Maryland It's Raining Somewhere in Some Cafe

I'm going to see Laundry & Bourbon on Saturday at Ultimate Improv. Anyone wanna come with? Most of my friends will be in Vegas.

Oh yeah. Quote from this weekend:

LB: So, you're gonna pass Cabazon...
AT: Where we're going to be all day tomorrow...
LB: Where I wanna be buried. I know the Pope's being buried at St. Peter's but just stick me underneath J. Crew.

Rehearsal went well again today. Sometimes I know what I'm doing and things actually work. Cheers.

GRRRR.

Having a bad rehearsal makes me feel as though the world is going to end. I hate it. Hate hate hate. I got so fucking pissed off at the cast of Matt's show today. Seriously I wanted to fucking throttle someone. I was so ANGRY! And I so very rarely get angry... it actually feels a little weird to be this pissed off. But geez they made me mad. It makes me so depressed to have a bad rehearsal... and at the beginning of the week, too. Grrr.

The As You Like It reading went well enough, I suppose. Carlos Baldeon, Lauren Donahoo, Nathan Weaver, Kim Porter and Mary Schneider were all good. And actually most of the supporting players were fine as well. I would've cut it a little differently had I known the cast better, but what can you do? There was a hilarious moment in the show... I had decided to have intermission between Acts II & III, so after we finished Act II, the actors were kind of sitting around wondering how to get off stage (we hadn't rehearsed that: silly me), but then instead of getting offstage for intermission, Chris Gelvin got up and just started in doing Act III. The actors started looking around at one another and me in absolute horror. Quick as ever, Joe Ngo and Jamie Le Jeal got up and played the scene with Chris Gelvin until it was through, at which point Carlos Baldeon got up and walked offstage. The other actors followed.

I spent the day in Palm Springs and got nice and sunburned. I also bought shoes... and bakeware. And I met two very nice gay men and spent the day with Linda Bisesti and her husband Matt Reidy, who are just lovely. It was good. Then I went to rehearsal.

News Update

So I was over at the parents' last night and dad was watching "On the Media." It's on Fox but it's actually an okay show. They were saying that public opinion polls about the Schiavo matter say that Americans overwhelmingly believe that Mr. Schiavo should have the right to decide what happens to his wife and Mr. & Mrs. Schindler should not decide. Overwhelmingly. The press, however, is keeping these polls from Americans because they want the controversy. Doesn't surprise me. Not surprisingly, to me, my parents would want their plugs pulled. I already knew, but I asked for good measure. They were also talking about what the mass media were doing, how they were treating the so-called "controversy," etc, and I was actually kind of surprised. I was like, "They didn't do any of that kind of grandstanding on NPR. They had neurologists on talking about what is happening inside Mrs. Schiavo's brain." My parents don't listen to NPR, but they have brains. I guess I feel as though everyone should be listening to NPR news and no one should be watching television news. If I need to see pictures of things, I go to the NPR website or read the Yahoo! headlines.

*
I got my rejection letter from UC Davis last night. Rejection from PhD programs is now complete. I really hope I get into Mary Baldwin. If I don't, I think I'm going to study on my own and try to write a few top-notch 25-page papers on stuff.

*
I know I said I would never be involved in another of Linda's Shakespeare readings... but she called me and told me that her husband needs to go into the hospital, she just can't handle it and would I please do it as a favor to her. I said yes. As You Like It. I am cutting the shit out of it, but you just know she's already cast it chock full of idiots. Ah well.

*
Rehearsals for my new CSUP show start on Tuesday. I kind of am not really ready. I will try to do some work today or tomorrow. Geez.

I See Loud People

Watched Chung King Express tonight. I FUCKING LOVE WONG KAR-WAI. Plus, this one starred (at least for half of the film) Takeshi Kaneshiro... most gorgeous guy ever. It's okay that he goes away after half of the film because Tony Leung is the star of part two.

I worked late tonight and then I decided to go read a play at CPK. I have been reading some Adam Rapp. I finished his play Stone Cold Dead Serious a couple days ago and it absolutely rocks. So I am reading the next one in this anthology. It's called Faster. It's really fucking good too. Allan, you would love these plays.

I finished my salad and diet pepsi (I'm trying to do better, again) and decided to go buy a copy of As You Like It. Linda is talking to me again about doing Shakespeare in the summer and she brought up AYLI. I have (oops) never read it, so I need to bone up, I guess. I also nearly ran into (literally) Haley Joel Osment, who looks a lot better since the last time I saw him. Read: his face has cleared up.

Actually, let me tell the full story. I'm eating my salad at the bar at CPK because the place is absolutely packed, and about twenty feet from the bar are two tables filled with (I assume) high school students, but they might have been college freshmen. For some reason, most of them are wearing odd outfits. One of them is wearing Mickey Mouse ears and those enormous Mickey Mouse gloves, for example. Another is wearing a paper bag on his head decorated to be a rocking horse head. I swear this happened. Another is in house slippers. When I get up to leave, they are also leaving. I leave the restaurant alone and go around the corner to the elevator which will take me one floor down to the parking structure. I wait for the elevator in solitude for a minute or so when I am joined by a moderately pretty, rather pouty Filipino or Mexican woman. She does not smile at me but waits for the elevator. After another thirty seconds or so we are joined by the twenty teenagers from CPK who are being as loud as anyone has ever been in the history of Earth: talking, joking, laughing--mostly yelling, I feel. When the elevator comes to our floor, about ten people get off the elevator and the kids start to get in before me and Filipino/Mexican chick, so I move into the elevator in their midst and F/M chick follows suit. The kids, however, do not stop filling the elevator and so we all squeeze into the elevator: about twenty-two of us. The kids' volume has in no way lessened during this process or in the ensuing ride down to the parking garage. This one girl in particular is screaming in my ear to her companions that they "are not the only ones in the elevator," and that her comrades ought to be considerate of the strangers in their midst. I begin to chuckle at this. In fact, the whole thing amused me, beginning with the sardine-packed elevator. I thought it was very funny and I was grinning the whole time girl #1 was yelling in my ear about her friends' manners. So when the elevator door opens and I am let out I am still grinning and before I realize I am talking to/looking at Haley Joel Osment, I say with a grin on my face "Little kids" and shake my head. Haley is smiling too and is dressed in a suit coat for some reason or other. I think he joined up with the kids, and now that I think about it, he may have been in their company the whole time without me noticing. He is rather short, after all.

Not Sore; Just Happy

Yesterday was the most fulfilling day I had in a very long time. Linda Bisesti randomly invited me over to CSUP for a 6-hour contact improv class and I randomly decided to go. (All of those workshops on auditioning and how to be an actor in the "business" make me want to kill myself.) But contact improv is contact improv and I've had enough of it to know it's great.

We did about 2 hours of "Viewpoints" which I hope is a lot different than what we did. If it is similar to the work we did yesterday, it's nonsense. That having been said, he split up the class at one point (there were about 30 people there, I would guess) and had half of us be witnesses to the other half who had the whole stage to move... and I got a bit emotional. I haven't witnessed movement in a really long time... probably since the Voice Intensive in 2002. It's such interesting work to me and I never do it anymore.

After our 2 hours of "Viewpoints," the instructor moved on to contact improv, which most of the class described as "sexual" or "erotic." I've done it before and I never had a sexual experience, and I have to admit to not having any kind of sexual experience yesterday either, so I'm not sure what the actors were talking about. Contact improv is tough to describe, but it's very dance-y. It is physical improvisation based on two partners or more exchanging their weight back and forth in various positions. It's fucking exhausting, but very cool to experience.

We seriously did this for the better part of four hours. We finished at six, I went and had a pizza and then went home and crashed.

I can't remember when I spent that long in a studio. It was awesome and I was so grateful to Linda for giving me the opportunity and to all of the students for being as open to the work as they were. There was still a lot of silliness and masturbation (as is usual with university students) and you would not believe the ridiculousness of Nathan Weaver (why did he even show--to sabotage other people's experiences?), but I think overall the students really gave themselves over to the work and had a beneficial experience.

Check This Out. I seriously almost cried when I read it.

Dear Sir:

I am writing this letter of recommendation on behalf of Aaron Thomas who I have had the pleasure of knowing since the fall of 2001. Aaron was a student of mine at Cal Poly in the B.A. Theatre Arts program where I am an Assistant Professor and Head of Acting. Aaron graduated in the spring of 2003 with a GPA of 3.69. 3.92 in his major and with the enormous respect of our entire faculty. Aaron is one of the finest, brightest, most dedicated students that I have taught in my 25 years of university teaching. One of the top ten students I have taught.

While at Cal Poly Aaron was in my advanced Styles class which dealt with Molière, Shakespeare and Restoration. His work was excellent. I know that you are interested in Ph. D. candidates that possess superior intellectual ability, as well as the ability to delve into research and a strong capacity for analytical thinking. Aaron is superb in all of these areas. He has a terrific understanding of language, comprehends very difficult verse and is simply fascinated by looking up historical references and what he may not know. Aaron's ability for excellence in writing, research, and analytical thinking are also reflected in his superb GRE scores. He is an outstanding student. I also had the pleasure of directing him in Othello where he was Roderigo. He is a terrific actor.

Professionally, I have had the pleasure of hiring Aaron for four projects. He directed for our Studio Theatre season at Cal Poly in the winter of 2004, The Sin Project: Four Short Plays by Thornton Wilder and again this fall, 2004, Valparaiso. His research for both projects was comprehensive and insightful and the actors commented on how much they all learned from working with him. He is a tremendously talented director. I recommended him for Taming of the Shrew this past summer at CSULB. His production was intelligent , funny and alive. In all his productions, the actors always know what they are saying and why as well as understanding the style of the particular play. He has directed two stage readings for me at Cal Poly one being The Long Christmas Dinner and the other Love's Labour's Lost. Both were superior.

In addition, Aaron has a great respect and knowledge of voice and how voice can help the actor, particularly the telling of the story. He understands how to make language work and how to work with actors. I have hired him as a voice coach for The Crucible, Othello and The Foreigner. I am a Designated Linklater Voice teacher. My standards for voice work are quite demanding in my attention to diction, precision for dialects that are required, and breathing for Shakespeare. Aaron was invaluable in all of these areas and did outstanding work with the students.

I recommend Aaron without hesitation. He will be an excellent student. Aaron is the type of colleague I will be looking to hire as a full professor at Cal Poly in the future. If I can be of any other assistance please contact me at the email or office phone below. Thank you for your time and consideration.


Sincerely,

Linda Bisesti

Terrorism Is Afoot

I always assumed in addition to my friends and the people I have invited to read my weblog, that it would be read by people who were not made aware of its existence by me. It's fine. If you'd like to read, you certainly may. I welcome it, in fact... and feel free to comment if you get the urge. I'd love to hear from you. I make no secret of this weblog. But if you are going to use this weblog to sabotage the work and relationships of others, I advise you not to. It's just not nice.

And now for news of the weekend...

On Friday, I left work and booked it to Hacienda Heights to see my friend Scott in The Diary of Anne Frank at Los Altos High School. Los Altos is doing something right. I don't mean that the show was brilliant or anything: it was far from it, but this place was packed. I have never seen so many people at a high school theatre performance. It was quite something. I was literally the last person to purchase a ticket. How is it that a depressing high school show about Jewish internment can have a bigger audience than a hilarious comedy at a university with really cool special effects. What is Los Altos doing right that the publicist at CSUP is doing wrong? I ask you.

Scott played Mr. Frank. He was excellent as usual. I really hope this young man studies acting somewhere when he goes to university. He has so much potential. I don't particular care for Anne Frank, but Scott's performance had me actively holding back the tears. I have to say, though: weird choice for a high school play.

On Saturday, I watched Empire of the Sun, which might be my favorite of all of Spielberg's movies. I know that I have trashed Spielberg repeatedly in this space and elsewhere, and I still think that he deserves a lot of the bile I chuck his way, but Jaws and now Empire of the Sun, make me really appreciate ol' Steven. I still dislike A.I. and E.T. and The motherfucking Terminal, but Empire of the Sun is beautiful: surreal and dreamlike, but hugely emotionally affecting with an interesting political core. A good portion of the film is a redux of James Clavell's King Rat, but damn the script (by the superb Tom Stoppard) is good.

After Empire, I met Wahima in La Verne and we saw The Incredibles, which has charm for days and is unbelievably clever. Everyone has seen this movie and everyone loves it, so I won't say anything more than I loved it too and I think it is a lock for the Animated Feature Oscar and will probably get an original screenplay nomination, too. Machine washable, darling: that's a new feature.

I visited my parents after the Brad Bird flick and we finalized the Christmas letter. My family cracks me the fuck up, I swear. Michael and Debs went on and on about how dad ought to take out his Chinese furniture store joke. They think it's too much of a non sequitor. Aside from the finer points of comedy in the Christmas letter, we discussed national politics, other Christmas logistics, and the huge fight during the NBA game on Friday night. My dad suggests that President Bush send Colin Powell and Jimmy Carter as his envoys to create lasting peace between Palestine and Israel. This sounds like a great plan to me, but we all know it won't be happening.

Then I went to see The Foreigner. It's a lot better. Chris seems worse, but that is to be expected, I suppose. The audience liked him well enough, I guess. Tori has sped up a lot and her performance is much funnier because of it. The one joke I put in the show got a huge laugh, so I felt good about that. The show is much the same as it was when I first reported on its progress in this space about two weeks ago. It has the same strengths and weaknesses I thought it had then. I still think Jensen is the strongest voice in the show. Matt Guerra is still wonderful. And I still think Brittney, Tori, and Rick are giving good—if unremarkable—performances. The dialects are much stronger, and I only detected a few errors: almost all of them Gelvin's.

Busy day, Saturday. After the show Linda drove me out to her new house in Cathedral City (Palm Desert). It's lovely: more lovely than you can imagine from my words. The best description I can give is that it looks like a picture out of the Pottery Barn catalog. It's truly beautiful. At any rate, Tori, Brittney, Catherine, Peter, Matt, Linda and I drank wine and sat in the hot tub late into the night. I drank (in this order) Shiraz, more Shiraz, Zinfandel, and Merlot (I was plastered by this point and just didn't care.)

Today I woke up, showered, had coffee and some eggs and after sending the girls and Peter off to their matinée of The Foreigner, Linda, Matt, their cats and I headed calmly back toward Los Angeles County. We stopped for coffee near the outlet malls on I-10, and I made a quick excursion into the Club Monaco Outlet where I purchased both a hat and a hoodie for under $25. I will be returning to the outlet mall when I have more time. They had $20 jeans there. It's like shopping in Canada! On our way through Riverside County (Banning and such) there must have been 3-5 inches of snow on the ground. No joke: snow—lots of it—on the ground in California. There was snow on the goddamn palm trees. I have never in my life seen anything like it. It was so cool. And then the snow just stopped around the San Bernardino County line: it was so weird.

Today I finished last week's Sunday Crossword (this is 2 weeks in a row, people!), made the grocery list for Thanksgiving, randomly cleaned, paid some bills and finally watched John Singleton's Boyz N the Hood, which, if I may say, is no Do the Right Thing. Nevertheless when Tre hands Furious the gun and Furious holds his son, I started to cry: a lot. This really moved me. I guess it just hit me how much this boy had lost and how much he needed his father to hold him in that moment. The hug also held all of Furious's hopes for his son. With that hug he declared victory on the Hood.
But... except for the hug and a couple of other nice moments (that Morris Chestnut is a looker, ain't he?), I thought the film was really preachy: maybe even extremely preachy.

Why am I not finishing my apps to Berkeley and Davis? Is it because I think I won't get in, or is it because I think I don't need to try that hard? Whatever it is, it is procrastination. I just can't get up the energy to go and finish all of this application stuff. I feel so... inadequate.

Just so you know, I have busted out my Xmas music. Feel free to do the same. And if you happen to burst into Burl Ives' "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas," while standing in line at the grocery or the coffeehouse, just ignore the bewildered stares of others. It's the fucking holidays. Bring cheer to the lives of others! Cheers.

Wolpe Diapers

Things are going well, but I'm tired. I was in a cruel mood today. I think it was because when I got in to work this morning I added up my time card and it came to 39.75 hours regular and 0.5 hours overtime for last week. So Roxie, my immediate supervisor, tells me that I don't get overtime because I'm still "in training." Fine. Whatever. So I give her my time card and I total it to say 40.25 regular and 0 overtime. She gives it back to me corrected: 39.75 regular, 0 overtime. It's only a half hour, but it's a half hour I should be paid for. What the fuck?

Valparaiso is going well. I always say on here that I love working with Kevin. This was driven home to me this evening, once again. In other news, Cyn Pérez is going to be absolutely brilliant in this show. No kidding.

I do not like Lisa Wolpe. (If you're thinking about posting a defense of her in the comments, please don't.) I have met this bitch at least three times. I was in a reading with her several years ago, she worked with me when CSUP did Othello two years ago, and I made a point to say hi to her in the hall last year when she directed a production of Irene Fornes's Mud. She claimed she didn't remember me then, but seemed to recall when I reminded her that we were actually in a show together. Today, this bitch popped her head into Linda Bisesti's office to say some word or two. I was sitting in Linda's office as I often do, and Linda jumped up and asked Lisa if she'd met me. "No, I haven't" she said. I shook her hand, but I just couldn't squeeze out any other niceties. I cannot believe her.

Fuck Puck.

Norman!

It is late and I should be in bed... but I am not.

A Short Story About Scheduling
Linda called me this weekend and asked me to work on dialect with three of her actors (Gelvin, Kalmbach and Kong if you must know). I told her I would dismiss my people early on Thursday and meet with her actor for a half hour apiece beginning at 8:30p. I gave my stage manager this schedule and we all agreed upon it. Yesterday (without telling me or my stage manager) Linda changed this day when I was supposed to work with these actors. I have no idea why and I have no idea how she thought she could do this without consulting me. So I ended up working only with Brittney and Chris. I worked with Brittney until around 8:50 and then Gelvin until (no joke) 10:20 or so. He is supposed to be doing Standard British and he sounds like Katharine Hepburn in On Golden Pond. "Norman. Norman, you old poop!" He can get better, though. He understands IPA and he isn't so bad word by word. It's the speaking of actual sentences where he runs into trouble. He knows he's not good, though, and that's a help. And he wants to work as much as he can. I told him to rent movies with Hugh Grant in them. I have no time to be a dialect coach for this show until after my show opens and closes. I ain't getting paid for it anyway, so I don't want to be working to hard with him.

Work at Avjet gets easier and easier. And tomorrow is casual Friday. God. Bless. America.

The Weekend of Shopping

So I bought six shirts, five ties, and a pair of shoes on Friday Grand Total: a lot of money.
Today I bought four pairs of underwear and six pairs of socks. Calvin Klein was having a 25% off sale and I got out of Macy's so cheap! Hurrah.

I talked to Linda Bisesti today. I am going to help her actors with dialect on Thursday night. I so rarely mind doing favors for her. (Except: no more readings. Ever.) It's only going to be one hour off of my rehearsal anyway, so it's no big deal.

I've been thinking about the summer theatre options at CSUP. I don't know. I know everyone thinks I'm being regressive working at CSUP, but I find it fulfilling and I like working with Linda and Bill and Jeanine and Joyce and Dennis. Maybe I'm comfortable. (?) I try to analyze this, but the good keeps outweighing the bad and I just don't want to work as an A.D. in Hollywood if I can direct my own shows at Cal Poly. If I did a summer show, it would have to be Shakespeare. But it could also be Shakespeare in rep with something else: or two Shakespeare shows in rep—Comedy of Errors in rep with Two Noble Kinsmen—okay maybe not that.

Coriolanus in rep with Bryony Lavery's Frozen. ?

I was planning on going to the inaugural performance of the pipe organ at the Walt Disney Concert Hall tonight. Well at 1:15p I looked at the ticket options online and realized the show was at 2:00p! So I got in my car and drove downtown. It takes me less than fifteen minutes to get down there, but there were no tickets left and a huge line outside. I waited in the sun for about thirty minutes, but they only let maybe one or two people in. Boo. I went shopping instead. That concert hall is beautiful, though, and I could hear the organ in the lobby. I've got to hear it soon. It sounds like it's magnificent. Some day soon...

I Love Dave Grusin (If You Don't Know Who This Is, Please Look Him Up.)

I am not a morning person. And Carly Simon says "I'm a night owl honey / I sleep all day long." But I have got to get used to having a schedule like this. It's gonna be just like this when I work in Burbank, except maybe even a little worse because of the extra driving.

Linda asked me to help out with voice (and offered me money) and that's fine by me, but I don't even know if it's possible at this point. I told her I would help out this week and then we would see about next week. I'm expecting to barely make it to Pomona by 6:30p when my rehearsal starts.

I don't think I have ever felt this confident about a cast of mine. Certainly not since Gross Indecency and that was a long time ago. Things just fell into place for me to have this cast and I feel really great about it. The best thing is that I did what Linda wanted me to do, too. She was so pleased that I cast Anthony and Celeste. I can't tell you.

Good thing I visited Jaime yesterday and got her markout. My life would have been sad and coffeeless this morning were it not for her.

I Know Better or Even Superheroes Make Mistakes

Note to self: never allow yourself to be in any production cast by Linda Bisesti. She will, without exception, do a poor job of arranging the cast.

I will not whine about A Midsummer Night's Dream. It is my own fault, and I have not earned the right to complain about it. I will, however, share a few thoughts I had during the (evidently) obligatory read-thru of the play:

1.What is the point of verse if you ignore the verse lines? Prose is offset by punctuation. That is its only marker. If you only pay attention to the punctuation in verse, you might as well be speaking prose. What value, then, does the verse hold? None. Silly as fuck. Especially when you consider, dear reader, that it is highly likely that Shakespeare did not give us the punctuation used in modern editions at all, and that it was added by later editors and possibly even actors.

2. God bless Leslie Rivers for doing her homework before coming to the read-thru. She was one of very few who did.

3. Linda's friend Catherine doesn't know one damn thing about how to act Shakespeare. She may be a lovely human being, but please, Catherine, shut the fuck up.

4. The director (who is really very hot) told us that he had cut the Hell out of Act V (to which I said," thank Heaven"--its structure is almost identical to that of Love's Labour's Lost--cut that shit). But when we began to read Act V, I noticed that not one single solitary line had been removed from the version in Quarto 1. Did I miss something?

Cumulative Update

I'm imbibing Honey Wheat beer made by a company called Lawson Creek that I purchased for less than $1 a bottle.  And it's good.  Who knew?

My sister just called, and a I got a lovely email from my dear friend Jamie (Other) who is shacking up (down?) in AZ (oz? well, over the rainbow at any rate).

I had a job interview that actually went well today.  I didn't know those were possible anymore?

I am reading a delightful book by Alan Cumming, the actor, a name you should all recognize.  It is called Tommy's Tale and it is infinitely clever if at times slightly-earnest-while-pretending-not-to-be. True lack of earnestness (read: coolness) is so difficult.  But it is a worthy first novel.

Am I really waiting for my real life to start?  If so, I think that might be okay.  I am only a very young man, as it is.

One of the reasons I simply adore spending time with Linda Bisesti and her husband Matt is that they don't mind trashing other people, even people for whom they might feel a slight fondness.  It is important to remember that people's talents are quite separate from the people themselves, and Linda and Matt walk this fine line very well.  They know how to trash people and say very nice things about them in the same breath.  It's quite a gift, really.  It was so lovely at their house yesterday.  And when I'm with Linda and Matt we talk about the theatre, and not just this theatre and that theatre and Cal Poly theatre and the theatre we're each doing, but the state of Theatre with a capital T.  It feel so good to be able to talk about it.  We discussed community-based theatricalities and my theory that it is a dead theatre... or one that is dying on its feet if not already kaput.  Anna Deavere Smith and Culture Clash and Moisés Kaufman are wonderful, worthy examples, and their theatre is new and arresting, but they are poets.  So much community-based theatre is so much wanking, and so much is by people who can barely string a phrase together, and so they choose to use the words of real people.  Because it's oh so real and oh so important and oh so fucking precious.  (Send me your retorts; I expect to be fought on this.  Don't be shy.)  But I'm serious.  It is the photography of theatre, and like so much photography it is the art of the untalented.

Deborah's call was very juicy.  Chisme is so very nice.  Especially in the evening.  I am thinking of baking cookies tomorrow afternoon.  I wonder.  Will it be too hot for that?  Let's hope not.

On the set designer: I called him today to see if he'd gotten a copy of VAL and he picked up the phone with this greeting "Hi Aaron."  This is someone to whom I have spoken one other time in my entire life.  This kid and I will be fast friends when we finally meet because I already love him.  I talked to Sally today and she, thankfully, organized a meeting with my set designer and possibly my lighting designer.  The lighting designer part is possibly because I told her to tell him that if he hasn't read the play he ought not come.  There are two possible outcomes to this ultimatum and both of them are positive to my mind.  He (a) doesn't come to the meeting at all and I have a productive meeting with my set designer and stage manager or he (b) reads the play (gasp from the chorus!) and has things to say at the meeting.  I'm actually not sure which I would prefer, but (b) seems highly improbable, so it really doesn't matter which I'd choose if I had my druthers.

Does one capitalize druthers?  What are druthers anyway.  I must look it up.

Lesbianism and Po-tay-toes

Last night I drove down to Venice Beach to see my friend Linda Bisesti in a show called Fire Eater.  It was about the potato famine in Ireland... and also Lesbianism for some reason.  The two topics don't seem as though they go well together.  And—big surprise—they don't.  Linda was really good, though, in a small part.  Her scene in Act II is probably the best-written piece of the show.  The show is not horrible, but rather flat.  The writing is interesting, but not good, if you know what I mean.  On the upside, there is nudity.  I do love nudity when I go see theatre, especially when it’s not gratuitous.

Dialect always seems to be a problem with theatre in Los Angeles and this is so strange to me.  I mean, why cast someone if they can't do the dialect?

At any rate, it was lovely seeing Linda, and we got to hang out for quite a while after the show was over.

I went to bed early last night, so I could get up early and spend some morning-time at my house. So I am up and reading blogs and laughing and having the best coffee in the world.

Two words: Ethiopa Yergacheffe.

Come on baby / Let your love come out

Kevin called me yesterday (!) to tell me that he finished reading Pterodactyls. This made me sad all over again. He would have been absolutely perfect for Todd and I think we would have had a lot of fun with that show. What I mean is that I think he would have instinctively understood what needed to be done with that character. He can still play Michael in Valparaiso, but it won't be so much of a stretch for him, I think. Pterodactyls would have really stretched him. Ah well. He seemed really sad that we weren't doing Pterodactyls, too. He asked me about Valparaiso and I said, "Oh, it's really fucked up; I'm not sure how to describe it." He said, "So it's an Aaron Thomas play." Yeah. Basically.

Pause. [edit]

Hm.

I am still throwing around the idea of whether or not I want to do Midsummer with Linda and Peter. I guess I should just say yes, but I'm still not sure WHY we're doing these Shakespeare things. I guess if it's a favor to Linda it's good to do, but still...

This comes back to the question that we should be asking every time we do a show: WHY??? Peter Brook's book The Empty Space keeps asking "Why theatre at all?" and I think this is the perfect question. Not just "why this show?", but "why theatre?" Shouldn't we be asking that every day? Why not just all go into the cinema? My answer to myself is: Suzan-Lori Parks. She, for me, is THE innovator.

More on this later. Must go shower.

Lunch hour

The very cute Chinese-American girl who is the manager of Quizno's asks me if I want chips with my Traditional on wheat and I say, "No, chips are bad for you."  She says I don't have to worry about that.  I thank her, but I don't believe her.  I guess this blue shirt hides the fat that spills over the top of my Mexx pants better than I thought.  I sit with Jeremy's notes and try to peruse them and think about how I will tell each of the actors good things and what they need to know to improve.  Things are going to be fine and I know it.  Jeremy's notes are really good.  I start to people-watch after a while.  I am staring at this little girl and wondering if she will ever grow up to be a lady.  It is always a gamble.  Her mother is not a lady, but that doesn't mean this girl won't grow up to be one.  The Quizno's manager is very nice and friendly, and the next time I come to the restaurant I get $5 off of my lunch. 

Linda calls me.  She thinks that my "Language of film" message is the funniest thing she's ever heard.  She is very excited about moving to Palm Springs, she says.  She says that copies of Pterodactyls are now available in Marie's office.  I wonder if I can go pick up my original copy.  I don't ask her this, though.  She won't know the answer.  It's summer all around me.  Linda says that they're gonna do Shakespeare at CSUP next summer.  Would I like to be involved?  I tell her yes, but I am not so sure.  Shakespeare, always Shakespeare.  I'd say he were lucky that his works are still so popular, but he's dead, so he couldn't possibly give a toss about it.  Linda wishes me luck on the show and asks for news of its progress.  She says she will come opening night, but one never knows with her.  I love to talk to her.  She is always so excited and giddy.

I should pick up my dry-cleaning, but instead I go back to work.  I want to finish Ariel.  Perhaps I shall if Steve leaves later this afternoon.

I'm Ready to Move Out in Front

Rehearsal went well tonight.  I have such extremes of emotion.  Being a Pisces is tough, everyone.

I have no Petruchio, but it's actually okay.  I mean, we can do the work without him.  I can talk to the other actors and really have a positive effect on them.  Greg had all sorts of questions for me, and after rehearsal, Brittney and I talked about Katharina for a good half hour.  I love for actors to talk to me.  It makes me feel like they want to know what I think, first of all.  And secondly, it makes me feel like they want to be better than they are. 

This guy Shawn who will be playing Grumio... looks so much like this guy Shaun who I dated, and is queeny like Shaun too.  So strange.  Wait till you see him, Wahima.  You'll laugh.  They are so similar and they have homophonic names.  This Shawn is funny, though. 

But sometimes I am just good at rehearsal.  I have good things to say and they are things that the actors need to hear at the time.  It's some weird synergy that happens when I am on.

Jensen has been fairly low energy for the last 2 days or so.  I am not a fan.  I just want to put a lighter under his ass and tell him to wake up.  I might tomorrow if he flops himself down somewhere like he did today.

So I don't have two actors still, but I am starting to block this motherfucker on Wednesday, actor or no actor.  And it's all going to be fine.  I am not even a little worried.

I talked to Linda today.  She is so funny!  I love it when I talk to her.  I suppose that's why I call her.  She's so amusing.

Talking to Linda

Coffee coffee coffee.

Linda called me this morning.  I hadn't thought of thanking her for getting me the Shrew interview.  She reminded me to do that.  Good thing.  I would have forgotten, and then maybe I would have just gone on thinking that I got the job myself.  Whew.

I do love that Linda, though.  She is damn funny.  She has me laughing so hard.  She is pushing this play about 3 Shakespearean women onto Ashley for her to do in Winter.  Sounds edgy, Ashley.  Tap it up.  (I'm kidding.)  Three Shakespearean women meet.  Come on.

I need to go to work soon, but I don't want to.

I have Friday off, though.  I am taking my "accountant's day off."  We're supposed to get April 16th, but instead they want us to take it later on in the month, so I'm taking it May 7.  I think maybe I'll go to a matinee of a new movie.  I haven't done that in what seems like ages.  I was thinking about going to Disneyland, but I really have no one to go with.

I know that the night must end.  And that the sun will rise.  And that the sun will rise.

I know that the clouds must clear.  And that the sun will rise.  And that the sun will rise.

I was listening to The Lion King yesterday.  It's so good... but only half of it.  I really skip every other song.  That warthog and that meercat can suck my cock.  They are so boring.  Ditto to the hyenas and Scar.  In the show, they're okay, as I recall, but not on the CD.  On the CD, keep 'em away from me with a ten-foot pole.

Royalty

I spent this evening with Kim.  I was supposed to be there with L. Bisesti, but I was relieved to find out that Kim was going and I wasn't going to be stranded and alone the way I was at The Wind Cries Mary.  So I met Linda and some folks from some class of hers for The Royal Family at the Ahmanson Theatre.  I could write a review, but the play was really too boring for all of that.

I have no idea why someone would want to produce an enormous, bloated show like this one.  I liked Kate Mulgrew, and I would have seen Marian Seldes in anything, but most of the actors wouldn't have known funny if it but them.  The main problem is the direction.  The director can't decide what the Hell to do with this enormous cast and this enormous set and this ancient play.  So it's a period piece played as if it were a satire written last year.  What I'm saying is that, on paper, it's a witty, clever, very funny, very fast paced play, but in this production, it attempts to be a witty, clever, not-so-funny critique of 1920s theatre people.  It fails.  Miserably.

High points: there are FOUR dogs on stage, all of them live, none of them ever bark, and all of them perform perfectly.  One of the best bits in the show is early on when Seldes bends down and picks up a tiny little dog that has been sitting on a chair for at least ten minutes and has been so still and quiet that you hadn't even noticed the little pooch was there until she was in Seldes' arms. 

There is another really transcendent moment at the very very end, but it's mostly nonsense.  Biggest criticism of the show, and I know this is an easy one to make: everyone in this play is exactly the same at the end as they were at the beginning.  It's all very "ho ho ho" and "isn't life clever" but I wasn't sold at all, and neither was Kim, or even Linda for that matter.

I was an awful boor to poor Kim tonight.  I apologize.  Sorry for all the complaining.  I guess I need to get out more.  One glass of Reisling and I'm waxing on about futures and companies and friendships and a whole lot of personal B.S.

Meeting with Zamora tomorrow at 8:00p.  Break a leg to all those in Cloud 9.  I need to finish reading Shrew again before I see this guy.

The Heat

I really want to go home and fix my sink. I think there was a song a while ago called "fix my sink" that I heard on KCRW when I used to listen to that station. I distinctly remember being in my car and near Ashley & Elizabeth's old place on Citadel. I was probably on my way to do yoga with Kelly Norris.

Derek doesn't want me to move away, but I am going to eventually. I have to go to school at some point.

I told Linda I would take the job for next year, so I will be directing in the Black Box for 2004-2005. She wants me to do Winter, but I think I'd like to do Fall... so I don't get stuck with the leftovers from Twelfth Night. I am giving her five plays to read: Greenberg's The American Plan, DeLillo's Valparaiso, Melissa James Gibson's [sic], plus Pterodactyls and Raised in Captivity, both by Nicky Silver. We shall see... I think I'd kind of like to do [sic].

I haven't talked to Zamora yet. I guess I'll wait for him to call me... at least until tomorrow.