Recently in Last Jew In Europe Category

The Triad took away our remaining January Monday evening performances (mostly because the other shows they rent to are cabaret, and they can open the bar), however, the producers informed the cast last week that the show has been extended for one month, through February, i.e., Sunday @ 3PM and Wednesday @ 7PM. This is great -- it's one of the longest runs I've had, and rather than the show getting stale, it's just gotten better, as I expected it would.

For me, this extension gives me a chance to practice really listening and responding to my partners and to practice "being alive" and reacting while I've have no lines, which happens in the last critical scene. In short, this extension gives me an opportunity to better learn how to act, my main goal of these off-Off-Broadway and off-Broadway productions.

Thank you! Thank you! THANK YOU!!

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 . . .