Auditions tomorrow

I’m excited and nervous and totally ready and under-prepared but Lorraine is keeping me in line and close to sane and I just wish I didn’t feel like I was coming down with some sort of malarial malaise. I know I’ll be fine not just because I have to be fine but because I will be fine because I want to be fine. It’s just this being ready to go but it’s not time yet sort of nonsense that gets my corpuscles clattering and wow I gotta teach tonight so maybe that’ll take my mind off it. Being sure is great and fine and all but being sure doesn’t mean a fella can’t be wrong. But I’m not wrong. I’m right. I’m always right. And this is all, as the playwright would say, “Cool”!

Progress

Whew, I have been in a whirlwind this week trying to get all the little things done for the Fringe show.  Applications, casting notices, budget, meetings.  I’m all in a tizzy like that Kansas tornado.  But I just popped two batches of mint brownies into the oven and then I will relax with some sushi while I cull through the many submissions from eager actors who want to be in Ryan Gajewski’s (rhymes with Paddy Chayefsky’s) fun and funny play George and Laura Bush Perform… Our Favorite Sitcom Episodes.  Don’t be shy about hitting that donate button.  If five hundred of you give ten bucks that’s five thousand dollars which is my goal.  Or fifty of you give one hundred dollars.  It’s not that much to ask.  But I understand that times are tough.  Not to worry.  We’ll get there.  I may have a stage manager who is actually someone I went to college with — it’s a surprising and joyous turn of events but I’m not counting my goddamned chickens yet!  Especially since the eggs went into the brownie mix!

Fringe Festival Show – Donations

To defray costs of renting rehearsal space, etc., I am offering readers the opportunity to invest in the future of Ryan Gajewski’s play.  Over on the right I have placed a “DONATE” button and if you can, donate a few shekels which we will spend on the production.  You will be thanked most profusely.  I thank you, Ryan thanks you, but I don’t think George and Laura Bush will thank you.  One amusing thing.  I was at a Marketing Mixer for the Fringe Festival this weekend and I was chatting up the play with a nice young gent (I’ve mentioned him before) who is working for the Fringe Festival.  We were discussing casting and I mentioned how I was beating the bushes — and then I caught myself — Beating the bushes for Bushes!  I am ridiculous even when I’m not trying.  Now, regarding the donations.  These go to my PayPal account so I can use the funds while Ryan is off on vacation in Australia.  If there is a surplus it will be returned at the end of the production.  Note that these are not donations to me as a blogger or as a human or as a swish or as anything else I may be at any given moment.  These are specifically donations — investments, if you will – in the play George and Laura Bush Perform… Our Favorite Sitcom Episodes. Encourage your friends to donate.  And if you cannot donate — please buy a ticket to the show (more info to follow) as tickets will only be $15 dollars.

[UPDATE] 5 miles in 43:02!

My new directing project for the Fringe

Ryan Gajewski has written a witty and zany short play about our nation’s former President and his First Lady and what they may be up to after leaving the White House.  George and Laura Bush Perform Our Favorite Sitcom Episodes will be presented at The Players Theatre on MacDougal Street August 15-30.  I am greatly excited to be directing this young talented writer’s first play.

Followed quickly by ACCEPTANCE

Earlier this evening I was offered the opportunity to direct a new comic play for the 2009 Fringe Festival.  I accepted.  Suddenly, I am directly a play.  After all these years.  The doubt is gone.  I cannot describe my joy.  I feel like a happy dog who is being scratched in that glorious place that makes me thump my back leg.  Yes.

My first rejection

It doesn’t sting as much as it used to.  I am not surprised.  Like I said, it is not at this point about securing the gig, it’s about believing I am worthy and knowledgeable and getting myself out there.

Hi Kevin

I think we’re going with another individual on the ACR gig…. I think it would entail stuff that would impinge on the day job.

It was cool meeting you… I hope to see you around… all the best, Paul

An homage to Betzy

Parker Pines over at PINES PUNCH gave Betzy a lovely tribute.  I am truly touched (but not “down there”).

The Wicked Stage?

Now that the posting of Betzy’s 50th Birthday Extravaganza photos is completed, I have to admit that I have been keeping a secret.  No, you don’t have to start calling me “Chazz” so I can feel adequate and get attention because if I were to have a sex change which sex would change?  I ask you?  But that is another post sure to raise hackles and hysteria.  No, my secret involves my theatre ambitions.  Those ambitions which I have long-denied and wrestled with naked in the darkness, alone and sweating.  The years of telling myself I don’t deserve some sort of show biz related success are gone.  In one snap of the fingers, poof.  Okay, maybe not with one snap,  maybe several snaps and some therapy, a soupçon of medication and paying off American Express.  Whatever the recipe, hallelujah, lawd have mercy, I am free.  And somehow I have opened some doors, perhaps some windows, letting in light that I had been shying from feebly.  A couple of weeks ago I attended some meetings for the upcoming Fringe Festival to offer my services as a director and/or as an Authorized Company Representative (ACR).  The amazing thing is that I had no anxiety getting to this meeting — well, one little hiccup, but a minor one.  I traveled outside my imagined DMZ to the Westbeth and attended the Fringe’s “speed dating” to match up ACRs with shows and directors with shows.  I had to admit I have not been working in the theatre for nearly a decade but I didn’t let that stop me.  I talked to people about theatre.  I expressed enthusiasm.  I was knowledgable.  I even flirted with a young man who was there for the same reason (skinny cum nerdy bespectacled pale youths — sigh, my weakness).  But let’s not turn the story blue, shall we?  I hadn’t blogged about this or told many people because I wanted to see what would happen, see if I could not talk myself out of it.  Well, it felt great to go and be more wholly me with no anticipation of what may come afterwards or what the future would hold or who I should thank in my Tony acceptance speech – NAY.  I just took the one step.  Willingly.  Happily.  And later that same day I went to a cocktail gathering for the New York Musical Theatre Festival.  I chatted up yet another slim fresh-faced youth fresh and eager from college in Texas with a facial tic that only made him that much more appealing.  I opined, I amused, I blathered, no doubt, but I WAS THERE.  Two big strides in one day.  I didn’t hide in a corner, afraid someone would notice me.  I was just the me I thought I ought to be all along but had such a hard time finding — that was wrong.  Wrong to think I wasn’t me all this time.  I was just being foolish or maybe I just had to turn fifty to suddenly be perfect in every way?  No.  But since then I have been exchanging e-mails with various Fringe shows and reading scripts and doing all that theatre-type stuff and last night — LAST NIGHT — I took two meetings.  Yes, I, the once trepidatious, trembling twit scared I would shit on every subway ride took my anxiety by the hand and got on the subway to 34th Street to meet a gent about being the ACR for his musical at the Fringe.  I didn’t quiver queerly on the ride.  I felt at peace.  I laughed at the dim foggy shadows of those old bowel pangs which once ruled me.  I was in control.  I was confident.  The man was impressed with my resume and I held forth both witty and wise (and I hope even wonderful).  I even taught him a thing or two about getting a show on.  And I told him before he left that even if he went with someone else he could call me anytime if he needed advice.  Then I called prospect number 2 — a young skinny writer of a little comedy who is seeking a director.  We had met briefly (3 minutes) during the Fringe speed dating the other Saturday so I made the cut to the next round which, goddamnit, feels pretty darn nui loa all the way down to the tips of my toes!  We met at a Starbucks and I bought him a coffee (I think he thought this was a big deal) and we chatted (okay, mostly I CHATTED) for about a half hour.  Again, I didn’t feel like I was trying to book a gig or anything — I was enjoying using my vast (LOOK, I AM FINALLY ADMITTING IT, AND I MEAN IT) my vast knowledge of things theatrical to help some wide-eyed newbie get his script from the page to the stage.  And I told him, even if I’m not his director, please feel free to call me with questions.  So, folks, I’m wading in, I’m stepping out, I’m tuning up my instrument and getting ready to play.  And I don’t honestly care if neither of these shows wants to use me.  That ain’t the point.  The point is the going, the talking, the being me right out loud like a learned swish out to be.  And now I have to zip my resume over to the NYMF.  And thank all of you who may not be surprised to hear any of this — who knew all along.  Sorry, even the Flaming Curmudgeon can be slow on the uptake!

Betzy leaps into her 50s!

I just LOVE this hallelujah photo of Betzy’s leap into her second half century of zany dragmania taken by Ross over at Reflections on Saturday, May 30.  And now we are done and I thank you for your patience.  To view all of the slide shows in this collection you can visit “Betzy’s 50th Birthday Bash – Fire Island Pines – May 31, 2009″ by clicking on the lovely photo mosaic.

Part 10 – Beauty and the Beach

Paul outdid himself with these last photos.  All weekend I had wanted to have Betzy pose at night with the great Atlantic Ocean.  Paul caught every subtle nuance of pathos erupting from Betzy’s every orifice.  Is the sea swallowing Betzy, or is Betzy being belched forth reborn from the primordial waters at fifty years of age?  Click the poor gal’s salty girdle for one final slide show.