Picture-A-Day #020

Picture-A-Day #019

I look fat, but who cares? Well I sort of do, but it's me being all sleepy.

Donate Please!

Let's get our AIDS WALK on. Anything you can donate would be greatly appreciated it. I also want to say that if you don't donate...well that makes you sort of inhuman. Especially if you are any of the following: Gay or Fag Hag. That's like having a title but never acting out on it.

That's like being George W. Bush. George doesn't donate to the AIDS WALK, I am sure. Are you George W. Bush? No pressure. I'm just saying...

I have to get these moments down...

Lets start with the bad first shall we? As I was walking to school today I dropped my Lighting Design homework (you see where this is going don't you?) out of my book bag and realized it was missing three blocks later. I walked back quickly in time to see a small group of people picking it up. I worked it up to top speed walking and yelled to them, "Hey, excuse me! That's mine!"

Not that I'm racist (Re: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof). But these guys could give me enough material I could write a stand-up routine. When they turned it was two older Hispanic guys and a preteen. The first thing the guy says, "How much will you pay for it?" I just stared. The other guy goes, "Hey you need to be mo' polite when you ask for that! He has your papers and you're not askin' nicely? He picked them up!" WHAT?! This guy just tried to get me to pay him. I'm not asking nicely?!

"Can I have it back please?"

"I should make you pay me!"

"It's a school project."

"You need to ask mo' nicer!"

It may sound ridiculous, but I almost burst into tears. I hate confrontation. When people yell I have trouble breathing. My eyes just instinctively started to tear up. To make a long story short, he returned it. I turned and continued and need to breath deeply before I regained my composure. I'm a sad mess sometimes.

Another moment: My weird Jewish roommate who is a stoner and really awkward. Like REALLY. He's nice though, but he has social issues. He had a couple friends over and I was listening through the door. It was the absolute example of awkward. They all had different speech impediments. One stuttered, another sounded like he was deep and raspy (not necessarily a speech impediment) and the other spoke like Marlon Brando.

I sat there listening and absolutely transfixed! Then I was inspired by that idea for a show. Someone (or multiple people) sitting in their room listening, but eventually going on with their day. There is no sound of their life, what they sound like or anything. While in the background an entirely different life is going on. In the apartment next door or something. Just a thought I had, but a thought.

Lastly, Dance of the Vampires. These moments need to be remembered! What a mess of a show. The dancing is worse than anything Debbie Allen did with Carrie: The Musical. The whole show is a joke of mocking Vampire stories. The best part is the score was written by the people who wrote Total Eclipse of the Heart. So naturally they included that song into the show somewhere!

There's this scene when a giant coffin shoots out of the stage and reveals...Michael Crawford. Then when the servant becomes crazy and dresses in all leather for no apparent reason. Oh the best part! During the love song, the lead is transfusing his blood into the lead girl. They are singing and when they're about to touch. The professor steps on the tube giving her blood so they both pass out for a moment. Then he removes his foot and they continue singing as though nothing happen.

Hysterical! These moments must be preserved.

Picture-A-Day #018

I hate my Tuesday Lighting Design Class.

Picture-A-Day #017

Thought I forgot. But I didn't forget...I'm trying to never forget. This is me before bed.

A Weekend in the County

Three words: August: Osage County.
Two words: See it.
One word: Wow.

It was a very good show. I mean the story has been done before. Pill popping mother. Family coming together. Disaster after disaster. To see the two female powerhouses though was well worth it. At the end of the show I was walking through the lobby and they were doing Broadway Cares collection and I saw the woman who played Violet Weston. I told her she was phenomenal. She played crazy like I have never seen crazy played before. She played it so true.

Picture-A-Day #016

Just got home from running at the gym...here's what I look like at my worst.

Cat on a Black Tin Roof

Yes, that's right I went there. Today I saw Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. This was the first New York Production that was an all black cast. James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose and Terrance Howard all headlined this one.

Cat has never been my favorite 10 play. I'm more partial to The Night of the Iguana, which I'll be seeing in two weeks. Yet, that rarely gets a revival, meanwhile Cat gets a revival every couple of years (it seems). After today I understand why. TW wrote a brilliant, utterly brilliant play. The speech just flows to you and you are enraptured by it. Maggie's end of Act I speech is hypnotizing! The scene where Brick tries to hit Maggie is frightening but hilarious. Anytime Big Daddy is on stage you feel in Awe! With that said it doesn't mean the acting was on par with what I hoped for. Overall it was an interesting production, but the audience was what got me.

Anika was sensational as Maggie. And I'm not saying this cause I'm a gushing gay man. She was genuinely amazing. Her first Act tirades were well received by my ears. She's such a beautiful woman too and when she was in her slip my cheeks grew red.

James Earl Jones was demanding and powerful. He played Big Daddy as if the show was always written for him. He did make some acting choices that were fascinating. I wasn't sure they were choices, but I figured probably. He would squat at times and it just worked.

Terrance Howard was drunker than I expected. A little disappointing.

Phylicia was...well she was chewing the scenery as she's always done. She was good though. Watching this with an all black cast I realized how well it worked. I loved that they used the uncensored script, but some people disagree. If they only knew what replaced those words. Ducking? I ask you.

Now the audiences I'll say right off were primarily African-American. It's always an enlivening experience to go to the theater with a majority being black. When I saw the Color Purple, I may as well have been in a southern baptist church. Today's audience was that way, but what's sad is that many didn't know that this play it's a farcical comedy.

Oh and boy do I admit, Debbie Allen's directorial choices were to blame. The third act I think was a farce, people were coming and going. Comedy all around! So I can't tell if it was the audience who was looking for humor or it was the way it was directed. But they laughed at EVERYTHING.

"Are you calling me a queer?" Brick asks. They laugh.

"Big Daddy has cancer!" They laugh when Phylicia does something funny in her hysterics.

"I love you Brick." Maggie says to which Brick responds drunkenly, "If only I could believe you." The biggest laugh in the show.

In case you're unaware these are some of the most upsetting parts in the play. Did Debbie Allen search for the comedy (it's from doing all those Oscar shows) because she believed that Black people can't sit through a serious play? I mean there are some deep and tragic issues addressed in this show and while it's okay to laugh in the first act. Act II and III are not half as funny. Yet the laughter continued.

Confusing. Does thinking about this make a racist?

Picture-A-Day #015

I was with friends who were tourists and I thought it would be fun to let them make me a tourist. Oh those years.