Gratitude Lists

Every night before I go to bed, I type out a "Gratitude List," comprised of ten or more things that I am thankful for that I was directly affected by that day. For instance, I wouldn't just say that "I'm thankful for my brother," but I could say, "I'm thankful for Aaron lending me $5 so that I wouldn't lose my place in line for Harold Night, and then saving me a seat when he got in before me." I then email it to two of my best friends in the world, and they do the same. It's great - the three of us have this daily email chain going on. It's a wonderful way to keep myself accountable to doing the lists, and a delightful way to keep in touch with these women. Neither of them have met, but through the lists (we've been going since early February, I want to say), they've gotten to know one another in a beautifully unique and powerful way. It helps that we're all actresses. Anyway, I love these lists. They keep me on my toes to really be aware and notice lovely little moments throughout the day. As I've had a particularly wonderful day, I thought I would be extra generous and share Monday's list with you!

1. Actually getting it together and baking delicious, agave-sweetened, whole wheat flour blueberry muffins! They came out marvelously, and are delicious! {Incidentally, blog-readers, these are from a babycakes nyc recipe. They are wonderful, and cater to people with food sensitivities - I'm just trying to improve my general health, and think babycakes is grand!}

2. I'm 21 days refined sugar free! Aaah! Yet it now seems like I've been doing it for ages, in the best way possible. {More on this in another post}

3. A seemingly endless supply of Jeremy Brett's SHERLOCK HOLMES episodes on streaming Netflix. Turning a new one on every morning as I make breakfast (or bake muffins, as the case may be).

4. Both Arlo & Sarah approving of the muffins. They are the first thing I've baked in this apartment (umm, moved here in Dec 08), so it's a nice affirmation.

5. A good, solid work-through of the Hedda/Lovborg scene with Arlo. Feeling ready to go up in class tonight.

6. Finally getting to work on a scene with Sarah. Digging in to NORMAN.

7. Umm, making a flank steak roll situation for dinner? I COOKED STEAK! With panko and mesclun and garlic and balsamic and some stuff...Let's be real here. It's the first meat I've cooked that was not bacon, sausage, or a turkey burger. EVER. I am proud of the Jo today!

8. First rehearsal for STOP THE WORLD! Realizing that when you don't have to audition for something, you often have no idea what the project is about! I discovered it's very English, and I may get to use a couple of accents! Among them? Da! Rrrrrrrussian!

9. Hanging out with Mel and Tom again. They make me laugh, and are so easygoing.

10. The cast seems lovely! The leading man and leading lady are married, turns out, which I find very amusing.

11. Running from rehearsal to class. Having a really good rehearsal of the Hedda scene with Karl. Allowing a few minor changes to transform it. The scene really coming to life. The relationship with Lovborg beginning to crackle and become more dynamic. Knowing working on this scene is going to affect the rest of my work on the play tremendously.

12. Going back to working on Hedda after an lapse of several months. How something about working on her just feels so right. So much to work on, yes, but still...so easy. Like wearing a comfortable shoe. A comfortable shoe you could stab someone to death with.


That's the general idea! Hope you like them - try some of your own, and start a wee email chain! I really look forward to reading my friends', and it's great to go back later and reread your own!

Krakow

As promised – The Lost Krakow Blogs Entries!
(or: Amy Finally Gets Her Act Together!)

So, I arrived in Krakow on Monday the 22nd of February, after my flight had been delayed by an hour because the pilot was stuck in traffic and couldn’t get to the airport. True story. So, after sleeping on the floor by the gate for about forty-five minutes, curled up in my calf-length North Face down coat, and STILL freezing, I got on the plane, conked out (despite a child that could give Colin Craven a lesson or two in screaming fits), and woke up two hours later in Poland.

My friend Stan was waiting for me at the airport, and, good soul that he is, took me home to drop off my bag, and then straight out for a massive plate of pierogi. And I mean MASSIVE. Delicious! The restaurant was in the basement of one of the university buildings, and there was a lot of silly décor that made one feel vaguely as if they were at Disneyworld. Cheerful figurines of a distressingly large size, a giant fish-tank as the centerpiece of the room, and loads of wall décor. Mercifully, I wasn’t in Florida, but in the heart of Old Europe. Eating fried, fried food items.

Stan took me walking around the city for a bit after this, strolling by statues of saints, peeking into incredibly old churches, and meandering through the Old Town Square…Krakow is a gorgeous city. I really fell in love with it, and was quite disappointed to leave it after only two and a half days! Whereas Warsaw was bombed and destroyed during the war, then rebuilt in the image of itself shortly thereafter, Krakow remained intact, all of its history truly preserved. And oh, it’s worth seeing! There’s so much color, yet it feels relaxed. Yeah, it’s charming, but it’s not quaint. It’s not trying to be anything but a city that happens to be proud of its history. I found myself taking dozens of photos of grating. My eye was arrested everywhere by gorgeous, incredibly detailed grates that protected everything from contemporary windows to old, stained-glass ones. I’ll post a few of my favorites below!

A bit of personal history: Stan and I met a little over two years ago in New York, when he was visiting New York for awhile. We discovered that we both have a penchant for hanging out in coffeeshops, and that we’re also shutterbugs. Stan takes gorgeous photos. He’s a very dynamic, interesting guy, and his photos seem to reflect his love of travel and his insatiable curiosity. Anyway, we kept in touch, and hung out several times this past August, when his travels brought him Stateside again. It was a fabulous treat to now be shown HIS city, and to get to meet his family, girlfriend, close friends, and CAT! He’s going to be leaving Krakow soon for Leipzig, Germany, where he’ll be studying for three months. I had one of my most unique and delightful travel experiences EVER in Leipzig, so this amuses me. Perhaps as some point, I should dig out the notebook I kept while traveling on that trip (Sept – Nov 2007) and post some of my favorite entries. I really had such an amazing time. This all-too brief trip to Krakow really stirred up a lot of those memories, and I thought of all the amazing people all over the world I’ve been fortunate enough to meet.

I was astonished by the beauty of all of the churches. We went into something like six churches in two days, and they were all so majestic, and yet different! One had these flat, rectangular pillars that were painted to look like three-dimensional columns. I wouldn’t have known if Stan hadn’t told me to go over and take a good look at them. Another church was actually colder once we were inside it than it had been outdoors. I sat in a pew for a few minutes in silence, watching my breath freeze in the stillness. Stan and I had the church to ourselves, save for a lone woman praying, and in the cold and the quiet, I felt quite small. It happens sometimes when I’m in a place somehow emotionally or historically loaded (I remember quite vividly having this sensation several times before – when heading up the stairs of The Bronte Parsonage, at the Roman Baths in Bath, a tiny graveyard for pets alongside a river in Inverness, and also in one of the hallways of Hampton Court Palace), I get a sense of the immensity of history, of all the people who have come before, and who have walked the same stone steps or knelt at the same altar. It’s humbling. I always feel very human at these times.

After we’d hit up the requisite three churches for Monday afternoon, he took me to a café in Kazimierz called Alchemia. Instant obsession. You must know that I am a coffeeshop fiend, even if I’m not drinking coffee. It’s about sitting there for a lengthy period of time, either having a conversation with a companion, or nursing a cappuccino for two hours while you memorize lines, read a New Yorker, work on your German, tear through a novel…This place was SO cool. Deep, old-fashioned burgundy wallpaper, framed portraits high on the wall, and lit only by a single candle on each table, it’s perhaps not the best place to get a ton of reading done in the evening, but it was the ideal location for a latte and conversation with Stan. It may have replaced the one I went to in Copenhagen with my friend Ben as “Favorite Coffeeshop in Europe.” That’s a high honor. Some people go to national monuments when they travel. I go to places that steam milk and pull espresso.

Later that night, we met up with Stan’s good friend Pawel, who is, in addition to being a cool guy, a licensed tour guide for the city of Krakow! You know what’s fun about that? Having him reel off tons of information about a particular memorial, say, and then pointing to some random detail on it and going, “Yeah, but what’s THAT about?” and getting an immediate answer. Awesomesauce. He plied Stan and I with lots of traditional Polish fare (ahh, the bliss of using that excuse of needing to try Traditional Polish Fare! The following afternoon ended in food coma when we stuffed ourselves with Traditional Polish Desserts), including some ridiculously good mustard that I forgot to buy, but Stan has been good enough to promise to send me. I’m talking stupid good mustard, okay? It’s not my favorite condiment, but jeez, I’d eat this stuff out of the jar. He also took the following day off work, in order to pal around with us and tell me tons of amazing things about all the places we went. Did you know a lot of coffeeshops in Krakow have little theatres in the basement for cabarets and band gigs? See, I didn’t, but he showed me one! Oh, it was such a perfect little venue, I nearly threw up in envy.

So, the following morning, Stan, Pawel and I went wandering about the city (after Stan made the two of us French toast – he and I are both big fans of New York City diners), stopping for a tour of some of the rooms in the oldest university in Eastern Europe, a quick duck into the high school they attended together (once again, nearly threw up, as it’s so gorgeous, and they went to HIGH SCHOOL there???), a brief stop at Café Camelot (the one with the venue downstairs!), a walk to Wawel Castle, and, most memorably, a visit to St. Mary’s Cathedral. Oh, my. I stared around me in slack-jawed wonder at the incredibly saturated blues, the gold, the organ pipes along the back wall, and the ceiling of stars! Pawel was there to tell me which artisan designed which pieces, and at what point in history, and many other fascinating things that I’m sure my mother is jealous she didn’t hear (you think I’m a nerd? This woman majored in history and has me beat by a MILE). It was stunning. If you are ever in Krakow, you are an idiot if you don’t go to see it.

It was that afternoon that the aforementioned Traditional Polish Dessert Lesson and subsequent food coma came upon us. A brief nap was in order.

That evening, Stan’s girlfriend Kasia came into the city (she lives about 40 minutes outside), and we were all hoping to go out to a bar that had live music. They found one that apparently would have two musicians with drums, a guitar, and laptops, and we decided it’d be as good a place as any. Okay – WOW, this place was so cool. First of all, the music was AMAZING. I have this dark sensibility as far as music and art that appeals to me - it’s the part of me that loves murder mysteries and suspense stories, that is obsessed with film noir, that immediately rewound A CLOCKWORK ORANGE the first time I saw it to watch it again, that adores Edward Gorey and Alfred Kubin, and couldn’t get enough of Punchdrunk’s SLEEP NO MORE at A.R.T. this past year (if you don’t’ know what I mean by that, do yourself a favor and Google “Punchdrunk,” as they are glorious). Stylistically, the music I’d like to be writing is a dark swing, a la Squirrel Nut Zippers, but a bit scarier. Just as tongue in cheek, though. I really appreciate a somewhat murky and beautifully unsettling aesthetic. Anyway, this was sinister and mysterious – one song had this long drone underneath everything, which was so eerie and unnerving that I felt indescribably happy. Then, to top it off, while Stan and I had been at the bar, Kasia found a little tiny room just off the main area where the musicians were going to be, that was kitted out with a chair, a nightstand adorned by a candle, and a bed that was wedged perfectly between the walls. There was a portrait of some saint above the doorway (so you could see it as you sat on the bed, which, let’s face it, is a little creepy), and a few Banksy characters spray-painted on the walls. It. Was. So. Amazing. Something else that struck me as funny was that I wasn’t bothered by the cigarette smoke like I usually am (in Poland, smoking in bars is still legal). I’m a non-smoker, and am typically sensitive to smoke…but perhaps it was just the general ambience of the bar, or the music, or something I’m at a loss to explain, but it enhanced the evening for me. The smell and the haze gave the impression of truly being in another time and a world away from home, not just out with friends in some bar that could be anywhere. I have no idea what the name was – as I recall, it was rather long and somewhat pedestrian. That bar will always be Krakow for me.

The next day, I was due to leave around one, so Stan and I hauled ourselves out the door at an absurdly early hour (8am on vacation is not the Amy Jackson way) so that we could make it to the nearby town of Wieliczka in time for a 9am tour of the salt mines. Now, I could talk and talk and talk about them here, but you should really just google the place, and the salt mine website will pop right up. Basically, it was a working salt mine from something absurd like the late 1200s until 1996, when it mined rock salt from the ground below. Today, it mainly operates as a museum, though they do mine top salt still. If you go to the website, you’ll see photographs of many structures and statues that look nice and everything until you realize that they’re carved out of solid salt. At which point you go, “Whaaaaaat?” I can’t even describe how wild it was. There was a statue of Goethe! Y’know, cause he visited one time. So why not carve a life-size likeness of him? You enter the mines by descending, at a pretty quick clip, fifty flights of stairs. There were only six people in our tour group (I love traveling on the off-season, and getting up that early didn’t hurt, either), which meant there wasn’t a lot of jostling around to see things. Or touch the walls of the mine – solid rock salt. I should know, seeing as how I licked one at one point! I felt like such a rebel – licking a wall, sticking it to the man! The man, in this case, was probably comprised heavily of sodium.

The air was incredibly clean and clear down below. It was chilly, and so crisp. So quiet. Difficult to believe they were once full of men, removing tons and tons of rock salt. Oh – they had entire stables down there! For many, many years (that is as accurate a number as I can recall, unfortunately), much of the power was derived from horses, hitched up to these enormous wagon wheels. They would lower the horses down on ropes and pulleys, and down in the mines they stayed! Is that not CRAZY???

As Poland is a very Catholic country, there were several chapels carved out that we passed through. Many of them were quite simple affairs, simply with a crucifix and a place to kneel, with a statue here or there (some – gasp! - weren’t even made of SALT). One chapel, however, was quite different. There is one chapel still very much in use – in fact, there’s a Mass there every Sunday, and people are sometimes married in it! I cannot…I do not have words for how stunningly gorgeous it was. You enter at the top, and look down over it…White and grey…The chandeliers, which are carved from salt, light up a grand hall, where salt tiles are carved into the floor. You descend a staircase, which has reliefs of biblical scenes carved into the wall. There is an entire altar (and what we Baptists would call a pulpit) and crucifix, all carved from the grey stone. Among the Gospel carvings in the wall: The Last Supper, Palm Sunday, Mary Magdalene washing Jesus’ feet, and the Lord being sent before Pontius Pilate. There was also a statue (larger than life) of Pope John Paul II, prominently displayed on your way out. The workmanship is unbelievable. Such attention to tiny detail! Everything looks perfect up close, and then to step back and survey the whole…I had several moments in which I thought, “Where am I?”

Perhaps my other favorite bit of the tour was a chamber in which there was an underground (manmade) lake. The guide hit a button, and the lights went dark. One of Chopin’s nocturnes began playing (oh, how I wish I could remember which one!), and various bits of the chambers were lit and dimmed, according to the music. The light show was all very well, but the music, the music! It echoed so sweetly in that chamber. It is not an exaggeration to say that, for me, it was a moment of profound beauty. Incidentally, Chopin visited the mines when he was 19 or so, which is why they selected music of his specifically. Regardless of why it was chosen, it’s magnificent.

After the mines, Stan found me a gigantic kebab, which I ate in the car on the way to the airport. I hate goodbyes. I adore New York and all (and I was headed back to London for a few days before coming back home, anyway), but there is something so special about traveling around and being with people you love and see far too infrequently. Hopefully I’ll make it back to Poland soon, and have a proper visit. Two weeks, haHA! Two days was a mere tease! We crammed so much into those days, though, that I have plenty of food for thought and delightful memories to sustain me for now.

Whew! That was perhaps the longest blog post in the history of time. For your viewing pleasure, I’m including some of my favorite photos from the trip below.

Good News!

So much to talk about. So little time. SO much good news!

I'm very tired, so this is going to be a good ol' fashioned BPBP: A Bullet-Point Blog Post.

* I booked INTO THE WOODS for this summer!!! I will be playing The Baker's Wife! AAAAAH! Jubilation abounds!

* My brother Aaron was invited to join a house Harold team at Upright Citizen's Brigade! Ahh! This is a big deal, especially as it was his first time auditioning. Something like 475 people auditioned, 64 got called back, and 20 were asked to join up! He is going to be really funny, and I am SO proud of him! I actually manage to see him a lot these days by going to Harold Night at UCB (Tuesdays at 8pm, incidentally, at their theatre on 26th and 8th Ave, and it's $5!), so it's mega-exciting to know that some day soon, I'll be seeing my bro!

* I booked a show for April! And I didn't even have to audition! HaHA! Mel Miller, who produces MUSICALS TONIGHT! up at The Vital Theatre on the UWS, called me on Thursday morning to ask me to be in the female "Greek Chorus" of STOP THE WORLD I WANT TO GET OFF. It starts rehearsals Monday. The timing could not be more perfect. I did TOVARICH with them about a year and a half ago, and had such a great time. Two weeks of rehearsals, then two weeks of performances on the 8 show/week schedule, and then you call it a day! Easy peasy! A great little gig for when you're in between stuff. I'm excited to meet new people and get to know a show I wasn't acquainted with before!

* I have saved a draft of my Krakow adventures, but haven't posted it yet, as it's not DONE! It's really long already, so I figured I'd just go ahead and make it ridiculously long, so that if you want to read about Poland, you can do so in one post. Soon. Seriously. It's only been a MONTH! :)

Coffeeshop Reflections

I'm sitting in RBC NYC, a coffeeshop in TriBeCa that I'd never been to before. This is a shame, as my cappuccino was excellent, there is WiFi, and it's SO near The Flea! I'm better informed now! I needs must know where every blessed non-Starbucks establishment is in this city. I NEEDS MUST KNOW!!!

Well, it was a doozie of a week, but in all ways wonderful! I had a couple of rehearsals for this concert I’m singing in next week for the 99th anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire (March 25th, 1911). The text of the song in which I have the lead vocal is from a famous speech Rosie Schniederman gave a couple of weeks after the incident at a memorial service held at the Met Opera House. I’ll include the text here, as it’s very powerful:

"I would be a traitor to these poor burned bodies if I came here to talk good fellowship. We have tried you good people of the public and we have found you wanting. The old Inquisition had its rack and its thumbscrews and its instruments of torture with iron teeth. We know what these things are today; the iron teeth are our necessities, the thumbscrews are the high-powered and swift machinery close to which we must work, and the rack is here in the firetrap structures that will destroy us the minute they catch on fire.
This is not the first time girls have been burned alive in the city. Every week I must learn of the untimely death of one of my sister workers. Every year thousands of us are maimed. The life of men and women is so cheap and poverty is so sacred. There are so many of us for one job it matters little if 146 of us are burned to death.
We have tried you citizens; we are trying you now, and you have a couple of dollars for the sorrowing mothers, brothers and sisters by way of a charity gift. But every time the workers come out in the only way they know to protest against conditions which are unbearable the strong hand of the law is allowed to press down heavily upon us.
Public officials have only words of warning to us – warning that we must be intensely peaceable, and they have the workhouse just back of all their warnings. The strong hand of the law beats us back, when we rise, into the conditions that make life unbearable.
I can't talk fellowship to you who are gathered here. Too much blood has been spilled. I know from my experience it is up to the working people to save themselves. The only way they can save themselves is by a strong working-class movement."
– Rose Schneiderman, The Triangle Fire(April 2nd, 1911)

She’s a major figure in the first wave of feminism, as well as in reform for women’s labor laws in the early part of the twentieth century. Apparently, Schneiderman’s granddaughter will be at the concert, which is really exciting. The concert is on Thursday evening!

I went to Boston on Wednesday (St. Patrick's Day...in BOSTON...all of the bars were packed with college students sporting green, green, green) to see my acting teacher (Karl Bury) in PARADISE LOST at the ART. I’ve hitherto only seen him on film or television, so this was grand! He was excellent, as expected. I can’t say I loved the production, though most of the actors were fantastic, and the play is great (it’s Odets, c’mon!). I had a few quibbles, shall we say, with the direction. He made some choices I felt were arbitrary and detracted from the telling of the story. The trip was well worth it, though, not just to see Karl, but also to spend the entire day walking around the city. The weather was glorious, and perfect for being outside…I would love to go back to Boston for a gig. I wouldn’t want to live there permanently, and certainly not in January, but during the spring and summer, it’s a gorgeous place to be.

On Friday, I performed in A TIPSY CABARET, a show I set up with some girls from my acting class and various gigs. We rented a space, hired my friend Michael to play for us, and invited our friends to come watch us perform - for free! Too often do we have to pay something like $25 to see our peers perform, and it adds up. So delightful to be able to offer the opportunity to watch us with no charge.

I opened the show with “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” preceding it with, “In the spirit of performing things we probably shouldn’t be doing at auditions…” It got a nice big laugh when the vamp began, and everyone recognized it. Later on, I sang "Moments in the Woods" from INTO THE WOODS, "So Far Away," from Carole King's album TAPESTRY, and "Class," from Chicago, with my amazing friend Melissa Dowty, who just returned from a 9-week gig in TN. SO good to have her back, and to get to sing such a ridiculous song with a comedic genius like her. All in all, the evening was a success, and a nice reminder for all of us that it's good for the soul and the creative spirit to sing for yourself sometimes, and perform for an audience, rather than a bunch of people behind a table who are reading your resume. Woo!

I've also begun work again on my own cabaret show for the character of Lady Jo...so far, I have a very (VERY) rough draft, and am excited to meet with my friend Phillip to discuss where we can go with it. YES for taking initiative and creating projects and jobs for ourselves! Actor Empowerment. Let's get with it.

Thursdays are for Trippin...

Just saw the new HAIR tribe in their third performance this evening! I got $25 rush seats, which are up in the balcony, and moved down to the third row center during intermission! WIN! My beautiful friend Catherine Brookman made her Bway debut on Tuesday night in this production as a member of the Tribe and the lead vocal on "Black Boys." She was so fabulous, and looked amazing!!! It's been so wonderful to see three of my friends now make their Broadway debuts in this show. Plus, it's been a personal favorite piece of mine for about six or seven years now. I downloaded the Original Bway Cast recording onto my iPod in college and have been unable to stop listening to it nonstop ever since. Seriously. It's a killer show. Twas so delightful to run up on stage during the dance party at the end and give Catherine a huge hug!

Time to scamper off to bed so that I don't weep at the sound of The Morning Alarum Bell.

Summertime Jobs and Oscar Nods

Oy, I've been so busy that I haven't gotten a chance to catch up with everything here! Between restaurant jobs, auditions, and computer death, whaddaya gonna do?

Okay. I promise I will chronicle Krakow at some point (for my own sake more than anything), but right now I have exciting news to share - I've booked a summer gig that I'm thrilled about. I'll be playing Illya/Carla/etc in AS BEES IN HONEY DROWN and The German (Gretchen or Judith, depending on which adaptation you read) in BOEING-BOEING. I'm also up for The Baker's Wife in INTO THE WOODS, which is also going up in their season. It's upstate at a new theatre festival called TWIN TIERS, and I cannot WAIT! First of all, I saw BOEING-BOEING three times when it was on Broadway two years ago, and have wanted to play the German ever since Mary McCormack made her first entrance. I cannot believe I'm getting the opportunity to play it so soon after it made its appearance on my "Dream Roles" roster! WOO! BEES should be great fun as well - it's a really fun piece for everyone, but the ensemble actors get to play an absurd number of roles, which is just fabulously fun. Now, callbacks for ITW are on Thursday. If I don't get it, no biggie, but The Baker's Wife has been on the top of the list for about fourteen years now (I can be very patient when need be), and this would be an ideal situation. I've never been in a Sondheim, actually, which KILLS me, but hopefully that will change this summer. There are other great roles in ITW, but this is one that is incredibly near and dear to my heart. Joanna Gleason (who won a Tony for playing this role) was born on June 2nd. Why, that's MY birthday! :) Love her. LOVE her.

Additionally, tonight are the Oscars!!! I used three exclamation points just now. I'm not even really jazzed enough to merit the use of one of them, but it is my favorite piece of punctuation. I have seen UP and AVATAR, and that is it. I don't even mean for Best Picture noms, I mean pretty much in general. What have I seen at the movies since the last Oscars? Harry Potter. Umm...Oooh, THE HANGOVER, I'm a little ashamed to admit. But it was $5 in rural Illinois, so I'm partially forgiven. That might be it. Have I only seen four movies in the past year? Yowzah. I think so. It's five if you count THE WRESTLER, which I saw in Feb of last year before the Oscars. I loved that movie.

I would like to mention that today marks the last performance of the Original Broadway Cast in HAIR. March 9th, the new tribe will begin performances, and in a few weeks, the Original B'way cast heads to London! I'm so excited for everyone. Can't wait to see the new tribe - my friend Catherine Brookman will be making her B'way debut!!! So thrilling!

I must tidy up a bit, for my gentle guests may be arriving at any moment. In honor of the night, I've pulled out my most appropriate book of matches for all the cigarettes I shan't be smoking.