A big step!!!!!!!!!!!

Opening night went very very well. The audience loved it and most of my slips were unnoticeable and minor. I could hardly be happier. Wallace acquited himself well yet again on the party front . . . wings. MOONSHINE! Truly wonderful. I love that guy.

It was so nice to get audience response . . . in fact sometimes I thought they were way overboard. This one guy was laughing so hard I thought he was gonna plotz! And it turned out he was a reviewer! That should be an interesting review!

A lot of wonderful people stuck around after to say hello and tell me what they thought. It was a very special evening. I kind of could tell it was gonna be; we all napped for a while in Eastover (the artists housing) and there was a gentle rain falling on the trees . . . that place is just magical when that happens. I went to the theater rested and raring to go.

I dropped one of the first lines of the play but no one but people close to the script knew it and I was off like a shot . . . holding for laughs is a wonderful feeling . . .

So six more times; I think this is gonna build to a wonderful ending next weekend, while I will hate for it to be over, I am cherishing every microsecond of this experience.

Opening Day!

the moment we've all been waiting for. It's kind of hard to express the depth of feeling here. I was sitting in a chair on the set last night when no one else was in the theater and just appreciating all this effort and all this work for my play. It's an amazing feeling.

The dress rehearsal had its problems, but nothing insurmountable. Some line glitches and the like, but it was a bit distracting to have noisy lights being tested and all that, but hey, that's live theater, you never know what to expect. The one thing I do know to expect tonight is to have fun. It's gonna be amazing and a moment that will live with me forever.

I'll write more about it tomorrow, after the event . . . but for now . . . it's all just flooring me . . .

Thank you Wallace, wherever you are!

What a great night!

The gala opening of the Fringe Festival last night was a big success I'd say. What a load of talent. The poets started things off and I went second. The audience was absolutely full, maybe one or two empty seats, but it was a nice crowd, I'd like to have that for every performance! They were into it too! They laughed and were attentive, so who could ask for more. I got a lot of nice comments after as well. The only bummer was that the food was all gone by the time I was done; Wallace was funny, he said he had 25 RSVP'd guests and the rest just showed up . . . I hope they coughed up some bucks for the Fringe. It was a very successful party! I particularly enjoyed the Brel/Piaf songs and the two comedians, Giles and Mikhail, who did a rap version of waiting for godot . . . it was priceless!

they are performing on the Sunday of my last performance so I'll have to make sure to see them!

By noon today I had run eight miles and run lines twice (once while running and once with Bette on the porch). Now is no time for dilly dallying . . . this is what separates the men from the boys . . . much as I'd like to party down after rehearsal I'm gonna limit myself to one or two of either beers or glasses of wine . . . perfection may not be a reasonable goal, but I'm gonna shoot for it; what will ever be more significant than this in my theatrical life? I am intending to leave nothing on the table and at the end of these seven performances, I want to be able to know that I never once gave less than my best. If I can say that when all is said and done, then I will accept whatever happens or doesn't happen with this piece and know that this little adventure with Wallace has been something very precious and real.

I don't know what to expect this week other than it'll be a lot of work. We rehearse tomorrow at three and then begin tech at 6:30 . . . then we have two days to get it all right.

Today's the gala

Today is the opening of the festival. The big gala where I'll do the first few minutes of the play and several other performers will do a bit of a preview. Should be fun. Tomorrow is an off day, and then it's rockin' into Thursday!

The last couple of days were pretty intense. Thursday we ran the show twice virtually back to back; the first time was to see where we are and the second for the lighting and set designers, who are both very good. It's exciting. As nice as the One Man Talking thing was, we had not much in the way of design, general lighting and no set; this time everything is gonna be tailored to the show and it promises to be pretty amazing.

Yesterday we rehearsed, but were disrupted by stuff being delivered for the gala and such; but it's all good. This week I'm gonna zero my focus into a laser beam . . . nothing is gonna stand in my way!

I'll write tomorrow about the gala!

Rehearsal update (and more!)

It is so beautiful up there at Byrdcliffe (the artists colony being high jacked for August for the Woodstock Fringe Festival . . . well two of the buildings of it are). I'm not sure if the theater and Eastover (the housing for artists) are original buildings, but they sure feel like they could be; and original buildings would put them at having been built in 1903! I stayed up there Tuesday night and it was pretty amazing, so quiet and just gorgeous. It's about two miles from the center of Woodstock and it might as well be a million miles away!

We went to Albany for a radio interview on their public radio station, and got there and waited . . . and waited . . . only to be told that we weren't on their schedule! I don't know what happened internally there to make that transpire we weren't too happy about it, but it was a nice chance to spend a little time with Wallace away from the hubbub of rehearsal and all.

Rehearsals have been going great! We now have a stage manager so that is a big help especially for Wallace. We're busting ass but it never felt so good! I know I've said it before but this is the ultimate theater experience of my life . . . I don't know if I'll ever find its equal again, but I'll tell you one thing, I am savoring every moment. If I get tired I just remember that this is what I want to do and this is who I am . . . if you can't have fun doing your own piece then forget about it. I'm in a state of bliss that must be what the ancients meant when they talked about nirvana!

First day at Woodstock

Boy was it fun to get on that stage! And is it ever big! Much larger than anywhere we have been rehearsing or the TADA! stage we did it on in April. That leads to some adjustments, but it's all very good. And to be doing it at the historic Byrdcliffe artists colony is really cool.

I'm staying up there tonight and Wallace and I have an interview tomorrow morning on the public radio station in Albany . . . that should be interesting and fun . . . maybe not Leonard Lopate, but you gotta start somewhere!

We started from the top of the show and worked through to just after the new stuff ... supposedly today we'll go on from there so that eventually we'll make the end of the show! It seems like we have plenty of time, but hello! We open a week from Thursday! Danger danger! We have our work cut out for us . . . but it's gonna go great and today I get to meet stage manager and Catherine, who has become Wallace's right hand person.

Oh, and did I say, it is beautiful up there!

Eve of Woodstock

Very excited about rehearsing up in Woodstock. Should be an awesome experience and I'm looking forward to it. This weekend I've done a lot of work on the script; specifically some of the new stuff. Wallace had asked me to look at the scene in which Jimmy meets his future ex wife as he felt it could stand some focusing . . . and there was a lot of stuff that I liked a lot that sort of had to hit the cutting room floor. It was difficult to do, but I think it'll prove to be the right decision. As Wallace put it during rehearsal the other night, anything that is unnecessary is chaff. Sometimes you have to kill a few babies, and some of it was hard; but you have to be kind of cold blooded about this stuff; you can't hang onto it if it bogs things down and some of the stuff I cut, while I didn't at first agree, the more I looked at it the more I saw the wisdom of some trims.

Having said that: I also rewrote some stuff to smooth the transitions that I like almost as much as the stuff I cut . . . so it sort of finds its own level I suppose.

At any rate, it's gonna be fun to work on this in a really concentrated way . . . momentum is really jacked up right about now!!!