Jeff Blumenkrantz (Rehearsal Photos)

Images from the rehearsal (courtesy of the very talented Amy Maiden)

Jeff Blumenkrantz Songbook

Hello All from the USA,

Just wanted to let you know about a concert I have coming up on 22 June in Knightsbridge. Here is the information from the See Tickets website:

On the back of their 2007 success, Contempo Theatre Company and Producing House is proud to present:

"The Jeff Blumenkrantz Songbook Concert."

A Tony Award Nominee, this acclaimed performer and composer has worked with performers the likes of Audra McDonald, Victoria Clark, Lauren Kennedy, Julia Murney, Megan Mullally and Judy Kuhn.

Join Jeff and West End favorites Damian Humbley, Alexandra Silber, and Lauren Ward in an intimate evening featuring Jeff's exquisite music. This one-off event is one definitely not to be missed.

By purchasing your tickets online, you get the dicounted rate! DO NOT WAIT TO BUY AT THE DOOR because you will have to pay £20 with cash only! (And no one wants that!) So BOOK HERE now!

* * *

And I just have to say it: I am so proud of my friend Amy Maiden who is, according to everyone, "the one to watch" in the West End this year. (I must add here that I am quite proud to have been watching her all along, and witness to the inception of her blossoming!) She is a small (for the moment!) producer with a big passion, and she is such a remarkable example of someone who really takes a visionary dream, and actually makes it a reality. It is a real honour to know her, and such a pleasure to be present at the dawn of her big big career. Hooray for Amy. Hooray!

For more information about Jeff, check out Jeff's Website. Aaaaaaand here is a clip of Audra McDonald singing "I Won't Mind," a song I will be singing in the concert on Sunday...

See you there!

Condensed Film Scripts: Gigli

(Not to be confused with the musical Lerner & Lowe film, Gigi... because...no... that would just be wrong...)

* * *

Scene 1: Introduction

The Affleck: [generic urban gesture] Yo! F&$*ing hello there! I am Larry Gigli. I'm a low ranking mobster. It's f&$%ed up stuff! I've been commanded by my f&$!ing mob bosses to kidnap a disabled, Baywatch-obsessed boy who is the younger brother of a powerful federal prosecutor so I can save my mobster boss from prison. I am f&*#ing AWESOME.

* * *

Scene 2: Gigli successfully convinces "Baywatch Brian" to go off with him by promising to take him "to the Baywatch..."

The Affleck: Wanna go to THE BAYWATCH?
Baywatch Brian: Wuh???
The Affleck: [under his breath] F&*#ing idiot. [unnervingly loud] You and me go to THE BAYWATCH????
Baywatch Brian: .... Uhhhhhh, okay.

* * *

Scene 3: However, for totally unexplained reasons, Gigli's boss Louis does not trust him and takes it upon himself to hire a woman named Ricki (Jennifer Lopez) to take over the job. (Fine.) And thus... the Bennifer unfolds...

The Affleck: [inner monologue] I am so f%@*ing attracted to Ricki! I mean, F#¢&! How could I not be? Haven't you f$%@ing seen her doing f%^&ing "YOGA" in over two dozen f§%@ing shots?! Wow. She's pretty f%&^ing hot. [takes pause for a moment] but I resent the fact that my boss, doesn't have any f^%$ing faith in me and that I has to take orders from a [tone of marked derision] f@*&ing girl. [inner monologue complete.]

Baywatch Brian: Can we go to THE BAYWATCH???
The Affleck: Not right now.
Baywatch Brian: Pleeeeeeeeeeeeease?
The Affleck: No.
Baywatch Brian: Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease?
The Affleck: Ugh! no! We cannot go to The Baywatch right now please just f&$*ing --- stop!

[He is also frustrated by Brian's insistence on going to The Baywatch; and oh yeah, Ricki's lesbianism which was JUST mentioned 2 seconds ago...]

* * *

Scene 4: Gigli and Ricki receive orders from Ray to cut off Brian's thumb. Neither of them wants to do it. They talk about it for literally 15 minutes.

The Affleck: What? That is f^&%ed up man! I ain't gonna do it!
The Lopez: You gotta! It's f%&^ing ORDERS.
The Affleck: Well I'm not gonna f$%&ing do it.
The Lopez: I'M not gonna f$&^ing do it.
The Affleck: Oh yes you f£^%ing ARE!

...etc for 15 minutes.

* * *

Scene 5: Ricki's girlfriend shows up at Gigli's apartment, accusing her of cheating.

[Knocking and hysterical crying at the door]

The Affleck: Umm.... is.... that your door? Are you expecting company? I mean...
The Lopez: It's my f^%*ing girlfriend. Hold on she's pretty f$@&ing crazy.
Crazy Girlfriend: YOU F&%*ING CHEATED ON ME YOU F&%@ING BI-ATCH!
The Lopez: WHATEVUH!

[The Lopez mildly overreacts by slitting her wrist. Fine.]

* * *

Scene 6: While at the hospital, Gigli goes to the morgue and cuts off a corpse's thumb, which he sends to his boss as Brian's thumb. Genius! Problem solved. Gigli and Ricki eventually go back to his apartment and engage in the following (condensed) conversation:

The Affleck: I f%*@ing love you.
The Lopez: Wanna f*&%?
The Affleck: What the f)*&. Yeah, okay.

[Hooray! And thank God things are picking up. But wait, not actually hooray because J-Lo is covered in a white sheet the entire time even though she is on top of him...aaaaaand how she manages that we may never know...]

* * *

Scene 7: The Affleck and Lopez are called to meet with the top mob boss Starkman (played, sadly, by a clueless-to-how-bad-this-movie-is Al Pacino), who shoots Gigli's immediate boss (remember Louis? I don't) dead.

Starkman is about to kill Benniffer as well, but The Lopez points out that only the three of them know what really happened (even though WE don't... but at this point don't even care), so Starkman allows them to leave, and take the brother back to "where they found him."

* * *

Scene 8: On the way, they discover Baywatch shooting an episode on the beach and in a staggering act of reckless abandonment leave Brian there... my GOD.

Music.

The End.

Thank the LORD.

* * *

Parting thoughts:

1. The f@$&ing-this-f%&*ing-that writing style gets real old pret-ty fast (Let's just say this: Mamet it absolutely ain't).

2. Juuuuust one lil' nitpick: there is this gimmick of having The Affleck resorting to reading ingredients labels because he has no books in the house. Then, in the next room The Lopez is shown with what?-- a flippin' book. Then later in the film Gigli's back to reading ingredients when there's another frickin book in the bedroom! Did anybody (proof)read this script?!!

3. Gigli had a giant tattoo that nobody ever comments on.

4. Advisory to anyone whose appetite is whetted by perusal of the cast list: The Al Pacino and Christopher Walken bits are just that.

5. Gigli focus groups demand new ending in which Affleck and Lopez die.

Ruthiewithaheart

So here's the thing. When you are in a public profession, you have to maintain a certain level of anonimity when it comes to the things you share on a public website like this. And sometimes, yes, that bums me out. OH! [Insert grand theatrical gesture here] the stories I could share if I could reveal all! Oh the reputations I could probably annihilate. But naturally I won't. I will annihilate my own reputation with stories of flying red shoes, idiotic conversations with John Cusack, and laying face-down in a dumpster whilst speaking to one's agent. I think that is enough annhilation for a lifetime.

But today I feel the need to wax lyrical. I feel full of pride and excitement for a person I love more than anything. And I need to share it with you, dear reader...

So. I have this friend. And as I explained above, I don't write about her in this blog because she is a liiiiiiittle bit famous (okay, actually quite famous), and I feel very protective of her privacy, her integrity, and her feelings (in a way I don't feel entirely bothered about with Sir Simon or Sir Trevor or John Cusack, for that matter). Therefore, I like to limit myself when it comes to the things I share about this phenomenal woman, who happens to be one of the most important people in my life.

She is my "Chosen Sister," my inspiration, my barometer. I love her deeply and when I think of our friendship, our laughter, our tears and our beyond-belief talks; I feel that together we can take on anything. She is one of those people. She makes you feel more powerful because she is there.

She is one of the best people in the world.
She is so much more than just an actress. and singer. (and shit-hot dancer by they way).
She is part of a select few.
She is the real deal.
She is Ruthie Henshall and I adore her.
My Ruthiewithaheart. (That is, to explain, Ruthie, written with the dot on top of the "I" as a heart... instead of a dot...)

Once in an odd while, we come across things, people, landscapes, that make us, as Ayn Rand puts it, "answer and say YES." You see a piece of art, you read a piece of writing, you meet someone so authentic and direct, so startling and real; and your whole being responds with a Yes. An underlined Yes. Yes with an exclamation point.

I felt that way the day I met the Ruthie. June 5th, in the late morning, at a conservatory filled with sunlight. And when we saw one another, we both recognized each other. When we began talking, we felt like friends. Sure, there was enormous professional pressure, but that was not the deepest flavor. Instead, I felt comfort. We laughed, mostly. We slipped into a friendship like sliding into warm water, and we haven’t left yet.

Talking with her felt like keeping my hand wrapped around a warm cup of coffee. Conversation tasted like potato-leek soup, like apple crisp, like cake just out of the oven. We wafted vanilla and sugar between us. We devoured each other’s words, and every one of them felt like Yes. And in those first few shared moments, I honestly felt all the years that would follow, all the days together, all the laughing and comfort. That moment is when I said Yes to Ruthie. I want to write yes, with an underline, in the air. There might be other lifetimes between us before this. Who knows? I only know Yes. I only know how much I adore her. Yes — with an exclamation point. Ruthie — with a heart.

And all I have to say to all of those who love her, and all of those who love the theatre: you must... YOU MUST see this woman give what many are referring to as the performance of her career in Marguerite, a new musical co-written by Michel Legrand & the creators of Les Misérables, which opens this week at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. It plays until November, and you mustn't miss it. The world premiere of an original musical is a rare event in the West End, but Marguerite, is more than that. What Ruthie is doing is incredibly brave and important. And I am more proud than I could ever hope to articulate. For more reasons than I could ever name.

Go.

Project C: Bustin' Out All Over

Mystery ended.
It's official.
Hooray.
See you there...

Return from Andalucia

I returned yesterday from my Andalucian adventure, and all I can say for the moment is this: I doubt I shall ever be the same again. In every way. More to come.

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A Video Introduction...

Andalucia calls...

I leave Monday for my great adventure to Andalucia, and to Nick Bantock's "Delivered By Accident in Twilight"-- I feel simultaneously thrilled and apprehensive. I worry about my visual artistic abilities, and continue to tell myself that though a novice, I do possess an artistic eye, and still professionally create, albeit in a different, though no less legitimate way.

The truth is, I have never in my life done anything like this for myself, and that, ultimately, is who I am there for. For beautiful surroundings, company, food, and for the opportunity to dip my toe in the ocean of creative spirit, to swim in it, until my fingers get all pruney.

Throughout the history of our world there have been those who took first steps, down new roads, armed with nothing but their own vision. I believe I am meeting one on Monday. I believe I am meeting a man brave enough to invent a world; to allow others to decide what is being 'said' within his work. I am compelled to make this pilgrimidge of sorts, because I share the values I assume in him, because I have an artist's temperament. I go because when I behold his work, it rises up to meet me, and I am simultaneously absorbed in it. It is difficult to articulate, but these are all predestined things.

We are so often suffocated by those who want to enlighten us with their truths. For me, art in all it's forms is beautiful because it is a secret, and secrets seduce us, we all want to share them.
I go because I must.

Re: Werewolf

So an update.

1. The scene changed. The werewolf didn't burst through the ceiling. He entered like anyone else to a masquarade ball, and moved through a crowded room while onlookers thought he had the best costume of the evening (of course). Then he bit off someone's head and the crowd caught on... and the rest was pretty much the same.

2. I didn't get it. It went to an "English Rose," which in I do believe in Hollywoodspeak means thinner and blonder than you... (Why didn't they just ask me to be "as blonde as possible?")

Fine.
Perhaps it's... for the best...

The blind-singing-Victorian-eaten-by-a-werewolf-"look as attractive as possible"-audition...

Tomorrow I have to audition for a film.

I was just speaking about this to a few actor friends last week. Why is it that when a really palatable job presents itself to you, you inevitably have to achieve the impossible on camera. The things we do to get a job (sigh). My favorite instruction of the day was to "look as attractive as possible..." whatever that slightly worryingly insinuates. Here are a few choice remarks people have asked of or said to me in order to prepare for auditions:

1. "See. We're gonna need you to create the physical comedy of the donkey yourself..."

2. "There isn't actually a script, so... yeah ..."

3. "Oh! Yes of course I forgot to ask if you have Chinese heritage?"

4. "You'll have to fake an American accent. Can you do that?"

and my absolute favorite:

5. "Does you get cold sores in real life? Because that would be great..."

But tomorrow takes the cake. Tomorrow I am being asked to sing a song from the Mikado, portraying a blind, Victorian parlour room entertainer. Oh and by the way she is blind. Fine. Then, halfway through the song, I have to react (blindly) to an invisible (but rampant) werewolf who breaks through the glass ceiling of the party and rabidly chases after the guests who all run away screaming (which all must be imagined of course, because it will really be a major movie star dressed in a blue suit). Then I have to portray the imaginary werewolf will slowly stalking up and breathing upon me. And then act as if I am being eaten by said invisible werewolf. 

um, WHAT?

"I've come to look for America..."

"Kathy," I said as we boarded a Greyhound in Pittsburgh
"Michigan seems like a dream to me now
It took me four days to hitchhike from Saginaw
I've come to look for America..."

-- Paul Simon

A traveller. Perhaps that's it. Though my travels hardly feel worthy of comparison to those of the greats-- Rosalind's full circle to and from Arden, Bilbo Baggins' there and back again. I am no explorer like Vespucci, not romantic enough for a gypsy nor pious enough for a pilgrim. Ahh America. How I had forgotten you, and how I longed to remember. Was blind but now I see, (as they say). And though I know I am no great traveller of Shakespearean or Historical proportion, I share with them and with us all, a cardinal desire: all I have ever wanted is what we all long for-- a place in the world. A home. 

I feel perhaps like Marco Polo in Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities... In Calvino's book, the great explorer Marco Polo entertains an aging Kubla Khan by recounting tales of 55 cities he has visited in his travels. As Marco Polo continues to impart his experiences, he, willingly or un, revels connections between the cities that leave the reader left to wonder whether the accounts of his destinations actually represent different aspects of a single city; a unique and unrivaled place, in Polo's case, his beloved Venice. 

Marco Polo thus embodies two classic symbolic travellers. First, Odysseus: the one who, either by force or by choice, denounces a home he does not realise he loves. He thus condemns himself to a life of wandering and homeless-ness, slowly losing sight and memory of the only place he longs to return to. 

"Memory's images, once they are fixed in words, are erased," Polo said. "Perhaps I am afraid of losing Venice all at once, if I speak of it. Or perhaps, speaking of other cities, I have already lost it, little by little."

Second, Dorothy: the one who seeks adventure abroad, only to discover their heart's desire was "in their own backyard" all along. 

"Each deserves a different name; perhaps I have already spoken of Irene under other names; perhaps I have spoken only of Irene."

Have I assumed myself the former only to discover I am, in fact, the latter? What bliss that truth would be! Have I travelled the world long enough? Have I in fact discovered home was always there, patiently waiting for me to earn and deserve it? Observing Calvino observing Venice is a reminder of how often the controlled, measured world of knowledge and assumption fails us. So much of life resists the facts. As Khan discovers: imagining a"Venice" is imagining yourself. And though an unsettling exercise, it is necessary, perhaps. I believe my trip to America and Home, was precisely that.

Welcome Home Al. 

I will return shortly. And new. 

"...what he sought was always something lying ahead, and even if it was a matter of the past it was a past that changed gradually as he advanced on his journey, because the traveler's past changes according to the route he has followed: not the immediate past, that is, to which each day that goes by adds a day, but the more remote past. Arriving at each new city the traveler finds again a past of his that he did not know he had: the foreignness of what you no longer are or no longer possess lies in waiting for you in foreign, not-yet-possessed places."

-- Italo Calvino

The Reese's Peanut Butter EGG.

Oh my GOODNESS.

Easter is not really a celebratory holiday, (even though it is the the most important religious feast in the Christian liturgical year), the crucifixtion of Christ is doesn't really get people jumping in the aisles, but hey. And the non-religious aspects of it have crept in like so many other traditional holidays, to open the season up to all people religious and non-religious alike: the celebration of Spring, accompanied by pastel-colored candies and chocolates galore, as well as a mythological rabbit bearing chocolate symbols of the equinox. (By the way, did you know the modern English term Easter developed from the Old English word Eastre, which itself developed prior to 899. The name refers to the goddess Eostre, who was celebrated at the Spring equinox? Amazing.)

Anyway! Now. Even though Easter is verrrrrry early this year (The Paschal Full Moon was early, thus the first Sunday after spring became Easter Sunday), and the 12 inches of snow Detroit received lat night isn't very SPRING-like, one can still enjoy the most important, the most momentous arrival of the Spring Season (and no it's not the new Vera Wang line). DRUMROLL PLEASE...

THE REESE'S CHOCOLATE EGG.
TA-DA!!!

Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups are magical, there’s just no question about it. We all have happy childhood memories of indulging in rich, peanutty treats at Halloween, birthday parties, or pressed into Christmas cookies? Yet I testify that Reese’s only reaches its apogee of peanut-butter-goodliness but once a year; hold onto your hats people, for Reese’s Egg season is upon us. Ohhhh yes.

That’s right. When the rest of the world watches for blossoming flowers and baby ducks, some of us know Spring has arrived when the stores stock a certain type of egg. An egg that promises sheer joy and decadence, all for under a dollar.

What is it about the Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg that makes it so vastly superior to other incarnations of Reese’s cups? It could be the perfect peanut-butter-to-chocolate ratio (some scientists claim that more chocolate is better); however, true Reese’s devotees usually agree that the savory, rich peanut butter ought to be the dominant flavor.

Perhaps it’s the shape of the egg. The inviting, soft curves are somehow more appealing than the standard, sharp-edged sides. Though the edges are very very tasty, doesn’t it always seem like little points of the cup always stick to the paper? NOT the egg - it just slides off that little tray and sighs its way into your mouth. [*sigh*]

Some people explain Reese’s Eggs’ irresistibility with the freshness factor. Well, how long ago do you think those Eggs were produced? We know they can’t have been made more than a couple of weeks ago (it wasn’t too long ago they were producing Valentine’s hearts, remember).

But really, the reason is irrelevant. The fact is, Reese’s Eggs are MADE OF MAGIC, and one of the most Candy Addictive pleasures of Spring. Thus, I honor the Reese’s Peanut Butter Egg with my highest praise and recommendation. Try them, and just try to get enough of The Egg, and you will see what I mean. Enjoy. Mmmm...