a few parting shots

this is what i look like when i'm ready to do my big "apollo" number. and no, i couldn't really walk in it. it felt as though my knees were roped together and i had to wobble everywhere. sitting down was never a good idea. and whenever i raised my arms, i felt as though i was about to flash someone.

by the time this picture was taken, i had lost about 10 pounds. i'm not there yet physically but at least i'm on my way. amazing, what a little make-up and a corset can do.


this is kim cool, hiding in my costumes. all of 20 years old, from auburn, never been anywhere, way too much fun -- and she's a really good little stitcher. i am going to miss this girl. we didn't hang out enough. she is a hoot and a holler.


this is celeste sayles (whom i called celestial seasonings) as she bursts into song in the dressing room with "i will survive." celestial is a panic and a caution. we kept having beautiful moments onstage that had absolutely nothing to do with what was going on around us. it's always some other kind of wonderful when things like that happen out of nowhere. those moments made us jump for joy inside ourselves. actually, something in me still jumps whenever i think about it.


this is andrea, who's always on her gig. she'll be there for most of the summer, in two more productions i think. they don't call it summer stock for nothing.


this is tristan, the drummer that everyone called "slick" -- probably because he's so wonderfully sweet and quiet and not like that at all.


this is what it looks like before the show as i step out of my dressing room.


and this is what it looks like as i round the corner...


when i saw this cake, it actually made me a little sad...


of course, "strike" happened immediately after they cleared the house. all of the non-union actors attacked the set like their lives depended on it -- probably because they couldn't wait to get to the bar and get trashed. alcohol is overrated. mineral baths are not. i couldn't wait to get to my oversized tub for a nice long soak. believe it or not, it took about an hour or so to unhinge everything. they had 4 days to put in the next show.

thank you, delphine

everyone is required to be in the theater 30 minutes before curtain and sign in on a call sheet but we can show up anytime before what everyone calls "half-hour" -- to stretch, to vocalize, to do whatever we need to do so we can perform at our best.

in film and tv, there's always someone sitting around ready to put your make-up on you and touch it up as the work day goes along. in theater, you do your own make-up. you have your professional brushes, your rice powder and everything else you need. it's one of those things you have to show up knowing how to do, or run the risk of looking mighty busted. it only takes me 15 minutes to put mine on. and no, i'm not exaggerating by a long shot. i know my face and i know what i'm doing, thanks to delphine mantz -- an equity performer that took me under her wing on my first non-union bus and truck tour. when she saw that i didn't have a clue, she took it upon herself to show me everything. we even took a trip to the local mall, to make essential cosmetic purchases. i can remember her leaning over my shoulder and telling me where to apply the color and how and how much. she did that every night for weeks until i could hear her voice on my shoulder, telling me what to do.

whenever i'm doing theater and i see anyone struggling with their make-up, i help them wholeheartedly. because once upon a time, that was me. and whenever i put on make-up, i send her a tiny heartfelt thank-you because she didn't have to help me at all. i mean, really. she could have sat back and laughed at me like everyone else did. but she didn't. so thank you, delphine.

one thing is for sure: nothing says "rank amateur" on this end of the business like not being able to beat your own face.


here's what i start with -- a bare, clean, well-moisturized face, warts and all. frankly, i'm very proud of the fact that i have clear skin. i was born with it and i've worked hard to maintain it. unfortunately when i gain weight, it happens in my face first, so i get a round look. more on that later.


the next step is foundation, of course.


the first thing i'm going to do when i get back to nyc is pay my eyebrowist a little visit. i know you can hardly see them but they've grown in completely and are totally unmanagable. i've had to draw them in every night.


this is always a good idea. gives shape, definition. suddenly, my face isn't so round...


this is a fun step. that reminds me -- i have to get some green eyeshadow when i get home.


this is sort of the homestretch.


this stuff makes my eyes pop.


and then of course ralph called and we chatted while i finished up.


this doesn't look like i've got on any make-up at all! and i'm wearing gobs of it.


this looks like my hair from a distance. well. maybe up close, too. by the way, the body mic is inside of the wig.


this band matches the dress and the flower ties it all together.


..and here i am, ready to put on my gown.

i squeeze into my costume at the last possible minute because it's so tight, i can barely sit in it. hard to believe it was even tighter a few weeks ago. i wonder how much weight i've lost. i should check that at the Y tomorrow. i'm in the last half of each act, so i can sort of take it easy. sort of. more on that gown later.

interestingly enough, my goal this summer is to get an endorsement from MAC. (please pray for me!)

i don't wear make-up every day. only when i have to perform or audition for something. for some guys, if you're not wearing make-up, they don't think that you should leave the house. thankfully, my friend thinks i'm pretty without it but i really would like to learn how to put it on for daytime. i suppose that's oxymoronic -- putting on make-up to look like you're not wearing any make-up. hm. maybe i should stick to my clear skin routine and leave it alone...

the last week

doing this show has been fun (we've been sold out for the entire run for the last week or so and the audiences have been great) but i'm ready to go back to the city. there's a lot that's waiting for me: the meeting, the recording session, the birthday gig and the gig the night before the birthday gig -- all of that before the end of the month. so far, i've worked hard on a treatment for the performance piece and the opening monologue, and i've made an information packet that i think i'll mail to each of them tomorrow -- a few articles i found on the great migration north and the recent phenomena of the great migration south, along with a booklist and some interesting graphs -- so they can pore over it now and we can all begin on the same page. i'm working hard to do as much as i can for the meeting before i get there because it happens the day after i arrive and i really want to be ready for it.

besides, my friend is coming over to have mexican food and watch adult swim with me the day that i get back. (he loves squidbillies. i love robot chicken.) if i work this hard now, i'll feel that i'll deserve that downtime. he says he misses me and to tell you the truth, i'm starting to believe him.

funny but in this last week, i can feel myself stepping everything up a few notches. i work out in the morning and again in the afternoon (i read somewhere that missy elliot worked out that way to lose weight) and then i walk several miles to the theater. when i come home from work, i draw myself a nice, hot bath -- partly because i know i won't be able to do that at home, thanks to my roommate situation, and i want to bask in that small slight luxury for as long as i can. and i make sure that i eat really well -- lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, lots of water, and no junk whatsoever. well. i have been stopping for coffee at this gas station that sits across the park from the theater, on the circular road. my friend says it's his bad influence. he's definitely a coffee achiever. maybe he's right.

i think i'm pushing this hard because i've got a great routine going and because i'm seeing such wonderful results. that's why a part of me doesn't want to let go of my life here. i want to get as much out of this as i possibly can. i'll probably get up early on the morning we return to the city, just so i can get in a nice hard sweat one last time at the ywca before we hit the road. boy howdy, nothing motivates like progress.

this small town has been good to me -- but really, i've been good to me, by using this opportunity to help myself in the best way possible. it's been a great jump start. but hey -- isn't this what famous people do? if i were famous and loaded (because a lot of famous people aren't), wouldn't i have done something like this? go away somewhere for a month or so, decompress, detox, spend time with a life coach to refocus and work out with a trainer to get lean? famous fat people and how they lose weight is what i read about in the trashy celeb magazines while i'm sweating on the stairmaster. there's irony in there somewhere but i'm too exhausted to find it.

spectacular news!

i finally! finally! finally! scheduled a meeting with ken roberson and vernon reid about working with me on an idea i've got for a performance piece. no easy feat, believe me. when ken called me back, he was in london. and vernon returns his phone calls but he's always away or in transit. finally, we're going to get together at this restaurant up the street from my place and talk about all this. i'm making information packets for both of them, filled with reading lists/suggestions, articles, links and a few graphs -- if it's one thing i do believe in as an actor/writer, it's research.

this is something i've wanted to do for a long time. it basically grew out of conversations that ken and i had in the middle of harlem song's tech rehearsals, an article that i'd read in the new york times about the great migration in reverse and some things that had i'd been thinking, about the south and my personal family history, for a long time. and of course, everytime i ran into ken, i'd insist that i was working on an idea and he'd encourage me. one night at joe's pub, i ended up running into vernon and ken at the same time -- i had just seen stew's performance and they were turning the house over for some broadway cabaret act, so vernon and i bumped into each other as we were making an exit and then we almost collided with kenny at the door. interestingly enough, they had never met. after introductions were made, ken had a moment of kismet and blurted, we all have to work together. i pitched this to brad, the director of programming at aaron davis hall a few months before i came up here -- kenny and i always had the understanding that i'd put his name on whatever proposals i was working on -- and he was "intrigued."

so far i'm batting a thousand but there's a lot of work to be done. i have to flesh out the proposal on paper but most importantly i have to attach the names of people who'll commit to being involved with its development. i want kenny to direct it and vernon to be the music director. whoever kenny feels is appropriate for choreographer is fine by me. i'd want my friend renee to do it but i think she might be on the road when this happens. kenny feels that his recent forays into blues music -- especially with the last few albums that he's produced -- make him an ideal candidate. the meeting happens the day after i get back to nyc, so i have to hit the ground running when i get there. brad says that they can put it in their new work series next spring. pretty exciting stuff.

this is what i've been working on in my alone time here, while everyone else gets loaded and chases each other around. wow. this has been a fat farm and a writer's retreat. who knew?

what i did on my day off

last week, there was some talk of going to a drive-in somewhere in the area. what a great idea! it seemed to good to be true -- but why wouldn't it be, especially in a small town like this? eventually we talked about it for so long, somebody came up with a plan, made the phone calls for times and directions, and all of a sudden, it was our day off and all the particulars were in order. it was becky the wig lady and sam the dresser and i, and then tristan the drummer and michael who plays hipockets came along, too. that's only two cars -- an important detail if you don't want to sit in the back seat to watch the flick.

becky and sam had never been to a drive-in. i don't think tristan had, either but michael probably did. i hadn't been to a drive-in since my uncles took me and my brothers to see blacula when i was a little kid. after that, i was terrified of vampires and of being left alone in the dark until my uncle jackie explained that it was mathmatically impossible for vampires to exist. by his guesstimation, everybody would end up biting everyone in the whole wide world on the neck in a matter of weeks. that number included babies, too. and really, how plausible is that? (he's kind of brilliant, my uncle jackie.) after he sat me down and broke that down to me, i wasn't afraid of bela lugosi or william marshall or of being left alone in the dark any more. later, i remember seeing blacula on pee-wee's playhouse as the king of cartoons and i was a little scared but only for a second. i loved him, really. he was so beautiful and elegant and obviously he was a shakespearean actor in his prime.

i wasn't really interested in over the hedge. i wanted to see the da vinci code. as it turns out, the first movie was quite wonderful and the last one was a real clunker. more on that later.



it was cold and rainy (in june!!) but they said they'd show the movie after dusk no matter what. two movies and only $7 to get in. wow. a cute little old man took our money and gave us chocolate covered mint discs a la peppermint patties but thinner, along with our ticket stubs. in the darkness, we thought that they were some kind of token to start the machine for the sound thingy that hangs onto the window but he told us to tune our car radios to a certain channel if we didn't want to use it. there was a collective "aaaaaaawwww!" in the car when we all realized they were candy.

i didn't know what kind of food they'd have, so i brought along a gigantic bag of chee-tos and a bottle of organic berry juice. i shouldn't have bothered. they had hot dogs, hamburgers, onion rings, french fries, bushels of popcorn (the big one was $4 with free refills all night) and all kinds of candy and soda pop and what-not. it was very mom & pop in there, like someone was cooking all this stuff out of their kitchen. and the girls who worked there wore these really cute outfits. i had to have a very good hot dog with german mustard (they're real big on hot dogs/sausages and german mustards up here, for some reason) to get me in the mood for the double-feature.



imagine -- this place had been in business for more than 50 years. i completely and utterly loved it. we slowly drove through the mud and sludge until we found the just-right spot and we got there early enough to park next to each other. the little refreshment stand fit snugly below the screen and was completely unobtrusive. surprising, because there was so much stuff in it and it was actually bigger than it looked.



becky had brought something to sit on the grass with and a small blanket but it was all too muddy for that. thankfully there were picnic tables on either side of the refreshment stand. she and michael sat at one of them through most of the first flick but it was all too cold for me. unfortunately, i left my parka at home. i took my sandals off and let my feet thaw out in tristan's car. he was sweet enough to keep turning the heat on and off. sam bounced back and forth between the car and the picnic table, finally settling comfortably in the backseat. somewhere after the first flick, it got too cold for michael and becky and they retreated to his car during intermission. tristan was so sweet. when we all settled in at the beginning of the night in our different locales, he felt badly that all of us couldn't be in one big car, all together.

this is what it looked like when we first got there but pretty soon it was dark and we were surrounded by cars. (i know it doesn't look like it but the screen is massive.)



i have to admit it: as we reclined in our seats and i ate yet another cheese puff, i couldn't help but look over at tristan and wish that he were my friend, who was probably working his brains out in the lower east side at that very moment. he would probably love to go to a drive-in with me. i could make really good things to eat and we could go somewhere in jersey, far enough away from the city to make it colorful and interesting. i did a little research when all of this talk about drive-ins was flying through the air backstage and found the coolest website that gave me so much detail and history. (i love the internet!) apparently, there's been a revival of drive-ins all over the country. and why not? it should be the fun cool cheap kitchy thing to do in the summertime. maybe if i learn how to drive before the end of the summer, i could surprise my friend one day by renting a car and taking him to a driveway somewhere in the middle of jersey. i wouldn't tell him where we were going, of course.

of course ralph would love this, too.

in the meantime, maybe we'll all go back to the drive-in before i leave for nyc. if we do, here's what will be playing.



and about the movies i saw.

i thought that over the hedge was going to be a little too cutesy and play itself out like a one-note samba but in spite of the well-worn plotline it was actually funny, with some pretty bizarre unexpected moments that were a real hoot. a kiddie movie that can entertain the adults. i love animation, anyway. thumbs up.

the da vinci code had a great premise and there were moments of real intrigue but it was looooong and wordy and cerebral and although most (if not all) of what they said about jesus and mary magdalene and how the Bible came to be was complete rubbish, it's especially annoying to watch because people are seeing it in the movie, reading it in the book and taking it as fact. people aren't interested in the truth. they're interested in a truth that they're comfortable with, one that justifies whatever they want to believe and makes them feel good. still and all, i'm glad i saw it. now i'm going to read the book. isn't the book always better than the movie? i'm giving this a thumbs down -- but only if you have to pay $12 to see it. hey -- i only paid $3.50.

it was soooo nice, to sit there in the darkness, laughing and whispering and all. the cool of the night was genuinely enjoyable on a whole other level when my bare feet were so toasty-warm. i remember thinking: there really are some things that new york city can't give me. this is definitely one of them. and i love this. for some reason, that made me love it even more.

a few candid shots

just thought you'd like to see what my work day world looks like these days.

i'm starting to have a lot of fun but that's usually when everything comes to a crashing halt and the show closes and its time to go home. the truth is, this is the vacation i really needed. and there's more work waiting for me when i get back to the city. thank God. more on that later. in the meantime...


this is my station. it's very very basic. thankfully, i don't need much -- in part because i know what i'm doing when i put on make-up.


this is what i look like when i'm almost finished. the dress i wear is strapless. i bundle up until i have to go on because it's always freezing backstage.


here's a glimpse of the guy's dressing room, about 20 minutes before the show starts. that's ryan with the mandolin, by the way. he plays the big bopper, amongst several other parts. in the opening, he's in "the hayriders" a country band that plays on a live broadcast out of lubbock, tx.



this is buddy holly and the crickets : (from l to r) devon on bass, chris on drums and eric as buddy on guitar.


this is lauren, the wardrobe mistress.


this is becky, the wig mistress.


this is lisa, the wig/hair designer.


this is sam, the dresser who lives under my skirt. my strapless gown has a petticoat that has to be readjusted when i put it on, so she gets down there and yanks it into position. what a gal!


the costumes get mended and cleaned constantly. needless to say, there's no food or drink allowed in the dressing rooms and there's no eating anything while you're wearing one. not even gum.



this is me and jermaine, noshing on oatmeal chocolate chip cookies at intermission in our underwear. he has got to be one of the funniest people i've ever met. we were on the bridge with carl for the top of act 2 (the three of us do a jingle for astoria cigarettes, which is apparently where buddy holly got the melody for "that'll be the day") and the stage managers kept flashing a light on us, to make sure that we were all there. so out of nowhere, jermaine blurts out, can't you see that we're all up here? what do you want us to do, open our eyes wider and smile? there was a pause, and then we couldn't stop laughing. i told him that he must've had a side of fruit of islam with his black power cereal that morning. trippy.

earlier today, he and mario gave me a bottle of newfangled strawberry gatorade that said "fierce!" on it. (i love strawberries!) needless to say, i have no intentions of ever opening it. speaking of mario...


here he is, working his magic. believe it or not, he looks exactly like john leguizamo. or fred ward. i can't decide which. he plays ritchie valens so well, the little old ladies have been calling the office asking about him. he says if there's a hot meal in it for him, he's down. i promised the local lady librarian that i would bring him into the library to sign her program. she's seen the show at least three times and i know she doesn't believe me. when i told him about it, i said oh -- i should have told her to bake you something! and for a moment he looked genuinely sad and said yeah, you should have.


this is daryl, the choreographer. she just graduated from nyu's tisch school of the arts with a musical theater major. i don't know how she puts up with my two left feet.


this is me and my friend, sitting inside green shutters cafe.


and last but not least: this is my favorite lunch (l) from the green shutters cafe (r) (that's what it looks like as you turn the corner to enter from parking) -- the most perfect cobb salad imaginable. everything is fresh, crisp and delicious. the cold things are cold and the hot things (the chicken, the bacon) are hot. yum.

this is where i work

my friend in repose at emerson park
Originally uploaded by queenesther.

the theater i'll be performing in sits snugly in emerson park, on the edge of lake oswego. all of it is breathtakingly gorgeous. the river that runs through the city takes you all the way to canada, which is surprisingly nearby. when the sun is shining, this is a lovely place. no wonder this was a stop on the underground railroad. no wonder harriett tubman went to canada, retrieved her parents and brought them back to live here, in a house that's right up the street from where i stay.

auburn is a weird place. wierd, wierd, wierd.

there's a 24 hour wal-mart, there's a taco bell and a wendy's and a mall with a food court and a bass pro-shop. there's even a 24 hour wegman's for good measure, to give wal-mart a little competition. rite-aid. mc donald's. lots of stuff i glimpse and recognize from someplace else. that kind of stuff carries it own sadness, for the way that it's destroying communities and the general health and welfare of the populace. mostly, there are a neverending parade of old buildings and houses that i've never seen before, with their bay windows and turrets and elaborate verandas and massive back and front yards, that make everything seem worn and strange. and haunted. if it's true that things carry the energy of the person or the thing that was there before, these edifices are weighed down with so much history, they practically glow with an ethereal presence that shimmers with otherworldliness. and so i am fascinated. and because i love history as much as i do, i am intrigued and entralled and genuinely curious about this little town and every victorian house i see. but there is a lot of sadness here, the kind that permeates you from the inside out. it feels like somebody died.

welcome to the northeast, my friend wisecracked.

he arrived on monday to see wednesday's opening night performance. although i was at the theater most of the time doing ten out of twelves (scheduled for two days in a row), we managed to spend some quality time together at emerson park where the theater is located, walking around oswego lake and sitting and taking in the day. he said that i sounded like a five year old because everytime i saw a bird, i thought it was a duck.

Funny thing. There were inmates from the local prison tending to the grounds at the entrance to the theater when we were on our way to the lake. I forgot my camera and went inside to retrieve it. One of them said hello to me as I passed by. I smiled at him and spoke. He was smaller than the others and brown skinned, with long kinky brown hair. I expected him to say something. why shouldn't he? it's our black thing.

As i exited the theater, another one pulled his shades down to the tip of his nose with one finger as he held a weed trimmer in his other hand. I had shades on, so I could watch him watching me. He looked like the kind of hayseed I’d seen a million times over: skinny legs stuck underneath a round belly that made him look like a bullfrog standing up; greasy hair that was a little too black, with the kind of white skin that tans a little too easily; rolled up sleeves, an upturned collar and a tilt in his walk. Prison wasn’t going to kill his style. Oh, no. He gave me a long slow stare, like i had him hypnotized, just to let me know that he was looking and he liked what he saw. When I got within 3 feet of him, he said hello politely, and I smiled and greeted him. All of the prisoners stopped working to watch this exchange. Even the guard in the car was paying attention. I had absolutely no idea why.

My friend says they’re from jail, not prison, for stuff like bounced checks -- but there is no jail here. I guess he was taking the bite out of us walking through the park with them drifting around and tending the grounds, and the strong possibility that I would see them again. As it turns out, Becky the wig lady told me that when she got here, she was told that she'd probably never see an inmate because most of them are in prison for life. I couldn’t help but wonder what each of the inmates that I saw working quietly in the sun did to end up there.

My friend and I can't seem to agree as to whether or not we're in the suburbs. he thinks we are because the countryside to him is when you have to drive for two or three hours to get to a grocery store and you shop knowing that you're stocking up for the next month or two. he cites his favorite locations in new mexico as examples. i think we're in the countryside because although there are houses and backyards and such, there is farmland and farm equipment everywhere, lots of fresh fruit and vegetables, and space. i cite my uncle's place in walterboro as an example of what i mean. semi-rural? semi-suburban? i can't tell from here. when i think i'm in the suburbs, something around me feels like the countryside and vice versa. Back and forth.

my friend was trying to say that this was our first visit to the suburbs together, the suburbs being a bastion of normalcy and decorum that we don't have in the city and certainly not a city like our fair metropolis. the truth is, new york city is basically a monochromatic strip mall, filled with college students, fashion victims and dilletantes posing as musicians and actors, almost all of them anglo and almost all of them from somewhere else. there is no multicultural explosion of ideas and politics and cool. take a walk through the lower east side on a saturday night. it's like a portal from somewhere in the midwest opened up at the corner of stanton and ludlow and let out all these screaming drunken white twentysomethings that are living the new york city that they saw on sex and the city. not that there's anything wrong with that but who else could possibly afford it?

auburn feels wierder than new york city ever did. more authentically wierd. new york city is where people go to affect the kind of wierdness that's in a place like auburn on an ordinary day. i used to believe that the real freaks and wierdos lived in new york city but now my theory is that they've either retreated to small towns like auburn because they know how bogus new york city really is or they’ve never left those places to check any of it out because the new york city that they’re imagining is way more dangerous and edgy than the one that actually exists. That’s the reason why a lot of people I know never left home to do their art. They were completely intimidated by everything they’d seen in the movies or heard from the people who returned home because they couldn’t cut it.

my friend says that sometimes he wants to disappear to a town like this and live in a big cool house and do his art. i think that's the right idea. famous people do it all the time, mostly because once you establish yourself with what you do, you can live where ever you want. when carole king was at the height of her fame with the album tapestry, she moved to idaho with her second husband and raised her two kids. oleta adams lives in kansas city. julia roberts lives on a ranch in new mexico. and everybody knows where demi moore lives.

i would love to live in a big old victorian house here but my friend says if i can't take the cold weather in the city, i definitely couldn't take the snow upstate.

Today is another 12 hour tech rehearsal – noon to midnight – but hopefully we’ll wander through emerson park again and then to green shutters café for a cobb salad. My friend is convinced that they make the best food in town. He's right, so far.

So many ducks, so little time.

the rehearsal space

the rehearsal space
Originally uploaded by queenesther.

this has been the largest room of my work space for the initial 12 days of rehearsal in auburn, new york for "the buddy holly story." it's a gym on the 2nd floor of westminster presbyterian church, a stone's throw away from where i live -- a place called king's court, interestingly enough. right next door is queen's court. i think they're both haunted. actually, i think everything here is haunted -- but that's another conversation.

there are two other spaces in the church to flesh out movement and vocals respectively -- the loft and the junior room, where we all first met -- but this is the one where the rock and roll happens. and it needs to be. a part of what makes this show so wonderful is the fact that the music comes alive right in front of you -- not with any of the traditional trappings of musical theater like an orchestra pit but with guitar, drums and upright bass. really simple, straightforward stuff.

it's all been kind of refreshing for me, actually. listening to these three chord rock songs that are on the radio all the time, recorded by everyone. i first heard "it's so easy" by linda rondstadt when the eagles were her backing band. and i first heard james taylor singing "everyday" -- it still blows me away that buddy holly wrote that song. it has me rethinking my songwriting and song structure. not that it needed an overhaul but i'd like to give that three chord magic a try. there's something fresh and uncomplicated about it. maybe my ears needed a vacation. i know i did.

no one can figure out my part in the show when i tell them that i'm in it. here's a big fat clue: buddy holly and the crickets were the first all white act to play the apollo theater in harlem. i play the singer that shares the bill with them. i get to look beautiful and sing two or three songs with this massively huge showstopping moment in a gorgeous strapless gown. it's an unexpected moment and it ends the first act, so it's got to be action-packed. and it is.

my part is called "the apollo singer." go figure.

fever in, fever out

the fever broke.

everything was pushed back by an hour today and then we did a run through this morning with notes. after the lunch break, we reviewed the second act and worked on all the back-up singer movement stuff. everything is so much tighter than everyone thought it was, and i feel ultra-confident about everything that i'm doing. clearly, this week's hard work has paid off. thank God i'm not freaking out anymore. tomorrow we do a run through for the producers late in the day. it's starting to feel like fun.

i think everyone went drinking at a bar somewhere nearby. alcohol? ha. not me. i'm watching basic cable and giving myself a manicure/pedicure while noshing on stouffer's lasagna, all by myself, with my baby taylor within easy reach. and i'm in heaven! it's criminal, how happy i am right now. yessir, folks -- it just don't get no better than this.

the strange thing is, just about everything is closed already because it's memorial day weekend. the ymca won't open up until tuesday. sam's is definitely closed. and the mall is just not an option. i guess the more patriotic you are, the more likely you are to shut things down and put your flag out as soon as the weekend hits, so everyone will know whose side you're on. (and there's flags all up and down their main street.) in the city, everything will be closed but only on monday -- and everything only means "official" things, like banks and the post office. it's moments like this when i realize that nyc has spoiled me rotten. i'm so used to getting whatever i want whenever i want. when it's 3am, i can hit the post office and send packages, i can go to a bar or eat a meal or lounge in a cafe if i feel like it, i can hit the gym. i can even go bowling. i can even take public transportation to get to whereever i'm going. not so in auburn. or anyplace else that i can think of.

i hope i won't want anything before tuesday.

Fever Pitch

We open The Buddy Holly Story at The Merry-Go-Round Playhouse next Wednesday. I've never even seen the place. I don't even know where it is. We do a run-through for the producers on Sunday. It’s Friday and we have yet to run through the entire show. We’re rehearsing every day, every single day, no let up, no day off. My friend shows up on Monday for 3 days. What kind of fun are we going to have in Auburn? The victorian architecture fascinates me and Harriet Tubman's house is up the street but I have yet to venture past the Wegmans a few blocks away. I've been that busy.

I’m way more stressed than I think I am. I have moments when I wake up abruptly in the middle of the night in a panic, convinced that I’ve forgotten something vital. I know that feeling very well. It first came to me as a temp in my early years in NYC, working in some crummy law firm in midtown. I would wake up in a cold sweat, unsure as to whether or not I actually sent the fax to Helsinki or if I cc’ed all of the people on the list or if that package went out FedEx or UPS – or if it went out at all. Maybe it didn’t get sent and they’d find out that I was responsible and I’d get canned. My heart would be pounding like there was a hammer in my chest trying to bang its way out. Seriously. It’s that feeling all over again.

I’m not eating all that much, either. I’m not eating at night because of my acid reflux. If I nosh past 9pm, I run the risk of losing my voice. I’m not singing much but I am singing at the top of my range. I have to be careful. And yeah, I cut the junk food completely. I just don’t have time to sit around and chew on anything. Not even gum. I’m drinking a lot of water because there’s a cooler at the rehearsal space and nobody cares if I tank up all day and before I go home in the evening. I usually work out before and occasionally after rehearsal, to get that freak out feeling off of me. I don’t go to sleep easily. I don’t wake up easily. Food is no fun. And the guitar isn’t fun yet. It’s still work. The only thing I really enjoy is sleeping.

Once this musical is on its legs and all of the movement is in my body, this will be a lot of fun. I can turn my attention towards refining the songs that I’ve written for the cds I want to produce and figure out what else I want to get out of my summer. Like a really happy birthday at the end of June. Some serious beach time with my friend. A nice lump sum of money in my ING savings account. Well-organized receipts. My driver’s license.

Still and all, there are moments when I am blown away, imagining that Harriett Tubman walked these streets so close to her home. This is the place where she lived free. And here I am, right up the block. All I can think is, it's not in a book. It's not in a made-for-tv movie. I always knew that it was true but all of a sudden, it's real. She's real. Slavery really happened. And it didn't happen all that long ago. That's an astonishing thing.

so far, so good

Although I’m supposed to rehearse from 10am – 6pm, that’s not written in stone at all. When I come in depends on what they decide to work on first. There have been some days when I’ve been able to have my entire mornings all to myself. The cast is small, everyone is friendly and works hard, the town and its surroundings are kitsch enough to keep me interested and I get to live alone, which is turning into more of a luxury than I can handle. A lot of the cast members live in the same housing situation – six of them in one unit, I was told – so there’s a lot of bonding that’s going on that I’m not a part of, which is kind of a relief. I’m basically a shy person and aside from the everyday niceties of hello and goodbye, I’m happy to run back to my place and do my finger excercises. I didn’t come here to make friends, although it would be a beautiful thing if that happened. I’m treating this like a fat farm. I came here to get out of the city and get my body back. My friend says I’m losing weight. So far, so good.

The interesting thing about rehearsals is that it’s a very basic rock and roll set up onstage – and that never happens in musical theater. The last half of the second act actually recreates Buddy Holly’s last show in Clear Lake, Iowa. The music is usually in a pit between the audience and the actors. So there are musicians onstage with the actors and some of them are actors and some of them are musicians with one line here and there and some of them are just musicians who are just reading their way through it. Most of the songs are three and four chord ditties, like Oh Boy. And yeah, I’m learning how to play them on guitar, just for fun. I actually brought my guitar in so I could tune it and the MD let me use his tuner (I’m going to get one just like it – you clip it to the headstock and it tunes by vibration) and let me have as many picks as I wanted.

One thing, though. Recently at the impromptu dinner party right before I skipped town with kimson and gabe and my friend at a. bistro, kimson asked me what I did all day, because I don’t have a day job. He wasn’t being snide, either. He genuinely wanted to know. In retrospect, I don’t know if I answered him very well. Now I’m wishing I had. It would explain a part of what I’m going through right now.

Much of my life as an actor is all about maintainance and upkeep. The growth is constant. And it’s a full-time job. I’m always working towards some minor improvement that leads to conquering a major thing. I know some singers who are proud of the fact that they’ve never had a voice lesson or don’t know how to play and instrument or can’t read music (One friend used to point at lead sheets and say, “That may as well be Chinese.”) But it was Betty Carter who said that every vocalist should know their way around a keyboard. The payoff for me is when I get a gig like this and I’m given a stack of sheet music – and I understand it. But I wouldn’t have that understanding if I hadn’t sat down and plunked away at my piano every other day for the past 6 months or so. And I have to admit -- learning how to play the guitar is changing my life. By being leaner and stronger physically means that I’ll photograph differently and that’ll make me more viable for film and tv work. So I work out every day to get there and to maintain it once I have it. And then there’s auditioning. Anyone that’s unemployed treats getting a job like a full time job until they get one. Smart actors are no exception. You hone your job skills by taking class, learning monologues, building your repertoire vocally until you have a book that’s filled with songs from every genre. Learning to sing if you don’t know how, because knowing how to do more than one thing well means you’re more likely to work. These things are hard to quantify to someone that’s used to punching a clock to make a living.

I think doing this show would be a really difficult moment for me to get through if I hadn’t done the day-to-day work that most straight (working joe) people don’t’ understand when I tell them that I don’t have a job. I never know how much I’ve progressed until I’m put in a situation where I have to deliver. And wow. I’ve grown a lot. I need to give myself some credit. I need to work harder.

I need to learn how to drive.

it's all a blur...

On Saturday morning, I took a train back to NYC to sing in a wedding at Gramercy Park. I had to. When JC told the bride and groom that I would be unavailable, they said that they wouldn’t hire the band without me. JC didn’t have to twist my arm for long. it was great money -- but that 6 hour train ride would be bloody torture. And as if a round-trip rough ride weren’t enough to look forward to, my head was filled with springtime allergy-related snot and mucus. Auburn was freezing and in bloom. I could hardly breathe. My portable medicine chest came in handy but every night as I went to bed, I felt as though I was only holding something at bay for the moment. if I didn’t find something to knock it out completely, it would knock my voice out. Needless to say, I have no understudy. We rehearse for 12 days. It’s only a two week run.

I don’t have anything that strong in my arsenal. Fortunately, Shell White did. And because she’s such a California hippie, it’s all natural – Buried Treasure ACF. She said their daughter Tigerlily woke up coughing like she had tuberculosis a few weeks ago. They gave her some of this stuff and a few days later, she was fine. They sent it to her teacher at her day school when she had the same symptoms. Same results. I was desperate enough to try anything short of a booster shot and steroids from my voice doctor – that’s always a last (but sometimes necessary) resort. JC gave me a little package at the gig – the bottle of stuff, some herbal tea, some zinc lozenges. I took a dose immediately and again at bedtime as directed. The next morning had me practically vomiting up phlegm. Now that’s what I call results.

But that’s the end of the story.

First of all, I was exhausted. The train station was in Syracuse, more than 30 minutes away. Someone was to pick me up at 8:30am but I was afraid that I’d oversleep so I asked my friend to call me when he got home from work at the crack of ass. He decided to call me while he was still there, for some strange reason – then he puts Scotty the Blue Bunny on the phone. After an introductory “wake up!” that was loud enough to make a dead man roll over, he launches into “There’s Got To Be A Morning After” at the top of his lungs, after which he goes into this long winding rant about how wrong it is that this ditty isn’t in the Poseidon remake. When my friend got back on the phone, he actually wondered why I was, in his words, “a little crabby.” I was wondering why he was, in my words, a little clueless. Am I in trouble, he said in a tiny voice. How could he be? He did what told him to do. All that was left to do is sieze the day. The Y opened at 5am. I always figure that the best way to fight sickness is to exercise. So I put in about an hour on an exercise machine and I lifted weights. Oy.

I ended up getting to the train station in time to watch the 8:30am to Penn Station leave, then finding out I should have caught it because my 9:20am would be arriving at 10:50am. Nice. All I could think was, if I knew how to drive, this would have taken 4 hours...

Once I got to the gig, everything smoothed itself out. They got married at the arts club which is an absolutely gorgeous place to tie the knot. In no time at all, guests started to arrive, the open bar began to flow and delicious things began to flow from out of the kitchen. To be completely honest, I’m still thinking about the lobster rolls. The food was spectacular. A nice touch: towards the end of the evening, the groom went to each band member, thanked them for a wonderful performance and tipped them fifty bucks. The bride let me take a bouquet home to my friend, who complained sweetly that his little place is starting to smell like a blooming greenhouse, thanks to last week’s private gala.

You’re living the life of a superstar, he remarked, jet-setting all over new york state. You’d better get used to it.

Hmm, I thought. In a way, he’s right. That benefit we did on Monday in Brooklyn garnered an invitation to play a private party at The Pierre Hotel this Wednesday. They didn't want the band without me (is this a running theme or what?) so they agreed to pay my travel expenses to make sure that i wouldn't say no. it'll be over before 10pm. i wonder what they'll serve? I’m already rethinking the way I pack things in general and the ideal piece of carry-on luggage.

this time, i'm flying in. thank Jesus.

i'm gone to auburn

i spent the last few days in nyc organizing my closets and changing out my seasonal clothes, picking up some last minute things (like stocking up my medicine bag), mailing things i'd need to my new address (like a humidifier -- so important!) and throwing things away. i was sad to leave my friend but i had to come back on saturday for a private party at the arts club in gramercy park and again on the following wednesday at the pierre hotel so of course we figured our way around how we'd see each other. very sweet.

on sunday, we went to a. bistro in brooklyn for a farewell dinner, sort of -- ralph and i closed the place down the night before, believe it or not (yes, the food is that wonderful) -- and ended up sharing a table with two people i hadn't seen in a long time -- kimson (i met him at ubo back in the day) and gabe (i met him through garland). kimson is directing the venture brothers, one of my favorite cartoons on adult swim. gabe is in film and he's bicoastal. both of them are as cool and as geeky as ever. we did all kinds of catching up and bonding. at the end of the night, gabe took a picture of all of us in front of the restaurant. it was beautiful. the only one missing (besides ralph, of course) was garland.

the benefit with the band on monday night, packing on tuesday. all of a sudden, there was no time left and i found myself on a six-hour train ride headed upstate, to syracuse. it was exhausting and i don't know why. there was plenty of room around me seating-wise but for some reason i was surrounded by several spectacularly overweight people who wouldn't stop eating and cracking jokes. i had nothing but a large flask of bottled water, which i sipped judiciously to keep my throat from drying out. it was also freezing cold and that meant no sleep at all. little did i know -- the cold was something that i'd have to get used to, and quickly. auburn is quite close to canada. it won't warm up until i'm ready to leave.

while awaiting my luggage, i met a fellow castmate chris who's also a drummer. almost everyone in the show plays an instrument, sings and acts. matt, our contact from the theater, was right on time and in no time at all, he took us to our living quarters. i'm staying in an old mansion that was built in 1840 called king's court. there's another building next door called queen's court that's just as arcane and stately. my room is sparse but roomy, with old otherworldly touches, like sconces, that dot the walls. ugly carpeting. lovely bathroom. and i can't argue with a kitchen with a microwave, no matter how old and tiny the oven is. the kicker? i live alone. completely and utterly alone. i can come home from the theater, pull the shades and watch adult swim naked while i practice guitar and eat raspberries. in my world, it simply doesn't get much better than that.

here's an interesting detail: auburn is a 35 - 40 minute drive from syracuse. there's no shuttle service. a cab ride would cost something like $60. the trip would have taken all of four hours from nyc, door-to-door. God, that train ride really wore me out. all of a sudden, probably for the first time in my life, i sincerely wished that i could drive.

i've decided to make the most of my time here. the role that i play is so small that i want to do something constructive with my downtime -- like writing more songs, practicing guitar, rethinking my goals and priorities and getting my body back.

by the way: i don't have body issues. i know the just right size and weight for me. a part of the way i maintain it is by fitting into my clothes every season. i simply don't have the money to buy clothes whenever i get too big for my britches. and when i do have money for new clothes, i buy the size i know that i'm supposed to be. i'm either fighting to get it back or fighting to maintain it but staying a certain size and weight is an everyday struggle. some people don't have to excercise. they can eat their way through a block of cheese and not gain an ounce. unfortunately, that's never been my story. it's hard work. it's not fun. i don't enjoy it. but the results -- good health, lower cholesterol, energy to spare and a leaner stronger frame -- are irrefutable.

the benefit in brooklyn

jc hopkins
Originally uploaded by queenesther.

this is jc soundchecking in brooklyn with the biggish band and me for the brooklyn children's museum benefit on monday. pretty swanky stuff. i wore a headwrap and a gown that made everyone say i looked like a young nina simone. the schlossbergs were there -- they presented him with an award -- and a lot of other local nationally renown dignitaries. just as i was geting situated, who should pass by but john schreiber, one of the producers for harlem song. what a shock! we caught up, of course. he's a wonderful guy.

they had sandwiches for the band in a tiny green room far from the maddening crowd -- but trumpet player mark mc gowan and i mingled with the ho polloi instead and noshed on fresh fruit, crudite and, amongst other things, the crabcakes that never seemed to stop coming until we were called to the bandstand. i didn't think i'd eaten that much, but by the time i was ready to sing, i was stuffed.

it's even better than you think it is...

picnic nosh
Originally uploaded by queenesther.

my friend's birthday was yesterday. unfortunately, i woke him up with his birthday present (i was too excited to wait until the afternoon) -- a genuine honest-to-gosh spirograph, with all of its parts, right down to the original (totally dried out) pens. how 70's is that? he couldn't believe i found one. frankly, neither did i. the kicker? i took him to the battery for a picnic of white wine and oysters. i don't drink, so we got some tea for me on the way there. and we didn't bring the plastic wine glasses i had because he was afraid that the park police would take the wine away (which was italian and evidently, very good). i wanted it to be a take from that quote from hemingway's novel a moveable feast. when i made his birthday card, i put this in it:

"As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank the cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and make plans."

i want my friend "to be happy and make plans." so far, so good.



interesting thing. the cooler of a dozen or so oysters turned into a horn of plenty when i realized the african in the market that helped me pick them out gave me much more than i actually paid for. i love it when that happens...

the truthiness hurts

i love the way the media is ignoring stephen colbert and the speech he made. everyone is jumping on the internet to see exactly what the deal is, while the conservatives are trying to explain it all away. what mr. colbert did was a wonderful piece of political theater/performance art. when i saw it, all i could think was:

1. who was the bonehead that booked him? whoever he is, there's no way that he could still have his job...
2. what gigantic balls of steel stephen colbert must have, to get up there and basically say what no one else in the media has up to this point -- and
3. wow -- art really can change the world.

in the meantime, here's the complete transcript of the speech (just in case you'd rather read it than see it), a website that kind of sums it all up (http://thankyoustephencolbert.org) and two articles from salon.com: "the truthiness hurts" and "making colbert go away"...

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"The Truthiness Hurts"

Stephen Colbert's brilliant performance unplugged the Bush myth machine -- and left the clueless D.C. press corps gaping.

By Michael Scherer


May 1, 2006 Make no mistake, Stephen Colbert is a dangerous man -- a bomb thrower, an assassin, a terrorist with boring hair and rimless glasses. It's a wonder the Secret Service let him so close to the president of the United States.

But there he was Saturday night, keynoting the year's most fawning celebration of the self-importance of the D.C. press corps, the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. Before he took the podium, the master of ceremonies ominously announced, "Tonight, no one is safe."
Colbert is not just another comedian with barbed punch lines and a racy vocabulary. He is a guerrilla fighter, a master of the old-world art of irony. For Colbert, the punch line is just the addendum. The joke is in the setup. The meat of his act is not in his barbs but his character -- the dry idiot, "Stephen Colbert," God-fearing pitchman, patriotic American, red-blooded pundit and champion of "truthiness." "I'm a simple man with a simple mind," the deadpan Colbert announced at the dinner. "I hold a simple set of beliefs that I live by. Number one, I believe in America. I believe it exists. My gut tells me I live there."

Then he turned to the president of the United States, who sat tight-lipped just a few feet away. "I stand by this man. I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound -- with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world."

It was Colbert's crowning moment. His imitation of the quintessential GOP talking head -- Bill O'Reilly meets Scott McClellan -- uncovered the inner workings of the ever-cheapening discourse that passes for political debate. He reversed and flattened the meaning of the words he spoke. It's a tactic that cultural critic Greil Marcus once called the "critical negation that would make it self-evident to everyone that the world is not as it seems." Colbert's jokes attacked not just Bush's policies, but the whole drama and language of American politics, the phony demonstration of strength, unity and vision. "The greatest thing about this man is he's steady," Colbert continued, in a nod to George W. Bush. "You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday."

It's not just that Colbert's jokes were hitting their mark. We already know that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, that the generals hate Rumsfeld or that Fox News lists to the right. Those cracks are old and boring. What Colbert did was expose the whole official, patriotic, right-wing, press-bashing discourse as a sham, as more "truthiness" than truth.
Obviously, Colbert is not the first ironic warrior to train his sights on the powerful. What the insurgent culture jammers at Adbusters did for Madison Avenue, and the Barbie Liberation Organization did for children's toys, and Seinfeld did for the sitcom, and the Onion did for the small-town newspaper, Jon Stewart discovered he could do for television news. Now Colbert, Stewart's spawn, has taken on the right-wing message machine.

In the late 1960s, the Situationists in France called such ironic mockery "détournement," a word that roughly translates to "abduction" or "embezzlement." It was considered a revolutionary act, helping to channel the frustration of the Paris student riots of 1968. They co-opted and altered famous paintings, newspapers, books and documentary films, seeking subversive ideas in the found objects of popular culture. "Plagiarism is necessary," wrote Guy Debord, the famed Situationist, referring to his strategy of mockery and semiotic inversion. "Progress demands it. Staying close to an author's phrasing, plagiarism exploits his expressions, erases false ideas, replaces them with correct ideas."

But nearly half a century later, the ideas of the French, as evidenced by our "freedom fries," have not found a welcome reception in Washington. The city is still not ready for Colbert. The depth of his attack caused bewilderment on the face of the president and some of the press, who, like myopic fish, are used to ignoring the water that sustains them. Laura Bush did not shake his hand.

Political Washington is accustomed to more direct attacks that follow the rules. We tend to like the bland buffoonery of Jay Leno or insider jokes that drop lots of names and enforce everyone's clubby self-satisfaction. (Did you hear the one about John Boehner at the tanning salon or Duke Cunningham playing poker at the Watergate?) Similarly, White House spinmeisters are used to frontal assaults on their policies, which can be rebutted with a similar set of talking points. But there is no easy answer for the ironist. "Irony, entertaining as it is, serves an almost exclusively negative function," wrote David Foster Wallace, in his seminal 1993 essay "E Unibus Pluram." "It's critical and destructive, a ground clearing."

So it's no wonder that those journalists at the dinner seemed so uneasy in their seats. They had put on their tuxes to rub shoulders with the president. They were looking forward to spotting Valerie Plame and "American Idol's" Ace Young at the Bloomberg party. They invited Colbert to speak for levity, not because they wanted to be criticized. As a tribe, we journalists are all, at heart, creatures of this silly conversation. We trade in talking points and consultant-speak. We too often depend on empty language for our daily bread, and -- worse -- we sometimes mistake it for reality. Colbert was attacking us as well.

A day after he exploded his bomb at the correspondents dinner, Colbert appeared on CBS's "60 Minutes," this time as himself, an actor, a suburban dad, a man without a red and blue tie. The real Colbert admitted that he does not let his children watch his Comedy Central show. "Kids can't understand irony or sarcasm, and I don't want them to perceive me as insincere," Colbert explained. "Because one night, I'll be putting them to bed and I'll say ... 'I love you, honey.' And they'll say, 'I get it. Very dry, Dad. That's good stuff.'"

His point was spot-on. Irony is dangerous and must be handled with care. But America can rest assured that for the moment its powers are in good hands. Stephen Colbert, the current grandmaster of the art, knows exactly what he was doing.

Just don't expect him to be invited back to the correspondents dinner.

Making Colbert go away
The docile press corps was offended when Stephen Colbert dared to expose Bush's -- and their own -- feet of clay. But how to respond? Voilà: "He wasn't funny."
By Joan Walsh

The only thing worse than the mainstream media's ignoring Stephen Colbert's astonishing sendup of the Bush administration and its media courtiers Saturday night is what happened when they started to pay attention to it.

The resounding silence on Sunday and Monday was a little chilling. The video was burning up YouTube, and Salon hit overall traffic heights over the last few days surpassed only by our election coverage and Abu Ghraib blockbusters. But on Monday, Elisabeth Bumiller's New York Times piece on the White House Correspondents' Association dinner kvelled over the naughty Bush twin skit but didn't mention Colbert. Similarly, other papers either ignored the Comedy Central satirist or mentioned him briefly. Lloyd Grove in the New York Daily News pronounced that he had "bombed badly."

Three days later, the MSM is catching on to Grove's tin-eared take on Colbert's performance. Belatedly, it's getting covered, but the dreary consensus is that Colbert just wasn't funny. On Tuesday night, Salon's Michael Scherer, whose tribute to Colbert is everywhere on the blogosphere (thank you, Thank you Stephen Colbert), got invited to chat with Joe Scarborough and Ana Marie Cox, who showed themselves to be pathetic prisoners of the Beltway by passing along the midweek conventional wisdom: The lefty blogosphere can argue all it wants that Colbert was ignored because he was shocking and politically radical, but the truth is, he wasn't funny, guys! And we know funny!

Regular Joe told us he normally races home to watch Colbert. So the problem isn't Joe's conservatism -- Joe's a congenial conservative, a fun-loving conservative, which is why he has Salon folks on all the time (thanks, Joe!). Cox showed why she's the MSM's official blogger by splitting the difference. She pronounced Colbert's performance "fine" but giggled at the left for its paranoia that he'd been ignored for political reasons. Cox and Scarborough mostly just congratulated themselves on being smart enough to get Colbert every night at 11:30, but savvy enough to know he wasn't completely on his game last Saturday. They barely let Scherer speak.
Similarly, the sometimes smart Jacques Steinberg must have drawn the short straw at the New York Times, where there had to be some internal conversation about the paper's utter failure to even mention Colbert on Monday. After all, his sharpest jokes involved the paper's laudable NSA spying scoop, and a funny bit where Colbert offered to bump columnist Frank Rich if Bush would appear on his show Tuesday night -- and not just bump him for the night, but bump him off. How could the Times not notice?

In Wednesday's paper, Steinberg wrote about Colbert's performance with the angle that it's become "one of the most hotly debated topics in the politically charged blogosphere" -- and only quotes Gawker as an example. He also wanders into the land of comedy criticism to explore the assertion that Colbert wasn't funny, but quotes not a comic, but New Republic writer Noam Scheiber. Scheiber (who has contributed to Salon) takes a liberal version of the Scarborough approach. "I'm a big Stephen Colbert fan, a huge Bush detractor, and I think the White House press corps has been out to lunch for much of the last five years," he wrote on the magazine's Web site. "I laughed out loud maybe twice during Colbert's entire 20-odd minute routine. Colbert's problem, blogosphere conspiracy theories notwithstanding, is that he just wasn't very entertaining." Chris Lehman makes the same point in the New York Observer, arguing it was a comic mistake for Colbert to fail to break character.

It's silly to debate whether Colbert was entertaining or not, since what's "funny" is so subjective. In fact, let's even give Colbert's critics that point. Clearly he didn't entertain most of the folks at the dinner Saturday night, so maybe Scheiber's right -- he wasn't "entertaining." The question is why. If Colbert came off as "shrill and airless," in Lehman's words, inside the cozy terrarium of media self-congratulation at the Washington Hilton, that tells us more about the audience than it does about Colbert.

Colbert's deadly performance did more than reveal, with devastating clarity, how Bush's well-oiled myth machine works. It exposed the mainstream press' pathetic collusion with an administration that has treated it -- and the truth -- with contempt from the moment it took office. Intimidated, coddled, fearful of violating propriety, the press corps that for years dutifully repeated Bush talking points was stunned and horrified when someone dared to reveal that the media emperor had no clothes. Colbert refused to play his dutiful, toothless part in the White House correspondents dinner -- an incestuous, backslapping ritual that should be retired. For that, he had to be marginalized. Voilà: "He wasn't funny."

This is a battle that can't really be won -- you either got it Saturday night (or Sunday morning, or whenever your life was made a little brighter by viewing Colbert's performance) or you didn't. Personally, I'm enjoying watching apologists for the status quo wear themselves out explaining why Colbert wasn't funny. It's extending the reach of his performance by days without either side breaking character -- the mighty Colbert or the clueless, self-important media elite he was satirizing. For those who think the media shamed itself by rolling over for this administration, especially in the run-up to the Iraq war, Colbert's skit is the gift that keeps on giving. Thank you, Stephen Colbert!

"they" think they're onto me...but they're not!

the powers-that-be removed the stephen colbert white house correspondence dinner videos from the youtube.com website because of copyright infringement so unfortunately the links in my last post don't work any more -- but here's where you can see all of it, anyway. and you should. they're hilarious.

http://video.freevideoblog.com/video/AAC7FA18-2DDC-4D3E-B1BB-9D6CBD83E27F.htm

cut and paste, kids. cut and paste.

Stephen Colbert at the White House Press Correspondent's Dinner

sorry to pre-empt my nyc life but i had to put these up. this event got virtually NO press coverage in the states. and why should it? colbert basically hands the president his head on a stick after roasting him so thoroughly, even the republicans couldn't stop laughing. colbert is a genius. i'm a massive fan. these are kind of long (about 7 minutes each or so) but remember, "they" don't want you to see it (they're yanking it off the internet everywhere they can) -- which is exactly why you should take a look.

part one





part two




... and last but not least, part three

another (commercial) audition: swiffer

i've got an audition for swiffer later this afternoon at liz lewis casting and all i can think about is the fact that rosa, my iranian eyebrowist, has gone to the middle east until may 24th, to visit family and friends. by the time she gets back, i'll be doing a show upstate. i have to let her cousin do them -- and frankly, she's not as good. but anything else is a crap shoot. i definitely can't do them myself. and i have to get them done. my face looks strange/not as "finished" when my eyebrows aren't done. not exactly the ideal way to face down a camera for a commercial audition. *sigh*

i miss rosa a little. she and i would have these really lovely talks about iran and how homesick she is, how much i missed my brother who's stationed there and what his life must have been like. she vacationed in south carolina along the coast last year with her family and had a wonderful time, which thrilled me to no end because nobody up here knows how beautiful it is down south -- especially the isle of palms, where she stayed with friends. she's always trying to get my pound cake recipie out of me. maybe i'll bake one for her when she comes back.

i haven't let anyone else touch my eyebrows in well over five years. she's that good.

oh, well. sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith. that's what i'm going to do this afternoon before the audition, when i go to the dayspa and put myself in someone's hands. i'm going to pray that there's an angel leaning over their shoulder, guiding them. if they're handling most of rosa's clients, i'm sure they'll probably be praying the same thing.

photo op!

here's some more RENT photos from the cast alumni party at frederick's, courtesy of broadway.com. enjoy!

RENT and me

ten years ago i was headed into my sixth year of living here. i was running around like a chicken with my head cut off -- working as many as four jobs to make sure that my rent and bills were paid. then, exhausted, i would throw whatever was left of me into my art. by then, i had figured out how to create and develop my own work. a ten minute monologue with music about one of my freak neighbors for PS 122's avant-gawd-a-rama had turned into my first one person show. eagerly, i threw myself into developing another idea. guitarrorist elliot sharp and i had formed an acoustic duo -- he wanted to call it "frogs for snakes" after some obscure blues lyrics but i wanted to call it "hoosegow" and somehow i talked him into it -- and released a critically acclaimed cd, mighty, on homestead records. i would perform with james "blood" ulmer a lot -- but it would be awhile before we would record anything together. i was in and out of bands: singing standards, swing, jump blues. anything and everything. somewhere in there, i was busy gigging out and creating my own sound, and getting better at writing songs and lyrics. in retrospect, what i had wasn't that good but i loved the process and i was improving all the time. or rather, i was becoming more myself in the art that i created. the art was looking and sounding more and more like who i really was, not what anyone wanted me to be or what i felt i had to make myself into, to get over on anyone, to be popular or to make money. in the moment, that seemed to be all that mattered. that, and surviving nyc.

they say that when you come to nyc as an artist, things take off immediately or they happen within five to seven years. i knew that something was about to happen. but what?

i don't know how i heard about the audition for the first national tour of RENT. i know that i saw a blurb about it on the evening news, along with interviews of people who'd driven in from as far away as california and who were camped out across the street from the public theater on lafayette street, waiting for the doors to open so they could be seen. i remember having a feeling that i would get that show right then. it's the same feeling you get when you know that someone is going to be your friend when you meet them, with nothing to prove you right. you feel it and you just know.

i remember going down there to audition and seeing a line of pup tents and sleeping bags and people dressed up like caricatures of the original cast, eating sandwiches and drinking coffee and singing and being "on" for news cameras and waiting and waiting and waiting. the line went from the door of musical theater works across the street from the public theater all the way up the street, around the corner and down past mc donalds on broadway, on and on and on, finally ending in front of tower records some three or four city blocks away. not an organized one-person-behind-the-other line. there were a jillion people and they were all over the place. i saw that line and i thought, there's no way i can be seen for this today -- i have to go to work! that's when i thought, i've done all i can. if God wants me to be in this show, He's going to have to figure out a way for me to get in. i put my headshot and resume in the appropriate box and i left.

believe it or not, they called me. it seems that the dramaturg that was sorting through the headshots had seen my very first one person show and remembered me, and suggested that i come in. an audition and five callbacks later, i'm in the original cast for the first national tour of the hottest show on broadway and i did it with no agent, no manager, no representation of any kind. understand the odds here, folks: they saw over 6,000 people in five cities and they only needed twenty one. and i got it. you don't necessarily have to beat odds like that to originate a role. more often than not, you're only auditioning against a few others, not thousands -- especially if it's non-union or for no money because it's a workshop. my role? basically, i had gwen's part: i was the bag lady (et. al.) and i sang the seasons of love solo but i also understudied joanne jefferson.

here's the kicker -- every cast is supposed to be a visual reflection of the original and the part i was auditioning for was a big girl's role. at the time, gwen must have been a 16/18 at least. i was a size 6 on my way to a size 4. why didn't i get typed out ? you know -- when they look at you and decide if you're right for the role or not. according to director michael grief and music director tim weil, they heard me sing and they changed their minds.

interestingly enough, jonathan larsen's official title for that role is "voice of heaven."

all of a sudden, i was no longer non-union. all of a sudden, i was a professional actor. all of a sudden, my parents got off of my back. after years of listening to them complain about my life and how i was wasting it, their abrubt silence was deafening. wierdly, they knew all about RENT. they'd seen the 20/20 special about jonathan larsen and his demise and the audition made the news where they were in atlanta. they couldn't believe i actually got the part. as a matter of fact, my father didn't believe it until i showed him the contract. but that's another story...

i was making more money than i ever had in my whole life. i was in AEA (for theater) and SAG (for film/tv). i had health insurance. i had a pension, fer cryin' out loud. and groupies. it was very strange. in a way, it still is.

i got a callback (and then some...)

i found out this morning that i got a callback for that north bank commercial audition i did on monday. that's wonderful news -- especially when they give you the shoot dates and ask that you be put on hold. (if i get it, i'll be in boston for 4 days. wow, boston. i haven't been back there since i left RENT. i wonder if everything is right where i left it?) hey -- i got a callback. yippee!

when i called my agent to confirm the callback time, he congratulated me for making the cover of the arts & leisure section of the new york times. huh?! it's for the RENT 10th anniversary celebration/benefit performance. evidently, someone snapped the just-right shot as all of us -- ten years of cast members, though certainly not all of us by a long-shot -- were onstage for the specially rearranged seasons of love reprise. he said that although there are a lot of people onstage, he couldn't miss me. i was right out front, very nearly center stage: black cocktail dress, cleavage and all. what?!

photo op and full new york times article below -- you tell me if you can pick me out or not. i'm going to run out and get a paper, for posterity and all. and my grandmother.

in the meantime, i've got an audition for the broadway musical high fidelity this afternoon. more details coming soon. stay tuned.

A NY Times Article about the RENT anniversary...

Another Season of Love: The Original Cast Reassembles for a 'Rent' Anniversary

Joan Marcus

Cast alumni of the original production of "Rent" joined Monday at the Nederlander Theater in a semistaged version of the show, celebrating the 10th anniversary. Droppable audience names included Senator Charles E. Schumer and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who praised "Rent" as exemplifying "culture, community and creativity."

Over the years, as the musical "Rent" has reached milestone after milestone — playing around the world in more than 200 productions from Boise to Little Rock to Reykjavik — the thousands of people who have been affected by this vibrant, gritty and compassionate work may well wonder what its creator, Jonathan Larson, would have thought of it all.

Another milestone came on Monday night. The original Broadway production of "Rent" opened at the Nederlander Theater 10 years ago this Saturday. That production, directed by Michael Greif, was an almost-intact transfer of the initial production at the New York Theater Workshop, which had opened three months earlier.

To celebrate the anniversary the original cast members reassembled, rehearsed for two days and performed the show in a semistaged version at the Nederlander on Monday. The event was a benefit for the New York Theater Workshop, for Friends in Deed (a support organization that gave comfort to several of Mr. Larson's friends dealing with H.I.V. infections.), and for the Jonathan Larson Performing Arts Foundation, which was set up by his family after the enormous success of "Rent."

Before the performance, the co-chairmen of the benefit told the star-studded audience that more than $2 million had been raised. Also addressing the crowd were Senator Charles E. Schumer and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, who praised "Rent" as a timeless work exemplifying "culture, community and creativity," in the mayor's words, and saluted the show's vast contributions to New York's theatrical life.

Once again you could only think, "Would Jonathan ever have imagined all this?" Mr. Larson, who wrote the music, lyrics and books for his stage works, struggled for more than 10 years to get a producer to take a shot at one of his shows. Now he was being posthumously thanked for giving Broadway a creative and economic boost. "Rent" is the seventh longest running show in Broadway history.

I count myself among those who were personally affected by Mr. Larson's work, because of the inadvertent role I played in the last hours of his life. In 1996 an editor at The Times tipped me off to the opening of a rock musical, inspired by "La Bohème," which transplanted Puccini's struggling bohemians from Paris in the 1830's to the East Village in 1990's. So on Jan. 24 I went to the New York Theater Workshop to see the dress rehearsal of "Rent," which was scheduled to open in February.

That performance was pretty ragged, with technical glitches and a misbehaving sound system. But I was swept away by the sophistication and exuberance of Mr. Larson's music and the mix of tenderness and cleverness in his lyrics. After the show Mr. Larson and I sat down for an interview in the tiny ticket booth of the theater, the only quiet space we could find amid the post-rehearsal confusion. For almost an hour, this sad-eyed and boyish creator talked about his approach to songwriting, his determination to bring the American musical tradition to the MTV generation, and about friends struggling with H.I.V. infection who had inspired the show.

We shook hands, he went home to his ramshackle walk-up apartment in the West Village, put a kettle on the stove to make some tea, then collapsed and died of an aortic aneurysm. He was 35.

Understandably I have felt a little protective of "Rent" ever since. Four years ago, curious to see how the show was faring, I took in a performance at the Nederlander and was dismayed. The young and handsome cast was full of talent. But the sound system was blaringly loud. The show was pumped up with a rockish brashness that seemed forced, as if the presenters, afraid that the subtlety of Mr. Larson's score would be lost on young audiences, had opted to bludgeon them into submission.

On that last night of his life Mr. Larson spoke of his desire to bridge the world of musical theater, which has championed the artful mingling of words and music, with the world of rock, which feeds on pulsating rhythms and visceral power. He wanted his score to have rockish energy. But lyrics were everything to him, and he wanted the words to be audible, not buried in buzz-saw speaker noise. "The bane of my existence is that I'm relying on electronics, and I'm only as good as my sound board operator," he told me that night.

My guess is that Mr. Larson would have been pleased by the film version of "Rent" directed by Chris Columbus, released last year. I went to the film with trepidation. To me "Rent" is a triumph of theater. But adapting a musical for film inevitably involves opening it up, as this movie did with street scenes filmed on location in New York. Onstage the death of Angel, the endearing drag queen, is depicted abstractly with billowing sheets and a circle of bereft friends. In the film the scene is made literal, set in an intensive care unit. The filmed "Rent" seems a safer show than Mr. Larson may have intended. Still, every word in every lyric is audible, every voice in the complex choral numbers comes through, and the richness of Mr. Larson's harmonies works its magic.

The producers were worried at first that the original cast — many are in the film — would look too mature. But just as in Puccini's opera, there is no reason the circle of friends in "Rent" cannot be in their early 30's rather than their early 20's. They looked terrific in the film.

The original cast members looked more than terrific when they walked onstage on Monday night to the screeching ovation of the audience and lined up in a row to sing the show's disarming anthem "Seasons of Love."

Though this performance was not intended for review, I can say that that the cast did itself proud. Understandably, as actors fumbled for lines now and then, the event became as much an affectionate reunion as a straight-ahead performance. But moment after moment brought you back to the early days of "Rent" when the show's honesty and power were so stunning. Adam Pascal, the original Roger, the punk band singer and songwriter at the heart of the show, has lost none of his sexiness and charisma. His voice, at once raw and plaintive, especially when he lets a note swell with earthy vibrato, soared in "Glory," the ballad that seems like Mr. Larson's premonition of his own death: "One song/ Glory/One Song/Before I go/Glory/ One song to leave behind."

The crowd broke into frenzy when Daphne Rubin-Vega, as Mimi, the S&M club dancer who falls for Roger, straddled the railing of the stage's upper level to sing the gritty "Out Tonight." Idina Menzel as Maureen and Taye Diggs as Bennie (who are now married and have both gone on to thriving careers) could not resist bantering during scenes that brought them together. The audience loved it. Anthony Rapp was again the ideal Mark, the loose-limbed and insecure video artist who believes so strongly in his community of friends. Though Jesse L. Martin is by far best known these days for his role as Detective Edward Green on "Law & Order," he looked elated to be singing and playing the good-hearted Tom Collins, who falls in love with Angel. And the slight-framed yet dynamic Wilson Jermaine Heredia, who won a Tony Award for his portrayal of Angel, again disarmed the audience with his cross-dressing dance number "Today 4 U."

At the end of the evening the original cast retreated to the rear of the stage and the current cast appeared to sing "Seasons of Love." They looked like fresh-faced kids playing grown-up roles. Then the stage filled with dozens of actors, all former members of "Rent" casts who joined in the song, until, at the end, everybody hugged everybody. Afterward there was a reception at Cipriani on East 42nd Street, where the original cast members were swamped by autograph-seekers and you could see celebrities like Jon Bon Jovi chatting with the mayor.

For me the original production at the 150-seat New York Theater Workshop will never be topped. The intimacy of the space allowed the performance to have subtlety and clarity, while still packing a rocking wallop. But "Rent" has become something bigger than Jonathan Larson ever imagined.

	Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times Crowds at the Nederlander Theater Monday hoping to see "Rent."

yikes-a-doodle-doo!

i'm tired.

i wore myself out at the RENT 10 year anniversary performance and party last night. it was too too much: seeing everyone all together, all at once, all of a sudden. who knows how long it will take for me to truly process all of it. i'm standing in the light of day and i'm still overwhelmed. expect photos and a nice long rant about it real soon. in the meantime, my friend says he saw me on NY1 earlier today, singing the seasons of love finale. are you sure it was me, i asked. uh-huh, he mumbled. geez. i wonder if they got me before or after i was bawling my eyes out. *sigh*

in the meantime, i have an audition tomorrow afternoon for * get this* Hi-Fidelity. that's right, you heard me the first time -- the movie with john cusack that was a book written by brit nick hornby is about to be a broadway musical, believe it or not. the protagonist's backdrop and life began in london, then it moved to chicago and now it's going to be a new york story. it's a universal story, really: a thirty-something guy's love life examined with a really cool indie soundtrack as its sidekick.

of course, there's a black girl in it -- that is, if they choose to cast it that way...

and no, i still don't have my voice back 100% yet. whatever i had vocally got shot right out from under me during the performance last night. only time and sleep with lots of water will give it back to me -- unless i go see dr. scott kessler, vocal specialist to the stars, who can give me a booster shot in the bum and a tiny envelope of steroids that will restore my voice by the following day. unfortunately, i don't have the small sack of gold that i'd need as payment for his services. and yes, he's worth every nugget.