Fourth of July Memories...

Fourth of July.  Brings to mind the show 1776.  For the longest time an underrated musical.  Sort of disappeared for awhile.  Then made a big comeback in the late nineties with a revival in NYC.  It is one of my favorite non-Sondheim musicals.  First time I did it was at Mill Mountain Theatre with a wonderful cast of some twenty or so actors.  Jim Barbour doing Jefferson, Bev Appleton as Adams in one of my favorite performances of that era of my life.  Raymond Sage as a stirring Rutledge.  And a very fine actor, unfortunately I've forgotten his name, as Dickenson (the role I always secretly wanted to play).  I was doing Richard Henry Lee in that production.  Some years later I took a swing at Adams myself.  But the Mill Mountain production was the better one, I have to admit.  Bev was the perfect Adams.  He fit that role better than I did.  And Jimmy, of course, a very fine Jefferson.  But more than the talent involved in that show, which was formidable, was the camaraderie we shared in that play.  Having done a few skits in my life, I know that sometimes a cast clicks and, well, sometimes it doesn't.  No one's fault, just the way it is.  My second 1776 cast didn't click so well.  I mean, it was fine, but not wonderful.  But the first one, the one in Virginia, we had a blast together.  That's the one I remember fondest.

That cast was a poker cast.  I loved it.  After the performance every night we would all gather in the kitchen of the old Mill Mountain housing and play into the wee small hours.  Nickel ante.  Nothing serious.  If you won or lost twenty bucks in a night it was a big night.

The theatre had purchased the area above a couple of storefronts across the street from the stage, which incidentally was beautiful, one of my favorite LORT theaters I've ever worked.  Anyway, the housing area, above these stores, consisted of about twenty or so nice-sized rooms, a commons area to watch TV, etc., a huge communal kitchen and a nice little balcony off the back.  Some years earlier the place had been a bordello, a whore house, and every now and then the buzzer would buzz and I'd go down the long stairs and answer the door and some old guy would be there to inquire about the women.  Word hadn't gotten completely around that a bunch of actors stayed there now.  Once, when I was doing You Can't Take it With You at that theatre (I did about 15 shows throughout the nineties there) I answered the door and there was an old guy, kinda drunk, with bib overalls on, about half his teeth missing, and he said, upon seeing me, "Um, can you still get women here?"  I paused a second and said, "Well, yeah.  But you're gonna have to spring for a dinner and talk endlessly about how good she was on stage tonight."  He just stared at me and then sort of staggered away.

Anyway, nightly poker in the theater housing.  What great memories.  We all took it very seriously.  This wasn't an excuse to drink.  No, we gathered up our nickels and dimes and quarters every night and played some very serious poker.  Sometimes till dawn.

That was the show I learned to play, I blush to confess, 'Pass the Banana.'  This was a highly unprofessional thing that a bunch of testosterone-laden guys would play every night much to the chagrin of the stage manager. Remember, this was big-time professional theatre, now.  It worked like this:  one actor, at the beginning of the show, would bring a banana onstage with him.  Because of our circa 1776 costumes, there was always ample places to hide it.  And he would, at some point, clandestinely pass it to another actor onstage who would then pass it to someone else and so on.  At the end of the night, whoever had the banana would have to buy the first round of beers for the entire cast after the show.  There were only two rules:  the audience could never see the banana and you could never refuse it if someone tried to give it to you.  Just a terribly unprofessional thing to do.  I loved it.

1776 at Mill Mountain Theatre.  One of my fonder regional theatre memories.

Barbour used to accuse me in that show of upstaging him with my baggy tights.  He would swear that I was wearing these baggy tights just to draw focus.  Used to drive him nuts.  The truth was they were just baggy.  There was nothing I could do about it.  And I kinda thought they fit my image of the slovenliness of Richard Henry Lee, too, so I never tried to get new ones.

Not surprisingly, most of that cast went on to really make a mark in NY theatre.  A bunch of actors that were hired for that one show, all of us doing supporting roles, that later went on to do mostly leading roles in big theaters around the country and in New York.  Just one of those happy accidents.

A good show last night.  One of my old college professors, Dr. Linda Park-Fuller was in attendance.  I think she really liked it.  Full house.  Very vocal audience.  Everybody was having a good night onstage.  I enjoyed myself quite a bit.

Ange and the puppies and I are gonna have a quiet fourth.  Just gonna grill a bit here at the house and watch some old movies.  The kind of day I adore.  Hanging out with my soon-to-be-wife and my puppies.  Life is good.  Life is surprisingly and undeservedly good.

See you tomorrow.

There Simply IS no weak link...

Good show last night.  Not quite a full house.  A little hesitant in spots for me, but that's the case sometimes after a few days off.  The proposal monologue is still giving me fits at times.

Our Backstage notice never did come out.  Not sure why.  Probably because they didn't have room what with the LA Fringe Festival and all.  At least that's my guess.

Angie put together a bunch of the reviews and framed them individually for the lobby yesterday...it looks really great.  We had a our dear friends Don and Donna Dieken in to see the show last night.  I think they enjoyed it.  Also my old buddy, Joe Hulser, came in to give it a peak.  He seemed to enjoy it, too.

A good crowd, overall.  They seemed to get the dark humor in the piece which is always gratifying.

What I especially love is watching the other actors grow and settle in to these roles.  Rob and Brad and Tara really are finding spots that they enjoy acting, one can tell, and expounding on those comfortable moments.  There is a scene toward the end of the play with Brad and I in a bowling alley (I think we're in bowling alley anyway...not quite sure WHY we're in a bowling alley, but we do the scene as though we were in a bowling alley...either a bowling alley or in Dresden during the firebombing of WWII, one or the other...I tend to think it may be a bowling alley...makes a bit more sense...but it's possible, I suppose, we could be in a Navajo Teepee during a pony raid...anyway, let's just say bowling alley for the sake of argument) that went particularly well last night.  It's a lot of fun to do that scene with Brad.  Very focused and specific and tight.  I like that.

Rob has turned his final and sad scene in a dive bar in the second act into an aria.  It's really amazing to watch and since the scene is pretty much all his, I DO get to watch it every night.  Just heartbreaking work.  Myself, I've never really liked playing "drunk" onstage.  I always come across a little too 'Foster Brooks' for my taste. I have trouble nailing the believability factor, oddly enough.  Not so with Rob.  His drunk comes across as a man that's been drunk for months, a physically depleted, emotionally bankrupt man with nothing to lose and no where to go.  Really just tragic stuff and Rob does it full out, no apologies and makes the whole scene about it.  It's too early in the play for me to let the floodgates loose and start crying but he makes it really hard to not do that.  It's a tour de force of a scene for him and one I honestly think will earn him an Ovation Award come January.

Rob has become the prime interpreter of my work.  He is the first person I think of when I'm writing something new.  He has become DiNero to my Scorcese, if I might be so bold.  He's doing the lead in my play Bachelor's Graveyard and after that the male lead in another play of mine, A Pedestrian God.  As far as I'm concerned he can keep doing the leads in my plays as long as he wants.  What's more, he'll be doing, although he doesn't know it yet, the lead in my newest and largest canvas, Heavyweights of the Twentieth Century.  That's a piece I'm holding on to until it's exactly how I want it.  I've halted work on it for the time being because Angie and I are sharing an old laptop these days, circa 1942.  It's missing a 'W' key and takes about a month and a half to boot up.  I'm typing on it now.  It tends to freeze now and then and one has to practically sacrifice a male baby to Loki, God of tricks, to get it to boot back up.  So until I get a better computer to write on, my work will have to wait.  I think Angie finds this especially tedious because nothing makes her happier than to look out the window into the office and see me clattering away on a keyboard, deep in thought while working on a new piece.

In Bachelor's Graveyard, Rob has a monologue about the Ali/Foreman fight of 1974 that is, quite literally, four pages long.  It's damned near impossible to act.  I know because I've tried it myself.  Every now and then he brings it up in conversation with me (they're in rehearsal for that play now) with a certain wry grin.  He knows I've written a damn-near-impossible piece of writing and instead of obsessing over it, he keeps plugging away at it.  What's more, I have not the slightest doubt he'll find the hook in it and make it amazing.  Frankly, I can't wait to see it.

Tara Lynn Orr, too, has found a rhythm, a centered spot, for her last scene in the play.  It's a doozy.  She's called upon to really let fly the dogs of empathy, as it were.  She played with it for quite some time, trying to find the exact place she needs to be emotionally for that scene, and finally nailed it.  It's a sterling piece of work.  She throws herself into it with a fervor.

It's such a pleasure to work with these seasoned pros, all of them.  The dressing room before and after the show is particularly fun.  We all sort of speak in an actor's shorthand because between us all we've probably got about five hundred plays under our collective belt.  So our conversation backstage is peppered with dry observances about the play and theatre in general.  It's been a long time since I've felt so completely at home and comfortable with a group of actors.  There is no weak link.  I've said it before, but a play is only as good as the weakest actor in it.  I'm delighted to note, we simply don't have a weak actor.

One of the ways I know this is because we are constantly making fun of each other's work...and no one is the least bit defensive.  Why is this?  Because we all know we're at the top of our game.  We know we're doing good work and we know everyone else in the cast knows we're doing good work and what's more we know how much respect there is for that among us.  It's a fun and funny dressing room.

Brad nailed it last night before the show when he said, "It's like drilling for oil.  You drill and drill a hundred times before you find it.  And when you do it's magic.  We've found it."  Now, this is not a bunch of people sitting around patting themselves on the back.  We all went through the storm to get here.  And make no mistake, it was a storm.  This was not, for many reasons. an easy show to mount.  But we did and we're doing our best.  And having been in a few plays myself over the years, I can say with complete truthfulness, our best is pretty goddamned good.  I'd put this cast in this show on any stage in America right now.  That's how proud and certain I am of being a part of this group of actors.

It's Fourth of July weekend, not known for a big turnout in the theatre.  Consequently we're a little light tonight in the audience.  We don't have a show tomorrow as we normally would because of the holiday.  The reviews we've received, LA Times and LA Weekly specifically, have helped a little, I think.  We still haven't found our core audience as productions past have.  But we still might.  It's hard to tell.  But I know this much, once the recovery community finds out about us, once the word of mouth starts working, once we reach the people that identify with this play the strongest, it could run for a long, long time.   I've seen it happen.  Twice in Chicago, in fact.  The first run for four months and the second for three months.  The recovery community heard about it and did not disappoint.  They came in droves.  And they kept coming.  And kept coming.  This could happen here, too.  I'm not discounting it yet.  And that makes two things happen...one, someone is going to make some serious money with the piece and two, we can all hold our head very high because we're doing something altruistic and right and noble.  And having been there before, that's a wonderful, wonderful feeling.

See you tomorrow.

The Big Three...

Above, Ralph Richardson, Lawrence Olivier and John Geilgud in their only film appearance together, WAGNER, starring Richard Burton.

I am fascinated with the great stage actors of the twentieth century.  Relics of a golden time.  I'm speaking mostly of the Brits.  Olivier, Geilgud, Richardson, Guinness, Redgrave, even Burton and O'Toole.  There are a few that are even now still around, Finney, Scofield, Courtney and of course, Hopkins.  I'd give anything to hang out with Sir Anthony all day and hear his stories.  Although from what I understand, Sir Anthony is completely bored with such talk.

Angie actually had the great pleasure, back in her casting associate days, of spending an entire day with Sir Anthony Hopkins.  She says he was the absolute picture of perfect British charm and politeness.  To this day I think she has a bit of a crush on Sir Anthony.

I have read everything I can get my hands on over the years with regards to these guys.  An era that will never come again.

Olivier, of course, was the top of the food chain.  Back in the day, my good buddy Jim Barbour, was an Olivier freak.  Loved him.  When we first met, many years ago, we would have endless, sophomoric conversations about the various pros and cons of the two great forces of twentieth century acting - Olivier and Brando.  In fact, we were doing a play together when news reached us of Olivier's death.  Jim was dumbstruck.  Just devastated.   Years later, I was down in Florida doing a play, when news of Brando's death reached me.  I immediately contacted Jim.  Our respective idols were now dead.

Ah, to be working in the theatre in those days...the 1920's through about 1965.  Back when stage was still considered to be the lion's den of performance and film still regarded as an easy but profitable way to make some money so one could return to the stage to do the real work.  When the great roles of Shakespeare were  considered the litmus test for any actor looking to be regarded among the greats.  Back when people spoke of an actor's Hamlet or his Lear or his Cassus or his Iago or his Romeo.  Doing a compare and contrast study of their work.

Along with Hopkins, Sir Ian McKellan is still around to carry this mantle, this royal pedigree handed from one actor to the next.  Finney and O'Toole are still around, too, but both are in ill-health now.

The stories are boundless.  Olivier and Geilgud swiching roles in the famous 1933 Romeo and Juliet...One night one would play Romeo, the next Mercutio.  They didn't really care for one another, Olivier and Geilgud, by all accounts.  Geilgud was of a refined and rigid school of thought concerning performing Shakespeare.  Olivier, on the other hand, was hell-bent on making The Bard accessible to everyone, speaking the text so as to make it universally understandable.  Geilgud was the poet, Olivier, the plumber.  And then there was the third member of 'the big three,' Sir Ralph Richardson, possibly the most inherently fascinating of them all.  He served as both Olivier's and Geilgud's best friend, and yet, according to many, was the one they both admired the most.  One can see his famed quirkiness in a few films...The Wrong Box, Richard III, the television mini-series, Wagner, in which Richard Burton played the composer and was the only time all three, Oliver, Geilgud and Richardson appeared together onscreen.  In private they called each other 'Larry, Johnny and Ralphy.'

In this blog, over the past 150 entries or so, I've recounted many of the stories of those days.  Oh, to have seen any one of them onstage.  I know people that know them.  Two degrees of separation, as it were.  I have worked with actors that have worked with them.  That, in itself, endlessly fascinates me.

Back when I was a very young actor, I worked with a guy, then in his seventies, that had done some eight or nine plays with Geilgud.  Sitting and chatting with him was sheer delight for me.  He told wonderful stories of being directed by the great Geilgud.  How he would tell his actors upon the first day of blocking, "Don't bother to write anything down for a couple of weeks because I shan't be using any of the blocking I'm giving you today."  How another time he stopped rehearsal for a full hour to swap gardening tips.  How he would, on occasion, rise to his feet and do long passages of Shakespeare from memory just to give the actors an idea of what he wanted.

I worked with another actor in NY years ago that had done a couple of plays with Olivier when he was running The National.  How Olivier would sometimes be directing a show and suddenly leap onstage and simply say, "Do it this way."  And then proceed to do exactly what he wanted the actor to do.  Heresy in this day and age.

Back in the old days in NY there used to be a huge, Equity lounge area in the old AEA office.  I once sat and talked to an old actor there for hours about working with Burton in Hamlet in 1963.  How Burton would sort of shuffle through the rehearsal every day and then suddenly and without warning do the role full-out for a few minutes and leave everyone in the room aghast at his fiery and intense talent and then just as suddenly go back to his apparent disinterest in the role.

I worked with an old-timer once in, of all places, Dallas, who had done Lear with Richardson and how when Sir Ralph did the death scene one day in rehearsal and said the last lines of the part, "Pray, undo this button," he let out a girlish chirp, like "a small bird had died" and then simply looked heavenward and closed his eyes.  The effect, this actor told me, was as "close to actual magic as I'd ever been."

We can still see some of the great performances on film.  Not exactly the same, but enough to give us an idea of what the actual stage performance must have been like.  In fact, right now I have a DVD sitting beside me of the 1955 Julius Caesar with Geilgud as Cassius and Brando as Mark Antony.  Watching Sir John next to everyone else in the film, Brando included, is like watching Michael Jordan, at the peak of his powers, play a game of pick up ball with a crew of high schoolers.

Ah, to have been there.  To have seen Oliver's famous 'Hamlet leap' when he jumped some twenty feet off a balcony on stage into the outstretched arms of a bunch of soldiers.  To see his famous Othello when he completely changed his physical gait and appearance and actually lowered his voice a full third to do the role.  To see his Malvolio in the role Kenneth Tynan called, 'the funniest Shakespearian interpretation I have ever seen.'  To see him turn to the audience in Richard III and say the line, "I am not in the giving vein today," and give everyone in the house chills.

To watch O'Toole shout his way through his now infamous Hamlet under Olivier's direction.  Uncut and four hours plus of O'Toole in bombastic splendor barking out the great words of the finest play ever written.  To see Olivier break the mold in Othello and making it nearly impossible for another actor to do it for a decade or so.  To see Burton from night to night in his NY Hamlet, some nights so disinterested as to be unwatchable and the next so brilliant as to erase any other Hamlet in memory.

There are a few films, one of them being The Dresser with Albert Finney and Tom Courtney, that give us an idea of what these times might have been like.  There is a scene in a recent O'Toole movie, a film called Venus in which O'Toole received his ninth Academy Award nomination, in which he recites a full sonnet while standing on a London pier, looking out over the foggy ocean, and one gets a glimmer of the brilliance.  Even in silly movies such as Arthur, in which Geilgud won a supporting actor Oscar as the dry and unflappable butler, Hopkins, one can see the absolute surety within which the actor worked.  He towers over that film with that performance.

Ah, to have been there.  To have seen that sublimity.  To have drank in the excellence and dedication.  To simply enjoy.

See you tomorrow.

 

The Rules of Writing...

NEW REVIEW GO PRAYING SMALL Clifford Morts' intelligent drama about one man's struggle with alcoholism speaks compellingly of love, loss, the quest for self-forgiveness. An alcoholic named Sam (Morts) with a good job and a loving wife (Tara Lynn Orr) loses both. Filled with rage but unwilling to seek help, he's finally picked up by the police -- and only then does he begin his long, slow climb back to sobriety and self-respect. Relayed in nonlinear flashback, the play rivets our attention through the depth and breadth of the central character, an intrepid, introspective Everyman with a strong sense of irony, who references Thomas Wolfe and repeatedly mulls why it is that one can't go home again. There's humor here, too. The likable Morts delivers a dynamic performance, supported by a strong ensemble that includes Rob Arbogast as Sam's former drinking buddy, a sad fellow who sinks to the dregs of existence and never finds his way out. Designer Lacey Alzec's black, minimalist set comes off as unduly oppressive, while Coby Chasman-Beck's lighting effectively underscores the play's various shifts. Victor Warren directs. NoHo Arts Center, 11136 Magnolia Blvd., N. Hlywd.; Fri- Sat., 8 p.m.; Sun., 3 .p.m.; through July 18. (818) 508-7101, ext. 7. (Deborah Klugman) 


New LA Weekly review in, as you can see above.  Another pretty decent one.  Should be one out by Backstage today, too.


In some ways, although just a relatively short blurb, she nailed something interesting that I hadn't really given a lot of conscience thought to - the repeated short scene in the play and tying it in to the reference to Thomas Wolfe's  famous line, you can't go home again.  It's a tremendously insightful thought.  And again, not one I did, at least I don't think I did, on purpose.


I'm reminded of the reporter that asked Hemingway about The Old Man and the Sea.  After repeatedly trying to get Hemingway to admit to writing a novel about the essential struggle between good and evil, God and the Devil, the author finally blurted out a bit angrily, "It's a novel about a guy who catches a fish and then loses it, God Damn it."


When I read the short blurb last night, however, I began thinking about Ms. Klugman's thesis.  And it does, I have to admit, make perfect sense.  But I also have to admit I didn't have that in mind when I wrote it.  It is one of the questions most often asked about the play, "Why do you repeat that scene and then finally resolve it at the end of the play?"  Ms. Klugman has explained it as well as I ever did...it's Sam's physical enactment of his inability to 'go home again.'   Well, whadaya know.  


John Irving says he has never planned out a novel in his life.  He has a vague idea of where he wants to go and then takes off.  Sometimes he gets there, sometimes he doesn't.  On the other hand, Norman Mailer has said that his novels are very carefully outlined before he writes a word.  Both of those guys are pretty good at what they do, so who's to say.  


Writing for the stage, of course, is a whole lot different than writing prose.  I've done both, actually, written both ways, that is to say.  I've written with an exact goal in mind and have spent the bulk of my keyboard time trying to find a way to get there.  I've also, as in the case of Praying Small, simply sat down and started typing.  Sometimes the intangible and unexplainable muse finds itself into the room and the rest is easy.  And other times the muse doesn't want anything to do with a particular project and I'm on my own.


My favorite playwright, although I think it safe to say he's not the best playwright, but he's damn good, is Lanford Wilson.  I'm told a lot of Fifth of July, one of my favorite plays by Wilson, was written in rehearsal.  He jotted down lines, notes, phrases and elipsi, as the actors improvised.  I can't imagine writing that way.  Nonetheless, Fifth of July turned out okay by it.  One would have to have an unusual amount of trust in the actor's sense of the play.


Arguably one of the greatest plays of the twentieth century, Long Day's Journey Into Night, was almost entirely written over one forty-eight hour, angst-ridden period.   Eugene O'Neill's secretary said he locked himself in his den and every so often would shove a few pages under the door for her to type.  She said she could hear him in the next room pacing and shouting and mumbling and weeping.  At the end of two sleepless days, most of that great play was written.  O'Neill then apparently got blind drunk and slept.


Another seminal play of the twentieth century, Death of a Salesman, was written over a long, long period of time with Arthur Miller carefully editing and re-editing the final version.  The playwright himself didn't have the foggiest idea what he had by the end.  In fact, he's on record in his book Timelines as saying he wasn't even sure it was very good.


Sam Shepard, perhaps the most inconsistent and yet explosively talented of his era, didn't edit anything in his early years, which is readily apparent if one reads anything written before Fool for Love.  And yet when Shepard was really cooking his work is unassailable.  Absolutely brilliant.  


I'm not sure how Mamet works, but I can only imagine it to be really dilligent and thoughtful.  David Mamet is an unbelievably smart guy, usually the smartest guy in the room by a mile or so, so I can only think his work as a playwright leaves nothing to chance.  He is knowledgeable, it seems, on any subject under the sun, which makes his sometimes scatological dialogue a mystery.  Unlike GB Shaw, Mamet isn't interested in showing us how smart he is.  He's only interested in saying the right thing for the character at the right time, regardless how dumb it may make the character or, for that matter, Mamet himself, seem.


And then there's Tennesee Williams.  Williams was never satisfied with a play.  Never.  He was actually re-writing the ending of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof the night he died.  There were pieces of notebook paper with new dialogue all about his body.  This, mind you, twenty one years after the play had won The Tony and The Pulitzer Prize.


The gist of all of this is there are no rules to writing.  The only rule, in fact, IS that there are no rules.  


Who knew how Shakespeare approached a play.  We'll never know.  Although I do like the apocryphal story of he and his leading actor, Richard Burbage, getting drunk one night and Burbage, a huge ego, told him, "You can't write a role that I can't play."  The story goes that Shakespeare then wrote Hamlet, the story of a man who can't make up his mind.  The only thing a great actor has trouble playing is indecision.  The very soul of acting is making a choice.   And Shakespeare wrote a four-hour play about Hamlet being unable to do so.  Funny if the story were actually true.


Picking up the script today and looking at the lines.  Have to go into the theatre and help Bonnie do her 'put-in rehearsal' as Susan.  One of those necessary but tedious things that pops up now and again.  She's stepping into the role for a couple of performances next weekend.  


Angie and I have decided to go to the mall today and look at things we can't afford.  That should be depressing, joyous and amusing all at once.


See you tomorrow.

Writing by Committee.

Pictured above, perhaps our greatest living playwright, David Mamet.

A really good show Sunday afternoon.  Relaxed, in the moment, unharried and a bit quirky.  I had fun.  I think the other actors were 'on,' too.  Tara and I had a few 'what's next' moments in our first date scene, but in a non-panicking sort of way.  We've both settled into the dialogue enough so that a minor misstep doesn't really throw us.

Despite the fact that the houses are nearly full now, the bulk of our core audience has still eluded us, that is to say, the recovery community.  Don't know what, if anything, can be done about that.  We gave a comprehensive push to get the right people in to see the piece on opening weekend; facilitators, administrators, managers, etc. of various recovery centers in and around Los Angeles.  The 'word-of-mouth' element has not really worked yet in that community.  Yes, there are some, a few, every night, and I have no doubt they are espousing the show once they leave.  Many have caught me in the parking lot to tell me so.  But the truth of the matter is, that community will be our legs should the piece hope to enjoy a long run.  Not to say I'm not terribly pleased at the turn-out otherwise.  I am.  And ostensibly, any audience could give the piece legs.  But in the final analysis, the recovery community, tens of thousands strong in LA, will be our bread and butter.  And getting that group in is simply a matter of making them aware of the play's existence.

For many, many years I was simply a hired gun as an actor.  Traveling from New York to whatever regional theatre was next.  Just show up, rehearse, learn the lines, make some choices, get a little, sometimes a lot, excited about whatever I was working on, showing up opening night and voila', add water, shake, and a full house and crowded run.

People like what they know.  Even in the liberal and much-touted world of the constant, liberal theatre-goer, the guy that claims to want to see the 'new' stuff, sometimes marketing the 'new stuff' is a chore.  This is why new play festivals are a gamble, even among the more established theaters.  With the exception of Actor's Theatre in Louisville, The Asolo in Sarasota, and maybe Playwright's Horizon in NY, most theaters are a bit frightened of new work.  The subscription base simply won't support it, despite their protestations otherwise.  It is always safer to mount another Death of a Salesman or Rainmaker or Equus or Wit or Proof or South Pacific than it is to find an exciting new piece, never seen, and hope it flies.

It's the same concept in the restaurant business.  Why do you suppose Houlihan's or Appleby's or even McDonald's keep people coming back?  Because they know what to expect on the menu, that's why.  They know the Big Mac they buy in Spokane will be exactly the same as the one they buy in Jersey City.  They like it that way.  We are creatures of habit.  If we saunter into a McDonald's in Jefferson City we don't want to see flounder in a crusty mustard sauce on the menu.  We want the two all-beef patties with the special sauce.  Even if the flounder in the crusty mustard sauce is a hundred times better.  That's beside the point.

I completely understand this, being a creature of habit myself.  I don't blame people for wanting what they know.  The theaters mentioned above have made a niche for themselves doing new work.  They've based their entire marketing strategy from day one on it.  Their patrons KNOW this is what they do and it's what they've signed on for.

Last Sunday night, following my show, Angie and I saw our friend's Nickella and Jed's new staging of their musical Sick People in Love.  I've blogged about this piece earlier, months ago, in fact.  I'm a fan of it.  It's a quirky little piece with some really fine words and music from Nick and Jed.  They have been incredibly trusting with their creation by constantly putting it in front of people and asking for feedback.  A process that makes me start sweating and shaking even to think about.  Writing by committee has always been one of my worst nightmares.  I hate workshopping.  And I've carefully outlined why in this blog before so I won't go back into it.  Nonetheless, that's what they've done with this piece.

David Mamet once told me this sort of thing would quite possibly kill him if he ever had to do it.  And he meant it literally.  Putting his work out there after months, years of working it, and have a room or theater full of people then tell him how to do it better would make him fall to the floor and die.  I couldn't agree more.  Yet it's done all the time in the theatre and is considered by some the exact proper sequence for creation.  I don't get it.  But, I'm the first to agree, sometimes it works.  Sometimes it's just a huge recipe for disaster.  Most of the time, I'd go so far to say.  But sometimes, every now and then, it actually works.  I don't know if that's the case with this new piece, Sick People in Love, but I have sat a few times, utterly confounded, as these two fine artists have sat and studiously taken notes as the audience nonchalantly pick the piece apart.  And then, a little later, the next staging, I see some of those ideas actually incorporated into the piece.  I am agog.  My silent question is always, "Do they still write with the same amount of passion and certainty as they incorporate someone else's idea?"  I can't imagine that anyone would.  But Nick and Jed are two very open and discerning people.  Very bright and decisive.  Nickella is one of the finest instinctual actresses I've ever had the pleasure of watching.  She did a leading role in my aborted play, From the East to the West, five months ago.  In fact, she may be the only actor I've ever directed that, aside from blocking, I never once felt the need to offer a note.  Her performance was so centered in her gut that to tamper with it would have been sheer lunacy.  A lot of directors I know sometimes direct just to hear themselves directing.  I long ago learned the beauty of the truism, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.  Nick came into that play right on the money.  Any extraneous advice from me would have just muddied her work.

But back to this idea of writing by committee.  It's clearly a staple of television and film.  This is one of a thousand reasons why television and film is so inconsistent.  There are too many writers.  Too many chefs in the kitchen.  I remember seeing a movie, a large, studio picture, a few years back and when the credits got to the 'screenplay by' frame, there were, I kid you not, about fifteen names on the screen.  Not surprisingly, the whole thing was a hot mess.

But, as I mentioned before, sometimes, once in a blue moon, it works.  Look at how many writers are credited for Casablanca.  One of the great films of all time and the writing is unmistakably brilliant.  But a whole bunch of writers, not to mention three directors, had their hands in that one.  My favorite, and funniest, I think, is the screenplay credit for Zefirelli's Romeo and Juliet.  It says, "Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare.  With additional dialogue by Sam Taylor."  I'd like to have lunch someday with Sam Taylor.  I've got a few questions for him.

On the other hand, I don't mind sitting around my front room and having a few trusted and smart friends over to read something and then make thoughtful comments.  I've done that many times.  The last time was in December of 09 when I had my friends Jimmy Barbour, John Bader, the wonderful actor John Schuck and Joe Hulser all over to read From the East to the West.  We read it and then sat around and shot the shit.  The upshot being that what I then wrote based on their comments was in fact a superior piece of writing than what I had done alone.  Some of the stuff, of course, I simply ignored politely.  Most of the time they voiced ideas I had long ago thought of and discarded.  But a few of the comments were dead center on the nose and I unapologetically stole them.  That sort of thing never bothers me.  I steal all the time as a writer and actor.  At the end of the day it doesn't say From the East to the West by Clifford Morts with some pretty cool suggestions by John Schuck, John Bader, Jim Barbour and Joe Hulser.  Nope.  It says, "From the East to the West by Clifford Morts.

Reminds me of something Stephen King once said when an interviewer asked him how he felt about what Hollywood had done to his books.  They were apparently sitting in King's library in his home at the time.  He said, "What?  Hollywood hasn't done anything to my books.  There they all are, perfectly fine."  And he pointed to several rows of his books sitting on the shelves, all lined up and looking brand new and ready to read.

Angie and I had to leave after the first act of Sick People in Love because the old 'silent killer' was having it's way with me.  I began to shake and sweat and get dizzy.  Blood sugar decided at that moment to plummet.  The next day, yesterday in fact, I was sitting in the doctor's office once again, trying to balance the medication.

Had something odd happen when I got home Sunday night following the performance of Praying Small.  I had an email from the critic from The LA Weekly.  She told me how much she had enjoyed the play and was asking if she might have a copy of the script to read.  In all my years in this business I have never, not once, heard of a critic contacting a playwright before the review was published.  The request, as it turns out, was completely innocent, absolutely innocuous.  But it was very strange nonetheless.  How she got my email is a mystery.  I have two emails, one for business stuff, that one is easily obtainable, and one private one that only close friends, family and colleagues have.  She had emailed me on my private one.  It's a mystery.

The dreaded bi-product of this old diabetes, insomnia, is plaguing me once again this morning.  A few hours of sleep and then up for the night.  Angie is very concerned about this part of the disease.  As am I.  I mean, I've always been an early riser, but 3:30 is a bit silly even for me.  When it strikes, this insomnia, I mean, there's nothing to do but get up and make some coffee and endure it.  So here it is, 4:22 in the morning and I'm up and open for business.  Heavens to Betsy.

LA Weekly, I'm told, will be online this afternoon.  Keep your eyes peeled.  If the surprising email from the reviewer is any indication, it should be a good one.

See you tomorrow.



  

Refusing to Take a Knee...

Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water.  More senseless, pointless, egocentric battles with the director last night.  It's gonna be the death of me.

In other news...quiet house last night.  And full.  Kinda surprised me that such a large house would be so terribly quiet.  Too quiet, as they say in old westerns.  Nonetheless as I was meeting Angie after the show up front, I was stopped by a group of folks who'd just seen it and they were wildly enthusiastic.  So once again I was reminded that quiet doesn't mean bored.

There is a great deal of very dark humor in the piece.  Sometimes we get a house that really lets go and yucks up a storm at the humor.  Sometimes, like last night, not so much.  Friday night, strangely, was very much a yucking house.  Lots of laughs in the right spots.

Couldn't sleep last night because I was in a semi-rage over the director stuff.  Best not to go into all of that now because I'm still miffed and I'd probably just start ranting.  Suffice to say, it's simply inexplicable.

Had a quick audition yesterday for a 'documentary pilot,' whatever that means.  Read a few lines of a script into a camera and left.  Very good pay for what appears to be little to no work.  My kind of gig.

This weekend we had both Backstage and L.A. Weekly in the house.  Those should both be out by Wednesday and Thursday of this week.  No idea whatsoever what to expect.

Had Rob Arbogast over yesterday and helped him work on the role of the villain for a new film he's up for.  Unexpectedly had a really great time helping him find the pyrotechnic side of this guy.  One of my favorite film villains of all time is Gary Oldman in a movie called The Professional.  It is a virtuoso performance.  Bombastic, smart, edgy, surprising, unpredictable and some might say, over the top.  But it's a reminder to me that there is no such thing as overacting or underacting.  There is only honesty and dishonestly.  As Rob and I were working on the script yesterday (a surprisingly good one, in fact) we were keeping that amazing performance in mind.  Sort of using it as a blueprint for Rob's character in the film.

Once I pointed out the possibilities of being so gregarious with this character, Rob quickly caught on and started having a great deal of fun with it.  The old adage is true - it's more fun to play a bad guy than it is to play a good guy.  The restraints are taken off and the actor can stop editing himself so much and really go for broke.

There are a lot of great bad guy performances out there...Pacino in The Devil's Advocate, Malkovich in In the Line of Fire, Hackman in The Hunt for Red October, Lee J. Cobb in On the Waterfront, Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter and Cape Fear, Henry Fonda in Once Upon a Time in the West, Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs and of course, the granddaddy of them all, Olivier in Richard III.

And they're all roles that one remembers upon seeing these films.

I've had the opportunity to play the bad guy a few times onstage and it's just downright fun.  The racist prosecuting attorney in To Kill a Mockingbird comes to mind.  Had a ball with that one.  The sociopathic killer in Wait Until Dark.  Jigger in Carousel.  And perhaps the most fun, Jessop in A Few Good Men.

So once Rob got the hang of it and started playing a bit, he was a joy to watch.  Moving quickly from menacing to amusing, exasperated to controlled.  Swinging every club in the bag, as a friend of mine used to say.  I think he's got a good shot at the film.  He's definitely got a hook into the guy and that's what counts.

I spent a lot of my teaching time in Chicago working with young actors.  People that needed firm guidance.  They wanted me to tell them exactly how to do the role.  This can get really tedious for me.  With Rob I enjoy myself so much more because once he grasps what it is we're doing with the character he starts, almost immediately, to fly on his own.  It's the difference between working with a pro (my preference) and an amateur.

Matinee performance today of Praying Small.  All of the actors, myself included, are pretty much exasperated with the power struggle between the playwright and the director.  The mounting period for this play has been so difficult.  A battle at every turn.  Trying to do what's right for the play.  Keeping it simple and honest without a lot of frills and extraneous, well, stuff.  Trying to preserve the dignity and importance of the piece.  Fighting to eliminate chicken noises and bear noises and strange laugh tracks and Three Stooges music and background crowd noise and overwrought blocking and clown noses and chess clocks and giant clocks on the wall and added, unwritten characters and huge pauses between scenes and, well, on and on.  I honestly cannot remember the last time I've been involved with such a difficult rehearsal period.  I just hated going to rehearsal every day because I knew there would be another argument.  And yet, unlike most other plays, I had to keep at it because this one was mine.  I wrote it.  I own it.  It didn't exist till I made it.  So I had to protect it.  Usually I would have bowed out long ago and just said, 'let's agree to disagree' and moved on.  But in this case I had no option but to fight for my words.  To daily run interference for my creation.  And all the while trying to learn one of the largest roles I've ever done.  It has utterly exhausted me.  And more, it has constantly affected my already tenuous health.  Stress is really bad for diabetes sufferers, I'm told.  Well, if I were to point an accusing finger at something that has hampered my management of the old 'silent killer' it would definitely be the stress of rehearsing this play.

I fought Golden Gloves for about five years back in the day.  I remember fighting an incredible welterweight by the name of Roger Leonard...he later went to the Olympics.  Roger beat the bejesus out of me.  I took two standing eight counts from him in a three round fight.  He had a hook I couldn't see coming and he clocked me with it about three dozen times.  My trainer told me between rounds two and three, "Just take a knee, Son.  You're gonna get hurt."  But I refused to.  In my mind, I told myself he was going to have to kill me to beat me by TKO.  So I stayed at it.  I lost all three rounds (now, mind you, I went 19-3 my last year, so I wasn't THAT bad).  But Roger outclassed me.  He was simply a faster, stronger fighter.

The process for this play reminds me of that fight all those many years ago.  I just couldn't stop.  I couldn't quit fighting.  Because there was a lot more at stake than my health.  There was personal integrity.  What I thought of myself.  I think once someone relinquishes that, it's all over.

Finally, about last night, I never really felt in the game.  Always just a half beat off.  Couldn't quite get into the center of it.  Couldn't quite enjoy the moment.  Always thinking of the next beat, the next moment, the next line.  I knew it and yet I couldn't stop myself.  It's an ugly spot for an actor.  Hopefully, the actor is proficient enough technically so that no one aside from himself really notices.  I hope no one noticed last night that I was having an 'off' night.

So until I have to go to the theatre and confront whatever off-stage drama there is there, I hope to have a relaxing Sunday with Angie and the puppies.  We have a lot of hurdles in front of us, Angie and I, regarding our financial stuff since she's no longer working.  But nothing can be done about that until tomorrow.  And worrying about tomorrow never did anyone any good.  Yesterday is gone, nothing to do about it.  Tomorrow isn't here yet, nothing to do about it.  But today has the promise of the here and now.  Today I have the opportunity to be kind and caring to the people in my life that make it worthwhile.  Today can be molded.  Today is all any of us really ever have.

See you tomorrow.  

You Can't Go Home Again...unless you're a different person.

Backstage West in the house last night.  This is the industry paper for actors, directors, writers, etc. in Los Angeles.  Tonight another of the big three, The L.A. Weekly, a weekly (obviously) paper here devoted to arts, culture and music.  Both should be out next Thursday.

I'm told by the ever-vigilant, critic-watchers that the Backstage reviewer was "stoic" although he seemed to enjoy it and concentrated silently throughout.

A vocal house last night.  One lone, jubilant standing ovation participant at the end.  No doubt a program person.

This morning I've got a class to teach and then an audition for a "documentary pilot" at noon.  Not sure what that entails but it's good money and they contacted me about coming in to read today.  It's in Beverly Hills.  So I'll trek over that way after finishing my teaching and see what happens with that.

Thomas Wolfe famously wrote the all-encompassing line, "You can't go home again."  I think it was in Look Homeward, Angel.  He was talking about a lot of things with that line, not of course, simply going home.  He was talking about our human tendency to try and recapture a moment, a place, a time in our life that has past, that we cannot revisit no matter how hard we try.  Maybe rekindling a love affair, or trying to pick up a feeling, a specific moment, that has disappeared.  It is one of the saddest lines in all of literature.

Since beginning this journey with Praying Small and the press its received I've had a few emails from the past. Got one last night, in fact.  People I haven't seen or heard from for thirty years or more.

Got an email from an old high school teacher last night that left me a bit perplexed.  Said he wanted to "pick up where we left off."  Personally, I didn't know there was anything to "pick up" to begin with.  He said, "I think this writing thing is something good for you, good for your future."  Hm.  Having been writing plays successfully for nearly twenty years, I wasn't quite sure what to think of that.

But I was, in fact, transported back to a time in my life, my late teens, growing up in central Missouri, miserable without actually knowing that I was miserable.  Not even knowing why.  Now, of course, I know why.  I was living with a raging, abusive, out-of-control alcoholic family.  But I didn't know that then.  In fact, quite the opposite.  I honestly believed, because I didn't have anything to compare it to, that EVERY family drank to paralyzing excess every night of their lives.

But this is not going to be a therapy session today.  I was simply intrigued because I actually use that line of Wolfe's in the play.  You can't go home again.  And God knows I have tried so many times in my life.  So many times I've tried to recapture something that was fleeting, both good and bad.

But then I began to think further on the line and I came to the conclusion that it DID actually work once in my life...when I moved to Los Angeles and began seeing Angela.  We had been seeing each other many years ago in college and when I moved here and "picked up" where we had left off, lo and behold, it worked.  It absolutely worked.  Never before or since.  Naturally, there were lots of changes, lots of things that were different, one being our age.  But hard compromises were made and now we're engaged to be married in November.

We are two completely different people than we were then, both of us with quite literally a lifetime between seeing each other, or in my case, several lifetimes.  But it was perfect timing for us.  Perfect kismet.  And now, against the laws of nature itself, we are both incredibly happy with the outcome.

I don't usually dwell on the extreme personal in this blog, some references, an occasional nod in that direction...mostly I save that kind of writing for the stage which, oddly, is far safer.  Behind the veil of drama and characterization it seems somehow less intrusive to speak openly of a complicated past.  And of course, in my case, the specter of addiction was always a hard and true factor in nearly every relationship I've had, be it with a lover or with a teacher or, for that matter, the local mailman.  Everything was colored by that truth in my life.  And acceptance being the answer to all our problems, I've accepted it.  And moved on.  Not wanting to change the past, but hopefully learning from it and not spending an eternity 'doing the same things over and over and expecting different results.'

A nebulous blog today, but that's okay.  I just wanted to touch on that.  That hopeless moment we've all experienced it seems at some point in our life when we've made the vain attempt to 'go home again.'

Last night after the show I had a flurry of texts back and forth with my dear friend, Jimmy Barbour, who is in NYC recording his newest CD.  We have both reached a time in our lives where changes have to be made.  He's having a tough go of it in NY right now.  He doesn't care for that city, the metropolis where, in the past, he has had so many professional victories.  These days, for Jim anyway, NY holds some tough memories.  And I completely and unashamedly understand.  I, too, have felt the same way.  It is one of the reasons I shall never, under any circumstances, set foot in Chicago again.  There's just too much blood under the bridge.

Jim and I are joining forces this September to teach a workshop here in Los Angeles.  He'll be teaching the interpretation of musical theatre and I'll be doing my naked face scene work.  And both of us will be teaching a new way to look at performing Shakespeare.  We have a slew of folks already verbally signed on for the workshop and I'm sure we'll have many more.  I look forward to it.

Jim is another strange case in my life where I was, to a certain extent, able to 'go home again.'  We never tried to pick up and relive our halcyon days of working together in regional theatre all those years ago.  But we have revived a friendship based on trust and unconditional support.  Regardless of our trials and tribulations over the past two decades, we have always been friends.  We have been since the moment we met in a parking lot in Kentucky, of all places, back in May of 1988.

The same is true of my buddy, John Bader, who is currently in Iowa carefully monitoring his mother's delicate health.  When John moved to LA many years ago, I was still in NYC plugging away at a career in tatters because of excessive behavior.  But John and I remained friends regardless of my own irresponsible choices over the years.  He has never been less than encouraging.  And now we speak daily as he anxiously awaits a moment of sadness with his family in the midwest.  He is incredibly supportive of everything I do here on the West Coast.  Always giving advice and being gentle and honest with me.  His companionship since moving to this new and strange land has been unswerving and completely uncompromising.  Not sure I could have done it without him.

Thomas Wolfe had so, so many things on his mind when he wrote that sentence, you can't go home again.  But I've discovered that sometimes you CAN actually go home again.  You just can't go back to the same neighborhood.  You can't ride the same bike.  You can't stand in the same yard.  You can't sneak in the same backdoor.  You can't lay awake at night and listen to the same grown-up, far-away, drunken, senseless chatter.  You can't dwell on the same doors being slammed.  And you can't be the same person.

See you tomorrow.  

LA Times Review...

OF LOVE AND RECOVERY

"Sobriety doesn't make life easier, it makes livin' it easier."  Such candid truisms punctuate the self-circumscribed humor and grit of "Praying Small" with admirable determination.  Clifford Morts' much-acclaimed 2003 study of one man's journey to recovery receives a respectable West Coast Premiere at NoHo Arts center.

A stylized prologue segues into Alcoholics Anonymous-birthday remarks by protagonist Sam Dean (author Morts, essaying the role for the first time).  What follows is a boomeranging, nonlinear look at Sam's trek, from successful Manhattan yuppie status to rock bottom and back, repeatedly revisiting the key moment of regret when wife Susan (Tara Lynn Orr) finally had enough.

Director Victor Warren keeps his committed cast atop the zigzags around set designer Lacy Alzec's  minimalist porticos and Coby Chasman-Beck's intense lighting plot.  Morts' unfussy Everyman quality, pitched directly between the young Ed Asner and middle-period Bob Hoskins, counters a fleeting sense of authorial restraint.  Orr is imposing as Susan, her emotional acumen most impressive the given fragmented structure.

Their colleagues do yeoman work in multiple roles, wwith Brad Blaisdell in particular a standout as Sam's quietly tough-loving sponsor.  Rob Arbogast finds raw humanity in downwardly spiraling fellow drunk Roman, while Melanie Ewbank's authority figures and Bonnie Cahoon's functionaries keep up with Morts' singular schematics.

It's an honest, laudably non-polemic piece for a niche play, at some levels beyond conventional criticism.  Certainly, anyone who has struggled with its core issues, and/or those love them, should consider "Praying Small" de rigeur.

David C. Nichols

Making God Laugh.

No Times review, either online or in the paper.  I have no idea what's going on.  My buddy in Colorado, Michael Catlin, a fine, former LA actor, seems to think they might save it for the Sunday edition because it's a special notice.  I don't know.  All I know is we need the review right now.  We need the word out there about this play.  We need outside confirmation that what we have done is worth seeing.

It was a bit of a surprise that the Times even showed up in the first place.  We didn't expect them.  In fact, our producer, the astonishing Teal Sherer, received the call the very afternoon they attended.

I almost stepped away from the theatre back in 1989.  I was in NY and couldn't get arrested.  Try as I might I couldn't get in the door.  Couldn't get an agent.  Couldn't get my plays mounted.  Couldn't get hired to do anything in a decent house.  I was just one more of a thousand twenty-something actors wandering around New York City.  Some with talent, some not.  Either way, it didn't seem to make much of a difference.

As I've mentioned before in this blog, I started studying with the brilliant actor Michael Moriarty in 1987.  I learned more from Michael in one night about acting than I had, it seemed, in the previous eight years.  Michael was never interested in teaching the actor how to rehearse, like most acting teachers, but only in teaching one how to perform.  Teaching one how to get a job.

He's a tremendously positive teacher.  Always starting criticism with positive comments.  Saying first, "you do such and such very well here..." and then moving gently into the real criticism.  As a world-class actor himself he was always more than aware of the young actor's fragile ego.

So at the time I was working at a restaurant on Fifth Avenue in the city.  I was climbing the ladder of in-house, restaurant politics quickly.  If I had wanted I could have moved quickly up that ladder and been making some very good money in the restaurant business.  But it was wearing me down.  The servility alone was making me a bit crazy.

One day in class, I did a few monologues from a new one-person show I was doing at the time called Our Generation.  As was Michael's custom, he started out by asking how I was doing.  I told him I was thinking of getting out of the business.  That I had been in NYC for almost four years now and hadn't had a real break come my way.  He nodded and asked me to show him what I had that night.  Following the monologues he didn't offer any criticism, he just asked me to see him following class that evening.

When class ended I stuck around.  After the last student had wandered out he asked me to take a seat.  He said, very simply, "You are one of the best I've ever seen at this.  You are in the one percent of one percent.  You mustn't quit.  See you next week."  It meant more to me than I can ever say, even today.  So I kept plugging away.  And eventually, if not becoming a "star," I got to the point that I didn't have to do anything but act to make a living.

Some years back I read an interview with Joe Pesci in Rolling Stone.  He was talking about his early years as an actor.  He, too, had a similar story to mine.  He was working as a restaurant manager in NYC.  Gigs were occasional.  Some years better than others.  He decided to quit.  Just make a living in the restaurant business. And then he got a call from Martin Scorcese's people about a call back for a new film called Raging Bull.  He decided to give it one last shot.  And, as we all know now, it changed his life.

Eventually, I did end up bowing out of the theatre business for a few years.  I had an epiphany of sorts and decided to go back to school and get my C.A.D.C. (Certificate of Alcohol and Drug Counseling).  I chucked my stage aspirations for a few years and decided to get my hands dirty doing "real" work for a change.  I became a counselor on the north side of Chicago, working with newly sober and low-bottom alcoholics.  It was demanding and heart-breaking work.  In fact, it was during this period that I wrote Praying Small.

After a few years in the mud I came back to the theatre.  I realized my noble epiphany was misguided.  That the work I could do in the theatre was every bit as noble and life-changing as my one-on-one work as a counselor.  I don't regret it.  Not for one instant.  Being poor and an artist is infinitely preferable to being rich and a counselor.  Besides, my sorjourn into the counseling world was a useless period of running into brick walls, anyway.  The relapse rate, I discovered, was nigh on %100.  Addiction is not something one can be talked out of, I discovered reluctantly.

Now, in Los Angeles, I feel a bit like I did all those years ago in NY when Michael offered me those kind and  well-timed words of encouragement.  I keep sending my resume out and hearing absolutely nothing in return.  I don't have an agent or a "reel" yet.  I am spinning my wheels, it would seem.  I can't get anyone in the industry to come see my play.  I watch others around me land audition after audition and I sit idly by waiting for my cell to ring.  And considering Angie's and my financial concerns, it would appear I'll soon have to do something else to make a living for awhile.  Something I haven't had to do for a good many years.

We shall see what we shall see.  My old buddy, Father Joe Sampson, of a parish in Brooklyn, at one point my best friend in the world and someone I credit with saving my life, once said to me, "Do you know how to make God laugh?  Tell Him your plans."

Having said that, we shall, indeed, see what we shall see.

See you tomorrow.