Updates

Hey, All of You, my legion of loyal blog followers who have been missing my pithy posts about what's going on in my brain for the past six months!  There's a lot to talk about.

The first thing is that my manager's office SirenSong Entertainment now has a fabulous web presence here. You can click on my profile and see pictures, read press quotes, and get career updates.*  It's a very impressive site and you can find many other incredible actors there including frequent collaborators Will Harper and Hoon Lee.  Huzzah to Donna DeStefano and her industrious interns!
     
*Just as I was writing that line, the half-melted italian ice I was eating spilled all over me and all over my bed. Watermelon.  Goddammit!)

The second thing is that I have, with the aid of my dear friend Jon Hoche, co-written my first ever play, Subterranea.  Jon and I play estranged brothers named Nick and Dick Brotowski who are thrust together by fate to fight Nazis at the center of the Earth.  We had been toying with the ideas and their execution when Carla Ching, artistic director of Second Generation Theater Company (2g), offered us a proving ground in the form of their new play festival In The Works this past June.  It was a giant step forward for us and we are so grateful for their support.  (We are also indebted to the rest of our cast*: Jackie Chung, Cindy Cheung, and Erica Swindell--as well as our director, Robert Ross Parker.)  The best thing about the process was to work so closely with trusted and admired colleagues.  It was a dream come true.

*Jesus Christ, the phone is ringing off the hook!  My friend Gabi just called and we caught up on the last six months.  He's currently head of production at Digital Kitchen and recently got back together with his girlfriend.  That's the short version.


Also, I was in Michi Barall's new play Rescue Me Off-Broadway with another stellar creative team.  I listed them all already so I won't get into it here, but they were so much fun and I learned a lot from them.  Mostly, though, I learned never to operate puppets after taking claritin.  No, iced coffee does not mitigate the attendant drowsiness.

More to come, as always.

nytheatre.com

Here is the GCW review from nytheatre.com

Highlights include this very satisfying shout out to the whole cast:

At the center of the excellent six-person cast is Paco Tolson as Semyon (and a few other characters); he's a terrific everyman, at once put-upon and swaggering, vain and frightened out of his gourd. William Jackson Harper is sensationally good as Gran-Skubic and Curran Connor is deliciously slimy and vaguely malevolent as Semyon's neighbor Kalabushkin (both Harper and Connor also take a few other roles, too). Aaron Roman Weiner is very funny in a variety of guises—the butcher, clad in a blood-encrusted apron; the meek mailman who believes in the Cause, whatever the cost; and a decrepit old woman who lives in Semyon's building. Tami Stronach and Cindy Cheung show their versatility by each playing one of the glamorous actresses and also Semyon's drudge-like wife and mother-in-law (again, among other roles).

And here's to Robert:

The show's pace is fast and furious and the fourth-wall-breaking moments, which include most notably live sound effects played by whichever member(s) of the ensemble aren't needed for a particular scene, are great fun. If you think thought-provoking theatre that's literally about important issues like life and death, economics, politics, and the social contract can't be wildly entertaining, well, here's Robert Ross Parker to prove you wrong.

That's what we like...

Opening

Photo by Carol Rosegg

Tonight is opening night (matinee) and after three full-house energizing previews we are now fully prepared to rock it for the rest of the run.

It's difficult to express how much fun it was to rehearse this. Every single person brought intelligence, sophistication and craft to their roles, and every day as characters began to take shape it became harder and harder not to break in the middle of scenes. Robert's direction is so deft and the designers so in concert that we were still laughing our heads off during tech working out musical bits, parading costumes around and making some stage magic from the set.

I have learned a lot from the last few shows and cannot wait to get out there tonight.

All details can be found here at the Roundtable website.

Here it is in print:

Goodbye Cruel World

by Nikolai Erdman

adapted and directed by Robert Ross Parker

from a literal translation by Marina Raydun

The ArcLight Theater

152 W71st St. Downstairs (1 Train to 72nd)

Jan 14th - Feb 6th

Thursdays - Saturdays @ 8pm

Saturday Matinees @ 3pm

with Paco Tolson, William Jackson Harper, Cindy Cheung, Curran Connor, Tami Stronach and Aaron Roman Weiner.

Lights and Set: Nick Francone

Costumes: Theresa Squire and Antonia Ford-Roberts

Sound and Music: Shane Rettig

Stage Manager: Henry Cheng

Assistant Director: Adam Mazer