Monday 3 – June 11th
A whole day off. What will I do?
Lots.
What I did today was walk. And walk. And walk.
But let’s get it in order. I finished the major rewrite of my latest play: Coffee with Friends is he working title. It was inspired by the play Dinner With Friends that Rob directed and had Lisa Benner in the lead role. I think it might be my best effort yet. Of course, I think each play is the best yet. Until reality sets in. It is the longest at 29 pages and will have a running time of between 40 and 45 minutes. We’ll see. We’ll do something with it when I get home. If you want an advance copy let me know.
I printed off a copy of the play so I could edit it.
Time for a haircut. I checked out a couple of places and a haircut is $30 plus tip. Do I need a haircut that bad? No but I will in a week which is the next time I could get one. So give in. Actually it was good haircut. Worth $30 plus tip? Probably – this is New York – everything’s expensive. It took about 45 minutes to get shampooed, cut styled and so on.
It’s really hot today. Everywhere i walk I end up sweating profusely.
I called Rob O’Neill and we set at time to get together for lunch. I had a couple of hours so I walked to Riverside Park and walked around for a long time. I got to the restaurant about 20 minutes early and ordered a beer., Then I remembered that I left the Enchanted April pictures back in my room so I beat feet back to the room then back to the restaurant. Rob was there by the time I got back. It was a great lunch. He loved the pictures of all of you that he has worked for. He and Patrick (I don’t remember his last name) have written a play and they are going to act in it. Rob got his boss at NYU to agree to direct it. He is taking off for Paris at the end of the month. He teaches a class there every year. We talked about him coming to Orcas for a weekend sometime. I gave Rob the copy of my script to read. He said hi to all of yo and I told him all of you wanted me to say hi to him.
Rob has a new web site: www.embodimentworkshops.org If you look closely, you’ll see a picture of Leslie and me in our bathroom scene at AIRE. The picture is one of several on the first page of his site.
Back to the room for a little cleanup. I got a call from Austin Pendleton, the director friend of the Mazzarella’s and we will get together after the Lincoln Center thing finishes. He is directing Romeo and Juliette in Central Park and he is in previews.
Decided I’d go a little further afield for dinner. I don’t know how long a New York block is but I walked 50 of them to and from dinner. I walked to Broadway – two blocks from my hotel. Then turned north and walked along Broadway up to 102nd street. Nothing of interest. I’m now 24 blocks into this hike. Then one block further east to Amsterdam Street. It’s now 25 blocks. Amsterdam in nothing but restaurants. In any four or five blocks you can find any kind of restaurant you want. There are vegetarian restaurants, organic restaurants and organic vegetarian restaurants. Every kind of ethnic restaurant you can imagine. It starts to rain on my way back. Not hard rain like Monday but the individual drops are so big they feel like little pebbles when they hit. Anyway I pick Mexican tonight. Very nice restaurant. Then the rest of the 22 blocks south back to 80th. I’m into this hike 47 blocks then the three blocks west back to the hotel.
My legs are really tired. I really felt the stiffness when I got up after dinner.
Back to the room at 9:30 to edit the play and write this.
I’m looking forward to getting back to LCT tomorrow. All the playwrights, designers and actors have gone home leaving just the 58 of us directors. Looks like a busy week.
