Ode to Carnivores

I have just arrived home from a birthday party at my friend and fellow Bat Jamie's place in Brooklyn. His birthdays usually involve an immense amount of BBQ. I'd like to present an ode to Jamie now:

At a Birthday Soiree, best to greet
All your guests with a large pile of meat.
Using finger or fork,
They'll devour the pork,
And proclaim to their host, "Gee, you're sweet!"

A Week of Debuts

Whew, what a week! I’m sitting in the dressing room at The McGinn/Cazale theatre, during a brief moment offstage in today’s matinee of STOP THE WORLD – I WANT TO GET OFF! We opened last night - already! Ta-da! The four member female ensemble is either on stage or singing in the wings for 9/10 of the show. It’s really fun – I play something like 16 characters. The show is essentially an excuse for me to go on stage and act like an over-the-top crazy person for two and a half hours, which in my mind is great cause for rejoicing. My day job doesn't give me this liberty.


So, this past Monday, my dear friend Hannah Croft had her understudy run at The National Theatre in London!!! She’s understudying the role of Lena in THE WHITE GUARD, directed by Howard Davies, in a new adaptation by Andrew Upton (Cate Blanchett’s husband), and starring Conleth Hill! The understudies are guaranteed one show somewhere during the run, and she said it went well! I haven’t been able to get more details from her yet, but it’s such an exciting gig to have regardless of the fact that she then gets to actually play the role! I mean, THE NATIONAL! Hannah and I have been to so many shows together there! In fact, we have a silly running joke about sitting in the front row at The Lyttleton, which is the space her play is running in. We went to see AFTERLIFE, starring Roger Allam, and sat on the front row, the fourth and fifth seats off the aisle (Ten pound seats! ShaZAM!). There was an attractive male ensemble member that we were convinced had eyed us during the curtain call. The very next day, we queued for day seats to NEVER SO GOOD, starring Jeremy Irons, which was running in rep in the same theatre. We ended up getting the exact same seats. And the same young ensemble guy was in this cast, too. We were a touch embarrassed to appear to be crazy theatrical stalkers. That was two years ago, and we still go to bits when we think of us there, making eyes at what’s-his-face, wearing the same jumpers as the evening before and everything…I’d also like to remark that Jeremy Irons was truly marvelous.


Another marvelous debut this week – my brother Aaron had his first performance on Harold Night at UCB with his team Sandino! My parents got to go, along with many of our friends, and I’m depressed I didn’t get to be there. Apparently, they were hilarious, and I can’t wait till I get to go and see him rock it out with all of the funny folk!!!

Now I’m getting ready to go on for the evening show – my parents, Aaron, and Mikey are here!


Oh, other good news – I booked another show! I’ll be playing Mercutio in ROMEO & HAMLET from May 6th – 16th at the Abingdon (June Havoc Theatre) as part of Gayfest NYC. I have always – always – wanted to play Mercutio, so I’m pretty jazzed about it. I got the script the night before from the casting director, and thought as I read it, “Well, if I don’t book this, it’s not gonna be my fault. I am PERFECT for this.” I’m really looking forward to it! Rehearsals start next Tuesday, so I’m busy, busy busy!


Well, this was a disjointed post, but, to be fair to myself, I’ve written it in about eight sittings as I run in and out of the dressing room when I happen to have a moment. Right now it’s intermission of the evening show. 9:04pm. Woo! Time to re-oomph the hair before going on and belting out the Alto Two a bit more. Ahh, my Glinda hair gel…what would I do without you?

Poland

I do have quite a lot to blog about, but wanted to take a post to say that my Polish friends and the Polish people are in my thoughts, as they cope with the loss of their President and many government officials who died in a plane crash yesterday.

A Little Flashback

My friend Stephanie Johnstone, who was the composer that brought me on to the LET US NOW PRAISE FAMOUS MEN project back in January, just got her website back up & running! On it, along with info about glorious Stephanie, are some recordings of various things she's written. Among them is a rough recording done at the final day of the workshop of one of the big songs. Usually, the actors did their thing, and the singers did their own, but this brought all of us singing together. You can hear me on THE WILL TO LIVE for a hot second when the music swells and everybody comes in. It's so funny listening to it - everyone involved has such fabulous voices, but on a lot of these pieces, Stephanie and Rachel (the director) worked very hard to make us sound pedestrian. So you've got a lot of highly trained, professional singers, taking out vibrato, flattening their sound, and allowing their pitches to be a little iffy. It was oddly quite difficult. But fun! And you can definitely hear that on here. Go listen and see what I was up to in January, and then check out more of Stephanie's stuff!

Click HERE to go to Stephanie's website!