City University has an amazing web site dedicated to Barnum’s American Museum (via bb), which was destroyed in a fire in 1865. The museum is especially interesting to me since it’s mentioned throughout the musical Barnum, which I happen to love. Anyone else who’s familiar with the musical will enjoy seeing some of the bizarre items and people (his “living collection”) that Barnum talks about in “The Museum Song.”

Last night I saw ‘night, Mother, which is the first non-musical I’ve seen on Broadway. It was amazing. It only has two characters, a mother and her thirty-something daughter, played brilliantly by Brenda Blethyn and Edie Falco. I didn’t know much about the play except the basic information I just listed, and I think that’s best for anyone who is planning to see it. It’s good not to know what it’s about. But I highly recommend it, and it’s been very undersold, so it’s easy to get rush tickets (front row for $26.25) by showing up anytime during normal box office hours.

Marchy and I decided it would be cool if someone compiled a book of Broadway pranks. It would be full of anecdotes from Broadway actors, much like Making It on Broadway. However, instead of telling stories of life in New York, the actors would recount stories of pranks or bloopers onstage and offstage during shows.

For instance, if Musical Theatre West’s Les Miserables: School Edition were a Broadway show, we’d include the tale of Alex falling in battle and then whispering, “I got shot in the spleen!”

It’s theatre appreciation week here in the world of me.

Last Thursday I went to the final dress rehearsal of Gypsy at APA. It was actually pretty good for a high school show. Katherine was believable as “Louise” and not as annoyingly peppy as usual, and Kellie was amazing as “Mama Rose.” I mean, that girl’s pinky knows more about acting than anyone at APA. The rest of the leads were okay. They weren’t bad like I expected them to be. And Rachel stood out among the three main strippers because of her skills using the light-up hearts on her costume. It was definitely a dress rehearsal, though, considering that the lighting in the show managed to set off the fire alarm in the auditorium halfway through Act I.

Friday night I went to see IVC’s latest disaster, The Good Woman of Setzuan. The show included paper shadow puppets on an overhead projector. Need I say more? It’s one of Ron’s drug-induced ideas: taking a Brecht play (which is bad to start), turning it into a musical, and adding puppets. It’s a great recipe for failure. A few people were noticeably good despite the horrible script and direction of the show, though. Stan (Good Stan), as always, was hilarious in his small role as a god and as “Grandfather.” He’s one of those people who doesn’t have to do anything special to be funny; he just has to be himself. I mean that as a compliment. Paul also did a good job adding excitement to an otherwise boring show, and Theresa (who’s come a long way since playing “Tourist #4” in Guys and Dolls) had several very believable monologues. I was very proud of her. Also worth mentioning was a girl named So

If you’re new to me, you can read the highlights of the past year so you’ll feel like you know me…

If you’re not new to me, I’ve been without arms for the past year, so I couldn’t write anything, but I’m better now, and here are the highlights…

• I played Nathan Detroit in Guys and Dolls.
• I bought myself a new car.
• Olive and lime green became my favorite colors.
• Claire and I broke up. We got back together about a week later.
• I was called in by a friend to play Steve, the upstairs neighbor, for two performances of A Streetcar Named Desire.
• Claire and I broke up again. We got back together about two weeks later.
• I sang “Buddies Blues” from Follies in a musical revue.
• I finally got to play Action in West Side Story.
• Claire and I broke up once more, this time for keeps.
• My friends Maile and Amie and I became regulars at the 24-hour Super K-mart Center in Aliso Viejo.
• Our friend Traci left for San Jose State University. Jonathan, Amie, and I drove to San Jose two weeks later to visit her.
• Claire and I became friends again.
• I started rehearsing for Babes in Arms at Irvine Valley College.
• I started working full time at the office instead of at home. No more trips to Super-K at 3am for me. So sad.

So Tuesday I had an audition for a twenties musical called Good News. It’s about a college football team, and it has a lot of banjo music.

It was a really quick audition. I went in there and sang my song (I sang “Grow for Me” from Little Shop of Horrors), and that went better than I thought it would. My throat has been hurting all week (I have a cold–it’s a symptom), so I was surprised that I sang well. I think my body just knew that it couldn’t be sick for those three minutes. Anyway, after that I waited about fifteen minutes and talked to some people at the auditions and introduced myself, and then we all went in and learned a really easy dance step and ran through it a couple of times so the choreographer could see our dance skills.

And then I went home.

The only person I knew at the audition was the choreographer, actually. I worked with her in a few other shows. She likes me; I’ve done good work for her. That’s a good thing.

I had a few friends who were auditioning, but I guess they auditioned Wednesday instead, ’cause they weren’t there Tuesday.

Anyway, so then Tuesday night I went out with Roger and Goodwin to see The Thirteenth Warrior. It was entertaining, and it had good action-movie action, but other than that it wasn’t a real winner.

Felt like shit Wednesday morning, so I didn’t go into work until noon. That night I went to my grandma’s house for dinner and then helped my brother make some changes to his web site. Exciting, eh?

Anyway, so last night I had callbacks for Good News, and those were fun. I got called back for the part that everyone wanted–the comical lead, Bobby. He’s not the romantic lead of the show, but he’s the funny one, so he’s a very memorable part of the show. I think I might have the part; by the end of the callbacks, only one other guy was still reading for it. And at the very end, the director put us into groups to see what we all looked like together, and he had me standing with the two girls who were up for the two parts that interact most with Bobby.

Bobby likes Tom’s girlfriend, Pat, but Beef’s girlfriend, Babe, likes Bobby.

It’s confusing.

But the cool thing is, Bobby has two romantic interests in the show, so I get to act alongside two beautiful, talented girls. So hey, bonus. Actually, the real bonus is that I had good stage chemistry with both of them. One of them, Jesse, I knew from the previous show, so of course we were great together because we know each other, but I was surprised that the other girl and I got along so well. Masaya (pronounced like “mossy-uh”) and I didn’t even meet until we read together, but we interacted very well. She did a great nasal, high-pitched character voice for the part (sort of like Adelaide in Guys & Dolls), and I did a nasal, nerdy character voice, and when both of us were doing it, the people watching us couldn’t stop laughing. We made the most annoying couple on Earth.

You should have heard us sing together.

Anyway, the callbacks were fun. Everyone was really into it, and we were getting really carried away (which is a good thing at callbacks). It was a total laugh riot, and I’m pretty sure that everyone who made the callbacks will be in the show. Everyone was pretty talented.

I’m crossing my fingers. It’ll be great to do a musical again.