The Plan

Latest addition to my list of things that suck: listening to a friend give you a list of reasons why they aren’t a better friend.

I’ve been rehearsing with the Culver City Public Theatre for the last few weeks on Much Ado About Nothing via Tanya, who’s playing Beatrice and doing a heckuva job. There was a lot of nonsense recently regarding costumes and line cuts that came to a head when somebody went to the Board bitching about the director. The Board called him onto the carpet in what was one of the more disgusting displays of ineptitude I’ve seen recently. It hits #2 on my list of worst things I’ve ever seen in theatre.

Anybody who acts or is involved in the biz - especially in theatre - knows that there are two types of people: actors and drama people. Actors are people who want to act, drama people are people who ‘want to do plays.’ You see a lot of them in high school, fewer in college, and - until now - I really hadn’t seen any in Los Angeles. Apparently, all of the drama people gravitate to public theatre.

They aren’t necessarily bad actors, but it’s pretty clear that being with their friends and saying ‘I was in a play!’ is a lot more important to them than, say, training. Or having any kind of artistic integrity. It can be frustrating.

I don’t think I’ll be looking to act anymore with municipal theatre, and I suppose that if any of them read this, the problem will solve itself.

If you haven’t seen the television ads for Celebrex, I highly recommend that you do. I don’t know, or much care, what problem it’s supposed to fix, but their pitch seems to be “Celebrex: Slightly Less Likely to Kill You than Other Brands!”

Photo by Zach Behrens

The LAist has been covering 365 plays/365 days in Los Angeles from the beginning. I don’t know if they’re the only ones covering it, but they’re certainly doing the best job. The photo above comes from their article covering the Black Dahlia’s performance on 1/20/07.

Of the eight pieces, two were directed by Obi Ndefo, the guy who directed Week 5 for the Alliance. He is The Real Deal. The LAist’s article lays out the scene at the Dahlia pretty cleanly. I hadn’t intended to be in a 365 since experimental theatre isn’t really my thing, but this was quick and dirty and a whole bunch of fun. Bonus: Susan-Lori Parks came. I said ‘thank you for doing this.’

That’s me with the pretty pretty wings.

I’ve once again been wrestling with cigarettes, cloves this time. It’s the loneliness that does it. They’re like little friends.

Unfortunately, all this really does is once again throw into relief the fact that these things, these crutches, don’t fix the problem, they mask it. I do not want to be a smoker again.

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I need to start making some money. I’m not yet through with the experiment; I won’t be until I’m on a journey of my choosing. Well, I guess I already am, but one with leather seats would be nice. The debts worry me, but only so much. After all, if I can’t pay, I can’t pay. But it wears.

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This weekend we shot Don’t Gag Me!, and I can’t WAIT to see how it came out. It felt good; Carla brought together a hell of a crew, wrote a fun script and gave a great performance. It’s inspiring to work with someone like that, someone who makes things happen, through sheer force of will if necessary. Today I shot another episode of The Dopler Effect, which I really feel is going to be a cut above most of what’s floating around the net these days.

I have another audition for a short tomorrow, and a few other things which could - should they come to pass - help ease some of my other troubles. Which is, of course, the fucking goal.

That, and an oscar.

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There are now ten more performances of Westward Expansion through next Saturday. Starting Monday, it will run in conjunction with the Alliance’s week of Susan-Lori Parks’ 365. This should be fun.

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Hmmm, this is kind of a downer post. Oh well, at least nobody died in this one.

First up, the Backstage West review of the show. I can’t really take issue with it; it says a ton of good things and adds a few criticisms that I think are sort of par for the course when a show tries to pack so much into such a short time. Still sounds like she had fun:

Westward Expansion
November 29, 2006
By Jennie Webb

Okay, who doesn’t like trains? And I’m not talking the metro rail or subway. No. Real trains that travel from coast to coast. Trains are fabulous things, whether it’s our personal memories or imaginary musings or just the idea of ’em: traveling across the country, inevitably reaching their destinations at a speed that allows for oh-so-many possibilities, undeniably mechanical yet somehow magical, grounded yet capable of taking us on wonderful flights of fantasy. But in this day and age, in America, as a reasonable means of cross-country transportation, they’re pretty much dinosaurs. Writer-director Cecil Castellucci gets this and then some. Her new play is a love letter to all things Amtrak, and it has a definite charm and is well-mounted, with skill and affection. Unfortunately, it’s so stylistically schizophrenic that after it’s over we haven’t arrived anywhere it seems we’re supposed to.

On a simple set, Castellucci puts two pairs of sweet young things traveling in opposite directions. Going west in 1881 we meet a stylish man seeking his fortune (Ransom Boynton) and a woman (Darcy Martin) heading toward a teaching job and possible rancher husband. The 2006 eastbound couple is made up of a woman (Royana Black) on her way to meet her Internet pal, hoping it’ll be a romance, and a quirky philosopher (Jeremy Sean) looking for answers. Rashelle Stocker plays the conductor, interacting with the couples in both centuries and guiding the audience through the history of trains, among other things. The actors relate to the audience as well as to each other, and they narrate from correspondence and diaries, relate itineraries, divulge secrets, enact fantasies and scenes from Alfred Hitchcock movies (complete with video), sing and dance, and so on.

Although the talented actors seem to have a grasp on the all-over-the-map pieces of often-fun material—the playwright’s honest and humorous dialogue works particularly well in the hands of the vulnerable Black and Sean, who couldn’t be more adorably dysfunctional—and Castellucci makes use of her admirable chops as a director, at this point Westward Expansion has a ways to go before it becomes a journey audiences will get much out of.

$10! Come see it….

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“I don’t recognize myself anymore” is a bit of a cliche, but I find myself thinking it more and more often these days. It starts with the physical changes, mainly due to exercise and weight loss. I found a couple of little ridges on my eye sockets that I’m fairly sure I’ve never seen before. I look in the mirror, and not only do I not recognize the face, I’m not entirely sure what to do with it. Then I start to feel like I don’t recognize my facial expressions anymore, and then my thoughts. I don’t know if any of that makes any sense, but it freaks me out a little bit.

—___—___—___— It’s been really cold the last few nights, and when you live in a car, cold is COLD. I can’t help but think how much worse it is for those who don’t even have that. Every night in Santa Monica, near the Promenade, you can see people sleeping in the parking lots of closed businesses. They use the little cement blockers as pillows, and roll themselves up in blankets and sleeping bags like stinky little Blunts. That must suck.
 

A big chunk of Alliance members attended the Valley League Theatre Awards (called, for some reason which I do not care to research, the A.D.A’s) last night, where as far as can be determined the company finished an incredibly close second in every category where we were nominated. There was a surprising amount of overlap between presenters, League board members and winners (not that I’m suggesting anything….) but it’s pretty cool that the company picked up as many noms as they did in what seems to be a pretty insular little club. The ceremony ran longer than it should have (Fred and Mary Willard hosted entertainingly, although as the evening wore on their patience seemed to wear out) but it was nice to see everybody and hang out with the Kids.

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So I’m trying to be good about…pretty much everything, at least in terms of my general physical health. This past weekend marked the first time in my life where I could suddenly fit into something that was too small when I bought it. The downside is that I’ve given up so many bad habits and such over the past two years (and, let’s face it, I’m pretty addicty) that when things get tough I get all sorts of cravings. Not so much for alcohol, definitely for cigarettes and pills and stuff. With food I go the other way, and decide that instead of eating a burger I won’t eat anything. For a few days at least, then the burger

But I’m realizing now that the worst, most dangerous cravings aren’t for food or drugs, they’re for people. Insane cravings for absolutely the worst possible people. Damned if I know why.

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I told you I was going to steal it.

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From the L.A. Weekly:

WESTWARD EXPANSION Cecil Castellucci’s one-act emerges as a lighthearted potpourri about railroad travel, combining two fragmentary plots with documentary footage of trains, dialogue from Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and Strangers on a Train, a brief rendition of “On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe,” and a chatty conductor (Rashelle Stocker) who rhapsodizes about railroads. (She points out that long, cross-country train journeys foster personal encounters as shorter air trips never can.) Two women from different eras are traveling across the country in opposite directions. The Woman From 1881 (Darcy Martin), going from Boston to Tucson to take up a teaching job, meets a reckless young man (Ransom Boynton) who’s seeking a new life in the West. The Woman From 2006 (Royana Black) is traveling from L.A. to Boston to hook up with a guy she met on the Internet, but she has a potentially life-changing encounter with a shy, erudite young historian (Jeremy Sean), who’s addicted to quotations. The piece is pleasant but slight: long on charm but short on narrative heft. Of the quartet, Black and Sean have the more richly developed characters to play, which they exploit by skillfully sketching their comic tics and idiosyncrasies. ALLIANCE REPERTORY COMPANY, 3204 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank; Thurs.-Sat., 8 p.m.; thru Dec. 16 (no perfs Nov. 23-25). NOTE: Performances nightly Dec. 11-17, in tandem with plays from Suzan-Lori Parks’ 365 Days/365 Plays. (800) 595-4849. (Neal Weaver)

This makes me happy. Quite happy. Even the criticisms really aren’t - the thing runs under an hour, after all. Come see it.

L.A. Weekly

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The Dopler Effect: I don’t know when it’s coming, but I can’t wait. I keep hearing ever cooler things about it. It’ll be fun.

Don’t Gag Me!: Getting together with the entire crew soon. I don’t want to say too much because Carla hasn’t given me permission, and I think she likes hurting me.

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Westward Expansion opened on Friday and seems to be going over well. One of the things that drew me to the Alliance in the first place was the quality of the people there. I’m not exactly the Old Man of Los Angeles Theatre, but I’ve been around enough to know that far too many companies are either vanity projects for one giant ego, giant balls of bickering or some other ugly little collection of neuroses (that’s what ACTORS are supposed to be.)

I say this so you know that when I say I love being with this cast, you will hopefully take it as something other than ‘what people always say.’ I don’t always say those things, but I really like these people.

I like the show, too, although I always have trouble discerning the ‘read’ - I’m pretty happy with the work I’m doing, everybody else is doing a good job, and Cecil’s a hell of a writer. The first review should come out this week or next, for what it’s worth. All in all, I expect this show to do well, artistically and otherwise.

Go see it. Right now. Well, not RIGHT now, but, you know, soon.

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I spent a good portion of Sunday at the Southern California Regional Bikram Yoga Championship, essentially by accident. Fun fact: Bikram is a dude.

I went along with Carla after rehearsal, in the interest of doing something I hadn’t done before. I need to get this out of the way right now, lest it give me a tumor: nothing in the world - nothing - can smell as bad as a giant room devoted to Bikram yoga. I don’t care how bad your bipedal snow cow smells, inside or out, this is worse. Apparently, they heat the room to 105 degrees for Bikram, which is oriented more towards strength and flexibility than other yogic disciplines. The room could probably hold, oh, 18,000 people. that’s 18,000 people bending and sweating in 105 degree heat. Hence the smell.

When I wasn’t wondering if my nose would shut down before I went into shock, I was admiring the competition. It works like so: each hopeful gets three minutes to perform seven poses (five compulsory, two they choose themselves.) The question of ‘competitive yoga’ was dealt with by explaining that, even though there were other people up there, it was still really about competing with one’s self. All I know is that the only pose I could have complete was the Rabbit, which could just as easily have been called the ‘Nap.’

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A couple of days ago, my shampoo bottle opened up inside my gym bag - especially irritating since, even though I live in a car and have extremely short hair, it’s expensive shampoo. Luckily, it managed to concentrate itself on my electronic equipment (gym radios; 1 for FM/AM, 1 for TV) which should weather the sudsy storm nicely. Sigh.

The panic moment came when I tried to clean the shampoo off of my combination lock and all the paint came off of the dial. It took me a minute or two of trying to figure out what the hell to do with a lock with no numbers before I realized that there were numbers imprinted into the metal. Catastrophe was, once again, averted.

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Westward Expansion opens tomorrow night at 8pm. There’s a link to the NowCasting page for it on the sidebar, as well as a link to the Alliance. $10

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This isn’t a political blog, but I want to point out once again the fact that the ability to hand power over from one party to another without bloodshed is still a relatively rare thing in the world. Regardless of your political persuasion, congratulations, America.

WESTWARD EXPANSION

Opens November 10th, runs Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays until December 19th

With special wackiness as 365 Plays runs. Closed Thanksgiving.

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This is Tech Week for Westward Expansion. If you don’t do theatre, tech week is supposed to be the time when the acting work is done and the lighting, sound and prop people take over. In reality, it’s usually that plus unfettered panic from just about everybody.

This always happens. That’s theatre.

This should be an interesting show; it has a lot going on, it melds experimental and conventional elements and it’s short - which should serve to enhance the aforementioned melding. The final week is going to run concurrently with the Susan-Lori Parks ‘365′ week for the Alliance, which means we run every night that week. I’m strangely excited about that. It makes me feel nostalgic for a time that I’m fairly sure never actually happened in my life.

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Don’t Gag Me!

We’ll shoot Carla’s movie December 3rd & 4th. It should be a ton of fun. The script is snappy and funny, and Carla’s hot as hell. The acting will, of course, be outstanding.

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Last night, whilst attending Brendan’s birthday celebration at the Whaler on Washington, an extremely drunk woman either fell or bent over a table at me. Lacking any other means of support, she latched onto my neck with fingernails that must have been eight inches long and made of adamantium. I’m not saying she hit my brain stem, but I can still smell colors. She said something that might have been angry and might have been erotic, but I was too busy not feeling anything to know for sure.

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Yeah, that’s right. It’s a Backstreet Boys lyric. Don’t mess with me.

First things first: I auditioned a few weeks ago for a sci-fi thing that I heard about through my friend Emma (if you saw Anniversary at the Alliance, she was the Princess and a fetus….that’s a phrase I never expected to type.) I found out a few days ago that I’m in, and while I have very little in the way of details, I’m extremely excited. There’s a link on the side where you can check out the trailer. Emma’s the one who’s going to teach you about DARPA.

Carla’s script for the short looks sweet, but I don’t want to say too much. She wants to have the thing shot by the end of November, so that one looks to be firing up pretty quick here as well. She’s linked on the side there, too. Yeah, she’s gorgeous.

Westward Expansion has made the transition from a WIP to a play. I’m really happy with how it’s going, and we still have a ton of time. It’s going to be a lot of fun. Cecil’s writing that one and it’s opening at the Alliance on November 9th - both the Alliance and Cecil are over there on the side. The sidebar is pretty much the place to be.

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I’ve been talking a lot with friends and colleagues about why we pursue this nonsense career. I still feel like there’s something noble in coming out here and doing this, mainly because I don’t see the goal of life as a game with a scoreboard. The point is just to live, not to score goodie-two-shoes helpy points or own a bunch a stuff - and we give up a lot of security to pursue this silly life. Don’t worry, I’m also aware that it’s kind of dark and uniformly selfish. These things aren’t necessarily limited to acting or the industry, but dammit, I don’t know everything.

I see three types of people out here: first are those who ‘know’ they can do it. I put myself in that category - nobody else can, you either feel it or you don’t. I could be wrong, obviously, but that isn’t the point. The point is that I’ll keep at it forever because I know I can and if I don’t I’ll be dead eventually anyway.

Category two is those who don’t have that rock-hard certainty, but plug at it anyway. This describes most people out here, I think. Basically it’s ‘normal.’ People who don’t get what they want out of the industry and say ‘the hell with it, I’m going to law school’ are twos.

Category three is people who just don’t have the heart. I don’t know if they know it or not, but after a while it becomes clear to the rest of us. I worry about them. They can still make it, but it won’t do them much good - Kurt Cobain would be in this category.

It’s not particularly important to me to have categories except in how it helps me define myself in relation to others (see? selfish.) Why do I ‘know’ I can make it?

I’m incredibly insecure, and I’m also extremely arrogant. My current theory is that the former applies to who I AM and the latter to what I DO. Somewhere in the collision between the two, in the swirling interior nexus where my need for love and approval fights it out with my talent and the work I’m willing to do, there’s an answer.

For now, this illustrates where I am: I get people thinking they recognize me all the time. Sometimes they tell me that I look just like somebody they know. Sometimes I’ll be at a bar or something and hear people trying to figure out if they’ve seen me in something (they haven’t.) Sometimes I’ll walk by someone on the street and I’ll see that double-take and know they’re wondering if they know me.

And what I think to myself is: Wait a year. You will.