Thursday, April 30, 2009

Bored...

Things I Currently Love:
-Pizza
-Green Tea
-Old school Christina Aguilera
-Not having to be at work until 4pm as opposed to 3:30
-Being on the list for the Waiting for Godot opening night party
-LOST
-That crazy doorframe home gym thingie
-My abs (gettin' there!)
-Tracy Chapman

Things I Currently Hate:
-Swine flu
-Jury Duty surveys that I know are going to result in actual jury duty
-Stamps
-LOST
-My occasional lack of a social filter
-NY1
-Push-ups
-Sit-ups
-Crunches
-Javascript
-People who say "o-ways" and "perfeck" instead of "aLways" and "perfecT"
-People wearing surgical masks and yet still touching public banisters with their bare hands
-People
-The MTA
-Monthly Metrocards
-Just getting a pun you've heard in advertising for years. Example: "Trust Sleepy's for the REST of your life."
-Not being able to actually go to the Waiting for Godot opening night party because I won't be able to get out of work early

Sigh. Something needs to happen to me soon. Something awesome though. Not something bad. Because if something bad is going to happen to me, it'll probably be swine flu.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

I'll think of a title tomorrow...

And so ends the Season of Jen, which is what Jen and I dubbed this lovely period of her internship with Roundabout, during which she has been able to gain access to free theatre tickets. And since her boyfriend is in Indiana, I got them as well.

But her internship is ending soon, and so the last free tickets we enjoyed were to last night's production of "Waiting For Godot."

Now I must admit, when we were supposed to read "Waiting For Godot" in Western Drama Two, I didn't read it. And I didn't pay much attention during the lecture the next day. I'm sorry Frank Trezza, I hope you will forgive me. But I knew enough to know that the "when does Godot come?" question of the quiz was a trick.

The performances were great. Nathan Lane and Bill Irwin were Estragon and Vladimir. And then John Goodman and John Glover were Pozzo and Lucky. They were all awesome, especially Bill Irwin, who's one of my favorite actors. But I wasn't TOO crazy about the show. I think it's by far the best Roundabout show we've seen this year, although I did like Hedda Gabbler despite the reviews.

But the problem is, I think, that you wouldn't get as much out of it as you would if you had studied the play. I feel like I need to go home, crack open Stages of Drama, and see it again. And let's face it, most of the people who are going to see this show have not studied it. Most of them are probably going to see Nathan Lane and John Goodman, and probably don't know who Bill Irwin is.

But the highlight of the show is definitely John Glover as Lucky. He looks terrifying and he does such a physically demanding performance, and the man is like 64 years old! The whole time he's huffing and puffing and stumbling around looking like he's about to faint, and growling like an animal. Awesome awesome awesome.

And of course because Bill Irwin and Nathan Lane were the two main characters, it was a lot funnier than I expected. They were very Vaudevillian and tramp-like. Very Chaplin. But other than the massive schtick, it kind of made me sad. I mean, I get that Godot is supposed to be God. Seriously, they even pronounced it "GOD-oh" which made me cringe everytime I heard it. So I get that. And I know that this is kind of the point of the show, but it just made me so sad that these two men return to this place every day waiting for something to happen that never does. They say that they can't stop coming because they'll be punished, but they're just filled with this aimless faith that's never rewarded.

Downer.

And then Jen and I got drunk and somewhere between the bathroom floor at McCoy's and the cab back to Flushing I lost a fucking earring.

God I am starving.

I want a salad.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Now Entering the "I Suck" portion of the rehearsal process...

Ian came over to rehearse today. We solidified the staging of Scene One and worked a little bit on Scene Two. It went well, I'm not worried at all about blocking or not being clear on what I'm doing onstage physically, but I think I've come to that point in the rehearsal process where I start to second-guess everything I'm doing.

I mean, I'm taking some risks in this show. I'm doing some weird things. But what seemed like a good idea, and only natural the first few times I read the play now seem almost stupid. And weird.

Okay. But I know I'm just psyching myself out. I'm freaking out and I just need to calm down and do what I need to do. Have a clear and personal objective. Play a specific action.

Balls to the wall.

Oh, if Doug Nyman could see me now, he'd be so proud.

Monday, April 27, 2009

What the hell? Why do bullet points turn into little flowers when I publish a post?

What if I was a dude?
  • Not very manly.
Things I Currently Love:
  • Fake Dolce and Gabanna purses for only $30
  • Free scarf from the guy who sells the free Dolce and Gabanna purses
  • The weather
  • Burger King chicken fries
  • The Twilight soundtrack
  • Jen Whitton
  • This month's Vogue, which is all about the real lives of models
  • The fact that my cat Steve thinks the painting of a tree on my wall is real, and tries every two days to jump into it to chase the birds.
  • Chicken wings
  • Lemonade
Things I Currently Hate:
  • Bed Bugs
  • The fact that my left arm looks like it has chicken pox
  • It's 3am and I'm still awake
  • The time at the bottom of my blog being inaccurate and my not knowing how to fix it
  • Work
  • People
  • Computer Solitaire
  • Watching blue people on my broken TV because I am too poor to buy a new one
  • Stepping on sharp things
  • When people can't make a decision that should be very simple, ie: "Well, why don't you just meet me there?" "Or I could pick you up and we could go together." "Or what we could do is meet up a few blocks away but then walk in separately like we didn't come together." "Or we could rent a hot air balloon and parachute in from on high to everyone's amazed gasps." "Or we could invent and build a time machine, go back to when the two of us were still in the developmental stages of personality growth and give one of us the ability to make a fucking decision."

Sunday, April 26, 2009

My solitaire statistics

Total games played: 475

Total games won: 48

Nice.

So I have the plague. And by the plague I mean bed bugs. And by bed bugs I mean the most annoying shit I have ever experienced in my life. And I didn't have any hobos in my bed or anything (or sleep in any hobo's beds), I just GOT them. Apparently they can just show up. Unless of course, that is just something people say, like saying you probably got pregnant from that toilet seat, and not one of the hundred guys you slept with on Spring Break.

Quite frankly, if I had gotten bed bugs from some hot unwashed guy spending the night in my apartment, that would have been better. Because it would have been at least partially worth it.

But no.

So tonight after I got home from work I had to strip my bed, wash all my linens and pillows, and put these big plastic covers on my mattress and box spring. And my mattress is heavy, man. I can barely lift it.

So now every time I roll over my bed makes a sound like a leather couch. It's almost a fart noise.

Awesome.

Good thing I don't have any downstairs neighbors.

I also totally cleaned under the bed, which I hadn't done at all in the year I've lived in this apartment. And I'm sorry Mom and Dad, but I threw out the fire ladder. I mean, it was awesome in college to know that if my dorm caught on fire, I had a metal ladder that I could unfurl, hang out the window and climb down to freedom, but I probably would have died of smoke inhalation before I got the thing untangled. And now that I live in a ground floor apartment, I think it's time I gave it the old heave ho.

Picnic in Central Park tomorrow. Very excited. Especially since I've only been to Central Park once (unless I went when I was a child, which I might have, but I don't remember--and on a related note, why do people even bother bringing small children places that they're not even going to remember? Anyway...)

I think I'm turning into a very angry person. Every day of my life I seem to get more easily irritated. I should probably take note that this only seems to be the case when I'm at work, which I guess has something to do with it.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

The beginning of a bad day...

10:27am

Up and Atom.

Up and Adam?

No, that can't be right. Up and Atom.

What the hell does that mean?

Well I woke up this morning only to discover that 90210 doesn't come start on Saturdays until 11:00. Balls. Then I stepped on a sharp piece of teacup that one of my cats broke two days ago. So my foot is bleeding. And then I put too much sugar in my coffee.

This does not bode well for the day.

And my TV is broken. Everything is blue. Well that's not true. Some things are purple. For example, I think it depends on skin tone. Debbie Matenopolis is blue, but Nick Lachay is purple.

So i was just watching The Soup and there was a clip from Miss USA, or Miss America, or whatever it was. I was working that night so I only got the chance to glance up every once in a while and there was no sound. One might argue that sound is really optional in the Miss America pageant, but whatevs.

So Keenan Thompson asked one of the ladies if she thought America should have Universal Healthcare and she didn't answer the question. She used the word "integrity" about five times and I think she probably got sidetracked having used a word with so many syllables.

Meow.

The thing is, I don't understand why any private citizen would answer that question with a "no." I mean, I have no idea what it would actually take to GET universal Heathcare for America, and something tells me that this might not be the opportune time considering or current Economic climate. But I would really love Universal Healthcare, kind of like I'd really love it if every American citizen was issued a $50 Borders Giftcard.

Maybe it's just me but I would really like it if I didn't have to worry about falling down the stairs and breaking both my arms and not being able to pay for my trip to the hospital. I would really love it if I didn't have to strip whole pieces of birchbark off of a tree, soak it in hot water to make it pliable, and then form it in a cast around my broken limbs.

I don't even know if I can do that. I read it in a book, but quite frankly I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

God I hate watching. E! I wish I were a celebrity.

I would be an awesome celebrity. Seriously, someone interview me. It would be awesome.

Oh God I just spilled coffee on my lap. What is WITH today????

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Balls.

I have to work a double tomorrow.

Why can't I just get paid to be awesome? Why must I slave away, smiling and pointing in the direction of the bathroom with all five fingers of my hand? If one more person answers the question, "Do you have reservations?" with "Yes, we made it online" I'm going to go crazy.

Sarah Jessica Parker has some guns.

I wish I had guns.

I can only do four push-ups. Girl style. Knees bent. Pathetic.

I'll never win the All-State Arm Wrestling Competition at this rate.

I wish that was a real thing.

Okay. The Plan for tomorrow: Wake up. Work out. Shower. Coffee. Bagel. Work. Coffee. Work.

And go.

Theatre is good.

Jen and I saw "Desire Under the Elms" last night. Orchestra seats. I love her job. Honestly I don't know what we're going to do when it ends in a month.

I suppose the answer is: pay for theatre tickets.

Boo.

Anyway, it was AWESOME. Particularly the male nudity of the most gorgeous man I've seen in a long long time. I wonder if that scene was part of his audition. If it was, I know why he got the part, besides his clear speaking voice.

Brian Denehey was amazing. The man is like a wrecking ball. I was demolished.

The coolest thing was the set. There was literally a HOUSE suspended from the fly space above the stage. It hung there in midair while the action of the play went on underneath it. And then, it comes slowly down, and then like, two seconds after it touches the ground, one of the actors comes out the front door and calls, "Supper's ready!" and they go into it.

And then it goes up and a table and chairs come out of the floor and they sit and have dinner. And the entire time I was TERRIFIED. I mean, I know that the house was NOT being held by the ropes tied around it. We were close enough the the stage that I could see the aircraft cable. But it made me so uneasy to see something that big and heavy hanging in the air above actors' heads.

Which I guess is why they did it. I mean, aside from the Awesome Factor (which on a one to ten scale is at about 25) It kind of ensures that the audience be completely aware that at any moment, these characters whole world is going to come crashing down on them.

Brilliant.

There were a bunch of other Roundabout interns at the show, including this one guy who, according to Jen, is massively critical of everything he sees. As we were walking out of the show (reeling from both emotional content and the image of Pablo Schreiber's naked torso burned into our retinas) she asks him, "what did you think?" and he give her this look. His eyes clearly said, "OBVIOUSLY I hated it" as if we'd just walked out of P.S. 165's presentation of Hamlet.

Luckily, Jen steered us out of there before it became an actual conversation. Although I must admit I was a little curious as to what notes this twenty-something intern had for Mr. Denehey and O'Neil. I was like, "Oh? How would you have done it? Would you have had a different way of portraying a father who's wife has just murdered his son? Would you have not yelled as much maybe?"

Jackass.

Ugh. It was so good.

After that we met the ladies at the bar and I THINK I may have given Paul Rudd my business card.

Meep.

Rehearsal tonight. I can't wait for this show. Especially after seeing such an awesome performance, I am totally keyed up for Danny and Deep Blue Sea.

Woot.

Monday, April 20, 2009

T-minus 6 weeks until Danny and the Deep Blue Sea

Ian, who is playing Danny in Danny and the Deep Blue Sea, just left. He came over so that we could run lines and talk about play-related stuff.

Feeling very good about the show. Ian and I have very good chemistry, I think. It's funny, I've always thought that I had good chemistry with my co-stars before, but now that I think about it, this is really the first time I've acted with someone that i didn't really know before. So I don't think I've ever really known what it was to have chemistry with someone I didn't already have a pre-existing relationship with.

I mean, think about it. All the biggest roles I've played before this have been mostly in college, where I'd known my co-stars for a long time. Maybe not as well as I did before working with them, I daresay I didn't really know Emma Jerome before we were in The Importance of Being Earnest. But we had spent that well-documented Halloween party drunk on her kitchen floor, so that always creates a bond.

And after that, I worked with the improv group, but that doesn't really count, because it's comedy. And what is comedy if not a vehicle to diffuse awkwardness.

Even the ten-minute play I just did at The Producer's Club was with Jess Ritacco, who I went to school with for three years.

This is the first time I've ever done intimate and emotional work with someone that I've never met before auditions. And I was so nervous that I wouldn't like him or we wouldn't get along or it would be uncomfortable. But it's turning out to be awesome.

Ian's played Danny before. This fact does not surprise me. It seems like the role he was born to play. The guy is like a tornado. He just blows on though, leaving overturned cars in his wake.

Looks like we've just about got a venue and dates set in stone, which means I will soon have tickets to sell. And since we're getting a cheaper theatre, the third day of shows is no longer dependent on advanced ticket sales! But it looks like we're going to be doing a Thursday instead of Sunday. I guess that's good. It'll probably be easier to get my Thursday shift covered at work than my Sunday.

In other news, my quest to lose weight before the show is going well. I've managed to slim down the waist a bit without actually looking sickly or becoming unhealthy. It's amazing what you can do by just not eating crap. Although I did allow myself a moment of weakness the other day and I got Burger King. But i got a Kid's Meal, which is the only portion size I will allow myself of fast food these days. It was such a tiny little soda. Adorable.

So hopefully, I'll actually get some industry people to come to this show, which will no doubt lead to my being signed by an agent, which will lead to a television show, which in turn will lead to a movie deal, and soon little girls around the country will be begging Mommy and Daddy for their very own Michele McNally action figure.

Solid plan.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Mentally slapping the butts of the other guys in the locker room...

Incredible workout.

Ow.

1/4 year's resolution...

11:11am

90210 on the TV. Trying to figure out what season it is. Steve and the Asian girl already have the baby.

Getting ready for the massive overhaul of my life. Have decided to move sleep down the list of priorities in my life. For example, I got home last night at 1:30, and didn't fall asleep until at least 3am, but I still got up at 10:30 so that I can work out.

Coffee coffee coffee.

Next up on the agenda: Jump rope to bring up the heart rate, crunches to flatten out the tummy, leg lifts to tone the thighs, and some stretches.

John wants to actually work in an Apache Dance during one of the scene changes in Danny and the Deep Blue Sea. An Apache Dance is an acrobatic and violent dance in which the woman basically gets thrown around for four and a half minutes. And as totally awesome I think that idea is, I can't help but be a little nervous. Most of what I've seen on You-Tube or depicted in paintings remind me of forties style swing dance. Ladies get flipped upside down and spun and twirled. It's one of those remind-me-to-wear-Spankies-under-my-skirt dances.

So what worries me is that I'm not particularly flexible. Or athletic. Or graceful.

And this whole year I've had the schedule at Broadway Dance Center taped up on my wall so that I can take a class if I want to, but I haven't taken a class there in a good six months. And it occurred to me, as it always does at times like this, that if I had just GONE to dance class like, twice a month for the past six months, I would be MILES ahead where I am right now.

Douche.

Man that's some good coffee.

So in the spirit of my phone conversation with Sarah the other night, in which we were discussing what it takes to actually make it in the world of theatre, I have decided to sacrifice sleep.

I mean, I've always been a bit of a pussy when it comes to getting my forty winks. I sleep like Jenny when she shows up at Forrest Gump's house after his mama dies and he's cuttin' that grass fo' free. But I have friends that have two jobs and work doubles weekly and don't really complain. And I don't see any reason why I can't do that if i just get used to funtioning on less sleep.

When I was in High School I used to get up at 6am every day, and I'd be up doing homework until at least midnight. Granted, sometimes I had to take a power-nap round five-ish, but I could probably work that into my schedule now.

Okay, McNally. Let's lay down the ground rules.

1. Stop sleeping late just because you can. Just because you don't work until 3:30pm, 4 days a week doesn't mean you can sleep until 1:30, sleepily wipe your eyes, throw your hair in a pony-tail and march out the door, bleary-eyed while most people are heading home on the same train on which you're heading to work.

2. It's fun to go out with the waiters after work, but let's limit it to once a week if even that. Saturday night is a good night. But while you're in a show, let's cut the shit.

3. Work out, drink water, and watch 90210

4. Dance classes.

But above all, no matter what happens, I am not giving up Oreos. They can pry them from my cold, dead, fat hands.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Bloggity blog blog

Had my first rehearsal for Danny and the Deep Blue Sea on Wednesday. Ian, my costar picked me up to give me a ride. So I was a little nervous since i hadn't really met him yet. I talked to him a little bit after we read together at auditions but for all intents and purposes, this was our first meeting. But there was no need for me to worry, because he's a really cool guy.

First read-through went well. It's hard to read that play. I started out trying to just read the lines and not place any pre-supposed emphasis on any of the lines, but I couldn't really help it. The subject matter is REALLY emotional. Hopefully it won't influence my performance too badly.

I'm so excited to be doing this show. A chance to actually use all the crap I've been learning in the past two years. This is my first full-length play in almost a year. I've been doing mostly short films or short plays, like ten-minute things or scenes. So it's awesome to have the chance to apply all the technique I've been learning to a full play with multiple scenes and stuff. Whee!

So I was hanging around on this rainy day in my apartment watching Amercia's Next Top Model and my friend Sarah called me. She's been on tour with a production of Cinderella for the past MILLION YEARS but she's going to be doing a show in Flushing in a few weeks. In the very park in which I used to skateboard in Jr. High. I'm so excited to see her, I've been missing her terribly.

I think I'd like to do a tour. I've been feeling an intense need to travel lately. My friend Jessica is going to Europe. I'm so jealous. I think I'm going to make my goal for the next year a trip to Europe. By this time next year, I'm going to be in Rome.

Let's make the wishlist now:

Rome
Milan
Venice
Okay, all of Italy
Ireland
Paris

Anywhere else.

Hmm... I wonder if I can convince any of my friends to do this with me, or if I should just go alone. And while traveling alone does seem romantic, you do run the risk of being sold into white slavery.

I wonder how much money I can save in a year. And shall i go with a bank account, or a coffee can hidden within the floorboards of my apartment?