scenesinthecity

scenesinthecity

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All The News That's About Theater.	[Sep. 25th, 2006\|05:39 pm]
I'm back, after an absence of almost exactly a month, and I apologize for the silence. I have to admit, I was holding out under the prospect of an exciting job that I didn't wan't to discuss, lest I jinx it. But, I promise from here on out to blog more regularly regardless of the circumstances. There have been a month's worth of developments, but I'll try to keep my update brief. The exciting job prospect panned out, and it is indeed exciting, although not as excitingly as I had hoped. What I mean is, I'm not being paid. I was, at one point, informed that there "might be a little money in it, but not a lot," but I'm afraid that was a gentle way of saying, "MONEY? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA." There was a brief, shining moment where I thought I might be making a whole $500 in this endeavor, but that ship has long sailed. That's the less exciting part. Even without the financial benefits, though, the job is still pretty super exciting. I'm currently assistant directing a new play called "Greater Buffalo," at the Theater for the New City in October. Okay, okay, I'm assistant directing AND stage managing, and to be perfectly honest I've done more on the stage management end of things than the assistant-direction, but STILL. I'm ASSISTANT DIRECTING. This is really a big deal! If you had asked me in May where I hoped to be in September, a short four months after graduation, I don't think I would have said "assistant directing" anything in an establishment nicer than a random basement/warehouse in Brooklyn, which -say what you will about Theater for the New City- this definitely IS. I can't tell you how excited I am to be working on a project. To have rehearsals to go to. To have people to call. To be invested in a show. And you know what? It's a pretty good show. And the director is pretty good too. And, actually, so are the actors. Three for three, that's really not bad. The only down-side, other than the lack of money, is that the rehearsal period is only three weeks. Three weeks, by rehearsal standards, is ludicrously short. Four weeks of rehearsal plus one week of tech is what I would call a nice rehearsal period. Anything more is just frivolous. Anything less is difficult. And this? This is a mere TWO weeks of rehearsal, plus a week of tech. Wow. We're basically just blocking the piece and throwing it on stage, no time for intricacies or subtleties of text or characters. And, of course, the abbreviated rehearsal scheduled means only three weeks for me of having a project. And then back to the daily grind. In other theatrical developments, the first meeting of the Women's Project Labs is tomorrow, and I have taken the whole day off of Starbucks in honor of it. I'm very excited, but also VEEEERRRY nervous as I don't entirely know what to expect, and don't want to end up relagated to a corner somewhere where I'll remain quiet and invisible. In these workshops -and really, in every arena of my theatrical career- I have to establish myself as a presence, as a FORCE, which is one of the most difficult things for me to do. I'm naturally quiet, I like to blend in and observe. That's where I think (or at least like to hope) my strength as an artist lies, although, as it's becoming apparent, not so much my strength as a professional. Ah well. I have high hopes for these Labs in any case. Wish me luck that I'll find my voice.
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In Conclusion	[Aug. 26th, 2006\|10:56 pm]
When the Women's Project told me they'd contact me on Friday or Monday, they didn't have to add the implicit if we want you. It didn't take long for me to learn, long ago, that in this business -be it Broadway or be it the community playhouse down the street- if they have use for you, they'll be in touch. If not, well, you'll get the message eventually. It's not that the theatrically inclined are rude, it's simply this: there's never enough people, and there's never enough money. Ironic, considering what a competitive job field theatre is, but maybe it's the nature of the art form, maybe just nobody wants to buy a theater ticket anymore, but for whatever reason, professional and amateur theater alike all over the world has a hard time paying for itself. Thus, everyone has their hands full with eight bazillion tasks that really should have been delegated (had the funds and/or manpower been available) to about twelve different people. So, if a company can get away with not making a call that, for them at least, makes no difference whether or not its made; if they can prioritize their energies somewhere more productive, then they will. I can't tell you how many times I've sat beside a silent phone, watching the minutes tick down. It's the most agonizing experience in the world: jumping at every ring, and sinking back down everytime it's not them knowing it's getting too late. And as every second, every hour, every day slips by you're holding off giving up, thinking it's not too late to give up hope, but you know. It is. And then you finally have to face it. Nobody is calling. It's a lot like waiting for a boy you like to call (they don't call theater a fickle lover for nothing). You know: well, he said* he'd call on Monday, and it's Friday now, but he could still call! Friday, is, like, Monday morning in boy time. But then you eventually have to admit that Friday is not Monday by anyone's time; Friday is Friday and he's not going to call. Or maybe it's just me. Ahem. Perhaps I've said to much. In any case, I was extraordinarily happy to hear from Women's Project regarding the Directors' Lab early on Friday morning of the "Friday or Monday," on which they had specified contacting me. Given the nature of the biz, I knew it had to be good news. I was on my ten minute break at Starbucks when I noticed a voicemail from WP on my phone. I bolted so fast up the stairs and out the door to hear the message, I practically fell down. I think I actually might have. The message in itself was odd. It was from Julie, and it did not sound happy. "Ashleigh," it said, "I was hoping to talk to you. Give me a call at your earliest convenience. I look forward to talking to you." Hmm. I've spent the past five months sitting at a desk across from Julie, often with nothing better to do than listen to her calls, and I know the different between business-call Julie and pleasure-call Julie, and this was all. business. Whatever she had to say to me, this was not a call she was excited to make. She didn't sound displeased, though, and given the overwhelming evidence in my favor -the EXTREME promptness of the call- I was not discouraged. As it turns out, this is what Julie had to offer me, and pay attention, because this is the important part: I've been offered the position of "Intern to the Lab." Julie explained to me that the experience of everyone else who was chosen for the Lab was simply much, much vaster than my own, and for that reason I would not be right for the Lab. Strangely enough, I'm okay with this. I feel that; I know* my experience is limited, and I do have a lot to learn. It wouldn't be a right for me or for the other artists involved to have me in a workshop where everyone else is on an entirely different level. They do think, though (and I must agree), that this is a HUGE opportunity for me, both to learn and grow as an artist from people who have experience and knowledge far beyond my own, and to network and connect with other professionals in my career field, and they don't want me to miss out on that chance. So, as a compromise, I will come and help prepare, administratively, for the Lab when it meets once a month, and I will be able to stay and watch (but not participate in) the Lab. They said they were very impressed with my interview, that I was articulate and enthusiastic, and that I would be a good "energy" for the Lab. This is going to be a really, really good thing. I'll learn so much, just being in the same room with so many experienced artists, talking to them and observing the workshops that go on in the Lab. And I have so much to learn. Man, I am PSYCHED. I think I'll get so much out of it. Not to mention what being able to mingle with playwrights, directors AND producers further established in their careers will do for mine. Good, good, good all around. I am a LITTLE bummed that I won't actually get to participate, and that I won't be able to put my name to the project in which the Lab eventually culminates. A little. But Julie did mention, "putting the question of participation on the back burner," so it's not entirely, forever ruled out. The Lab is two years long, and with any luck, that will be long enough to prove I deserve to be IN the Lab. After all, I am passionate, dedicated, talented, hard-working, and they're going to see that.
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Choosers.	[Aug. 22nd, 2006\|10:57 pm]
Today I had my interview for the Women's Project Directors' Lab- the one I mentioned a few posts down. It was nervewracking; I want this so badly. This would be an incredible opportunity to network and have doors opened for me. And what's more, I love the Women's Project -it's where I interned last semester- and it would be such an enormous pleasure to work artistically with the company. I literally RAN from work at Starbucks to the interview: applied my makeup on the train and changed from my uniform to a classy pinstripe number in the bathroom of the pizzeria next door. I arrived red-faced and sweaty, but ON TIME, with enough of it to spare to cool down and pull myself together under the air conditioner. As I waited outside the room, I repeated my mantra of encouragment: Relax! You're awesome! You're SO AWESOME! You have nothing to worry about because you'll blow them away because you're so awesome! You''re brilliantly talented, and they're bound to see that! You don't even have to worry because theater and theater theory are things you could wax eloquently on for the rest of your life and they are going to be SO BLOWN AWAY by what you have to say. I was mostly believing it too, when the door opened and the boss's assistant escorted the previous interviewee (who looked much older and smarter than me) to the door. "Wow," she said. "That was... so great. Thank you. That was fascinating." Gulp. The interview itself went pretty well, although I don't think I'd call it fascinating. I was informed in my email inviting me to the interview that I would be questioned on my directing methods which turned out to be -oh- NOT TRUE IN ANY SHAPE OR FORM. The first question they asked me was, what have you done so far in pursuit of directing? And, as we all know, the answer to that is, not a thing. Not a blessed thing. So I told them that I'm looking into getting 8 Women produced somewhere in the city, which is a lie, and that I've put together a group of theater artists I know from school to try out new projects in front of, and bounce ideas off of one another, which is also a lie. These are things which I have vague plans of doing at some point, but toward which I have not actually taken any steps. So off to a good start already. The rest of the interview was composed of suprising and unsettling awkward silences and questions like, "What do you hope to get out of the lab?" and "What projects would you like to bring to the lab?" Questions which, despite being decidedly NOT about my directing methods, which is what I was prepared for, I tried to answer to the best of my ability. Still, the interview felt a bit empty- a lot of fluffy answers and nothing that really MEANT anything to me or showcased my talent or passion. The panel seemed sufficiently impressed, or at least satisfied with my resume, which was nice, as it hardly satisfies me. One interviewer noted at one point that, "You started directing in high school! That's great." And another remarked to me that I'm fairly young, just out of school, "having directed a good number of things." The most encouraging bit of news, though, came after the interview, when the same assistant who escorted the first "fascinating" interviewee out, told me on my way out that I gave a "great" interview. She said that I was very articulate, and that even though I'm much younger and less experienced than the other candidates, I was "very grounded, and answered all the questions well." I'm hoping that the age will work for me as well; in a conversation a month or so earlier, the company's artistic director intimated to me that she wanted to have an eclectic mix of directors in the lab, with people at all different stages of their career, which might be an advantage if I'm one of the only younger applicants. I hope she meant it. And a note slightly off the topic: One of the interviewers was Julie, the managing director of the company, and a woman with whom I'm slightly enamoured. A great deal of my respect for the company (all that does not come from the inspiring talent and work I've seen there) comes directly from my respect for her, who seems to run the company single-handedly. No, that's true, everyone on the staff works so hard to make that tiny company run, but Julie? She just works so. damn. hard. I've never seen a woman work so hard. And for such a noble goal. (Yes, noble, that's what I think. Giving voice to so many talented women theater artists. Women who REALLY deserve to be heard because they're so great. And I don't consider myself a feminist and I hate to play the victim as woman when I'm actually not, but the more I look around the more I see that the female voice really is rather stifled here in New York theater). So it's difficult not to admire Julie. And she seems to know -well, don't we all think this of the people we admire?- absolutely EVERYTHING. And absolutely EVERYONE. I know this can't be true, because if it were, she could get me a job, but it certainly seems that way. Today as I walked into the room, I shook hands with all the interviewers I hadn't met, but I wasn't sure what to do when I got to Julie- do I shake her hand? I already know her so well? But I can't just, like, wave? So while I pondered, Julie took my hand, as though about to shake it, but instead held it warmly in both hands and said, "Ashleigh! Good to see you!" Ah-ha! It was so slick; an appropriate gesture for greeting those you are acquainted with in a friendly, yet still professional manner. She's a snazzy lady, like that. Well, I told you I was a little enamoured. Anyway, I bring it up because I'll probably be mentioning her in posts to come, and now you know the slight reverence with which I mention her name. So anyway. They said they'll be letting me know by Friday or Monday.
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Beggars	[Aug. 22nd, 2006\|10:29 pm]
The homeless are a big problem in New York. I know, I know, who doesn't know that, right? Well, apparently me, because I'm just now beginning to realize HOW BIG a problem it is. Until actually living here, and being accosted by a joe looking for a meal or a buck every time I step on a train, everytime I step off it, and twice more before I reach my destination (and- mind you- my work is only a block away from the subway), my thoughts were along the lines of, "Eh, it's a big, expensive city. You're bound to have some people down on their luck." Now I see the error of my ways. The homeless are a BIG PROBLEM here in New York. I won't go into how being accosted in this said manner makes me feel; I won't talk about how the more often I'm solicited and, simultaneously, the harder I have to work for my money, the more resentful I feel. The more offended. The stingier. And you know? Instead, I'd just like to share a couple stories with you. There is one exception to this developing rule of taking offense to panhandlers. Her name is Jillian- I know this from her speech she gives to the subway car, which I have heard now three times- and there is something about the sorrow and defeat in her voice that makes me honestly believe her when she says, "I'm sorry to bother you guys, I know you hear this all the time, but I honestly wouldn't be up here if I didn't really need your help." The cynic in me wants to know when EXACTLY this disability money she's talking about will kick in, and what is it for anyway? She looks healthy to me. But still, somehow, she is the only person I've encountered who actually makes me want to give something to her, who doesn't make me think, "Who are you to expect that I'll just GIVE you some of my hard-earned money??" I think she's telling the truth, and even if she's not, this woman... she just sounds so broken, and it breaks my heart too. As I said, I've heard her speech three times, and though I've given only once, I hope I see her again, so I can give next time. The second time I saw Jillian, the time that I gave my change to her, she was interrupted mid-speech by yet another panhandler. Yes, that's right. Two competing panhandlers in the subway car at once. If I weren't so busy feeling sorry for her, I probably would have been highly amused. The second guy busted right through the doors as she started talking, begging us all at the top of his lungs. She just stopped talking when he walked in. Stared at her shoes and let him talk. Halfway through his spiel he noticed her. "Oh," he said, "Were you...?" "No," she said quietly, and stepped aside. I gave her money anyway. Today (oh, today!) there was a homeless person in my car singing -get this- Ain't Too Proud to Beg. Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!! Get it???? I was dying. If I hadn't been otherwise engaged as he passed me by, I would have given him my change just for his appreciation of irony.
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Tea and Sympathy	[Aug. 22nd, 2006\|10:28 pm]
It pleases me to no end that it is finally cool enough again for tea. There was a period there in July when the temperature was so great that even I, the most devout of tea lovers, could not stomach the hot beverage. I replaced it with a lot of iced coffee, because you can ice coffee but you can't ice tea. Coffee retains its general coffee-ness when iced; ice tea is an entity entirely different from hot tea altogether. But while my foray into the world of coffee drinking, and the shocking bouts of energy that accompanied it, was exciting at first, but was really starting to wear on both my body and my morale. So I am exceedingly glad that, with the aid of a cool breeze from the Hudson, I can get back to my peaceful morning ritual of tea and quiet. I think, years from now, after this is all over, when I'm looking back on this summer- living in Harlem, trying to be an artist, struggling to become an adult- and thinking it's all much more romantic than I do now that I'm living in it, caught up in the drudgery and the fear, what I'll remember is the mornings, drinking tea, leaning out my window into the breeze, looking across the river to the Jersey skyline.
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Tales From the Underground	[Aug. 20th, 2006\|03:36 pm]
It simultaneously pleases and frustrates me that yesterday I was able to utter the words: "I'm so sorry I'm late for lunch! The N-R-W was running express all the way to Queens, and I had to walk from 7th and 56th!" Pleased, because the whole statement sounds so entirely New York. Frustrated, because the problems like the one I encountered on the way to lunch with my friend are so inescapably ubiquitous. To wit: the past three times in a row, on my way to work, I've waited close to twenty minutes at my stop for a train that, in theory, should be coming round every five. If that weren't enough, each time, as soon as I've boarded the train -already running late, mind you, because of the wait- the conductor has come on over the intercom to announce that, "due to the extreme lateness of the train, the next stop it will be making will be at 103rd." 103rd?? 103rd?!?!? That's a full stop below my usual stop, and a good 10 blocks away from my work. Which I now have to walk because the train, in addition to be inordinately late, has SKIPPED my stop. I hate the New York City subway. My favorite adventure, though, has got to be a couple weeks ago, coming home from a very long closing shift at Starbucks. It was nearly midnight by the time I made it down to the train station; exhausted, I sat down to wait for the train. It didn't come immediately, which didn't concern me- service is a little more sporadic in the late night hours. After losing myself in thought for a good amount of time, though, it suddenly dawned on me, I've been waiting for this train for a really long time. Like, a really* long time.* I looked at my watch, which read something around 12:20. 20 minutes. That was a really long time. A fairly large group of people had begun to form, which was an indication of just how long it had been since the last train, given that on an average night at this hour, you'd be lucky to see one or two weary riders waiting alongside you. But I figured: none of these scores of people seem concerned. If there were a problem, somebody would be telling us something. So I waited. It was starting to get REALLY late. 12:35, another 15 minutes. I considered going to ask the MTA official what the problem was. Unfortunately, doing so would sacrifice my seat. There is, at that station, only one bench, upon which that night I had managed to snag a seat among what was becoming dozens of late-night travelers just as beat, I'm sure, as I was. If I stood up, I surely wasn't going to sit back down. I decided just to be patient. At 12:40, a good 40 minutes after initially descending to the station to wait, a lone MTA official come out on the platform and stares down at all of us. "Yo!" he shouts. He looks at us with a most confused countenance, as if thinking, didn't you know?, and says, "There's no service here." Thanks man. Thanks a lot. So I took a cab home, paid through the nose from my tips, and made it into bed a little after 1:30. Ah, New York.
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Back to School Blues	[Aug. 18th, 2006\|09:24 am]
Not surprisingly, I hate my job at Starbucks. Which is odd, because I don't ACTUALLY hate it. I don't hate being there (yet); the thought of working does not have me finding the thought of taking a fork to my eye a more appealing option- and I've had jobs I hate like that, I know what they feel like. So why, if it doesn't actually bother me to go in and work at Starbucks, am I hating the job so much, suddenly? And then it occurred to me: it's back to school time. School is starting, or has already started, for almost everyone I know who is still in school. I'm seeing the commercials on TV, in Times Square. That this is not a temporary situation is becoming a more tangible reality. This is it. Making lattes. No change or deviation in sight. I might get a job bartending, or catering, or waiting tables or being an office-monkey, but regardless, the fact is that there is not chance in sight of doing anything impassions or excites me for the next two years at least. It's not that I have to go into Starbucks today that I hate. It's that I have to go in tomorrow.
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I've got a few dollars. I've got nothing ahead of me but the future.

[Aug. 17th, 2006|11:58 am]

[	Current Location	\|	the apartment	]
[	mood	\|	overwhelmed, but motivated	]
[	music	\|	quite silent	]

As some may already be aware, I've been feeling less than confident about my job at the Roundabout: for the past few weeks I’ve been convinced I’m going to be fired. It's not that I'm bad, per se, it's not that I'm screwing up as much as, I'm not really GOOD. I'm just not as ON IT as I should be. I'm not as quick as I should be, not as smooth with the patrons, not at ease enough with taking the lead. I often find myself, for large amounts of time, leaning against the wall, thinking, "Should I be... doing something?" I've only been chastised once or twice for mistakes, but I can't help feeling like I'm not the ideal employee. Given the job I'm doing, I would not expect to be fired, but… it occurred to me some odd weeks ago that the condition of my employment was that I was to be hired for one show, and then asked back provided I performed satisfactorily. Instead of the situation being, IF you're bad, THEN we'll fire you, it becomes, IF you're good, THEN we'll re-hire you. It's a subtle difference, but a perplexing one if, like me, you're pretty sure you're not bad, but you're not entirely positive you're good either.

Today before the show, I and the rest of the house staff stuffed programs with inserts informing the audience that the understudy would be assuming the role of one of the characters. I, while waiting for more inserts to be cut up, found myself in classic form, standing around aimlessly, zoning out and watching the fight call. (I'm fascinated by fight calls. I can't help it. Plus I wanted to see how the New Guy was doing with the fight choreography, which is rather complicated for this show.) Matt (the boss) saw that I was unoccupied, and pulled me aside, saying, "You come with me."

This is it, I thought, This is it, this is it. I could already hear Matt saying to me, "We appreciate you work on this play, but unfortunately, we just won't be needing you for our next production..."

"It's good news," Matt assured me almost immediately, before I even had time to let the anxiety set in.

"Are you planning on coming back for the next production?"

"Yes!" I said. The next show will be Tennessee Williams's Suddenly Last Summer starring Blythe Danner, and it looks like it might be GOOD.

"Great, well, I just want you to know that starting with the next show, instead of making $8 an hour, it will be $8.50."

Hurrah. A raise, not a firing. I'll take it.

So, as the title of this update would suggest, I do have a few dollars. The title, by the way, is a line from Pig Farm, the show currently playing at the house at which I'm ushering. It, and every other line in the play, has been running through my head virtually non-stop for the past six weeks (example: "I've got feed meal to buy! I've got fecal sludge to cart down to the G*ddamned river! Where's a baby s'posed to fit into all that?") Alas, despite the news of my raise, the question of a few dollars has been causing me considerable anguish lately.

Regardless of the happy news regarding my continued employment, I will still find myself out of work at the Roundabout for six whole weeks until the next show opens. Which leaves me in bit of a hard spot, financially. I'll need to find a way to supplement my current income at Starbucks, and -well, I won't bother you with the details: I don't know what to do; I’m confused. And my confusion over how to manage this current employment situation is coupled with my utter confusion over how to strategize my directing career has left me just about as confused as a little girl in a big city can be.

So confused that I called my parents very much in tears last night at 11:00pm; so burdened was I with plans and decisions that I could not sleep. First I talked to my mom, who said, "Hmm. Well, just keep going. I'm sure it'll work out." Sweet, but utterly unhelpful. "I don't need a pep talk!" I cried, "I need you to tell me what to do!" I told her to put my dad on the line; HE'D happily tell me what to do.

So I sobbed my story of job hunting/scheduling difficulties to my father who said to me, "LOOK, Ashleigh. This might not be what you want to hear, but you might get refused a hundred times before someone even lets you in the room to pour their coffee. And even then, they might kick you out as quickly as they let you in. That's how competitive this job field is. And you MIGHT have to work 40 hours a week at Starbucks, and you might be dead on your feet, and you might have to come home and work 20 more hours at the theater, but if this is what you really want to do, you will find a way to make it work."

Which, as it turns out, was exactly what I wanted to hear.

A few days ago, I went around to a few theaters to volunteer myself for their upcoming shows. I told them I would get coffee, or sweep the stage, whatever they needed me to do. And they told me, essentially: no.

The situation discouraged me immensely (I can’t even get someone to let me get them coffee!), but I don’t think I realized how much it was contributing to my current state of confusion and angst until my dad said to me, in so many words, “SUCK IT UP AND DO IT.”

I was surprised to receive such an encouraging pep talk from my father- from either of my parents, for that matter. I don’t quite know what I expected my dad to say, but it wasn’t that. Although my parents have been nothing but supportive of my entirely impractical support of this career, I can’t help but think a part of them, like any rational parent, can quite easily picture themselves saying, “It’s not working out for you there? Oh, no. Why don’t you come home and get a real job?”

Maybe that’s what my dad thought he was saying, but what I heard was, “Look, is this, or is this not what you want to do? It is? Well then stop getting discouraged, stop crying to me on the phone, and go do it.” It felt surprisingly supportive.

He also told me I need to stop worrying so much about planning and strategizing, to just go for it, see what comes up and try and work it out from there. He’s right, on both counts. His advice for the night, I think, boiled down to, “Quit your whining and just do something.”

Which I think I’ll do.

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For Sale: 1 Life

[Aug. 14th, 2006|01:53 am]

[	Current Location	\|	Spa-Ha	]
[	mood	\|	sleepless	]

A momentous NYC first for me today: I bought my first bag from a street vendor.

It looks like this:

I'm not quite sure how I feel about it yet. It's... colorful... which means it requires... matching. Color-coordination! Actual concern! Bag-switching! I'm not sure I'm prepared for that. But it's big enough to fit a book and maybe an extra pair of shoes, which means I can stop carrying my backpack around. So I figured, why not take a risk? And hey, it was only $5- at that price, who cares if I hate it tomorrow?

This bag is a bit of a risk for me, although I'm finding I'm willing to take more risks regarding the way I dress lately. If New York has not improved my fashion sense, it has, at the very least, improved my fashion sensitivity. It goes without saying that New York City is on the sharpest tip of the cutting edge; there are women dressed so well walking down the sidewalk, they make even me, the most oblivious indifferent of observers think, "WHOA. That girl is put together." It's not the fashion fabulistas that have made me so sensitive, though, it's the faux pas. For every woman rocking it, I see another who should not have left the house. Especially here in Harlem. Women past their 50's dressed like Britney Spears. Women in their 20's dressed like Britney Spears, for the matter. That look is NEVER okay. Girls in glitter and pants three sizes two small, with their barely-sqeezed stomachs fall out of their midriffs. Cheap costume jewelry "bling." Shirts with messages like, "F*** me, I'm famous." And all this just makes the fabulous look... fabulouser.

It's the discrepancy between the "WHOA" and the, "Oh, no" that's made me start paying attention. And I have been paying attention. It's a subtle and fascinating difference between the two, and it's beginning to amaze me how much a person's shoes can say about them.

This is what New York does: it makes you need the right shoes, the right bag. I have a friend at work who's been living in the city for a few years. She's moving soon, though, because even though the loves it here, she "can't stand being here forever."

"Why not?" I asked. I can't imagine being here forever either, but we've all got our own reasons.

"Oh, Manhattan is an amazing place," she said, "but it makes me be a person I don't want to be."

And she's right: I learned fairly quickly upon arrival that Manhattan is a rather pointless place to be if you're not buying stuff. Oh, New York is an exciting place -it's not called the city that never sleeps for naught- but the adage, "there's no such thing as a free lunch," was never more apropos. Everything costs money here: the restaurants, museums, the clubs, the theaters. The street fairs. The boutiques. The bag vendors. The hot dog stands. You can't throw a rock without hitting someone trying to sell you something. The world is a giant, howling advertisement. From the flashing neon signs to the chic subway commuters, everything shouts, YOU NEED AN IPOD. YOU NEED A BLACKBERRY. YOU NEED A FENDI BAG. If you want to be happy, you better start spending. And with everything fun costing money everywhere you look? You start to believe it's true.

Oh, this isn't to say that in living in Manhattan, I'm actively sacrificing myself on the altar of selfishness and materialism. NYC is a place just like anywhere else, and in the end if you can't be happy with what you have, you have to search yourself. I only mean to note (very long story short), since moving to New York, an increase in a) my desire for THINGS and b) my interest in fashion. Although, my work friend might have a point: money is everything here- just look at how much you've got to have to pay the rent on someplace decent. How long can someone live here without getting swept up in that mentality? I'm becoming increasingly sorry for those poor schmucks who spend their whole lives here, convinced that anything outside of the Big Apple isn't worth knowing.

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Scenes in the City.

[Aug. 12th, 2006|04:45 pm]

[	mood	\|	caffeinated	]
[	music	\|	Reggaeton out my window, what else?	]

For my very first entry in what I hope will become a detailed account of my adventures as an aspiring starving artist in this great city of New York, here's a quick summary of where I've been for the past three months, since graduating from the blissful security of college life and entering into the "Real World" all those people have been warning me about for so long:

I managed to secure a rather lovely three bedroom apartment in West Harlem, which suits me quite fine. The area is largely hispanic, which I try to take advantage of to improve my Spanish by eavesdropping on as many conversations as possible. The neighborhood is a little dirty, and a lot loud, with a proliferation of a combination of Reggaeton (the most offensive insult to Music I think the world has seen yet) and car alarms blasting most of the time, but safe to walk about, even late at night, which is the most important thing I could have asked for.

The apartment itself is extremely nice- big, with hardwood floors, crown molding and brand-new appliances. The rent, which was originally intended to be split four ways between myself and three of my closest college friends, is an extremely reasonable $356 a month, which I'm so far managing to pay (fingers crossed) with my minimum wage, part-time job at Starbucks, and my equally part-time, equally minimum wage job as an usher for the Laura Pels Theatre, an off-broadway theatre owned by the Roundabout Theatre Company, a company which, due to their ownership of two formidable Broadway houses in addition to the off-Broadway house at which I work, is one of the more prominent names in New York theater.

If you'll notice in the preceeding paragraph, I mentioned that the rent was originally intended to be split four ways. This has been one of the more dramatic events of the summer: two of my old college buddies decided, mere weeks after moving into the apartment, that Spanish Harlem, or Spa-Ha, as it's affectionately been called, was just too much for them, and moved to Westchester. The move was official last week, and they're now the proud two-year lessees of an apartment in Bronxville, just blocks away from our alma mater. Unfortunately (for them, anyway) the girl who was slated to sublet their backed out at the last minute. The two are stuck paying rent both in Harlem and in Bronxville until they can find a tenant; meanwhile, I'm enjoying a very vast, very empty, 3 bedroom apartment- while my third roommate, Sarah, still lives here in theory, most of the work she's found for the summer has her living and working in the town she grew up in, about a half an hour away. So I've been enjoying some strange and novel alone time; there'll be more on that to come, I'm sure.

Beyond my smaller goals of eating and not being homeless (which are extremely noble goals in and of themselves, if you ask me), when it comes to the pursuit of my larger goal, to be a director, I have to admit I've done very little. As I've been trying to settle into a routine and a life here, until just this past month of August, worrying about anything other than making rent seemed frivolous. But now that things are slowing down, I'm trying to get things started on the extremely confusing and utterly unmarked path toward being a director.

Full disclosure? I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how to make this goal a reality. I've talked to dozens of teachers and professionals in the field and they've all said the same thing: "It's the kind of job you get by knowing the right person at the right time." So in my spare time, I'm devoting my life to, well, getting to know people.

So far I've applied to a two-year Directing Workshop at the theater company I interned at my last semester of college. The workshop , from what I can gather, is a group of up-and-coming theater artists meeting with each other, industry professionals and other generally helpful people on a regular basis to a) grow and improve their craft and b) reach out and network with other people in the theater world. It sounds like an incredible opportunity, and beyond that, I've rather fallen in love with this theater company, called the Women's Project. I loved working for them over the past year. It's a very small, sort of struggling theater company, staffed with just a few people who work so hard, and so passionately to carry out the mission of the theater, which is to give voice to so many talented women theater artists who would otherwise not be heard. But I'm sure I'll talk more about my love for the Women's Project at a later time as well.

So there's the briefest update of my life in the city so far. Hopefully, from now on my updates can be more fun and less explication-heavy.

Stay tuned...

~A

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