welcome to my page!
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why you might be here...
- to learn about me and my background
- to see what i'm currently up to
- to see what i've been up to in the past year or so
- you were on the Duets By Singles website, and you thought you'd check us out individually
- you wanted a link to the Duets By Singles website.
- you found a link to this on another site and decided to check it out.
- you were bored out of your mind and happened to stumble across this page
- i became overly obnoxious in my persistent asking you to see my new site and you're here to appease me and say you saw it
whatever the reason, you're here now and you might as well poke around and learn a few things.
sorry for the humungous picture. working on scaling that down a bit.
oh, and if you're trying to find a way to get in touch with me, here is the best place to find me: [email protected]
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if it's not because of reason 8, this is most likely the reason that you're here. this part of the website will hopefully be updated often enough so that it does indeed stay current.
- theatre
- still in the auditioning phase of life. gotten a few audition offers for la, but i can't afford to fly out there right now. although, i might fly out there later this year to visit my cousin and go on a few auditions on the west coast. we'll see what the year brings. MEANWHILE, Duets By Singles is going up in less than one week! i'm very excited. tj and i have been rehearsing with our new accompanist and he's wonderful. i forgot how much fun i have with this show. you don't want to miss it! trust me. but in other news, i just got new headshots done and i'm pretty decently happy with them. i mean, they need to be touched up, but what else is new? anyway, i have to decide on which ones i want, so i'm working on that, showing them to everyone, of course, and then i'll get a bunch printed up. more $$. geez.
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- home life
- so, with erin moving out in about a month or less, we had to find a new roommate. so erin put an ad on craigslist. we got a few responses and interviewed a few people, and we ended up deciding on a new guy who worked at the acres last year - justin. hopefully, this will work out well.
- work
- i found out earlier this week that my temp contract is up next friday and not only am i not being renewed, i'm not being hired. so, come next friday, i join the throng of the unemployed. it's slightly intimidating and somewhat freeing at the same time. of course, the thought of bills and rent to pay hangs over my head. thank goodness i have supportive parents. i'm lucky. hopefully i can find a job soon.
- random rant
- i'm kind of rantless at the moment, so you'll have to do without for now.
2005 - the year of the understudy
i began 2005 in transition. well, technically, i began 2005 in philadelphia at my first gay wedding, which was so much fun. i then had one day to run home and finish packing, for the next day i embarked on a new chapter in my life: NYC. it was january 2, 2005 when my best friend, michelle, and i, with the help of our parents, packed up a truck and started the two-hour drive from philly to nyc. we finally arrived at our new home, where our other two roommates, keith and lisa, were finishing unloading their truck into the apartment. quite some time, we had everything in the apartment. it wasn't until a few weeks later that we got rid of the last of the cardboard boxes. (actually, that's a lie - i sill have some underneath my bed) it was also in these early weeks that i became single again after the only relationship that i ever had, lasting approximately 2 months.
so, the auditions started and one temp job, which was a transcribing job that i could do at home. my nest egg held me over for awhile, but after a couple of months of just auditioning and not working, i was slowly running out of money. i had to get a job and quick. i was able to secure a job at the barnes and noble cafe in chelsea. it was around this time that i started dating someone. naturally, once that happened and i started to get some kind of life for myself in nyc, i got a job for the summer at a theatre. which was okay, b/c it turned out that so did the guy i was just starting to see. we agreed to go separate ways but keep in touch and reconnect once we returned to the city. well, THEN a friend called and told me that her theatre needed another dancer for Anything Goes. i headed upstate, but was only there 5 days before i got a call from the Walnut Street Theatre to work on West Side Story as an extra, which meant no singing or dancing; sort of a glorified tech crew. now, while not ideal, this was the Walnut Street Theatre, and i would be understudying as well. so, i left Anything Goes and went back to philly to live with my parents for a couple of months.
it turns out that this was a smart decision. i was to be the understudy for 3 of the jets: big deal, snowboy and baby john. big deal and snowboy have a similar dancing track, so that made learning their dances easier. baby john was something completely different most of the time, but i enjoyed the challenge. well, opening weekend, there was a death in action's family, so he had to leave for a funeral and big deal was his understudy. the dance captain, who was amazing, wanted to keep big deal in his own track as much as possible, so, i went into the show as a mix of big deal and action's tracks. i didn't do "Cool" that night, tho. but it was a lot of fun, and it was my parents' anniversary as well, and they got to see me. halfway through the run, i'm sitting in the green room, reading a book (i went through a lot of books during that show) when the stage manager came down, pointed at me, and said, "i need you." i followed her upstairs to a dressing room where i found big deal on the floor, his knee swollen to the point that it looked as though he had two knees. i went on for the second act to do "Gee, Officer Krupke". for the next week, i performed the role, including "Cool". he returned after a week, but still couldn't do some of the dancing, so we shared the track. it was an interesting experience.
i returned to nyc to announcements from all 3 roommates that they were moving out for various reasons. michelle moved out in early october and keith and lisa left at the beginning of november. so, by mid-november, i found myself in a 3 bedroom apartment by my lonesome. it's not that bad, except for the lack of furniture, i suppose. my former roommates had all the furniture, and there is a distinct lack of home-i-ness to the apartment now, but i've done the best that i can with what i have. michelle was the first to move out and while i hear that she's doing well now, i haven't actually heard from her. that's another story. keith and lisa moved out later and i do still talk to them. they're very happy in their new apartment.
when i got back, i started auditioning again, and went in for an audition for the show i'm in now, Endgames. my other best friend, tj, went in for the show too. i didn't get it - he did, and he got the role i'm currently playing. how did it come about that i'm playing the role and he's not? well, he was understudying another role, and they wanted to give him a couple of performances in that role, so they needed someone to perform this role for a couple of nights. tj suggested me, and i became part of the cast, once again as an understudy. well, then one of the other guys dropped out of the show, and tj moved over to his role and i was asked to join the cast in this role permanently, so there i was, but the show has come to an end. it was a decent show. i think we were all ready for it to be over. i learned a lot from this experience and i'm really glad that i got to meet the people that i got to meet. i made some good friends. :)
then the strike hit and the first day, i just stayed home and visited with jenn before she left the next day. i moved a few things into the new apartment, but nothing major. i finished up as much of the packing as i could. the second day of the strike, i went to work in a packed car. it took us 2 1/2 hours to get in and the same to get back home. it was insane. the next day was moving day and i got up early to be driven to the uhaul place. i drove the uhaul back to my former apt. THAT was fun. jason came over and helped me get most of the big stuff into the truck. i had to make two trips. it was not fun. i eventually got everything into the apt and drove the uhaul back to the uhaul place. i spent the rest of the day unpacking. the strike ended that night, but i still got on a train back to springfield. linz picked me up. i spent a few days with the family for the hols. linz gave me two shirts (one being my first Abercrombie and Fitch shirt) and my parents gave me much needed luggage. i came back and continued unpacking. tj and i started rehearsing for Duets. we exchanged gifts as well. i gave him what he wanted and he gave me the entire Narnia series in one book. his mother gave me a book on gay astrology.
later that week, lisa, keith and i headed to our former place of residence to clean and paint. when we arrived, we found that there were already painters there. when keith spoke to our landlord, it was unclear whether we would be required to pay for the paint job (which we found out later was $2100). it would have been quite wrong for him to charge us since we were fully intending to paint and were still within our lease. anyway, we cleaned the entire apartment, going back the next day to put the trash down on the curb. we were not required to pay for the painting, thank goodness. that apartment was hell until the very end.
it was also during this time that i got a new phone and i love it. just thought i'd mention that.
the New Years celebration took place at the Hook and Ladder - a cute little bar on the east side. dana's sister rented out the place and invited 10 of us to join them. so, 5 girls and 5 guys (see how nicely that works out?) partied on the east side. there was drinking and other fun activities. i was not drunk, mainly due to the fact that i was ill. my voice was mostly gone and i sounded like a white trash teen smoker from new jersey. it was very funny to listen to me talk, even for me. a good time was had by all.
all in all, i'd say this year was not good. it wasn't the happiest year of my life by any stretch of the imagination. the living situation eventually became troublesome (to put it mildly), my career didn't go as far as i would have liked, and people are now missing from my life that were there before. i'm hoping that 2006 holds better things for me. at this point, i guess we're at current events, so if you didn't read that, here...current events
2004 - the year of the amish
i auditioned for the Roundbarn Theatre by accident in january of 2004. i was auditioning for another theatre on a saturday with tj and i got really sick so i stayed at his place through sunday and he was auditioning for the theatre on monday, so i went with him. by some weird chance, i was cast. so i prepared to make the journey out to indiana to live at the Roundbarn Theatre at Amish Acres and perform in their 6-show season: Plain and Fancy, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Footloose, South Pacific, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, and Seussical.
before that, though, i was going to help choreograph Godspell and direct The Laramie Project at my old high school. for Godspell, i was working with a fabulous choreographer, kristen, and we just clicked. the kids were fun to work with most of the time, and she and i had a great time just bonding over similar experiences and views. there was conflict over space between the two shows, but it all worked out in the end. for Laramie, since i was now leaving in mid-march, i wouldn't get to direct it to entirety, nor see it open in may. my goal was to have the show completely blocked by the time i left, which, fortuntately, we accomplished. john (the director) and i reworked the script so it included 12 actors instead of the customary 8. it was difficult, constantly reworking it so that no actors ended up talking to themselves. if you know the show, you understand the way it works. the kids were amazing and were doing beautifully when i left, and it just got better after i left. mom and michelle went to go see the show and they told me that it was great. i got a video of the show much later in the year. it is one of my proudest moments and my fondest memories.
i arrived in indiana, having passed a horse and buggy and settled into rehearsals with a wonderful group of people who would be my family for the next 9-10 months. there were many stories spun out of the experiences in indiana. there was minimal drama, which is rare for a group of theatre people. i had the occassional visitor. mom, dad, linz, and my grandmother came out to see Tom Sawyer, as did tj, michelle and another friend, bree, and mom, linz and my other grandmother made it out for Footloose. dad returned at the end of the year to see Seussical and drive back with me. at that point, he also met my first boyfriend, adam. that's another story in and of itself. he was a very good boyfriend, i'll say that.
i had many adventures out there and met lots of different kinds of people. i will say this for indiana - it knows how to cook. i've never had such good food in all my life. they had this thing called "amish pizza" that was incredible.
it was around august that i took up crocheting again. i started crocheting anything and everything i could: hats, scarves, afghans, purses, you name it. someone suggested that i start selling them. i had a friend with an art store, so i started selling them there. needless to say, they didn't exactly do well, even as the weather got colder, but it was fun to try nonetheless. everyone in the place ended up wearing my hats and scarves around, which was kind of cool. some insisted on wearing them immediately, even though it was august, which made me laugh.
my birthday was quite an adventure. i was kidnapped by a few friends and taken to many different sites - the zoo, notre dame, coldstone, bowling, a diner, and to the movies to see The Forgotten. it was this night that adam and i sort of began working towards a relationship, though our first date wasn't until a week later. i returned to the east coast the day before christmas. i saw as many friends as i could and visited with family and then i was off to nyc to start 2005 in a new city.