Last Aloha's

It's Saturday morning. We've got two final performances of ALOHA left. Thursday's show opened to a medium sized house. The interesting thing about Thursday's audience was that there was some sort of prison inmate group there to see the play. I didnt know anything about it beforehand and I remember thinking to myself "Wow, there are some really TOUGH looking guys out here tonight." They definitely didnt look like your typical theater-going folk. Josh, who plays the character of MYRNA in the show (A hilarious role, a sort of anchor or den mother to the other characters, and also a man dressed as a woman), got totally spooked in his first scene and forgot his lines. He recovered nicely. He wanted to take the back door out of the theater that night. The inmates seemed a little detached from the story except for the part where Vivian is doing bong hits. They seemed to like that. They perked up when the girls came out for act two in bikinis. They REALLY liked that.

Friday night's show was, I'd say, our second best audience, still not quite as good as our first Sunday night crowd, but the house was full, as was the laughter. Friday night's audience not only gave a lot back to the actors in terms of energy, but many hung around after the show to meet the cast and show their appreciattion. I had several people come up to me after the show and tell me they enjoyed my work, which was nice.

Tonight is our second to last event, as well as the cast party. I think we're getting a keg and we're just going hang out in the theater space and get drunk. Courtney simply asked that we be sure to return Sunday for the final show. Sounds easy enough.

The past week has been another busy one, with the crazy, insane heat we had in New York, my ZICO colleagues and myself decided to hit the streets and give out tons of samples of ZICO to the hot and thirsty people of Manhattan. Its a great way to improve brand awareness and make a good first impression. It also kept me very busy. I had several auditions come up this week, so I had to scramble to free up my time to get there. I auditioned this week for an INTEL industrial, a CANON commercial, a LEISURE CHANNEL promo and a few others.

At the LEISURE CHANNEL audition, when I walked in (My friend Bettina was running the casting), the director recognized me and said "I know this guy, this guy is really good. How are you James?" I kind of squinted at him to see who he and I couldnt quite figure it out. It turns out he directed me on a SPIKE TV promo a few years ago. It was nice to be remembered and nice to briefly chat with the man. It would have been NICER if I had booked the damn thing.

As for right now, right at this moment, I am about to go meet with my friend Jeff Williams, whose editing my short film BUZZING THE BUZZER, which we shot last month. He works as an assistant editor at Ogilvey & Mather and he's arranged for us to be able to edit the project in their studio, which is awesome. He tells me he's got a rough cut for me to look at. So we'll see how that looks, discuss the options, brainstorm a bit, order in for lunch and see where that leaves us. Then I've got to come home, feed Kane, take a shower, walk Kane and head out to Jersey City for the show.

I dont really have the time or focus to get into my personal life right now, which, by the way, is in shambles. Maybe some other time, but i can't promise anything, most of this stuiff is probably better left unsaid..or un-BLOGGED.

Moving on

My heart hurts today. My heart hurts alot.
People here are hurting, For whom I care with all I've got.
I want to be the hero. I want to save the day.
I cant do much of that, when I dont know what to say.
While I try to find my way, I need the freedom to explore.
I want to peer in every window. I'd like to open every door.
One may bend to comprehend, but you may never understand.
A hero's work is never done. The heart is always in demand.

Its Monday.I finally have some down time to catch my breath, pet my dog and reflect on all the craziness in my life right now. We had two more decent shows on Saturday and Sunday night. Still NOTHING compared to LAST Sunday nights show. I'm starting to wonder if maybe we peaked that night. I think we can get it together for a few more kick-ass performances, but it really takes a solid commitment from EVERY single cast member and thats tough when there are TEN cast members. If we get a good, jolly, full house next weekend, I think we can bust out another good one.Saturday night was stressful for me because for one, a small group of my closest friends were coming and I got really really nervous before the show. Then once we began, and I got through the first two scenes, I saw my friends...my really, really LATE friends, being ushered into the theater, then I got pissed off and totally lost focus. It took me another 2 or 3 scenes to regain my composure and re-connect with my character.Sunday night, two other friends came out to the theater...15 MINUTES late...missed my opening scene..and once again, I totally lost focus and struggled to get my shit together.I shouldnt let that stuff effect me, but ...it just did...what can I say?So we are coming up on our last four performances. While I can really use the break, I am going to miss all my ALOHA cast mates. I'm sure I'll see them again in some shape or form, but I'll truly miss spending time with everyone in this context. That reminds me, I need to get my next project lined up. It's time to move on.

Short on showmanship

It's quiet here. Things are going on in my life right now that are hard to deal with. I'm doing what I can to keep it together but there are times when I feel like I'm on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I've taken on too much and I'm trying. It's times like these that you have to trust and just let the universe take care of you. Have your conversations with God and keep moving forward.

Saturday morning, July 23rd, we've had decent shows the past two nights, still nothing as great as last Sunday night. We are now at the halfway point. I have a group of friends coming tonight to see the show and go party a little bit afterwards. My friend Jen lives in Jersey City nearby so I think we'll all go have a drink at her house after the show. I'm gonna git. I've got a full day of driving a truck around Times Square delivering magnets to teams of street samplers.

I'm a slightly short on showmanship this morning.

Slice of sunshine

Sunday night's show was AMAZING. After a small, timid crowd on Saturday night, we were filled beyond capacity on Sunday and the audience was great. They laughed at everything, which really inspired the cast and crew to step up and deliver the best performance yet. I was so happy to end our first weekend on a high note. I was saying a few days ago that I thought we would hit our stride on Sunday. Once we got a few performances out of the way, and more importantly, we all got a chance to catch up on some sleep, I knew we'd turn it up a notch or two and really get going. "Super-smooth Sunday." That's what I was calling for. But at first, things didnt seem that smooth at all:

Before the show started, I thought we were in big trouble. We had some issues at the front door because some of our guests had arrived early and there was noplace to seat them. Someof these early birds were family and friends of certain cast members. Now, normally, folks will just hang out on the street, but this time it started to rain, and some of the cast members got upset that their family and friends were expected to stay outside and get wet. Words were exchanged between cast and crew, tears started falling (yes...again), more words were exchanged and the doors were opened a few minutes early. Once the house was opened the actors were asked to go backstage, but once we were all backstage, the verbal sparring continued. The exchange got heated enough that the entering theatergoers could hear it all. One of the company members tried to intervene and received a little lashing of her own for doing so. More words, more tears and then...silence. Man it was tense back there.

But hey, after that, we put on a kick-ass show! The lovely ladies of Management Company should brawl before every performance!.

So now it's Monday night and I am SOoooo tired in more ways than I care to explain. I spent a good portion of my day on a loading dock loading boxes into a storage space. It was crazy humid and I was drenched with sweat.I left the docks for an audition at Beth Melsky for Optimum online and then to Acting Management on 22nd Street for a Haagen Daaz audition. I blew off a film audition that was happening down on Lafayette St because I was just too dam tired. It was a posting from Backstage, chances are I wasn't missing much (Although ya never know).I stopped at a newsstand to pick up a NJ STAR LEDGER so I could read the review of our show and I was very pleasantly surprised. The review was fantastic:

ALOHA SAY THE PRETTY GIRLS Star Ledger review, July 18th, 2005

The guy who wrote the review loved our show and I even got a nice mention in the article. A small slice of sunshine on a very dark day.

Good show, GREAT exposure

Performance #2 was SO much better and smoother on Friday night than our opener. For starters, the cast was a THOUSAND times more relaxed prior to and during the performance. On Thursday, everybody was backstage taking deep deep breaths, doing push-ups, anything to shake off the nerves. One of my acting teachers at THE BARROW GROUP, Seth Barrish, used to say that many times, an actor is doing his or herself more harm than good when you start doing all these exercises, movements and methods to try and relax because the brain associates those actions with the very thing we are trying to eliminate, Anxiety. So we end up further aggravating the situation and working ourselves into and even higher state of anxiety and stress by executing a sense-memory exercise that conjures up feelings of doubt, fear and uncertainty.

Friday night all the actors properly warmed upand just chilled out until showtime and I think the show greatly benefitted from that approach. I cant speak for everybody, but the anxiety factor for myself was virtually non-existent.

New Jersey's STAR LEDGER published a great article in Fridays paper introducing THE MANAGEMENT COMPANY as a promising new theater troupe based out of Jersey City. The article prompted ABC to contact us to request an opportunity to come tape a few scenes from the play for a special interest story on the local news. Very cool stuff. With ABC airing a story about our show and The STAR LEDGER coming to review on Saturday night (Tonight), we could get some great exposure.

Play on!

One down, eleven to go. We did it. We got our first performance out of the way. It was definitely more like a dress reherasal with invited audience, but I think we pulled it off rather graciously. It all went much better than I had anticipated. We had a smaller house than anticipated too, only about 15 audience members, but Friday and Saturday promise to be full. I'm happy to get the first one out of the way because thats where I get nervous.I always get very shaky and I get cotton-mouth really bad on opening night. Once I get out there and adjusted to the presence of an audience, I'm fine and then I can start to play again.

Is ALOHA ready?

Its Thursday,July 14th and ALOHA SAY THE PRETTY GIRLS opens tonight at Victory Hall in Jersey City, NJ. Are we ready? HELL NO.

Am I excited? Yes.

Am I nervous? I am too damn busy to be nervous.

I know I say this all the time, but my life has been balls to the walls crazy this week and now that I'm hours away from opening the show,I feel like I'm losing mind. I'm tired, frazzled and confused. I've been trying to juggle all my rehearsals this week with all my ZICO work with an under-five on ONE LIFE TO LIVE (Which I actually ended up passing on because my call-time to be on set turned out to be 6:30PM, which is what time my dress rehearsal for the show was scheduled. Its partly my fault for taking the job without asking about the call-time. I assumed they would shoot in the daytime and I would be ok for my 7PM dress. I MUST place some fault with the ABC casting director for not CLARIFYING with me. I find it hard to believe that she hasn't had this problem a dozen times before me. Every other Soap in New York shoots during daytime hours. Anyway, aint doin a GODDAMN under-five on ONE LIFE TO LIVE this week), my Dog has decided to get sick this week,so he's peeing all over the apartment before I get a chance to take him out, and my landlord has been busting my balls, so I had to go meet with him and bring him a $4000 money order (Nobody's fault but mine), plus a handful of other annoying and inconvenient occurances. All this crap going on with 4 hours of sleep every night. You cant possibly imagine the insanity I feeling right now.Its not just me either. The strange thing is, everyone in the cast and crew has had an insane week on top of all the late rehearsals. We are all on the verge of a nervous breakdown and running on fumes. Last night's dress rehearsal was a rehearsal that should have happened three or four days ago. We were scattered and disorganized with "I need to break down and cry" episodes popping up all over the place.That being said...The show is Freakin AMAZING. Its a really fun piece of theater. The writing is funny, forward thinking and imaginative. The acting is wonderful AND we got AIR CONDITIONING!!

So come see the show or I'll hunt you down and kill you.

Starting to heat up

Things are starting to heat up here in The Kitchen. We are in the last stretch of rehearsals for ALOHA SAY THE PRETTY GIRLS and we open up NEXT THURSDAY NIGHT! So I'm basically up to my eyeballs in rehearsals and performances until July 18th when I finally get a free day. The show is starting to take its shape which is great to see, but we have SO much work to do before we are even close to being ready for opening night. Good news: Opening night is sold out.Its been a few days since i posted anything here so I've got quite a few notes.

July 4th was great. I went out to Ridgewood, New Jersey with Jessica and my friend's Bill (buddy from college) and Mandy (His wife). Ridgewood is a small suburban town in Bergen County. Although I am originally from NC, and my entire family tree rises from roots deep in Carolina soil, I spent most of my childhood years growing up in Ridgewood. And to make a long story short, they have a really nice fireworks show every year and THIS year it was AWESOME. Seriously, it was the best grand finale I have ever seen. SO good, in fact that for a second there, the pyrotechnics got so intense that I actually thought there had been some sort of malfunction and that we were all going to have to get up and run for cover. It was F---in COOL!

OK, holiday's over and its back to business. Some bad news, I received an email from the director of THE PARTED, a film I had auditioned for last week. Last weeks audition was actually a THIRD callback, which I felt went well:

I apologize for the delay in getting back to you, as the decision was a long and difficult one - as you brought a lot to the character - but ultimately we decided to go a different route for this project. John and I wanted to thank you for the time and effort you put into our auditions and project. You brought in a lot of heart and talent. We certainly will keep you mind for future projects. Keep up the good work.

Oh well, I guess it works out for the best. They would have started shooting immediately after my show ends its run and I will probably be in need of a rest. No worries.So Tuesday night I went to a workshop with Tori Visgilio, Associate Casting Director for ABC's ONE LIFE TO LIVE. I auditioned for here, performing my monologue from Rebecca Gilman's BLUE SURGE. I felt really disconnected and that I delivered a lackluster performance, but she whispered to me to call her in the morning and that she may have something for me next week. So I did. I am now offically booked for an UNDER-FIVE on ONE LIFE TO LIVE, next Wednesday as Batrender #2. That's awesome. That will aso complete the cycle. I will have appeared in U5 roles on every NY soap. My only concern here is that I have dress rehearsal for ALOHA on Wed night. If I get as late call time for OLTL, I might have a problem. I can only hope and pray that I get an early call time so I can get out of there and get to rehearsal on time.

Yesterday I auditioned for a PAPA JOHN'S commercial at HERMAN & LIPSON CASTING. It was a really funny casting because they brought 5 actors in at a time, 2 guys and 3 girls, and we had to pretend that we were at a party and eating pizza, and we then all break out and take turns doing the "Chicken Dance." It was fun, but it really separates the men from the boys when it come to auditioning. Here's the thing: We are ACTORS. This sort of thing really should come quite naturally. If there are any types of people in this world hat can walk into a room and do a "Chicken Dance" in front of a camera...its 5-year-olds...and ACTORS. There were so many people there whining about it and half-assing it because they felt like it was beneath them. You know what? SCREW you! Hang up your gloves and go get a job on Wall Street, ya whining babies. You're in the wrong business. GET OUT OF THE WAY and GO HOME.

SKY blue July 2

THIS goes out from ME to YOU
Have a HAPPY HAPPY SKY Blue July TWO
Don't matter where your at
Or what you gonna do
THIS goes out from ME to YOU

BIG REMINDER everyone...

I saw this film at Tribeca a few months ago and it was fantastic. It was so moving, inspirational and alarming at the same time. Cory Booker was actually in the audience at this screening and when the filmmaker introduced him, he recieved a standing ovation. It will be airing on PBS at 10PM on July 5th. If you have a chance I strongly recommend checking it out.

"Street Fight" covers the turbulent campaign of Cory Booker, a 32-year old Rhodes Scholar/Yale Law graduate running for mayor of Newark, N.J. against Sharpe James, the four-term incumbent twice his age. Fresh from winning awards at the HotDocs and Tribeca film festivals, "Street Fight" is this year's political thriller.

Screening : P.O.V. Street Fight Tuesday, July 5, 10:00pm
PBS CHANNEL 13 (Thirteen/WNET New York), COMCAST Ch. 13

For additional listings, information and reviews go to:
http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2005/streetfight/


I think I'm STILL recovering fro last weeks BUZZER shoot. And yes, I still have ONE final short scene to shoot. As much as I love July 4th, the holiday makes it hard to get anything coordinated. HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!! That reminds me of one day when I was witing tables in Kemah, Texas about 10 years ago. I had this big table of about 10 red-blooded Texans and this one guy kept standing up every ten minutes or so and yelling out to the WHOLE restaurant "HAPPY BIRTHDAY AMERICA!" It was cool at first, but after an hour of that people were wanting to throw jalapenos at the guy.

Rehearsal last night for ALOHA. We are getting really close (July 14th is opening night) and we have yet to do a full run-through. Last night we worked through transitions, which can be a long arduous process. I brought my djembe to use for certain sound effects backstage, but we got to the last few pages of the script and Courtney hadnt even thought about using it. I kept thinking "Bring in the djembe, bring in the djembe. WHEN are we gonna bring in the djembe?" Finally she gives me the nod and I rock the house a little bit. She is so enthused that she wishes she had worked me and my djembe into ALL of the earlier transitions. So we started to go back and make adjustments here and there, but it got too late and we decided to schedule a special "Djembe" meeting. I knew the djembe would work. And I'm psyched to be playing it for the show. I love my djembe.

Ok, enough blogging on this beautiful holiday weekend. I'm going to Central Park to lay on the grass. I love grass.

PS: That reminds me I saw EASY RIDER (Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson) for the FIRST time the other night. It really surprised me. Anyway, I'll get into it later.