It's My Dog's World: I Just Live In It

How to fix a play: add dogs

I realize that I have finally gone from tough-minded dramaturg/literary manager to crazed dog person. Saw a good play yesterday with some serious plot holes. First thought: "Well, why don't we get the lead character a puppy?"

Actor Cheyenne Jackson with his adopted dog Zora. 

 

 

 

The Man Who Invented Kissing

That's the name of the monologue I wrote that was performed last night by the glorious Sharon Pinney at the Cornelia Street Cafe!  Let's see if this works.  Testing, testing...

The Man Who Invented Kissing

Fringe's Michael Cerveris: What the dog has taught him

So...no dog content in this entry.  Well, almost.  I went to see Sarah Ruhl's "in the next room, or the vibrator play," which is about a lot of things, but most especially about a doctor in the 1880s, who, like many doctors of the time, used a vibrator to dispel women's lethargy.

I'll probably be writing about this play for a few days. Maddening, wonderful, finally: maddening.  Ruhl's got great ambition, a brilliant voice...and yet..the politics of the play bugged me.

But let me be honest...I went in large part because Michael Cerveris was in it. (Also Quincy Tyler Bernstine, who deserves her own post.)  Cerveris blew me away as Sweeney Todd.  Icy, sexy, relentless, even funny.  How pleased, then, was I to see him as "The Observer" in the Fox show "Fringe."  Creepy, creepy, utterly compelling, and without eyebrows. In real life, the well-eyebrowed Michael Cerveris is devoted to his dog Gibson, who you can hear barking in this interview.

And here their lives collide:

 

In this interview, he reveals this about the Observer:

I based a lot of the physicality on watching [my dog] Gibson observe things; there’s a slight tilt to the head.

90 percent of life is showing up. Especially in the theater...

So Jeff and I saw SPEED-THE-PLOW yesterday, and it got me thinking about commitment.

SPEED-THE-PLOW got some probably unwanted press because of the early abrupt exit of one of its stars, Jeremy Piven, who claimed he had become very ill due to mercury poison, brought on by overconsumption of sushi.  It's possible that Piven really is ill.   When I saw the show, very early in the run, Piven seemed tired and out-of-sorts, but i wrote it off to the struggle to master Mamet's rat-a-tat-tat.  It's hard stuff.

What's pretty clear, based on the press--and the response of the cast, crew, and even David Mamet himself, is that Piven had managed to build up zero sympathy (or "social capital," as the sociologists say) from his community at the time of his leaving.   The blogs and tabloids have gone to town speculating about Piven's late night habits.  Raul Esparza, his co-star, made it clear there was no love lost, that the first time he'd felt like the cast was a team was when he and co-star Elisabeth Moss had acted with Jordon Lage, the show's male understudy.  Esparza announced this from the stage of the play, no less.

This is a good lesson to learn.  "It's a people business," Mamet says in his play.  And because it's a people business, Norbert Leo Butz, a lovely (Tony-winning!) actor who would probably never gotten a chance to do the show otherwise because he's been pigeonhold as a musical comedy whiz (WICKED, DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS), gets to feel a kind of love from cast and audience that Piven never would. 

90 percent of life is showing up, Woody Allen once said. 

Butz learned the part in under three weeks and came in as Piven's replacement just before Christmas.  We saw him yesterday, and it was definitely funner than the first time--especially as you could feel the audience rooting for Butz...to win.    The curtain call was a love fest, with Esparza, Butz, and Moss bowing together, goofing around, clearly a team. 

Butz hadn't just shown up, he'd actually nailed the lines, come up with new business, and brought a poignancy to the difficult scene between him and Elisabeth Moss, where he's revealed as a schmuck seeking salvation.   Butz's character may be sleazy, but his performance has all the earmarks of a triumphant underdog.  Go see it. 

You Can Do It: Audition For My Play! (Or Some Other Wonderful Playwright's Work)

The auditions for the Estrogenius Festival 2008, where my very Jersey-flavored, Oprah-mocking play will be performed, begin July 25th.  Estrogenius runs for four weeks, has boodles of plays, and offers actors and actresses lots of opportunities to strut one's stuff.   My favorite character description:  "Female, 20’s-40’s, A turtle who has done this many times."  Awesome.  I will so be seeing that play. 

Here's the FAQ.  Please pass it around.   Go here for more audition information.

Can I audition for more than one play in a week? IF there’s time in your slot, you may
read for another play. You are certainly free to express to all the directors (you’ll be seen
by a rep from each play & any of them can call you back) all the plays in which you have
interest.
Can I audition for more than one week? There is NO DOUBLE CASTING in
Estrogenius. Once you are cast, you must stop auditioning. Until you are cast, you are
free to audition for all subsequent weeks. (The only exceptions are walk on or under five
roles)
Should I mail in/drop off/email a headshot/resume before auditions? All pic/resumes
dropped off before the date of your audition will go into our general files. Bring 3-5
pic/resumes each week you come to open call.
Are any of the plays pre-cast? No.
When do the sign up sheets go up for weeks 2-4? Sign up sheets go up the Monday
before the auditions. This gives us a chance to make sure we’ve notified all those cast in
the previous week so actors know whether they’re eligible to keep auditioning.
Is Estrogenius an Equity showcase? Yes. We will be casting Equity & non-Equity
actors.
Is there pay? We wish. Estrogenius is entirely run by volunteers.
Can I take scripts home or copy them? NO. All reading is IN HOUSE ONLY. Please
respect our writers & leave scripts here.
When are sides available? Sides will be available by noon on the day of auditions.
Are there roles for men? Of course. There are roles for men & women, various ages &
types.

No Dogs in this Post, But Please Read It Anyway

[title of show] rules. Go see it.  It's the little engine that could--on Broadway.  Explanation, sort of here.

You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll get addicted to their crazy YouTube channel.  (There is a dog in one of their episodes who rivals Jack Bauer...so...hey, I lied, there is a dog in this post!)

Broadway Tails, Legally Blonde Dogs, and Bernadette Peters

Okay, I'm NOT a photographer. I'm just a writer, and a dog person, and I didn't bring my good camera, just my phone. So, let me say in advance--Bernadette Peters is BEAUTIFUL, even if my camera is shaky and pixelated.  She is beautiful, even sitting down on the cold floor of the Public Theater beside all manner of theater dogs trained by the glorious Bill Berloni--the latest Sandy, the lovely bulldog Chloe of the musical Legally Blonde, the feisty Chico also of Legally Blonde. Also beautiful:  Orfeh, the gifted singer/performer/comedienne, and her bodacious husband Andy Karl, who steal Legally Blonde whenever they are onstage.

Most beautiful of all: the reason for why these people and dogs are together--to honor Bill Berloni's book, written with Jim Hanrahan,  "Broadway Tails," which tells all kind of amazing stories about rescued dogs (and a few cats, lambs, pigs and rats) who find their salvation with Bill and stardom on the stage. The book party was also a fundraiser for Petfinder and the Humane Society, also beautiful, and Bill gave a shoutout to Broadway Barks, the pet adoption/theater event in Shubert Alley--founded by Mary Tyler Moore and the beautiful Bernadette Peters. (Bernadette herself has also written a really fun kids' book--complete with CD--about the event, called Broadway Barks.) In the pictures below, Bernadette is petting the current Sandy.  So buy the book!  Because it is beautiful!  (P.S., welcome all the visitors from the Bernadette Peters site...Bill features some wonderful stuff about Bernadette in his book and GYPSY...so...did I mention that you should buy it?)

Tony Awards: Way Less Pale, A Little More Female, But Still Proof That The Brits Beat Us Hands Down in the Crazy

Random Tony-watching thoughts:

Whoopi SHOULD guest star in Spring Awakening.

Director Anna D. Shapiro wins!  Once again, Chicago theater shows New York its crazy work ethic--they hire the best guy for the job--regardless of the guy's gender.

Lin-Manuel Miranda wins and gives a shout-out to Sondheim. Yea! In awkward rap. Not so yea.

Stew wins, off camera, but still needs some camera time so he puts on Groucho glasses over his Groucho glasses when the camera pans over him for a different nomination.  I downloaded the album today, and it still makes my skin jump. Man, do I want to work with this guy.   

Mark Rylance wins, and, with a tiny, surreal prose poem acceptance speech, establishes that the Brits still have the market cornered on gorgeously crazy.

Yet Another Reason To Love Being in New York Right Now (Even as the Apocalypse Looms)

Go see this. Now. 

The Homecoming: Men Are STILL Dogs

I first saw Harold Pinter's The Homecoming when I lived in Pittsburgh, which means...gack...at least 27 years ago.  The play deals with the return of a college professor and his wife to his working class home...and after that, all  narrative bets are off. I saw the Broadway production a few weeks ago. I am happy to say I think it kicks ass. 

I saw it in part to satisfy my fangirl cravings:  James Frain, Ian McShane, and Raul Esparza are three of its stars, and they all twinkle in my Imaginary Boyfriend pantheon.  But I've also realized, lately, what a gift it is to work just a couple of blocks from Broadway, and to have a couple of bucks to rub together, and a bit of time to see stuff.  So:  I'm seeing stuff. So I saw it on a snowy Tuesday night, and I found it dazzling.  Inscrutable, but dazzling.  Most of the cast did a talkback after the show, led by the python-like NY Post critic Michael Riedel, who has the nasty gift of reducing almost everything to a Page Six blind item.  The cast's good cheer and smarts just...SAILED over Riedel. 

What I remember most vividly the first time I saw The Homecoming was how...SERIOUS it was.  And slow. It was Pinter, it was the  70s or early 80s, and he was a god. And you speak God's words...slowly. What's lovely about this production is that it's not so serious.  Pinter's a functioning playwright, here, and that's great.  The play's still dark and strange, but Esparza and McShane, especially, rat-a-tat-tat their dialogue like good comedians, and Eve Best, who plays The Wife With The Curious Background,  gives as good as she gets from Esparza.  If you loved him as Bobby in Company, well...you won't recognize him here, and you definitely won't love him.  He's a brute in pointy sideburns.  And Best is...pure ice.

Meanwhile, McShane, so frightening in Deadwood, hints at the terror he might have caused as a young man...and the terror he feels at becoming an old man.  The rest of the cast is splendid--Frain, Michael McKean, Gareth Saxe.  I'm glad I got the chance to see it.