"That thing is a trap," said City Mouse. "The minute you touch the cheese something comes down on your head and you're dead." The little Country Mouse looked at the trap, and at the little City Mouse. "If you'll excuse me," he said, "I think I will go home. I'd rather have barley and grain to eat in peace than have sugar and dried prunes and cheese and be frightened to death all the time!" So the little Country Mouse went back to his home, and there he stayed all the rest of his life.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Seven Hours To Go
I am conflicted about what to write in the realm of end-of-the-year wrap-ups. I just looked back at my entries from the final days of 2005 and 2006 and had to cringe at how maudlin and emotional they are. Blah, blah, heartbreak, blah, blah, rejection, blah, blah, angst.
It makes me wonder again if I have out-grown this blog. I find myself conflicted over how much to share and what is appropriate to write about. Not to mention the question of: “who cares?” The fact is, the stuff that I have the strongest feelings about and would probably engage some spark behind my writing are the subjects I usually decide should not be shared with the world. So be it.
Anyway: 2007. I could certainly do a list-type retrospective, which works well for people. Hanvnah and Gwen both have fun ones (incidentally, I am honored to be amongst Hanvnah’s top portraits of 2007--red wine and cleavage, indeed!) But my mind and words are not lined up and orderly like that.
General impressions, thoughts and reflections are sure to work better for me. If I can manage that.
So I sat in a room the other night at an awful touristy bar in metro center eating a veggie burger and surrounded by James Brown’s spangled jacket and signed albums of Michael Jackson’s Thriller and I was a little bit too loud and a little bit too uncomfortable because at some point I realized that in this one room sat the three people who probably know me better than anyone else in this city. Sort of. I mean, friends know me well too. Maybe friends know me better. Maybe that’s been the problem with my relationships all along. Anyway, one of those people hates me, and one of those people has snatched up my heart, and one of these people seems generally unsettled around me and that’s my fault because I have made everything awkward with that when it could have been easy. And I thought, hmmm, DC, right?
I had a great year. I had a tricky year. I had a busy year. I had an important year.
I had a year.
The year started off shitty. How’s that for a place to start. My new year’s plans to ring in 2007 were thwarted when the friend I was to be hanging out with called to tell me he was too stoned to make plans right now but that he’d get back to me in about an hour and we could talk then. I ended up hanging out with my cousin (whom I love), her boyfriend (whom I adore), and the back-rubber (two out of three isn’t bad).
Then several days of surprising emails and sleepless nights and too many tears and news that had absolutely nothing to do with me and finally I retreated into the cozy arms of my first show of 2007--WE ARE NOT THESE HANDS--where I got to spend hours on end with some of my favorite people in the world. From there I spent the next four month cocooned in my work. This was partly by choice but mostly out of necessity. AFTER DARWIN was on the heels of HANDS, and DALI came following close behind. The work was my love, my love was my work. I wanted to see only my actors and designers, I wanted to talk script and choices and research and design. As I recall, I had a few crushes on the young-uns here and there in the meantime, but for the most part I stayed guarded and content.
I am glad I had this time. I loved the work I was doing, and was glad to be a part of these creations.
I listened to a lot of This American Life’s. I watched Youtubes. I saw friends, magnificent friends. I made new friends, I saw old friends, I further developed friendships that were not quite young or old. I appreciated more and more my professional families: both with Shawn and with Catalyst. My parents visited many times. They saw my shows and we saw shows and exhibits together. I staged a sex scene. I learned about evolution. I learned about the Gulf War. I learned about China. I took a few trips to NY. I went to Kentucky for a few days for the Humana Festival.
April was eventful for the world. Terrible things happened at Virginia Tech and Eastern Market. We all dressed up and attended the Helen Hayes awards. And I successfully opened my third show in four months. I’d survived. I got a little sick. I caught up on sleep.
May was eventful for me. I moved, rather suddenly, that was a big thing. I worked with the Keegan folk and had a blast. And I went on a date for the first time in about five months. It went very well. It is at about this time that my blog entries started sounding uncharacteristically optimistic.
After that, summer hit. I went to the beach to celebrate friendships old and new. I had a birthday that I was late for. I met C’s family. We started Trixie and suddenly everything was “F-H” and “Fringe-y”. We returned to the Source and created funny moments. July was a fringe-alicious whirl. Then August came and I readied for weddings and travel. There were bridal showers and engagement parties, there were passports to get and bags to pack, and there were practical shoes to buy and time away to plan for. We produced Zidney for page-to-stage and then I was off to Ireland and Connecticut and things were good and bad and wonderful and complex and lonely and beautiful and filled with aches and smiles. Everyone and everything was going through a growing period. We grew, we did.
Then October and home and a beautiful wedding and a homecoming and lots of readings and workshops and then ohmigod is it November already? And pirates and an untimely death and thanksgiving and then December and holidays and parties and food and family and fun and love.
Geez-oh-pete’s 2007, I hardly knew you!
And with that, XXOO, to a year ended and a new one about to begin. Joy and peace and comfort to all of you.
Pakistan has moved up to the top of my list of “places-I-wouldn’t-want-to-be-right-now”. It’s awful and harrowing, thinking about what has happened and what is currently unfolding there. The worst part it--It feels like Bhutto’s assassination was inevitable. She had missed the bullet (literally) several times and her father and brothers were all slain by oppositional forces; she must have known that it was only a matter of time. And I wonder--what is it like to live with that knowledge? To know that there are hordes of people plotting your death? And to continue on nonetheless?
I wouldn’t have known anything about Pakistani politics had it not been for the readings of Dr. Ahmed’s play that I worked on in July and November. Bhutto had returned to Pakistan during the time between these two events, and Ahmed was cautiously hopeful about her presence there—stress on the word “cautious”. His editorial in the Forward from just about three weeks ago seems eerily prophetic in its warnings.
This editorial in the Post refers to Bhutto as, possibly, “the only answer” to the current backsliding into the morass of “violence and Islamic extremism” happening in Pakistan. That strikes me as a dangerous idea to posit. If one person is the “only answer” they take on a savior-like quality. And then when they are gone—what next?
As for our part now in the West? We watch. We wait.
Anyway—HPMelon has a much better statement posted that celebrates Bhutto’s gumption rather than wallowing in uncertainty like I do. Read it here.
For someone who tends to be pretty darn cynical when it comes to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it is kind of hard for me to say this straight: my holiday was pretty fucking wonderful.
I mean, like Hallmark great. Like happy faces, all over the living rooms of both houses, on both days, great. Like eager golden retriever and ridiculously cute kitten great. Glowing smiles. Loving touches. One tearful moment that made all the smiles all the more worthwhile. Talking and remembering and holding and eating and introducing.
Being happy can be tricky for me. I worry that it might end. It might. But right now I just want to be happy.
We were virtually traffic-free on the journeys up and back from parts north of here. The time was pleasantly filled with episodes of This American Life, David Sedaris, and a generous helping of road-trip rambling about family, philosophy, and religion. On the eve we played pool, ate escarole and stuffed shells and cannoli (it was a very Italian Holiday) and then my parents headed off to midnight mass while C and I retreated to the hotel. The next day we added my brother and his girlfriend to the mix, who both looked stunning and happy. We did our own immediate family thing in the front room of my uncle’s home (after hastily wrapping gifts in the guest room) then dined on lasagna and antipasto and some sort of roast and asparagus and so many cookies and desserts. And everything was extremely… comfortable. Things felt just right. Like goldilocks.
I know, I know. It’s so sweet it’s cloying. I’ll find something to be bitter about soon, I promise. Until then: I wish everyone an end to their year that is filled with delight and wonder and peace. You all deserve it.
I will have to do my final book club assessment after the holidays. Just in time for all y’all to be redeeming your Amazon and B&N gift cards, right?
For now we’re in the final 24-hour stretch before heading up to a Pennsylvania/Jersey holiday. I just did a bit of online gifting and will pick up the few remaining things I need to get between 5pm today and 3pm tomorrow. C has to stay at the show he is understudying for until after the first big group scene, and then (presumably) we will hit the road. Unless someone is out. But we’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.
I had a great day and a half in NY. Wednesday was pretty well packed—I met my brother at Manhattan Theater Club, saw THE RECEPTIONIST (which I really dug), went with him and his director friend to Vinyl and ate veggie dumplings, then darted downtown for beer and ridiculous amounts of fried bar food with my friend Josh, then back up to Playwright’s to see DORIS TO DARLENE. It was a lovely, sparkling, touching play, but I found myself getting very frustrated with the turntable-dependant staging. That said, PH’s seats remain the most comfortable I’ve ever experienced, and I do so enjoy that space. Afterwards I ate green beans and caught up with dear Laura, then headed back to Queens. The next day I went out to Brooklyn to visit T, who is unfortunately assigned to bed rest (actually, home rest) as she waits out the last month of her pregnancy. We got super cheap manicures around the corner from her brownstone, and ate generous portions of Middle Eastern food. The place we got out nails done also offered $5 eyebrow waxes and a $10 bikini wax. As I sat with my hands underneath the dryer, my male Korean manicurist shouting into his cell phone at the front of the store all the while, I had to think, *There are some things where cheaper is not necessarily better. I think that bikini waxes fit into that category.*
In what other cases am I suspect of ridiculously cheap prices? Haircuts. Ceviche. Umbrellas. Motel Rooms.
Anyhow, the holiday will hopefully be a pleasant and peaceful one, and I wish the same for all of you. It will be an en masse gathering of my mother’s family on Xmas Eve, and most of those folks plus my brother and his girlfriend on Xmas day. C will be meeting everyone for the very first time, parental units included. He seems much less daunted by this plan than I am. It will also be the first large gathering of family since my aunt’s death. I believe all of the brothers and sisters save for one will be at dinner on the 24th. Here’s hoping we are able to find the joy in this reunion.
So. Happy Holidays. To everyone.And to all a good night!
Okay, so the rest of the books on this list are all books I would whole-heartedly recommend. They are worth the time and effort and each one moved/impressed/awed/amused/intrigued me in its own right.
I’ve still sort of ranked them in a countdown-to-my-favorite like order, but that’s kind of silly since they are such different works, and all notable in their respective genres.
KAFKA ON THE SHORE by HarukiMurakami I want to read more of his stuff. The book was wildly fantastic and wholly unpredictable. This book was early on in our year, and thinking back I have myriad vivid images that remain, all jumbled up together in my brain: the precocious Kafka, the special library, the cat killer, the cat-whisperer, random sex scenes, the house in the woods, the left-behind time-warping soldiers, the alternate universe of past and regret and memories and desires. This book is unlike any other book you have read (unless you’re already into Murakami). Start it, let go of linear expectations, and enjoy the view.
MOTHER NIGHT by Kurt Vonnegut I felt horrible when Vonnegut died and I realized I’d never actually read any of his work. I have two of his books on my shelf (not MOTHER NIGHT) but they’d just never made it to my bedside table. So I was really glad when this made it into the rotation. And it’s a pretty easy read, but deceptively straightforward. Vonnegut writes with such a removed quality that it forces the reader to do a lot of the work themselves. Which is a good thing. He is so unsentimental, so hands off, so objective in his story-telling, that you almost wonder if he has a point of view at all. And then, somewhere along the way, you realize that this IS the point. Especially with this book. Who are we. What do we stand up for. What do we allow to happen: to the world, to us, to our loved ones. When do we take a stand. When do we just sit down and let life take us where it will. What are the consequences of that. This is a book that you read in a short time, and then think about for a long time.
ON BEAUTY by Zadie Smith I was blown away by Zadie Smith’s first book: WHITE TEETH. Her ability to maintain intersecting plots, the vividness with which she wrote her characters, and her attention to detail are remarkable. Those factors are all at work in this one as well, but there is something more elusive to it, deeper, and more subversive, that at once makes it less immediately impressive and ultimately more satisfying. Identity, race, gender, class—all of these play into a story that is both recognizable and totally unique (incidentally, it is based on HOWARD’S END, which I haven’t read). Synchronistic timing had an effect on my read of this one too, for better and for worse. At the time I was reading and/or watching films with stories about middle aged men who cheat on their wives with much younger women. And when it happened here too, I was just like, “Come on! Can’t you all figure out another way to fuck up your lives!? Do you have to be so predictable?” But then, the way the emotional impact of these choices is depicted--impact on children, wife and offending party--is so moving and specific, that it doesn't seem like the same old thing at all. WEIGHT by Jeanette Winterson Short and sweet, this is a little slip of a book with some of the most stunning prose I have read in a long time. I think Jeanette Winterson is wonderful; no one had to sell me on that. This one is much more straight-forward than some of her other work, but no less intriguing. I don’t know my mythology well; somehow we missed that lesson in school—which is a shame as it marks a big gaping hole in my cultural literacy—indeed, I should catch up on that on my own. But that did not in any way hinder my enjoyment of this book. The humor and humanity that she brings to this myth are refreshing, her depictions of Atlas and Heracles are relevant and honest, and the image of Laika the Russian dog floating through space will stay with me for a long time.
Speaking of long time—this is taking longer than I expected. The countdown of the final three will happen later this week—tomorrow I’m up to NY to see THE RECEPTIONIST and DORIS TO DARLEEN and to catch up with friends, do a little holiday shopping, and maybe see a Macy’s window or two. More when I return.
Saturday was book club and due to moving plans and feverish foreheads, our band of five had dwindled down to three literary pals and one cookie-loving four-year-old. I’ve been meaning to do a retrospective of the year’s book club selections for a while now; I’m going to do a version of that today. These are the titles we’ve read, roughly in order from my least favorite to my choice of bestest-bookclub-book ever.
To start: the one book I completely missed was AMERICAN GODS by Neil Gaimon. I skipped this one because I knew that I could not make the book club meeting--but to be honest, with any of the others I probably would have read them anyway, meeting or no meeting. I just couldn't make myself excited about this one. I did go out and buy it. But it made me kind of uncomfortable to step into the science fiction section of the Borders.
The fact is, I am rarely one to get into anything resembling science fiction, crime fiction, historical romance, dragon stories, or any other books that are published exclusively in the pocket-size editions. My tastes are specific and tend to be a bit narrow: I like contemporary fiction by writers with some edge of cynicism or wariness about the world. I tend to like books that don’t make you feel very happy. I like Philip Roth. I like John Irving. I like Michael Chabon. I like Zadie Smith. I like Jhumpa Lahari. But I need to branch out.
That’s why I am in a book club. It encourages me to read books that I would not have otherwise chosen (and to drink wine and eat cheese and chat and gossip and debate with four lovely ladies on a regular basis).
Unless I get snooty and skip it. Anyhow, back to the task at hand.
And remember—these are quick-shot impressions of these books--often months and months after I actually read them. But it is what has stayed with me over time.
GHOSTS by John Banville Simply put: this book was boring. The text was dense but with little payoff. Blah, blah, blah prison. Blah, blah, blah island. Very little actually happened so we spent a lot of time examining the mental landscapes of the characters, and after page upon page of re-visiting, they just weren’t interesting enough to hold my attention.
AHAB’S WIFE by Sena Jeter Naslund The story was all over the place and the writing was a bit too frilly and adorned for me. One highlight of the book is the continued snicker HPMelon and I get from exclaiming “Let friends increase!” and “It’s okay that you slept with your dwarf sister, because I ate people”. See-you gotta read the book to understand that! Now maybe you want to? That said I did enjoy the history that came with the story, which painted a vivid picture of pre-civil war America. And cannibalism. And anal rape. Right? Who knew.
RATS: OBSERVATIONS ON THE HISTORY AND HABITAT OF THE CITY’S MOST UNWANTED INHABITANTS by Robert Sullivan This has been out only non-fiction book of the bunch. It was engaging, though I think I had a different experience than the other bc members. I loved the extensive footnotes while the others found them tiresome. It was in the footnotes where a lot of the more obscure NY city history was elaborated on, and since I am fascinated by the history of NYC, I would eat it up in any form. The actual task that Sullivan set out for himself—to examine and analyze a particular alley and the rat hierarchy that existed there—felt a little bit forced. Like he’d put it in his proposal and then had to write about it, even though there weren’t any huge revelations that came out of it. That said, there are a lot of great tidbits about the rodents themselves and the city they lord over here.
TERRORISM by John Updike This was our latest book. It’s an easy read, extremely digestible and for the most part it kept me hooked. I read it when I had several different stimuli teaching me all about Islam (this book included) which felt both synchronistic and a bit overwhelming. I did sense at times that the book couldn’t decide if it wanted to be a pulpy kind of action/crime/political story or a more serious examination of character and faith. There is some beautiful, sparkling passages of writing and then there are sections that feel undercooked and contrived. Worthwhile, not flawless.
Okay, bored yet? I’m going to take a break here and do the remaining seven books tomorrow. The rest of the list are all books I would recommend without caveat. They too have their strengths and weaknesses, but they were all magnificent examples of writing within their respective genres. So stay tuned for that.
Right now I’m looking up our next selection on Amazon.com: The Savage Detectives, by Roberto Bolano. I’m excited about it. And I read THE GOLDEN COMPASS this weekend and loved it. This was surprising to me as I’ve always been that person to say “I don’t have enough time in my life to read the books I really feel I should read before I leave this planet, so I will not spend that time reading children’s books” which basically translated to: “I don’t want to read HARRY POTTER and nothing you can say will make me want to.” But THE GOLDEN COMPASS was so exquisite and complex in its examination of life and relationships and growing up, against a backdrop of fabulous action and imagery and magic, that I was hooked for several days. And, ummm, crying at several points. It is a dark and beautiful book and I was so jazzed to follow along with a female heroine.
I rarely chat up the day job because, well, it’s a day job. But when necessary, I spend several hours a week selling tickets for the Folger Box Office. I love the people there and find it to be, for the most part, a pretty painless way to pay the bills.
But the patrons? Sometimes? Oy, the patrons.
Of course at the holidays everyone and their brother decide to go to the theater. And they randomly set their cultural compass down on the Guide to Lively Arts and let it point them the way to something festive. But often, oh fair rare-to-go-to-the-theater folks, have no idea what to do next.
So they call someone, anyone. And when they call the Folger, but really want to go to see Tamburlaine, and I offer to give them the phone number for the Shakespeare Theater, they say “*Sigh* Well can’t you just TRANSFER me?”
Do people think there is one big switchboard that connects all cultural institutions? There isn’t, by the way.
It’s like that rumor about the Indian restaurants on 6th Street in the East Village. That they all share the same kitchen?
Or the guy who called this morning asking about the nutcracker. And I told him we are not doing the nutcracker at the small 250-seat Elizabethan-replica theater that fits about twelve people total on stage at one time. No ballerinas here. And he said, “Do you know where they are doing it? Can you help me contact the place that they are doing the nutcracker? You work in a theater--you must know these things, right”
Went to see BEFORE THE DEVIL KNOWS YOUR DEAD last weekend, the first film I’ve seen in the theater in about six months (not counting my trip to the cinema in Ireland). While the work was excellent all around, be warned: it is a movie that makes you want to shower afterwards, in some attempt to wash away the despair and degradation you have just witnessed. Shower with a loofah. And some fully concentrated Dr. Bronner’s soap.
The Times review is apt in describing it as “a chronicle of destruction — physical, spiritual and moral” for it is a chronicle, not a lesson, an objective reveal, not a morality tale. It tells you the story and forces you to fill in the blanks, to find the “why”--the catalyst for the downfall. Which of course I tried desperately to do. “The American Dream gone wrong… a story about poison spreading through the family…” I kept trying to find the words to explain it away, because without a specific reason, without an explanation for the self-destruction, I have to accept that sometimes people just sink. Deeper and deeper and without an excuse. I also have to accept that this could happen to any of us.
If I don’t find a reason then I have to admit that anyone has the potential to totally fuck up their life and the lives of the people around them. Perhaps in lesser ways than these characters manage to do (I don’t really fear that I will some day find myself swathed in too much pink flesh lying on my back in a heroin den while a transvestite pumps drugs into my arm) but in our own small ways, in our own less cinema-worthy versions of self-destructiveness.
I don’t like thinking about that.
Other things I’m listening to and watching:
I did indeed make it to the silent film JEWISH LUCK, with an original score provided live by ONE RING ZERO. Such a cool event. Hanvnah encouraged us to sit down near the band so we had the opportunity to watch both the movie (which was a trip) and the band making their merry music. They had a wide range of instruments, some recognizable, others looking like strange 1950s sci-fi equipment (see the theremin, and others, here) plus the band members themselves were adorable—total Brooklyn-dorky-cute-hipster types. The movie was fascinating because it was filmed in the Soviet Union during a short window of time when people actually embraced cultural differences, including Jewish culture. Most of the film is set in Berdichev, a city that was alternately part of Poland, then the USSR, and now the Ukraine. At one point they travel to Odessa. The city where my father’s father’s family is apparently from is about an equal distance to the north, than Berdichev is from Odessa to the South. Bialystok has a similar identity crises: having been passed from Poland to Prussia to Russia and now back to Poland.
Anyway, my point is—there were times during the movie when my brain would go to the place where it would think, “Wow. Those actors really look like Russian jewish peasants. Missing teeth and all.” And then I’d have to remind myself, “Oh. Wait. They really are Russian Jewish peasants.” They looked a bit like the pictures I’ve seen of our extended family. Deep set eyes. Wide foreheads. Dark hair.
And really… sturdy.
I just finished Terrorism, by John Updike. It was our latest book club pick. More on that and my many recent lessons about Islam to come, as well as a “book-club-in-review” post: a breakdown of what I liked vs. what I could have passed 0n.
It feels like sacrilege to me, being from Rochester and complaining about the cold. But understand that I left the cold climates in 1995 and never went back. I shed my sweaters when I moved to North Carolina and refused to re-stock.
Here’s the thing: the snow reminds me of all good stuff--sledding in Durand Eastman park, fancy hot chocolate drinks at Tivoli Restaurant downtown, tromping through the snow to get to Midtown Mall and ride the monorail, and of course, the possibility of snow days--but only when the drifts reached the top of my ten-year-old-four-foot-three-inch-stature. Which happened at least once a year.
The cold, on the other hand, reminds me of being chilled and lonely and isolated during my first year at Michigan. It was the first time I’d experienced the season in a place where I had to walk everywhere instead of driving, where we’d wait for thirty minutes for a shuttle bus to take us from North Campus to Central Campus: toes freezing, skin puckering, fingers numbing, begging for the bus to come. I was all waif-ish at the time, so I was cold in any temperature and ridiculously cold as the winter set in. I’d wear layers of long johns and tights and turtlenecks and sweaters. I stopped going out at night. There were days when I felt like I’d never get warm.
The year passed, I got happier and healthier, and after one more winter in the snow belt I headed down to Winston-Salem. I didn’t swear off cold weather for ever with the move. Indeed, I have always said that climate will never figure into a decision about where I live (unlike many this is not my reason for ruling out the possibility of living in Chicago—that decision has always been based on the fact that it is too far away from New York). But I did shed my winter skins when I moved down south. Literally and metaphorically. I got rid of all my layers. And I started reveling in December sunshine.
So now we get both: a dusting of snow (hurrah) and cold numbing toes (boo). As Long John Silver says at the end of Treasure Island: “The good and the bad… the good and the bad… “sometimes it’s hard to separate the two.
Aint that the truth?
In other news. The holidays: I bought Hanukkah gelt at Trader Joe’s last night. And tonight I will accompany Hanvnah to see JEWISH LUCK, a silent film based on a story by Sholem Aleichem. When I told C about it he assumed it was about a jewish guy who gets lucky all the time (interpret that as you will). I explained that Aleichem typically wrote about lovable schlimazels, rarely about those at the top of their game. My guess is that the title is ironic. We’ll see. Live music accompanies it, props to Hanvnah for always getting me out to do interesting things I would never think to do on my own.
Next week I’ll probably see Christmas Carol, thereby completing my multi-culti celebration of the holidays. Unless anyone has any ideas for the Winter Solstice, in which case, count me in.
I don’t have much to report. I’m feeling oddly peaceful, despite shifts in the tectonic plates all around me and being sort of kind of unemployed, there’s a stillness to my center that hasn’t been there for a long time. It’s… refreshing.
Treasure Island is pretty much up and running. Matey. It’s a fun show. Go see it.
Various and sundry readings are coming up:
First Up:
The New Musical Fund Under the direction of Charlie Fink and Matt Wolf Presents a Staged Reading of:
The Wonderful World of Zidney A new musical comedy by Shawn Northrip and Mike Pettry Directed by Me Featuring Toni Rae Brotons, Michael John Casey, John Dow, Michael Grew, Jillian Locklear, Jennie Lutz, Alessandra Migliaccio, Joe Pindelski, Casie Platt, Kelly Tighe and Bobby Smith, as Ike Meisner
The tragic fall of the most powerful man in show business unleashes boardroom savagery of legendary proportions, as the mighty never fall alone.
Monday, December 10, at 7:30 pm. MetroStage 1201 N. Royal St. Alexandria, VA (703) 548-9044 RSVP to charlie@newmusicalfund.org The New Musical Development Fund is a 501c3 tax-exempt foundation whose mission is to support the creation of new musicals through commissions, readings, and workshop productions. All rights are retained by the artists.
Ample parking is available. It's a twenty minute hike from Braddock Metro. Directions: http://www.metrostage.org/html/visitus.html There is a good restaurant next door. http://www.bastillerestaurant.com/
Soon afterwards:
The next week we have an encore performance of Titus! The Musical at the Black Cat. “Not again?!” you say? But wait! Marybeth Fritzky and Jason Stiles will be reprising the roles that made them hot stuff and furthermore made them hot for each other. Or so I like to say. I mean, really? They were meant to be together and the forces aligning them were far greater than mere mortals can claim to know, but I like to think that Titus helped things along somehow. One way or the other, the show was the start of many great things for me: my collaborations with Shawn, my undying love for Joe Pindelski, and friendships with MB and Stiles that have gotten me through many a rough spell. Booyah.
Here’s the scoop:
TITUS! THE MUSICAL. (a concert performance)
General Performance Information:
When: Dec 18th at 9:00pm
Where: The Black Cat 1811 14th ST NW Washington DC 20009
Ticket information: All shows are all ages All tickets are $8.00 Tickets at the door or online www.ticketmaster.com
ProductionTeam:
Adaptor and Composer: Shawn Northrip Director: Me Production Manager: Colin Hovde
Featuring:
Jason Stiles Marybeth Fritzky Joe Pindelski Jacob Jackovich Casie Platt Cesar Guadamuz Andrew Honeycutt Nathan Bonfiglio Billy Bob Bonson
