Month: September 2011

It’s just down the street.

A friend is in the show, Kelly Hayes, met her working on a Kendall Cornell piece some years ago.

Date night:  Connie’s Avant Garde Restaurant at Irondale.

A beautiful space.

Wacky cast.

Reminds me of Annex.

Fwp Fwp Fwo Fwp Fwp The rolodex in my head is spinning round as I try to come up with something to do for Joel and Mark in the studio tomorrow. I’m not even sure what kind of piece I want to work on. I think I want a nice 5-10 minute piece for the late nights and cabarets. In that case it should have minimal costumes and props because those gigs are usually a schlep. Or do I want something crisp and clean that I can do at corporate gigs. They do that kind of work so maybe I should take advantage of that. I don’t want to bring in any la la la why am I here why do I exist here on the stage in front of the audience experimentation because that’s not their style. I keep thinking of what Joel said the musical comedy actor said, “Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll do it.”
My first thought was to come out and have a nervous breakdown as my piece, but I’ve kind of already done that in my crying mommy piece.
I had that thought earlier today about women, a woman, trying to keep her emotions in check at work or in some other situation (like standing in front of an audience) and having them leak out anyway. But, that’s not really a piece, I have to have something else to do while I go through that. But, what would that be I wonder. I thought of wearing colorful clothing and covering it up buttoning on a suit. That would be something to do in a variety evening but I don’t want to spend my limited moments of coaching distracted by costume malfunctions. Then I thought about the lady in our neighborhood who collects cans and bottles for recycling every week, but I don’t want to haul my shopping cart into the city just for one gag.

I thought I might taking some inspiration from the kiddie pageants in the reality shows my kid was watching last week.  I could be a pageant mom or I could be a pageant kid or a creepy adult who wants to be in a pageant. But, I can think of several women I know who are  already playing wacky aging performers in cabarets around town so I don’t think I need to work on that right now.

I think what I might do is buy a fashion magazine on my way to the studio tomorrow and my piece will be me looking at pictures in the magazine and trying to model myself after the models. It’s not great but it’s something and it doesn’t involve shlepping around costumes or props and I want a piece that I can do anywhere.
Maybe I’ll think of something better tomorrow.

A yellow book caught my eye at the bookstore this morning. I was bad and didn’t support my local independent bookshop and instead purchased it on the Kindle because it’s not the kind of book I want to keep forever and it is the kind of book I want to read on the train. So I feel guilty about that.

Anyway…

The book is called It’s Always Personal, Emotion in the New Workplace, by Anne Kreamer.  I haven’t read that much of it yet, but the author seems to be going somewhere interesting to me with regard to acknowledging or suppressing or ignoring genuine emotions in the workplace all of which I have done in my own “real job” past to great non-effect.  Ms. Kreamer recounts just such an occasion in the first chapter of her book.  She recalls a time when as an executive,  she was in her office celebrating a successful sales negotiation with her team.  For them it was a major accomplishment that came after months of hard work.  So when a call came from the chairman of the board she expected a congratulatory compliment and was completely blindsided to the point of tears when she answered the phone to a screaming personal attack.  Later she figured out that the important man was upset because the public announcement of the deal hadn’t made the parent company’s stock price go up.  That wasn’t something that she, as the manager of a division within a division of the parent company had any control over.  It didn’t matter.  The damage was done.  Something shifted within her and she went from feeling lucky to be in the right place at the right time, part of a team with shared vision and the resources to make their dreams come true to feeling like a tiny cog in a machine “that could be capriciously ripped out, smashed and discarded”.  She went from thinking her job was to “make the world a better place for kids (she worked for Nikelodeon at the time) to thinking her job was to “produce a momentary uptick in a stock price”.

She said, “Two years, seven months, and fifteen days after I cried at work, I quit, without a new job.”

That is a fine example of how and why so many women leave the corporate world and technological fields entirely mid-career.  It’s not because they have children.  It’s because they navigate through life using their powerful emotions as a compass and it’s so damn hard to pretend that they don’t.

Ooohhhhh!  I think I know where my next clown character is going to come from!

“It Ain’t What You Do, It’s How You Do It” – creating physical comedy material

Looking to create or brush up an act? A character? Make a show from scratch?

Join us – we’ve been doing it for years!

Two-time Drama Desk nominee Parallel Exit shares their insights and techniques for creating physical comedy material.

It Ain’t What You Do is ideal for physical performers, actors, and variety artists looking to expand their repertoire, create new material, or gain a little inspiration.

Director Mark Lonergan and Clown and Physical Comedian Joel Jeske introduce students to the Parallel Exit process, incorporating physical and modern theatre techniques to help take an idea from conception to completed act.

This workshop takes place over three successive evenings, and will focus on each student and their own specific needs. Bring us an idea, a character, a sketch, and we’ll help you take it to the next level. Come with a blank slate, and we’ll help you fill it. Wherever you’re at, we’ll help you bring the funny.

This is the second in a series of workshops Parallel Exit is offering and is open to all levels.

Tonight I went up to Theatre Row Studios to work with Mark Lonergan and Joel Jeske who work in a traditional status based vaudeville style. I liked it a lot. To an outsider the two different studios of people in comfortable clothing entering and exiting at the behest of a male in a folding chair probably looked almost identical. But, from my point of view Chris Bayes and Joel Jeske’s approach to clown are completely different.

My sense of the clown gym with Chris Bayes, was very much that of a drama professor and his students, which is to be expected since Chris Bayes teaches clowning in a number of different academic acting programs.

Mark Lonergan and Joel Jeske were also teaching and doing most of the talking, but their approach seemed more like peers taking their turn to show and tell other creators of physical theatre how they came up with their material and what works for them.  They talked about their work in Parallel Exit and how much talking was involved when the ensemble made up of men from different performing disciplines, dance, clown, musical comedy and music first started making new work together.

The clown looked at situation and decided to take the time to figure out all the different ways he could possibly approach it while the musical comedy guy said, Just tell me what you want me to do and I’ll give it to you.   Those two would have a difficulty making new work together unless they appreciated the value of each others approach.  Apparently they do since that company has been in existence for over ten years.

Walking to the train, Mark and I had a brief conversation about the RBBB Clown College and how it is missed.  When the clowns were offered contracts at the end of Clown College class they had a cohesive style.  Now that the clowns are hired individually their performance styles are all over the map.

When I got home, The Husband (who used to be a theatre director), was working on a presentation about, Agile, his favorite approach to software development.

I see similarities between the work of self-producing physical theatre companies and  the way an Agile software development team works.  Trust and respect are necessary between all the members of the team or the ensemble for successful communication and collaboration.  Conflict is to be expected as part of the creative work of building the team (or ensemble).  But, when each member comes to understand and willingly participate in the unwritten norms of behavior that define the identity of the team (or ensemble) that is how the stage is set so that amazing things can happen.

I went to a “clown gym” tonight. Afterwards, I felt like I’d been to a gym, the way I feel after a nice yoga or Pilates class.

It was touch and go for a while this morning. My Kid didn’t want to get out of bed and didn’t want to get dressed and didn’t want to eat breakfast and when we finally go to the Parade Grounds didn’t want to play. But, her teammate’s parent, Ad Agency Mommy, was right. She said that all the girls needed to do to get their heads into the game was run. And they did.

I’m grateful that this season my daughter was placed on an AYSO team that has 4 girls from her former elementary school. It will be good for them to touch base with each other each weekend since they each attend a different middle school, two in Manhattan and two in Brooklyn.  I don’t think there are more than five kids from my daughter’s 5th grade graduating class going to any middle school this year.  They are scattered all over the place.  I’m all for school choice and don’t think they should all go together to the same middle school–but none of them?  That’s just crazy.  They were blown all around the city like leaves from a tree in the turbulent windstorm called school choice.

On September 10, 2001, I took my 14-month old to the first session of a mommy and me toddler gymnastics class at the Circus Gym on the Upper West Side.

My daughter played on an AYSO soccer team for the first time when she was seven. This will be her fifth year playing soccer. It’s a very different game now that the girls are big.

My Kid just called me on her cell phone to tell me she was leaving the school with her friend making her way slowly to Girl Scouts with plans to stop at a store and buy a notebook “because I had to write my assignment on just a piece of paper!”.  I won’t see her till six o’clock. Ten years ago on September 9, 2011 one of her favorite things to do was hold a ball above her head like she was going to throw it. Then she would drop it behind her back and The Husband acted like he expected the ball and couldn’t find it. My baby would laugh and laugh.

Yeah, so last night and tonight part of me genuinely  thought “Hey, maybe I’ll get to go to see a clown festival show…  Yeah… Nah…

“I have some information I need to share with you.”  says my child using the language of the education professionals.

She hands me a multiple-page handout entitled:

 “Virtuous Expectations”

Let me just take a moment here to copy down a few of my favorite ways in which one can demonstrate an understanding of the “Expectations Definitions”:

Be Courageous.  Be Just.  Be Temperate.  Be Wise.

(Of course as the parent I support this language and these goals–but as someone who has gone through adolescence myself and who has since observed an assortment tweens and teens in public and private settings noticing how prone they are to groupthink, exaggeration, fits of screams and giggles and not only a lack of preparation but lack of comprehension of the very concept…)

Here goes:

– Show appreciation by clapping when appropriate.

– Keep hands, and feet, and objects to yourself.

– Use a soft voice.

– On field trips: No eating or drinking on the train.

– In the cafeteria: Focus on eating first; Talk only to those across and next to you; Eat your food only.

Cell Phone Expectations:  Use your cell phone only before ENTERING the building and after LEAVING the building.  Your cell pone is away and off for the duration of the school day.  Keep your cell phone to yourself.  Keep your cell phone in your locker or backpack all day.  Keep your cell phone turned off during the school day.  (The NYC schools that I know of have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding cell phones since so many of us parents who are starting to let our kids go places like school on their own really want and need our kids to be able to call us as soon as they get out of school, when they are about to go into the subway, and as soon as they come up out of the subway.)

Keep your hands and feet and objects to yourself.

Speak at an appropriate volume (no screaming, shouting, or yelling).

Leave school with necessary learning materials for homework.

(How many times does this say, “Keep your hands, feet, body and objects to yourself.”???)

 If you’re ever going to need to spell this out–you do need to SPELL IT OUT FOR 11, 12 and 13 year olds!:

Be aware and stay clear of doors.

Keep appropriate spacing.

Walk directly to destination.

Watch where you are going.

Walk in the restroom.

There are many many ways to say things like:  “Only eat at eating time in the eating place.”  &  “Keep your hands to yourself.” & “Talk at a normal volume.”

The school prohibits the use of electronics during the school day which includes but is not limited to: Cell Phones, IPods, Hand held video games and Cameras…

The time I spent at The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Clown College comes to mind.  In our daily morning meetings we were told:  “Do not juggle fire in the parking lot!”  “Do not juggle the produce at the grocery store!”  “Do not get your ears pierced during your time at Clown College as it will interfere with your ability to apply your makeup completely.”  ” Do not shave your head bald as you have already been fitted for a wig cap.”    “Wash your dishes every day or cockroaches will be attracted to your room and the lovely Venice Villas management may have grounds to evict you….”   and all kinds of things we should or should not do that had never even occurred to me.

I met my kid at her middle school after dismissal–outside the building…

She seems OK.

She wants to go home.  But, she wants to walk.  She doesn’t want to jump right on to a bus or a train.

We stopped at Aeropostale.  She chose one t-shirt to purchase.  She doesn’t seem to feel the need to purchase a whole new wardrobe and turn into a completely different person–which I, as a parent -without much to to on- take as a good sign.

She doesn’t want to stop at the diner.  She doesn’t want to talk to me.  A soda and chips from the deli will suffice.

At home she goes into her room.

Processing…???

I get a call from her “advisor” at the new school.  They have “advisory” at this new school.  The adult teacher person has been assigned 12 students to keep track of over the coming school year.  She called me to give me her cell phone number and e-mail address.  This is very encouraging.  I had an awful time in 6th grade and I graduated from elementary school at the end to 8th grade.  The building didn’t change.  The schedule didn’t change.  Nothing changed except for the fact that the 6th, 7th and 8th graders were all going through puberty…  All I can say is I”m glad my kid, and all the other kids in the building have been assigned specific grown-ups to talk to about whatever is going on before  anything has been identified as a “problem”.  Because there will be problems.  Bodies will change size and shape.  Boys will cease to be “the enemy”.  The realization will set in just how much school there is left to get through if one wants to become a doctor or a scientist or anything else…