Play me a memory...

I have a guitar. It was given to me many years ago by my dear friend Nikki Helmich-Raasch. Unfortunately, the guitar became warped and unplayable, and the repair cost would be just as much if not more than a new one. So, it became art, and for the last 10 or so years it's hung in my apartment. I ask everyone who walks through the door to sign it. Most have, with a few exceptions of some who have politely declined (I remember every one of you, you heartless bastards!). What first struck me as a quirky thing to have in my apartment has really grown into something much more... It's become a diary of sorts. Moments of time pressed up against a musical piece of wood.


They're my memories. Family members, friends, roommates, friends of roommates, ex girlfriends, people who have graced me with their presence as I've lived and breathed through New York City. I was glancing at it tonight, going through the different names and smiling as memories flooded inside me, filling me with particular moments from the past, hopes for the future with these friends... And then I came across one name that struck me a little more than all the others...
Nicole Dolci was my Kansas City twin. She and I met while doing a Ron Simonian dinner theatre production called Blues Christmas I also met my very good friend Wolfgang (then Russell) Butcher during that production. It was a wacky, crazy show that was filled with things like making out with drunken cast mates, seeing Titanic on opening night, and crying our ever loving actors eyes out. And for the first time, really feeling a sense of community in a cast. She fast became my best friend, and we were inseparable discovering together everything from amazing indie rock bands to seeing movies like it was our job, and seriously laughing about a joke that days later we couldn't actually remember but still found funny... She was my Scully to my Mulder. In fact, she even called me Mulder, and Loser as well (in the most affectionate way...). I still remember sitting in a dark, smokey bar in the middle of Columbia Missouri hanging with our friends Kristie and Rob, and listening to the songs that we had heard them sing a hundred times and knowing that each time we both heard something new. I remember being the only ones in a movie theatre (we were seeing The Impostors) and breaking out into a impromptu dance that only ended when we heard the projectionist clapping. Hung out with her awesome family, held her hand as she went through her divorce, and braced myself when she moved to LA.

I moved to NY a little over a year later, and flew her down to shoot the movie we had spent four years talking about making. After that, she visited one more time and then we lost touch. Fought over stupid things, and just as fast as she came into my life, she was out of it. Time passes, as it always does, and we stayed in sporadic contact, but not enough to know that she had got sick. Her fiancee Benjie called me one evening to deliver the news. "Nikki," as her family called her, passed away. All in a moment, after seeing that signature, this all came rushing back. And as I look through the other signatures, hordes of other memories do the same. That simple, broken guitar with the writing on the wall has become one of my prized possessions because every time I look at it, it looks right back at me and tells me a story. I can't repair the relationship that Nicole and I had, but I can look back on the great memories that forged our friendship to begin with and smile every time I see it and let that amazing glow fill inside me. I hope you have your own guitar to play, even when it's lost a string or two...

Monkey Magic

There are those great theatre moments that strike you. They may get under your nails, clawing at you with attitude screaming, "Oh, you can't forget me, even if you wanted to." There are other moments that make you suddenly laugh days, weeks, and months later just by walking across something random on the street, which sparks up a memory of it in you. And then there and still others that have the kind of cast that makes you proud to be an actor. The kind that warms you with a thought, grabs you with a warm embrace, and reminds you that, although every experience isn't going to be like this one, it's so damn great that some do. I've had several shows give me one of each of those things. Craven Monkey and the Mountain of Fury gives me all of those, all at once, and I'm going to miss it dearly when it leaves me come Sunday morning...

Craven Monkey is the show I'm proud to be currently starring in, and it has been a thrilling experience, from first being cast in it to now. The beginning of my monkey journey go back to last summer. I auditioned and got cast in a rock musical last year called Willy Nilly that was featured in the NY International Fringe Festival. It was a wonderfully weird, you either get it or you don't musical bringing to life Charles Manson in rock musical form. It also introduced me to the "Piper Mckenzie" production team. I've seen their productions in the past (The Granduncle Quadrilogy: Tales from the Land of Ice being a stand out for myself) but had never had the chance to work with the company before. Their shows always told an interesting, weird, and truly original brand of storytelling, and I knew that a rock musical about Charles Manson was no exception. Although our reviews were mixed, it slayed the audiences (bad pun intended) and was extended off-broadway into the Fringe Encores series. It was during the original rehearsal process, however, that the director and producer came to me with their new idea. It would be an all movement show, specifically fight and dance, and they wanted me to be a part of it. Thrilled at the idea, I immediately said yes. The next week I said yes to another show that would open right after ours, and soon realized they would indeed overlap and I had to choose one or the other. Thank God I choose Craven. Not that the other show wouldn't have been a great experience as well, but Craven has been one of the best theatre pieces I've ever been involved with. Ever.

It first opened last December as part of the Brick Theatre's "Fight Festival." The cast featured both new and old faces for me. I've long been a huge fan of my friend Jessi Gotta's emotional, vivid work but had yet to stand next to her under the lights. Melissa Roth was featured in Granduncle so it was immediately exiting to have her in the cast as well. Adrian Jevicki was an all new face for me, and I'm thrilled to be sharing the stage with this great dancer. Fred Backus & Art Wallace are two great actors that both were featured alongside myself in the 12 part serial masterpiece Penny Dreadful for Third Lows & World Gone Wrong for Gemini Collisionworks, but we had yet to share a scene together (thank God that changed.) Hope Cartelli is the wonderfully quirky producer who I shared scenes with in Willy Nilly & Lady Cryptozoologist and again here share a couple of brief, lovely scenes with her. And Becky Byers is someone I've been honored and humbled to have had the pleasure of working with several times, from our first stage experience together in Penny Dreadful & Lady Cryptozoologist to last years Willy Nilly and the short films Avenue A & falling... I also recently danced an incredible Lady GaGa number with her, and I can't wait until we share our next scene together (in fact, we've already worked on a workshop of a new play together, so I think we already know our next project...). The crew also was a mix of new & old faces, from those I've had the pleasure of working with before (Jeff Lewoncyzk, Guinevere Pressley, Adam Swiderski) to finally working alongside Qui Nguyen, the thrilling fight choreographer of "Vampire Cowboys." With a crew like this, I believe it's actually impossible to fail. But to soar like this show has is a blessing. Our critics apparently agree: the reviews have been unanimously wonderful:

That Sounds Cool Blogspot
Seanrants
Theater Online
TravSD
NY Press
TimeOut NY
Comic Critique
Broadway World

Because of it's initial sold out run at the Fight Fest, we were able to remount it (bad pun intended again) and now that run is coming to a close this weekend. I have been honored to be a part of this magical play, and it would delight me to no end if you all came out to see us this weekend and made it a sold out, wham bam ending for this fantastic show. Trust me, you won't regret it. The Mountain of Fury will "tower above you, as only mountain can."

Written & Directed by Jeff Lewonczyk. Costumes by Julianne Kroboth. Fight Choreography by Qui Nguyen & Adam Swiderski. Created by the Company. Starring Adrian Jevicki, Jessi Gotta, Hope Cartelli, Art Wallace, Fred Backus, Melissa Roth, Becky Byers, Mateo Moreno, and the voice of Jeff Lewonczyk. Presented by Piper Mckenzie and the Brick Theatre, 575 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn NY; (718) 907-6189. Through March 13th. Running time: 65 Minutes. Tickets are $12. To purchase tickets, go here and for more info, go see Piper Mackenzie here.

Theatre Review: "Mr. and Mrs. Fitch"

I apologize for being gone from the blogging world so long... I was called away to London, then France, then Aruba, each with a top secret mission. In essence, I became a spy, but decided that the life of a spy, while good on paper (spy paper), was a little too fast paced for me. So I decided to come back to NYC and become a slightly broke actor again. Now THAT'S adventure dammit! And the first show I saw when I came back from my adventures was Second Stage's "Mr. and Mrs. Fitch." Wow. What a terrible, terrible choice...

The play starts with the two title characters (and the only two characters we see on stage) Mr. and Mrs. Fitch, a married couple who write an online entertainment blog together. Together they bicker about life, make jokes about entertainment and technology, and discover that the thing they need to do, in order to become relevant again, is to create a fictional celebrity. They write about him as if Mr. Smith spoke to him at a fancy after party, and act as if they've "discovered" a fantastic new personality. Complications arise. The couple, played by John Lithgow and Jennifer Ehle, are meant to be presented as a fun loving, wise cracking rat-a-tat-tat couple who can joke about Twitter and dance the Charleston at the drop of a prop hat (or a prop iPhone, which was dropped at one point in the performance I saw and never again picked up. Cause, you know, that's what real people do). Unfortunately, they both come off as annoying, smug, and are actually presented as two people you would never want to spend more than 2 minutes with, let alone 2 acts. Lithgow, however, is very good, thumping around the stage and spitting out a few great zingers ("You know, theater, that thing that movie people do when they want to announce they’re available for television.") and even in the incredibly unnecessary second act he trumps along gamely and always has a sense of fun in his delivery. Ehle does not have the luxury of Lithgow's shinning persona.

I read over Ehle's bio and noticed that she's starred on Broadway in Sure Thing, Design for Living, & The Coast of Utopia so it's quite obvious that producers trust in her acting chops. I, however, saw an actress finally ready for Community Theatre in Ohio. Ehle mugs, rants, and is just plain bad. The most interesting thing about Ehle is a very cool scar she has on her right arm that is showcased much better than her acting ability. THAT I enjoyed. But I kept praying for an accident on stage that would force her understudy to leap on and replace her (is that mean? Probably, but it's true). Add that with the fact that she had zero chemistry with Lithgow and you've got one miscast actress. Surely she's better than this performance. Right? Right...? (cricket... cricket... cricket...) Scott Ellis does succeed in his directing though. The actors remembered their lines (wait, no, not all of them...), and they do move from stage left... to stage right... sit back down at the center table behind a laptop... grab something off the bookshelf, rinse, and repeat. Oh, I forgot! Ehle cracks an egg and then leaves it in the kitchen never to be mentioned again. I guess the iPhone drop wasn't the only thing she immediately forgot about. So thank you Scott Ellis for letting the characters...well...move. Great directing. Top shelf.

The worst part of this trainwreck is actually Douglas Carter Beane's script. In the past, Beane has not only succeeded, but soared. Both As Bees in Honey Drown and The Little Dog Laughed were not only fantastic scripts, but were fueled with great direction and great original casts. This time around, Beane tackles the entertainment industry again, but with plodding results. The majority of the jokes are lame, the plot is almost non existent, and after spending an evening with Mr. and Mrs. Fitch (which is, also, the only way they address each other. Because, you know, that's what real people do) you don't only want to go home, but you want to pick up the nearest bottle of...anything and keep drinking until the memories of this sad sack of a play are gone. Unfortunately for you (and me) those memories will arise again. Hopefully, for all of our sakes, Mr. and Mrs. Fitch will not. If you do end up being dragged to this show, note that the best part of the entire evening is a non speaking one: Allen Moyer's fantastic Upper East Side set. Now THAT has character...


By Douglas Carter Beane. "Directed" by Scott Ellis. Sets by Allen Moyer. Starring John Lithgow, Jennifer Ehle. Presented by Second Stage Theatre, 305 West 43rd Street, Manhattan; (212) 246-4422. Through April 4 (if we're lucky, ONLY till April 4th...). Running time: 2 hours.