I just figured out how to download photos from a disc and then UPLOAD them to my blog, so you get to see!!

Awesome shots taken by Maureen last year during Streetcar rehearsals...






And some more awesome production photos of Merchant taken by Stratton...

We Got the Powah!!!

I knew it! I knew she'd be back!!!!  Every day, Obama does at least 7 new awesome things.  The announcement that she's back to work for our man is something I've been waiting for.

Happy Thanksgiving Eve!

I'm off to go "cook:" I'm making my famous spiced pecans and arranging a fancy fruit and cheese plate.

But first: I'm going to watch this again!

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

Run Don't Walk

You MUST rent "Young at Heart" (2008). I just watched it and had the most manic time of it. After 10 minutes I almost shut it off because I thought their founder and music director was a sociopath and an egomanic. But then I got it. I cried and laughed continuously for 2 hours. It is not cheesy, nor is it always happy.

Highlights: Their trip to sing at a local prison, and a heartbreaking rendition of "Fix You" by Coldplay.

Here is the group on Ellen, and it's great to see that first duo nail the James Brown song, which they were always shaky on in the film. I guess they've had time to practice.

I STILL heart Keith.

Get the latest news satire and funny videos at 236.com.

I did it!

I finished Battlestar Galactica Season 3! I managed to drag that out for MONTHS. And it was quite the finale. I actually got really scared at one point (people in hoods have always freaked me out).

The DVD's for season 4.0 are going to be released on January 6, so even though I already bought it from UNBOX, and could watch it right now, the picture sucks. I think I can hold out for the better quality.

But I mean come on! Look at Jamie Bamber! Look at Katee Sackhoff and her fake tattoos! I think I'll walk into Redemption and ask for that.

I am old.

This movie made like 70 million dollars this weekend, and I don't even know what it is. I think it's for 14 year old girls.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE

Don't even TELL us about shit like this. What am I supposed to do with this information?

Get your tickets NOW!

After seeing my first Gold Dust Orphans show a few years ago (The Plexiglass Menagerie), I resolved never to miss another one as long as I lived. They provide arguably the biggest charge you can get from a night at the theater in Boston (after ASP's Titus, of course).

A great actress and a great cause.

I don't usually care what celebrities do with their time, but there was some interesting news about Charlize Theron today:

Charlize Theron is the newest U.N. Messenger of Peace, turning her Academy Award-winning fame to ending violence against women and girls around the globe.

Theron, 33, told reporters Monday after being inducted into her new role by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon that she was taking on her new responsibilities "very humbly, with a very excited heart."

The South African native vowed to help send a strong message that violence against women and girls was not acceptable in her upcoming travels to assist Ban's campaign dubbed "UNite to End Violence against Women," which was launched in February.

But this reminds me how surprised I am that she has nothing to do with the film adapatation of J.M. Coetzee's novel Disgrace, which is supposed to be released in the next few months. When I read the book about a professor who goes to live with his bohemian daughter in South Africa and big trouble ensues (spoiler: rape), I thought, I bet Charlize has already bought the rights to this. I thought she'd produce it, or star in it: the daughter seemed like a good part for her. I guess John Malkovich beat her to it (he's playing the prof.).

Oh, well. You go Charlize. I like her. She's a transformational actress; she has to be, according to her. Anyway her new post is much more interesting than watching her make the talk show rounds complaining that she's not taken seriously in the business because she's so beautiful.

Rick: thank you and who are you?

Um... OUCH.

I've been checking in on this guy's blog for awhile. And I was interested to see what he had to say about the show I'm in now, because he gives his entries a lot of thought, he's smart, and he doesn't generally go with the herd.

And, interestingly, a lot of the issues he had (and he had a FUCKLOAD of them) with our production came up at today's talk-back. But he's got this ongoing...problem... with me that I really don't get:

"Meanwhile, the talented [annie] headed back to the trailer park for her interpretation of Nerissa - as she has for many roles - but still kept the laughs coming..."

I mean, truly, huh? I hate criticism, but I'll absorb it eventually. I may even turn it to some good use on occasion. But this trailer park thing... bugs me, I'm not gonna lie. He's said it before and now he's officially on my ass about it. I'm playing a servant-type, but we've created her as more of a cousin/ live-in companion who isn't deprived of much and who has basically the same lifestyle as the leading lady whom she serves. I'm not doing a Southern accent. I'm not stupid, and I'm not terrible with the text. I'm wearing clothes that look like they're from Talbots. I'm actually hitting fairly similar notes to the ones I hit in a previous performance about which he said (and I paraphrase) I "escaped my trailer trash typecasting."

Maybe it's 'cause I'm from Ohio? Is it my... hair?

I can't imagine my work in my next show is going to revolutionize his opinion (dark, contemporary Scottish trailer trash). Oh gracious, or the next, now that I think of it (funny, turn-of -the -century saucy barmaid trailer trash)!

Serves me right for reading...

I'm SO original.

Yes, this is like the first thing you see when you open up Yahoo mail today. But it's so good I had to have it for my very own.

Cat Stuck in a Box @ Yahoo! Video

Addendum

I want to talk a little more about Synechdoche, New York.

The film wasn't as hard on acting and theater as I made it out to be last night. There is obvious love of theater in this movie. And there was some warmth in it as well: the desire to find love and not be afraid of it and hold onto it were beautifully addressed. But what bothered me about the movie was it's treatment of death and illness. I heard Charlie Kaufman on NPR a week ago talking about the movie he'd been asked to write: a horror movie. And he said something to the effect of "...so I set out to make a movie about all the things that scare me: illness, death, failure, aging, etc." And I thought then and thought last night: this is a side of Woody Allen that the world does not need more of. I don't get ANYTHING out of movies about people worrying about illness and death. I worry about it enough, and these filmmakers never do anything but make it worse.

So, having said that I just want to mention on a more positive note that I LOVED seeing Samantha Morton in a juicy sexy role, because she's aways playing dreary, mournful, miserable people, and I knew she was more fun than that.

Okay. Enough for now.

PS: rekindled girl crush: Samantha Morton

Head-scratcher

I'm not going to say I didn't like Synecdoche, New York (2008).  I was engaged and trying very hard to understand it.  There were so many great actors in it, I was always happy to look and listen.  I LOVE Samantha Morton, no matter what, no matter when, or where.  And it didn't make any less sense than a Bergman movie.  But I thought it was overloaded, and overambitious, and I wish that actors and acting and theater-making weren't always the butt of all easy jokes.  However, some fun stuff:  Elizabeth Marvel was in it for 45 seconds, ALVIN EPSTEIN was in it for 15 seconds, and Helen McElvain's headshot was barely distinguishable tacked to the wall in the background in one scene.

Memory Lane: in Portland where I "summer..."

Childhood traumas revisited...

Claire and I watched The Black Hole (1979) last night. Neither of us had seen it in like 25 years, but we both had plenty of creepy memories from it, some of which have haunted me all my life. So here are the things we learned:

1. The movie was full of beautiful matte paintings, which we learned all about from the assistant art director Peter Ellenshaw, in the bonus featurette.
   
   
2. The "black hole" was created by swirling different colors of paint in a plexiglass tank.
3. The movie is horribly written and acted.
4. The scary robot "Maximilian" is totally the prototype for the BSG Centurian cylons, complete with horizontally scanning red eye action:
   
   
   
5. The reason the ending makes no sense is because they came up with it in like an afternoon when their original idea fell through.  Instead of some kind of montage involving the Sistine Chapel, they went for some weird hell/heaven/space montage that has nothing to do with the story and that no one involved in the movie, including the writers, could ever have explained.  Peter Ellenshaw shamefully admitted to the whole thing.
6. The score, written by John Barry, is awesome.
7. Robots make me sad.  Especially when they die for the cause.
   
   
8. The movie is too boring and too scary for children.  This is why I am so messed up.
   

So there you have it!  I may be healed now.  It was just a bad movie, in spite of the score and the art.

Thank you, Keith.

Damn, girl!

Forget how awkward the Bushes must feel. Or how awkward/triumphant the Obamas must feel.



Look at Michelle's DRESS!!! I think I have a first lady-crush.

We're up!

GO F---ing Obama!

First of all, we won. It's awesome and amazing. I don't have time to get into it right now, but this was a great find:

In a Newsweek article.

The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for them during the Democratic primaries, Obama was recorded saying, "I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me ... answer it.' So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

Here we go.

This is it, everybody. I'm a weeping wreck. Tomorrow is huge. I am in tech for 12 hours and will start checking the returns after dinnertime and do so hours after we break at 11. I'm bringing my little radio to the theater.

My little vote will be one of the biggest moments of my life so far.

Not too shabby.

Ben Affleck's impersonation isn't perfect, but the Special Comment at the end is pretty darn funny. I hope Keith liked it.