You know those tales in legends like King Arthur, where a knight or a defenseless maiden wanders into the faery realm and gets lost, emerging what feels like hours later only to find that years have passed and everyone they once knew has grown old and died?
Well along the same vein, I just visited the 34th Street Macy's.
I have a gift card and I just want to buy a pair of sandals for walking around DC. And how happy I was to have this gift card to a store other than Conway or Payless, where I might be able to get a nice quality pair of shoes and not bankrupt myself.
But apparently that is too much to ask because the store itself is a labyrinth. First of all I had to go up FIVE floors just to find a sign that said Women's shoes, and then once I was on that floor, couldn't find them. I walked around for about twenty minutes until I began to fear that I was about to be devoured by the Minitour living in the maze's center when I finally decided to give it up.
If I designed a department store it would have a logic to it.
Shoes: Ground Floor.
Then pants, shirts, cosmetics and a special penthouse level for hats. Start from the bottom and work your way up.
I'll get my sandals at the Macy's in Flushing, which like most things in my neighborhood, is as if someone took the city version, shrank it down to about a fifth of the size and crammed a bunch of Asian people in it.
Yeah. I'm in a good mood today.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Friday, July 23, 2010
Close shave...
So I was on my YouTube page the other night and I decided to take down that video I made as part of my submission to that reality show, Center Stage. (See previous post: "When people stop being polite...")
I just figured, that was early June, and I haven't heard anything, so I took it down.
And yesterday, the day AFTER I did this, I got an email from the woman in charge of casting, asking me why the video was taken down!
Meeeeeep!
I fixed it, and put it back up, but sheesh. If she hadn't been nice enough to let me know, I could have really screwed myself.
Note to self: Throw out old issues of Backstage, and clothing you haven't work since college. Anything that might get you a job, no matter how unlikely you may think it, keep around.
I just figured, that was early June, and I haven't heard anything, so I took it down.
And yesterday, the day AFTER I did this, I got an email from the woman in charge of casting, asking me why the video was taken down!
Meeeeeep!
I fixed it, and put it back up, but sheesh. If she hadn't been nice enough to let me know, I could have really screwed myself.
Note to self: Throw out old issues of Backstage, and clothing you haven't work since college. Anything that might get you a job, no matter how unlikely you may think it, keep around.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Okay Theatre Gods, let's turn this mutha out!
Have spent the last three hours submitting my resume, typing up cover letters and such.
Happy to be going to DC so that I can get back and start auditioning again. Going out of town kind of sucks when you're unsure how long you'll be out of town for. Now happily I know when I'm getting back and can schedule all sorts of lovely auditions.
Now all I need is some good mojo.
Had WAY too much coffee today, side note.
Hope to be coming down from this soon, as it is already 9:30 at night and I don't want another night of staring at the ceiling until 5am.
Happy to be going to DC so that I can get back and start auditioning again. Going out of town kind of sucks when you're unsure how long you'll be out of town for. Now happily I know when I'm getting back and can schedule all sorts of lovely auditions.
Now all I need is some good mojo.
Had WAY too much coffee today, side note.
Hope to be coming down from this soon, as it is already 9:30 at night and I don't want another night of staring at the ceiling until 5am.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
Tiny Office...Beeeeeeeeeg Show
My best friend and college roommate Jen works as the Executive Assistant to this theatre company called JARADOA Theater. The name stands for Just A Room Full of Artists Doing Outreach And Theater.
Their latest show, "I'll Be Damned" just opened at the Vineyard Theatre. I got to see it on Tuesday night, and I've got to say, it wasn't what I was expecting, which is to say it completely impressed me. I don't want this to sound too much like a review, because I wasn't really looking with a critical eye. I was there to enjoy, and I did.
Up until this moment my entire impression of Jaradoa has been of their office, which like most New York City office space, is pretty tiny. It could fit inside the bathroom of the house I grew up in, in Queens, and every time I'm there it is inhabited by only Jen, her boss April, and maybe an intern. In truth, if all three of those people were in the office at the same time, I probably wouldn't fit.
But from this teeny tiny office has come a truly great production. It's a new musical about a geeky, home schooled boy named Louis who agrees to sell his soul to the devil in exchange for Satan finding him a friend. And when almost every play, musical, movie and television show out there seems to revolve around some forbidden (and more often lately, supernatural) love story, I thought it absolutely refreshing that this musical was about something so simple and easy to relate to as just wanting one true friend. Someone who likes you for who you really are.
We've all been (or felt like) that lonely kid at one point in our lives. Louis sketches comic books, some of us write short stories, or have elaborate fantasies, but it's all to the same end: Imagining ourselves as well-liked and popular. It was a sweet story, mostly funny but with some really poignant moments as well.
The performances were really strong as well. Mary Testa was fantastic, as expected. She made some comedic choices that I thought were truly brilliant, and I was always engaged when she was onstage. And then she was able to completely flip her character on her ear and have some moments of real depth and sincerity as well, particularly in the song "Mother's Day."
Jacob Hoffman played Louis, leaving me pretty baffled as to how this kid could have no friends when I fell immediately in love with him. He found a really nice balance between the stereotypical pop-culture "nerdy-kid-who-turns-out-to-be-cool," and the actual, real-life weird kind that we all went to school with. The one who wore sweatpants every day.
And of course, guaranteed to be one of the more bad-ass performances was Satan, played by Kurt Robbins. Is it wrong to be rooting for the devil? Is that a bad thing? Because that's exactly what happened. One of my favorite parts of the show was the song "Alone," in which Satan describes what Hell is like to Louis.
Also, Andrea Varga put him in some very tight pants.
This whole thing has left me with a pretty strong desire to become more involved with Jaradoa, which I would recommend to anyone else reading this. In addition to productions, they do several after-school programs, teaching literacy and also working with teenagers who have been convicted of felonies.
Seriously, if I had any money, I would give it to them.
Their latest show, "I'll Be Damned" just opened at the Vineyard Theatre. I got to see it on Tuesday night, and I've got to say, it wasn't what I was expecting, which is to say it completely impressed me. I don't want this to sound too much like a review, because I wasn't really looking with a critical eye. I was there to enjoy, and I did.
Up until this moment my entire impression of Jaradoa has been of their office, which like most New York City office space, is pretty tiny. It could fit inside the bathroom of the house I grew up in, in Queens, and every time I'm there it is inhabited by only Jen, her boss April, and maybe an intern. In truth, if all three of those people were in the office at the same time, I probably wouldn't fit.
But from this teeny tiny office has come a truly great production. It's a new musical about a geeky, home schooled boy named Louis who agrees to sell his soul to the devil in exchange for Satan finding him a friend. And when almost every play, musical, movie and television show out there seems to revolve around some forbidden (and more often lately, supernatural) love story, I thought it absolutely refreshing that this musical was about something so simple and easy to relate to as just wanting one true friend. Someone who likes you for who you really are.
We've all been (or felt like) that lonely kid at one point in our lives. Louis sketches comic books, some of us write short stories, or have elaborate fantasies, but it's all to the same end: Imagining ourselves as well-liked and popular. It was a sweet story, mostly funny but with some really poignant moments as well.
The performances were really strong as well. Mary Testa was fantastic, as expected. She made some comedic choices that I thought were truly brilliant, and I was always engaged when she was onstage. And then she was able to completely flip her character on her ear and have some moments of real depth and sincerity as well, particularly in the song "Mother's Day."
Jacob Hoffman played Louis, leaving me pretty baffled as to how this kid could have no friends when I fell immediately in love with him. He found a really nice balance between the stereotypical pop-culture "nerdy-kid-who-turns-out-to-be-cool," and the actual, real-life weird kind that we all went to school with. The one who wore sweatpants every day.
And of course, guaranteed to be one of the more bad-ass performances was Satan, played by Kurt Robbins. Is it wrong to be rooting for the devil? Is that a bad thing? Because that's exactly what happened. One of my favorite parts of the show was the song "Alone," in which Satan describes what Hell is like to Louis.
Also, Andrea Varga put him in some very tight pants.
This whole thing has left me with a pretty strong desire to become more involved with Jaradoa, which I would recommend to anyone else reading this. In addition to productions, they do several after-school programs, teaching literacy and also working with teenagers who have been convicted of felonies.
Seriously, if I had any money, I would give it to them.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
I'm Pretty Sure I Didn't Suck...
I watched the movie "Funny People" right before I made that last post and apparently when referring to stand-up comedy, the real pros use the term "going up." Hence my brilliant usage of insider terms.
So I "went up" at the Brew House on Wednesday. It was a pretty small crowd, but we're attributing that to the Fourth of July weekend that we've all just recovered from. It was mainly made up of the other comedians who were performing that night, which gave the whole thing an interesting, work-shop kind of feeling.
Okay so, self-assessment of performance Wednesday night:
My stand-up comedy at the moment reminds me of when I first started auditioning for musicals. I would walk out of the room and it was like I had just blacked out for the past two and a half minutes. I dimly remembered placing a binder full of sheet music on top of a piano, and then it was all just a blur. And once it's over I have absolutely no idea if I was good or not, all I know is I'm not having rocks thrown at me by outraged spectators.
It didn't help that it was a quiet crowd. I mean, obviously. If there's only ten people, you don't want to be the jackass who laughs the loudest, so small crowds tend to be quieter. But I was totally doing that "comedian talks too loud because they anticipate that they'll have to talk over riotous laughter that it not there" thing.
I still get very nervous. So I just power through it like a speech at my cousin's wedding and then get off stage as fast as possible.
The other comics performing at this thing had a lot more experience than I do, and they were all very relaxed, and you could see that they were really absorbing the reaction that the audience was having to their jokes. That's what I have to work on, I think. Really being there in the moment.
And being funny.
Reactions from others:
Jesse told me any time I wanted to do the show, to just let him know. So that's a sign that I did not blow. Was "Friended" on Facebook by two of the other comedians, so also a good sign. And when another of the comics was leaving, he said "good set" to me. And when I sat through a twenty-minute train wreck that (lucky me) came right before I went on at my first stand-up gig, I did not say "good set" to her when leaving the venue.
I said, "get home safe."
In other words, "I hope you're not jumped on the way to the Subway by one of the people who just paid ten dollars and bought a minimum of two drinks to have you suck a portion of their soul out through their eyeballs."
So I think we can count last Wednesday, if not as a victory, then as a positive step in the direction of success.
Go me.
In other news, spent Saturday morning shooting a small role in the latest film of director Louis Levy, with whom I did "Slice of Life" last year.
Still having trouble with my website, but I finally swallowed my pride and asked for directions at the nearest gas station (aka: Emailed the tech support team) so hopefully it'll be back on track before I'm reduced to joining AngelFire.
Old school.
So I "went up" at the Brew House on Wednesday. It was a pretty small crowd, but we're attributing that to the Fourth of July weekend that we've all just recovered from. It was mainly made up of the other comedians who were performing that night, which gave the whole thing an interesting, work-shop kind of feeling.
Okay so, self-assessment of performance Wednesday night:
My stand-up comedy at the moment reminds me of when I first started auditioning for musicals. I would walk out of the room and it was like I had just blacked out for the past two and a half minutes. I dimly remembered placing a binder full of sheet music on top of a piano, and then it was all just a blur. And once it's over I have absolutely no idea if I was good or not, all I know is I'm not having rocks thrown at me by outraged spectators.
It didn't help that it was a quiet crowd. I mean, obviously. If there's only ten people, you don't want to be the jackass who laughs the loudest, so small crowds tend to be quieter. But I was totally doing that "comedian talks too loud because they anticipate that they'll have to talk over riotous laughter that it not there" thing.
I still get very nervous. So I just power through it like a speech at my cousin's wedding and then get off stage as fast as possible.
The other comics performing at this thing had a lot more experience than I do, and they were all very relaxed, and you could see that they were really absorbing the reaction that the audience was having to their jokes. That's what I have to work on, I think. Really being there in the moment.
And being funny.
Reactions from others:
Jesse told me any time I wanted to do the show, to just let him know. So that's a sign that I did not blow. Was "Friended" on Facebook by two of the other comedians, so also a good sign. And when another of the comics was leaving, he said "good set" to me. And when I sat through a twenty-minute train wreck that (lucky me) came right before I went on at my first stand-up gig, I did not say "good set" to her when leaving the venue.
I said, "get home safe."
In other words, "I hope you're not jumped on the way to the Subway by one of the people who just paid ten dollars and bought a minimum of two drinks to have you suck a portion of their soul out through their eyeballs."
So I think we can count last Wednesday, if not as a victory, then as a positive step in the direction of success.
Go me.
In other news, spent Saturday morning shooting a small role in the latest film of director Louis Levy, with whom I did "Slice of Life" last year.
Still having trouble with my website, but I finally swallowed my pride and asked for directions at the nearest gas station (aka: Emailed the tech support team) so hopefully it'll be back on track before I'm reduced to joining AngelFire.
Old school.
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