same bullshit, different day

It's been a long week of making theater for no money. I spent hours yesterday working on a proposal that I had to run to a theater that may or may not even accept the damn thing because it's late. We checked with them and they said they would take it late but then I didn't have time to work on it because I was in rehearsal, doing rewrites, buried in production stuff, dealing with every other element of running a fucking theater company, so I didn't have time to work on the proposal to get the free space at the prestigious theater, which we desparately fucking need, so the proposal has ended up REALLY late. But I busted my ass yesterday for 6 hours, writing writing writing, plus the subway ride and the dashing through streets of New York and then dashing back to the subway to get to another theater to do a walk through. I cancelled a meeting with a press rep and I didn't go running. It was exhausting. And it pissed me off.

Because we can't make theater without the hand outs. Without the grants and the residencies and the begging and the free labor from good friends and the artists who work way below their standards for us. I'm starting to feel like a street urchin. Or a slum lord. And in taking all that time to fill out applications, write narrative, compile bios, print copies of reviews, get more DVDs burned, when is there the time to make the work that we are asking for support for? I'm too busy compiling company data and writing cover letters that are basically fucking begging for support than to work on my craft (sorry to use the dumbass word) or just make my fucking plays better. Please think I'm good enough. Oh please like my work enough. All I can do is hope that my application stands out in a teeteringly tall pile of applications by other collaborative ensemble experimental edgy (insert dumbass downtown theater adjective of choice here) theater companies.

It's demeaning. I just want to make the plays.

After writing all day and rushing and running and kissing some ass and agreeing to things I didn't want to agree to because people are doing me favors and letting Camilo buy me dinner because I am BROKE and feeling guilty about it because he does all our graphic design work for practically free, I was almost ready to throw in the towel. There are days where it seems too hard. Like I'll never make a living at this on my terms. Like I'll have to go to grad school to get contacts or I'll have to become a director for hire and stop making my own work. But my friends who have done those things aren't making livings at it either. They struggle too. We're all just trying to make the work, make a living. Maybe be happy here and there. Or at least be ok with things. Maybe I should just work full time at Cupcake Cafe again. I KNOW I'm good at making coffee.

I did have one transcendent experience yesterday, when I watched The Real Housewives of Orange County for the first time ever. I think I maybe saw God.

Oh and it snowed. It was amazing. So perhaps things aren't so bad.

YOU'RE The One That I Want

The show is brilliant. It's so good it's bad and then it transcends that and comes back around to being good again. And then it exceeds even that and becomes fabulous.

The new Grease reality show is overwhelming. Watching a casting process on TV is so humbling and exhilirating. Yes, I get that most of reality TV is staged and obviously manipulated by editors and producers, but I believe that Grease: You're The One That I Want is pure. These wide-eyed actresses who worked double shifts all week at the Applebees in Tulsa so they could buy a bus ticket to New York, ride their hopes and dreams all the way here just to stand on stage in front of some Broadway heavy weights and belt out Hopelessly Devoted to You while batting huge doe eyes, well honestly they break my heart. They speak to the 15 year old theater geek in me who knows every word to Les Mis and who was sure that one day she would play Kim in Miss Saigon (no matter that Kim is a Vietnamese refugee and I'm a Jew from New England, TRUE TALENT HAS NO LIMITS). If this reality TV show had been on in 1996, I would have been on my knees in front of the TV, wearing my Cats t-shirt, holding my Rent double cassette set, worshipping at the shrine of David Ian, literally pawing the TV hoping to crawl inside.

But what wows me the most, in the here and now, sitting in some shitty cafe with free wi-fi in Hells Kitchen, looking forward to rehearsal in Queens tonight where we will continue to cobble together a new play and try our damnedest to change the world (hold for irony. hold...), is the touchingly human quality of the casting committee on this reality show. They are trying their damnedest to make watchable TV. They are trying to be as ruthless as those talent-free American Idol judges with their cutting words and obnoxious jokes. But they just can't do it. Before the Idol phenomenon, Paula Abdul had never had to sit in front of some kid singing their heart out and tell them, "I'm sorry, you're just not right for this." She's never worked with that singer, trying to coax something new and ultimately useable out of them. She doesn't understand the heartache of that poor kid, the work that has gone into these 16 bars, and the thousands of dollars thrown away on conservatory training. So now, in one of those three seats of power, she has no problem giggling at the tone-deaf, mocking over-zealous warblers, and telling the occasional mentally challenged kid who squeaks out Pussy Cat Dolls, hoping to become a star, that they are fucking awful. She can do all that because she's never really had to do all that.

But Kathleen Marshall has. And it shows. Auditions are brutal for everyone. Sure, actors are putting themselves out there, hopeful that they are the one that we want, but the casting committee is hopeful too. All we want is for you to be wonderful. Please. Stop my search right here by being brilliant. Maybe the next person who walks in this door was born for this role. Maybe they're remarkable. And when they're not, we will do whatever we can do to make them better. Maybe they take direction well. Maybe they're a shape-shifter and can morph into what we want. Maybe they can change.

Of course they can't. They're it or they're not. Sometimes we're sure they're it, they prove they're not, but we were so sure, really so absolutely certain they were it, that we ignore all warnings and hire them anyway, forcing them to become the it that we so clearly see in our minds.

Then they get fired after a week of rehearsal.

But in my case all this means is they don't get to perform a two-week showcase in yet another shitshow of an off-off Broadway theater. It leaks. There's exposed wire. It still has the nubby stained rug on the floor from when it was an OFFICE. It gives you asbestos poisoning.

On You're The One That I Want, Kathleen (and David Ian and writer guy) have to get it right. There is no firing. America will choose the leads in their 10 million dollar revival. And they are scared shitless. So between fear of directing freaky newbies in their Broadway debut and being genuinely good human beings who understand the pain of auditions, they are kindly telling every auditioner, "Thanks." "Thank you." "Thanks but you're not quite right for this. Keep trying though!" It is humanity at its finest. It is a true generosity of spirit as these three theater artists maintain their integrity and let hopefuls from Tulsa down gently.

A warm and fuzzy feeling washes over me. A feeling that even when they sell-out and turn to a TV show to sell tickets to their perhaps purposeless Broadway revival of a show so many times revived that we need to just slap a do-not-recesutate sticker on it and move the fuck on, at the end of the day theater people will always be the most human. Maybe it's the low salary. Maybe it's the fear of rejection. Maybe it's the self conscious nature of getting up in front of real people and showing real feelings, but it's part of the reason I keep on keepin' on. The goodness of the people and the need to keep making the work, asbestos poisoning or not.