I Saw Bill Cunningham at a Party Last Night

So, last night I was at the chashama gala for work. Anita Durst is one of our board members, and a pretty spectacular lady. It was a big event on West 43rd with lots of food and beautiful people.  And Bill Cunningham was there, taking pictures.  Now please understand I know nothing about fashion (surprise!) and am not really interested in it, even a little bit. But I saw the Cunningham documentary on recommendation from friends and loved it. This old guy hits all these Manhattan parties, snaps pics and puts them in the NY Times.  It was fascinating to watch him move through the room - absolute focus of purpose, finding the right shot, not a wasted move, nothing getting past him.  It was like watching a good ball player, an athlete in their prime, or even a top notch Broadway song and dance person - complete and total focus on the job at hand.  A man incapable of being distracted  from what he's doing.

The Wedding Gift of Pirate Granny

OK, here it is.  The final project for ALT.  It's one night, at Symphony Space, June 25 7 PM.  Here's the deets:

"ALT’s annual Opera in Eden concert returns to the Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Symphony Space for one night only on Monday, June 25th, 2012 at 7:00 PM. This evening of work written by Resident Artists from ALT’s Composer Librettist Development Program (CLDP) will feature four new one-act operas by librettists Magda Bogin, Stephanie Fleischmann, David Johnston, and Kate Light; and composers Jeremy Howard Beck, Alla Borzova, Theo Popov and Jeffrey Dennis Smith." 

I've written the libretto for THE WEDDING GIFT OF PIRATE GRANNY, with music by Alla Borzova.  There are pirates in it.  There's also a ghost. 

Get yer tickets here. 

Last Things in NJ

Tonight, a reading of "Last Things," which has been in the drawer for a few years. I'm excited to hear it again.  It's out in South Orange, New Jersey with my friend Marni Raab's group, Midtown Direct Rep. It'll be a whole lot of actors I haven't seen before, so this should be fun.

Marni also tells me there are cookies. 

Quote of the Day

“I have fun with ideas; I play with them, I’m not a serious person, and I don’t like serious people. I don’t see myself as a philosopher. That’s awfully boring.My goal is to entertain myself and others.”  Ray Bradbury, in today's NY Times obit. 

I Will Read My Own Play in the Middle of the Night

Coming up. I am taking part in Urban Librarians Unite's Annual Read In. What does this mean? It means my friend Ingrid talks me into crazy shit. We are reading - around 12:15 AM - the Chinatown library scene from "Candy & Dorothy." Ingrid loves this scene because she is a librarian and this somehow reminds her of her life. So she'll be reading Tamara, her cute-as-a-button boyfriend Tim Conley will read Candy, and I will read Dorothy Day. Yes, I will read the role of the 80 year old almost-a-saint Dorothy Day.

 Stop laughing. I'm a good actor.

Urban Librarians Unite promotes and supports libraries.  The Annual 24 Hr Read In is to protest city budget cuts and to showcase and highlight libraries' importance.  And if you're like me, you believe strong libraries are about the only thing standing between us and the inevitable zombie apocalypse.

If you'd like to attend - and WHY WOULDN'T YOU - come to the main branch of the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza on June 9 - er- actually June 10, 12:30 AM. Don't ask me how to get there because I really have no idea. Here's a link.

UPDATE:  This was so much fun.  

Mothra NY

Federico Tenorio of Digital World Solutions Found My Blackberry on Saturday Night

I lost my Blackberry on Saturday night and was in utter despair. Sunday morning my friend Dave texted me that he was running late to the ALT libretto reading at Opera America, and Federico Tenorio, President and CEO of Digital World Solutions, Inc on West 29th Street called him back and said he had the Blackberry. He was across the street from Opera America. I went over to thank him and offered him some money for it, and he just shrugged and smiled. Here is the website for Digital World Solutions on West 29th Street. (There's another one overseas, with a slightly different domain name.) The guy who runs it is honest.