As promised...

My friends Chris and Dan have a new addition to the family, a miniature Dachshund named Dewars - Dewey for short - named after Chris' favorite drink. I am making that nasty face because usually (cover your ears Dewey) I despise animals of any kind, but even I have to admit, he's pretty cute.

Oops!

So Trish and I drove back from NJ early yesterday afternoon so we would get home in time to make it into the city to pick up our Next To Normal tickets for the 7:30 PM performance. The good news? - even getting caught in traffic due to a minor fender bender on the highway, we made it home in time. The bad news? - the performance was at 7:00 PM. Major "oops." Unfortunately, I didn't discover my mistake until around 6:40 PM, just a hair too late to make it to the theater on time. Moral of the story: always check your performance times. I ended up eating the expense and ordering 2 more tickets for next week with a discount code.

The evening wasn't a complete wash out though. We ended up renting Transformers, which I somehow missed during its commercial release last year, and 1408, which I held off on due to lukewarm revues. Thoroughly enjoyed both, though 1408 sort of didn't make much sense, but it did have a few good scary moments. Definitely rental-worthy. And did I mention Ben & Jerry's was also involved? That sort of made the whole evening. Oh well. Next up - Double Feature at NYC Ballet, a ballet choreographed by Susan Stroman billed as an "homage" to the slient film era. Sounds like a great premise.

I'd also like to take this time to advocate moving show times up to 7:00 PM on weekday evenings. I hate getting home so late and basically having to go right to bed to avoid heavy eye baggage the next morning. The days of all-nighters - and even a weekday happy hour beer - are over for this old bitch. As I had mentioned to my good friend Chris the other day, I can see my 40's running toward me and it ain't pretty. Hell, I was helping one of Val's students choreograph a two minute theater dance piece for a college audition this weekend (let's not even mention my mini breakdown upon realizing I'm MORE THAN DOUBLE her age!) and I can barely walk today. To hell with aging gracefully - I will go kicking and screaming and with minor non-invasive cosmetic surgery if need be!

Crimes of the Heart

Sitting in the intimate Laura Pels Theatre last night I felt as though I was watching an extremely well written and acted Lifetime movie of the week. I want to clarify by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed myself and the performances onstage, but by this morning I had mostly forgotten the whole experience. I guess I just didn’t see “the bigger picture” of what the play was trying to say. Though far more accessible than the current revival of Come Back, Little Sheba, for me it doesn’t have the emotional heft of the slightly dated and admittedly sometimes creaky, Sheba. The last act of Sheba was emotionally devastating. The last act of Crimes was entertaining but unfulfilling.

Although I don’t think plays necessarily have to always be “deep” and meaningful, there really doesn’t seem to be a reason to revive Crimes. It doesn’t say anything particularly new or interesting and it wasn’t presented in a way that separates it from any other production (aside from the fact that Kathleen Turner directed it). It’s nice enough, but if you’re looking for sheer entertainment value with perhaps a side order of emotional depth, I’d choose an episode of Ugly Betty or Pushing Daisies (or even Chuck) over Crimes.

Performances across the board were good to excellent. The standout for me was Jennifer Dundas (Lenny). Of the sisters, she was able to create the most richly nuanced performance; truthful and sympathetic. Sara Paulson (Meg) was solid but not outstanding. She sometimes played a bit broad and general (the scene where she eats Lenny’s chocolates was so pushed that I could almost hear her silently screaming, “Notice what I’m doing, this will be important later!!!”). At first I thought her extremely slow speech cadence was so that the audience could get used to her thick accent. But she continued to speak this way through the play, almost coming off as slightly stupid. I know things are slower in the south, but my parents live in Richmond and I’ve never heard anyone speak like that all the time. I was looking forward to seeing Lily Rabe (Babe), but due to a broken rib, she was out. Her excellent understudy, Jessica Cummings in her New York debut (according to the Playbill she just graduated from Northwestern and listed no other credits - first job in NYC - bitch!), had the perfect combination of naivete, vulnerability and just a touch of insanity. It really was hard to believe she was just the understudy. The men were also uniformly excellent with Chandler Williams (Barnette) a standout as the smart, but slightly off-kilter, lawyer. Worth the price of a TDF ticket or rush ticket. Otherwise, rent the movie.

My New Website

OK, I finally gave in to the technological pressures of the 21st century and published my own website, www.faustopineda.com. Please don't judge too harshly as it is still in the creation stages and I keep revising the look and content nearly every 10 minutes. Please check it out and email me your suggestions, critiques, words of wisdom or nasty comments.

NYC destroyed - again!

NYC sure is getting its ass kicked in the movies recently; first in I Am Legend and then again in Cloverfield which I saw yesterday morning - yes, read correctly, morning. OK, I know New Yorkers are considered heathens in many parts of the country, but give us a break already, why does Armagedden always begin in NYC? You’re giving us a complex. I was in NJ for final Oklahoma! auditions and Juan pushed us out of bed at 9:45 for a 10:30 AM showing. Crazy, I know. But strangely the theater had a handful of other early risers - perhaps drawn by the $6 admission price. I haven’t paid $6 for a movie since junior high school.

Although not particularly scary or suspenseful (from the outset it was clear that none of the characters was going to live) I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Maybe it was the $6 ticket price. But even after a post-movie discussion about all the inconsistencies and stupid decisions the characters made, we still gave it a thumbs up. The handheld camera technique did get a bit tiresome after a while. I mean, could you really run around bombed-out city streets at night during a Martian attack with a camera glued to your eye? I think not. People can barely negotiate walking and talking on their cell phones at the same time. As far as displays of plain stupidity - why didn’t the civilians pick up weapons when it was clear they would definitely need them? No one thought to check behind a deli counter for a handgun or a knife or even a friggin’ baseball bat. What about food? You’d think with any type of catastrophic event, you’d at least try to stuff your pants with Snickers or something. And if the director included one more scene with the lead character running through subway tunnels or jumping through debris in her spike-heeled, gold Jimmy Choo’s -- Well, I won’t even go there. Break those heals off sister, you’re being chased by man eating alien bugs!

Well, I guess I must have really just not cared, because I still would recommend it, if only for the shots of the giant monster trudging down 8th Avenue toward the Time Warner Center. Did I mention we also had hot dogs and popcorn at 10:30 in the morning? No wonder I liked the movie.

It's Finally Over...(at least until tomorrow)

Oklahoma! auditions are finally over and we actually have a cast that doesn't suck.  In fact, if all our leads accept their offers we're going to have a surprisingly excellent show.  I know that sounds totally condescending but I honestly didn't come into this audition process with high hopes considering the previous productions I'd seen at CDC.  Not that I'm trashing the theater.  The last production I saw there, Summer of '42, would rival many productions at "professional" theater companies.  But their Secret Garden was almost painful to sit through.  And I know that just like any other theater (or business, for that matter) politics plays an immense part in casting and hiring.  But after seeing the talent that came out for our auditions, there really is no excuse for some of the casting travesties I've seen on that stage.  Of course, the callbacks weren't all smooth sailing.  There was a heck of a lot of drama going on that day, and not all of it good; but all very exciting and gossip-worthy.

First of all, the casting of the leads was a major surprise to us as well as to some of the auditioners (and certainly to some of the regular CDC staff).  Our last day of callbacks brought out a couple of new faces that literally wiped out the competition.  The role of Curly ended up going to a young college theater student who swept in and basically dominated the callback with an overall superior acting, singing and dancing audition.  We offered Laurie to a young actress that we didn't expect would "bring it" at the callbacks.  Our prayers for a Judd were answered when a gentleman who had "never been cast in a role" at the theater before out-acted just about everyone else at the callback.  A pair of Filipinos, shocked to be called back for "white" roles, impressed with sheer enthusiasm and raw talent.  

So after seeing the actual talent that shows up to auditions versus the talent that I've seen in past CDC productions, it is obvious that something other than talent is the major deciding factor in the casting of the shows I've seen at CDC.  Now I'm not naive enough to think that there are no politics involved in casting a show, but there is a difference between choosing a known commodity over an unknown commodity and blatant nepotism.  I will even admit that we came into the callback process with a Laurie basically pre-cast.  But after a day of callbacks, it became clear that a certain actress who initially was not at the top of our list suddenly became the girl to beat.  And although we certainly could have gone with our original choice and still came up with a hell of a show, we'd look like blatant hypocrites if we didn't choose the other actress.  Unfortunately, not everyone can be the lead and there were several extremely disappointed people.  But major reality check folks - rejection is part of the business. Get a thicker skin or be resigned to playing lead roles in third and fourth tier companies.  

Anyway, the craziness has just begun.  More audition hell is to come with Pirates and the Summer Conservatory and Madama Butterfly starts rehearsals in two weeks (with almost a full cast)!  

Butterfly Men

I'm exhausted and excited because we're two men closer to having a full cast for Madama Butterfly.  Good thing, since we start rehearsals in two weeks!   In another "small world" experience, the first to audition, John Taylor, had heard good things about our company from one of our favorite singers, Michelle Trovato, a sickly talented soprano who was in our fall production of Fledermaus.  The second, Judd Ernster, went to MSM with Val and I and coaches with one of Kam's (our Butterfly) former coaches in Philadelphia.  Luckily, both were in great voice and we happily offered them the Bonze and Commissioner respectively.  Now I think we only have the cousin and the uncle to take care of.  I'm not getting too hopeful since if we ever had a full cast set before any one of our operas, I'd know Armageddon was surely close at hand.

Lola Needs Some Prozac

S. Epatha Merkerson has us all fooled. Her no nonsense, tough talking police officer on Law & Order is the polar opposite of Lola, the fragile, unfulfilled heroine of Come Back, Little Sheba. Talk about depressing. The slightly preachy tone of the opening exposition regarding 12-step programs creaks under the weight of modern audience’s overexposure to Oprah and Dr. Phil. But the shows slow burn catches you by surprise, and the inevitable confrontation in the second act is devastating and truly frightening. Kevin Anderson’s Doc didn’t really register for me until the second act, when the dark edges of his character really began to show, but he eventually won me over as well. The set is impressive yet appropriate with an equally subtle, but beautiful lighting design. Some nice eye candy as well (the milkman and Turk) backed by strong performances from the young supporting cast. Still, the surprise for me was Merk’s characterization of Lola, sad and trapped, yet able to offer the audience flashes of an unfettered past life marked by youthful naiveté and idealism.

O - K - L - A - etc. etc. Part II

Wow - another evening in the Twilight Zone known as community theater. Day three of Oklahoma! auditions sputtered along without major mishap. Surprisingly, most auditioners were at least of average quality and the only real stinkers were a couple of small children who obviously were forced to audition by a sadistic parent. Shame on all you Mama Roses. Once again, the award for most obnoxious auditioner goes to an older woman who refused to give me a 16-bar cut.

Me: What’s your cut?
Her: (Walking up to me reeking of cigarette smoke) Just start at the beginning.
Me: They want 16-bars.
Her: I’ll go until they stop me.
Me: No. I need your cut.
Her: I don’t know.
Me: Ok, sing to here. (pointing to a spot way more than 16 bars)
Her: Fine. (walking away obviously annoyed and giving attitude)

Hello people - what’s not to understand about “Please have a 16-bar cut prepared”? She obviously didn’t get a call back and not because she gave attitude, but because she gave attitude AND auditioned poorly.

Note to divas: if you are going to be a bitch at auditions, you better back that shit up with amazing talent or looks (or preferably both).

Saturday we start our first round of callbacks. I’m sure there will be much more to talk about then. Meanwhile, next week we begin auditions for our Young Artists production of Pirates and the following week we begin auditions for the newly formed Pineda Summer Theater Conservatory production of Les Miserables. Then I start rehearsals for Madama Butterfly. I can’t wait until May when I get a month off and just have to work my day job.

O - K - L - A - H - O - M - A...

I’m back to the NYC grind after two truly exhausting days of auditions for a community theater production of Oklahoma! that I’m choreographing and Juan is directing in NJ. Oh, the joys of community theater! To think I used to make fun of Equity actors auditioning for roles that they were clearly inappropriate for. Well at the community theater level, the inappropriate-factor is at least quadrupled. In fact, I think some of those community theater people are downright delusional - unless of course, we were actually looking for a geriatric Ado Annie or non-singing Laurie. I guess I shouldn’t be so flippant, considering that some truly talented actors did audition for us. It’s actually quite disturbing to see how amateurs (not meant to be derogatory) react when scrutinized by directors/performers with a higher level of experience only because it shows how badly musical theater performers are being trained/coached.

Apparently, 16-bar cuts are not the norm outside of so-called “professional” theaters. After several non-compliant singers, Val went out to the waiting room and announced once again that we were honoring a strict 16-bar policy. By the shocked looks on some of the faces, you’d have thought we asked people to chop off a leg. No matter, some sly older woman - and that’s being nice - decided she’d be able to slide by the measure count. After I asked, “What is your 16-bar cut?” She conveniently pretended not to hear me and headed to the stage. She then proceeded to glare at me all through her audition because I was apparently not playing “her tempos,” which she again conveniently failed to provide. So I conveniently stopped playing. God, I am one mean bitch. She trailed off with, “I’m just a girl (real loud) who cain’t (softer, after realizing there was no more piano accompaniment) say no (much quieter and pitch trailing off).” And then just stared out at us in sad, embarrassed silence. Irony alert: 50-year old woman singing “I Cain’t Say ‘No’”!?!?!

One producer, who shall remain nameless, blatantly made fun of a 13-year old girl’s voluminous pageant coif. Now I don’t claim to be above cattiness, in fact it’s one of my better assets, but I will be the first to swallow my pride and admit when I am wrong. And this young ‘un certainly forced me to promptly insert foot in mouth after singing and dancing circles around the other adult actors. No such luck with said producer, who, at the post audition meeting refused to back down and blasted the 13-year old because she could “hear her breathe.” I don’t want get nasty, but could it be possible that said producer was slightly intimidated that this young girl had twice the personality and charisma (and hair) of this producer’s relative who was also auditioning for the show? I'm not naming any names, but someone should be having crow for dinner tonight followed by a fat slice of humble pie a la mode.

Anyhoo, for any of you planning to audition for anything in the future be it community theater or professional theater, here is a random list of notes taken from yesterday's audition experience:

• Read the audition notice and prepare the material the theater requests of you. If you can’t prove you can sing in 16-bars, you won’t do it in 32.
• If the notice clearly states “prepare to move,” do not show up in a suit and tie and then not bring clothes to move in.
• Yes, you can “act” in 16 bars. So do it! Don’t just stand there.
• Be nice to the accompanist even if he/she does screw up. Do not glare at them or give attitude. Always take responsibility for everything. Trust me, they (meaning me) know when they (meaning me again) have screwed up.
• If you offer more than one selection and are asked which you prefer, do NOT answer “It doesn’t matter.” Pick one. It wastes our time.
• Always give your tempo to the accompanist. He/she is not a mind reader.
• Always check that you have not cut off the bass clef at the bottom of photocopied music.

I'm looking forward to adding to the list tomorrow when we host our last night of auditions. I'm sure I'll have more stories and gossip to report then.

Poor Ariel...

The reviews for Mermaid are in and they are not pretty.

Samples:

Clive Barnes, New York Post
"The music is sort of perkily lugubrious."
About the sets - "Underneath all this baroque ornamentation was a tiny, tinny little musical struggling for its life. "
About the cast - "all swimming upstream with a kind of grinning gallantry. "

Ben Brantley, New York Times
"Loved the shoes. Loathed the show."
"Disney’s charm-free $15 million adaptation of its charming 1989 animated movie of the same title."
"Directed by Francesca Zambello, this “Little Mermaid” burdens its performers with ungainly guess-what-I-am costumes (by Tatiana Noginova) and a distracting set (by George Tsypin) awash in pastels gone sour and unidentifiable giant tchotchkes that suggest a Luau Lounge whipped up by an acid-head heiress in the 1960s. The whole enterprise is soaked in that sparkly garishness that only a very young child — or possibly a tackiness-worshiping drag queen — might find pretty."

Do 13 year old girls care about reviews? Maybe not. But my suggestion for the next adaptation, Mulan. At least all the characters are human.

In other news, my former roommates Chris and Dan, would like to announce an addition to their family, little Dewar's. Say good-bye to freedom, boys!

Picture to follow....

Has this show really been running for almost three years? Admittedly not a Python fan, I kept putting off seeing it until a cheap TDF ticket prompted a visit last night. I’m happy to report that the material still stands up after several rounds of replacements and one very weak performance from the Lady of the Lake understudy (I was pissed when I read the lobby board announcing Marin Mazzie out). So did I “get” all the jokes? No. But I guess the energy and commitment on stage (and in the audience from some obvious Python freaks) certainly made up for any confusion.

Trish and I were both worried for the first 15 minutes or so. We really weren’t “getting it” and I was preparing to dig in for a very long evening of inside jokes and mediocre songs - the “I’m Not Dead Yet” song is interminable and pointless. But when they started taking jabs at Phantom, they won me over - “The Song That Goes Like This” worked well despite Emily Hsu’s pitch problems. Now I don’t want to be cruel, but Hsu just doesn’t have the presence nor the requisite power belt to carry off the role. She is gorgeous and likable, but more ingénue than diva. Perhaps a sound man is to blame, but her voice didn’t cut through the orchestrations or the ensemble. She all but disappeared at the end of “Find Your Grail” and although it seemed like she was riffing to the Gods, the audience didn’t hear a single note above the chorus.

Although I too am growing a tad weary of the self-referential trend in musicals (it seems as though no show post-Producers has been able to shake the audience wink), Spamalot is definitely one of the more successful and fully developed examples of the genre. I guess it proves that anything that is well written, well directed and consistent in tone can rise above being just an extended comic skit (exception being the "Knights That Say 'Ni'" section - that went "whoosh" right over my head).

Props to the cast for consistently high energy and commitment, particularly Tom Deckman as Prince Herbert and Rich Holmes as the French Taunter. Holmes outrageous and nasty physical comedy, the castle humping and cunnilingual tongue action in particular, was worth the price of my discount ticket. But I’m pretty nasty myself and maybe this type of humor isn’t exactly to everyone’s taste. Personally, I love me a good flatulence joke.

My only regret is not having seen the original cast inhabit these characters. I am seriously now considering seeing the show again if only to check out a first rate Lady of the Lake and to see what type of stage chops "Gaiken" possesses (starting as Sir Robin on January 18). But I think the Claymates may keep tickets scarce for the next couple of months. Is he worth TKTS prices? Decisions, decisions.

I'd Like a Big Slice of Jonathan Cake

For those of you suffering from attention deficit disorder, I will give today's review of Lincoln Center's Cymbeline in easily digestible sound bytes. These were the notes a jotted down directly after the performance while they were still fresh in my mind. Probably way more entertaining than a full, written out review anyway. Enjoy!

Beautiful, stylish production - great lighting

Cake - hot and endowed, AND could act

Plimpton - strong and moving, needs a better headshot

Cerveris - fake and unconvincing, insincere emotion

Cullum - appropriately impotent

Cloten - great comic idiot

Really weird ghost sequence

Last scene way too long

3 hours flew by

Phylicia Rashad weird tight-jawed Connecticut house wife accent

Why did Cerveris use a British accent? Other Americans didn't

The Glorious Ones - sort of late (performance of 12/27/07)

Ahrens & Flaherty’s newest work, The Glorious Ones playing at Lincoln Center’s intimate Mitzi E. Newhouse Theater, has an identity crisis. It’s equal parts PBS documentary, serious dramatic music theater, Marx Brothers’ episode and history lesson. So many different themes and ideas are thrown at the audience that no single one takes the dramatic lead. That’s not to say that the ensemble cast doesn’t provide full, rich performances and that the score isn’t dotted with the trademark melodic beauty and poetic lyric writing that we’ve come to expect from A & F. In fact, “I Was Here” and “Armando’s Sack” will surely be added to the growing canon of musical theater standards created by this team. What is lacking is a consistent point of view.

Each troupe members’ introduction is quick and underdeveloped. Because of this, you don’t really invest in these characters until a good 40 minutes into the show when the youthful Isabella comes along to stir things up with the older generation. The characters finally get to react to the power play about to occur in the troupe as the older generation refuses to adapt to the new ideas and tastes of a younger generation. The audience finally gets some insight into what motivates each character as lines are drawn, sides are taken and egos are stroked. This is when the show finally gets balls. But it’s almost too little, too late. This conflict should be the main thrust of the show. Without this conflict, it’s just a chapter in a “history of drama” text book.

Though it is made clear that commedia dell'arte is the precursor to modern comedy, its use in the show seems quaint and almost corny to a modern day sensibility. Interesting to watch and easily admired for the obvious skill required, some of the shtick comes off as just plain old-fashioned and may be distancing to some.

I can understand the hoopla surrounding Mark Kudisch as a performer. He does have a charm and sexiness about him and I have never seen him less than fully committed onstage. But his voice always sounds “fake” to me. Like he makes himself sound more legit than he actually is. Not that he doesn’t give a star turn as the lead player, Flaminio, but sometimes I think people hear a big, trained-sounding voice and automatically think “that’s awesome.” He’s got the acting chops and the personality, but his singing voice always seems to hang on the flat side and his top is really pinched and nasal. The rest of the cast is uniformly excellent. Ana Maria Andricain was on for Columbina and was quite natural and comfortable in the role. Also noteworthy were Julyana Soelistyo’s lovable Armanda and the physical comedy of John Kassir as Dottore.

Of course, I’ll always take a lesser A & F work over the best of the crop of recent musical theater writing teams any day. What might be lacking in thematic and dramatic arc is more than made up for with A & F’s obvious song writing skill and dedication to craft. Glorious Ones is intelligent, well-crafted, and often entertaining, but needs streamlining and focus.

Pass the Preparation-H, Please

“Big” is the only word to describe it. The Met’s hemorrhoid-inducing 4 1/2 hour production of War and Peace, complete with 52 soloists singing 68 roles, 118 choristers, 41 dancers, 227 supernumeraries and 1,200 costumes (not to mention four chickens, one horse and a goat), was a mixed bag of theatrically exciting moments sprinkled throughout a rather ho-hum canvas of uninspired singing and mostly hideous set pieces. If you prescribe to the sentiment that size matters, this may be the perfect production for you. The cavernous stage at the Met housed a full-scale battle, scenes of Moscow burning to the ground, sweeping ballrooms of the Russian court, and a blizzard.

The singing throughout was adequate. Irina Mataeva’s Natasha was pleasant; large for a lyric, but bland. She appeared to be overcompensating for her lack of vocal color with extreme overacting, nearly drawing audible giggles from my fellow nose-bleeders. Vasili Ladyuk’s Prince Andrei fared better. Coming off a bit mechanical in the opening scene, his voice and acting warmed up considerably as the evening progressed culminating in a unsuspectedly moving death scene. Sam Ramey, though still a commanding presence, now possesses an uncomfortably wide wobble in his voice. Although the cast offered uniformly solid singing, there were no notable standouts. Not really a complaint I guess, considering that with so many soloists and even two covers on last night, there certainly could have been many opportunities for a train wreck. The chorus, as per usual this entire season, sounded gorgeous and precise.


















I understand that with the huge cast combined with quick, diverse scene changes, a minimalist approach to production design seems like a no-brainer. But with few exceptions, the set was just plain ugly. The enormous, raked first act turntable, painted to mirror the arched domes in Russian architecture, was impressive enough. But why then use all extremely realistic, period set pieces except for the obviously not-period, retro-70's mirrored columns in the Ballroom? The battlefield in the second act looked like a huge, garbage bag-covered tortilla chip. The large, red, cloth “Phoenix” in the second act, surely meant to be imposing and inspire patriotic fervor, resembled a giant chicken. The one truly inspired moment where singing, staging and music converged to successfully raise the arm hairs was when the cyclorama was finally lit at the end of Act 2 to reveal Moscow’s skyline burning as the oppressed hordes belted out an anthem to mother Russia.

The music was more lush and tonal than I had expected. The first act music (Peace) was appropriately sweeping in its romantic lyricism and melodic sweep. The second act music (War) certainly conveyed bombast and patriotism although perhaps a bit too literally and clunky at times. The general's hymn, later picked up as the nationalistic closing theme of the people was quite a stirring finale, but sounded oddly familiar (James Horner better watch out for pending law suit - Glory theme anyone?)

I don't want to seem as though I didn't appreciate the Met's efforts. I'm sure there is simply no way to make this sprawling, huge work anymore accessible or interesting without pouring in millions more in funding and many more months of rehearsal. So I guess this will probably be as good as it gets, which isn't all that bad.

Incidentally, I must note the mysterious disappearance of the couple sitting next to me. The two stepped away for intermission sans coats and bags and never returned. I thought for sure they would show up at curtain call to reclaim their items, but no. So Trish and I finally left at the conductor's bow since it was well after midnight and I was tired. Where did they go? Did they despise the production so much that they ran from the theater forsaking their belongings (and it was freezing outside!)? So wierd. F307 and F308, where are you???

Happy Jesus Year, Dan!

Do not eat at Carmine’s if you are on a diet or if you have recently had your teeth whitened. It’s been a couple of years since I’ve worshiped at this particular temple of glutton and garlic. But it hasn’t changed one bit. The dining room is still packed, the portions are still huge and the food is still a vampire's nightmare. Perhaps my judgment was slightly biased due to the slight fever brought upon by our tall, dark, hairy-forearmed hunk of a waiter. You may crumb my table anytime you’d like, Tim. Anyway, the gang was out celebrating Dan’s Jesus year (that’s 33rd Birthday for all you heathens). Wasn’t it just days ago we were in our 20’s? At least we still look it, at least those of us blessed with Asian genes. Yellow don’t mellow! PS - I highly recommend ordering the “Titanic” for dessert. Yum!

Anyway, I thought you’d appreciate seeing how just two bottles of wine can turn a bunch of early 30-something’s (cough, cough) into blathering idiots. So below are some shots from the happy event.

Suzy and Tim, our waiter, with "the Claw"

Peter, Trish and I enjoying dinner

Ray & Peter, Trish and me with our Hickory Farms Christmas samplers

Peter and Trish sucking

Birthday Boy Dan, Ray and Peter modeling

The whole gang

Happy Birthday, Dan! Damn, you’re getting old.

Undeck the Halls

(For more hideous Christmas decorations, check out www.uglychristmaslights.com.)

Finally, the holidays are officially over and I’m 15 pounds heavier (Valerie Bertinelli has nothing on me)! Time to get my rapidly expanding ass back to the gym before I develop what my fellow actor-turned-corporate-slave friend, Peter has described as “Banker Butt.” Example: “That dashing, young, dimpled VP was so cute as he approached my desk. But after anxiously waiting for him to pass by in order to check out his assets, my enthusiasm quickly deflated when it became obvious he had developed a severe case of Banker Butt.”

Although I changed my gym membership - or as my friend Chris grudgingly refers to as the mandatory NYC fat tax - to reflect my new corporate discount, I have yet to actually throw on a pair of sneakers or break a sweat. And why do the people who make the most money, i.e. investment bankers, get the biggest discounts while the poor actor slobs whose business depends on looking good get a whopping $5/month discount? Whatever, the fact is I’m fat, so back to the treadmill! Perhaps gorging myself every day for the last two weeks with my only exercise being the walk from my couch to the fridge to the toilet - although I’m sure I completed at least five or six laps an evening - has something to do with it. There is also something mildly disconcerting about the fact that I can only really enjoy watching my favorite reality show “The Biggest Loser” while eating a huge bowl of pasta.

Anyway, I won’t bore you with Christmas and New Year’s details since nothing really interesting happened anyway. Just a run of the mill Christmas with the family - opening presents in front of the TV and eating voraciously. New Year’s was spent with Trish and one of our favorite relatives, Papa John. We ate, we watched the ball drop and we were comfortably in bed by 12:03 AM. Lest you take pity on me, it was exactly the kind of uneventful evening I had planned. Next week all hell breaks loose as we begin auditioning for our productions of Oklahoma!, Pirates and Les Mis, begin rehearsals for Butterfly, complete plans for our new summer musical theatre conservatory, and slap together a benefit or two for the opera company.

I would also like to take this time to say good-bye to another year of the dancing elves. They will be safely stored in the digital universe until we dust them off once again next year.

See the Pineda Elves dance one last time!