A Beautifully Artistic Day in the Throws of Winter

The feeling of warmth no longer comes from the sun, so during these months its important to find other ways of feeling all warm and cozy. Therefore a day spent practicing one's craft, then reading literature for further understanding, then collaborating with talented peers on new work, then sharing a meal with an adopted family, then entering a world created on stage as the conclusion of one's night... a winter in NYC isn't all that bad, right?

My day began playing in a cold-reading class with one of New York's finest audition teachers, Karen Kohlhaas, who has actually written books on auditions. Actors tend to get a little heady and overly dramatic, so its really refreshing to walk into a class not having to prepare anything. I walk in and just work on instinct, which is very freeing! Makes me want to take improv classes again! Also, highlight of a very bright day, I exchanged pleasantries with Keifer Sutherland on our break during class because he and Chris Noth (whom I chatted with by the elevators last week) are rehearsing a play, "That Championship Season", at the Atlantic Theatre Company.

The ATC is located in Chelsea, which happens to be blocks away from one of my favorite coffee shops in Manhattan, so I popped over there and read a wonderful book about Lee Strasberg and The Actors Studio, until I needed to catch a train to Brooklyn. Myself and two friends had a arranged to start working together on a project... any project! Two incredibly funny women, who I laugh hysterically with, and we want to create work together. This is what makes New York the best place for ambitious, collaborative people. We laughed, we threw around ideas, we did impersonations of each other doing impersonations of each other doing impersonations of other people. Good times! After a quick dinner at a delicious spot, Grey Dog's, back in Chelsea I took myself to the theatre!

A week ago I read a review by Ben Brantley (NY Times theatre critic) on the Fiasco Company's performance of Shakespeare's "Cymbeline". Just read the review and you'll want to fly up here and see it before it closes Sunday! The play was so well done and so simply done. Only 6 actors to fill 15 roles! The first three acts appear to set up a tragedy, but never did I feel an ounce of heaviness from the show. Instead, it had an incredibly light-hearted tone that made even the most desperate moments just that... moments, and then shortly after return to a fun, albeit complicated, story! I've never laughed so much in a Shakespeare play as I did in Act V, where all loose ends are tied up, everything is resolved, everyone leaves friends, family or lovers. But all 6 actors are on stage jumping in and out of different characters that they've portrayed throughout the play, as they all come to a head at the end! So well timed and joyously played out that the audience just loved them for it! Six young actors putting on a brilliant show is incredibly inspiring for this young actor to witness!

One of my favorite days, certainly of this winter! If we get one more blizzard...

Its the Little Things...

Yesterday, on my way to an audition, I made a friend! A older woman named Gwynn needed a hand with her bag and she looked at me as I walked past at a NY pace and asked me if I'd help her! If you turn down a sweet old woman, you're just asking to get hit by a taxi! It'll come back around to ya! So she and I had a lovely stroll around the corner to the Baptist Church, where senior citizens get lunch for $1.50! Now I don't know what they serve in there, but Gwynn and I both agreed that I was too young, but I told her that the price was right so maybe next time she could sneak me in!

Also, on this freezing NY winter night, I've just returned from a wonderful salon next to my restaurant of employment down in TriBeCa. The owner is a regular and she was in need of a hair model! Luckily I have hair and lots of it and a willingness to let her play with it, so I got a free haircut at a salon well out of my price range! We're going to spend the next few weeks playing around with different looks for the spring! Who doesn't like having their hair played with? Maybe one of my favorite things ever!

All that to say, I love this City I live in, but opportunities like this can appear anywhere. I think the key is to stay present and open to wherever you are and whoever you're in contact with at the moment! So many gifts can be found in each other, we're just self-centered people! That's my two-cents on the matter! Stay warm wherever you are and send warm cozy thoughts to us here! Its painfully cold!

The Way New Yorkers Watch TV

In light of the new year, or maybe the half marathon I've decided to run in April, I have temporarily joined a gym. This tends to be the case for this Southern gal, because I am not one of these crazy Yankees that can just put on some under armor and gloves and run along the Hudson... madness!
The best part about joining my new gym (New York Sports Club, if you care) is I finally get to watch some television! These are the lengths I will go to watch TV! Anyone that knows me, knows I do not even have a couch in my apartment, much less a television, so what do I do when I wanted to watch the BCS National Championship Monday night? Plan my gym time for the start of the game!
Now my dad cannot call me lazy for watching TV anymore! I've found a loophole!

2011

Does 2011 sound like a made up number to anyone else? Every time I say the year it feels a little surreal! Maybe it's because I recently watched "Back to the Future- Part 2" and he travels to the year 2015, and that seemed ridiculous at the time. Plus, there were flying cars, instant dry clothes, "Jaws 19" was being released and of course, hover boards, none of which seem to be on the horizon. For a reason unknown to me, I just can't get on board with this decade, yet.

My main resolution is to hydrate more, which I will say I'm doing pretty good. I didn't bother with "no sweets" or "no caffeine" or "gym every day" b/c those are just silly. I serve coffee and pastries for my living and I'm a realist. So I will raise a water bottle to you and whatever resolution you've made to start this new decade and wish you blessings from unexpected places.

Always Lock It Up!

I went to work and lost $50... aren't you supposed to walk away from work having earned a profit (unless you work on Wall Street). Ironically, the place where I'm supposed to earn my living became the place I lost it. I failed to re-lock my locker at work after brushing my teeth after my lunch break (this is my reward for dental hygiene). I did not discover this until I was leaving work and returned to the locker room and stopped in my tracks at the sight of my unlocked locker.
Upon opening my locker everything looked normal, my bag in the same spot I had set it in this morning, and of course I reached for my wallet first, opened it up and saw no cash inside. For a moment I searched my memory- maybe I didn't bring cash, maybe I had spent it all commuting home last night- but then I remembered I had bought myself breakfast this morning with cash and there was plenty left in my wallet, which was now gone.
Strange, I thought I'd get robbed in my neighborhood in Harlem and where does it end up happening? At work. I've got a couple ideas about how to catch the thief. Will keep you posted if I apprehend the culprit!

Never Make Plans

A truly enchanted day from start to finish!

Starting with sleeping in (a rarity in my life) and a lazy morning. The only thing missing was a cup of coffee, but I have no coffee table or chair or couch or anything, for that matter, so maybe the lack of a coffee pot is fortunate! (I hope Santa will help with the aforementioned need for furniture).

I decided to make use of my wide open day and try for some tickets to "The Merchant of Venice", starring Al Pacino. Now, for that faithful half dozen of you who read my ramblings regularly, you may recall an extraordinary evening this summer when I was privy to this performance in Central Park. It was such a success that it has been moved to Broadway for a limited run, and is one of the hottest tickets in town [i hate that phrase, don't know why i used it].

Its a particularly chilly day in Manhattan and not too many folks are generally aware of matinee performances, so I thought I had a good shot. After I put my name in for the lottery [i've explained the Broadway lottery in previous posts, so please revisit those for reference] and as I patiently waited for the drawing I overheard a British woman (I love the British accent, so I'm just naturally drawn to listen) with her two sons wondering what would happen if one of them was called and they only would receive one ticket. Let this be a lesson to any solo-theatre-goers out there, if you put in for the lottery ALWAYS request 2 tickets. You find another loner in the crowd and make a deal that if you or they are called, you give the other ticket to them. Just increases the chances. So I politely interject that if I was called, I'd happily give them one of my tickets. As fate would have it, two of their names were called so I got a ticket! YES!!!

Little did I know I was about to sit next to one of the most interesting, randomly met, talented stranger-now-friend I've encountered here in NYC! Time for the cliche: this is why I love NY! Come to find out she is friends with a gentleman in the show, so she and her boys got to go back stage before and after the show, met Al (yes, i'm totally jealous), AND she is doing a show at BAM right now, as in a few hours later!

Naturally between obtaining a ticket and the start of the performance, I used my time wisely, albeit creepily, to google her and learn all I could! Ha! So with Starbucks in hand, I parked myself in the lobby at the Marriott Marquis (don't worry other people were doing it too) and researched my theatre-buddy. May have appeared slightly odd when I showed up at the theatre and knew her resume, but I just think its preparedness! We had lovely chats in between being awed and enraptured by the performances on stage.

*Quick note: Although this post isn't about the show, it was wonderful. Pacino is riveting, Lily Rabe was delightful- different from the summer, but still divine, and the rest of the cast deserves more praise than I am writing now. It was such a clear, precise delivery of Shakespeare that I was NEVER lost and that is saying a lot b/c some days I'm not so quick. Really really lovely!

Back to me though, so after the show we are heading out. Well, I am heading out, they are heading to the dressing rooms. Anyway, I give her my number b/c she is going to check on ticket availability for her show, but is skeptical as it is a sold-out run but we can always hope, right? I leave already loving my day and reveling in such a delightful surprise in flying solo at the theatre only to be met by such an interesting family. I always have loved English folks!

So, not long after I receive a message that there is one ticket left. I call her back and make the arrangements to pick it up. The one seat left, isn't exactly a seat as much as a half chair seated on the stage. Just the back to support you and sitting on a little cushion. It was brilliant actually because I was loving the fact that I was on stage at the BAM Harvey Theater, where a year before I had seen Cate Blanchett do "A Streetcar Named Desire" and previously "As You Like It", two shows I enjoyed immensely.

"Metamorphosis" played out so interestingly! One of the most unique and physical stagings I've ever seen of a play. So creative and stylized. I absolutely loved it. The whole cast was wonderful and I so enjoyed myself. (sorry if it seems i'm gushing over this, but it has been such a special day and i'm still overwhelmed by it... and i take my apology back, i'm not sorry!) I got to go backstage, which is only the second time that has happened in NY, and I got to walk past all these signed posters from shows, and I wish I could linger a bit but I know I'd get lost so I had to keep up with the girl escorting me down. I chatted briefly with my friend, who jokingly referred to herself as my fairy godmother for the theater. She said she'd just escort me all over the City just getting me in to shows. You know what, I'll take it! A theater fairy godmother... yes please!

I headed home grinning ear-to-ear feeling so utterly content with the happy chaos of my life!

p.s. My new friend's name is Kelly Hunter, so check her out, become a fan and come see her when she is back in New York in a few months to perform some Shakespeare herself! She's wonderful!!!

Kiss 'n Fly

JFK Airport, one of the gateways in to New York City and one of the gateways out.

A very economical way to JFK includes taking the A train ($2.25) and hopping on the SkyTrain totaling ($5). This may not seem like much compared to the flat rate for a cab from Manhattan at $45, but an extra $5 just to say goodbye closer to the plane seems like a waste of money to many.

I recently bid farewell to a dear friend who'd been out for a visit. And as he passed thru the SkyTrain gate, I glanced around. By the window a couple were sharing tearful goodbyes. Across from me two young people just held each other. One staying and one going but neither willing to pay the extra $5 to spend a few more moments together.

The parting is inevitable and in New York the most privacy you can hope for is a corner in a bustling public transit station. Privacy can be achieved if you forget everything around you and focus on the person in your arms. I left the sweet scene when the A train showed up and I slipped back into the City.