Curtain Up. Light the Lights.

We’ve now been back in Fredericksburg for just about a week, and it’s been strangely hard getting back into the groove of school.  Instead of being able to walk anywhere, now I have to get in my car and drive where I want to go.  It’s so quiet here!  I miss going to a show every night and then walking through Times Square to get back to the hotel where we would all have a really interesting discussion about what we just saw.  However, there are some good side to be back here.  I’m really enjoying being back in rehearsal so I can try to apply what I learned when I was in NYC.  The show, by the way, is coming along very well.  I have a ridiculous amount of motivation after that trip to get all of my applications and mailings out to all the theatres I’ve been looking at so that I can really start this new phase of my life.  Now I am 100% sure that this is what I want to do, and I’m so thankful to every single person who helped me in New York, both the people with whom I had one-on-one time, and also the actors and other people on stage.  Many of them told me things I didn’t want to hear, like the pay isn’t always great, sometimes you have to get a job you don’t particularly like so you are able to do the work, and sometimes it just doesn’t work out, for one reason or another.  Those are just some examples, but their passion for theatre, even those all of those things and more were pushing against them, really touched me.  I can’t even express how thankful I am that this trip happened.

Currently, we are sitting on the side of 95 in a bus hopefully having the flat tire fixed.  We’ve now been sitting for about an hour.  It’s been interesting, something totally new to me.  We always seem to get into these pickles on buses, don’t we?  There was the Kennedy Center incident, of course…

Leaving New York was bittersweet.  As ready as I am to get back to Fredericksburg and start working my way back to New York to live, I had the crazy idea in the back of my head to just stay and start doing things up there.  Then, of course, I came to my senses and realized that that was simply not going to work.  So, here I am, hopefully getting back on the road here soon.  I have class in about 11 hours, so hopefully we’ll get back before then. 

My last couple of days in the city were fantastic.  I finally was comfortable navigating the streets and subways alone, so I was able to enjoy myself more.  On Friday I finally met up with Jason Vail; we’d been playing phone tag all week.  We met in the pouring rain and proceeded to a little coffee shop and talked for almost two hours about anything and everything.  He does more TV and film than theatre now, but did theatre for a long time in college and then in his career, so he was a great resource for a slightly different angle.  Then we saw November which was super funny, and Nathan Lane was hilarious.  Okay, so the entire cast was wonderful.  Saturday morning Donna and I went out to find some thrift stores, but found that we didn’t have enough time, so we got lunch and chatted before Sunday in the Park with George, which I mostly enjoyed.  We did end up finding the stores between that show and Paradise Park which was later that evening.  That was a weird play.  Today was our last day in the city, and Gregg was nice enough to take us all to lunch at John’s Pizzeria just off of Times Square.  After that we had a little bit of time to wander around for one last look before the last show, Is He Dead? at the Lyceum Theatre. It was hilarious and it was an awesome note to end on.  We finally boarded the bus at 730pm and were on our way just after 8pm.  Things were fine until around 10pm when a huge THUD was heard by everyone.  We knew in an instant that something was terribly wrong; and we were right.  The bus had gotten a flat tire.  Now I think we’re about to start up again… I sure hope so anyway.

I have had a great couple of days.  On Tuesday I met with Matt Sincell, who has had an amazing journey to where he is now.  We got lunch a little Italian place called Don Giovanni’s.  Hearing about how he’s gotten to New York was so cool; he was working in New York City, and heard about an international acting program at the Globe in London, where he met Giles Block, a director over there.  Matt asked Giles if there were any Shakespeare programs like that one in the States, and that’s how he heard about Blackfriars.  After a couple of seasons there, he moved back to New York City, and now picks and chooses where he wants to work and on what he wants to work.  He has a part time job which allows him to do that.  He was really great to talk to, because he had such a different story than most of the others I’d talked to.

That afternoon I went downtown with Steven, Helena and Latera to meet Shannon Kerr, and that was really fun too.  She brought a friend with her, Emily, and it was cool to have two different perspectives at the same time.  They also had very different stories as to how they came to be in this city.  I’ve found that there’s no one way to get into this, it’s just how you feel is the right way for you to go about getting into this crazy industry.

Today I went and saw I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change at the Westside Theatre.  It was really good!  I knew nothing about it when I went in, and it was very different than I expected.  It had a lot of really great songs, and there was a little something for everyone.  The audience interested me greatly; I was the youngest person in the audience by at least 40 years, except for about 4 other girls around my age.  I liked it a lot, because the older people had a great time, too.  Afterward, I met Christy in the lobby, and walked with her for a couple of blocks.  I love that everyone has been so welcoming and friendly!  She even told me to keep in touch, and to let her know if and when I move to the city.

This really has been the best Spring Break ever.  Yay!

I’m trying to write often so I don’t get any gargantuan posts.

Today, I was rather busy.  At about 1015am, I took the 1 train uptown and got off at W 72nd and Broadway.  Christine lives on E 74th Street, so I thought, “Hey, if I walk towards 5th Avenue, I’ll be on the east side.”  Thank goodness for Gregg’s research questions!  If you know the city at all, you know that I actually hit Central Park.  So after walking a few blocks north to catch the 79th Street crosstown bus, got off at 5th Ave and walked down to 74th.  I’d never been to Lennox Hill, so that was really cool.  You might wonder why I went all the way up there.  My aunt by marriage, Christine Jones lives up there, and it was amazing to talk to her.  On top of her advice, she had some amazing stories about before Hell’s Kitchen and Williamsburg were gentrified.  She’s been living here for 25 years, and has participated in this business in film, TV, and theatre.

At 1pm, I went back across and downtown to 38th Street to meet with Lucy McMichael at Primary Stages.  The theatre is in its 24th season, and Lucy has been with the company since its inception.  I also got to meet two of the board members, one of whom was a director for the Today Show for a long time.  Lucy was also really great to talk to, since she’s been doing this for so long.  She had some great advice, and was so happy to talk to me, which was wonderful.

After that meeting, I went over to the Drama Bookshop and hung out there for a while, and during that time I got a call from Christy Faber, who’s currently doing I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change off-Broadway.  We met at the Majestic Deli and talked for a long time about her work and how she got here and her advice for me.  I have been happily surprised with how friendly people are here, and how willing they are to help me out with what I’m doing.  They’ve all had fabulous advice that is going to be invaluable to me.

I spent most of the day by myself, and spent quite a lot of it in Times Square, just exploring and seeing what I could find.  Sephora was fun, as were all the crazy NYC gift shops.  And finding many of theatres at which we’ll be seeing shows was interesting, but the most fun I had was just people watching.  There are so many different types of people that live here, and I think that’s why the city has so much personality.  Just one more incredible day in New York City!!

    Today was our first day of really exploring the city.  Bobby and I decided to go all the way downtown to catch the Staten Island ferry, mostly because I’d never seen the Statue of Liberty before.  It was smaller than I expected, to be honest.  The ferry was a lot of fun though; I hadn’t been on one since I was in Stockholm, Sweden, since that’s mostly how they get around there.  Seeing the city from that kind of vantage point was really incredible.  It was absolutely freezing, and the wind was really intense, but we rode outside on the way back to Manhattan.  After that, we went to this cute little place for lunch called Fraunces Tavern.  Definitely check it out if you’re down in Battery Park, the food was quite good.  Around 1230, we realized that we should get going to make it to the show on time, so we started walking north.  After walking through Chinatown – which was actually really cool – , Little Italy, and some of the East Village, we found that we were running out of time.  Fortunately, we got a cab with a totally awesome cabbie who got us to the theatre with 10 minutes to spare.  Classic Stage Company is a great space, and the show was phenomenal.  After the show, a few of us hung around to meet Alan Cumming and Dianne Wiest.  We got their autographs, and pictures, which was really cool.  Then we happened to be outside where Ryan O’Nan was waiting, and we started talking to him and he was so great!  It was nice to find that these actors really are people and love that you come to see their shows.  All of the actors we spoke to were that way, which I find to a big relief.  After dinner at Spanky’s just off Times Square, we headed over to Second Stage Theatre for our second show of the day, “Next to Normal,” a musical.  I really enjoyed the show, and the last half hour or so made me cry like a little girl.  It was great.

I did a lot of thinking on the ferry today.  Mostly about how it must have felt to the immigrants as they came into New York, the statue being the first thing they saw, and what it really meant to them.  To us today, it stands for liberty and freedom, but we’re used to having those things.  These immigrants were coming from terrible situations where they were oppressed and other bad things, and that statue was the beacon of hope for them.  It meant so much more to them than we can ever really understand.   I tried to do a little research on my family online, but all the family tree sites make you pay for them.  However, I’m fairly certain that my mom’s dad’s parents immigrated here from Ireland, and I can only imagine how they felt when they saw the Statue of Liberty.  A whole new life lay ahead for them… I didn’t know seeing it would make me think so much, but I’m glad it did.

Well well, New York City you say?  We made it!  We really made it!  The drive up was fun, though I really should’ve gone over my lines for She Stoops, but that can be done while we’re here.  Sorry Sommer!  We hit a little bit of traffic outside of the Lincoln Tunnel, but once we got past it we were on our way!  The hotel is really nice, I’m super happy about it.  It’s right near Times Square, and there’s a great little store around the corner for all our random needs.

Tonight we saw Spring Awakening, and I absolutely loved it.  I have the soundtrack, and adore it, but hearing it within the play made it that much better.  The story held me so captive that I was actually upset about intermission.  I read a little bit of the play, but I definitely want to go back and read it again.  My favorite character was Melchior, because so much happened to him and he didn’t succumb to anyone else’s opinions.  I totally respected that.  I liked Moritz’s character, but I wasn’t a huge fan of the actor himself.  While I understand that he needed to be the same as the actor that he replaced, I think that Gregg was right that he hadn’t made the other actor’s choices his own.   Everything was awesome.  The movement and the choreography was fantastic and really gave it something extra.

I’m incredibly excited about meeting people soon!  It’s gonna be really fun.  There’s also the fact that I get to run around the city and see all the amazing stuff that this place has to offer.  Tomorrow I’ll be calling a couple of people to confirm appointments.  Here we go!

I heard from Matt Sincell about 2 hours ago, and he said he’d be happy to get lunch with me.  He mentioned he’s going into rehearsals for a new show while we’re in NYC, and graciously offered to ask his director if I could sit in on part of a rehearsal to see how it works and meet the actors he’s working with.  This is going to be the best Spring Break ever.

While reading through everyone’s blogs today, Talya’s struck a cord with me.  I’m also a little worried about how to get the conversation going.  Obviously I’ve got questions that I’ll be asking, but I also don’t want to sound like I don’t know anything about the industry.  However, the thing I’m most worried about – or maybe confused about – is how to record these interviews.  Like either Gregg or Jon said, recording at the same time as talking can be distracting and might take away from the experience of talking to these people.  Suggestions?  And also – is it okay to call people that I didn’t hear back from again when I get into the City to see if they’re available?

While I do have a few contacts, most of whom I don’t know that well, I’m still doing research on Off and Off Off Broadway theatres to see what else is out there.  These theatres sound so awesome!  I’ve been enjoying just going through the listings and seeing what kinds of plays are going on.  It’s even more interesting considering what I’m doing in my Theatre Management class.  For those of you who don’t know, all of us are in groups, creating our own unique theatres.  I’ve been reading a lot of mission statements on the websites, and looking more critically at how the theatre markets itself.  Since the website is usually the first thing someone sees about the theatre, it really has to draw people in.  There have been several that I’ve almost immediately navigated away from because I was really turned off by either the way the site looked, or because I couldn’t easily figure out where things I wanted to find were located.  On the other hand, I’ve spent 15 minutes looking around some of them because I’m so intrigued by what is happening.  I love the vibrancy of the theatre, and it never ceases to amaze me how many theatres are out there, doing their work.  Friday is looming ever closer, and I still have research to do, packing to finish, questions to finalize, and lots of other work to do.  I can’t even describe how happy I am that I have this opportunity to familiarize myself with the city, meet people I never thought I’d get to sit down and talk to, and learn more about the life that I want to have.  That’s the part that excites me most.  I know people are going to say things I don’t want to hear, and I’m totally okay with that.  This is what I want to do, and I’m going to work for it.  That being said, I have some more theatres to look into, but I’ll be back soon to update!

I just learned two new things about New York City. One thing was about the Actor’s Studio, and one was about Fifth Avenue. One city with so many things to offer. Seriously, I can’t wait for Friday. It still doesn’t seem real that we’re going… it won’t until I get on that bus and we start going. It’s like when I went to Europe; it wasn’t really happening until I was waking up at 3am to get to Dulles to meet the group at 515am to get on the plane. This trip won’t really happen until I show up with my bags at 1030am outside of duPont on Friday. I’m incredibly luck to already have 6 contacts in New York, though I do feel like I cheated a little bit because I know them all from Staunton. However, I didn’t hear anything back from anyone I sent letters to, which I expected after Gregg said that I was aiming too high. When I mentioned my guilt to David the other night, he said that I shouldn’t feel bad, that they were a networking tool. Most of them I haven’t seen in forever, so it will be great to get to hang out with them. Now I need to get all my questions finalized…

I really wish that theatres in DC listed their casts online like the ones in NYC do.  Finding actors in NYC was so much easier!  I picked about 17 people that I’d like to speak to; there are a lot because I’m not sure if the more famous people (Alan Cumming, Dianne West, David Hyde Pierce, Patrick Stewart) will respond.  I’ll probably also see my uncle’s sister (he married into my mom’s family), Christine Jones, who’s been acting up in New York for many many years.  She and I have been talking since the summer when she gave me some advice about my headshots.  I emailed her a couple of weeks ago, so hopefully we’ll get to grab coffee or something.  So I have all these names, so tomorrow I’m sending out a ton of letters, because that seems like the easiest way to get in touch with them.  Now it’s a happy waiting game.

I’m really, really hoping that we’ll talk about our trip, since it’s happening, you know, NEXT WEEK.  How insane is that?  We’ve been waiting for this for so long… years, some of us.  I’m so excited!!