A Milestone: Off-Broadway Debut

I finally have time to catch my breath, to look forward (planning for next year) and back (seeing how far I've come -- one of the main reasons for keeping this blog). Looking back, in brief:

• I arrived, rather clumsily, in New York City in the last summer of the 20th Century, quite by accident, but it seemed to be providence anyway . . .
• In late 2001, I took a basic introductory acting class at NYU's School Of Continuing & Professional Studies (it was taught by a talented Kathryn Rossetter) . . .
• In the spring of the following year later, I took a monologue workshop at the Playwrights Horizons Theater School (taught by a terrific John Ruocco) . . .
• I waited almost a year and a half, until the end of '03, before I actually got up the nerve to audition for anything, and about six months & four or five audition later, I got a break in the summer of '04 when Ron Parrella & The Impact Theatre in Brooklyn cast me in The Adding Machine, my first role, my first time on stage (though I did stage manage shows a few times for a couple of years before that).

Since The Adding Machine, I've only grown more serious and committed, and one of my striving goals has always been to perform in a show at the the off-Broadway level. I'm not sure what classifies a show as "off-Broadway," but I guess you can do no better than consult the New York Times Arts-Theatre Section about these things, and there you'll see it, in the Off-Broadway listings : The Last Jew in Europe.

The show supports a cast of six, all sizable, though my role (Papa Jocka) is the smallest, which is good as I'm probably the least experienced of the cast: this is the first time I've ever had a costume I didn't have to put together on my own, a program I didn't have to help to make, there's actually a dressing room, a full time stage manager, a demanding producer and director with high standards, and a long run.

Looking back, while not that much time has passed, it does seem like I've come a long way from that summer '04, from my cowboy "I'll teach myself to act by just doing it" approach to the surprisingly disciplined approach I've now taken -- not only towards training -- but towards the whole enterprise of attempting to become the best actor I can become, and I find all this enormously gratifying.

This is exactly what I wanted, and it's hard believe it's happened -- in fact, I was so busy with rehearsals for both Angel Heart (which just closed) and this production, I didn't realize it was, technically, my off-Broadway debut.

The show opened, quite successfully, to a very receptive audience this last Tuesday evening, 12 . 18 . 2007, 7PM, The Triad, New York City.

. . . Dreams and Taking A Chance . . .