Sunday, March 28, 2010

The Temple of My Familiar.

"The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don't have any." 
-Alice Walker.

Tonight I went home. Meaning -- I went to the theater. Two of my friends and fellow theater company members were in a play together called Influence at the Skylight Theatre next to Figaro Cafe on Vermont in Los Feliz. What a lovely area. 

Oh my gosh -- I adored the show -- snap and crackling. Intelligent, thoughtfully directed and exciting to watch.

I was proud of my friends and fellow theater company member, Dep Kirkland and Bob Ciccini. I felt absolutely thrilled to put on a dress and boots and meet another friend at the theater -- Ron Dobson, a great playwright whose play we have put on in Little Bird -- and watch great theater.

Honestly, it felt like a homecoming. 

And lately I've been thinking a lot about theater -- about how I am SO stoked to do Broadway again, how I am meeting with two of our greatest playwrights when I fly home to NYC, Michael Weller & John Patrick Shanley. About how I will be going to see the inimitable Austin Pendleton -- my former Broadway co-star in The Diary of Anne Frank in his play next Saturday in NYC. It opens Friday night.

I am contemplating calling Kate Boca, casting director at the Roundabout, to let her know I will be in town -- just in case she has anything up her theatrical sleeve. 

When Alec and I had a career talk on the phone around this time last year -- he told me to come  to NYC and do theater. And voila! I will be there Wednesday night. SO stoked!

And the theater is where my movie started. The theater is where I started -- on Broadway. 

The theater is where Lulu and I came alive and recognized our seemingly limitless powers -- producing Little Bird Theater Company's MIX TAPE One Act Theater Festivals together.

Where we brought in original musicians, and sold our friends' paintings and photographs, we cast the actors, we chose the directors, and we sought out every play. I always called it a bake sale for the arts.

The theater empowered us. It brought me SNL and HBO and NYC and Alec and Ashton and my movie and soooo much more... It brought my last co-star Sammy Daly and the lovely Omar Wilkes, whom I directed in Billie Jean in the Graveyard. And this play gave me an opportunity to share my love for Michael Jackson with as many people as possible. I got to express how much I absolutely adored him.

It gave me the chance -- -- the golden chance to expose the beautiful music of my dear friend Lucy Walsh -- every one of her songs opened up all of the plays I ever did with Little Bird, once Lu and I co-produced together. And I got to showcase my other super close friend -- the one whom I was missing last night -- Jessicva Miller's voice -- her lovely, haunting Save Me played before the second play I ever wrote called, Fingernail Moon. I directed Dasha and Michael in it -- Dash played me at 17. And then, for the benefit show and a few other shows, Sully played the role of Ted. And now that I think about -- this play was indeed the coming attraction to my getting my memoir out for the world to see. Because this play was so unabashedly my story. I lifted it directly from experiences I had with our handsome, preppy, stoner-ish friend, Ted. And even my best friends were weeping when they saw it. 

They were like -- we never knew this is how you felt in high school. 

Theater, our words, empowering. Very empowering.

And when Alice Walker say that the most common way we give up our power is by thinking we don't have any -- I learned this in the theater.

I learned that celebrated playwrights and super busy connected indie producers and big casting directors -- Cloverfield and musicians -- Glacier Hiking -- and directors -- CSI and One Tree Hill not to mention award-winning LA theater directors were amongst the credits -- and lots of actors, super talented actors -- Edi Gathegi from Twilight. And Ashton and Demi and Alec B and Nelsan Ellis -- in the audiene among grandmothers and moms and cousins -- Michael Ritchie -- the Artistic Director of the Mark Taper Forum -- it's like the Field of Dreams...

If you build it, they will come.

And we did. And Lord knows, they did.

Utterly inspiring. And a huge reminder that we create our own success. We create our own dreams and will them into reality, a gold reality. We gather together what we dreamt of in our wildest, most glittery dreams.

I always wanted to create my own theater -- my own group -- my own story. And Lu and I did this together. And now, we have gone our own ways -- and though I will miss her, working with her, I am super excited to get together my Little Oaks next month to brainstorm our new company.

New beginnings -- while also remembering, tending to, our own beloved roots.

Our own power. 


So -- when I wonder about this manager calling or that agent being interested, I MUST remind myself of my power. They will be knocking down my door. And I will choose the best team for me. And I will have deserved it. This. Success. These creme de la agent creme choices.

Because I am building it yet again and yes... they are coming.

And so, my little blades, I send you all LOVE... always.

Today's 5:

1. Emailed my pic and res to director who wants to audition me (for theater of course!) in the next week.
2. Blog
3. Seeing the play -- and meeting the playwright and the director.
4. Deciding to have my first Little Oak meeting next month.
5. Emailing another NYC friend -- super cool casting director that I will be in town next week. We shall see if he can cook something up for me -- through his casting friends. Also -- great guys - it would be fun to have a drink with him.

Okay... I am going to leave you all again with the play that sort of launched all of this for me. I Have It. Some of you have seen it -- but to some of you it may be new. 

I LOVE this character -- in fact, talk about powerful -- the movie I got SO close to last week -- Ashton thought of me because of the character in this play -- on the bench! Her name is Lady.

Hope you all enjoy!

Love, Love, Love... always...


1 comment:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete