so lucky

I am so lucky. I am so lucky. Will you look at this picture? The gifts of 2009 are so glorious. There was struggle, but oh, the gifts. I have been tasteful, and I have not done a silly internet blabber about how awesome Rusty is, but he is so awesome, I could write volumes. About how he is a perfectly complementary being to my being. About how when we get on video chat and he just make faces at me for ten minutes, I am in paradise.

On a contrasting note, there is a lot of pain happening for a lot of my dear friends right now, and I am not sure what's up with that. I was feeling hella out of whack right along with them, until I painted half a wall and decided firmly that I must return to the basics of my artmaking. Craft projects and loud music and journal musing. It's been good. But I want the pain to ease for my pals, and for the holidays not to hurt.

Brother (another gift in my life) invited me to come to a taping of Artists Den (a PBS series) that his Dad's company was doing the video for. It was a very very intimate Tori Amos show at the Park Avenue Armory - which is, by the way, the effing COOLEST place, all huge and old and beautiful and carved out of everything. And Tori! Who knew! I have a couple of her albums, and have been known to fall into a Tori period from time to time. When I am feeling like I need to wrench something very primal and feminine out of my guts. I've never seen any live footage of her, so her performance came as a total shock to me. In my head, she's a voice, and some red hair. In person? Holy moly. She didn't talk - said maybe two words the whole set. No matter. She sucked us all in. She held us, toyed with us, flirted and wailed, and whispered and beckoned and by the end of it, I had goosebumps and hovering tears. Arresting - disarming - wholly engrossing, is Ms. Amos. It was very inspiring. Many thanks to Brother.

There were stars in our murky city sky tonight. Real stars.

lovestoned

Brother in 'Shock the Monkey' Test Makeup
What ISN'T going on! Too much to blog about. I'm somewhat dancing around at the beginning of a giant, triumphant race...gun's about to fire...and really JUST about - we're at .2 seconds or something. But to break it down into interweb news bits, for ya...

ALLIES

Still truckin' along, with potential benefit performance in July. Going to be VERY different. Foxfire & I are working on so many projects right now, and she's been busy with Rooms (which you may see me representin' on NY1 or the lobby of New World Stages, depending on if they used anything from the fan-interview Daisy & I did for them this past Saturday), but ALLIES is still very much at the forefront of our minds. We want to be bringin' you Heart tunes, really, we do!

US

US has finally gone into real development - even if most of that development currently takes place in my apartment. Sessoms and I are meeting tonight to start on costume designs - and I will likely make her the guinea pig...guinea monkey?...for more makeup trials.

As soon as all the biz is done (and that's consuming my day today; fun with contracts and budgets), I'll post a cast list. Foxfire is of course, still starring, and Daisy & Rabbit in their namesake roles.

Other Shows

We're locked and loaded for Songs for a New World this August, America starts rehearsals on Friday, and I'm working on three other projects in other capacities...costumes for the NP Final Shows (yay for being asked back for enjoyable jobs, two years running!), the TU final Show (How to Succeed in Business), and production management on the School of Visual Arts Screenwriters Night.

If it hasn't been mentioned RTC has really, truly recieved its 501(c)(3) status - we are certified Not-for-Profit. Thank you, IRS! Big sigh of relief there!

Random Update

Item One:

Mama, at my age
(c. Arthur Elgort, 1980)
Item Two:
I have this big, giddy smile on my face that I've been unable to shake for weeks now...

i've been working on a cocktail

Standoff with Bugs.
Hour 4.
Have killed one nasty hairy spindly water-centipede I found in Brother's room.

Have not killed any of 3 Roaches (or perhaps the same one, swapping locations throughout the evening to fuck with me), coming out and staring at me and twitching their antennae and looking generally huge and shiny and horrible.

WHY. WHY WHY WHY. Because I live in New York, yes, that's why. But really, my house is decently clean. Sometimes the dishes linger, but it's certainly not grounds for infestation.

I blame the new neighbors below. The bugs no longer have a big empty apartment to scuttle about in, so tonight, they're checking out the penthouse.



My pest problem aside, I am actually working on some projects worth a mention, since this is supposedly a blog about directing. On the directing front, Baby Bear Productions is a scant 2.5 weeks away from the Paper Planes shoot. On the writing front, been plugging away at the Heart show w/ Ms. Foxfire (met her at the US auditions; she's slated to play Brooke whenever that gets-a-goin again). On the design front, I'm doing costumes for a show called "What a Life," with a company I've never worked with before - and THAT is always exciting! And on the (GASP) acting front, I'm actually reading something aloud with MORE people that I've never worked with before. My friend Kindred (who brought me to a lovely goth-trash-rock show and encourages me to co-write letters to Guillermo del Toro with him) invited me and Daisy and some other folk to read a new play aloud next Friday.

And Gorey Stories co-author Stephen Currens dropped me a line last week, asking about the RTC production! I told him we've postponed, so we'll be meeting for a drink & discuss when he visits NYC in October.

Just putting this into the blagosphere, as a wish, since I've sent the letter (gloriously translated by Daisy's stepmom) to Pierre Bergè, asking for permission to perform it: La Machine Infernale.

money, baby

Ah, another long day at the office otherwise known at Times2, otherwise known as the Armpit of New York.

I actually don't find it particularly depressing anymore. And as I sit here, in my favorite pajamas, a brand new black Macbook charging by my feet, life in bleak ol' 2008 seems pretty ok. The LegaBlonde team got pretty deep today - the discussion in front of TKTS was economic crisis, gas prices, radical politics, conspiracy theory; big stuff! And yeah, shit SUCKS all over the place right now. All of my working artist or arts-related friends? You are mad lucky people. The most common topics of conversation nowadays seem to be:

1. taking on too many bread jobs
2. going in for unpaid student films
3. not getting called for anything
and, of course
4. how the fuck do I keep getting up in the morning for all of this?

How indeed!

It's New York (and I gotta stop watching movies about L.A. that make it seem like things might be more fun out there. L.A. is no place for a theatre girl!), and today, I got up for New York. To see my Dad's name on the marquee of the Nokia theatre, and to buy a ticket to see Equus by myself in a few months. Because even though I don't have the spare 80 bucks, I dug it up so I've got something to get up for on October 4th - a date with Peter Schaffer, horses and a play that's so good I could throw up. Say what you will about Harry Potter - I can't imagine how you could fuck that play up so much that I wouldn't love it. It's EQUUS.

Last night, Brother and I stood in the front door of a bar on 46th and watched Phelps & the rest of the American swim team take that final gold and break records. It was pretty awesome. The bar went nuts. It's not very often that I'm psyched to be American - I can probably count those moments on one hand. But yeah. Pretty psyched. Screamin' for some swimmin'.


New pretty Macbook is charged, and I have bread job dos to get up for in the morning. But I also have ALLIES, an At Hand reading, and a gangsta rap video to get up for as well. The newly established music video company has a name (Baby Bear Productions), and four more shoots to do...so look out for more of the gang in coming weeks. In the meantime, I leave you with the finished product of our initial efforts, for those who haven't already seen it twenty times over.

you walked me down 14th street

Summertime...

What the fuck is going on, dude?

I feel very disconnected from my life, man. Kinda floating above it, glancing at it, and giggling. Brother is over, listening to angry Eminem tracks (it's a nostalgic thing, I gather). I'm hangin out in a cowboy hat, from PJ's collection (he used to sell hats and soap for extra cash...), and anticipating an evening of Chinese food and Batman Begins. I am surrounded by a pile of incomplete work and emails.

We're producing a show at NP in August, that PJ is directing. The title being tossed around was "Will It Hurt?" but it strikes me as inappropriate (despite it being apropos of the content) and makes Sessoms think of anal sex, so at the moment, it's still without a name.

Ah, we've moved on to bluegrass. The original version of "Man of Constant Sorrow." Highly recommended.

Out and about in the village with Sessoms, Rye and eventually Boss proved highly successful, and soothed my soul. Going out and getting plastered is not the answer to life's problems, but it definitely helps on occasion. Especially when dancing, wicked DJs, ghetto mixes of Smirnoff and vitamin water, purple shirts and intrigue are involved.

Ah, we've moved onto the Dirty Dancing soundtrack. Brother proves to be a mildly skitzophrenic DJ.

I did manage to snag a new bread job, thanks to my ever-generous friend Mr. John Gallagher, who helps me out more than I feel I deserve. (Oh no, Brother has returned to the living room with months-old dregs found in various drawers - "We don't have to scrape the bowl!" he declares gleefully) Other things on the ol' noggin':

-How to keep Jive in the country...what is life without a giddy blonde to take you out to watch soccer and speak Italian? What is life without long, bi-or-trilingual messages about lord-only-knows left on your voicemail?

-Rufus Wainwright's "14th Street" on a constant loop

-...occasionally interrupted by Pat Benatar wailing "We Belong"

-celebrity chefs

-the Grand Guignol and how to recreate 19th century blood effects

-Gas prices. If I'm assistant to the director on "Digger" and Ariel in the Tempest, I will, presumably, be driving. And thus, filling a gas tank. Blast!

-your mom...


xoxo

tornado body with a hand grenade head

Brother, Sister & I went on an Urban Adventure today, to a section of Jersey I had not yet explored. Our quest? To see Anthony D'Amato's production of Hedwig & the Angry Inch. Bizarrely, this was the second production I've seen in a week - the first was the Barnard Queer Association's version, up in Morningside Heights, where Sessoms and I found the man who will hopefully be drumming for Hair.

D'Amato's, naturally, surpassed the Barnard production...and the surrounding quest was even longer, with more unusual twists, than the frozen march we took on the West Side a week ago. This one involved multiple trains, checking out the sketchy side of town, fragrant cab rides, witnessing two arrests (!) and a possible drug deal, rocking out in a Dunkin Donuts, and as our last train pulled out of the Asbury Park station, a fist-fight between a couple of kids. But frankly, I rather liked the amount of gritty insanity we witnessed. It made the whole day so much more gorgeous.

No matter what, I lose it during "Midnite Radio." This Miss Hedwig made such an AWESOME transition through the Tommy Gnosis section into that song, I was blubbering like a little girl. Oh, and "Exquisite Corpse"...! When they got into it (and that band fucking rocked that song like it is meant to be rocked; it felt sexy), it pushed right on that little button lodged somewhere in my chest. The button activates the part of me that still longs to be in a rock band and wishes she was free to call Morelli. To put Hideous Underwear back together.

...And you can trace the lines of these erased designs that map across my body
A collage!
I'm all sewn up
A montage!
I'm all sewn up...