Realizing that I’ve been doing the Filmed Live Musicals research
For 12 years
Today they officially announced
They are filming Merrily We Roll Along ​

An unexpectedly delightful afternoon
After a cold and drizzly morning
The sky is blue and 
The air is warm 
You wander through Chinatown 
Past the Buddhist temples 
And the restaurants with their 
Steamed buns 
And roasted ducks hanging in the windows 
Past the high end stores on the main road
And in to the back streets 
Crowded with a myriad of knick knack stores 
Overflowing with Buddhas,
Laughing, lounging, and serene
Crystal balls 
Wooden fans 
And all kinds of novelty chopstick holders 
You see a bonsai tree with leaves of jade and
Remember Abuela. 
You think about the confluence of 
Cultures and stories and influences
That bought you here. 

I spent nearly two deliriously happy hours
Perusing the exhibit
At the New York Public Library
I didn’t quite see all of it
All the carefully crafted footage
From thousands of performances
Steve Martin and Robin Williams in Waiting for Godot!
Donna Murphy in The King and I!
Audra McDonald in 110 in the Shade!
A Chorus Line!
Sondheim!
What a visionary Betty Corwin was,
What a legacy she left behind and
How lucky we are to have this record.

The last time I was at
The Majestic on Broadway
Was 2008
A lifetime and a half ago
Pre- covid, cancer, Fort Collins, Aaron, London, smart phones, and walking the camino
Still Kris

Our first time in NYC
We floated into the city
Literally and metaphorically
A huge storm had hit and
The water was lapping at the bottom of the taxi from the airport
I felt from the first moment I was home

It was still the time when hotels had maps of the city
On tear-away pads in the lobby
And the receptionist/concierge would circle the hotel
And the landmarks and the theatres
And tell you which subways to take

I think every place we stayed in over two years
Was shut down
For violating codes of various sorts
Relics like the paper maps
Replaced by smart phones and
Boutique hotels and air bnb’s with wifi

Back then
Phantom felt like a relic
Tired, in need of refreshing
I, rather sacrilegiously, thought it needed new orchestrations
Something to bring it past 1988
I didn’t mean slashing it to 12 players

Later, still The Before Times
I preferred Phantom in London
Where it felt grander
More opulent
​
Tonight I’m back at the Majestic
With my friend Paula
(post cancer, pre- covid times)
The theatre has been dark for over 500 days
The longest Broadway has been dark in history

I’ve already worked Springsteen
Right across the street
The first night I handed out playbills in the lobby
I hadn’t been in a room with so many people in over a year
It was overwhelming
The sound of that many people
The look of joy on the faces of the audiences
As they stepped inside a theatre for the first time
Vaxxed and unmasked (the rules were different then)
All that has happened in between

To be back in the theatre
As an audience member
Surrounded by people
(Masked and vaxxed - the rules have changed again)
The roar of appreciation when Sammi Cannold
Stepped out onto the stage
The delight of a surprise Josh Groban
Singing “Could We Start Again, Please”
Could we?

I’ve spent the past year and a half
(And longer)
Championing theatre on screen
Here we were
A live in-person audience
To watch theatre on a screen
A new documentary
The Show Must Go On
Joined by people watching from home
On six different continents

The film itself was moving, beautiful, inspiring
The crazy bravery of all those people traveling to South Korea at the beginning of the pandemic
For Theatre. For Art. For Profit. For Story-Telling
Because what else is there to do?
(I want a documentary about all the artists who streamed theatre during the pandemic
Broadway and the West End may have been dark
But theatre didn’t stop
It just shifted form)

Seeing the process
Actors getting sweaty, doing their drills
The hundreds of hands behind the scenes
Sewing costumes
Rigging sets
Spraying and wiping every surface and even the air with disinfectant
I'm not a Cats fan, but even goddamn “Memory” had me crying
The Korean culture of acting for the whole and not the individual
A strange concept in the land of the free and the home of the brave
That it was all British and American musicals that stayed open (at least as depicted in the film)
The love of The Theatre.

A phone rings! We're truly back!
I get chills watching the audience on screen watching the actors on stage singing and dancing to the people in the seats
The roar of the crowd
The final credits. The curtain closing.

The curtain re-opens with a baby grand
And the candles from Phantom flickering all around
Kristen Blodgette at the keys
Sierra Boggess with mic in hand
Former Christine Daee
I don't know why I'm frightened
I know my way around here
(chuckle)
Adrienne Warren, Ariana DeBose, Ali Ewoldt, Shereen Pimentel
The chorus made of up cast members from
The Phantom of the Opera world tour
It’s as if we never said goodbye
Could we start again please
A truly beautiful arrangement
I don't want it to end
I want more

Outside, I check my phone
The world is dangerously rapidly warming
Covid is raging
What is the point of all this singing and dancing and pretending to be cats?!
It's all changing
It might not be here tomorrow
What would the ancient Greeks have made of our theatre?
Or our early ancestors beating their animal skin drums and dancing around the campfires telling stories of their ancestors?

The show must go on.

We rang in the New Year
Watching Singin’ In the Rain in Richmond
Aaron and I finally got our honeymoon
Thanks to the generosity of the Sloan Kettering Dream Team
Several blissful days in the gorgeous glorious Guana
Our friend Molly turned 21
I nerded out at BroadwayCon
Worked at Lincoln Center
Worked at the Lyric
Registered for the Brooklyn Half
Rehearsed with the Cecilia Chorus

In February
I kept singing at Cecilia rehearsals
Ran the Al Gordon 4mile race in Prospect Park
Worked at the Lyric and David Geffen Hall
Tried to get my vocal cords checked
Tried to get my eyes checked
Started auditioning again and
Saw Sunset Boulevard with Glenn Close

In March
We saw The Moors
I saw Hello, Dolly! with Bette Midler, Anastasia with Caroline O’Connor, and The Glass Menagerie with Sally Field.
I performed in Oedipus the King with the Cecilia Chorus
Did a networking night through ActorDash
Took a film acting class with Jason Chaet
Kept auditioning and
Started voice lessons again
Worked as an extra on VEEP and
Tried to find counseling that would accept my insurance,
Finally got new reading glasses

In April
We saw Come From Away, Groundhog Day, War Paint (sans Patti, with Christine), The Price, and Natasha, Pierre, and the Comet of 1812 (with Josh Groban)
I finally started seeing a counselor
Tried to find a voice therapist
Ran the UAE Healthy Kidney 10km and the Run as One 4-miler

In May
I went to another networking night with ActorDash
Performed in A Garden Among the Flames with the Cecilia Chorus at Carnegie Hall
Volunteered at the Japan Run in Central Park and handed out hundreds of cups of water
Worked at the St. James Theatre
Saw War Paint again, this time with Patti and Christine, and my friend Danni be incredible in the The Cagebirds.
I ran the Brooklyn Half Marathon and was surprised I wasn’t dead.
Visited Rachel and Justin in Boston
And once again had visions of moving to the woods of Maine
I taught a class at Baruch and
Started working at the Stephen Sondheim
I fell madly in love with Beautiful and
Told my doctor I had signed up for the NYC Marathon

In the summer
We said goodbye to G'Pa
"Attending" his funeral via skype was surreal and painful and sad. 
I ran the NYRR Retro 5-miler, the New York Mini 10km and the New Milford 8
I watched the Ernest Shakleton Loves Me Livestream and the Tony Awards
I saw Marvin’s Room and
Did my first Broadway audition
I worked as an extra on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, wearing wool in Washington Square Park on a 90 degree day

We shaved off all my hair on Facebook Live and
Went nervously back to camp
I played in a flute quartet, sang for the first time in public since Stupid Cancer
Conducted Tommy and The Wizard of Oz and taught voice lessons galore
We went camping in the woods
I had visions of abandoning my life to become a park ranger live among the pine trees.
At home, I did the Audition Rep Matchmaker course on auditioning
I went to my first casting director workshop with Alexis Atkinson

In September
We saw Brian be delightful in Addy and Uno and
Marc be astonishing in The Climbers
I participated in a reading of Al Monaco’s The Tesseract
I performed in the Cranky Cabaret and
Ran the Bronx 10 miler
I renewed my Australian passport
And joined the MasterVoices chorus
I did a musical theatre workshop with music director Carmel Dean

In October
I ran the Staten Island Half in the pouring rain
Saw Hungry Like the Wolk, Game of Thrones the Parody Musical, and Where Angels Fear to Tread
I did three more casting director workshops — Brette Goldstein, Freya Krasnow, and Allison Kirschner.
I did an agent’s night
I flew across the country and hung out with my little little sister in La La Land
I meditated in a beautiful garden and ran beside the Pacific Ocean
Saw Bright Star again
Back on the east coast, we celebrated our friends’ wedding and
The next day were told we were not invited back to camp.

In November
I sang in Of Thee I Sing at Carnegie Hall and
Ran the NYC Marathon with Fred’s Team and raised over $7500 for leukemia research at Sloan Kettering
We celebrated Jesse’s 60th with the Museum of the Moving Image and amazing Greek food
I saw a reading of Hatef**** at the Women’s Project, Once on This Island, and the National Theatre’s live broadcast of Follies
I did a workshop with Broadway director Marc Bruni
Aaron and I celebrated four years of marriage
With a visit to the Museum of Sex and dinner at Purple Yam
I ran the Turkey Trot 5 miler in Prospect Park and
At last received my permanent resident card

In December
I was published the on Audition Rep Matchmaker blog and
Finally launched Filmed Live Musicals
I performed in The Nightmare Before Christmas Concert at the Barclay Center
And despite being sick, had the most fun performing I’ve had in a long time
I went to the Barbara Cook Tribute at Lincoln Center
I saw The Band’s Visit, Avenue Q, and Lesli Margherita in Who’s Holiday
We saw the Christmas lights in Dyker Heights and had Chinese delivered in.

This year I ran over 800km/500 miles
Coincidentally, the approximate distance of the Camino de Santiago
I ran in Prospect Park and through the streets of Brooklyn
I ran along the Atlantic and Pacific oceans
I ran through the woods of Maine and Connecticut
I ran my first goddamn marathon and it was glorious

I got my singing voice back and wrote a cabaret
Worked at Paramour, Beautiful, Present Laughter, and the New York Philharmonic
Auditioned for plays and musicals and short films and indie projects

I had debilitating depression and anxiety
There were days when I could barely get out of bed
And when I did, I would break down at the front door

I read Born to Run, Jim Henson: The Biography, and Radical Remission,
Gloria Steinem, Heather Lyn Mann, Ali Smith, A.S. Byatt and a total of
Twenty-six plays — including Starting Monday by Anne Commire
It had me so engrossed I caught the wrong train and ended up halfway to JFK.

In between all the things
We spent countless hours dealing with health insurance
I sat quietly as I could in our room while Aaron recorded his excellent podcast
Embrace the Void
We watched Bojack Horseman, Broad City, Jane the Virgin, Master of None, Mozart in the Jungle, Santa Clarita Diet, The Crown, and The Good Wife.
We shopped at the Cortelyou Road farmers’ market every Sunday morning and 
Made bread, hummus, chilli, and dumplings

I wondered why I was doing what I’m doing
Working for low pay and pursuing a career 
Thousands upon thousands want
But only a few get

In the last moments of the year,
A patron at the theatre asked me
“How do you stay so happy doing this every day?”
And without thinking I said
“Because I love it.”

Sometimes it is hard and depressing and crushing
But when you get to do the thing,
The singing and telling stories and being around people, 
It’s all worth it

I am so fortunate to be here
I’m healthy
I have the most astonishing, clever, wonderful person by my side
We have a roof over our heads, and a lovely one at that
In the mornings, the sun streams into our nook
And the light,
It is lovely

The end
(until next year). ​

Two different kinds of posts were prominent on Facebook on Wednesday (August 26):

1. Posts celebrating dogs in honor of National Dog Day, and
2. Posts asking people to remember that, although dogs are awesome, it was also National Women's Equality Day 

In a world where women are definitely still not equal with men (representation in media, government, or pay, to name just a few examples; see TIME for a great infographic), the prominence of celebrating canines over half the human race bothered me immensely. 

Curious about the origins of both days, I did a little research. 

National Women's Equality Day became such after a Joint Resolution was passed by Congress in 1971. The date was chosen to celebrate the day in 1920 when women in the United States of America finally won the right to vote (for interest and comparison, New Zealand was the first nation to grant full suffrage in 1893, Australian women followed in 1902 (though Aboriginal women were excluded and not granted the right to vote until 1967), and as recently as this week, women in Saudi Arabia were finally given the vote. The Inter-Parliamentary Union has an interesting chronology of the history of women's suffrage). 

National Dog Day was created much later, in 2004, to bring public awareness about the number of dogs needing to be rescued each year.

According to Parade Magazine, over half a million tweets were sent celebrating #NationalDogDay. A Google search for news articles on National Dog Day returned over 26 million results. The same search for National Women's Equality Day returned 1.9 million results. 

This disparity is disturbing. Why did the organizer's of National Dog Day choose this day as their day of celebration? My guess is they simply didn't know about the conflict. As well intentioned as the organizers of the various National Women's Equality Day events and publicity were, much of it, like this National Women's History Project brochure, seems out of touch and irrelevant in today's social media saturated world.  

The best publicity for National Women's Equality Day came from Broadway. Led by Tony Award winning Fun Home (the first Broadway musical with an all-female writing team to win a Tony Award for Best Original Score), Broadway stars posted pictures of themselves imitating Rosie the Riveter in support of the Equal Rights Amendment (a constitutional amendment expressly prohibiting discrimination against women and girls on the basis of gender).

It would be wonderful to see National Women's Equality Day get the recognition it deserves, and for women to be treated equally in all spheres of life. 

I was very pleased to see the following on the National Dog Day website -  

Hopefully next year, National Women's Equality Day will be more prominent, and not because of its relation to dogs. I hope that by 2020, the 100th anniversary of American women winning the right to vote, we will live in a world where women are more equally represented in the media, in government, and receive equal pay for equal work. 

In the meantime, we have a lot of work to do.

I met Ruth exactly two years ago today
Give or take a few days 
We were in New York before camp
Visiting Aaron’s family.
As a couple, we were still kind of new then - 
Even though we’d been together for a
year
Most of it had been long distance - 
Everyone met at Jake and Ruth’s
apartment
Pictures of times gone by
Baby Aaron. Baby cousins. Weddings and celebrations and friends and lives lived
Richly.
And then we went out to dinner somewhere uptown 
Most of the family gathered, a few key branches were not in the city
I was excited because the Tony Awards were uptown that year
And we could see the barricades and television
trucks setting up from the restaurant 
 
Ruth was already elderly 
Already in the late stages of alzheimer’s 
But she smiled the whole evening
Seemed happy to see her family gathered 
Jake hardly said a word
But I knew I’d been accepted when, towards the end of the meal
He ate food right off my plate 
 
And two years later
Aaron and I are married 
And on the way to living in New York 
We’re still new in a way 
But together forever now 
 
We were on our way to Richmond
When we received the sad news
That Ruth had passed away
We drove to New York
Exhausted from twelve days on the road
And were greeted by the family
 
My first full family dinner 
With my American family 
The thrill of everyone being together
Tempered by the fact that the 
Matriarch was missing 
A joyful meal in her memory
Lobster and plates upon plates of Chinese dishes
from Chinatown 
 
And today, the funeral
We drove to Dobbs Ferry 
Saw Ruth’s body dressed in a white shroud, 
Resting in a plain wooden coffin 
She looked peaceful, just sleeping. 
Family and friends gathered
Stories shared 
Tears and tissues 
The laughter of shared stories remembered 

A kind and loving matriarch
A teacher who worked professionally before children
and marriage 
A wonderful cook 
A beloved friend 
A gutsy socialist who believed in better for all 

The funeral procession up to the cemetery 
The coffin lowered into the earth
The Rabbi (female) leading the kaddish
Religious tradition providing a framework
Comforting custom 
Helping to bury the dead
Ruth's final resting place
Overlooking a valley of trees 
One of the most beautiful I've seen 

In the afternoon
More eating, of course 
I sat next to Jake, who ate right off my plate
The family gathered in celebration of their mom 
And grandmother 
 
I didn’t get to know Ruth during her life
But today I feel like I have a better sense of who she is 
Who she was 
My place in this as her grandson’s wife
The changing of the guard 
Picking up where she left off 
Carrying on her legacy 
Education and travel and experience 
A love of food, a love of people, a love of life
 
I grew up a world away
And yet, I feel at home with this family 
Sitting with them in their grief
And memories
And love

One day the wind changes
And a new nanny blows in from the north
A young lady who is on her own journey
But your four-year-old self has no concept of any of that
She is a magical lovely being
With bright curly hair
And a big smile
She makes everything fun
Your very own Mary Poppins
She is even English! 
And she becomes a part of your life. Your family. Your
world. 

Eventually, the wind changes
As it must and always will
And your very own Mary Poppins
Heads off again for more adventures of her own

Over the years you all keep in touch
Until it grows sporadic 
Life just happens 
You go to school
Parents separate 
You go to high school and university
And travel 
And write 
And everybody goes about their days filled with breakfasts, and lunches, and
dinners
And the small things we don’t think about
That mark and pass each day
Until over twenty years have passed 
 
And you’re a year off from thirty 
And out of the blue
Your very own Mary Poppins writes to you through your
website 
And you discover she lives in Chicago! 
You plan to meet up.
You’re nervous. Why?! 
It has been close to twenty-five years since you’ve seen each
other! 

And you see her, and she’s still your nanny
She’s still magical and lovely 
Still has the great big smile, though all her curls are gone
And she has children of her own
(The same age you were once upon a time!) 
And even though all this time has passed
Even though all these lives have been lived in the intervening
time
It’s just like being with family, with a very close aunt or big
sister 
She asks if you could stay in Chicago and become her
nanny! 
You wish you could. You really do. 
You never want to leave! 

But the wind has changed
And you’re headed off for adventures of your own
You give her a hug
And promise to return
That night, your heart is so full
You can’t even sleep. 
It’s not memories, or even topics of conversation,
It’s this sense
That you’ve rediscovered who you are
Where you came from
And who was there
Who made you who you are
And that time and space
Can never separate kindred spirits
People who are supposed to be in our lives
And make it better

The end. 

This is a true story
It happened to me 
In real life 
My friend
A university educated person
Whose parents are both doctors
Told me 
Women cannot be astronauts 
Because they get their period

This. Is. Simply. Not. True.
In June 1963
Valentina Tereshkova
Became the first female 
To launch into space 

A little earlier 
In 1961 
Thirteen women
Known as the Mercury 13
Underwent 
The same training and tests 
As the men who would later become
The first American astronauts
And they passed
And then
Not because they were physically unable
Or intellectually inferior 
But because of 
Institutional bias against women
For being women 
The Mercury 13 
Were dismissed 

In all 
Fifty-six
Women have fought
And trained 
And gone into space
Two of them have 
Commanded the spaceships
And what about their periods?
One astronaut is quoted as saying
"Period in space, just like period on the ground
Don't worry about it."

Women do go into space 
And while they make up just 10% of the people
To hurtle past the atmosphere
The point is 
Women can be, and are, astronauts
The only thing keeping on the ground
Is prejudice and ignorance

The end. 

I'm reading
A history
Of women in power in England
Before Elizabeth I
The injustices these women faced!
Married off as political pawns at birth
Literally entering those marriages at 12
And being carted around Europe
And bearing the children
Of unfaithful
Selfish
Arrogant kings
Imagine being a 12thC princess
No thanks!

But if only
The trampling of women
Were "history"

Today I read
How the upcoming
Children's films
For 2013
Do nothing to promote
The visibility of women
On screen

Yesterday Upworthy published an article
Congratulating
Dove for using
"real women"
In its "real beauty" campaign
Yes, they
weren't anorexic
But where was their cellulite?
Or their stretch
marks?
Or body hair?
Or skin "blemishes"?
Just as photoshopped and
airbrushed as the
Derided Victoria's Secret bikini models
Visible but conformist
To the gaze
That requires
Perfect bodies

The answer?
Speak out!
Say it is wrong!
Point out where the trouble is
But
The Independent
Published an article
About how when women speak out
They are literally told to
Shut up

Today
If you are a powerful woman
You are a witch
A bitch
A liar
Criticized for not wearing makeup
For wearing too much makeup
For being visible at all

I'm sick of
People not treating
Other people
As people
Because of race gender beliefs
Whatever
I'm sick of living
In a culture
So
entrenched for
Centuries
That prizes women for
Their glorified looks
For their silence

I want to live in a world
Where people are people
The end.

In two weeks
Eve Ensler is calling
For people to
Rise
To stand up against
Inequality
And brutality
Towards women

I want to rise
To say
Whoever you are
Whether you identify as man woman or neither
Please can we just work together
To make life on this unstable planet more bearable
More fun
More beautiful
To ensure
Every person
Born to this planet
Has good food
And shelter
And access to music
And culture
And freedom of expression
And freedom to be
Themselves
Perfect
Just as they are

The end.