Auditions Tonight for Praying Small...

Auditions tonight for my play Praying Small. It opens on June 11 at NoHo Arts where I am the playwright-in-residence. I'm delighted to have found a very fine director, Victor Warren. He has a long resume, a very successful writer, actor and director through the years, a former New Yorker like myself and smart as a whip. I have high hopes.

The play has a long history of success. As I have mentioned before, it deals with recovery from addiction. And what seems to happen, in past productions anyway, is that the recovery community latches onto the play through word of mouth (it's ethically not too cool to advertise with AA and NA) and comes out in droves. It's a money-maker.

Doing the lead role myself. I didn't plan it that way, it just sort of fell in my lap. But I'm happy to do it. I almost did it once before in a Chicago production but backed out at the last second. This time is different, though. I really want to do it this time.

I've also agreed to do a role in a night of one-acts called SANITY with the theatre. Haven't read that play yet.

And another play of mine, Bachelor's Graveyard, will go up one-night-only for a stage reading.

And I'm writing a one-act play for the highest bidder at our fund raiser. A charming lady bid on the idea and after the silent auction I spoke to her. The idea is to write a short play about the night a couple met. Then, using actors in the company, we actually perform it for the couple in the theatre. They have snacks and wine and the theatre to themselves. Kind of neat, really. So I spoke to this lady and found out she had bid for not herself but her grandmother. The grandmother is in her eighties and she was a WWII bride. I can't wait to talk to her, get the story, write it, and put it up for her on her birthday which is June 19. This turned out to be not just a good idea for the theatre, but also something inherently good. I like it when things work out like that.

Plus the screenplay for Praying Small. No real deadline there, but things look quite promising on that front.

Just got the new headshots and signed up on ActorsAccess, a casting site out here in L.A.

Meeting some agents and managers out here soon, too. Angie's background as a casting director is proving invaluable in this regard.

Life is full and good. Honest and true. I'm beginning to sound like Hemingway, "And the wine was true. And the man was satisfied. The man smiled. The man was full and good."

So much on my plate. And I really am living the life I've dreamt of for nearly three decades.

I feel like a guy with twenty bucks in his pocket and has just ordered a really good ten dollar meal. I'm gonna eat well and still have ten bucks left.

See you tomorrow.