They brought a woman from the street And made her sit in the stalls By threats By bribes By flattery Obliging her to share a little of her life with actors
But I don't understand art
Sit still, they said
But I don't want to see sad things
Sit still, they said
And she listened to everything Understanding some things But not others Laughing rarely, and always without knowing why Sometimes suffering disgust Sometimes thoroughly amazed And in the light again, said
If that's art I think it is hard work It was beyond me So much beyond my actual life
But something troubled her Something gnawed her peace And she came a second time, armoured with friends
Sit still, she said
And again, she listened to everything This time understanding different things This time untroubled that some things Could not be understood Laughing rarely but now without shame Sometimes suffering disgust Sometimes thoroughly amazed And in the light again said
This is art, it is hard work And one friend said, too hard for me And the other said, if you will I will come again Because I found it hard I felt honoured
hosting the Chicago edition of The Hanukkah Hoedown!
feeling more lonely than I ever have in all my life
wondering why some people are absolute jerks
letting go
accepting
endeavoring to reveal my inner self
Writing writing wrting...
freezing my ass off in Chicago
"Chicago-ing"(at Steppenwolf, the Art Institute, IO Improv night, Magnificent Mile and many more wonders)
baking paleo bread
participating in a really interesting and genre-busting play-reading of The Block Association Project with a phenomenal group of talents
Reading:
So Sad Today: Personal Essays by Melissa Broder
The Nightengale's Sonata
The Big New Yorker Book of Cats
New Family Values by Andrew Solomon
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
Why You Are Who You Are from The Great Courses
The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean
Dare to Lead by Brené Brown
My sisters!
Daring Greatly by Brené Brown
recording a cut song from Fiddler on the Roof titled 'Marry for Love' (which was ultimately replaced by 'Matchmaker') with Roslaind Harris and Neva Small (Tzeitel and Chava from the Fiddler motion picture, respectively!)
with Rosalind Harris and Neva Small
hosting friends from far away (both named Alexandra)
reuniting with my Fiddler family at 54 Below!
re-connecting with old friends who live locally!
hanging with MamaSilbs
and (shockingly, surprisingly... in THE most unlikely of places and circumstances) falling in love...
Messiah and Beautiful Garden at the Takarazuka theatre in Tokyo!
Watching Film and TV:
Won’t You Be My Neighbor (i saw it on the plane and wept)
Better Call Saul
The Man in the High Castle
Sisters on Netflix
Black mirror
A-typical
The Five
Shakespeare: Uncovered
Reading:
The end of the affair by Graham Greene
Mating in Captivity by Esther Perel
astrophysics for people in a hurry Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Famous father girl by Jamie Bernstein
Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon
The light of the world by Elizabeth Alexander
The people’s tragedy Orlando Figes
Emma by Jane Austen
The butterfly effect by Jon Ronson
The coming storm by Michael Lewis
Doing:
Seeing national monuments
African American history museum
Reading on the National Mall
Writing lots of postcards
reflecting
hosting friends
Singing on Seth Rudetsky
enduring with varying levels of grace a huge period of inexplicable and illogical clinical depression (one I expect to rear its head about every 6 years, and here it was, right on schedule)
Checking Japan off my bucket list
Eating, Seeing, Tasting, Smelling, and Teaching in JAPAN
- Enjoying my (self-appointed) title of 'Aunt of the Year!'
- Muir Woods
- Bowling
- bearing witness to my eldest niece Hannah’s 11th birthday party (my first birthday party as 'Aunt Al'). There were many emotions.
- Building a freakin DOLL HOUSE with Jordan that almost made us divorce as siblings... (I genuinely can't believe people stay married after this family activity) but we DID IT!!!
- Spending an entire day alone in San Francisco, visiting all my
old "spots" and discovering new ones before...
- ...Having lunch and endless, not-kidding around real-talk with my "brother" Michael Luwoye, currently playing Alexander Hamilton himself in the California touring production.
- Taking my family to see HAMILTON
- Seeing #FiddlerFam Andrew and Jacob!
- Coloring
- Challenging my brother, Jordan to a pool war, henceforth known as 'Swan V. Unicorn'
- Healing
- Shaving my head for the final time
- Hit once again with auto-immune flares, new chocking health trials, and, as always, learning learning learning.
- SEEING
A Dolls House Part 2
The Price
Pace 2017 Showcase
The Sojourners & Her Portmanteau
Groundhog Day
The Lightning Thief
- READING
The Universe is not What it Seem Roberto Cavelli
Don Quixote
The Obstacle is the Way
- SINGING SINGING SINGING!
- Becoming a face of the incredible TODAY TIX campaign! Holy moly.
- Standing agape at #NotMyPresident Trump
- Participating in the Jewish Book Council
- Drama League Awards luncheon with 'Hub' Adam Kantor and sisters Samantha and Melanie!
- Getting a new microwave
And:
-
Placing the old microwave (that I found on the street in Astoria, 2010)
back on the street, still working. It served me valiantly. I placed it
on the curb and sang "Til We Reach That Day" with NO MARKING.
- GETTING HEALTHY
- Fighting a Mount Sinai battle (forever known as the "Impossible Dream")
- Getting Infusions #1, 2 and 3
- Feeling well on a cellular level
Hannah's 11th birthday present: a night at the Orpheum with 'Aunt Al'
- Participating so meaningfully in my constitutional right to protest. I've joined marches with and for women, science, the arts, alongside my friends and colleagues at the ACLU, Planned Parenthood and Actor’s Equity.
- Ringing the gong!(A tradition at my acting agency where you ring a giant gong when you "book" a job!)
- Singing with my "DooDoo" and little sissy Samantha Massell at 54 Below (living out our BEST DUET LIFE GOALS!)
- Doing a beautiful reading of a new musical
- Visiting my hometown! Yay Detroit, Michigan!
- Returning to the legendary Greek Islands
- Catching up with old dear friends
- Driving!
- Buying a REAL winter coat
- Loving the Michigan cold
- Waiting outside in the freezing February Detroit cold to see my first gathering of The Moth downtown!
- Celebrating my Mom’s birthday!
This. CAST!
- “Wintero-verting”
-ALL ABOARD! McCarter
- Costume HEAVEN
- Loving the beauty and history of Princeton
- Making some great new theatre pals
- Daily yoga
- Loving being a part of the McCarter family
- LEARNING MEGA LESSONS
- personal and energetic boundaries
- About being an 'INFJ'
- Being an *Empath*
- Making some serious inner peace
- Working 2016 “out”
- Learning allllll about psychic stress
The Countess, courtesy of William Ivey Long
- Letting go
- Cooking!
- Doing a top secret photo-shoot for a major theatre platform (news coming soon!) with super fancy people on a dream come true kind of day. (Pssst - keep your eyes peeled on the Time Warner Center for giant crazy images of yours truly)
- Making peace with solitude
- Rumbling with health again
- Resting and Healing
- Learning even more about health (which is so much ore than the mere absence of disease)
- a true and complete 5-hour Hassidic seder on Passover at the wonderful internet sensation, Rabbi Mordecai Lightstone’s in Crown Heights. It was an honor to be at his table with his wife and four sons, and the collection of people from all across the internet he has welcomed into his circle and literal home.
- Deep (and I mean DEEP) cleaning
'After Anatevka' at Symphony Space
- 'Introverting'
- Enjoying possibly the most overwhelming night of my entire life at Symphony Space. In an evening that felt not at all unlike my freakin' Bat Mitzvah, my close friends and colleagues came together to bring After Anatevka to musical life, in a manner I have no words to express.
- LOVING ON AND BEING LOVED ON BY TATIANA SO SO SO HARD
Writing:
- Submitting my manuscript!
- Completing the editorial process on my first novel
- The book cover victory
- Proofreading coincidence
- Seeing my novel as a novel for the very first time
Reading:
- The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon
- You are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero
- Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
- Theatre of the Oppressed by Augusto Boal
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (read beautifully on Audible.com by Claire Danes, prepping for the Hulu series!)
Seeing: - Hamilton - The Humans - Yours Unfaithfully at The Mint - Picnic and Come Back Little Sheba in rep, at the Transport Group - Significant Other
- San Francisco Symphony at Carnegie Hall (with Lilly!)
- Pranking Kantor
(Kantor was out sick (?) for the first time, and thus I decided to start a prank: the entire cast wrote "Dear Adam" get-well notes, ranging from the sincere to the deeply inappropriate and his understudy Matt Moisey and I taped them ALL. OVER. HIS. ROOM.)
Pranking genius.
- At the Mayo Clinic:
- Getting answers
- Meeting some of the best doctors on planet earth
- Getting off the evil evil medications that were ruining my life!
- Healing healing healing
- Swimming in mega-steroid withdrawal! (SUUUPER FUN!)
- Sleeping 9-14 hours a day.
- Introvert-dating to The Strand Bookstore with my beloved introvert gals Nikka and Ashley...
Introverts.
- ...and buying 8 squillion children's books (and a catnip owl for Tati, duh) for our mutual pal Laura Benanti's baby shower: - Lyle Lyle Crocodile - Eloise - The Phantom Tollbooth - The Secret Garden - A Little Princess - The Chronicles of Narnia - Little Women - Anne of Green Gables - A Wrinkle in Time - East of the Sun West of the Moon - Frog and Toad - Enjoying Lilly playing in our Fiddler orchestra!
(Can you believe Lilly and I have never, in our entire lives as performers and BFFs, performed together? This was one of the most incredibly special days of my life. Lilly and Al making their performance debut on Broadway. The feeling of having Lilly playing gorgeously, supporting me underneath my feet as I played Tzeitel was a dream beyond imagining.)
- Celebrating the Jewish High Holidays.
- Adult-ing (I bought a shredder! And shredded things!)
- Exploring in NYC (Have you checked out The Oculus?)
- Experiencing major Fiddler understudy love!
(for instance, reveling in the magical day Adam Kantor was out, Jeffrey Schekter was on vacation, And Aaron Young was sick so JACOB GUZMAN HAD TO EMERGENCY GO ON FOR MENDEL!)
Happy Anniversary Hub!
- Celebrating our one-year anniversary at Fiddler on the Roof! Marking all the little "one year agos" as a company:
- First day of rehearsal
- T-shirt day
- Staging Matchmaker
- Our first Kamzoil date.
Happy Anniversary Fiddler!
- Finishing my book edits
(Joyfully. It was a pleasure returning to these familiar characters I now see every day once again, and revisiting my new friends. I can't even express how extraordinary the priviledge is to share all these people with you on July 4).
The cover!
- Dropping my jaw at the book cover! (It is REAL!)
- Standing up for myself!
(A very opinionated woman who is the hostess at Cosmic Diner on 52/8th avenue asked me "What did you do to your hair?" followed by her rolling her eyes, shaking her head and telling me it looked "terrible.")
- More and more Reading reading reading:
- The Great Courses: Becoming a Great Essayist
- Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
- The Five Keys of Mindful Communication
- The Great Courses: World Mythology
- Auditions auditions auditions
...and then?
- Getting a new gig!
- WATCHING SOME TV
- Binge-watching Hawaii Five-0 (...aaaaand WEEPING)
- The Grinder
- Bones
- Family Guy
- Chef's Table: France
- Bloodline
- The Roosevelts
- Bonding with my lovely older neighbor Christian in apartment 12, as he attempts to give me his very last piece of precious baklava. I refused, but my my was he sweeter than the Aegean treat!
- Attending and singing at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland's American soiree
- Attending my very first ever BOARD MEETING! For the RCS, a true honoUr.
- Taking great joy in doing even the littlest of tasks with excellence
- Learning to totally rock Self Care:
Allowing people to help and love me
Sleeping (like an Olympic Sleep Gold medalist)
Introvert-ing (like a pro)
Journaling constantly
Enjoying Paleo delights (like my homemade Paleo granola whuuuut)
Detoxifying my home (welcome Himalayan salt lamps!
- Still meeeeeelting in the NYC summer heat.
- More health rumbling. Oof.
- Having a blast singing "Oh My Mysterious Lady" with Tony Sheldon for the Transport Group's Peter Pan in Concert
- ...and connecting with some incredible friends
- The camaraderie of the dressing room, combined with the feeling of true belonging after all these years was very powerful. And true. It is possible to be true to yourself in this business and in this world. The Transport Group often reminds me of that.
- Returning to London. Again. Ah beloved home away from home.
- Witnessing my oldest and best friend, Tony-nominee Michael Arden get married.
Reading Sonnet 116
Dancing the night away
The entire "congregation of heathens" wearing matching onesies
...and singing along with Darren Criss (as he plays 90s songs on guitar... in the forrest... everyone singing along...in the onesies...)
Doing magical spells in the forest
Reuniting with my oldest friends on earth
Engaging in not one but three costume changes
Alexandras take EUROPE!
Seeing glorious Bath
...with old and new friends
- Deep talks with new friends in foreign cities. The kind you can only have whilst traveling.
- International Alexandra Sister trip!
- Seeing my lady-pals in Showboat at the New London! I wept!
- ...then grabbing a proper catch-up and feast after the show.
- Writing lots and lots of postcards! It is so wonderful (and easy!) to send simple missives of love and thoughtfulness via good ol' snail mail.
The leading ladies of Showboat
- SEEING HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD IN THE WEST END AT THE PALACE THEATRE AND GASPING AND CLAPPING AND LAUGHING AND WEEPING.
- Going out with the cast of Harry Potter after the show. Fabulous and bizarre. Making some new pals! Reuniting with old ones! (Ah the theatre! The great democratizer of the arts!)
- Being met and flooded with the WEDDING PARTY!! And making a NIGHT of it. (A hostess said in total earnestness "Are you with the group of 'kind of famous' Americans...?" I was. And we were clearly on #BRAND).
My Anatevka Family forever
- Re-connecting with my original Anatevka family for the entire Sunday of August 21st. My heart filled with the kind of comfort and happiness you feel in the presence of family. Next year in the Holy Land...
- Trekking through the grounds of Alexandra Palace after lunch with Bev and Tomm and feeling more at peace than I have all year. True friends are healing.
- Being bold and reaping the emotional and energetic rewards. Fortune favors the brave.
- Seeing my dearest Pineapple and friend Michael Bernardi fulfill his destiny as Tevye on The Broadway stage (not to mention actually SEE my own show!!)
- Weekending in Bucks County with my friend and Julliard voice teacher and dear friend Doc White.
- Having dinner between our Broadway shows with two of my childhood
acting idols Peter Scolari and Judy Kaye. (If you had told my 16-year-old
self that one day they would be beloved friends and colleagues, I never
would have believed you...)
- Giving authentic interviews that with incredible journalists. Interviews can often be a little silly, often very fun, but these have actually reflected who I am inside, and it means the world to me:
And freaking out
then making-out with Cheyenne Jackson
...in the women’s bathroom…
ALL AT TWITTER HEADQUARTERS…
....where I discovered that everything is named after a bird... Cool.
*
Love is Strange premiere
Flying to LA for a quick hello
Having lunch in LA with people I saw 4 days ago in NYC, because, friendship.
Getting "real talk" from my second family.
Driving to Cheyenne's house
drinking smoothies
falling in love with Jason, his fiancé,
and Billie Jean, his dog.
...then singing along to ourselves on the CD in his living room. (Mature.)
Then supporting the gorgeous Cheyenne at the premiere of his new film “Love is Strange.”
Staying in Michael Arden’s cabana… while he is in London, because, friendship.
Taking excessive photographs of his cat, Eloise (because evidently I have an addiction to taking cat photos...)
Business: with the sea.
Driving in the city in a Ford hybrid LIKEABOSS...
Getting long overdue Manhattans (because Manhattans are delicious.)
Contemplating getting a cat. (A black cat named Rasputin, specifically...)
WRITING!
Finishing my trilogy of novels!
aaaaand putting the finishing touches on my memoir. (PHEW!)
Plus, spending a great deal of time in local haunts pretending I'm Hemingway. (Thank you to Bugatti on 34th/31stAve for the glass of Chianti on the house!)
Watching ALL of Psych. It's.... amazing....
Anna is very strict about "home tasks"
Learning Russian! (Da.) From my incredibly awesome next-door-neighbor Anna.
Speaking of neighbors, throwing a building goodbye party for Apartment #22 (they are moving to Michigan!)
Working working working.
with some wonderful old pals, and making a lot of great new ones.
Spontaneously traveling up to the Berkshires to surprise my pal Richard Schiff in his glorious dramatization of Chaim Potok's The Chosen up at Barrington Stage.
(Then road tripping back to NYC with him, his daughter, and Kate The Intern.)
Having major adventures with "Comrade" Kit Baker (to the fringe at the Mostly Mozart festival at Lincoln Center)
Really indulging the Audbile.com's series The Great Courses.
Greek Mythology
Understanding Opera
Russian Literature
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