Actor Panic...

The first week of auditions for the year is over and the next week starts today. Last week was definitely an eye opener as to how the economy is affecting the entertainment market. Along with 9 Broadway shows closing last Sunday the announcement came that Carousel Dinner Theatre in Ohio was closing. Also North Shore Music Theatre in Boston is said to be in trouble and threatening to close its doors. Carousel has been open now for about 35 years and North Shore about 55. It's sad that these long standing institutions of theatre are closing because of the economic hardships right now. People are beginning to eliminate fun out of their budget. I remember the old saying that "all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." Of course with the advent of new technology (Wii, Blue-Ray, and recorded live performances) who needs to go out anymore? What aggravates me though is that people take for granted the things they have at their disposal. Live theatre right now is suffering because people are panicking about spending too much and staying in. It'll still be there when this is over right? No. If you don't get out of the house and have a nice evening out once in a while enjoying live theatre or any event outside the home, it will disappear. Theatre IS a business. Once it's gone people reminisce about how good it USED TO be. It didn't have to go extinct if people saw the good that was right in front of their faces. The last show of "All Shook Up" at Carousel played to a packed house. Most Broadway shows that close play to packed houses as well. Why wait until something is on the verge of extinction to fix it. Fix it now. Go out and see a show, an artist, or something live. Let's not live the rest of our lives with our money tucked in our mattresses and our view of the world through an electrical box in our living room. These are tough times, but if we keep pulling back out of fear, then it only fuels the situation. Especially the young. No one under 60 should be stuffing money in their mattresses, but should be investing in the market or fueling the economy somehow. Even those over 60 can take small chances with hopes for a return in the next 4-5 years. If we never leave the protection of our shelter, how will we ever know we're clear of the storm?

A lot of people think what I do is child's play. I always get the response of "Oh you're an actor, but what is your real job." Play-acting IS my real job. Just as stock market traders trade on Wall Street as their real job. Both industries right now are in trouble because of the current state of our economy. Thank you Bush Administration. I can feel it here in New York. Last week actors were out en masse trying to score the next job wondering if the theatre they were auditioning for would be closing in the near future. Myself included. I was just out as I normally would be trying to have a good audition. I haven't "lived" the "actor in New York" lifestyle yet, so I had planned on going to every audition I could anyway. Some of the more seasoned actors though are out just trying to land anything they can despite their connections. In the union there are 2 types of auditions posted. One is a principle call that requires you to make an appointment and usually runs all day in 2-minute slots. The other is a chorus call where you can sign up on the list a week before and then just show up at the audition a half hour beforehand to get your spot in line. When things are smooth in the world, the appointment days (depending on the theatre or show) are usually easy to get into no matter what time of day. I wouldn't necessarily have to be there an hour before sign-ups begin to get an appointment, but I could just show up during the day and get an appointment for within a half hour of me being there or for later in the day. Lately it's been that I have to show up at least 2 hours before appointments begin their sign-in, which means I'm arriving at the sight at 6:30am or earlier. Yikes! Chorus calls have still been crazy. Over 200 guys show up to fit in a tiny holding room. Even though you're on the list it still affects the call because instead of a standard 16-bars of music, you get reduced to a type-out, 8-bars or music, or scales even. It's crazy. Hundreds are showing up for small theatres in Lancaster or Maine. Anywhere a job is available. Theatre IS a business and people are out of work. I wonder what this week will entail. Some Broadway and Off-Broadway shows are auditioning as well as some small theatres in Long Island and upstate New York. The rooms are going to be stuffed. I hope we get out of this economic slump soon.

A Full Weekend to Start the Year...

A packed weekend has ended. After a crazy New Year's beginning and a nice relaxing dinner the next day with friends on New Years at a place called "Lasagna" (the portabella mushroom lasagna was primo), the weekend was eventful as well. I started out Friday during the day pretty low key. Phil had brought over some extra things he had in the apartment after moving everything out of it for the kitchen and such. More dishes, pots, pans, and art. Goodie. Now I can feel more at home. The cupboards are now full as I type. Almost overloaded from the Bed, Bath, and Beyond excursions to unloading storage and extras. My room is coming together as I have put things on the wall and put things away. Some things are still out and awaiting their trip to the Salvation Army. That evening I started my work-study position at Bikram Yoga NYC. Once a week I will donate about 5 hours of my time to get 5 free classes for the next week. Sounds like a fair trade to me. Better than losing $135/month when I can work it off AND meet people at the same time with the same interest. I would've used every possible moment each week to take class if I were paying the amount, but that also involved a minimum 6-month commitment, which made me nervous if anything popped up and I had to leave. Now I can just go guilt free if I need to without losing any money. The hours flew by that night since it was a 5pm-10pm shift and it is one of the busier shifts for classes. Tons of people. Also all the regulars in addition to those trying to fulfill their new resolutions after the holiday binge. My regular slot will now be on Friday at that time. Sounds good to me. That ended and I went to bed.

Saturday was filled with gift card shopping, lessons, and errands as well as small organizing projects by day and then a farewell to Forest Hills party at night. A group of us got together to say goodbye to the said residence in Forest Hills. It was strange to walk into the apartment and see the place almost entirely bare. It was very reminiscent of the way Phil and I found it 5 years ago only without the fabulous kitchen and the color on the walls. A new group of friends helped close out the place with one oldie from the beginnings. We had a blast as we toasted many times and ate pizza on the floor. The night went into 1:00am as we chatted and just enjoyed the company. It was louder in the rooms with no furniture and stuff to absorb everything. We took pictures in every room, but the most memorable was when we stuffed ourselves in the closet. I thought I came out years ago, but apparently I was back in last night.

Today I had a fabulous time as well. On a whim I decided to see "Boeing Boeing" at the Longacre Theatre on Broadway. Today was closing day. A lot of shows are closing today on Broadway because of our suffering economy. A lot of new ones are coming in this year as well. I hope they stay strong. This was a delightful surprise though. I had seen this show listed on the TDF (Theatre Development Fund) website all during December and had chances to get $40 seats for a normally $110 seat. I just never found the time. Well, it had been taken off the list. Fortunately in my subway ride home last night a friend at the party recommended a site called Broadwaybox.com. I checked it out and lo and behold there were promotional seats for today's show. Thank you Bogdan!! I got a seat for slightly more and slightly higher in the air, but when I arrived the place was packed full. It was the first closing I've been to. Starring in the show was Christine Boranski (Mamma Mia, Chicago, and countless Broadway Plays), Mark Rylance hailing from the West End in London, and Greg Germann. The three fabulous flight attendants were Paige Davis, Rebecca Gayheart (from horror movie fame of Scream 2 and Urban Legend), and newcomer to Broadway Missi Pyle (Charlie & The Chocolate Factory [Violet's mom], Soccer Mom, and 50 First Dates). I was thrilled at the cast list. I had heard mixed reviews so I was interested at what I would see. I was overwhelmingly happy with the show. The timing was near perfect. The physicality was hilarious. The 3 leads had such chemistry on stage it caused a snowball of laughter throughout the entire show. All 3 stewardesses played their roles so fabulously each one just stood out in their own way. Particularly Missi Pyle with her German interpretation. I could not believe the sounds coming out of her mouth and how Amazon she looked on stage as this boisterously masculine German blond. I was peeing my pants with laughter and guffawing at every wrong turn these 2 guys made. Christine's character (Berthe) was so outrageously funny I laughed at some mere entrances and exits. She was so delightfully 1960s French!!! I love the farce and this group of people played it so well. I loved laughing as hard as I did today. I wish I could have discovered this earlier and took some friends to it to share in the moments. The only downer of the whole show was this lady behind me. She was just too particular to be sitting where she was sitting. I fidget and sometimes lean forward for comfort. Evidently she had trouble seeing because of that. She tapped my shoulder and expressed her urgent request for me to sit back. It wasn't a kind request, but a very New Yorker catty request. Okay, so some people can't see when the others in front of them lean forward. We were in the balcony at a steep angle so I obliged, but was just very annoyed with her attitude. I just avoided her during intermission. The show was SO phenomenal; I arose to my feet at curtain call to give the respectful standing ovation to a job well well done. As a fellow actor, this is giving respect in my opinion. I was shouting praises and applauding their efforts. Well, it was a long and choreographed curtain call and that same lady I guess felt she did not want to stand. The tap came again with the overly rude request for me to sit down because she could not see. I barely heard her because of the rousing applause and shouts of praise in the house. I reluctantly sat down and held my tongue. I wanted to turn to her and comment on her rudeness for not showing respect for standing up. After all, if she stood up she'd be able to see whatever she wanted. However, I must be too nice because one never knows what her situation is. She walked out of the theatre fine I noticed, but it would have been horrible to unload my frustration to find out she couldn't stand up for medical reasons or something. Oy!! People sometimes. Maybe if she was nicer about it I wouldn't have gotten so aggravated, but she just got to me. These New Yorkers sometimes.

Leaving 2008 in Style...

Happy New Year!! I can't believe it's 2009 already! Whoa does time fly. I'm sitting hear typing this at 2:30pm and I just woke up about a half hour ago. My New Year's Eve in NY was so much fun to say the least. The day was pretty lax since I woke up, organized my room, and worked on some projects. So I was in my jammies until 6:00 or so. Then the night of craziness began. I got dolled up to meet my friends in the lower east side at a place called Open The Sesame. It's a Thai place and my friends who set it up said we could BYOB, so I went and got a bottle of wine. When I stepped out my door I was flabbergasted to see a dusting of snow on the ground (since I hadn't been out all day) and the wind on my street was fiercely cold. I swear my whole being was going to freeze right there at the doorway as I walked out. I got a Malbec at the wine shop, a grape from Argentina that my friend suggested if I was to bring wine. I went back to my place to get the small wine opener I forgot just in case the restaurant was not equipped. If it was BYOB, I could only assume that it was a little dive without wine and such. The wind on my street again as I turned the corner was hitting me like a hundred stinging bees. Oy!! It was bone chilling cold last night in NYC. I felt sorry for all the peeps in Times Square, but with them all being huddled together they probably created warmth.
I was the first to arrive in SOHO (a common name for the lower east derived from SOuth of HOuston street). I was not familiar with SOHO, so I was wondering around in the biting air for a while asking everyone I could where the street of the restaurant was located. See, all the streets in SOHO are NAMED unlike the ease of mid-uptown where everything is by number. I had no idea where N W E or S was and where to find these streets. I was dying in the cold. I finally found it my nose dripping excessively from the cold. Tonight is a night of decadence and people can either choose fashion or function. I was somewhere in between, so I was still cold. The others arrived leisurely and we started with the cheap champagne toasting the evening. Once we finished off that bottle we cracked open the Dom Perignon. Yes, you read correctly, Dom Perignon. A friend of a friend came to join us that night and he won big at a slot machine in Atlantic City, so he decided to splurge for the occasion. We cracked it open early so we could appreciate the taste while still sober. It was very smooth and sweet champagne. I don't particularly think it's worth its price tag, but it was an experience I had never had and wasn't sure if I ever would. I don't believe in spending that much on a single item of alcohol. We still hadn't eaten or ordered yet and I was already feeling the effect of the champagne on an empty stomach. We were basically just going around and talking about the good and bad things of 2008 and what our resolutions for 2009 would be. After much socializing we FINALLY ordered and had a semi-fabulous meal. The food I ordered I thought was good, but no Pam Real Thai. I do love that place. I was happy with it though. Others were not so pleased so the verdict on Open The Sesame is a mixed review. During dinner we managed to crack open the Malbec wine and that was yet another experience. I had never tasted this grape before and the wine it was contained in was spicy with a fruity finish. Perfect for the food I was having since my tongue was on fire from the chili spice. We had 1 other bottle of wine left and 2 bottles of cheap champagne that remained unpopped. We all braved the cold again to take the wine back to my friend's car and make our way to the Sapphire club where we were on a guest list to get in. Two of us wimped out and took a cab the 2 blocks to the club, but the rest of us attacked the chill. My ears were ready to fall off from the wind.

We got in and the placed HAD to be over capacity. This tiny club was overstuffed with people thrashing about and crowding the bar. You could pay $25 to get in ($20 if you were a couple or female) or stiff the $80 for the open bar. I opted for the cheaper entry and was glad I did after seeing that it would be impossible to get to the bar all night without much aggravation and delay, and then have little success getting an unspilled drink back to wherever we were dancing. We checked our coats and proceeded to the dance floor where we thrashed out until midnight. A few drinks were spilt, a few of us had a hard time standing after getting thrashed into, and a few crazy people roused some of our tempers, but all in all we had a blast with each other. We did manage to get one drink away from the bar through the night and that was about it. The New Year came in and we hugged and kissed rejoicing the friends we had in our presence.

After this club we parted ways. A few went to a party uptown and some of us went to G (a gay bar in the West Village). Here the club was also packed to capacity and we had to wait outside in a line to get in. Typical NY. We waited for about 30 minutes. Two more minutes more and I would've called it a night. My ears and face were buzzing from the cold. We finally got in and checked our coats. It was definitely packed. We managed to get to the bar for another drink to toast the New Year and after finishing that one, we had another. That was it for me. Or so I thought. I was definitely feeling it now. I was socializing around with my friends and another guy started talking to me. Him and his friend were flight attendants in town from Air Italia. They were from Rome. We started talking about Rome and then they wanted me to come with them to another bar in the West Village called Splash. This was the big gay dance club. I think other than a place in the Meat Packing District it was the only "dance" club. All the other bars are more hangouts. The Roxy used to be a dance club in Times Square, but it closed a while ago and the only other dance place was Studio 54 in the 70s. I decided to go and my other friends decided to go home. It was now 3ish and I was on the move with a few nice strangers to another club. After all dating is meeting strangers to see if you have anything in common, so these guys seemed nice enough and trustworthy to hang with so I went. We had a common link to Rome and Italy. I do love Italy. We got there and I thought the cover charge for the evening would be lifted since it was past 3:00am, but it was just reduced to $40. What the hell I paid it. It was New Year's Eve. We got in and I checked the heavy stuff again. My new friends bought me a drink. Definitely the last one, and I danced clear until closing, which was 7:00am! I had NEVER closed a bar in NYC since they do tend to stay open all night. Hello. This is the city that never sleeps. Well, I closed it. I was on a train dosing and feeling the spirits all the way to Harlem. I got out of the subway in the bone chilling cold one station past mine (since I was sleeping) and walked the 15 blocks back to my place. Whoa! It was cold and sunny. I was still in my previous night's clothes. It kind of reminded me of that night in Russia. Only not so cold. I stumbled into bed around 8:00am this morning and now I begin my new year in 2009. What a night!!! Christmas comes down today, or so I attempt.

Tomorrow I start the regime of NYC busy life again. I hope 2009 is prosperous in many ways. My resolution is to LET GO. I found in 2008 (well I knew this for a while) that I was a bit of a control freak and have difficult time in new situations and things that seem beyond reach or beyond my boundary of a safe haven. This affects me as an actor since the whole point of an actor is to engulf a character and bare your soul. Without letting go, I cannot fully succeed as an actor/storyteller. So, I plan to train, train, and re-train in 2009 to get my mind and body in shape for auditions and shows. I want to explore more creative outlets and submit to things I would normally bypass such as film and print. I already started my resolution in 2008 in December and hope to carry those ideas into 2009. Cheers to letting go.