" ...oh yes readers, as of Sunday night I am a Broadway actress please show the respect..."
SELF Magazine, page 90, April 24, 2001
SELF Magazine, page 90.
As the longtime reader knows, I rarely brag about my industry accomplishments, mostly because I have so few of them. What's the point? Does the woman whose breasts barely fill a a AAA cup wear a gold-plated bustier? Exactly.
But this week has been zippy! On Thursday, I bought the May edition of SELF magazine and it turns out the freelance writer who claimed to be fact checking for SELF was not a cruel hopes-dasher but really a freelance writer who was fact-checking for SELF. On page 90, in the fitness Flash section, the center paragraph with the largest font size, the lap pools branch of this website was called "hilarious, straightforward." Since I am my website, the promotional material I send up to comedy clubs will updated to include the partial lie, "called hilarious and straightforward by SELF magazine."
(Of course, I'll wait until the May issue is off the stands, in case the industry gets a case of the fact-checks.)
My agent called- she does that every few months- to tell me I'm hosting a 24 hour marathon of the underrated and cancelled too early Days and Nights of Molly Dodd, on the Metrochannel. It was the My So-Called Life for thirtysomething women. It's shooting on one or two days next week, and I'll be your guide to all things Blair Brown.
On Saturday night, Gennady and I saw Riverdance. I loved the dancing and hated the singing. Whenever the druids floated out to chant their ode to Enya, I rolled my eyes and checked my watch.
"Oh my God," I sighed to Gennady when another high-pitched soprano interrrupted the steppers with her solo about nothing. "Bring out the motherfucking step dancers and bring them out now!"
"I'm reading a program," Gennady said, his binaculors aimed for the first time at someone not a neighbor. "When's the guy with headband coming out?"
Pat Roddy took the place of Michael Flatley, who took his headband and his shaved chest to Lord of the Dance when he outgrew Riverdance. No loss- Pat Roddy was amazing. His upper body is so relaxed he could perform neurosurgery while his legs and ass take care of the show. And Eileen Martin's feet are so fast and flexible I thought they would fly off her ankles into the crowd during the finale.
Riverdance is at the Gershwin Theater, on 51st between Broadway and 8th. Bathroom Confessions, oh yes readers, as of Sunday night I am a Broadway actress please show the respect, is at the 78th Street Theater Lab, on 78th and Broadway. Our theater is just fifteens steps from Broadway while those wannabes down at Riverdance are at least 75-100 steps from Broadway.
Our opening night was sold out and we did pages 1-41, then skipped to 55-62, then doubled back to 42-54, then hopped back on the play's train on page 63 and brought it home. My scene is on pages 42-44, and the transvestite (page 50) and I were trying to figure out how we could enter if we weren't given our cues, but then we got them and all was well. In the wings John/Monique and I decided if they skipped us, we would do the curtain call anyway, just to hear the audience burst into a confused clap.
Monday night's show was followed by an exciting and loud cast fight. While I was not in the fight, I did sit by in awkward awe at the shouting and intensity. If I could ever yell like that, I'd be the greatest star in the world. Gennady and his mom came to the show, and with two acting classes to draw upon, Gennady gave me notes on my performance in a diner.
"Puzzycat, drunks don't laugh."
"Oh yeah? Why don't you tell me more on Thursday, after you're third acting class," I said, sniffing the roses he gave me after the show.
"Honey, I don't know acting but I do know drunks."
This is partially true. Gennady knows drunks, but they are all Russian. So he is right when he says that Russian drunks don't laugh. I recall the Thanksgiving where I met someone I'll refer to only as Cousin Boris, who was drunk and Russian and plotting a shootout with the cops at the sobriety checkpoint around the corner.
"Kristin," I said, (my character has been given a name), "is Californian and let me tell you something my Russian Bear, West Coast drunks enjoy a good laugh!"
Tom Cotter, the fiance of Bathroom star/author Kerri Louise and a hilarious, straighforward comic, is taping his first Tonight Show on Tuesday night. Show the love and watch why don't you? He's great.
