Just back from four days in New York, casting for The Beard of Avon and 12th Night.  Always a gas being in that city.  Though I was looking forward to a respite from our very rainy October, of course, the first two days in Manhattan provided torrential downpours.

When I go to NYC, my hotel of choice is the Edison.  It’s on W. 47th near Broadway in Times Square.  Nothing fancy, pretty decent price, easy to get to the theaters, and their cafe downstairs (fondly donned “The Polish Tearoom”) offers the best Matzoh Ball Soup I’ve ever had.

Casting two shows that are designed to play in rep was trickier than I think any of us expected.  Luckily, I was working with Jane Jones (who will direct 12th Night and many of you will remember as the director of Pride and Prejudice two years ago).  Besides being a really gifted artist, Jane is also enormous fun, and a great collaborator.  By the end of our day and a half together we were both directing each other’s actors.  It was hilarious.  In the picture below, Jane is the blonde facing the camera.  Harriett Bass (our casting director) is deep in conversation with Zan Sawyer-Dailey the Casting Director for Actor’s Theater of Louisville (they were on the 16th Floor casting 12th Night as well).

Whenever I’m in NY I try to take in a couple of shows.  This time out I checked out Gone Missing, Michael Friedman’s new musical at the Barrow Street Theater.  I had met Michael three years ago when I directed Hazard County for the Humana Festival.  He was there working on a piece at the same time.  The review of Gone Missing in the Times was pretty intriguing, so I checked it out.

A really charming small musical that was inspired by interviews with average New Yorkers about things they had lost.  It started out with silly, superficial losses (socks, cats, virginity) - but gradually wove its way to more significant losses (memory, love, life).  By the evening’s end - quite thoughtful.

Harriett and I also had dinner that evening with her wonderful husband, Richard, who is a physician in Brooklyn.  I love arguing politics with Richard.  He worked with Hillary Clinton on her first health care reform effort in 1994 and says he will have to leave the country if she is elected.  I am a Hillary fan, so we had a great time arguing the merits of her latest health care proposal.

On Saturday afternoon, I saw The Misanthrope at New York Theater Workshop.  I was particularly interested in the production, as I had seen Ivo Van Hove’s (the Dutch director) production of Streetcar Named Desire at the workshop a few years ago and found it quite bizarre and inspiring.

I was less taken with Misanthrope, though it did take the notion of actors “chewing the scenery” to an entirely new level.   At one point, Bill Camp (Alceste) literally covered himself in chocolate syrup, catsup, mayonaise and broke half a watermelon over his head.

The Workshop is one of my favorite theaters anywhere, because of the raw, intimate space, and the daring choices they make in terms of material.  You don’t love everything, but you know its going to be interesting.

On the subway heading back uptown, a string quartet was playing Pachelbel’s Canon.  Can we add that to Portland???

That evening  I saw The Glorious Ones, the new Ahrens and Flaherty musical at Lincoln Center Theater.  Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty are the author/composer team who created Ragtime, Once on This Island, Seussical: The Musical, and A Man of No Importance.  I love their work.

This piece was inspired by a novella about a Comedia Troup in 17th Century Italy.  You started out thinking it was going to be totally slapstick (which there was a fair share of) but it eventually revealed itself as a story about striving for immortality, and the pain of falling short.  Very gorgeous music, very bittersweet emotional story.  Good evening.  It is in previews in the Mitzi Newhouse Theater (the 350 seater at Lincoln Center) which is a great space in which to see a show.

 Oh:  Dan Ostling (our set designer for Celebrity Row and 36 Views designed the set), and Natalie Belcon (the original Gary Coleman from Avenue Q) played the Courtesan.  Natalie was a student of mine at Carnegie Mellon some 20 years ago, and I loved seeing her blossom under the lights.  Didn’t hurt that she had the most beautiful number of the evening.

OH:  as of 4:00 p.m. today - we have yes’s from 3 of the 4 first choices we were going after for Beard  and 12th Night.  Fingers crossed.