Things I'm 'a bit' of an expert on: a List

- Murder She Wrote

- Angela Lansbury facts, trivia and general knowledge

- Sending postcards

- Making grain-free bread

- Writing love letters

- Power-napping

- The Golden Girls

- Ulcerative colitis. (Don’t be jealous)

- How to charm a cat

- The Golden Age of Musical Theatre

- Making quite delicious if I do say so, quite strong, coffee

- Writing lyrics to television theme songs that don’t have lyrics

- Grasping at joy and humor in even the direst of circumstances

- Quoting “What About Bob?”

- Manifestation

- “Zoodles”

- Learning new things

- Curiosity

- Just barely keeping a succulent alive

- Navigating the best route through a capital one bank parking lot behind the N train overpass to gain a serious short cut and thus get home from said subway in under 4 minutes.

- Gin rummy 

 

Cabaret in 2019

When it comes to creating characters as a theatre artist, I (like many actors) like to think of rehearsal as a “studio” — the way visual artists might regard their time experimenting and crafting their artwork. With that in mind, I like to think of myself as having a varied “toolkit” at my disposal to help aid my creation. Based in really thorough research and fueled by my imagination, I have so many wonderful techniques at my disposal to play around with. 

But I have found that I often prefer to create characters from the “inside - out,” if you will. (This method was made famous by Stanislavski around the turn of the century in Russia, and made its way around Europe and eventually to America where it was utilized and transformed by American Naturalism pioneers such as Lee Strasberg, Stella Adler, and Sanford Meisner, and later Uta Hagen and many others). 

The “inside - out” theory merely means you start working from the inner world of the character (the “inside”) and see how that affects the behavior and actions of that character, I often prefer to start with their inner life and backstory and a lot of psychological questions about what got this character to this place in time and geography.  

But interestingly, with Sally Bowles I have been working in the opposite direction! Reacquainting myself with a number of physical theatre techniques that help me understand who Sally is by starting with her behavior in the present—and allowing the physicality to fill in and inform her inner world and backstory. It’s been exhilerating and extremly evocative to work this way, because for Sally, her persona is THE most important thing in her life at this point in time. We know very few facts about her and she even says to Cliff when they first meet: 

“Oh Cliff. You musn’t ever ask me questions. If I want to tell you anything, I will.”

I can’t imagine creating such an enigmatic character (for whom so much of her reality is put-on / theatrical / false) in any other way. And I am finding that as I craft and hone her behavior, her voice, her fashion sense, her actions, her choices— her psychology and her backstory and revealing themselves to me like a dark and twisted Easter egg hunt. 

As I’ve stated above, Sally is an enigma in almost every way. 

In Christopher Isherwood’s 1937 novella Goodbye to Berlin (on which the musical Cabaret is based) Isherwood famously introduces Sally by writing:

A few minutes later, Sally herself arrived. "Am I terribly late, Fritz darling?".... Sally laughed. She was dressed in black silk, with a small cape over her shoulders and a little cap like a page-boy's stuck jauntily on one side of her head.... I noticed that her finger-nails were painted emerald green, a colour unfortunately chosen, for it called attention to her hands, which were much stained by cigarette smoking and as dirty as a little girl's. She was dark.... Her face was long and thin, powdered dead white. She had very large brown eyes which should have been darker, to match her hair and the pencil she used for her eyebrows.

What we do know about her is that she is a relatively young woman we are told is from England. She is one of the star performers at the Kit Kat Klub in Berlin in 1930 at the height of the liberal all-night-party that was the Weimar Republic in Germany between the world wars (just before Hitler and the Nazis seized Germany). The Kit Kat Klub embodies Berlin at the time: the German epicenter of sexual liberation, freedom, and decadence; and Sally is never happier and more filled with purpose than when she’s performing on the Kit Kat stage. 

She is not-necessarily conventionally talented (though she does have some kind of “star quality”), she is liberal with her values, she is sexually promiscuous, terrible with money, and appears to have a terrible addiction to gin and being the center of attention.

But despite all these slightly repugnant qualities, there is something about her that is charming, irresistible, intoxicating and even warm. 

I can actually think of no other classic story more important than Cabaret in 2019. 

Cabaret is the story that details the humanity (or lack thereof) of Berliners at the dawn of Nazi Germany. It paints vivid pictures of struggling Germans who long for a better country, and are torn apart by a struggling economy, floods of immigrants, Nationalistic pride and an utterly divided political climate. … sound familiar?

Berliners in 1930 did not realize that the Nazi Party was one to be taken seriously. They were shocked by the uprising in Nazi power. And while the Nazis were anti-semitic and absolute extremists, in 1930, the horrors we associate with their regime had not happened yet. No regular citizen could fathom how far the theories would go. What they proposed was a practical (if radical) economic solution for a desperately struggling country. 

But the true message of Cabaret is that of the price of COMPLICITY. 

What does it mean to “do nothing?” 

What does it cost us all? 

Just like in 1930s Germany, we as 21st century Americans do not live in a country or in a world where we can be neutral. Our human rights are being attacked every day. Do we live in an age where it is possible to be neutral? Do we live in a time where we can sit tight and think “governments come and governments go…?” If we remain disinterested, inactive and silent, must we hold ourselves accountable as being complicit in the actions being taken by not only lawmakers and our government, but by our friends and neighbors? 

I’ll use Fred Ebb’s own words from Cabaret:

“What would you do?"

Things you will NEVER hear me say: a List

 A list of things you will never hear me say, and if you do, absolutely call the police:


- “Oh why yes: I would love to go on a cruise.”

- “Please PLEASE: turn that acid rock UP!”

- “Why yes I would love to go clubbing!”

- “Ya know? I think I’ll go braless today...” [This is not just for the good of my boobs, but for the public service to humanity who has to look at me]

- “Let’s burn some INCENSE.”

- “Cottage cheese: YUM” [Let me be crystal clear: if you placed a $100 bill at the bottom of a bowl of cottage cheese, and in order to walk away with said $100 I had to eat the bowl of cottage cheese? I'd walk the heck away.]

- "Please: tell me more about your elimination diet"

- "Please: tell me more about the intricate details and specificities of your work-out regime (and if you have videos, do indeed share them immediately)[I have an entire hazing relationship on Instagram with actor Tally Sessions that celebrates this precise pet peeve. To great amusement for all, may I add.]

- “Wow. I quite enjoyed this waxing session”

- “Wow. I quite enjoyed this reality TV program (that is not a documentary, but is, in fact, reality television)”

- “Wow. I quite enjoyed this confrontational conversation”

- “Tell me more about how difficult your journey through traffic here was.” [I literally do not care that the 405 was closed or that the 6 train was delayed. I don't care. No one cares. You hit traffic. You are late. Let's move on.] 

 
- “I’d love to hear every detail about your IN-YOUR-SLEEP DREAM”

- “Wow. I sure enjoyed that piece of epic Irish literature” [I once threw [threw!] 'A Prayer for Owen Meany" across a room. It remains, to this day, the only book I have ever projected in the air.]

 
- “I'm RIVETED to know more from your, novice internet person, about how to heal my colon” [Last time I checked, I have a devastating, chronic auto-immune disease that makes my body attack itself with deadly bleeding ulcers and KAREN? Activia yogurt and that Yahoo Answers article WILL NOT HELP ME. Sit down, Karen. The internet is not a doctor. And neither are you.]

 
- “Please. Tell me more about that article you read that is better than any actual doctor’s advice”

- “Behold me: I have PUT ON this mini-skirt and I think I look fantastic in this mini skirt.” [said Al Silber NEVER]

- “Ya know what? I think I’ll get a tattoo”

- “Boy do I love Las Vegas!” [I was once offered the travel advice by an acquaintance: "You know when you wake up in a new city and as you open the curtains and take in a fresh breath of air you think 'AH! ROME! I can't wait to explore you!' In Las Vegas? RESIST THAT URGE."]

© Jen Corace

 

Things that can always be found in my Refrigerator: a List

• Almond milk
• Lovingly curated leftovers
• Zucchini
• ...like, a lot of Zucchini
• Hummus
• So many fuji apples
• Home-made iced tea in long, lined-up, beautiful glass bottles
• Organic, cage-free brown eggs in a blue ceramic egg-tray
 

 

Journal Prompts 4 — Letters

Continuing on with this series, and my love-letters to journaling, Part 4’s offering reiterates why making journaling a habit creates so much power. Journaling is a beautiful and powerful facilitator of self-discovery. By journaling in the morning and/or evening, you’ll quickly see your life laid bare before you— in your own handwriting, in black white; with crystal-clear clarity. You’ll see what blocks or obstacles might potentially be removed, as well as what should continue to be included and further cultivated in your life.

Letter-writing (real and imaginary) has long been a tool for self-expression— the epistolary form is intimate in ways that even private conversations cannot capture.

I wrote letters with my high school English teacher Judy Chu for over 10 years (a relationship chronicled here and in my memoir), and one of the great joys was being able to “speak to” her with a level of intimacy we never had when sitting face to face in class. I could pour my soul into the pages and confess the truth to her, and thus, to myself, that was previously unavailable to me. I vividly recall our first face-to-face meeting in an outdoor Traverse City sidewalk cafe years later, when the first hour of our meeting was an energetic adjustment to this fact: all the extraordinary intimacies shared on paper, that had never been uttered face to face. We did so, of course, and remain close to this day. But the lesson is there: letters are magical portals, not to geographic places, but to unknown, shadowy caves within our souls. Write a letter and see where it takes you.

Sincerely Yours,

Al

x

*

Prompt: Write a Letter

    •    Write a letter to someone you need to forgive.

    •    Write a letter to someone who believed in you even when you didn’t believe in yourself.

    •    Write a letter to be read by each of your loved ones after you’ve passed away.

    •    Write a fan letter to your favorite actor/actress.

    •    Write a letter to the editor of your favorite magazine telling them what features you would like to see included in the magazine.

    •    Is there something you’re reluctant to tell someone?  Write a letter to help y0u organize your thoughts.

Favorite "Comfort" Movies: a List

What About Bob?

Topsy Turvy

When Harry Met Sally

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

Sister Act (and Sister Act 2)

French Kiss

A League of Their Own

Amalie

Groundhog Day

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

The Jerk

Enchanted April

Labyrinth

Ghostbusters

my hometown movie theatre: the Birmingham 8

"I Know Things Now" (Into The Woods; Stephen Sondheim)

I WISH: THE ROLES THAT COULD HAVE BEEN
June 2, 2019 - Live at Feinstein's/54 Below
Music Directed by Brian Nash
Conceived by Alexandra Silber
Produced by Jen Sandler
Filmed & Edited by FAMOUS IN NY - http://famousinny.com

Journal Prompts 3 — Three Things

Contrary to popular belief, our forefathers (and mothers thankyouverymuch) did know a thing or five. There is increasing evidence to support the notion that journaling has a scientifically measurable positive impact on physical well-being. Essentially? Journaling is literally good for your health.

It makes sense: writing removes mental blocks and allows you to use both hemispheres of your brain simultaneously to better understand yourself, others and the world around you, thus reducing stress, which releases inflammatory chemicals that wreak havoc on our physical bodies over time.

It is self-evident that journaling clarifies your thoughts and feelings, and helps us to know ourselves better. 


But journaling’s capacity to reduce stress by releasing anger, sadness, and intense emotions; to solve problems effectively, resolves conflicts with others and understand alternative points of view is underestimated. 


In addition to all of these wonderful benefits, keeping a journal allows you to track patterns, trends and improvement, and growth over time. When current circumstances appear insurmountable, you will be able to look back on previous dilemmas that you have since resolved.

*

Prompt:  Three Things

    •    Three things you can’t go without.
    •    Three celebrity crushes.
    •    Three favorite book characters.
    •    Three favorite things to wear.
    •    Three things you want in a relationship.
    •    If you had to evacuate your home because of a natural disaster, what three things would you take with you?
    •    Three pet peeves.
    •    Three things you’d do if you weren’t so afraid.
    •    Three favorite TV shows.

Things that are NOT for me: a List

- Super spicy food

- Rap music

- “Bra-lettes”

- Anything described as “cringe-TV”

- Facebook

- Romance novels

- Black licorice

- TikTok. [Come on. I’m exhausted.]

- "Clubbing" as a verb.

- Pretending things are “okay” when they are not

- Bachelorette parties (of any description)

- “Natural deodorant”

- What I’ll simply call: “aspirational clothing”

- Participating in the “cult of deprivation” [ie, pretending it is cool to not eat and not sleep and brag that you’re getting away with being a zombie]

- Speaking of zombies, Zombie-Related anything

- The witching hour of 4-5am.

- Passive aggression

- Skim milk [or, any milk really. Dairy isn’t my friend. But skim milk is just a joke]

- Caring at all about what other people think

© hula seventy

On Discovering a Butterfly Vladimir Nabokov

Nabokov wrote the following:

“Listen: I am ideally happy. My happiness is a kind of challenge. As I wander along the streets and the squares and the paths by the canal, absently sensing the lips of dampness through my worn soles, I carry proudly my ineffable happiness. The centuries will roll by, and schoolboys will yawn over the history of our upheavals; everything will pass, but my happiness, dear, my happiness will remain, in the moist reflection of a streetlamp, in the cautious bend of stone steps that descend into the canal’s black waters, in the smiles of a dancing couple, in everything with which God so generously surrounds human loneliness.” 

— an excerpt from A Letter That Never Reached Russia

And then below that a poem, which, according to the marginalia, is only a part of longer text:


'On Discovering a Butterfly
' by Vladimir Nabokov

I found it and I named it, being versed

in taxonomic Latin; thus became

godfather to an insect and its first

describer — and I want no other fame.
Wide open on its pin (though fast asleep),

and safe from creeping relatives and rust,

in the secluded stronghold where we keep

type specimens it will transcend its dust.
Dark pictures, thrones, the stones that pilgrims kiss,

poems that take a thousand years to die

but ape the immortality of this

red label on a little butterfly.

© Australian artist, Ashvin Harrison

Journal Prompts 2 — Confesssions

Journaling is not just a little thing you do to pass the time, to write down your memories—though it can be—it’s a strategy that has helped brilliant, powerful and wise people become better at what they do.

Oscar Wilde, Susan Sontag, W.H. Auden, Queen Victoria, John Quincy Adams, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Virginia Woolf, Joan Didion, John Steinbeck, Sylvia Plath, Shawn Green, Mary Chestnut, Brian Koppelman, Anaïs Nin, Franz Kafka, Martina Navratilova, and Ben Franklin. All journalers—just to name a few.

It was, for them and so many others, as Foucault said, a “weapon for spiritual combat.” A way to practice their principles, be creative and purge the mind of agitation.
It was part of who they were.
It made them who they were.
It can make you better too.

Whether you’re brand new to the concept of journaling or you’ve journaled in the past and fallen out of practice, this ultimate guide to journaling will tell you everything you need to know to help you make journaling one of the best things you do in this year and beyond. You’ll learn not only how to journal, but also about the benefits of journaling, the famous journaling of the past 2,000 years, the best journals to use, and more.

*

Prompt:  Confessions

Do you have anything you would like to confess (even if it’s just to the pages of your journal)?

    •    Nobody knows that I . . .
    •    Dear ____, it weighs on me that I never told you . . .
    •    The biggest lie I’ve ever told is . . .
    •    Is there anything you feel guilty about?  Is there anything you need to be forgiven for?
    •    What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?
    •    What’s your secret desire?
    •    What’s the most outrageous thing you’ve ever done?

Journal on.

Questions from Book Tour - Part 7

Book tour!

1. In addition to grieving and overcoming pain, the book really seems to explore keeping up appearances in a lot of ways. What did this tragedy instill within you about that and how society so often avoids talking about death, in general?

     Death is the Great Unknown, and most human being love nothing more than snuggling up and getting all cozy with certainty. The trouble is— certainty hardly ever truly exists in our lives.

     The greatest fears all living things hold within them is the loss of someone they love and the loss of their own lives. Avoiding death and survival instinct is built into the tiniest amoebas, and they don’t even have intricate death mythology or structure of beliefs about an afterlife. Humanity has been mythologizing death since we had cognizance, one to make peace with it for our own demise, but also to ease the profound suffering of being left behind in death by anyone we love.


     Around Christmas, my mom and I were going through some of her life treasures in the basement.
    “Oh I like those shoes,” I said salivating slightly.
    “Patience, Al, you can borrow them now but you keep them when I’m dead.”
    “Roger that, Mom.”
    “Cheer up. You’ll get it all when I’m dead! Who am I gonna leave it to— the cat?”

     This level of banter is pretty standard for us.

     But the other day I experienced a very special career highlight, and my wonderful, witty mother was there to bear witness. We have an unspoken tradition where after every major life event of mine (such as an opening night, a book launch, a concert), she takes me aside and we pause a few minutes to revel in what has just transpired. After we did that, I paused as said:
    “Mom. Just so you know, this tradition means everything to me.”
    “Me too,” she replied.
    “And,” I continued after reflecting a moment, “I don’t know about the details of the afterlife and all that, but I’m just letting you know now, that if you do get to come back and haunt or visit or say hi, this ‘after the show’ moment would be when I’d really like to know you’re popping in.”
    “Okay,” she said, then smirking added “Good talk.”

     We laughed. Life and death and real-talk chat is no big deal to the Silber ladies anymore. As you can see, the ability to so blithely operate in that kind of dialogue does not put a damper on the joyous occasion, it made it even more memorable, without being a huge downer.

Ta-DA!!! Real Talk!

     Taking death and grief out and looking at them directly seems unpleasant, unnecessary and downright “grim,” but it removes the stigma from a human experience every single one of us is going to have sooner or later, and avoiding the subject is not going to prevent it, and certainly not the solution for making any kind of peace with it.

     My suggestion is to very simply: think and talk about it. Recognize that you might be avoiding the subject out of discomfort or fear. The more you accept the reality of death and grief, the more you can get on with the business of truly investing in and fully living your life.

the real Rabbi Daniel Syme

2. Why did you make the choice to fictionalize Rabbi Syme [in After Anatevka]?

     What a wonderful question. Ah, beautiful beautiful Rabbi Daniel Syme...

     I went about fictionalizing the real Rabbi Syme (who is chronicled literally in WHGP) into the fictional version that captured his spirit, in Rabbi Syme.

     The real Rabbi Daniel Syme was a crucial advocate to and for not only me, but to and for my father’s human legacy.

    Fictional Rabbi Syme (in After Anatevka) is based very loosely upon the real-life Rabbi Syme (chronicled literally in WHGP)—loosely because my description in the novel is not so much a literal, but more of an evocative recollection and honoring of his influence. Real-life Rabbi Syme and I only spent a collection of minutes together in 2001, but they were crucial minutes. He gave me the gift of delivering the eulogy at my father's funeral service, as well as bearing witness to it when he lead the funeral service, and above all, he gave me an hour of his time months later, reminding me of what was eternal, and chartering a map toward the beauty, strength, and individuality my faith. Irreplaceable gifts one can never forget.

     The fictional version of the character was my way of honoring the man who was my father's advocate, and thus, Perchik's (who is modeled in many ways after my father). He was also my first spiritual teacher of any kind.

    The influence of Rabbi Syme proves another true-to-life maxim: that we never know the depth of the influence we have upon one another. A fleeting moment to one, might bear a lifetime of profundity to another, for better and for worse. So it is in these tiny actions that we must recognize that our influence on earth is vast, has meaning, and should never be taken for granted.

To read more about Rabbi Syme click here:
The Real Rabbi Syme
The Real Rabbi Syme continued




3. What questions do you still have for G-d?

Why so many Fast and the Furious movies, Big Guy?



4. Later, with the chapter "Where Memories," you state that you "have always clutched fiercely onto ordinary moments." As I was reading the book, I had a pad of sticky notes + immediately scrawled "Anton Chekhov," whose plays featured plots with very little actually happening (The Cherry Orchard is a favorite of mine). Many people don't or aren't willing to find the poeticism in the mundane, the little moments that don't seem to many anything on the surface. Is it human nature to only remember the big, life-changing moments?

     It is interesting you mention Anton Chekov and The Cherry Orchard. I don’t state it directly, but the “mysterious man” Perchik meets in the Moscow bar in 1903 (about 2/3 of the way through After Anatevka) is indeed Anton Chekhov. I drop about a dozen or so clues, even going so far as to have Perchik inspire Chekhov with the phrase “All Russia is our orchard…” but I never state it explicitly. It was my little nod to the theatre.

     I don’t think it is human nature to only focus on big life moments— I think many people vividly recall the seemingly minute details of their lives. What I think most people do not practice is the meaning-making around and of these details. Making meaning of our lives is why many people participate in religion, why they read and go to the theatre, why they read horoscopes and attend spiritual gatherings. Not every human being finds meaning-making fruitful— some prefer to live utterly in the present and that is okay if it works for them.

     I happen to be a person who not only enjoys, but needs to make meaning of my and all human life. I do think I have a gift for creating a myth around an experience almost instantaneously, but as a few very wise friends have observed, sometimes my speedy ability to mythologize hijacks my experiencing of the moment itself. And noting that, I endeavor to stay fully aware in the present, and meaning-make later.

with Rabbi Syme