I'm Bringing the Pompadour Back

All my glorious plans of blogging more frequently ended in sleeping instead. Hey, it was a looooooong tech.

The show looks BEAUTIFUL, and we've settled into our run. We were talking backstage last night about how NINE is a really fun show to run, and actually less fun to rehearse. Rehearsals can often be the most exciting part of the process - let's try this, okay, now this, what if I do THIS instead - but NINE is a bit of a beast. It's difficult to get a firm grasp on, and difficult to tell the story well (I know from having seen it several times before). Anyway, now that we're open, we've all just kind of relaxed and started to have fun. Below is a photo of me in full Stephanie Necrophorus regalia, singing about why I loathe our leading man:


I look ridiculous walking about the streets of Boston with poofy hair, but I got over that really quickly. If anything, most people are a little deferential when I have the pompadour happening, I suppose because it makes me look really intense. Yep. I frighten people. This is what I have discovered.

Okay, people, PIMP YOUR FRIENDS time! My lovely marvelous wonderful BATS are all involved in this amazing new project called #serialsattheflea. Late night episodic theatre. I'm grumpy about not being able to see them because I'm in Boston, so I'm trying to send everyone else to see them so that I can live vicariously, stage-mom style. Basically, there are five plays, and every week, the audience votes for what they want to see the next installment of. Only three make it. They'll return the next week with the next "episode" of their play, if you will, and the other two teams have to completely regroup and devise an entirely new premise for the following week. I freaking love The Flea. Two of the Bats, Stephen Stout & Dominic Spillaine, are the evil geniuses behind this whole thing. Go!

With regards to BE CREATIVE EVERY DAY, I have actually been succeeding, and not just because I'm in a run. I've been doing a lot of writing, as well as working on new material for a class I'll be taking soon. It's interesting challenging yourself to something like this, but not being a visual artist - I know I have something to show for it, but I can't just take a photograph of it and post it.

However, I CAN post videos, and I have done so for A MARGINALLY CHRISTMAS CABARET! There are four of them, and they all came out really well - my friend Alesia's brother David Lawson and a couple of his friends did all the video and editing for us.
Here is Colored Lights, from THE RINK. I call it the Liza Minnelli Special.
Next, we have River in the Rain, from BIG RIVER, featuring my marvelous brother Aaron! A few of his improv friends have watched and been impressed, as he only really sings when I force him to.
Then, there's the ridiculous Diamonds Are Forever.
And finally, the video that has unsurprisingly turned out to be everyone's favorite, I Will Never Leave You, from SIDE SHOW, featuring my friend Hernando Umana. He was my Riff Raff in ROCKY HORROR, and he sings like a beautiful woman. Seriously. It's actually not my favorite video for how I sound, but it's so preposterous that I can't help loving it.

I'm not very good at summing up with a grand, sweeping statement

I did it last year, and I'll do it again! A summing up of my year in the way that most makes sense to me - in shows! I'm including whatever workshops and readings I remember as well.

2010
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (workshop)
Dash Dexter (reading at MTC)
Don't Tell Mama's Cabaret
What Would Woody Do? (reading at The Flea with Tony Shalhoub)
A Tipsy Cabaret (at The Sonnet Theatre/The Producer's Club)
Stop the World - I Want to Get Off (with Musicals Tonight!)
Romeo & Hamlet (with GayfestNYC at The June Havoc/Abingdon)
Una, La Whore Del Mundo (reading at The Flea)
Office Hours (reading at The Flea with AR Gurney)
Scam (reading at Random House)
Unlawful Gatherings (at TAI, with my Sunday Playtime crew)
As Bees in Honey Drown (with Twin Tiers Theater Festival)
Boeing Boeing (with Twin Tiers)
Into the Woods (with Twin Tiers)
The Rocky Horror Show (with ReVision Theatre)
Scam (reading at New York Theatre Workshop)
Looking at Christmas (dialect coach - The Flea)
All Our Best for the Holidays (with Cape Rep)
A Marginally Christmas Cabaret (at the Royal Theatre/The Producer's Club)

And, as I began rehearsals for it in 2010...
Nine (with SpeakEasy Stage)

I'm missing a couple of readings in there from February. Can't remember project titles. Old age. It comes so quickly.

Wow, looking back on that, I was really fortunate this year. I met some crazy awesome people, and got to play two bucket list roles within the space of a month (Gretchen in BOEING and The Baker's Wife in WOODS).

Dialects I was hired to use in performance this year: Russian (2x), RP, Cockney, German, and Faux-Russian (hello, Magenta).

Favorite piece of theatre I saw is probably JERUSALEM in London with Mark Rylance - and it's coming to Broadway, folks!!! I also loved BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON at The Public and LA CAGE AUX FOLLES on the BroadWAY.

Other marvelousness with regards to my friends includes my brother performing regularly and hilariously with his Harold team Sandino at UCB, Hannah performing at The National Theatre in London with THE WHITE GUARD, Nick Adams booking a big ol' Broadway lead in PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT, and Nikka Lanzarone making her Broadway debut in WOMEN ON THE VERGE OF A NERVOUS BREAKDOWN!

Ten points to anyone who knows what the title of this post references.

I'm starting the new year by seeing a show at SpeakEasy, then coming home to do some work on NINE on my own. We've worked through all of the music in the past few days, and have our first read through/sing through tomorrow! Huzzah! Onward.

Words, words, words...

The Agee workshop finished yesterday, and we went through all the material we've been working on. Oh, it's such a cool piece. I still have all the music looping through my head - my life is being accompanied by the low hum of an upright bass! I think if I could choose one instrument to provide the soundtrack for my life, it might be a bass, though for exuberant occasions, a trumpet would do nicely.

I got the script for DASH DEXTER, the reading I'm doing at MTC next week, and I love it. So funny, so silly, so smart. And I have a great supporting role! I can't wait to get cracking on it! I'll be working with a few people I haven't met, and a few dear friends, which is a grand combination indeed!

And TONIGHT - I'm doing the masterclass with Sigourney Weaver! Woohooooooo! Full speed ahead to fun town! The people that Jim shortlisted all got together yesterday and worked through our pieces. So much fun. I know so many talented people! HA! At The Flea, we usually get to see one another do readings and plays and such, but not often pieces of our own choosing, so this was lovely. I always find it interesting to see what speeches people pick for themselves. It was great to get the opportunity to see everyone do something classical as well, since we're always doing world premieres of very contemporary plays down there.

Well, I must be getting on with my day! The weather I'm witnessing outside my window looks horrifying. I usually have a very clear view of New Jersey (I live waaaaaay West), but through the fog and rain, they're looming, gray shapes with no real definition. I think I'll keep the errand running to a minimum this afternoon.