Dinner Break

I have a lot of stories from dinner breaks on shows.  Whether it's between a matinée and an evening show, during a tech, or during long one-day events, I feel like half my journal entries are about dinner breaks.  This is partly because dinner break is the main time I have to write when I'm working and partly because since everyone has to eat, it's the one big unifier on a show that brings together cast, crew, band, designers... (or, occasionally, drives them apart).  Some of my favorite conversations have happened on dinner breaks, and so have some of the most memorable "did that really happen?" moments.  This is about one of the latter.

There's a Tony-winning actress of the stage and screen whom I particularly admire.  She can make you laugh and cry in the same moment; through her specificity and intelligence she can find depth and humor in any text; and she has an underlying grace and elegance even when playing the most caustic of characters.  I've always felt that if you combined Audrey Hepburn, Eve Arden, and Greer Garson, you'd come up with this actress (yes, my taste in movies is somewhat outdated.  This is what happens when every Friday growing up you always rent a movie from the "Classics" section of Blockbusters... but I digress.).  I would pay to see her in pretty much anything, and at the time of this incident, she was a regular on a short-lived, very under-appreciated TV show that I watched.  Her character had started as one of quite a few smaller players, but week by week she was becoming more central because her performance turned the character from a cliché to a goldmine of emotions and layers.  Anyway, I worked a gala with a bunch of Broadway and television actors.  At dinner break I turned the corner and there she was.  (I'd had no idea she was even at the event.)  And what did she say to me?  "F&#K it's cold in here!  Right? Hey, where'd you get that pizza?"

...Graceful, elegant, brilliant Tony winners curse and eat pizza?  What?  Nuh-unh.  When they speak, rainbows come out of their mouths, and surely they only eat the most refined cuisine (which was being served to the stars in another room. The pizza was for us nobodies.).  She got some pizza and ate it right next to me, standing up, leaning on a railing....  I've worked on events with celebrities who had three-page-long contract riders that included specific brands of candy, exotic fruits, and nuts, none of which they even ate, so it's nice to know that there are also some cursing, pizza-eating stars with a Tony at home who think nothing of forgoing the VIP room to eat a slice leaning over a railing with the rest of us.

I don't do "normal"

My fiancé, on phone, right after I answered: What are you doing?

Me: Eating a vitamin. It's chewable, and it tastes really bad and REALLY sour.

J: .....What did you say you were doing when I asked last night when I called?
 

Me: Sucking on a lemon.
 

J: It's never anything normal.  Eating a vitamin, sucking on a lemon, flossing....  Normal people answer "eating a bowl of ice cream," or "watching TV."
 

Me: If I were eating a bowl of ice cream, I probably wouldn't answer the phone.  I'd call you back.

When my 53rd time seeing a show is really my first

There are a handful of New York shows I've seen multiple times: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, just because it made me so happy; Lestat, because I was fascinated by how entertainingly, stunningly bad it was in some respects, while simultaneously containing such incredibly wonderful acting performances, and ultimately making me FEEL as much as I have at almost any show I've seen (and, going along with my post from last week, isn't that ultimately the real goal of live theatre?  If it makes you feel and fills you up, then isn't a show full of plot holes and ludicrous dialogue ultimately more successful than one that makes complete sense and is completely believable and you admire but leaves you empty?); Bridges of Madison County, because it made me cry like a baby for the last 20 minutes and feel a whole rainbow of colors; NYU Grad Acting's recent multi-version production of Three Sisters, which, through setting the show in two different time periods, remarkably created two entirely different shows....  What all those shows had in common, regardless of the subject matter or writing, was that the actors made every performance fresh, and no two performances were ever identical. There were always new moments, new beats, new discoveries that made me keep coming back, eager to unearth more layers or details that I had missed the previous time.

But no show have I seen more than The 39 Steps.  I ushered it when it was on Broadway, and if I remember correctly, I saw it 52 times... sort of.  The unique thing about those 52 performances is that not one of them did I see all the way through, due to my ushering duties and breaks.  We would rotate who was in the lobby, who was in the mezzanine (where if I sat I could hear but not necessarily see -- a very interesting way to experience this show in particular, as four actors play about 150 characters), and who was in the orchestra.  And of course I'd have to leave to take care of late seating and intermission duties.  Due to its "four actors play every role in the play, sometimes multiple roles at once, switching back and forth at lightning speed" nature, the show is highly choreographed... meaning that, at least on the surface, there would seem to be less flexibility for the actors to make every show its own fresh, living being.  Yet, through all those performances I ushered, I never got bored, the show never got stale, and I never tuned out during the parts of the show I was able to watch (or listen to).

 

So when I heard the play was being revived Off-Broadway, complete with original cast member Arnie Burton (whose transformative and comedic abilities are amazing), I jumped at the opportunity to see it... in an actual theatre seat, without a headset on.  In preparation, I watched the original Hitchcock film of the same name (on which it is based), and in the process I realized that there was actually one scene I had never seen at all.  And so my 53rd time seeing the show last weekend was in some ways my first time seeing it.  Though the current Off-Broadway production is the same production of the show that played on Broadway and toured, and though as I watched it I remembered most of the gags and jokes, I laughed every bit as genuinely at every single delightfully funny moment as my fiancé, who was seeing it for the first time.  I commented afterwards to him that it was difficult to believe that Burton in particular, who must have said those words and performed the exact same staging hundreds of times by now, wasn't experiencing his characters for the first time.  Every moment seemed boldly and energetically alive and fresh.  When a cast can somehow find a freedom even within strict choreographic and delivery requirements to make every performance seem organic and full of discoveries, not only does it make me forget that I know what's coming next, but, well... it just might make me go back for a 54th time.

I love elevator conversations

There's a very nice woman in my apartment building who looks very exotic, has an accent to match, works a Kim Kardashian body, and usually wears very fancy, sexy, expensive-looking clothes.  I don't know her name, but I call her Italy, and she's fabulous.  My jobs mean that on many occasions I am either leaving the building at 5am or coming home at midnight or later.  There obviously aren't a lot of people from the building that I usually encounter at these times, but Italy is one of them.  When I leave early in the morning, I sometimes pass her as she's coming home, all dressed up, and when I come home late at night, she's sometimes just on her way out.  I don't know what she does for a living, and I'm certainly not judging, but, well... I've wondered.  The other day, Italy and I both arrived home at the same time.  The lobby was inundated with the fumes of someone's way-too-strong perfume that they had clearly bathed in, and as soon as Italy and I were safely on the elevator away from the toxic fumes and the offending wearer, the following (one-sided) exchange occurred:

Italy: Woo! It smells like a whorehouse in there!

Me: [silently smiling back and nodding]

Italy: I mean not that I know what a whorehouse smells like.......

        (3rd floor)  ....I'm not saying this from first-hand experience or anything....
 

        (4th floor) .... It's not like I've ever been in a whorehouse....
 

        (5th floor)  ....I'm just saying it's what I imagine a whorehouse would smell like.
 

        (6th floor)  ..... If I'd been in one.
 

        (7th floor) ..... Which I haven't.  Been --  in a whorehouse.

                         ..... Okay, have a nice day.  Bye.

When I'd rather hate a play than think it was "nice"

Nothing leaves a sour taste in my mouth on my way out of a show like an usher blocking my way and belligerently asking, "Do you really need to keep your program?" with her arm already outstretched and hand open for it, giving me attitude when I said that yes, I would like to keep it.  I've worked on shows that recycled programs before, but we never did it aggressively or forced patrons (most of whom paid a hefty wad of money for their ticket, which really should include a few folded pages of construction paper if they want, telling them about the artists whose work they just paid to see) to give them up.  I will say this about the program-hustler, though: up until that point in my afternoon, I had neither a positive nor negative impression of the show, thinking it was merely pleasant and forgettable (which to me is the greatest sin in theatre).  Towards the end of the well-acted, well-staged play with believable dialogue and plot, I kept checking my watch, thinking surely it was running longer than its posted running time, and wondering if there were going to be any new discoveries or layers to explain why this wasn't a 45-minute one-act, since I had gotten the point about 20 minutes in and felt like I was now watching variations of the same scene over and over.  When it ended, I thought, "Eh.  It was pleasantly enjoyable for the most part.  Not something I will be thinking of 10 minutes from now.  And that's it."  Program-Hustler, however, tipped the scale, ensuring my overall impression of the whole experience wasn't just the damning "it was nice."

The last time I went to a play at this theatre, I strongly, actively disliked it.  "Hate" is perhaps not too strong a word.  I had heard both raves and pans about it, and when it was over, my friend and I walked a block in stunned silence before bursting out laughing and exclaiming, "HOW?! WHY?! WHAT?!"  I thought it was awful.  Yet I was still thinking about it (as much as I wished I weren't) for the next few days.  I'm not sure what the point of it was, and I really didn't understand what happened or why, leaving me feeling a bit cheated... but I have no doubt that the author knew the point and felt very strongly about it.  I knew it was a love-or-hate show, and I had discussions with friends who loved it about why.  I was genuinely curious.  And the last five seconds of that play still stand out in my mind crystal-clear as one of the strongest, most engaging final moments I've ever seen on stage.  I would pay good money to see a show that lives up to that ending.  Good or bad (to me bad... very bad), I am sure that every person in that theatre had an emotional reaction to that play.  Probably quite a few emotional reactions....

Thinking about that show as I left this one, feeling annoyed by the pushy program-hustler, my annoyance turned almost to anger as I processed the fact that an usher trying to rob me of my program was the only part of my theatre-going experience that I actually had an emotional reaction to.  I should have felt sad at the ending of this play, and I didn't.  I should have cared about these characters, but I really only did because I was told we were supposed to.  I should have disliked the antagonist, but I felt nothing for him.  I would have rather seen a play about what made him tick and why all the relationships are what they are than one where we're simply told what the relationships are as they serve as background for a plot whose outcome is really only relevant if we care about it as much as the characters on stage do.  And because I wasn't emotionally invested in them, I wasn't emotionally invested in the plot.

Feeling cheated because you didn't get a show or like it is one thing; feeling cheated because you didn't FEEL is quite another.  I think I prefer the former.

The Annotated Story of My First-Ever Job Interview

My oldest "from the archives" journal entry yet -- from the summer I turned 21.  Having just completed an internship at The Late Show With David Letterman and worked as a board op on an Off-Off-Broadway play during the preceding spring semester, I was taking a few on-campus classes at Indiana University that summer to finish up my graduation requirements while looking for jobs in NYC over the internet before moving here in August.  I responded to a posting for an Executive Assistant of a major, well-known industry player.  I got a call within the week from him for an interview.  Aside from internship interviews, it was my first professional job interview... and it is, to date, the strangest job interview I have ever had.  Though I've been telling this story ever since it happened, as I get older, the source of the ridiculousness of it all shifts from existing entirely in my interviewer's behavior and increasingly derives from my own response to the situation.  Were this interview to happen today, it would go quite differently....

I just had a job interview... in a cemetery.  And an ice cream parlor.  And a car.  Not in that order.  The ice cream was actually first.  There was ice-cream-eating while at the cemetery in the car.  While being interviewed.  My interview for the Letterman internship was a 3-hour multi-part interview in an office, where I interviewed with HR and then went around and interviewed with the heads of all the departments.  I thought real job interviews would be similar to, if shorter than, that.  Nope... not based on today....

After responding to the Playbill.com ad for a position as his Executive Assistant, I got a call from **** saying it just so happened he'd be in my area, and would I be available for an interview.  (How often does a New York entertainment industry executive "just happen" to be around Bloomington, IN?)  It sounded like he said something on the phone about being here because he wanted to look at cemeteries, but I thought I must have heard him wrong.  (Nope! Didn't hear him wrong!)

So we set the location (not a building -- a corner of two streets), and when I got there and we figured out who each other was, he asked me to get in his black SUV.  [Note from 2015 --  "Hey, I'm a stranger to you, so let's meet for this interview on the corner of two streets, and then you're going to get into my black SUV" sounds like a GREAT way to set up an interview and something I should definitely have just gone along with as I did.  Very professional.  Not at all sketchy. Yep, 2015 me is TOTALLY on board with my behavior here so far.... ]  I was dressed in office appropriate attire... as I thought one did at job interviews to be an Executive Assistant.... His tee-shirt and shorts didn't quite match my professional dress.  I was feeling very awkward and wondering if the interview was going to be in his car when he asked if I wanted ice cream.  I said no thanks, and he insisted.  [This scenario is SO not getting any sketchier.  Middle-aged stranger asks 21-year-old co-ed to get in black SUV and then makes her eat ice cream. Yeah, so far just a normal professional interview.  Definitely does not remind me of anything.]  I didn't know what to say, so I let him buy me ice cream (he wanted to know my favorite flavor and if I preferred chocolate or vanilla...), wondering where this was going.  He then asked if I could tell him how to get to a certain cemetery.  [...21-year-old me clearly didn't watch horror films --  Middle-aged dude gets girl in black SUV, plies her with ice cream, and then DRIVES HER TO A CEMETERY -- Nope, nothing suspicious there....  At least I don't remember seeing a shovel in his backseat.]  I responded that no, I wasn't familiar with any cemeteries, and I realized that was my first interview question (well, aside from my preference in ice cream flavors).  He condescendingly asked, "Haven't you lived on campus here for a few years?  You don't know the area?  You can't give me directions around the town in which you live?"  Feeling like I had done something wrong, I replied that if he had asked about a restaurant or a bank or the grocery store, I could give him directions, but I had no reason to ever go to a cemetery before [nor should I have right then, either].  So he pulled out a map, handed it to me, and asked if I could at least read a map.  I said yes of course, opened it up, and wondered if I should actually direct him to the cemetery or to the mall so I could jump out and run [The MALL!! Choose the mall!].  He kept asking me how long until we got there [Dude, you're not a kid and I'm not your mom, and how should I know?], and somewhere along the way as I was trying to figure out what in the world was going on, he told me there was one particular grave he really wanted to see [Yeah -- mine, perhaps? Really... Should have gone with the mall option].  He asked me some other actual job-interview questions, most of which were insulting: I "look like an actress," so would I "take an assistant position seriously or be off auditioning?"; why is he "supposed to believe" that I want to work in film and television rather than theatre?  (Why can't I want to work in both but take a first job in whichever I can get? I don't even understand that question.  Why is it a problem if I'm passionate about theatre?)

We finally got there (it's not even in the town, so there is no reason I would know of its existence even if I drove all around Bloomington regularly), and he asked me to jump out and get a map of the graves, which I did [Girls in horror movies always overlook their opportunity to run for freedom... sigh], wondering if he was really looking for a particular grave or for an empty plot. [Empty plot. Duh.]   I directed him towards the grave he wanted, he parked the car, I was very relieved that my door was unlocked, and he asked me to lead him to the tombstone.  [So the main requirement of his assistant is that she be able to direct him to graves. Mmhmm, that seems normal.]  I think somewhere along the line he told me why he was so interested in this tombstone, but I wasn't really paying attention; I was looking around to see if there were other people nearby. [Good girl!]  There were.  That made me happy.

He was telling some history story about either the cemetery or the dead guy under the tombstone, and I think I was pretty obviously not interested, and certainly not engaging, trying to keep this as short as possible so we could get back to an area where the majority of the people weren't underground.... Before too long, he got back in, I directed him back to campus, he said I was too young to be his executive assistant (because I aged backwards during the interview? How old did he THINK I was? My cover letter said I'd be graduating this summer), but that I should call him when I got to the city and I could intern for him.  Then he said he enjoyed getting ice cream with me (ice cream I didn't want in the first place), and I held my breath wondering if the car door would really be unlocked or not.  It was, and I got out.

And that was my first job interview.

I consider this first job interview to be a success, both because I lived through it and didn't wind up calling that cemetery home or digging any graves, and because I somehow actually got offered an internship through it.   And most of all, because I knew enough not to take him up on that offer.  Instead, my first week here I got an awesome job as a production assistant on a new musical with the fabulous Eartha Kitt.  The job interview for that one did not involve cemeteries, ice cream, or black SUVs.

The difference is that I get paid

From my journal archives, when I was the assistant stage manager of an Off-Broadway play:

Two patrons of last night's show, while watching me clean up the coffee another woman spilled in the first row/ border of stage with my gigantic roll of paper towels that I keep at my ASM station (actually for my nose bleeds, but sure, let's go with being prepared) right before the show started:

Older lady 1 (to Older lady 2): She's so fast and thorough! And she didn't make that lady feel bad about it! She must be a mother!

Older lady 2: No, not yet. She's too young!
Older lady 1: Then she's a big sister. She's so good at cleaning up messes!  She clearly deals with little kids (To me): Are you a mother?
Me: No, but I'm a stage manager.  Sometimes it's kind of the same thing.

Why I Love Theatre, Part 2

When I was in the 6th grade, I won a speech-writing competition sponsored by the service association Sertoma on “The Importance of Freedom.”  To honor us, they held a luncheon for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place finishers where we delivered our speeches to a large group of local business people.  Though I had no problem speaking loudly on stage when I was acting, I had never spoken into a microphone before, and I overcompensated, speaking a bit too quietly while delivering my speech.  My mom attended, and I asked her afterwards if it was bad.  She said that though it was a little quiet, it was just enough that it made everyone lean in; you could see the audience leaning forward during my speech, totally engaged in listening to every word.  I decided that was pretty cool, and I've always wanted to achieve that effect without it being just because I speak quietly.

Today I auditioned for a room of about 15 people.  The room was fairly small, and projection was not an issue.  Towards the end of the scene, I lean forward to tell the other character something very important and very emotional.  As I took a breath and leaned forward, about to bare my character's soul, I saw the entire room respond by simultaneously taking a breath and leaning forward in their seats as well, as if it were choreographed.

Many times, as a member of the audience, I've experienced that incredible moment where the audience is emotionally invested and there's a palpable energy between the performer and the audience as we get wrapped up into the world on stage… But I've never before experienced it as an actor.  And it was awesome.