i'm no threat to ella fitzgerald. don't worry.

hieeeee!

i have done no research like i said i would. bam. truth.

i have, however, continued to write my play, and this week, ladies and germs, i started singing again. shutup.

this afternoon, i had an appointment with a dude named Elliot (like the kid in E.T.), and he has some sort of higher education certificate (i think a master's degree) in jazz improvization. did anyone know that degree existed? no. so i was like, okay, i am interested in jazz singing. Elliot has the most education in jazz singing ever, even beyond what i thought was possible on earth. let's hook this up. so, we did. we hooked it up.

he taught me about back beating, forward beating, using pedal points on chords (which is where your lowest, most sustained note is the 5th of the chord), and straight-toning. i totally dig jazz music. Elliot was neat when he was friends with E.T. AND today when he taught me about jazz.

also, he tried to make me scat. i kind of wish i had had a tape recorder for that part. it sounded a lot like i was someone who had never met music before. and it sounded like music didn't like meeting me.

So, anyway, i have had a tangential few days. Which i think happens to people as they pursue their goal, so there you go. it happened to me. bam. truth.

i am going to do the equity research and more grant stuff; i'm going to continue writing the play. it's all on the agenda for this week. but also, i'm going to sing more, because not singing makes me blue... and in the immortal words of some guy, i've got to sing away these blues.

doo doo dee wabba.

The World (America)

Good Afternoon!

The Yankees won the World Series. Good job, George Fish and boys! Every time people talk about them being "world champions" in the news now, I think of the Eddie Izzard joke that America has won every World Series. Good job, America. Why do we call it the "World Series," by the way? And if we must persist in calling it that, shouldn't we let some other countries play with us?

I'm pretty sure I just proved my non-die-hard-baseball-fan-ness by suggesting such a preposterous idea. Please don't laugh at me.

ANYWAYS! SHOW BIZ!

I'm continuing to write this week and starting to percolate plans for a reading in December. I had a moment of inner-joy today when i realized that all the women in my play are over 30. Take that, youth-obsessed World (America) who doesn't let other countries play baseball with Derek Jeter!

I'm not exactly sure how to hold auditions, however. I've never done that before in NYC... how do i get an ad placed in Backstage? Also, because I'm in Actor's Equity, do i have to do the reading as an Equity Showcase? And if i do it as an Equity Showcase, do i need three buckets of cash instead of one? how many buckets does an Equity Showcase take?

These are things to be learned in this, my process of getting a play from my brain onto the stage in this, the theatre capital of the World (America).

I shall now go to learn things. And, as a multi-tasking thing, I'll Google why other countries don't play in the World Series. Google doesn't have the ability to mock me, right?

george fish

this week i've been writing a play and watching major league baseball.

what?!

i'm writing a play about scientists, and i'm watching sports?

the kate from 1997, who was interested almost exclusively in stephen sondheim and pointe shoes, is looking at the kate from 2009 with mouth agape and brow furrowed.

baseball and scientists? is that a musical?

anyway, as it turns out i'm a yankees fan, with a particular bent toward giving the players funny nicknames. Jorge Posada, for example, is George Fish. 'cause Posada sounds like pescada. which means "fish." George Fish. He likes it.

also, i'm submitting my NYFA grant today. i'm feeling good about it, but i can tell it's going to be the same situation as auditions: for every 100 auditions/grant applications, you get ten callbacks/interviews, and maybe 1 job/grant bucket of money. it's a numbers game. like in baseball when they put up that little graphic-design box with numbers that i can't decipher. RBI... means... Revolutions.... Baseball... Intense?

anyway, this week is another grant app and writing the end of act 1 in the bacteriologist play.

and, i can't believe i'm going to say it, this week means finding out who wins the world series. fingers crossed for the yankees.

what?!

grants. grants.

woo.

grants.

Today was grant day. i spent like four hundred and nine hours writing a work statement and a cultural statement for to get cash for to make my play.

I am not sure if I'm doing it right... for instance, do grant people appreciate humor? I'm asking for money for my play... which is a farce set in a microbiology lab... so I make a joke about doubting the existence of funny scientists... is humor good for grants?

dunno.

I'm going to go with yes, because, in my opinion, humor is good for life.

Also, i'm still working on squeezing out my play. At this point, i'm trying to reconcile the conventions of farce with the conventions of hospitals and the people that work therein. For instance, would the audience shudder in pain or delight if a stool sample were spilled? And my inner bacteriologist HATES the idea of someone slipping and falling over spilled somethin' or other. I mean, when i was a kid and would go to the lab with my mom, she wouldn't let me touch countertops or sit in certain chairs, for goodness' sake... let alone slip and fall into something spilly! GERMS!

but that could be funny, too, right? a germophobic bacteriologist.

k, more work being done now.

wish luck!

the beat goes on

my brain is full up. my purse is empty.

these are the projects i need money for:

1. ballet company for fatties

2. play that i'm writing about bacteriologists

3. cabaret

and

4. that's all. there isn't a fourth.

this is the amount of money i have for the projects i want to do:

1. $0

the math is bad.

on another note, i was writing the bacteriologist play this week, and i showed a scene to my sister, and she was all, 'wo. that's way too close to home, kid. you gotta switch up some names and adjectives or our mother is going to disown you.'

woops.

so, then i dove into a massive inner thing of, 'why am i just stealing from the stories of my loved ones? is that okay? to just steal stuff and change names? doesn't seem okay.'

i still feel weird about it, but know that my writing's better when it's ripped from the headlines.

i've got to finish the grant applications this week. bottom line. 'cause now i'm actually starting to get excited about the art that i am making, and it would blow to not get it made due to funds.

i need to be wily. like the coyote, but less with the anvils, more with the thinking on how to do things creatively and without easy access to buckets of money.

k, off to plot a way to make water from wine. if anyone out there has clues, lemme know.

peace out.

The Continuing Adventures...

So, theatre can't exist in a vacuum. unless it's a conceptual show and the theatre has been built to look like the inside of a hoover. ba-dum ch!

this last week got away from me. I was concentrating on making money via voice lessons and gosh-a-mighty, it's monday.

did i do any work on the play? nay.

did i feel good about that? nat.

did i build a theatre shaped like a vacuum? noom.

so no theatre was done this week.

poo-y.

BUT! here we are again. back in the saddle.

These were the things i came up against this last week in trying to understand putting on a show in NYC:

1. unless you are independently wealthy, you need to spend a lot of the day working. and, as a result, you have to spend a lot of time physically preparing to do the work: travelling, working, recovering, eating, working, exercising so you can live to be old, recovering, and going to the post office. or the bank. then, when you get home and think about art, you feel more like watching the art that others have made on abc. so the days escape and you haven't done the art.

2. nyc doesn't care if i do a show. it's all land-like and big and apathetic. it allows us to walk all over it. so, you know, that's comforting. i can live here as long as my feet can last, trying or not trying to produce my own work. nyc will still be here. comforting.

3. all i really need is money and a little ingenuity. with money, i can spend less of my day as the girl described in bullet point 1, and with ingenuity, i can get people in the seats and art produced. So, i'm going to finish the grant application this week. i'm going to submit it and get some cash. i'm going to spend one hour each day writing and planning. what venue should i rent for a reading? can i get equity approval for some showcase contracts? i dunno. i'll figure it out.

slow and steady wins the race.

day two and three

we've only just begun to live. white lace and promises.

day two and three, bitches. or, as we sometimes type, "bithes."

day two and three, bithes.

so, i started filling out a few grant applications on nyfa.org yesterday and today. easy but annoying. you can do it all online, saving your work as you go... which is stellar, but whenever i start filling out a grant application, i feel icky. like i start to make the icky face and shudder in my shoulders.

it just feels very wanky. like "give me money 'cause i'm super cool and my art is so deserving and i have such a new take on life and my art expresses the human experience differently and in a new way from all art that has come before it." which is true, i guess, but also, a little not true.

mini treatise on art in america: america should put more energy and cash into art. it's good for the culture, it nurtures non-violent behavior, and it deserves more than just a place in the capitalist marketplace (where revenue determines quality). end of treatise.

so anyway, grant applications: super easy but a little icky.

i'm going to continue to do it right now on nyfa.org. where they let me save my work as i go. bithes.

also, i'm going to try to spend an hour writing today. i'm making myself find time to do it because of you, blog. so word. i feel very Julie and Julia with you in my life.

k, happy day!