JULY 1, 2003

So this journal thing has kind of turned into a bi-annual event. My apologies to those who have been checking back on a daily basis for the past six months (this means you Ma). Things have been pretty tough since I came back to New York in February. After experiencing a non-union National Tour...the top of the non-union jobs in many people's books, I decided to make joining the Union my next goal. The irony here, is that in order to get my card I had to turn down several better paying non-union jobs in order to take a union job that would give me my card. But I am optimistic and hope that this will lead to better paying Union jobs.

But let's bi-pass all the boring business stuff and get to the good stuff. I rode on the subway with the Chinese equivalent of Fran Drescher today. No one on the train could understand a word she was saying, but her voice was making everyones toenails curl. And to make matters worse a double-butt lady lumbered onto the train. She looked so pathetic there clinging on to the pole that a couple of us felt obliged to get up and give her our seats. I call her a "double-butt" because each of her cheeks is the size of one normal person's butt. It was kind of sad because even after two of us gave up our seats she tried to only sit in one seat by smooshing one of her butts as far up into the side of the subway car as possible, but half of the other butt was still spilling over into the second seat. Finally a small child got on the train and happily sat in the vacant half-seat thus returning order to the galaxy. Two people sitting in two seats just the way God had intended.

I'm not sure if I have had enough time since my last show "White Widow" to speak freely, but as long as I am writing I might as well give it a go. This was my first time performing in an Off-Broadway theater. It was also my first time performing in an Equity Showcase. So for those two experiences, it was worth it. Who cares that I had a small part. And that my character Franciscu got stoned to death in the first scene of the first act. Hey at least I got to do a death scene. (Actually, the majority of the characters in this play got to die...I mean come on, it's about the Mafia.) And besides, this is the first time that I was actually allowed to get stoned on stage! But dying in the first scene didn't mean that I got to go home early. Because the cast was so small there wasn't much of a chorus, so as each character dies in the show he/she gets absorbed into the Borg (a.k.a the Village). I became a fish monger and then got to sell Fish for the rest of the show. I got to walk around with a pole of fish made out of duct tape singing "Fish! Fresh Fish! Straight from the Strait of Messina! Freshest Fish in Sicily! Alive! Still Alive!" And let me tell you, it takes acting chops to make the audience believe that wads of duct tape are actually real live flapping fish. (Actually I don't think anyone was fooled.) I was jealous of the villager who got to sell Lemons. But hey anyone can sell fruit, it takes talent to sell seafood!!!! Did I mention that the play was a musical? So I wasn't the only one singing. In fact everyone got to sing about what they were selling. Oh yeah, the musical wasn't just about selling fish, there were other characters who got to sing about killing their husbands and cutting out people's tongues. All in all it was a fun filled night for the entire family!

JANUARY 4, 2003

I'm not doing very well with this Journal. I had planned on keeping a weekly Journey of my experiences with the National Tour of Fosse. I wrote some thoughts in a notebook, but I think I left it on the airplane. So if you are riding Air Tran and see a grey notebook, pick it up, I guarantee good un-censored writing. I left Fosse at the end of December having done the show 99 times. It's a great show to perform, but I was getting a bit anxious. We had a lot of one-nighters with gave me absolutely no time to work on my own projects, Fosse's great but if you eat drink and sleep Fosse 24/7 than it can become a bit tiring.

SEPTEMBER 2002

Okay, here's the plan. I am wanting to keep a journal of my first experience on a National tour. I had hoped to set up this page and then add some entries periodically from the road, but here it is mid-October and I am already a month behind.

So let me think back to september tech. It is just a blur of black synthetics and hair. Practically all the costumes in Fosse are made of some king of synthetic stretchy material so that it will remain form fitting and not lose it's blackness from repeated washings. (We sweat a lot.) While we were lighting and going to costume fittings the hair designers were trying to make the company look diverse and a bit "edgy". I was edgified with "golden streaks" in my hair, a goatee (my own, no need for spirit gum), and a new jaggedy cut. The most entertaining part of the rehearsals was waiting to see who would walk through the door with a radical new cut or color. And then there were wigs. Every time Jalynn Steele came on the stage to perform "I Gotcha" the hair designer had tacked some new pelt to her head. I was always interested to see if Jalynn had been turned into Tina Turner or a Yeti and whether the thing would actually stay on her head during the dance break. "Flying Mullet 10' oclock! Bam Bam!" And then there was poor Lyndy Franklin, or should I say "Cousin It". Lyndy is a petite girl to begin with, so when they gave her a long red haired wig it was all she could do to keep from getting tangled up in it during the orgy section of "Take Off With Us." As I made my entrance after "Take Off" there she would be, lying in a pool of red hair, trying to drag herself to the edge of the stage. The wig was finally cut after two weeks of having to untangle the dang thing after each performance. (Not cut as in trimmed...cut as in she didn't have to wear the wig any more.) By the end of our stay at Vegas we had figured out the costume and hair...and oh yeah, we dance and sing in the show too.

I'm currently rewriting "Mein Herr'. I will be called "My Hair". And will be a tribute to all of those men and women out there who work so hard to get there hair just right.

Here is my idea for the beginning of the song. "You have to understand the way I am...about my hair. I like to slick it down so nothing sticks up...in the air.. I shampoo and condition with the greatest... of care. But when I'm blue... need something new...so what I do...Is I use...super glue...super glue. Don't touch my stylin' hair my most beguilin' hair cause if you even dare than girl it's over!" I'm thinking the song could be about a guy who doesn't want his girlfriend touching his hair. (I have a friend like that...you know who you are.) Or maybe a song about someone who try's something new and ends up having to cut off all his/her hair. The possibilities are endless.

Well anyone who has rehearsed and performed a show for any length of time, knows that it is inevitable that the performers will come up with a variety of new renditions for each of the songs. "Bye Bye Blackbird" has become "Bye Bye Black girl." which is appropriate considering that a woman of color sang that number in the original Broadway cast, but in our cast the song is sung by a man.

I also have a very Junior High idea to turn "Steam Heat" into "Natural Gas". If you are familiar with the song and choreography, you'll realize as I have that the possibilities are endless.

And of course the comic possibilities for "I Gotcha" are endless. So far I've heard it done as a dramatic monologue as well as an upper crust Noel Coward rendition.

Well, that prety much sums up September from my point of view. So on to October!