Musical Mondays

Every Monday at Splash Bar from 7-midnight is "Musical Monday", and since it doesn't get any better than drag queens and dreamgirls, I try to get there every now and again.  If you live in NYC and love musicals I HIGHLY recommend it.  They only play videos from musicals, and there's some sort of Happy Hour situation that goes on before 9pm.  WARNING: Drinks are strong here :)

Anyhow, some lovely ladies hit up Splash Bar with me last night and we rocked out.  Today has been a challenge, but I wouldn't trade my Musical Monday for the world.  Much love goes out to my fellow theater professionals/fanatics!

Biting the Bullet

We all do it.  Hopefully not on a daily basis, but often.  Getting on that wayyyy overcrowded subway train so you can make it to work on time.  Working through the weekend to get a project done.  Eating spinach to stay healthy, or ramen noodles to save cash.

We bite the bullet.  It is part of being a grown up (and it's not as sexy as this photo would lead you believe).  We make choices, and do things that we'd rather not do in the interest of something more important, or simply because we have to, because it's the only way to survive.

Well I've been biting the bullet lately.  I picked up a serving job (which I'd sworn off for all eternity) on the weekends to save money for graduate school in August.  Working 7 days a week is not ideal, but it's not all bad either.

As artists and arts professionals, you bite the bullet more often than most of your peers.  Contrary to the lives of those in the corporate world, you may or may not have a regular salary, and if you do it's probably less than ideal.  You work more hours than your counterparts, probably gave up your weekends to performances, and spend your money on honing your craft or production. 

But we are so lucky.  We get to do something we love.  Something we are passionate about.  While you may not have all of the things and vacations you want, you do have fulfillment.  And since you work so hard, you probably sleep well at night (once you finally make it to bed).

So kudos to you, all the grown ups who didn't give up on childhood dreams.  Because while "living the dream" may not have panned out to be everything we thought it would, we're still living it.

Logistics of the Show: LOST edition

So, over at Artistew (the conglomerate blog of artists I contribute to), it's LOST week.  So, today, we'll hit a little bit of a LOST vein.  Also, if you're not reading Artistew, you should be, it's way more interesting than this guy, because there are mutliple personalities running around in there (mine included). 

If you are a LOST fan, you no doubt noticed the lack of certain characters in the ending.  This irked the bejesus out of me.  What about Walt?  His dog was in the episode, but no Walt.  Remember waaaay back in Season 2 when Mr. Eko was building a church on the island?  Helllloooo?  Parallel to the church in the finale? I think so.  Then why no Mr. Eko?  Those I've talked to have their various explanations about these character's irrelevancy to the others, etc, but i still think it's lame.

MY instinct was, "Maybe all the actors weren't available."  I was told that this was indeed laughable, because LOST had more money than god, and could get ANYTHING they wanted for the finale, but it brought up the question to me, "What about the rest of us?"

What about those of us working on shows that don't have million dollar budgets?  We make sacrifices to our vision and have to re-write scenes and intentions to accomodate for the limitations of our budgets and the constraints of live theater.  Who is the better artist?  The one who sticks with their initial intentions, can afford everything they want and preserve the complete original integrity of their vision?  Or is it better to be the artist who can adapt a piece to a community and a budget? 

Some of us will find ourselves on a journey where we must adapt early in our careers and as we build our credibility and success we'll have the luxury of sticking to our guns, but will that make us better?  Aren't we always growing and improving when we're faced with a seemingly insurmountable challenge and find a creative solution? 

So here's my conclusion to the LOST effect, clearly we had some really genius and creative people involved.  And they had some crazy ideas that turned into a black cloud monster/man in black/body snatcher of sorts (that turned out to be reallly cool), but because they could have WHATEVER THEY WANTED, we were also presented with polar bears, and characters who were kind of swept under the rug as they tried to tie up all the loose ends.  So kudos, LOST for presenting us with a fairly satisfying ending, in spite of the missing pieces created by your overindulgence.