producing

Posted 11:13 AM by sean
Making this wedding happen is turning into a production, just like any other piece of theater, except that it seems like there is nowhere near the panic.

When I produce, what I like to do is raise the money, or have the money, and then hire the right people to do all the right jobs and when they *really suck*, I'll say something. That's exactly what's happened with this wedding, except no-one has ended up *really* sucking. There have been a few moments of suckage, but nothing too bad.

Of course, just like when you produce a show, there is one tiny detail that, if you want it to happen, you end up with a hacksaw, a tube of glue, some black fabric and a needle-n-thread in your living room, covered in sawdust and throwing something over your shoulder that you just spent hours making.

The cool thing is that I've been there before. I made a stand for a violin, it took me hours and when I got done I looked at it and tossed it over my shoulder and it shattered. Fine. I've tossed so much shit over my shoulder when I'm making set pieces.

But I can see this freaking someone out who hasn't done theater before. And it's theater specifically, I know a lot of people have produced recordings and movies and shit, but unless you've hung blacks it aint quite the same thing.

My Sweet Living Room, you can see the drill, the violin and the Star Wars action figures. You can also see some of the stands we built, and the box for the clarinet/flute stand we bought. You know how we do...

Hair Production

Posted 11:04 AM by sean
I have spent a lot of my life doing very few things, and that is sort of upsetting. I'm more eclectic than most, if I was one of you guys I'd kill myself, but I wish that my interests were a little more varied. I am a pseudo Actor/Producer/Writer/Musician/Arts-Teacher/Etc. and all of that is actually in the same field. If I was a Producer/eXtreme-Sportsman then I would rock.

Whatever, the fact is the two things I have done more than anything else, and that is acting and getting my hair cut.

You thought you were getting off easy.

Here's the thing- the most difficult haircut to get is the one where you really like the haircut you have, but it's about a week too long right now and you just want them to trim the tiny little bits off so you look like you looked two thursdays ago. It's impossible. Every single part of your head needs it's own maintenence, it's own moment with the barber, and it all has to come together as some sort of even idea.

Theater is the same way, I've seen it from the perspective of the director, the writer, the music director, the actor, and to everyone you can't figure out why so much time and money is being wasted on the other parts of the show. Hours and hours are spent with guys holding gels up to their eyes, with people moving you or a set piece over two feet.

But the fact is that you have to do all of these things. It's insane, but it's like a bad haircut if you don't.

Some guys can get away with any old haircut. Some guys are so damn good-looking that they can get a *bad* haircut, they can do it themselves with a hand mirror and kitchen sheers, and they still are very handsome. For some guys, the shittiness of the haircut is part of the charm.

These are the pieces of theater that I find really appealing. Our show "The Lucretia Jones Mysteries" is sort of like this, especially now that we're touring the show. In its initial production, the props started out all over the stage tables and ended up all over the floor. Mac had a joke where in the middle of one scene he dropped character, checked the lights, moved spots on stage and became another character and the place exploded in laughter.

Doing this show reminds me of the two times I've shaved my head. I'm not a great looking guy, but I have a really nice shaped head, and both times I shaved my head I was surprized and pleased by how awesome my life suddenly became.

I really do love big theater with big sets and coordinated light and sound cues, but "The Fantasticks" and "Children of a Lesser God" and our little show give me a thrill in a way that the bigger shows can't really. It might be just what I'm going through right now, trying to simplify my life, but I've been through Tech Week hell for shows that suck, and believe me, it's like a perm, highlights, streaking, body wave, gel and hairspray on a fifty year old Times Square hooker. You wonder why anyone did all that work.

Most Important

Posted 8:47 AM by sean
I've had several Blog ideas running around in my head for the last week or so, incredibly disparate things from biblical quotes on justice to the paranoid alienation of the Muslim world to the most recent Actor's Nightmare I had about the wedding, but almost always, when my navel gazing gets too deep, something happens to shame me into perspective.

Jordana grew up with her cousins the way I grew up with my brothers and sisters. Her mom's sister's kids are almost like step siblings, they saw each other all the time, most of their memories as children feature one another. The family stories I tell are about Steve's babysitting and Michelle helping me to the basement, for Jordana they are about battling affections and secret plots shared among the five cousins. In the same way that Jordana is getting the other ten people in my immediate family, I'm getting the ten others in hers, including the cousins.

Gabby is the oldest cousin, a great student who followed in her father's footsteps and became a doctor. She is beautiful and tall, the most like Jordana in many ways (although a little less oddball), and the sense you get from the stories of their shared childhoods is that she was the one who was the most mature, most organized. There is always one in every family who is alphabatizing the crayons, and organizing the play time. For us it was Michelle and for them, I feel like it was Gabby. She was always the surrogate parent in the room.

She fell in love with and married a really awesome guy, Adam. During family dinners, Adam and I find a way to sit in a corner and crack each other up. He's also a doctor, and he's actually terribly shy, the only way we can talk shit is if we happen to be sitting next to each other. He took classes at UCB and really loved breaking out of his skin for a bit, but with the family he still barely talks above a mumble. The cool thing is that he and Gabby stick together with such affection and love, they've been married for four years, almost five now, and they stick together as close as Jordi and me.

A week after they got married, Adam's father literally up and died. He hadn't been sick, no-one saw it coming. My feeling is that the shock of that has made it difficult for Adam's mother to be happy, and that's made it really hard for the mothers-in-law to have any kind of a relationship, which is just a shame. But maybe that can start changing now.

Gabby learned last week, and let us know last night, that she is just barely pregnant. She's less than six weeks along, but she couldn't wait to tell us any longer. It's the beginning of the next generation in this family, it's the promise of a whole new life. A third generation doctor? This child's grandmothers on both sides were heads of their temples. She could be. Or He could be. A comedian, a lawyer, maybe just a great cook who makes people laugh or a beautiful girl that breaks everyone's hearts or... This is the beginning, again, all over again, one more time, another life learning all the same bullshit it takes all of us a lifetime to learn.

I can't wait to see this baby. I can't wait for Gabby to be the mom she's been preparing to be for years and years. This kid couldn't possibly ask to be born to better people, funny, smart, sensitive, beautiful people and this family that I'm joining a few months before he/she does is about as great a group of people as this kid could want.

I can't even write about this very well... My affection for them is boundless and I'm so damned excited for this, for them. My wedding is important, but this is the good news.