the most stunning opening chapter of any novel I have ever read,
the story begins in 1930s Moscow with two men, a literary publisher and a young poet, traversing the Patriot Ponds, only to be visited by a mysterious (and deeply creepy) "foreigner" who confidently joins a conversation between the two men as they debate the existence of Jesus Christ and the Devil...the latter whom the Foreigner seems all too familiar with...

The narrative quickly evolves into an all-embracing indictment of the corruption, greed, narrow-mindedness, and widespread paranoia of Soviet Russia, with grit and character portraits worthy of a Scorcese film, and mind-bending phantasmagoric twists worthy of Chalie Kaufman (that I cannot chronicle here without 400+ spoiler alerts, so I will not). Why do I use cinematic parallels you ask? Because The Master and Margarita possesses dramatically cinematic scope, and all written the year after talking pictures were invented. You will fly over the USSR at midnight. You will meet a motley crew of subversive weirdos (which, among other things, includes a Puss-in-Boots-type gun slinging pussy cat), and go back in time to visit with Pontius Pilate of old Jerusalem. Bulgakov exploits art's capacity to give life to the unfathomable, the illogical, while simultaneously reminding us of art's parallel capacity to fulfill dreams. The results elicit terror, laughter, sadness, and wonder.

Published more than 25 years after Bulgakov's death, and more than ten years after Stalin's, the novel firmly secured Bulgakov's place among the pantheon of great Russian writers, and contributed a number of sayings to the Russian language, for example, "Manuscripts don't burn" and "second-grade freshness." It has also influenced anyone from Mick Jagger, to Pearl Jam, to Scottish band Franz Ferdinand's song "Love and Destroy."

What. Are. You. Waiting. For?

Grab your cozy socks,

brew that cup of hot tea,

snuggle up in the duvet and

get reading.

'Tis the season...

In My Life: Bronner's Christmas Wonderland

2011-12-13T00:42:00.001-05:00

Bronner's Christmas Wonderland 

Frankenmuth, Michigan (part of Road Trip 2011 with Lance Horne)

July, 2010

Funeral! [a “How To” Guide]

2011-12-11T01:13:00.008-05:00

Funerals are a social mystery-- a formulaic social mystery, but mysterious nonetheless for the sporadic nature of funerals mixed with a general avoidance of discussion on the subject in Western culture, makes it difficult to acquaint oneself with what’s expected in terms of proper behavior. You just muddle through each funeral, hoping you’re doing the right thing, and then muddle through it again the next time.

So, if you have been to one, you have a decent idea of the basics, but should any other funerals crop up, assume you are as royally screwed as you were the first time around.

Regardless, here are a few basics to keep in mind.

First Things First

For Starters.

1. Make certain you are at a funeral.
How you ask?
There will be signs—not literal signs, mind you. Not neon signs in child-like scrawl one finds stapled to the side of trees and lamp-posts as if the funeral were some kind of morbid yard sale, but rather, indicators.
     A. Someone will be deceased. Make certain someone is, else, you are not at a funeral, you are at a very dark house party. Someone being dead is often the point of the funeral, differentiating it from any other kind of social function.
     B. There will be a somber mood. (Unless you are cynical, or Irish, or you are at the funeral of a particularly evil dictator… or a Wicked Witch.)

2. Make certain that you are at least Six-Degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon away from the deceased.
You might not know the deceased personally, but make certain that you are more than merely there for the free deli spread. That would make you a “Funeral Crasher.” Which brings me to…

3. Do not (consciously or un—) crash a funeral.
The very worst kind of crasher on evil par with the evilest of evil villains Sauron, Hitler, both The Alien and The Predator, and debt-collecting terrorist telemarketers everywhere. Crash a funeral and you can crown yourself an archetypal evil overlord complete with
     A. a massive army of The Major M’s (monsters or monkeys or machines),
     B. possibly a flaming eyeball,
     C. green skin, and
     D. a head-piece made of brain-wave-protecting metal and/or spiky nails.

Second Things Second

Observing acceptable funeral etiquette.

Funeral etiquette is tricky. As previously mentioned, it is an unpleasant subject to dwell upon, and, unless you are in Public Service or are Lord Voldemort, your experience with funerals may tend to be few and far between.

1. Food
During the days immediately following a death the family of the deceased is usually too overwhelmed to carry on the normal every day living chores, such as cooking and cleaning. So food would be more than welcome.

     A. Unless it is shitty food, or
     B. You bring steak sliders to a vegan household, or
     C. Unless everyone brings the exact same dish, or
     D. Unless the family’s fridge gets packed with so many containers of soup and pasta and goulash that the refrigerator and freezer threaten to explode.
     E. Make certain you mark your Tupperware and list any cooking instructions.
     F. Once in attendance of the funeral, make certain you eat both a giant and a finger sandwich. Science says the smaller or larger you make a sandwich, the more effing badass it becomes.

2. You will likely see people you have not seen in years.
For better or for worse.
     A. This is not the time to confront the man who slept with your ex-husband.
     B. A certain degree of acceptable flirting with hot strangers depends on how close you are to the deceased or their family. Just make sure that hot stranger isn't a long-lost cousin.

3. Attire
Subdued colors are most appropriate for funerals.
     A. Do not wear a costume
     B. Or a veil. Please. This isn’t a Bronte novel.

4. Expressing Sympathy
     A. Simple, brief expressions of sympathy are usually best. Remember, above all, you are attending the funeral to show support of the person who has recently passed away, and your role is to support the survivors. This is not your platform for venting past disagreements, collecting on debts or hitting on the widow. Also, avoid at all costs making grieving a “contest.” People who think grief is a contest are instant losers of said contest. Don’t back a horse in that race.
     B. Cause of death can be a difficult subject. Avoid statements such as “I am so sorry to hear of the loss of Nathan’s head— I am certain once they trawl the landfill for it, they can return it to the funeral home and you can finally have your peace. Gah! Not piece— of course I didn’t mean for the terrible pun to be made I was just… trying to…Dude, I’m sorry for your loss.” Don't be that guy.
     C. Sending flowers is a traditional way to express your condolences. Be aware however, that if the grieving family is particularly poetic, flowers that will eventually die in about a week only serve as a reminder that everything dies. Just like their dead family member.

5. Sometimes things do not go as planned
     A. If, throughout the course of the funeral process, you discover that the funeral home has, say, accidentally kept the body in a Chuck E' Cheese style ball pit, or, cremated the incorrect corpse, or anything else classified as a “disaster,” by all means keep that Intel to yourself. It is safe to say that today is already pretty shit for the family of the deceased. Thus, that info can wait.
     B. Trust that in time it will all just seem like most Roper-centric episodes of Three's Company-- hysterically macabre.

Final Words

Pun intended

Keep these points in mind and you should be fine. If you screw up, you’ve blown it—absolutely feel free to bludgeon yourself with a sock full of toxic batteries. But before you do, just make certain no one screws up as royally at your funeral.

A 'Quick 5' with The Maryland Theatre Guide

2011-11-30T07:30:00.002-05:00

A great, thought-provoking Q & A with The Maryland Theatre Guide. See you Friday!

Alexandra Silber will be back performing at The Kennedy Center on Dec 2, 2011, at 7:30 PM as part of The Barbara Cook Spotlight Series. She was last seen there in Master Class starring Tyne Daly. Alexandra’s London theatre credits include Carousel, Fiddler on The Roof and The Woman in White. She recently made her NYC debut in Hello Again at The Transport Group.

You will be performing at The Kennedy Center on Dec 2nd in the Barbara Cook Spotlight Series. Can you give us a hint of what you will be singing at your concert?

©dan wooller

It feels odd to call my cabaret act London Still a concert because it feels like more of a theatre-piece. Probably because it tells a linear story; the tale of why I left America as a teenager, and why I returned. It is a classic tale of ‘there and back again’’- from Odysseus to Bilbo Baggins to Dorothy – we all return to the place where we began and are changed. It is a universal human experience.

That said, I pepper it with my own details, from the serious to the utterly self-deprecating (one of my very favorite things to do). You’ll hear a great deal of Kander and Ebb, Kurt Weill, and of course Rodgers and Hammerstein, but it is also peppered with some jazz, pop and even some opera.

What are your earliest memories of performing?

I remember my very first Ballet recital when I was 5 – my class ran across the stage flapping our arms. My mom made everyone’s wings. I had bangs. There was cuteness. I also cut my teeth in the third grade in a production of Annie at El Rodeo School in Beverly Hills. No, not what you are thinking, I circumvented ever playing the title character and in fact played Miss Hannigan. Thaaaat’s right. I was fierce and mean and convinced myself for years that she behaved so badly because of her drinking. I took it really seriously.

A couple of weeks ago I went to the opening of the Kennedy Center’s beautiful production of Follies on Broadway. I was pleased to casually drop the following piece of trivia:
“I really don’t know this musical at all. I know the premise and some of the songs, but mostly I’m a Follies virgin. Though, I would be totally lying if I said that I didn’t close the 5th grade talent show with “Broadway Baby.”
Well, I did.
I want to say I closed the 5th grade talent show with “Losing My Mind,” but it would be a lie.
A great, funny lie, but a lie nonetheless.
Anyhow I had a full-on period suitcase and concept costume.

You have won critical acclaim in London for your performances in Carousel and Fiddler on the Roof. Why do you think British audiences love American musicals and are British audiences similar or different than American audiences?

Why do they love American musicals? For the same reasons we revere Shakespeare – because we invented the genre! There is nothing like seeing American musicals performed by Americans, but what I love about the British relationship to American musicals is that they do not have the same cultural references to the pieces that Americans do, as well as a completely different sociological relationship to class structures and emotional expression – all of that is very real.

An interesting example: when we began initially working on Fiddler on the Roof we were met with a perplexing issue about accents that went on for weeks. Fiddler is, to us, an American musical, possibly one of the best every written and a classic. Everyone played Lazar Wolf in High School. Everyone has been to at least one wedding where “Sunrise Sunset” made everyone melt.

But in Britain, they do not have that relationship with the piece, the characters, the story. As an officially Christian country they are less generally familiar with Judaism as a widespread cultural attribute.To them, it is a European story… because it technically is. But most fascinating of all? Why in the world would these people speak in American accents in Europe? As American theatre-goers we do not hear American accents as “accents,” for us it is the neutral sound. It makes perfect sense that everyone is stomping around the shtetl sounding like they are from various parts of Jewish America because to Americans that is a relevant parallel.

Not for the British.
So. We started with the concept of “neutral accents” – all the Jews in Anatevka had the accent we all hear on BBC News called “Received Pronunciation” (or “RP”). That didn’t work because of RP’s projection of higher-class and education – all of a sudden Tevye’s daughters sounded like they were from private schools rather than ready to milk cows in the dead of winter. Weeks of trial and error later we decided upon a European Yiddish accent (ie, Eastern Europeans that learned to speak English in England), the Russians, in contrast, used RP. It worked. A completely unique issue to the British approach to the American musical and here is my ultimate point: Americans write wonderful musicals. The British re-interpret them, wonderfully. As a British actress (up until a couple of years ago) I am proud to have cut my professional teeth there.
AND: Let’s not forget how much Americans love popular British musical theatre in return – thank you The Phantom of the Opera and Mamma Mia!. Just saying.

I have to say, I truly believe that people love great theatre no matter what the geography.

You were in Master Class here at the Kennedy Center with Tyne Daly. What were some of your fondest memories of that experience?

For the 2009–10 theater season, the Kennedy Center presented Terrence McNally’s Nights at the Opera including The Lisbon Traviata, Master Class, and Golden Age, a special collection of three McNally plays on one of his favorite subjects – the opera. Without any exaggeration, being a part of that triptych of McNally plays was one of the most fulfilling artistic experiences of my life.
So often as an actor, one can feel as though their contributions are limited – of course ideally theatre is collaborative, but we often have to take the visions of the director, the playwright, the designers into account, and though we hopefully are able to reach deep within ourselves and give, the greater principles as to why or what we are giving to can get muddled. It is rare that we get a chance to reach to offer something beyond “a great night at the theatre” and contribute to a Greater and Universal veneration of Art Itself.

But sometimes experiences come along that make you feel as though you are making a contribution not only to the piece you are involved in, to your playwright, fellow actors, or the immediate audience members who will be in attendance, but to a greater cause – sometimes you get the opportunity to be a part of a contribution to art itself. That is what the Terrence McNally Triptych was: a celebratory contribution to the world of interpretive art itself, and I felt as though I was allowed and able to weave myself deeply into that experience on every level. I made lifelong friends across all three productions, and became reacquainted with myself and my life as an American (in my nation’s Capital nonetheless!)

It was not just a “gig” (I mean, of course not, I was sharing a stage with Tyne Daly in one of the most important venues in the world). The point is: I was a part of something I believed mattered on a cosmic scale.

My time in D.C. that spring also was a period of real transition and personal healing, not to mention the fact that Sophie DePalma went on to be the role in which I made my Broadway debut. But it all began here at the Kennedy Center.
May every national artistic institution be so inspired.

I remember spending time in the Green Room we all shared – every one of us playing cards and laughing in an array of different period costumes. I remember sneaking backstage to the Family Theater from the Eisenhower to watch the second act of Golden Age from the wings (because I was only in the first act of Master Class!).
And best of all? I remember singing at Terrence and (his now husband) Tom’s wedding just outside the stage door along the banks of the Potomac on the most perfect spring day in the history of the world.

Are there any roles on Broadway now that you would like to play?

I have always strived to do great work with gifted people regardless of the location, but some dreams/itchings include Nora in A Doll’s House, Rosalind in As You Like It, Anna in The King and I, Irene Malloy in (either!) The Matchmaker or Hello Dolly!, and an absolute dream would be to play Amalia Balash in She Loves Me (which, of course, Barbara Cook, the curator of the Spotlight Series in which I am appearing, originated herself).

But truly, there would be no greater dream than getting to revisit Julie Jordan (of Carousel) at home on Broadway. I have been so fortunate to portray her in the West End, in my birthplace of Los Angeles, California, and bringing it to New York would be a dream.
_

Watch Alexandra Silber as Julie Jordan in Carousel at Reprise Theater Company in LA, singing “If Loved You” & “What’s the Use of Wonderin’"

Go behind the scenes with Alexandra Silber, as she prepares at the half hour call to play Julie Jordan in the West End production of Carousel.

Alexandra Silber’s website.

In My Life: Zoë

2011-11-29T00:36:00.000-05:00

Zoë Rainey

London, England

A Letter

2011-11-27T08:57:00.000-05:00

Dear Peanut Butter,

It's time.

Love

Jelly

Portrait of a Friend: Lilly

2011-11-18T19:38:00.004-05:00

I remember, probably more vividly than any other call, the moment Lilly heard the news. J and I were seated on my bed, still in pajamas and both totally stoic. I remember wanting to “be” there when he told her, but not wanting to do it myself.

So he told her.
I don’t recall what he said, what I do recall was the depth and ferocity of her wail, and how much I envied it.

She loved him. Everyone did.

*

Meet Lillian Townsend Copeland.

No, she is not related to Aaron Copland (though she enjoys referring to him as “Uncle Aaron”). Townsend is her mother’s maiden name.
Lilly is from Virginia.
Her parents are both doctors (her Dad, in fact, saved my eye from extinction in 1999 when a corneal cut turned into a very infected corneal ulcer and I nearly lost the whole darn thing…but that’s another story…). Her little brother William is a swimming sensation.

Lilly and I met at Interlochen Arts Camp in 1996, we weren’t always close but we were around one another a lot (in fact I think we took a Modern Dance class together somewhere in the mid-nineties). We became close Junior year of High School once we’d both made the leap from spending our summers in the North woods of Interlochen to attending the year-long Interlochen Arts Academy full time, Lilly majoring in oboe performance and I, in Theatre. By the end of Junior year we had resolved to fill a four person suite in Thor Johnson House, the senior girls dormitory, with two of my fellow theatre majors (Chrissy and Katie).

Thor Johnson House (also known as “TJ”) was shaped like an “L” and divided into six areas— four dorm hallways named according to their location— Lower Short, Lower Long, Upper Short and Upper Long. There was enough friendly rivalry and Hall Pride for a Big Ten Conference (and by 'friendly rivalry,' I mean, 'a total lack of tension,' and by 'Hall Pride,' I mean ‘none’). Still, we presided over the mustering of a you’re-in-boarding-school-now-ladies kind of enthusiasm that some eating dancers and/or people who weren’t in a practice room for seven hours a day, appeared to enjoy.

There was a main lobby with a front desk, a toaster (with a magically endless supply of toast with all the fixings), student cubby-hole mailboxes, and fluffy sofas some people sat and spoke on well into the night. There was also a downstairs greenroom where we would have our house meetings, complete with an “adult approved” and “highly voted upon” television for movie nights and the watching of “Friends,” and off this downstairs area were two long corridors of practice rooms and the offices of the woodwind and accompaniment departments.

Lilly and I were both the über official “HAs” (as in, Hall Assistants) for Upper Long. At this, we inarguably left a little something to be desired. I'm not saying we were abysmal or anything like that. I am merely saying that one could take a convicted arsonist, and give them a pack of complimentary matches, escort him to the log cabin of his childhood nemesis where you are to be spending the night, instruct him to “have a good time,” and your predictably charred evening would be preferable to having Lilly and I be responsible for you in High School.
That's all.

We were likely candidates I suppose, returning “lifers” who “bled blue”— terms used for students that had been at Interlochen as long as anyone could remember, and thus bled the uniform colors— light blue on top (with a visible collar), navy on the bottom (the intricacies of which became more and more creative as the school year progressed). As HAs Lilly and I were supposed to make certain everyone was comfortable, felt at home, felt like they had a place to talk if they needed to. That was the part we were good at. The social, caring big sister stuff. The helping to plan the hall party stuff, the making sure the Chinese piano major who doesn’t speak English gets everything she needs in order to find her way to class (in classrooms located in the forest) on Monday stuff, the “I-just-moved-from-South-Africa-and-my-childhood-boyfriend-and-I-are-apart-for-the-first-time-ever” stuff.
That stuff.

But we were also there to attend HA meetings about house life, we had to make certain everyone in our hall attended the big school “community meetings” held every Thursday before lunch. We had to clean things and organize community service. We had to make sure everyone was “there” in a fire drill. We had to attend the fire drill. We had to have not pulled the fire alarm ourselves. We had to be good examples. We had to be quiet. We had to obey the freaking rules—all of them. And that part, we were crap at. Lilly and I, after all, shared with Chrissy and Katie, both of whom were really, really fun, and the four of us were cool, and boisterous and had an illegal television (with a VHS player!) hidden in a giant Tupperware that we watched movies on after we were all supposed to be in bed.

One time [1], in a rousing flurry of Senior-itus, Chrissy and our next-door-neighbor Essie decided to
    1. paint their naked torsos with tempera paint
    2. Walk around the entire dorm (during school hours—so even teachers and boys might see them) and
    3. Video tape it.

And who video taped it? Lilly and I.
And who tagged along? All of Upper Long.
And how does this video tape end? With our (incredibly cool, but also incredible adult) Dorm Leader Angela Duncan, staring deadpan into the camera and simply saying

    “Um: NO.” Then she looks at Chrissy and Essie and our entire entourage and repeats, “NO—no no no.”

And it cuts out. Oops.

Five minutes later we are all in our room, the sun is setting on Green Lake outside our window. Chrissy and Essie have on both t-shirts and looks of mild shame. Katie is crumpled into our womb chair in the corner and Lilly and I are standing, military-style in front of Angela as she explains that she knows we have 6 weeks of Senior Year left but we all really need to get a freaking grip on ourselves.

    “I love all of you so much but seriously: COME. ON.”

We all nod. It is ridiculous.

    “Additionally: Alexandra Michelle and Lillian Townsend you are HALL ASSISTANTS!! You are supposed to be leaders, set examples, you are supposed to be the first line of defense when all the parents paying thousands of dollars and visiting from Asia for the four concerts this week alone want to know where on earth they have sent their children.”

She was right. Double oops. Actually, quintuple oops— for good measure.

    “I can’t believe I am about to say this, I literally cannot believe I am about to say the following sentence but; PLEASE, dear women of Upper Long, please do not cover your naked bodies in paint, roam the public hallways during working (OR non-working hours for that matter), and above all, please, please do not video tape it.”

We nodded again, with even more shame.

    “Dunc?” Chrissy said, lifting her head. “Please, there is just something I want to get off my chest.”
    “Please: say it is not your shirt.”
    “Yes!—I mean no! I just—” she grappled, “we’re sorry.”

We were. [2]

    “Accepted. We all got it?” she said, her hands in the prayer-position, “I’m gonna go now.”

Remember the last five minutes of every sports film in the history of cinema where you are inexplicably filled with the exultant joy of a game well played and a life well lived in a those-sure-were-the-best-of-times sort of a way? —We felt the opposite of that.

But man, did we have a great year. Some people might be intimidated to share their dorm life with three boisterous theatre majors, but not Lilly. Lilly was honorary, she was drama and flair, she was theatrical and powerful and loved it. Sure, sometimes she didn’t want to talk about Tennessee Williams anymore. And the sounds of Chrissy and I warming up in our communal shower must have been unpleasant at times, and I’m certain there were times where if she heard us talk about Theatre Department politics one. more. time. she was probably gonna kill us. Oh alright, and sometimes she had to explain the basics to us. Like the time Katie stared at “The Beeping Box” in total, wonder:
    “Listen guys” she said, shoving her face ever closer, “…it's like Morse Code…"
Lilly just stared, eyebrow cocked, voice ever-patient.
    "Actually, it's called a metronome…"
But if she ever truly contemplated roomaticide, she never showed it. "Do your theatre stuff" she would say, and Lilly just kept on making her reeds and doing her homework and more often that not, joining right in—picking out our outfits before auditions, expressing her monologue preferences, and, most memorable of all (with her signature scrupulous exactness), helping me learn every single line and lyric as I prepared to play Amalia Balash in She Loves Me. Lilly got so involved in the process she would often ask to “work” long after I was memorized, she would talk through the notes I got from the director.
    “I think you need to be a little ‘sobbier.’”
    “Lilly, if I got any ‘sobbier’ I'd be Meg Ryan."
    “Well then sob away—you’d have a cute haircut. And quite a career.”
Oh how she belted “Where’s My Shoe?” with all her heart! How she melted just like “Vanilla Ice Cream,” and how she detested the title song (which she referred to scathingly as the “Well, well, well” song— Adorable).

How we loved her. And how could we not? Her bewitchingly piping voice, her short hair she sometimes wore in spriggy little pigtails that looked something like a cross between broccoli and the thing on top of Bam-Bam’s head, her Southern accent that only came out when she was exhausted, how much she hated making reeds but dutifully made them anyway. She was a foreign creature to us theatre people and we were happy to be amused by her music-major culture.

In the first week of school all of the auditions for the coming year take place— theatre majors audition for the first two shows of the season (in our case, Lysistrata and She Loves Me [3]), voice majors get placed in their studios, dance majors are placed in their level classes and cast in the coming Winter ballet (Coppélia our senior year. Snore), and most stressful of all on our predominantly orchestrally-minded campus, all of the instrumental majors audition for the entire week for their “chair” in the orchestra.

I suppose this is the point where I tell you a little secret: Lilly is so insanely talented a musician, and so gifted at the oboe some might call it unjust. To listen to Lilly play is like listening to a person sing— actually sing through their instrument, with all of the individuality and soulfulness of a raw, vital, pulsing human voice which manages to capture the beauty of existence just as film captures an image. Or honey captures light. One can hear her own expressive soul come through the instrument and, though I know I am biased, I have never heard her bettered. Listening to Lilly play is like watching Ann Reinking dance next to other dancers: flat out unfair to others.

So it was no surprise to the rest of us the day the chairs were posted. Lilly lay in, buried in her duvet distraught that she had “blown it,” thus ruining her senior year, her chances at getting into college and possibly her entire life. The rest of us woke up early and looked at the posting for her—certain.

And as we screamed and celebrated in the main lobby, jumping up and down in characteristically un-music-major-like fashion, we flew upstairs, burst in and jumped on Lilly screaming like the lunatics we were

    “First chair, Lilly! First freakin' chair!”

Lilly sat up and beamed. She laughed her Southern sun-shiney laugh and eventually, after Chrissy decided party music (in the form of Simon and Garfunkle’s "Cecelia") was “called for,” joined in our carousing dance of celebration.

land of the stately pines [de-dah-de-dah]

Lilly might have slept through her concerto competition final were it not for Katie and I keeping track of the time, throwing her in the shower and running her to the recital hall with minutes to spare.

And (prepare your thesaurus) just imagine what our respective language lexicons would be like were it not for the nocturnally concocted memory tricks we cogitated for every word of Mr. Hintze’s notoriously (some might say opprobriously) formidable vocabulary assessments?

And maybe we all went to MORP [4] on a great big yellow school bus.
Chrissy and I chose vintage picks.
Lilly in a Catherine Silber original.
Katie made her own dress—out of duct tape.

Yes, we had a lot of adventures.
And it was, without question, a collection of favorite memories I shall hoard forever, like jewelry, or marbles, or the very last Double Stuff Oreo.

But all this being said, Lilly was something else.
Despite not being a theatre major, Lilly “played a different role:” She was my very closest friend.
She was the only one I really spoke to about my Dad’s increasingly concerning illness when the going got tough.
And it did. Get tough.

Dad started out the year with regular ol’ chemo (if there is such a thing). However, a bald head was the only giveaway, Dad was an ox: six foot three inches of pure, Herculean, I-have-cancer-but-remain-symptom-free-for-a-decade type of strength. No one saw the end coming. No one.

That somehow made it all the more ruthless.

Previously-mentioned virtuosic musical gift aside [5], Lilly is rife with what I like to call “goods.” And I will now list them (because I love both Lilly and lists). It doesn’t take a genius to notice that Lillian Copeland has the biggest, most gorgeous hazel eyes you’ve ever seen. But let me tell you something else: this girl is compassionate, capable, feisty. She looks right at you and waves sneakily with her oboe during the orchestral bow when you are standing and screaming for her solo (…from the front row of the stalls…with signs…) She is delightfully kooky; for example, she doesn’t refer to her oboe as “the oboe” but rather as, “Oboe,” the proper noun, as if “Oboe” is “his/her” name [6] — both delightful and kooky, you see! She is the just right amount of perfectionist and sees the great virtue in “being cute.” Yes, OKAY, fine: she has killer legs with perfect ankles that look amazing in heels.

But reader? Lilly is the kind of solid you only think is possible in prairie people. With a sense of empathy so intuitive it makes you ache.

She would drive to-and-from Ohio more times than anyone could count. [7]
She would entertain the less-desirable members of my extended family. [8]
She would visit me in every exotic city I would ever come to live in. [9]
She would hold me while I couldn’t cry.

This is one phenomenal friend.

*

Of the central circle, Lilly was the last to arrive.

She arranged a leave of absence and drove up from Oberlin the following morning, arriving around dinner time. It would be the first of many identical journeys up the I-75. (Lil was the only one of us who would return to college at all— Dean and I would come to drop out of our programs, and J hadn’t even gone in the first place. 1367 Fairway would become the place where all of us "reassessed" the next move and joked about being college drop-outs. Because we sort of were. [10])

Lilly pulled her huge silver-blue van contraption on to Fairway, parked in the street in front of The Stein’s house next door, and rang the bell at 1367.
    “Hi” she said “I brought Oboe.” Obviously Lilly was going to play at the funeral. Obviously.
    “Come in” I said. And she did.

We arranged the sleeping situation: Dean and J opted to sleep downstairs in the lower guest room (which had previously doubled as my mom’s design studio)— it had its own bathroom (which seemed to be a masculine virtue), a dark window facing the Rouge River, and a trundle bed below the day bed we bought when we moved to Michigan because I had seen one once on “The Price is Right” and thought the overly enthusiastic models made it appear outstanding. Lilly and I shared my room— also on twin trundles amidst what suddenly felt to be the fragmented souvenirs of a now forever-lost childhood, and Mom, felt understandably un-enthused about sleeping in The Bed of Death and thus took the spare bed in my Dad’s former office (an office he hadn’t used in months as the disease took full control of him), which Mom would remain in for weeks, until we all sojourned out to Art Van to get her a new bed.

Lil and I settled into my room, she put her bags down, pushed the hair off of her weary face and sat next to me on the bed.
    “Al?” she said.
    “Yeah Lil?”
There was a pause so gorged with meaning the air almost went opaque. Her voice was quiet. Sure.
    “I’ve got this. We’ve got this.”
    “I know…” I replied.
    “You’ve got this.”
    “Thank you, Lilly.”

She hugged me. That said it all.
We immediately went downstairs and got to work.

There was an entire extended family of unhelpful people to play offense with. There were 7000 people to pick up from Wayne County Airport, The Greyhound station (which we later discovered to in fact, be three Greyhound stations, all sixteen miles apart). There were people to call, housing to arrange, people to feed. And of yes: a funeral to plan.
And three eighteen-year-olds would do it all.
All of it.
Because some people can plan funerals when they are eighteen.

[1] at band—school? Literally…
[2] Stir-crazy iiiiiidioooooots.
[3] Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick’s glorious musical take on The Shop Around the Corner
[4] the Interlochen version of Prom—MORP is “Prom” backwards
[5] …like it can be placed to the side. But you if you will, I would like it, for now, to be placed to the side
[6] I am not certain if Oboe has a gender.
[7] Now that’s love. Plus a lot of unnecessary time on The Turnpike…
[8] Often.
[9] Including Alpena. That’s real love. More on that later.
[10] Okay, we actually were

Things I love about... Part 2: New Gal-Pals

2011-11-15T20:32:00.001-05:00

New Friends!

elizabeth
- she is the 'el stans' to my 'al silbs' and that is pretty damn adorable if you ask me (and you are)
- we are like a Midwestern blonde/brunette team of pure *awesome*
- we do fun things together: like go to the farmers market, have "kamikaze-scary-early-morning-coffee," and late night impromptu wine. Fabulous.
- there is nothing we can't talk about
- Taxi Time! ["Luuuuuucy 'splain" I hear you say...] We bonded taking taxis home to Astoria together during late-night (5pm-2am!!) crazy tech for Hello Again. Hellooooo! And thus, "Taxi Time" was born.
- she has the kind of adorable speaking voice you can do really great impressions of [see 'nikka,' below]
- so deep. so smart. always searching and growing.
- she cries when you tell her good stories.

morgan
- she also lives in astoria (how do you like them apples?!)
- she is a do-er
- she makes me feel like I am some sort of Life Rockstar... which is pretty awesome, especially when we all have our doubts--don't you love pals like that? The ones that don't even have to try to make you feel awesome that is just how they see you?
- we literally met on a friend date that began on the internet. like as in "hi we should be pals" on the internet. and then met in a Greek cafe for brunch because brunch is the very best. Duh. In the friend dating circuit? We are now "going steady." Score.
- she doesn't wear makeup unless she is paid and still out of control beautiful.
- she really believes in true love.

nikka
- the first time we talked we "went there" and have never gone back
- she pulls out witty one liners like no other:
   - "but I want to be in the show"
     - "things i was not kidding about"
     - "it is not fair to others..."
     - and a strategic use of "too soon?" is included here... out of homage to her genius. and timing.
- i don't even think i need to mention the sense of style thing. or the high fashion kind of beauty thing. or the dancing like a goddess thing. So i won't.
- she does one a-ma-zing impression of el stans
- sometimes she gets so upset about the world and how much she cares about and loves it that she weeps. and she makes you care more.
- she is a poster child for only children gone sooooo right.

In My Life: Jeremy

2011-11-13T12:37:00.000-05:00

Jeremy Cohen

Washington, DC

2010

What About Bob and The Dying (a memoir)

2011-11-04T17:02:00.005-04:00

I am sleeping downstairs tonight. I am in a pair of light and dark blue checkered pajamas with a moth-eaten teal wool sweater I acquired from the share box at Interlochen last spring. JNF is asleep next to me, the very fact of which is off because if my Dad were not upstairs dying he would not be happy that his teenage daughter was lying in bed next to her teenage boyfriend. But there is nothing funny going on. JNF is asleep and I am wide awake and thinking about what must be going on upstairs. The Dying.

What About Bob? is my undisputed favorite film of all time. In a top ten list of favorite films, Bob would take up the top three slots. I could watch it on repeat, I could probably quote the entire thing from beginning to end (with intonations and pauses, inflections, music cues and everything) if you challenged me to. In fact I dare you: challenge me to. Go on. [1]

First things first:

[**Old World Hollywood cinematic entrance music!!**]

What About Bob? is a 1991 film directed by Frank Oz about a doctor-patient relationship pushed way beyond the office.

Bob Wiley (played brilliantly by Bill Murray), a neurotic New York psychiatric patient struggling with a whirlwind of paralyzing phobias who takes to Dr. Leo Marvin's (the equally astonishing Richard Dreyfuss) latest bestselling book "Baby Steps" like no therapy before it; and in one session alone bonds with, depends upon, and in the most charming was conceivable, subsequently follows his successful and (beyond) egotistical, callous, self-absorbed, S.O.B. psychiatrist Dr. Leo Marvin north to New Hampshire on a month's vacation.

But Dr. Marvin, is not only seeking a few weeks of rest and relaxation, he is preparing for a highly anticipated interview on Good Morning America and viewing Bob's stalking as highly inappropriate, he demands Bob return to New York. (In fact, Dr. Marvin’s unprecedented success with a patient is all the more ironic, because it would massage his massive ego if it weren't such an intolerable disruption to his vacation.) But Bob can't take a hint, and decides to indulge in his very own "vacation from his problems” in the area! Bob is here to stay!

Meanwhile, Marvin's wife Fay (Julie Hagerty), death-obsessed son Sigmund (Charlie Korsmo), and teenage-daughter Anna (Kathryn Erbe) all take to Bob's openness, loopy charm, and sense of “fun,” none of which Dr. Marvin himself possesses and he views as an infuriating threat. Marvin's temperature rises as Bob insinuates his way into the hearts of the Marvin family— flattering Fay, counseling the previously ignored Anna and most profoundly, helping Sigmund overcome his greatest fears.

Next. Let’s get a few things clear:

    - I did not, I repeat did NOT play it so many times on VHS that it began to skip.
    - I have never claimed that “Bob” [2] is the “I Ching.” Not ever.
    - I have not quoted “Bob” to total strangers on public transportation.
    - I do not love it so much that sometimes I put it on just as “wallpaper” while I clean the house or do my taxes.
    - And above all, I did not get so frustrated by my inability to have access to Bob’s amusement and wisdom at all times that I resorted to holding a professional (purpose bought) microphone up to the television speaker in order to record the entire film on a 120 minute cassette-tape so that I might listen to it on my Walkman…or in the car… or at summer camp…

Saying any of that were true might mean that I was an obsessive crazy fool. So… yeah…Okay [*she waves her hands in the air, rolls her eyes, exhales and makes the ‘come clean’ face*] The truth is this: I am an obsessive crazy fool! A fool for What About Bob? and I don’t even really know why!

When listing ones favorite films I have always considered it important to designate and divide into separate categories: The Favorite Films That Are Legitimate Works of Art and Really Challenge You List— Citizen Kane and Schindler’s List type movies that are in-arguably brilliant but require focus and discipline and serious-mindedness even if the film is amusing. And The Special Favorite Films You Could Watch Again and Again Because They Make You Feel Amazing List—which includes things resembling The Great Muppet Caper and Turner and Hooch. Sometimes there is a cross-over (Amalie?), but pah! Why get into nitty-grittys? The point is I think everybody has a film or two like this: the kind of “favorite movie” where, the second it is over, you loved it so much you could press-rewind-and-watch-the-whole-damn-thing-again kind of love.

I know people who irrationally love Big.
I know other families spend entire mealtimes quoting and guffawing over National Lampoon’s European Adventure.
Or a handful of people who can’t get enough of The Jerk.

Well, for our family, it was What About Bob? and it all started with my dad. I remember the first time we ever watched it in the last home we ever had in Los Angeles. He practically sprinted out to purchase that VHS; and we watched it twice— back to back.

Dad loved this movie for reasons I may never fully know, and desperately wish I did. Perhaps it had something to do with the odd take on psychotherapy. Perhaps it had to do with Bob’s innocence or Bill Murray’s irreverent but child-like sense of humor (that actually reminded me so much of my his). Perhaps it was because the film, at it’s core, has a really touching central message without taking itself too seriously. Perhaps it was just amusing, I truly don’t know, but what I am realizing as I type this is that the film became important to me because it was important to him. We would watch it together, laugh, quote, laugh some more, and as I grew it took on it’s very own significance.

When I woke up in the morning he would often greet me with:
    “Good morning Gil… I said good morning Gil.”

Or the casual greeting of:
    “Ahoy!”

Or if someone asked how he felt about something he might respond with:
    “There are two types of people in this world: those who like Neil Diamond and those who don’t.”

Or if someone were mean to me at school he would quote Bob’s wisdom:
    “You know, I treat people, as if they were telephones, If I meet somebody I think doesn't like me I say to myself, I say; ‘Bob, this one is temporarily out of order.’ You know, don't break the connection, just hang up and try again!”

Therein lies a great deal of the draw: Bob Wiley, it would seem, is oddly enlightened, and What About Bob? oddly profound. With every viewing I discovered another level of profundity in a manner in which only Bill Murray seems to be able to deliver on the knife’s edge of comic insanity (Groundhog Day and The Life Aquatic being perfect examples). And every time I watched Bob and found a new nugget of hilarious, but deeply perceptive human observation; I not only felt smarter, or wiser, but I felt closer to my Dad.

So, incongruous though it may seen, it is fitting that it all began there...

About two-thirds of the way into the film, we find Bob sleeping over at The Marvins’ Lake Winnapesawke home due to a torrential rainstorm. He shares a room with Siggy, Dr. Marvin’s 11-year-old son that Bob has, earlier in the day, helped to overcome his morbid fear of diving. They lie there in their PJs, in angled twin beds, staring at the ceiling into the darkness. Siggy looks terrified as his voice utters quietly,

Siggy: Bob?
Bob: Yeah?
Siggy: Are you afraid of death?

Bob is caught off guard. He is suddenly frightened too— his eyes grown wide and searching, like a child trying to keep their cool.

Bob: Yeah.

Bob answers, as in a “Yeah, so?!” kind of way particular to children one-upping each other. It's cute.

Siggy: Me too. And there’s no way out of it. You’re going to die. I’m going to die. It’s going to happen.

Siggy blinks, clearly the fear is very, very real.

Siggy [cont]: …And who cares if it’s tomorrow or eighty years? ...much sooner in your case...Do you know how fast time goes? I was six, like, yesterday.
Bob: Me too.
Siggy: I’m going to die. You are going to die... what else is there to be afraid of...?

I think.
I think about The Dying.

And in this moment, as I lay downstairs in ratty checkered 'share box' pajamas beside the love of my youth, that very scene from that very stupid, over-quoted, over-played, trivial and pathetically beloved movie, is all I can think of.
My Dad is going to die.
There is no way out of it.
And who cares if it really is tomorrow or in eighty years?
It is going to happen.
And if he dies I am very certain I might die too.
Siggy is right:
what else is there to be afraid of?

[1] I will do it…
[2] which is the term I give the entire film, not merely the character of Bob Wiley himself

A Letter

2011-11-02T20:55:00.000-04:00

Dear John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,

We have the same name.
Small World.

Sincerely Yours,

John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt

I've Been [Special Edition]: A Word Puzzle

2011-10-22T18:54:00.003-04:00

Directions: Find all of the words from the list below- the remaining spaces will reveal the hidden message!

B R P A T R T O F B E I N G H
S A E A R E E S T I N G A C T
R I D T T R R E S S I S A A E
C E N C N D R A I L L I U J B
T U B G R E A L B L Y G D S A
E T T O I I C I N A G A I D Z
Y D I Y T N M Y R E C S T N I
T N C E U C G E D Y L H I E L
G H N H G N O E D E X Z O I E
P K P O I X T B R R N E N R A
D S W T G R E Q A V A N S F R
W F I V O A C K T T R M E O R
R R A I F J H N C E Z D A K E
W A T P I O S A R I E L L E I
A S T O R I A U M F U Q M I S

ARIELLE
ASTORIA
AUDITIONS
BADCRIMEDRAMA
CABARET
DETROIT
DIY
ELIZABETH
FRIENDS
JUILLIARD
KENNEDY CENTER
MAHAGONNY
OCTOBER
SIERRA
SINGING
WRITING

__ __ __ __   __ __   __ __ __ __ __   __   __ __ __ __ __ __ __

__ __ __ __ __ __ __   

__ __   __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __   __ __ __ __ __ __ __

__   __ __ __ __ .

Autumn Reads: A List

2011-10-17T19:51:00.007-04:00

Inspired by the NPR autumn reads School Daze list of autumnal books, I present to you my very own list of books for the harvest season. This season of cozy. The season of pumpkins and gourd-related soup, root vegetables, the best-holiday-of-them-all (Halloween), of cardamon and cardigans...of my kick ass red coat...

Read on.

1. The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis

I should start by saying this: "The Magician's Nephew is the first in the 7-volume collection of C.S Lewis' beloved Chronicles of Narnia." But I am not going to say that. [*Insert: inflammatory hand gestures and angry face*] Oh and WHY do you ask?! Because I am stubborn and opinionated and get allll kinds of crazy when it comes to the "'order' of The Chronicles of Narnia debate."

Hi my name is Al and I am that crazy woman in Barnes and Nobel who goes to the children's section and rearranges all of the Chronicles so that they are in the "correct" and ORIGINAL order.

Hi Al...

Yes. I am absolutely that woman.

Have you never heard of this debate? Googlerightnow. Go on! It is huge. It is heated. It is beyond the realms of what anyone would consider 'okay.' I can talk to people about social politics more level-headedly than I can about The Stupid Stupid Waste of Time Narnia Order Debate. And, like most bigots, I prefer to surround myself with people that agree with me thankyouverymuch.

::sigh::

Anyway, although what is called the "chronological" (aka IN-CORR-ECT post 1994) arrangement has become the "official" order for numbering the Chronicles, it may (read, IS) not be the best order for reading them!

The long and short of it is this: Lewis wrote most of the books in order, telling a linear story about the events in Narnia in
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Prince Caspian
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and
The Silver Chair.
However, the fifth book published, The Horse and His Boy, actually takes place during The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,
and the sixth book, The Magician’s Nephew, is a prequel.
The seventh book, The Last Battle, tells about the end of Narnia and should be read last.

My argument is this:
Often, a story is not entirely about it's chronological holdings-- what makes a story juicy, what indeed makes good storytelling great, it is the way in which the story is told. The order in which we receive our information. Red herrings. Flashbacks. Plot twists. Big reveals. Cliffhangers--These are all story telling devices that make the experience of reading (or watching or listening) so much more fruitful and enticing.

When the Pevensie children discover Narnia in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, they are discovering it alongside us, the readers. They know nothing of this magical place and have as many questions as we do. As we continue to read the books we learn more and more, become more intrinsically involved in the inner workings of the land, we fight for it, believe in it as a place, and, just as we are about to defend it for what feels to be the final and most important time, we as readers go back in time to learn all about how Narnia began, before we re-engage with how it is all about to end. That is the main bulk of my argument. It is better storytelling that gives the reader herself a more profound experience and relationship with the story arc and most crucially, the place of Narnia itself. My argument is simple: better storytelling is not always chronological storytelling. The original order is a far preferable literary and emotional reading experience.

There is a contemporary school of thought that favors The Magician's Nephew (technically a prequel if you will --and I will NOT) should not indeed be read as a flashback/prequel, but should launch the reading experience altogether, and is thus now commonly placed before The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.

Wrong. Answer.

I believe, (as do a several of scholars who have written about the Chronicles), that thematic effects in the stories depend on beginning the Narnia experience with The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, and are lost when The Magician's Nephew is read first.

Additionally, the classical pattern of The Magician's Nephew also fits better as sixth than as first in the series. The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle are sister volumes practically begging to be read back to back, rather than to bookend the series. They intertwine the accounts of the ends of two worlds: of the old world of Charn (ruled by the evil Queen Jadis who would eventually leave Charn and come to rule Narnia as The White Witch for 100 years) and of Narnia itself. They also chronicle two beginnings: of Narnia and the New Narnia. The two books use a depiction of seasonal cycle imagery meant to mirror the full cycle of life, and of course the history of Narnia. The symbolism reinforces plot detail in unifying the beginning of Narnia with the end. This archetypal pattern is most effective if The Magician's Nephew and The Last Battle are read together: the immediate juxtaposition of the two books brings out well the completeness and unity of Narnian history, and it is this completeness that plagues me so.

Listen, I am not an overtly religious, nor am I an irreligious person, but I know Symbology when I see it, and I know how to write and tell a good story, and the central point Lewis is trying to convey is that our experience with Narnia as readers, as well as the Narnian world itself, has a beginning and an ending. It is one of the essential themes of the stories, and it is easily missed if five other books separate The Magician's Nephew from The Last Battle in the reader's experience. Moreover, The Magician's Nephew compliments The Last Battle-- and the books, when read together move as the season's do-- from lighter tone, to darker then light again.

Which is why (coming back around to the point!) The Magician's Nephew is on the autumn list-- The Magician's Nephew took Lewis over 6 years to write, the longest of any Narnia book, and references several autobiographical experiences throughout. It is written in a lighter tone than other Narnia books, (in particular The Last Battle which is incredibly dark and adult in tone), and frequently reflects the sense of "looking back"-- a very nostalgic quality many associate with autumn. It looks upon childhood with great affection (just as Lewis as a middle-age man recalled his childhood during the early part of the 20th century), the "old days," and in particular, school life. It is an autumnal book. It prepares you for (okaaaaay either) wintery book that follows it, and is so chock full of colorful characters, fantastic twists, connections and parallels, as well as intricately drawn characters that somehow speak in the most authentic voices of all the books.

Wherever you begin your journey with Narnia, it is crucial that you begin, and at this time of year The Magician's Nephew does indeed beg to be read, or perhaps re-read... though you can't say I didn't try to make my case... just sayin' they are so readable and addictive you could toooootally make it through the first five before the end of November I am just. saying...

2. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

I have a family friend who recently told me he re-reads To Kill a Mockingbird every couple of years.

I happen to find the symbolism in Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize winning novel to be very simple-- beautifully so, a quality best experienced in autumn before winter makes us long for decadence. While the symbolism might be simple, the themes are immense-- growing up, small town life, the co-existence of good and evil, morality, and of course, prejudice. The book is as true and vivid today as ever.

A perfect mix of actual "I read this in school" memories and a classic tale set in autumn, you can almost smell the burning leaves as Scout walks down the streets. The gunpowder, the closing in of the evenings...

3. Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino

Cosmicomics is a book of short stories first published in Italian in 1965 and in English in 1968. Each story takes a scientific "fact" (though sometimes a falsehood by today's understanding), and builds an imaginative story around it. An always extant being called Qfwfq narrates all of the stories save two, each of which is a memory of an event in the history of the universe. Qfwfq also narrates some stories in Calvino's t zero. All of the stories feature non-human characters with very human qualities.

My favorite story is the first, "The Distance of the Moon" of which I was inspired to write "Elegy" for the Edwin Morgan Poetry Prize in 2003, and is one of the most exquisitely heart-wrenching stories of unrequited love I have ever come across.

Writer Salman Rushdie writes:

According to Calvino's story "The Distance of the Moon," the moon was once so close to the earth that lovers could jump across to it and — literally moonstruck — tryst and dally on the shining satellite, which was, by the way, dripping with moon milk, a kind of cream cheese. Then the moon started moving away, and lovers had to choose whether to return to Earth or remain trapped in the land of love.

Read the rest of Salman Rushdie's beautiful love letter to Cosmicomics on NPR's You Must Read This blog here.

4. Our Town by Thornton Wilder

I cannot even think about Our Town without bursting into tears. It is my favorite thing on earth. It is so dear to me in fact, that I do not think I can go on about it.
Just read it.
It is perfect.
There is a moon. A quiet cemetery. A love story. A small New England town. An omniscient narrator. And the most important message in the world.

5. The Ballad of The Sad Café by Carson McCullers

The Ballad of the Sad Café opens on the set of a small, isolated Southern town. The story introduces Miss Amelia, a strong character of both body and mind, who is approached by a hunchbacked man with only a suitcase in hand who claims to be of kin. . .

...um.... how can you not want to keep reading that?!

Generally considered one of McCullers's best works of fiction (and her most successful exploration of her signature themes: loneliness and the effects of unrequited love). Citing her remark that "everything significant that has happened in my fiction has also happened to me" I add this little Post Script: McCullers was 24. I repeat: twenty-four-years-old when she began writing the novella during the winter of 1941. I know I am 28 and have had a colo(u)rful life and all but come on! Her writing style is one I find to be astonishingly original, complex and above all, honest.

6. The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Look.
It's brilliant and plays *are,* without question, meant to be seen (else 'what on earth are you doing with your life' her inner voice inquired), but this is a gem, and Arthur Miller's stage directions are as lively and poetic as Ionesco's (without a doubt the very best stage direction writer of them all), and as intelligently observed as any journalist.

Based on historical people and real events, Miller's play about the Salem witch trials uses the destructive power of socially sanctioned violence unleashed by the rumors of witchcraft as a powerful parable about American McCarthyism. This is a truly magnificent play about what happens when hysteria takes over a society. When the wrong people gain access to the levers of power (sound familiar?)

It is Halloween in bonnets.
It is part Mean Girls, part Fatal Attraction, part Good Night and Good Luck.
It is horror story meets psychological literature meets history meets "based on a true story."

....um...so why aren't you buying it right now?

7. Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman

My literary agent (and pal!) Louise first introduced me to the great Anne Fadiman, essayist upon such great subjects as ice cream, early rising, married libraries, re-readings, and many others. This slim (and pleasingly red) volume is not only perfect for all things commuting, but a delightful collection of essays regarding the nature of, character of, reading of, acquisition of, and visceral love of books. Start with Anne Fadiman, and her incredibly smart but still utterly readable prose will win you over, make you laugh and swoon all in one, (again) pleasingly slim, red companion.

[*NOTE: In attempting to find an image for this book I did a search only to discover, TO MY HORROR that the American edition of Ex Libris is.... not red. It is a beautiful pastel green. Um, it is a very nice green, but if you want the red version you must purchase it from England. I suggest you do so...*]

8. The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R Tolkein

In my opinion, there is no better time to begin reading The Lord of The Rings Trilogy. You can feel autumn closing in around The Shire as the tale begins for Frodo and his companions on arguably one of the greatest adventure stories ever written. What feels so right this time of year to begin is that if you continue (a what I call a "savory" pace) you will be going through the most action packed, as well as emotionally desperate sequences at the height of winter which matches perfectly with the tone of the piece, and feeling the resolve of the story just as spring is beginning to break. These books are not to be skimmed, so really enjoy them, and take three-quarters of the year to do it. You can always pace yourself with other works if you need to space it out.

But just as nothing can compare to "destination reading" (reading The Alexandria Quartet in Egypt, A Room With A View in Florence, The Fountainhead in New York City, or toting Tolstoy on your trip to Russia), nothing beats matching your reading to the change of the light outside your window, the feel of curling up with a good book that deserves a hot cider to accompany it, just as a beach read deserves its beach.

... Happy Reading.

In My Life: Elizabeth

2011-10-13T09:47:00.002-04:00

Elizabeth Stanley

Sheep Meadow, Central Park, New York

May 12, 2011

Ten Years.

2011-10-09T00:05:00.006-04:00

I don't know how to begin this post.
I wasn't even sure if I should write this post.

Sometimes in life we entertain, other times we share, inform, revel, reflect. And rarely, we risk revealing a crack in the door enclosing the "other things." The things that cannot always be seen, or held in your hand and observed in words. The unutterables. The deeply felt.
The loss of my father has been the defining mythology of my entire adult life.
I wanted to mark this moment.
Readers: today is the ten year anniversary of the death of my father, Michael Silber.
Mike to some.
Mikey to others.
Papa to me.

Sometimes my inner ocean still swells about it.

I think about those moments that I connect with him in the present as an adult.
I think about his charisma, his star power, his blinding intellect and vision.
I think about all of the things he loved about me and vice versa,
     all the things he wanted for me, fought for, in many ways literally gave his life for.

I think about him.

Grief is a place, a land we all shall visit, a familiar yet foreign land. You sit at the tables in the town square and without warning the skyline transforms before you, the seats below you shift, the beverage you are drinking morphs into another. One can never feel at ease there, only become more acclimatized to the nature of the ever-changing place, learn the rules, the language, the customs--to embrace the cold and strange, but be at peace with it. Because you must: in the Land of Grief it is not only the cushions that alter, you alter too. And often, you don't always notice when you do.

But sometimes there is nothing you can do about pure, unadulterated, weighted, roaring sorrow...

We may, we have the choice, and frankly we have every right to curl up and die.
I would not blame those that do.
All I know is something within me refused to.
Something within me would not allow it.
I chose to live.
To really live.

Were there days when all I desired was to merely wake up and breathe, to just allow my heart to beat, not truly caring whether it continued? Yes.
But I did not chose to live because there didn't seem to be another choice,
     not because it is what my Dad would have wanted,
        I lived because I wanted to.

Ultimately, I found a place deeper than that; an invisible but palpable place with ground as sturdy and immovable and as glittering as diamonds-- to lift up. To surface, and eat at the banquet of the living, even when that meant doing so bite by painstaking bite.

I look back at the child I was, the gifted, old soul, yes; but mostly the inexperienced child facing so much, so many grown up troubles on top of the already heavy decisions and changes associated with that time in everyone's life.
She was cut off at the knees (for no matter how much we think we know when we are 17-18, we are not done being raised. Are we ever?)
I look back at her as if she were someone else and I want to hug her and tell her it will be alright.
Tell her that she is stronger than she knows.
That even though she has no reason to believe that she will ever be happy again, that she will.
Tell her that because she will survive this, she never has to be afraid again.
I would not judge her now as I judged myself then.
I would not tell her (because she would scarcely have believed me) that she will soar to the top of every one of her dreams.

I learned in Scotland that sometimes we must "act as if."
I learned in London that life does get better. That it ebbs and flows.
I learned from the people that loved me before, and the people I met along the way, that love is infinite.
I learned from Fiddler on the Roof, that when you utter "Papa, God alone knows when we'll see each other again..." every day, that the only choice is to believe the response "Then we shall leave it in His hands..."
I learned from Carousel to understand the nature of what my mother lost-- what it really means to not merely lose someone, but to lose the only one.
I learned Fear.
I learned Shame. And Regret.
and Endurance.
I learned Ugliness.
and a deeply personal kind of Faith.
I learned that Love Keeps Going.
I learned Patience, Serenity and Courage.
and Gratitude...
...for it is only in the depths of Grief that we truly learn to value Life.

I have had the greatest adventures anyone could ever hope for. I pinch myself almost every day asking myself "is this real life?" does one person truly get to experience every kind of dream? The people I have met, the places I've been, the quantity and quality of every experience, every opportunity, every travel, conversation, job, every glorious triumph, every accomplishment and celebration and happiness...

Reader:

I would trade it all for only. one. thing.

...But that is not how it works.

We cannot make such trades, and so, we must accept with all our hearts what is, what we cannot change, and do as much as we can with the circumstances we've been handed. Do not wish or pray away the pain, ask for the strength to endure it so that we may use it for further understanding, to view each trial as an opportunity for blessing. Before we can rebuild our life, we must come to know the peace that accompanies acceptance, for out of peace arises the willingness and the wisdom to greet each day with the freedom of an open, loving, trusting, and resilient heart.

It has been said that wisdom is a map upon which to follow the journey of the spirit.
     Wisdom is precious.
          And wisdom is earned.

Thank you Papa.
Thank you Grief.
A decade on, I feel stronger, and more grateful than ever.

"She was no longer wrestling with the grief,
but could sit down with it as a lasting companion
and make it a sharer in her thoughts."
- George Eliot

In My Life: Michael

2011-10-06T07:38:00.000-04:00

Michael Arden

Interlochen, Michigan

2000

London Still at The Kennedy Center

2011-10-05T05:17:00.000-04:00

All! Today you can book your tickets for my solo cabaret show "London Still: A Classic Tale of 'There and Back Again'" -- The cabaret will in many ways be a 'musicalization' of this blog-- which is why it bears the same title.

There will be stories, familiar and new.
There will be songs (of course) familiar and new (to name a few: Weill, Kander, Herman, Kern, Blumenkrantz, Horne, Bock & Harnick and Rodgers & Hammerstein... of course...)

Musical direction and arrangements will be by the in-cre-dible Grammy Nominated Andy Einhorn (MD of the famed Sondheim on Sondheim at the Roundabout last season.

Book Now!

And see you there...

"Not your typical ingénue" (Los Angeles Times), Alexandra Silber's compelling stage presence and sweet soprano push her deeper into the roles she's brought to West End and Broadway audiences. Her credits include an arresting Julie Jordan in the West End production of Carousel, the fiery Hodel in Fiddler on the Roof, and the entangled Laura Fairlie in The Woman in White. Silber also played Sophie De Palma in the Kennedy Center production of Master Class opposite Tyne Daly as well as its subsequent Broadway production, and made her American stage debut in Reprise Theatre Company's Carousel. Now with her cabaret act London Still, she is set to entrance the Spotlight audience"

Elementary School Crushes

2011-10-03T01:26:00.004-04:00

Who were they? And where are they now?

Andrew Moylan
Andrew and I sat next to each other in both Mrs. Overmeyer's 6th grade World Cultures class, as well as one kick ass, legendary quad-table in last period Art. He got stung by a bee in the face once. And I think we hung out at the local town fair and went on the "Kamikaze" twice in a row, which I only did to try to be cool. And, crucially, this is the kicker: he had red hair...and you know how I feel about that...

Andrew studied Political science at University of Michigan and is now Vice President of Government Affairs at National Taxpayers Union. He is married and lives in Arlington, Virginia.
And, I am only deducing this from the internet, but I think he is.... in the Tea Party...which is deeply... a lot of adjectives I won't bother to write...
But on a lighter note is apparently an accomplished "Cross Fitter" which sounds pretty bad-ass.
...and happily, still a redhead (though wears his beard in what I would declare to be a rather controversial look commonly referred to as the "Chin Curtain" --this is a beard unaccompanied by a mustache that grows down from the sideburns and along the jawline, completely covering the chin. It's Abraham Lincoln style which is why it is sometimes referred to as the "Lincolnic"...which sounds.... not so great...)

Josh Grant
JoshGrant (he is one of those people whose full name you felt inclines to say inonego) and I attended theatre summer day camp together in 1994-- this is before Interlochen (that is seriously going back in time...). That summer, we did Peter Pan. I played Peter Pan and JoshGrant played Captain Hook.

Later on I would (prepare yourself, this entire sentence is ridiculous)
1. go to a Orthodox Hillel Middle School performance of
2. The Sound of Music to
3. support my friend Shira from Ballet who was
4. playing the role of Max Detweiler, only to discover that
5. Josh Grant was playing Captain Von Trapp (I suppose he enjoyed playing middle school versions of sea-faring men?) and
6. The entire production was to be performed in Hebrew on
7. Groundhog Day.

Josh is now an Ophthalmology Resident at University of South Florida.

Tavi Stutz

Tavi Stutz: AERIALIST.

Ohhhhhh Tavi Stutz. Tavi and I were in what I consider to be my first "proper" show, and you are all going to laugh because it was indeed a little ol' musical called Carousel. I know. I know. You may gasp if you wish. It was absolutely the formative experience that convinced me I wanted to pursue a life in the theatre professionally. I was twelve and played the part of Louise because I was primarily a dancer at the time, and Tavi played the Carnival Boy. Even though I was twelve it was all pretty swoon-worthy (both the theatrical experience and Tavi). It was flirty and there was a kiss and let's just say Tavi was the first person whose name ever made it onto my binder. It was pretty cute.

Tavi now? I am not joking, he is an aerialist in the circus and currently in Cirque Du Soleil. Whatever. Amazing. (Oddly I know quite a few people involved in Cirque-- who would've thunk?) Tavi had never really danced before Carousel and I always wonder if the Dream Ballet ever influenced him?

Erik Wagenheim

A couple of weeks ago I went to the opening of Follies on Broadway. I was pleased to casually drop the following piece of trivia:

"I really don't know this musical at all. I know the premiss and some of the songs, but mostly I'm a Follies virgin. Though, I would be totally lying if I said that I didn't close the 5th grade talent show with 'Broadway Baby.'"

Well, I did. I want to say I closed the 5th grade talent show with "Losing My Mind' but it would be a lie. A great, funny lie, but a lie nonetheless and anyhow I was adorable with my suitcase and full-on period concept costume. (In an related note: one of the weirdest elements of it looking back is that my accompanist was actor Jonathan Hammond, whom I just recently reconnected with in New York playing opposite in Hello Again..... I mean talk about "helloooooo AGAIN," right?!)

Anyway Eric played a Smashing Pumpkins song on the guitar in that talent show and it was pretty good. I have no idea where he is now but he was always a bit of a jerk to me and I recall when I worked in a diner in High School he came in, didn't remember me, was sort of rude and the Greek girls I worked with insisted they spike his food with mischief and I let them. I'm sure he's a perfectly nice adult.

...What about you?

Sometimes I spend a lot of time alone...

2011-10-02T01:08:00.001-04:00

The holiest of all holidays are those
Kept by ourselves in silence and apart;
The secret anniversaries of the heart. 

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

In My Life: Haley

2011-09-29T12:39:00.002-04:00

Haley DeKorne

Loch Lomond, Scotland

2004

Things I love about...Part 1

2011-09-27T12:23:00.034-04:00

Just a few things that I love about . . .

mom
- don’t get between my mom and a power tool
- if I didn't have Mom, I would need a personal assistant, tailor, personal shopper, therapist, home decorator, handy-man and General Practitioner.
- she is just, genuinely, fun, smart, deep and amazing, and if I met her in real life I would be desperate for her to be my best friend.
- one time, when I had a migraine, she ran me a bath and to distract me, read me the entire package of Epsom Salts with total sincerity and in quiet, soothing "migraine voice" to boot -- (e.g: "...so as you can see Al, not only is this bag suitable for migraines, constipation, and fertilizer, but if you have any questions about what I've just read to you, all you have to do is call 1-800-777-3415 in what looks like Indianapolis, and they can answer your questions between 8-8 Eastern Standard Time...").
- Catherine with a "C", like "The Great"? That is where it is at...

emma

emma
- how her shoes match always match her handbag (and not in the euphemistic way)
- she reads books. like me.
- is a "cat lady" too...
- has some absolutely world-class legs people. Let. Me. Tell. You.
- which is probably why she loves shoes as passionately as she does (her soon-to-be-husband even proposed to her with shoes... now that's a man who knows his lady!)
- she is scary smart.
- and understanding.
- and possesses the perfect balance of self-awareness, honesty, humility and pride in herself to be one of the most self-possessed and loving people I know.

tasha
- she possesses un.wav.er.ing love for her friends and family and has no problems showing it.
- our mutual love of the west wing
- that she says I am “with the words”
- she gets all my British postand isn't annoyed by that one bit.
- Is famous for exclaiming "OH AL!" when I do something characteristically ridiculous, or fabulous, or any combination thereof.
- Named her child DAISY. Because she "liked it!"
- is so brave
- and together
- and I am not exaggerating one bit when I tell you that Tasha Sheridan literally, in every sense of the word, saved my life. That's a friend.

astoria
- some of the greatest restaurants in the city (beer gardens galore, brick café, bareburger, ovelia, Queens Kickshaw, Greek food galore, and café after café...)
- you can walk everywhere, to anything
- incredible vintage clothing
- real people (no hipsters, no overly trendy new yorkers, just real-ass people and yes a couple of actors too but those are "my people" after all)
- kaufman astoria studios and cinema
- the museum of the moving image (there is currently a Jim Henson exhibit-- go!)
- The East River and all it brings: the astoria farmers market, outdoor river yoga, the gorgeous Socrates sculpture park, movie screenings, and the riverfront trolly...
- I mean, Why Leave Astoria? (.com...) Ever?

zoë
- that °°mlaut over the "e" is just... *so* awesome
- her gorgeous and adorable northern irish accent
- she has the most beautiful skin on planet EARTH (with NO pores— I have no idea how her skin breathes…)
- her nickname is Poe (pronounced "Po") and I don't even recall how that started
- there is nothing like watching a person grow into themselves, into their femininity, abilities, thoughts, and dreams. Zoë has the courage to do all that and then-some. I've loved cheering her on.
- I have hugged her in more cities across the world than any other friend.

Ask Al: Finding Your "Type"

2011-09-23T10:40:00.000-04:00

Hi Alexandra,

I just read your Contemporary Speeches blog - and it was very informative. I have also found finding contemporary speeches really difficult... classical seems easier.

I'm more concerned with "type." How do you really find out your type? And I mean a specific type (like the example you gave of Meg Ryan versus "just the ingenue").

It's something that I'm really trying to figure out, especially with graduating Stella Adler this year. I've been trying to figure it out myself, and I'm getting somewhat closer - but a concrete description is the key.

Thanks so much, I really appreciate your help!

L

* * *

Dear L,

Right. The truth is, there is no formula for this and no one can help you with it but yourself. And, it is always evolving. Growing. Your type is in constant flux because we are always, growing, changing, becoming older, wiser, more cynical, less cynical, fatter, smarter, etc. Frank Langella says "it is incredibly important to constantly re-envision yourself as an actor, to constantly keep up with your own changes. A 60 year old matinee idol is a not only a joke but is unbelievable and embarrassing. Losing your hair? Gaining weight? Getting older? Change yourself. Consciously. "He's right. Not only is it exciting to constantly re-invent yourself, but think of all of the things a young actor gets to look forward to: not just fantastic ingenues but the mature characters of Cleopatra, Blanche DuBois, Fagin, Mama Rose, and King Lear. Wonderful!

Think about it with yourself. Perhaps write it down. Do a few jottings in a journal, or whatever allows you to see your thoughts most effectively. I believe first and foremost it is important to ask yourself what YOU think you do well. Does classical material roll off your tongue? Do you find it easy to access a feeling of a certain period? Is there a side to you that is easily aristocratic? Is there a side to you that is easily bohemian? Nerdy? Stoic? Can you really get inside the body of a drug dealer or a prostitute-- (I have a friend who, incidentally, has never played anything in her professional life other than a prostitute)? Get in touch and get REAL with yourself. There is a business side to this industry and an artistic side, and both have their place, business is

Examples from my life:

I find it extraordinarily easy to play arty boho characters.
And highly intelligent characters.
And kooky weirdo characters.
And period pieces.
And sexy people.
And shy people.
And reeeeeaaaaallllly sincere people.
And psychologically damaged people.
And children.
And neurotic Americans.

I cannot, do not ask me, do not send me in for "contemporary girl about town" characters (without a LOT of work) because I will look like an IDIOT. I won't go. Don't ask me. It is someone else's job. Believe me. If I have enough time to work on something, of course I could manage it with time, but I'd be, as they say, "playing against my type." (Incidentally, something else I never thought I would do is "rough" or "blue-collar" or "tough" characters, I find that really challenging to access and it was interesting to do my most substantial television role on Law & Order: Criminal Intent in exactly such a type).

Which brings me to my next point. Your type has a lot to do with what comes very naturally to you. "stretching yourself" as an actor and achieving versatility is something you should do in your training and later on in your career when you feel you know your craft better (this is just my personal opinion). Stretching yourself is about the skinny girl playing Falstaff in the safe classrooms of Juilliard, about the 19 year old playing Dr. Dorn at Guildhall. Alternatively, it is about Cate Blanchett playing Bob Dylan because she is Cate Blanchett and she has (deservedly) achieved a status within the artistic and industrial world of acting, and the public want to see HER act in as many ways as they can. I'm generalizing, but you see where I am going with this. Even Simon Callow and Blythe Danner and Ian McKellan have their "types".

To use a few examples from my own experience, I will add this: when I was in college, I NEVER never ONCE played an ingenue. There was a girl in my year named Siobhan who was "small" and "sweet looking" and I looked like her MOTHER... and guess what? That is pretty much exactly what I played for the majority of my career in college. Mothers. And the maid. And Electra. And Helen of Troy at 40. And in one show I played 8 men and a puppet.

...Because being at Drama School (through no fault of it's own) is like being in a VERY small Rep company-- you have the people that do X and the people that do Y, and the people that do the weird anal characters and the people who can get away with giving the "old people" to.

Sometimes people are given "stretching" roles to work on in production (I found Varya in The Cherry Orchard a particular challenge in my first year when I was learning all about "less is more"-- that is a perfect example of RSAMD giving me a wole against my type to challenge me. I am would pin myself naturally as an, admittedly young, Ranyevskya or Arkadina "type")-- but more often than not, the stretching occurs in the classroom. Which I think is good; a safe place to experiment.

Life at school can feel very small, and situations like that can force you to view yourself against other people in your group, not against other people in the whole of the world. Guess what my first job was? An ingenue. As ingenue-y as it gets-- Laura Fairlie. Yes, the dark American girl played quintessential blond English girl and the rest is history. My next job? A Jewish ingenue. The one after that? A New-English ingenue. ... do you see where I am going with this? For ages, I pitched myself as "older," when the world saw me as I really was -- YOUNG. What is great is that by the time those slightly older roles come around I will be more than ready. These three incredible characters also have another thing in common... which brings me to my next little point...

I AM FUNNY. You are reading this blog, you know that. I am funny people. Anyone want to write a letter or two to a casting director out there? I am funny and I even won the RSAMD "Best Comedic Performer" award when I graduated. I AM FUNNY AND I HAVE BEEN CRYING FOR MY ENTIRE CAREER. Watch this space. A comedy better be next or I might actually dissolve in my "deep well of sorrow" (as a certain accent coach once put it).

But what I mean by all this kerfuffle is this: sure, there is a lot that I can do, and I fit a few different "types," but Young and Sad are what I'm working right now. In many ways, I'm making it a specialty and selling it because that is what it is about at the end of the day. And I'm not complaining. Well I am a little because I spend a lot of money on mascara. But in the long run, I'm fine with it. Does that make any sense? "Embrace it," is the message.

So, back to you: when you read a piece and can actually feel the words in your mouth, when you watch something and think "I can do that with my eyes closed" then you are getting closer. This has nothing to do with what an actor looks like, it has to do with what they ARE like. I wish you the best of luck, and I hope this is helpful. I know it is vague, but it is an art, not a science. Self-awareness is an actor's most potent and powerful tool.

All the best!

Al x

PS) If you are a person who is capable of discussing yourself with others and not becoming emotionally involved then by all means ask people what they think, but be prepared for some shock. Asking people what they think is like seeing yourself as unflattering in a photograph everyone else sees as perfectly normal, or listening to your voice on a tape. It can be a shock, so be prepared for that. You've been warned.

The Gastronomic History of Grigory Alexievich

2011-09-15T00:08:00.002-04:00

Grigory Alexeyevich was born outside Yaroslav, and raised in a military household of three children, the only son of a First Class Major Alexey Pavlovich and his devoted wife Anna Pavlovna. His father was a great lover of food, and his mother a consummate cooking virtuoso. Thus, from the inception of Grisha's life (for Grisha is what he was called even into well into his young-manhood), within the remote walls of a house in Yaroslav, his lifelong love affair with food began. And what a love affair it was. Oh Russian cuisine! He thought. How you derive your rich and varied character from the vast and multicultural expanse of the Motherland!

It was true. The food of his ancestors had foundations laid by the peasant food of the rural population in an often harsh climate, and had nuzzled its way into the folds of Grisha’s heart. It was this wondrous combination of plentiful fish, poultry, game, mushrooms, berries, and honey; the crops of rye, wheat, barley, and millet that provided the ingredients for the sensational plethora of breads, pancakes, and cereals, the crisp and refreshing kvass, beer, and vodka; all of which filled his belly and his soul with a rapturous satisfaction.

When Grisha was a boy, his mother fed him and his sisters Syrniki garnished with honey, and apple sauce. She prepared whole fowl dishes baked on a baking tray in a stove called a zharkoye[1], and taught them to make Smetana, a key garnish made from the souring of heavy cream. The children filled the kitchen like cherubs, golden-curled and floating, each taking their turn licking the sour spoon.

His father was an austere man, with favorites like Studen (sometimes called Kholodets), which were jellied chopped pieces of pork or veal meat served just the way he liked it with major amounts of spices like pepper, parsley, garlic, and bay leaf, and minor amounts of vegetables. Even to this day, the smell of jellied pork always reminded Grisha of his father, with his rugged jaw, his upright posture, and his stern but twinkling eyes. Indeed, Alexey Pavlovich was a solider to his core, and went by The Major even in his own home. He recommended a strict diet of well-prepared meat, and he liked it boiled in large pieces for long periods of time. Once it was chopped in to pieces, he would have it boiled again and finally allowed it to rest for three or four hours while it formed a jelly mass.

Studen was always accompanied by a flavorful soup or stew of some description, which usually centered on seasonal or store-able produce, and served hot or cold. Cold soup was a favorite of Grisha’s, but when it came to the concept of cold soups, Eva couldn’t quite get behind it. Savory flavors didn’t settle well with her when served chilled and smashed, they tasted harsh and kind of squeaky. They lacked the fullness of body and rich aroma of their hot counterparts. Moreover, it just felt suspicious to slurp cold fluid from a spoon! Cold liquids, this part of her argued, should be sipped from a glass[2]. Which is why, when Grisha suggested a recipe for a traditional chilled parsnip soup, she nodded her approval with the vaguest enthusiasm.

But then there was Shchi. Oh Shchi, he thought. Shchi was his favorite cabbage soup, and pleased both halves of the couple completely. Shchi was warm and hearty and had been the main first course in Russian cuisine for over a thousand years. It included several ingredients: cabbage, meat, carrots and parsley roots, spicy herbs (onions, celery, dill, garlic, pepper, bay leaf), and finally, sour components (green apples, cabbage, pickle water). But the unique taste was derived from the fact that after cooking, it was left for hours to draw in a Russian stove[3], and when the soup was served, smetana (produced by souring heavy cream) was served in an artful dollop on top, and the lot was eaten with a chunky piece of rye bread. Although Grisha’s tastes had changed over the years, shchi steadily made its way through his life in several epochs, constantly evolving to fit his tastes and economic status, knowing no social or class boundaries. Even if when rich he had richer ingredients, and when poor he made it solely of cabbage and onions; all his "poor" and "rich" variations were cooked in the same tradition. It was gastronomic perfection, and could be eaten regularly, and at any time of the year[4].

When Grisha finally went off to the military academy (and indeed became Grigory Alexeyevich), he recalled polishing off hearty porridges and cereals for breakfast, and at lunch, the school served various boiled meats that were then baked with root vegetables. Sometimes the meat was garnished with pickled products like sauerkraut, soaked apples called mochoniye yabloki, and cranberries. Even in the army he made the most of the traditional peasant Russian cuisine. He had missed his high-spirit family at the Academy, and longed for them now. Since the untimely demise of the Major, relations had eased, but his Jewish bride was still a thorny topic of consternation with his mother and sisters despite multiple attempts to quell them. He longed for the days the three children would pretend to make their very own “magical potions” alongside their mother as she prepared a traditional soup. How The Major would lead the feasting! How they would dig in! How the family loved to devour Mama Anushka’s latest offerings!

To gather. To converse. To eat.

______________________________________________

1 from the word zhar (жар) meaning, heat)
2 Cold soups are not, sadly, much like today’s milkshakes.
3 The "Spirit of shchi" was a description of the essence of the dish that was inseparable, and constantly remained in the atmosphere of a Russian izba (log hut).
4 During much of the year when the Orthodox Christian Church prescribes abstinence from meat and dairy, vegan versions of shchi are made that Eva found much more culturally “palatable” in every sense of the word.

In My Life: Kenn

2011-09-08T11:10:00.007-04:00

kenn mann

glasgow, scotland

2004

Things I love about Michigan

2011-09-07T01:35:00.002-04:00

I'm going back today-- "far away from haaaarm. With a milk pail on my arrrrrrm...." Here are just a few things I love about The Glove.

Basics:
Spring
Summer
Fall
Winter!

Most people have a built-in Michigan map. (have you taught James Earl Jones the "Glove Love" handshake...? Um... because I have. He loved it. HE GLOVE LOVED IT...)

Michigan is the cradle of the Industrial Revolution!

The 'Motown Sound' and the 'Motown Era' are major landmarks in musical history.

Oddities:
Michigan celebrates Fat Tuesday with jelly doughnuts (aka Paczki)

I need everyone to just breathe: Big Beaver Road. Believe it.

Toll free expressways

The "Michigan U" turn--this is a right turn onto a boulevard followed by an immediate u-turn at the next available crossover. (This keeps traffic from backing up at intersections with boulevards.)

"Euchre." What the hell is that you ask? Well that is a card game which is popular in Michigan and seemingly, no where else. (Oh alright, perhaps parts of Ohio. Fine.)

U-pick blueberries
U-pick peaches
U-pick apples
Mushroom hunting!
Roadside stands for fruits and veggies.
and, of course,
Cherries (Traverse City is The Cherry Capitol of The World doncha know!)

Restaurants:
The Whistle Stop
Greek Islands
Olga's
Max and Erma's

Michigan Products:
Better Made Potato Chips
Michigan maple syrup
Vernor's
Kilwin’s Ice Cream and Fudge: Look. They make their own waffle cones (need I say more?) which are definitely the best I’ve had. Kilwin's waffle cone with Mackinaw Island Fudge ice cream? ...You can then die.
Faygo
Sander's Hot Fudge.... ohmygoodnessgoogleitrightnow

Institutes:
The Detroit Zoo (especially the breath-taking butterfly exhibit)
Cranbrook's Greek Theatre, Planetarium, and institute for the arts. Heaven.
of course - Interlochen Center for the Arts
The Henry Ford Museum
and Greenfield Village
The Detroit Institute of Arts - voted the most "visitor friendly" Museum in. the. country. Wow! Go.
The Franklin Cider Mill

Special Places:
Two words: Mackinac Island (If you seek it, you can still find the original quaint and old-world charm of beautiful Mackinac Island - especially if you stay overnight.)
and Mackinac Island fudge.
Taquamenon Falls (a.k.a. "Root Beer Falls).
Frankenmuth!
The Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes

Nature:
Breathtaking nature and beauty throughout the state.
Lakes. So many lakes (and the whole lake culture *thing.* )...
Lots of camping and places for outdoor activities.
Unbelieveable clouds, almost every day.
Michigan has more lighthouses along its shorelines than any other state!
and
Sunsets you will never forget...

And I think this says it best. So say Yes to Michigan!

Letting it go...

2011-09-04T00:24:00.006-04:00

Did you know that Sophie is a derivative of Sophia - derived from σοφία, the Greek word (and philosophical concept) for "Wisdom?" Well. There are no coincidences. Oh Soph, how your wisdom took me, took all of us, in fact, by surprise...

Sophie DePalma has been in my life since November of 2009. Believe it. I just checked through my emails. I first heard and learned "Ah, Non Credea" on a trip back from London when I was still under the impression that I lived there and would be "right back."

Remember that?

And remember when I was late for the audition because I accidentally locked myself in the utility closet? And remember singing "What's The Use of Wonderin'?" followed by the aria, all for Terrence and Stephen and the rest of the Kennedy Center team, and then, in a rush of nerves and nerdiness admitting that you learned the thing from YouTube?

And do you recall walking out of the audition and wanting it so badly but knowing that you had just locked yourself IN A CLOSET and that things were looking a little grim?

And how you met with Kevin Emrick (portentously outside of Manhattan Theatre Club) when you found out that you had, in fact, as if by magic, somehow gotten the job and you celebrated with pickles and matzoh ball soup because suddenly the next few months of your life made some sense?

That was before Washington.
Before the Terrence McNally Triptych.
Before I had really come to grips with "what had happened in London."
Before the first time I fell on my knees with Tyne, Jeremy, and Stephen, rehearsing the aria ...
Before singing at Terrence and Tom's wedding.
Before staying in Tyne's apartment.
Before committing to making New York City my home.
Before Broadway.
Before I, or perhaps anyone else, even knew that Sophie was going to mean, to be, far more than simply fun.

The day we meet Sophie, she has a great deal to prove--to the Juilliard faculty. To her classmates. To that ex-boyfriend we know nothing (and everything) about. To the girl he walked away with.

But today, all of that is secondary. Today Sophie has everything to prove to herself.

And when I first met Sophie, so did I.

I believe that every one of us, no matter what we do, or how well we seemingly do it; no matter our status, security, the number or depth of relationships-- every single one of us fears that we are Not Enough.

And so, in a series of attempts to be "enough" we add to ourselves-- we wear the wrong thing, talk too much, give too much, are too much, because we don't realize that the only way to be? Is to simply Be.

And there Sophie is-- emotionally poverty-stricken and in the wrong outfit. She is overly solicitous, eager and cute, and full of inappropriate one-liners, all in attempt to beg for a scrap of love. . . Sound familiar?

That said, I also believe this: we all possesses a kind of greatness inside of us. Something-- no matter how miniscule it may seem with our own judgmental gaze upon ourselves, it is there. It may be locked away-- tied up with chains inside a cage of self-doubt, imprisoned in anxieties and crushed by fears. But it is there: waiting, surging with a kind of ancient longing. It is holding on for the day you find the courage to burst through.

The truth is, so few of us ever do. That is okay. That is allowed. But when it happens, it is a trans-formative, deeply miraculous thing.

The day we meet Sophie? She does it.
It happens.
That miracle.

Callas demands "juice, passion," Self from Sophie. Callas' techniques may be clumsy, violent, harsh, oddly caring and sensitive, definitely unpredictable, and probably accidental, but it doesn't matter. What they find together touches upon the wisdom derived from that ancient longing. Sophie gets it. And both are transformed. Or shall I say, all are transformed? Yes. I think that is accurate, for we all take that journey with them. I know that I shall never be the same myself.

Perhaps that is why I love Sophie DePalma so much-- hers is a tiny story, but one as old as the world. A story of hope.

"They should teach us a lot of things they don't."

Life is ephemeral. So is the theatre. We cannot hold it in our hands. We all love that which vanishes. The play must end. The company shall disband, life will march on.

So here's to you, Sophie, and all others like you.
It has been my honor to tell your story.

Remember the links.
Remember a pencil,
and above all, remember,

"It's all there, Sophie. These composers knew the human heart. All we have to do is listen..."

To live in this world

you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.

- Mary Oliver

On doing what you love for a living...

2011-08-31T09:28:00.002-04:00

1. Ask Yourself What You Want
Be specific. Figuring out exactly what you want will help you focus on where you need to go. Write it down. What are your deepest dreams? Take them seriously and they will lead to what you really want.

Create intent in your life to manifest your dreams in the physical world. Defining an Unlimited Life Plan (one that expresses all your wildest dreams) is one of the most valuable things you can do. Start with a personal philosophy and mission statement. Make a list with two columns. Label the first "OBJECTIVES" and the second "ACTIONS." Example:

OBJECTIVES create an identity in my industry

ACTIONS: write an article for a magazine

When you truly commit to your goal, the money will appear.

2. Believe that you CAN
If you follow one piece of advice on your path let it be this: replace "What if I'm not cut out for this?" with "YES. I. CAN." Most successful people have this quality ingrained in them, but anyone can learn. Get "can't" out of your vocabulary. (It may sound cheesy but get it out-- fo' reals.) Stay away from people who say "You can't make a living doing that...." (there will be MANY. And they may be people you really really love but do not understand. It's okay.) Respond with "ah ah ah! I do not have 'can't' in my vocabulary therefore I I am going to repeat this mantra in stead. "There are people out there who need my services!" Now say it again. This time with feeling.

3. Research
Find people who are already making a living doing what you want to do. read about them, make them into a model for your career and your life. Connect with them-- most successful people are very happy to talk to those starting out on their same path (what do you think I am doing here on this blog, eh?). Also read any book you can about triumph over adversity; it will help you through those days when you question your choices. Create a support network of people in your field. Try to meet with them regularly; it will help you feel "normal."

4. Pretend You Already ARE Who You Want to Be
And you will become it! No one starts off in any field feeling über confident and powerful. It takes time to build and grow. Sometimes it feels like you're not moving at all. That's okay. There will be other times when you feel like you're faking it. ("What if someone figures me out? Sees through me?") That's okay. There will be days when you are giving more than you think you have to give and feel that no one "sees" you or appreciates it. That's okay too. In fact, it is all okay.

5. Ignore...
Those who tell you it can't be done.
Those who have tried and bitterly given up.
Those who think you are nuts to throw away security and convention.
Those who bully you (including yourself).
The crazy vampire voice in your head that says you aren't enough.

Most people yearn to do what they love for a living, but many believe they can't handle the risks or responsibilities. For some of those people, that might all be true. Frightened people will impose their own fears on you. (They will do it for a variety of reasons). You might need to let go of friends who don't understand what you're trying to do. Surround yourself with people who support your new choices. Let everyone know how happy your work makes you.

6. Prioritize
Make your work a priority. Your work and your life are not separate entities. You need to have energy to build a career. We have been taught that we must work full-time to maintain a certain lifestyle. Let go of this belief and consider alternatives. Subsidize your income with part time or contract work. Scale down your living expenses. Ask for help when you need it! There is someone out there right now who can help you. Take a look at the books in the business section.

7. Feel the Fear!
I've talked to many people who have worked for years doing what they love and they still have fear! (I literally had lunch with an octogenarian Broadway legend today who is convinced he will never work again and that the whole world is about to figure out he was a joke the whole time...) I was amazed to find that success sometimes brings more fear-- the fear of living up to the expectations and reputation of previous successes. If the fear is always there, well hell: you might as well learn to manage it instead of trying to get rid of it. Use it. Allow it. Allow it to fuel, not cripple, you.

8. Reinvent Yourself
You are not defined by your current situation. You can start fresh at any given time. After failures (I prefer to call them lessons), get back on your feet and start again. Remember the Japanese proverb "fall down seven times, stand up eight." Writers will be rejected. Illustrators will send out work they hate. Freelancers will have dry periods. Designers will have quotes rejected. Actors will lose a job to someone for trivial reasons. There is always an ebb and flow to success, money, fame, and creative energy. Dust yourself off: Fall down seven times, stand up eight.

9. BEGIN NOW!
Look. The circumstances will never be perfect. You will never have "enough" money saved. Your portfolio will never be "ready." You may never have the perfect space, credits, equipment, head-shots, training. These are self-limiting beliefs created by our inner critic. Convince yourself that you will not have the time if you don't make it now.

Don't make a big production of it. Use what you've got. Ernest Hemingway wrote on napkins. Keith Haring painted subway stations. You have everything in your possession rightthissecond to start moving toward your goals. When you take a small step in the direction of your dream, the universe often takes several more for you.

10. Let Go
Don't worry about your talent or capability. It is not yours to judge, and it will grow and change over time. Do not ask, "Why am I doing this?" or "Is this right?" Freaking out about what you "should" be doing does not move you forward. ENJOY THE PROCESS. Starting can be the most overwhelming part, but it is also exciting and full of possibilities. Change can be intimidating, unfamiliar, terrifying, and downright uncomfortable. Your life is too rich, and you are too powerful to have anything less than what you truly deserve. You have a responsibility to do what you love every day, to become your most authentic, powerful Self, to share your passion with the rest of the world, and to live up to the spirit that is in you.

The universe it waiting...

Come on Irene

2011-08-28T14:45:00.001-04:00

LET'S DO THIIIIIS...

Status updates:

8/26

10:30am
Panic level 5 (of 10) and run out with Alley to buy tarps and tuna and everything for the oncoming Apocalypse at Costco and Home Depot.

11:04am
Calm Alley down from level 8 panic and bring her back to level 5.

12:30
Alley and I have beaten the crowds to everything but flashlights and feel really smart.

15:00
I adhere tarps to wall with duct tape.
15:06
Said tarps crumple off of windows at the slightest breeze.
15:07
I crumple in a similar manner.
15:09
I secure tarps with HAMMER AND NAILS!! I win.

16:00
I cook the entire contents of my freezer.
...whilst watching the "then he can borrow my slicker!" scene from the perfect "What About Bob?"

17:11
All weekend Broadway shows are cancelled. I feel like it is a snow day and dance in my kitchen alone (even though I feel terribly sad for understudy Brian Cali who was scheduled to perform all weekend).

20:00
Final show of the week commences, and due to overwhelming energy from all the events, the show is explosive with energy.

22:45
I commence drinking. Which I absolutely never do-- 2 glasses of Pinot Noir will do, across the street at The Glass House Tavern with Tyne and all; discussing poems and deciding that tomorrow we shall see the storm through together by playing Scrabble and what she referred to as "Classic Monopoly"

it is now

8/27

and at
3:00am
I get home on the world's slowest N train, having had a nice deep and meaningful with Clinton Brandhagen.

3:04am
My head already hurts because I am such a lightweight, and I decide to eat some oatmeal, drink 2 liters of water and take Ibruprofen.
3:06am
STAR TREK IS ON. (YESSSSS...TV win!) Oh 3am Star Trek: The Next Generation, how like the TV version of a booty call you are...
3:09am
I discover that it is indeed a stupid Riker episode. Bleeeecccch. Bed.

9:00am
I awake oddly early with a mild-ish hangover
9:01am
I resolve to never drink wine and discuss poetry ever again.

10:00
it becomes clear that there will be no Scrabble with Tyne.

12:00
...because the entire MTA closes down.

12:01
I decide my activity for the day shall be coming up with a possibly viral tweet (""I'm not on Facebook" is the new "I don't own a TV.")

13:00
It begins.
13:03

...Oh wait, no. It stops.

13:15
I consider going for a run.
13:30
I go for said run.
13:41
I hide in a doorway while it downpours
13:43
I continue said run
13:58
Repeat

14:15-16:00
I drown myself in myopically focuses news coverage. Because that is how local news rolls.

15:00
In despair and boredom, Morgan James and I decide to meet-- she drives to 31st Avenue to meet at Brick Café for a completely amazing hour of conversation in which she bares her heart and soul, I recite Carl Sandburg's "Little Word Little White Bird" and tell her the entire story of how my parents met.

16;00
Morgan departs in search of rope at the 11th hour.

17:15
Sierra Boggess calls me and we kvell about our relaxation.

17:20
I commence in the reading of Russian literature.

18:00
I nap for 25 minutes.

18:45
I write for 90 minutes.

20:15
I stop because my back, neck, wrists and brain all hurt from the efforts.

20:30
I decide it is time to make stir fry.
which at
20:38
I declare, disgusting
but at
20:40
I eat it anyway...

21:00
I come to the conclusion that it is drizzling, I am bored, and have 5 gallons of water 75 batteries and 8 cans of tuna.

23:30
...Now we're talking. Wind. Rain. Irene arrives. ...LET'S DO THIS!!!

23:50
So far so good.

8/28

00:20
The only way forward is to get by the same way I got by leaving LA in 1993-- by watching Fractured Fairytales in my closet.

1:00am I am also enjoying clips of classic Sesame Street. I have now counted to 20 with Madeleine Khan, and to 10 with Elmo, Grover, Bert, a kid named "John John" & James Earl Jones (who loved 7...so much).

1:38
I fill the bathtub and 8 gazillion pots with water.

2:00
I get sad and lonely.

2:03
I collapse in bed covered in a tarp....just in case... (True story)

11:00
I awake and it is over. Like for real over. What was all that fuss about?

11:10
I asses the damage. I am actually quite glad I tarp-ed my windows because there is some water damage and the sills are soaking wet. Yay preparation!

12:30
I prepare brunch for myself using some of the water from the tub.

13:14
Tyne calls me to check in. "That was it? What a non-event. Let's do the matinee." We decide to check in in 4 hours for possible Scrabble.

[This message has been brought to you by the letter I. For Irene. Duh.]

In My Life: Frances

2011-08-25T02:22:00.000-04:00

frances thorburn

islington 

london, england 

2008

Sometimes I think...

2011-08-22T07:23:00.001-04:00

...In a perfect world you'd be able to mark people as spam in real life.

...If it wasn't for the last minute nothing would ever get done.

...I have 99 problems and they're all luftballons.

...some people on Facebook "Like" everything but grammar.

...Just once, I want to go to a wedding and see someone object.

...damn-- I mean, whatever happened to all that glow-in-the-dark stuff?

...I bet some of the dumber wolves howl at the sun.

...Oh. Oh, Reese's cup at the back of my freezer, how like the food version of a booty-call you are.

...If someone would just make a decent beer called Alone, it wouldn't sound nearly as depressing when I say I'm drinking alone.

...I bet living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween.

...I really long for the days when my biggest goal was to "collect them all."

...Sometimes I ask, "What would Chewbacca do?"
The answer is always, "Make that gargly roaring sound."
So that's what I do.

A Moment

2011-08-19T10:37:00.004-04:00

©clinton brandhagen

Hours before our first preview on Broadway, Tyne recalls our terrifying first preview in DC. She asks me to come down to her dressing room to run our lines together in an "Italianne"-- a run of the lines at increased speed. Italiannes are like calisthenic warm-ups for your brain, and with so much talking and nerves high, they are a great tool in moments such as these.

We settle down, bags placed, cardigans zipped, and sit down in her room--not yet moved into, not yet her own.

And then, without ceremony, we begin.

There is no music. There is no one else. It is just us and the words.

One might not think that in this cozy dressing room, flourescently lit and unceremoniously dressed, that in this little exercise the run would be dry, hollow. But the truth is, the words are so powerful, and our feelings for those words and above all, for each other, so untterably potent, we both go directly "there."

Tears fall.
Hands are grasped. It is our own little theatre, our own alchemical magic, right there in a sterile little room.

"... I want you to imagine you are Amina. This is opera Sophie. You're alone on a great stage. Make us feel what you feel. Show us that truth..."

That's it.
We finish.
There is a silence and in it, we both look away.
Then she leans in, holds my hand and utters,

"I love this. And you."

Yellow Dessert: An Aversion

2011-08-16T09:30:00.002-04:00

Yummy?! What LIES.

[WARNING: Please prepare yourself for unabashed opinions regarding all things to do with bananas, lemons, custard, quite often meringue, and I am sorry to say it, vanilla cake.]
...

[No. Seriously, take a moment for yourself.]

All good? Okay. Here it goes.

Reader?

I HATE YELLOW DESSERT.

[...She ducks her head. She looks up... Checks her surroundings. She pauses.]

....aaaaare you okay? ...Do you need another minute?

Banana?! YUCK!

Look. I am sorry. But in truth, if you are going to do dessert, don't you think you need to do dessert at 100%? You need to be in the 95-100% certainty category of enthusiasm, you need to be able to say "YES. I want that, I need that, and I am going to savor every mouthful-- every freakin' second of that delectable dessert otherwise what are you doing? WHAT. ARE. YOU. DO-ING?

It’s funny — as a child, no one ever notices desserts being trendy, (one just notices dessert, and perhaps that it is either good or not so good, and that you won't even tolerate lemon Starbursts and feel grateful your Dad likes them best...). But for the past year, this yellow dessert business has been everywhere--the new “it” dessert, the stylish old-but-new thing every hip person pretending not to eat carbs wants to be seen consuming.

It has come crawling out of the woodwork like tropical pests on a mission to contaminate the dessert cart, leaving respectable berry crumbles, apple pies and chocolate tortes cowering in horror. I know that yellow dessert has been around as long as bananas have! I know that! It's just that yellow dessert appears to be all the flippin' rage right now and one cannot get away from it. [She narrows her eyes with suspicion, a look of having eaten something disgusting all over her as she recalls a recent lemon meringue pie peer pressure forced feeding situation...]

You can KEEP your Lemon atrocity!!

The thing is-- I like bananas just fine. They are great. I enjoy lemons. Delicious. I have an intimate relationship with vanilla. I have nothing against fruit! I respect fruit!

But if you are going to spend the calories and time and energy on that extra course, I just don't understand why you would waste that special moment on something the same color as a legal note pad! As the middle traffic light! As Sponge Bob Square Pants...

Give me a break.
And basically let that break be made of crumble or chocolate.

The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 9, with Tony Candolino

2011-08-15T02:30:00.001-04:00

As you can see, we hate each other and are having no fun.

Horatio loves to make a PROMISE...

2011-08-14T19:47:00.000-04:00

OH MY GOD.
One of my favourite things about CSI: Miami is how bad it is. That is why I watch it, that is why it is the most watched television show in the world (that is not dramatic exaggeration by the way, it is actually true). And at the centre of the shows suckness is David Caruso as Horatio Cane, taking those sunglasses on and off, delivering horrible one-liners as the opening credits roll, stating the obvious (my favourite was "looks like we got a murder to solve" ... um, yes that would be your job...), and making promises to little girls and little boys about making sure they are SAFE and VINDICATED.

This was on CSI Sunday... I laughed so hard, I was in PAIN. And I nearly squealed the house down:

Dying General: ... Horatio.... Horaaaatioooo....

[takes off sunglasses (excellent) and kneels down beside Dying General]

Horatio: Yes General?
Dying General: Horatio? How... how could I have raised such a man?
Horatio: General, it is NOT YOUR FAULT.
Dying General: Horatio... you must... PROMISE... to end this... once. and. for...all...
Horatio: GENERAL? I PROMISE.

[Dying General dies]

I... LOVE it...

In My Life: Alpena

2011-08-13T07:25:00.000-04:00

alpena

michigan

2002

"I never met a man who wasn't in love with her..."

2011-08-05T15:00:00.003-04:00

“Tatiana…” she wiped her nose, “poor little thing, like a bird with a broken wing she was.” Madame Solovyov moved to leave, lifting her purse and adjusting her jacket as she made her way to the aisle.

“You know,” she said, addressing Dmitri her back still toward him, her gaze fixed upon and lit by the setting of the sun, “I never met a man who wasn’t in love with her. Not one.” She sniffed lightly. “Not until I met you.” Her eyes closed in contemplation.

Dmitri remained motionless but felt a surge of heat beneath his overcoat.

“To think,” she mused, her eyes cold and dead, “the one man she truly gave her heart to treated it like a rag.”

She readjusted the lace at the collar of her bodice, “What men would’ve done for a scrap of her love…” then, giving him a sobering stare, “What you did with a diamond.”

“But I have done nothing.”

“Indeed,” she stated over her shoulder, glancing once more upon the grave before disappearing into the mist of the morning.

Ask Al: Secrets of the Self-Employed Part 3

2011-08-04T11:18:00.000-04:00

What you think becomes your reality.
I always had a belief that if I cleaned my bedroom/flat/apartment/dorm room etc., I would "receive" new work from the Inspiration Gods. If I asked my novel what it's name was, it would tell me. Or, if I projected confidence that I might feel confident. And guess what, it always happened. If you think the industry is screwed and there is no work to be had, guess what you will find out there? The power of intention might sound new age-y and silly, but the effects of positive thinking and being strong and effective enough to take real action is real! Take charge of your life. You know that's what I always say.

Ignore "cool."
Cool is dumb. Cool is what you say it is. Crime Drama is cool. So are owls. So are curious people. And talented hard workers. So are "nerds." Passionate, interested and interesting people. Successful people do not try to be hip, they just do work that excites them.

Focus on ideas instead of tools.
Truth: anyone can learn to use the tools, but it is the thinkers who really impact the culture in important ways. In the end the tools don’t offer anything interesting.

Worrying about the competition does very little to help your career.
I know it’s hard sometimes to ignore what other people are doing (we all think that others are doing better than us), but every one of us is on a different life path. We are all here to accomplish different things and even though it would seem like one person’s path is similar to yours, it is not.

Only work for free if you are passionate about the cause or receive something of value in return. (Be wary of people who offer your name in lights in lieu of money. Many people will tell you something is good promotion for you, often it is not and there are no guarantees when it comes to promotional value). If you are not getting something of a measurable value (i.e. printed pieces, or money) ask for something else, creative freedom. If they refuse then they may not be a good client to work for anyway.

Always come back to work that excites you. Even if you get off track for a while.
Do personal work on a regular basis, show it to others. You can reinvent yourself at any time.

THIS IS THE MOMENT.

2011-08-03T20:09:00.000-04:00

It needs no explanation.
It is just genius.

The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 8, The Roommate Citations

2011-07-30T01:34:00.003-04:00

Self Explanatory delights....

But at least this Odd Couple has a "system."

In My Life: Santino

2011-07-28T22:29:00.006-04:00

santino fontana

new york city, new york

2009

Ahhh New York: Hitch-hiking

2011-07-27T09:46:00.000-04:00

So.
Did I literally hitch-hike to work Sunday because every train was defunct?
Yep.
Yep I did.
Arrived safely,
made the show (just),
and my super enthusiastic "we WILL get you there" driver's name?
Alexandra.
I love life.

Sophie's Choice

2011-07-26T15:44:00.001-04:00

...Now how do I get off the internet?

Broadway.com Fresh Face

2011-07-22T14:27:00.000-04:00

I did a Fresh Face article for the UK branch of Broadway.com about 5 years ago when I was doing Fiddler on the Roof.

It is nice to know that one's face can remain so very fresh despite travel, distance, age and time.

--Sorry? What is my secret you ask?
I reccomend a sense of humor.
And moisturizing.
Of course.

"Alexandra Silber on Her Journey from London Star to Broadway Newbie in Master Class."

The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 7, Passive Aggresive Tendencies

2011-07-16T01:32:00.003-04:00

In My Life: Beverley

2011-07-13T13:30:00.000-04:00

Beverley Klein

London, England, 2009

The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 6, The Stolen Pencils

2011-07-09T11:51:00.004-04:00

sorry Share Bear....

Ask Al: Reviewing Reviews

2011-07-05T18:46:00.000-04:00

Hi Alexandra,

How do you deal with not so favourable reviews?
Do you read reviews in general or no?
How do you not let an individual's opinion affect your art?

I know, on a personal level, and I know this is the business, it's amazing how quickly one person's individual opinion can completely shake how one feels about their performance and on another level makes them question their work. I feel that's both the beauty and danger of letting someone see and comment on one's work, it's open to interpretation and criticism and it's an extremely vulnerable place because it is so personal.
So when someone negatively comments on it (or even comments on something you hadn't seen before) it can affect what was "yours" since the art you make becomes public.

Thanks again,

Lauren

* * *

Dear Lauren,

First of all, I am so sorry that your feelings were clearly hurt, and possibly your pride a bit wounded. But try to remember that first, this is part of the process too and second, even though those words are out there in the Universe, on the internet and more damagingly, imprinted on your mind, they are simple someone's opinion. Yes, ultimately, that is all they are: one person's opinion.

Everyone is different. Some people have a very developed sense of self-worth and esteem that maintains itself resiliently despite any knocks. But I challenge you to find me that person (let alone the artist) who can maintain that outlook all of the time. The truth is, people are sensitive. And actors are sensitive professionally. And I have never discussed reviewing with a reviewer, but the truth is, they are entitled to their opinions and freedom of speech and of the press is their right. Even if it is more than a little glib.

Tyne has an amazing quote about reviewers:

“A critic is someone who never actually goes to the battle themself, yet who afterward comes out shooting the wounded.”

Now... that is a touch dramatic, but Tyne can pull it off.

Look. Honesty box? It is personal.
I would ere on the side of not reading them if you have a sensitive constitution or if you are prone to the influences of others (even a favourable review can make you get a little bit "proud" and less present in your work if you know what I mean...)

But more often than not reviews can make you utterly despondent. And it is understandable because, as you so rightly pointed out, you have put your heart and soul on the line, you have oftentimes bled for the work, opened your heart, exposed your Self.

Either way, there is not harm in reading them long after the run is established or complete, but feel your way with this. Learning how you personally handle reviews and reviewers is part of learning the business too.

Above all remember this: You are enough. I promise.

The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 5, Sophie & Sharon's Great American Medley

2011-07-04T16:55:00.002-04:00

Sophie and Sharon bring you.... [drumroll]

THE GREAT AMERICAN MEDLEY!!

Happy 4th All.
We are aware.
We are aware that it is also our day off...

Twenty-Eight

2011-07-03T12:35:00.238-04:00

Hey. Reader... wanna know a secret?
[she whispers] I've never been "okay" with birthdays. Never. Not since I was the tiniest littlest creature. A pretty infamous story in my family is, in fact, about my fourth birthday.

See, I really thought three had been great. Just great. It was real swell and I had juuuuust gotten used to it, and, I'm gonna put it out there, I've never had an easy time with the concept of change and well-- birthdays are the ultimate change! As my family rounded the corner, cake in hand, pitch chosen to start singing Happy Birthday, I scream, desperate, tortured:

"NO! NOOOOOOOOOO! DON'T. SING. THE. SOOOOOOONG!!!!"

"Well, okay..." said my mother, and everyone froze and she placed the cake on the table and we all just sort of stood there to take stock.

Birthday #1

It was as if somehow the singing of the song DID it. It was the turning of the page. Three was all over. Something about the actual singing of the song heralded in the coming year and I was just not having it.

::sigh::

... I have learned from this. I have learned that referring to myself as "almost 28" is a good little "training wheels" tactic. (I have in fact done this since I was nine. No kidding.) I am aware that this is slightly over the top but whatever. we don't want an adult version of the "Don't Sing The Song" scenario to ever happen, especially in public so I'm willing to cope with the "almost [insert age here]" tactic.

The reason I bring this up is because this year I do not seem to feel this way. This year I'm happy for you to sing the song. Sing away!

#3 with Anna Maria Alberghetti

27 has been a sensitive year, one of introspection - a time to read, write, heal, work on my Self, to attempt be receptive to greater guidance, and to spend a great deal of time alone. It was filled with crushing doubt, and often there was great temptation to "quit"-- but I refused. I fought and clawed and grew into new direction and ways of being, and in the end the year was full of victory and long sought after peace, balance and equilibrium.In many ways, 27 felt like it paved the way for the next cycle of my life.

In fact, have you ever heard of this Seven Year Cycle business? It is seriously interesting stuff. Well, here I am about to begin the very final year of my current Seven Year Cycle and I can actually feel it, just like I felt it the last time (when I turned 21), in fact.

Looking back...

[*cue: back in time music...*]

On my 18th I was flown by my best friends Dane and Justin home from Interlochen to Detroit to visit my family. They played Judy Collins in the car.

on 19 - I was working at Interlochen again and the entire cast of Hello Dolly that I was working for did a whole full-on interpretive dance for me, and I got to have the "pudding" section from Matchmaker inserted into the play. I still have those birthday cards, I loved that group of people dearly.

at 20 - I was in Glasgow having just moved from Murano Street to my flat in The Gorbals with Kirsten Smith, and preparing for my Great European Adventure with Lilly (the one in which, on Lilly's 20th only a few weeks later, we would be doused with sleeping gas and robbed on the night train in-between Venice and Nice...).

#21: spent onstage in 12th Night

21 - I was onstage-- having just finished Pericles, about to begin Twelfth Night at The Arches in Glasgow and director Ros Steen baked me a serious fudge cake. I was happy to spend it onstage, and happy to have it played down.

22 - I was in London and the cast of The Woman in White sang, and I picked up my phone to realize everyone in Scotland called and sang to me too. It felt wonderful. It felt a great deal like this year, actually-- on the brink of my West End debut, transitioning from one life into another. Magic.

23 - was the infamous "I hate surprises" surprise party during The Great Depression of '06.

and, totally fascinating birthday-blog reflections from the past...

24

"This has been a strange year. Being 24. Twenty Four. The same number of hours in a day. This has been the first year I have experienced the sensation of AGE and time passing by. ...I suppose I am simply mourning the loss of childhood for good. (And I guess I'm also a little peeved because mine was cut so short by the Dad incident, and one never gets it back...) It's just a long spread of adulthood ahead, filled with unknowns, anti-wrinkle creams and possibilities... I haven't come to terms with any of it..."

"... whatever your ideology, whatever your age, whether you know the shape of a rock or the structure of a universe, the meaning of existence or the specific purpose of an individual life; the axioms remain the same: that it exists and that you know it. Whatever his future, at the dawn of his life, Man seeks a noble vision of his nature and of life's potential. And so do I. Here's to another year."

"Oooooooo! Fantastic. It was the best. The best birthday of my adult life. There was a treasure hunt. And magical coffee. And mexican food. And home-made cupcakes. And many many loving friends."

"27 is a magic number. ... When I started this blog (five years ago, yikes!) I was a slip of a thing. 21-year-old girl really, a student shoehorned into leading lady-dom-- and starting a new life in The Big Smoke and here I am today; Al Silber, citizen of the world. What a five years it has been. What a twenty-seven years it has been..."

So. here it is. 28. Twenty Eight. You know? This year? I'm okay with you singing the song... After all,

Twenty-eight is the sum of the totient function for the first nine integers.

Twenty-eight is a harmonic divisor number, a happy number, a triangular number, a hexagonal number,and a centered nonagonal number.

The average 'female cycle' is 28 days although no link has been established with the night-lighting and the Moon. (And for this moon-maiden, this must have significance!)

In Gematriya (the system of Hebrew Numerology), the number 28 corresponds to the word koakh, meaning "power", "energy".

The number of days in the shortest month of the Gregorian calendar, February (except in leap years, when there are twenty-nine-- incidentally Sophie DePalma's birthday is February 29th...). All twelve months of the Gregorian calendar have at least 28 days, regardless of the year.

The number of dominoes in standard domino sets.

Deriving from the 29.46 year period of Saturn's revolution around the Sun, the 28-year cycle as well as its subdivisions by 14 and 7 are supposed in Astrology to mark significant turning points or sections in the course of a persons development in life. (Thus, the number 28 has special significance in the culture of religious sects such as the Kadiri and the Mevlevi dervishes)

In Major League Baseball, 28 is the lowest uniform number that has not been retired by any club.

And, above all, 28 is the beginning of the final year in a Seven Year Cycle!

*

My own cycle of 21 to 28, has felt largely like a process of enlargement, of refinement. It was, I suppose, the period of life when I mentally and emotionally entered into true adulthood. The start of the foundations of a career, of intimate relationships, of outlooks and personal philosophies. We all deal with more and greater challenges during this time, we move outwards/forwards/upwards with a driving energy that we hope will gain us entry and respect in the larger world.

I know as far as my own life is concerned, I have developed a greater sense of discrimination; my faculties of insight, intuition, judgement and understanding have come to the fore (something I actually think you can see quite clearly in the contributions to this site, don't you think?) I am better at recognizing the needs of those I care for, yet not denying my own (Independence and connection can appear together instead of opposite ends of a spectrum, who knew?!) The sparks of interest that were awakened in my adolescence have been identified and further defined. And my personality has softened, definitely broadened, and yet my discernment has become sharper and keener. I tolerate less for the sake of approval. I am kinder to those who are different than I.

So, here is to long sought after peace. To growing up, and older. To ever present, ever ticking Time-- who reminds us that life is finite, ephemeral, and fleeting, yet that knowledge is what charges each moment with deeper, richer, fuller, meaning.

To time: and all the wisdom and gifts it brings us.

Now, [*she reaches for her pitch pipe*] who will be first to sing the song?

28: and as happy in my metaphoric skin and I am in that dress. Finally, that smile feels like the real thing...

Ask Al: Revisiting a Role

2011-07-02T13:58:00.003-04:00

Sophie on Broadway

Dear Al,

Sophie at The Kennedy Center

You originated the role of Sophie De Palma for this production at the Kennedy Center, what were some of the challenges you faced with the transfer to Broadway and the recasting the roles of Sharon and Tony?

* * *

To use a term that Tyne coined, "erasing old tapes".

Carousel "1.0" in London

Carousel "2.0" in LA

The most difficult part of returning to a role or production you have done before (and I have actually done it before when we transferred The Sheffield Crucible production of Fiddler on the Roof to the West End in 2007/8, as well as doing a completely different production of Carousel at the Reprise Theatre Company in Los Angeles 6 months after playing Julie Jordan for a year in the West End), is having to treat the new, present situation as just that. Sophie De Palma doesn't know that we did this production at The Kennedy Center; for "her" this, right now, is the only real existence, the only truth. She wants and needs things rightthissecond and cannot be bogged down by the things Al "used to love in DC" or "used to feel when we did this section of text."

It isn't easy. And frankly, it should not be easy, because one hopes that every choice you make is a part of you and your self so thoroughly, that redrafting any of the work feels like ripping skin. But it is necessary and part of te ephemeral nature of the theatre. There is only now. Now is all we have. ... I suppose that is a pretty accurate description of life too.

"It's okay Tony!"

Recasting Tony & Sharon? I had a wonderful relationship with our previous Tony and Sharon, and I'm happy for them that they are so talented and busy!

As for Garret and Sierra? They are both incredibly gifted people and we all are in love with each other. The whole cast is. (In fact, Garret, Sierra and I often hang out together in-between shows on two show days and have what we call a "Student Council Meeting." Sophie, I am sure you would be pleased to know, is Student Council President. Tony serves as Treasurer. Sharon is clearly secretary-- she always has a pencil...)

Ahhh New York

2011-07-01T13:56:00.000-04:00

Al: Excuse me is this seat taken?
That guy: Yes.
Al: really?
That guy: Uh, yes. Clearly this dolphin is sitting here....
Al: [this person is crazy I will sloooowly back away now] Oh, yes of course... [not so subtly takes photo of crazy dolphin]

FIN.

PS) what is it about me and meeting people with giant stuffed toys on public transport?!

The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 4, Locked Out

2011-06-30T11:44:00.001-04:00

oops! sorry Shar-bear...

So this really happened...just ask the people who witnessed it... or the people that laughed so hard they wept... or the people that video taped the whole thing on their iPhones...

*

We have a great show and then:

Sharon: Sophie...Our door is LOCKED.
Sophie: Um. I don't know how I did that. I--
Sharon: --YOU LOCKED US OUT OF OUR ROOM?!
Sophie: Uh?
Sharon: --Sophie! [calms herself] SOPHIE. We've DISCUSSED this. When you leave the room you have to make sure the door is locked from the OUTSIDE. I've had a pretty upsetting class just then and I--
Sophie: I'm sorry Share Bear. [Long pause] ...um...does this mean we can't get the guinea pig?

On Camera: Playwright Terrence McNally

2011-06-28T09:55:00.000-04:00

Enjoy the lauded playwright, (and my dear, wonderful friend) Terrence McNally discusses the life, career, person and persona that was and is Maria Callas, the central figure in his play Master Class, now on Broadway at The Samuel J Freidman Theatre starring Tyne Daly as Maria Callas, with Sierra Boggess, Jeremy Cohen, Clinton Brandhagen, Garret Sorenson and lil' ol' me.

Enjoy.

Ask Al: Secrets of The Self Employed Part 2

2011-06-27T08:50:00.000-04:00

it is!!

Creating a social network of other self-employed people is very important not only for your business, but for your spirit.

There is nothing like good ol' fashion collaboration, except possibly good ol' fashion commiseration... having colleagues and pals around you who both inspire and support one another is key to weathering the self-employment waves-- we need people around us to help celebrate the highest of highs and aid in weathering the lowest of lows.

If you want to work on your art, work on your life. It’s all connected.

As artists we interpret life, and how are we supposed to interpret life if we do not have a real life to interpret? (This has always been my argument for artists cultivating life "outside" their art-- sports games, family reunions, tea-pot collections, a love of cooking, cats, cheese. You get the idea...)

But this is another point. Listen: all those personality traits that aren’t working for you in your life, those will haunt you in your career (i.e. assertiveness, fear of conflict, fear of confrontation, inability to be vulnerable, refusal to "get dirty" or make mistakes...). So sort yourself out! Agency, self-awareness and self-knowledge will not only improve your life, but it will improve your art.

Don’t worry about whether or not you are "good."

Listen. Look. (Okay both listen and look). I am underlining this: good is subjective, and most people are not great judges of their own work. So with that said, just keep making your work.

Nothing is achieved without at least a little bit of mischief. Make certain you goof off on a regular basis.

It's true. Dancing the line between taking yourself and your art seriously, and being capable of laughing at yourself, at life, at the ridiculous is so key. Defining where that line is for you is important, and exploring is always illuminating.

Let your work itself be your professional calling card. Networking is, without question, valuable and important, but the quality of your work will always speak for itself.

Wanna know why I am making my Broadway debut right now? Because I did good work in the Kennedy Center production. Wanna know why I got to do Carousel at Reprise in Los Angeles? Because I has made a name for myself doing the role in London. Wanna know how the West End production of Carousel came to be? Because the director and producer worked with me in Fiddler on the Roof. Law & Order Criminal Intent? They liked me in Law & Order...
...This is how it works.

Let your work speak for itself and people will want to know who you are (and the networking happens for you!). Then, when they meet you and you are not a jackass? Great.

Networking is important.
Not being a jerk is important.
But nothing speaks louder than good work. Good, solid, wonderful, inspired work will always speak loudly, and will always be the most important calling card.

The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 3, The Message Board

2011-06-26T09:31:00.001-04:00

...I mean, what can I say? She should have listened to me...

Look. What. I. Found.

2011-06-25T11:48:00.001-04:00

Guys.... GUYS....
look.
what.
I.
found.
For real.

I MEAN.

So I named them Bertram and Scott.
and then I went back to get two more
because people? ...THEY WERE $4.99.
FOUR NINETY FREAKIN' NINE......

The next two were in green [orange below], and I named the next two Archimedes and Zizi.
(Incidentally, it pleases me greatly that their names now line up perfectly with the Teletubbies theme song "Archimedes! Bertram! Zizi! SCOTT.")

I love owls. A lot.

I've Been

2011-06-23T11:46:00.002-04:00

Al & Sierra: toes in the sand

re-discovering Sophie De Palma!

drinking peach martinis with Tyne.

engaging in "The Adventures of Sophie & Sharon" with fellow Master Class-er Sierra Boggess, which includes:
     18 holes of mini golf
   visits to The Intrepid
     shoe parades
   deep-and-meaningfuls deep into the night
     planning our epic dressing room
     and biking the entire isle of Manhattan.

...speaking of which, filming "The Last Street in Manhattan" on Law & Order Criminal Intent and adoring it.

the freakin' Squad Room!!

Rocking adulthood.

Writing. Every day.

Meeting my hand twin: English actress and singer Gina Beck. It was pretty crazy.

Running along the East River. Every day.

Singing like never before!

Staying healthy.

D.I.Y-tastic! WHO INSTALLED (with her fierce-as-you-know-what-DIY-tastic-Mommy) 4, count them FOUR of HER OWN CEILING FANS WITH ONLY MINIMAL ELECTRICAL DRAMA?! (Okay. Look. There was only one teeeeeeny tiiiiiny fire which required professional attention and that was only because the wires were over 100 years old...) BUT WE DID IT AND I SIT HERE TYPING BY THE COOLING BREEZES COMING FROM MY CEILING....

dying Easter eggs with pals!

Having the most incredible week-long reunion with my brother, sister-in-law Maggie, Maggie's mom Leslie, nieces Hannah and Madison, and my Mom in The Big Apple. Magical.

Really plugging into New York City: The Big Apple (as I enjoy calling it...)

Reuniting with the Hello Again family ON "The 12th of Maaaaaay..." (dorks.)

the gang reunites

Enjoying watermelon season. YES. A lot.

Seeing all sorts of theatre.

Loving Brother John Glover in the city of Brotherly Love. (This, specifically included, in order... 1. Tyne had no lipstick (?!!) 2. Glove and I offer to have an adventure by running across the street and buying her "Diva Red" from the Mac store 3. which Glover subsequently tries on...declaring "Patti Lupone taught me about Diva Red when I was playing Bunny the Drag Queen..." 4. We quoted Thornton Wilder's The Matchmaker when agreeing we were on an adventure, this engaging in "PUDDING" 5. Ultimately, we were clique-y today. Guilty.)

whhhhhaaaat?!

Riding to Philadelphia IN. A. STRETCH. LIMO. BY. MY. SELF...

...and back to New York with Marc Bruni: a man I barely knew but we now know EVERY detail of one anothers' life stories. Fact.

Oh yeah, and I've been making my debut on THE BROADWAY.

In My Life: Anna

2011-06-22T11:20:00.000-04:00

anna andresen

camden

london, england

2006

Awakened

2011-06-20T22:11:00.000-04:00

Mikhail lay slumped over his work, fast asleep.

Day after day the men descended down a square shaft into the bowels of the earth by a coffin-like staircase, the only light from flaming lamps and the faraway mouth of the mine above their heads. Their sanity was not taken for granted, the fact that he had his wits about him was more a miracle than a blessing.

Shura gazed upon him now— overworked, worn. It was deep in to the night and, as was usual for the last few months, Mikhail had returned from the mines only to spend the remainder of his waking hours pouring over his papers.

The last few months he had become increasingly more distracted. Agitated, in fact. And physically, it was becoming more and more difficult to deny that he was weakening. His nose bled constantly, his hands and feet were always cold despite the milder temperatures of late summer, the skin all over his body had lost elasticity, had thinned and wrinkled, and he was growing progressively more lethargic.

But still, she gazed upon him and stared breathless for a moment as her heart fluttered. What was it about Mikhail as he lay curled at his desk enveloped in the uniform mining blouse of coarse, tarnished linen and fraying trousers? What moved her so as she saw him sleeping there, his visions sprawled before him, laid out like a map of the universe? Drawings, diagrams and plans, everything he aspired to build, invent or create set out before him in neatly scattered piles.

She was careful not to interrupt his sleep, as she gathered her nightdress, which had fallen open slightly, around herself and tread lightly over the weighty volumes, the candles that had extinguished down to nubbins, and the endless sheets of scribbled, coded papers.

Mikhail’s left hand was outstretched, having fallen almost elegantly atop his notebook like a small sculpture, as if he had collapsed into his slumber in the middle of a thought. The fingers were still holding his pencil, the side of his palm blackened with lead as it always was from the hours of writing from left to right in Russian—he preferred to write in Hebrew for that very reason. She smiled at these details that made up her marriage.

Her eyes moved toward the hand and she could not help but to sneak a peak, reading the smudged scrawl below it. It was a coded telegram from the West which Mikhail had decoded lightly below the type. It simply read.

    Empirio-criticism.

What on earth is that? She thought. Below it, in his own hand Mikhail had made a note:

    The People are important.

That was all it said. Her heart lurched with love. She believed in him more now than she ever had. She could hear the steady throbbing of his heart, the quiet purr of his breathing, and she was at once torn apart with tenderness, unable to keep from pressing her ear to his back to listen.

    “What?” He sat up suddenly, “What is it?” He was at once alert and sober from the depths of a deep slumber.
    “My darling,” Shura whispered calmly, “you must come to bed…” She carefully marked and folded his volumes and notebooks.

He glanced out the window into the inky blackness, “What is the hour?”
    “I do not know. But really, you must rest. Nothing is more important than rest. Besides I am freezing all alone in there.” She smiled, extending her hand to him. He placed his lead-smudged hand in her own and she helped his withering body up, kissing him as he rose.

Moved, she could not help but dip her fingers into the gully of his trousers. He clutched her hand and squeezed it, then, with defeat, he moved it away and whispered,
    “I can’t.”
This was another recent, more devastating development.
    “It is alright, my love…”
But it wasn’t. Not for him.
    “—This letter. I must finish. It is important.”
    “Tomorrow, Mikhail. It can wait. Come. It is time for rest…”

Thus, he followed his wife to bed.

The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 2, The Matching Glasses

2011-06-19T09:38:00.006-04:00

What?
Have you ever seen more perfect monikers?
More delightful a set of glasses?
--No, no! Not Sophie's glasses, the matching glasses!
The ones that call it like it is...?

matching glasses: calling it like it is...

The Adventures of Sophie & Sharon: Part 1

2011-06-18T02:20:00.004-04:00

love at first sight (which, as Sierra knows, never dies..)

When Sierra Boggess and I first met in London [pictured], violins played. No not literally. But it felt like they did. Or perhaps it was cellos. A string section. The Love Story theme played, something like that. Okay anyway the point is that we were an instant match and not only excited to work together in Master Class, but to share a dressing room-- which we promptly began to plan straight away...yep.

So, what are two crazy, American, London leading ladies to do? Well I will tell you what they do!
They go all out.
They whole ass it.
They come up with a concept and never look back.

Ladies and Gentleman, I give you : DRESSING ROOM 4

[:::confetti:::]

Al and Sierra have (prepare yourselves) turned Dressing Room 4 into a Julliard dorm room-- as if Sophie and Sharon have been forced to move in to the dorms together and are valiantly trying to make it work Odd Couple style. It is a work of pure and unadulterated genius. We are pretty freakin' pleased with ourselves.

Did we force our director to take us to the Julliard Store so we could use his staff discount?
Did we then buy Julliard flags and magnets and relevant paraphernalia to go on our doors and walls?
Did we buy matching t-shirts, fleeces and water bottles?
Did we make multiple trips to Urban Outfitters so we could get a white board, a chalk board, squillions of picture frames and various key knick-knacks?
Do we have matching make-up brush glasses that are character-appropriately labeled "Hot Mess" and "Bitch"? [above]
Did we paper our walls with scores, records and music-school articles such as "As a musician do you lead a cluttered life"?
Do we have notes, roommate citations and pep talks written to each other AS Sophie and Sharon all. over. the. room?
and, best of all,
Did we go to Kinkos on our night off and spend 2 hours printing out over 30 pages of relevant opera memorabilia...?

....the answer to all of these is YES.

We are aware that it is ridiculous. We are. But not only do we not care, we feel sorry for people that don't get it. (Being serious for a moment, it might even seem a little insane to say this, but it has legitimately fleshed out our back-stories on stage in a pretty profound way...)

So. Get ready. Stuff in Dressing Room 4 is about to get very very real...

those would be matching t-shirts...

Master Class on Broadway

2011-06-13T16:11:00.003-04:00

First Tech Week on Broadway

2011-06-12T11:12:00.001-04:00

Never in all my life have I experienced so pleasant, stress-free and flat-out dreamy a tech week.

This company, valiantly spear-headed by our immaculate leading lady Tyne Daly and charismatic fearless leader, director Stephen Wadsworth, has engaged with one another, taken care of each other, and managed to finish every aspect of this beautiful Broadway show ahead of schedule without a single tear or raised voice or actor meltdown. We are all still passionate, energized and completely in love with one another.

That is a miracle.

...So. Tuesday the audience arrives and we all eagerly await our "seventh character" and look forward to telling and sharing this story with all of you. Here's to my first tech week on Broadway. I hope and trust it will not be my last. I am a lucky and grateful lady.

all photographs by Clinton Brandhagen

* * *

Terrence McNally’s music-kissed biographical drama about opera diva Maria Callas, Master Class, begins previews as Broadway’s Samuel J. Friedman Theatre June 14.According to MTC, “McNally’s award-winning play about Callas takes us to one of her famous master classes where, late in her own career, she challenges the next generation to make the same sacrifices and dare to rise to the same heights she did, making her the most celebrated, the most reviled and the most controversial singer of her times.” Tyne Daly leads a cast that features Sierra Boggess, Clinton Brandhagen, Jeremy Cohen, Alexandra Silber and Garrett Sorenson. Stephen Wadsworth directs.

In My Life: Justin

2011-05-31T22:37:00.001-04:00

justin flagg

glasgow, scotland

2005

This is what it is all about...

2011-05-19T23:56:00.002-04:00

Today was the best rehearsal day I have ever experienced in my life.

For so many reasons.

I have walked on Broadway stages before. I have even performed on them. But there is nothing like stepping onto a stage you are going to live on for a while, for the very first time. And this time? This time, that stage is on Broadway. And there is no way to describe it but it is simply different. As I walked into the theatre I clutched Jeremy Cohen's hand-- Sophie and Manny reunited on the Great White Way. "I will never forget this moment," he said. I couldn't agree more.

There we were, on the stage, and everyone was so excited! Garret [Sorenson], who has sung on some of the most prestigious operatic stages on earth was as gleeful as a child in a 650 seat house. Sierra [Boggess], returning to Broadway after a stint in our beloved London was orchestrating the picture taking and "moment marking" like a gleeful big sister watching her siblings going to Prom. We shouted! We squealed! We hugged. We allowed ourselves to feel the moment. We are an exceptionally loving and jolly bunch.

We returned to rehearsal and achieved a new kind of theatrical divinity none of us could ever have dreamed possible. The already magical scene reached new depths, new heights, new glory, and we all felt it (there is no way to articulate these tingly moments in the theatre, the closest comparison I can offer is that feeling of kissing a person who is the one...). Progress. Catharsis.

But then, as if all that were not enough, I had a singing session that accessed a quality in not merely my voice, but in my self, that no words could ever articulate. Suffice it say that I sang like never before.

I returned home that night to my family, all visiting from California-- my mom, my brother and sister in law, my two little nieces, and created more memories. Food, laughter, stories at bedtime...

I don't know if I can find the words to describe the quiet perfection of May 19, 2011 exactly, but perhaps finding those words is not important. This kind of contentment, happiness, peace? It is a quiet thing. It requires no language, only silent inner knowledge, like a candle glow of contentment.

Reader? This is what it is all about.
This is what life is all about...

class in in session...

Lo-Fi Around The World

2011-05-13T13:59:00.000-04:00

HARK!!
Hyperbole alert!!
Check out the trial of the Lo-Fi application and your life will change.
No.
For reals.
Totes.
Fo sho.
I cannot shove any more ironically used, 21st century tweenage slang in here to emphasize this point thoroughly enough.
(Oh, and from experience, don't download it if you have anything meaningful to do within the next 24 hours... because... you might not come up for air and you might forget your friends' birthday or not go to a meeting or be so distracted that you write down the wrong phone number or forget to grab that last load of laundry from the dryer or when you sweep the basement, you accidentally dump the entire contents of the dust pan into the bag of clean laundry from the dryer... Those are some options. So beware. The program is pretty much *that* great...)

"The 12th of Maaaaaaayyy..."

2011-05-12T21:43:00.002-04:00

So.... no we aren't dorks. We just loooved each other and are pretending we are still in the show. kind of. on a relevant date mentioned in the piece.

...that isn't dorky! it's. :::sigh::: okay. point taken.

So here it is: images from our heavenly Hello Again Reunion on "The 12th of Maaaaaay" in Sheep's Meadow, Central Park. Please note that we deeply missed some notable men (Bob Stillman and Jonathan Hammond to be specific)! In fact, as The Young Thing Blake Daniel said in one of the best notable quotables of the season: "None of my sex partners are coming." Word, Blake. Word.

But Vladamir, I hardly knew you!

2011-05-09T12:08:00.001-04:00

Hitchcockskya

Me: Hi, this is Alexandra Silber, I'm calling for Vladamir.
Them: [dead silence, then] Da.
Me: Well okay, [nervousrapidfirenerdyvoice] soooo I am doing some research on the katorga forced labor system in Imperial Russia [isoundliketheguyfromTheSimpsons] and I was told that Vladamir was available for a discussion sometime today?
Them: [silence.] Vladamir is out. [more silence]
Me: Okay...well I--
Them: --HE WILL NOT RETURN.
Me: [what?!] ...um, EVER?
Them: Da. EVER. I go now. Goodbye.

...whoa...

Things My 5 Senses Love: A List

2011-05-08T17:16:00.001-04:00

Tastes
Coffee
Anything Oliver Friendly cooks.
Sea salt
Ice cold watermelon. (A whole one. Just for me. No sharing. Okay maybe a little sharing...just a touch...)

Sights
That look in his eyes
Piles of books
Lemons
Nick Bantock's art work (and company, but that is not so much a sight, I'm trying to be terribly strict here!)
Early morning sunshine
old photographs
The extraordinarily blinding colo(u)rs in nature

Sounds
Meaningful conversations
The sea
Trains
Lilly playing the oboe
The laughter of people I love

Feels/Touches
Holding hands (particularly with long time favo[u]rite hand-holding partner David Fetzer)
Holding on to anyone you love
My childhood stuffed animals
The cool side of the pillow

Smells
Rosemary / Lavender / Peppermint in noparticularorder
NMD
Café Hula in Glasgow
Fresh Michigan air (especially after the rain)

...and you...?

In My Life: Emma

2011-05-03T13:03:00.003-04:00

Emma Williams

London, England

2010

Det. Alexandra Eames' advice to Alexandra Silber

2011-04-30T17:08:00.000-04:00

go on... have a cookie...because you are tall...

[At rise: me on the set of Law & Order: Criminal Intent sitting across from Kathryn Erbe who plays Detective Alexandra Eames. It has been a long day. And now there are freshly baked chocolate chip cookies sitting at the food table and the odo(u)r is wafting our way...]

Kathryn Erbe: Cookies! [she turns around with glee] Are you gonna have a cookie?
Me: They have cookies again? [They had cookies yesterday-- is this heaven?!]
KE: They have them every day. And they are hot. And delicious.
Me: I missed them yesterday...
KE: Well, then you should have one today!
Me: I dunno... [I am thinking of myself in these ill-fitting jeans for all the world to see... in HD...]
KE: ["Cookies are serious business" voice] You should have a cookie. You are young.... [she is deadpan] and tall...
Me: ...Okay...
KE: Please. For me.
Me: I promise.
KE: Thank you.

Cookie consumed.

What goes around comes around...

2011-04-28T14:02:00.003-04:00

... indeed. There are many nebulous themes in Hello Again, but if we glean anything at all, that one is certain. And like everything, al things must end, it only means new beginnings, and indeed, the ephemeral nature of the theatre is what in fact provides it's poignancy... Farewell Hello Again. Thank you to everyone who made the experience of my New York debut possible. Life-long friendships were established. The overcoming of challenging personal and artistic obstacles. We sang in our underwear. We did ..."other things..." On tables and things. We got nominated for awards. For a lot of awards. We won some of those awards. (And heck, I even got my Equity card...a touch on the tardy side mind you, but I got it...)

So farewell lovely group. "I'm sure we'll be saying hello again..."

Let us just finish with a quote from the wonderful creative mastermind, Michael John LaChiusa himself:

"This cast of Hello Again is one of the most remarkable ensembles I've ever seen onstage-- and I've had the privilege of assembling some pretty remarkable casts over the years for my shows, including the original production of Hello Again...

"Over and over again, for the last month, people have been writing to me and repeating the same thing 'this restored my faith in theatre-going.' It's sort of cliché, of course, as a sentiment and the compliment. But I sense something more: there's a hunger out there for what TG provides with Hello Again. There's a sadness in knowing that people are hungry, of course-- but also a great joy in being responsible for providing a little nourishment in the desert. You've done just that..."

In My Life: London

2011-04-21T22:24:00.000-04:00

london

england

2008

London Still

Don't threaten my love of Murder, She Wrote. I will cut you.

Ex Libris

Words for Interlochen Center for the Arts

There's nothing quite like a *real* book...

Where memories go...

Glove Love

A Telegram

The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 9, A Sophie and Sharon Christmas

In My Life: Victoria

Winter Reads: A List

In My Life: Bronner's Christmas Wonderland

Funeral! [a “How To” Guide]

A 'Quick 5' with The Maryland Theatre Guide

In My Life: Zoë

A Letter

Portrait of a Friend: Lilly

Things I love about... Part 2: New Gal-Pals

In My Life: Jeremy

What About Bob and The Dying (a memoir)

A Letter

I've Been [*Special Edition*]: A Word Puzzle

Autumn Reads: A List

In My Life: Elizabeth

Ten Years.

In My Life: Michael

London Still at The Kennedy Center

Elementary School Crushes

Sometimes I spend a lot of time alone...

In My Life: Haley

Things I love about...Part 1

Ask Al: Finding Your "Type"

The Gastronomic History of Grigory Alexievich

In My Life: Kenn

Things I love about Michigan

Letting it go...

On doing what you love for a living...

Come on Irene

In My Life: Frances

Sometimes I think...

A Moment

Yellow Dessert: An Aversion

The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 9, with Tony Candolino

Horatio loves to make a PROMISE...

In My Life: Alpena

"I never met a man who wasn't in love with her..."

Ask Al: Secrets of the Self-Employed Part 3

THIS IS THE MOMENT.

The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 8, The Roommate Citations

In My Life: Santino

Ahhh New York: Hitch-hiking

Sophie's Choice

Broadway.com Fresh Face

The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 7, Passive Aggresive Tendencies

In My Life: Beverley

The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 6, The Stolen Pencils

Ask Al: Reviewing Reviews

The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 5, Sophie & Sharon's Great American Medley

Twenty-Eight

Ask Al: Revisiting a Role

Ahhh New York

Al: Excuse me is this seat taken?That guy: Yes. Al: really? That guy: Uh, yes. Clearly this dolphin is sitting here.... Al: [this person is crazy I will sloooowly back away now] Oh, yes of course... [not so subtly takes photo of crazy dolphin]

FIN.

PS) what is it about me and meeting people with giant stuffed toys on public transport?!

The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 4, Locked Out

On Camera: Playwright Terrence McNally

Ask Al: Secrets of The Self Employed Part 2

The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 3, The Message Board

Look. What. I. Found.

I've Been

In My Life: Anna

Awakened

The Adventures of Sophie and Sharon: Part 2, The Matching Glasses

The Adventures of Sophie & Sharon: Part 1

Master Class on Broadway

First Tech Week on Broadway

In My Life: Justin

This is what it is all about...

Lo-Fi Around The World

"The 12th of Maaaaaaayyy..."

There's nothing quite like a real book...

I've Been [Special Edition]: A Word Puzzle

Al: Excuse me is this seat taken?
That guy: Yes.
Al: really?
That guy: Uh, yes. Clearly this dolphin is sitting here....
Al: [this person is crazy I will sloooowly back away now] Oh, yes of course... [not so subtly takes photo of crazy dolphin]