My Next Story…

Thursday, March 6

I started my day off bright and early. I walked over to Grand Central Station to catch the 6 train uptown to 86th Street. Grand Central really is beautiful. I didn’t think it could be as impressive as everyone kept saying. The constellations painted on the ceiling are amazing. The whole place takes you back a bit. The only experience I have ever had with huge, old train stations like that is in the movies, but the are breathtaking in person. I had a little trouble finding the subway at first, but I finally located it and went uptown. I walked up and over a couple blocks to arrive at my intended destination, the Guggenheim museum. When I arrived at its front doors, I found that it was closed. Someone please tell me, what kind of a place closes on Thursdays of all days of the week? I was very sad, but determined to go to a museum. I decided I would bypass the Metropolitan Museum of Art and walk the 35-ish blocks downtown (short blocks, mind you, so not as bad) and head to the MoMA.

This was just a great morning by myself. I threw in the iPod and walked around the city taking in the sights all around me. I noticed that a lot of New Yorkers keep their iPods at a really high volume, but I wanted to keep mine low so I could still hear the city in the background. It reminded me of a movie montage a little bit. I walked down to the museum on 53rd St. I bought my student ticket (holla! or I guess better yet challah!) and began to peruse all the museum had to offer. I have never really spent a lot of time with modern art because frankly, it scares me. It always feels the most elusive to me, but I decided to go in and tackle it head on. Maybe if I just spend some time silent, observe and make myself vulnerable I would find something in it.

I will admit, there was no life changing experience, but I really enjoyed browsing their collections. I think one of the highlights of the trip was a little corner of their design collection that was devoted to the history of the typeface known as Helvetica. This little piece of the exhibit drew me in. I didn’t realize how old the typeface really was. Incredible how long it has survived as a modern font. I guess that just speaks to it being well designed.

After I left the MoMA, I walked down to Broadway and 49th and went to Colony Music. This place is really impressive. It is a small little shop, but has a gigantic inventory of all kinds of music, karaoke stuff, CDs, posters, memoribilia. Just incredible. I spent some time just walking down each aisle and then gave particular notice to the Broadway/Off-Broadway section (of course). A little fact I learned later in the week is that this place will soon become a sports memoribilia shop. They aren’t going to do away with music completely, but the front will definitely feature sports stuff. Sadness.

From there I walked down to the Drama Book Shop. I had been there before, but not to browse. So I just took about an hour and walked along the shelves pulling books that jumped out at me and seeing what all there was to offer. I bought a copy of The Little Dog Laughed because I have wanted to read it ever since writing to Eric Rosen about his production. I also picked up two monologue books to aid me in my pursuit of building my audition repertoire.

I had about an hour to kill before my appointment in the afternoon so Steve and I spent some time on Fashion Avenue and hit an H&M. I spent somewhere in the ball park of 300 dollars. Bad David! Exercise better self-control. I needed the stuff though. It is time for a small wardrobe purge.

This afternoon I met with Ben Crawford (Thanks Chris!). Ben has been living in New York for just a few years. He graduated from college and kind of did the regional circuit, and then decided to make the move to New York. He had his Equity card from his regional work already when he arrived, so that put him in a great place for auditioning. He also had already been nurturing a relationship with an agent who had come to see his showcase at college and they had kept in touch during his years between college and the city. When he got to the city he was cast in Les Miz as an ensemble member and the Javert understudy. After 10 days in rehearsal he was in the show. He stayed with the show until it closed in January of this year. He has been most recently cast in Shrek: the Musical, although he does not know in what capacity yet. It has been a long trying audition process for him. He went in orginally for Shrek. Then they brought him back for Lord Farquaad. He was probably seen around 7 or 8 times for this production. Finally, he got the call that he would be a part of the show in its cast, but that they did not have any specifics decided just yet. So right now he is waiting for that day when they finally call to tell him what he will doing. It could a range of things from swing to ensemble to Shrek. After telling me about his successes in New York, he punctuated it with, “You can’t expect to have my success immediately. I had some freakish things just line up, but it will happen for you if you want it.” He told me I just have to get out there and get seen by some people. A running theme for the week. Do the little readings and cabarets. Someone is bound to see me at some point and take me on. Just keep myself busy.

After meeting with him I met up with Jon at the Cry Baby stage door at the Marquis Theatre. We were meeting Nick Blaemire there. Nick is a New York actor who was in the first national tour of Altar Boyz and wrote the music and lyrics for Glory Days. We went to grab a light dinner at the Europa Cafe in Times Square. We just sat around and chatted for a while. I spent my time just listening to his stories of working on Cry Baby and living in New York. He told us about the dressing room assignment marathon, where the principles were all choosing their dressing rooms and then the ensemble being re-arranged at their stations to suit the choreographer. He was talking about new material he was working on writing. Moving in the midst of technical rehearsals for a Broadway show. Trying to fit in time to rehearse with his group of guys who do a show called GuyTunes. It was just great to talk to him and hear him just talk about his life and all its craziness. Without needing to ask questions I was able to learn a lot about his life in New York because just casual conversation revealed stories to us about what is was for him to be a New Yorker.

From there I jumped on the 1 train uptown with Jon and Lucia to go to the Performing Arts Library at Lincoln Center. All I have to say is awesome. They have so much music. Pop, rock, country, classic, jazz, broadway…you name it they probably have it or can get it I am sure.

Looking at this post’s length I am just amazed at everything that got accomplished today. Good God! I even left out some things. Big city. Fast pace. And still a couple more days to go.