NOT SMEAR, SCHMEAR

Sometimes, I forget how Jewish I can be. I've had many Jewish friends over the years and have picked up a few "isms". They're very descriptive words.

So Pam and I are walking the streets of New York and she says she's hungry.
I agree that I am too.
She asks what I might like to eat.
"Just a toasted bagel with a schmear cream cheese", I reply.
She stops walking. "Schmear ?!?!", she yodels across the Upper East Side. "Isn't that word reserved for PAP tests?"
"SCH-MEAR", she forces me to reply. "Not SMEAR".
The slight arch of her left eyebrow indicates that she's not quite ready to believe that it's a real word.

We continue our journey, making our way down to The Flatiron district looking for an Indian grocery I've read about, and a stop for lunch at Eataly. Halfway down the block from the subway station we have just exited, it happens. She stops dead, mouth agape in shock and awe. And there it is, in big bold letters, proving, without a doubt , that I know what I'm talking about.

**********************

My first week on Broadway ended in more of a whimper than a roar. On Friday, I started to feel a little throat tickle. By Saturday I was hacking up a lung like an asthmatic, coal-mining sea lion. By Sunday morning, my head somehow weighed twenty pounds more than usual, causing something known in medical circles as "falls down a lot". After an hour of drinking coffee and water and vainly trying to convince myself that my body just needed a little extra time to wake up, I had to face the facts. The fact that I'd coughed so long and so hard that I'd shredded my vocal cords. The fact that my energy was so low I could barely make it to the bathroom, let alone up and down Pride Rock a dozen times. The fact that regardless of my good intentions and well-ingrained old-country work ethic, there was no way I could give eighteen hundred people their $150 worth....twice, being a Sunday. So, after a further thirty minutes of arguing with myself, I made the call to Stage Management and pulled myself from the shows. They, having witnessed my physical state on Saturday, were not surprised.

On my return to the show tonight, everyone was very welcoming and genuinely happy to see me back, and I was more than a little relieved to learn that I had inadvertently joined a secret club. Several people told me their story of have to take a show or two off during their first week on Broadway. Just another indication of the sneaky nature of stress.....you can never really be sure what it's doing to you, especially when your body is producing adrenaline in volumes that would kill a normal 9 to 5 desk worker.

****************

The subway stop that I use to go to work spits me out into the world on 42nd Street, right in the heart of Times Square. The particular stairs that I most often use are where the big, fuzzy mascots frequently hang out. Mickey and Minnie are usually there. Sometimes Spongebob Squarepants, occasionally Hello Kitty, and always, for some reason, Elmo. I overheard this on my way to work tonight:
"Gurl, them things is weird. One time I'm down here some dirtyass Elmo aksed me fo' a dollah !"

I'M JUST A BROADWAY BABY

I have improvised my way through murder mysteries in every venue you could possibly imagine.

I have had paychecks bounce and watched, many times,  as jobs evaporated because theatres closed their bankrupted doors.

I have been wined and dined by aristocracy. 

I have dragged my tired ass out of bed at 6 a.m. to unload a van  and entertain a gymnasium full of children. Children !

I have lived through shows with non-existent air conditioning, suicide attempts and on-stage death.


I have performed the dramatic, the comedic, the tuneful, the tragic, the banal and the forgettable.

I have performed WITH the dramatic, the comedic, the tuneful, the tragic, the banal and the forgettable.

I have woken up not knowing the name of the place I'm in, not knowing the day of the week, knowing only that there is a show to be performed.

I have been dissed, pissed and missed.

I have laughed, cried, fought, mourned, celebrated, discovered and bonded with thousands of people in cast after cast after cast.

I've fought with myself, for myself, sung my own praises, doubted every instinct I ever had, almost given up on myself, drank away my failures and been revived and reborn in the addictive drug that is applause.

And now, as of yesterday, I've had my Broadway debut. I have lived that moment that teenagers around the planet are dreaming of right now as they sing musical scores into a hairbrush in their bedrooms.

 Opening cards & flowers

Faux Playbill constructed by Tim

The text, in red, says, "Life's not fair is it, bitch"

 
It was an amazing and wonderful experience to receive opening day best wishes from around the world. My inbox was crammed with messages from Singapore, Australia, France, Dubai, South Africa, New Zealand, Thailand, England, Canada and The U.S.

 Gareth, the departing Scar, on his last day

Me, on my first day

PLAYBILL .COM

THEATERMANIA.COM

My new Young Simbas

Through strange rehearsal schedule, getting to learn the new stage space, getting to learn the new people and trying to put the details back into my performance, I had a small revelation. Really, at the heart of it, and without diminishing what this place is, at the end of the day, it's another show.
Yes, it's exciting. Yes,  it's gratifying to be here. Yes,  I'm proud. But being here, you realize that , though the venue is different, the people are the same. Different pond, same fish. This is Oz, and everyone wants to meet the Wizard.These people are no different than any that I've worked with over and over again, except that they are working in The Emerald City. How they got here, whether by dogged determination or simply by being in the right place at the right time is unimportant. They are the same gypsy story-tellers that inhabit every theatre on the planet. The people who knew, at some point in their lives, that they were different. The people who, night after night, leave their own lives behind and inhabit the lives of someone else in order to tell a story to everyone sitting out there in the dark. My people.

ARRIVING IN NEW YORK

In order to avoid flying on New Year's Day and starting work the next day (and also to give myself some time to see some shows) I arrived in New York City on Nov. 29th. This was actually "Plan B". Originally, I was going to fly on the 28th, but my visa approval only arrived in the Disney offices on the 27th, so it had to be FedEx'd to me on the 28th. Oddly enough, the 28th was also the day I finally secured myself an apartment, even though I'd been looking for one since October. Talk about things working out at the last minute. Though, from the beginning, I refused to be stressed by apartment hunting, adopting the attitude that everything would work out. And so it did.

I knew that which ever apartment I ended up getting probably wouldn't be available to me until Jan. 1, so I booked myself a room at the YMCA as a back-up plan. Knowing that I had a place to sleep and that I could cancel at any time provided a bit of security.

Now, at some point in history, I'm sure it probably was "...fun to stay at the Y.M.C.A....", but I think that train has left the station.....and derailed. At one point, it was probably also cheap to stay. That train is still running, barely, struggling to pull the weight of New York's prices. The YMCA is now co-ed, though bathrooms on each floor remain segregated. It is populated, particularly as New Year's Eve approaches, with young Asian and European couples, 'doing' a Times Square holiday on a budget. My single (that means NON-SHARE room) cost $105/nt, and it was the size of most modern apartment bathrooms.

This is what $105 buys you in NYC

(Bathroom down the hall)

Thankfully, it was only for 3 nights as I moved into my Upper East Side apartment on New Year's Day. Perhaps The Y was a good place to stay for a few days because it made my very small apartment look and feel like a well appointed palace by comparison.

And, no, in case you're wondering, I did NOT go to Times Square on New Year's Eve. The weather in New York was ridiculously warm which meant to me that there would be even more people than usual. Standing in a crowd of millions, on the pavement, for hours, waiting for them all to count together and then sing a song that they don't really understand is not my idea of a good time. No, I spent my evening in a tiny little bar in Greenwich Village called "Marie's Crisis" where the piano player offers nothing but show tunes and the whole bar sings along with every single song. Hilarious!

My rehearsal schedule has been pretty light so far, which isn't too surprising since it's not like the show is unfamiliar to me. My biggest challenge will be learning to work on a bigger stage with a bigger set.

(Riding Pride Rock as it rises out of the stage floor, telescoping itself up,

 is quite a trip  since Singapore's rock tracked on from the wings.) 

Over the week, I've gradually met more and more people, all of whom have been very open and welcoming.

First day of rehearsal

My new office

The performance schedule is a bit wonky because of the holidays, so my first performance is actually on a Monday, (the 16th) which is Martin Luther King Day, so it's a matinee!! Then, I will have the next day off. Odd.

I've gone out of my way to see as many shows as possible since it will be virtually impossible to see any once I start performing.
So far,the list looks like this:
FOLLIES (Sublime)
LION KING (3 times, but that's work)
SEMINAR (Brilliant writing. The whole cast was as good as Alan Rickman)
BILLY ELLIOT (Such heart. Loved it!)
SPIDERMAN (I saw the first preview a year ago. It's soul is gone now. Empty)
OTHER DESERT CITIES (Phenomenal acting. Judith Light and Stockard Channing WOW!)
LYSISTRATA JONES (Like an after-school special with a PG-13 rating. Yawn. Great music though)

I will probably have a little time next week to see some shows as well, though I may have to start selling blood, or other things, to pay for them.