Day 14 of 33

We finished our second week of rehearsal with a great stumble-through. The director is flying back to New York on the day off to see his family, so we had a relaxed day today. I thought the show looked in pretty good shape for the second week, and he agreed. I find his style so interesting because he is so good at watching the whole scene, or whole act, and finding the two or three notes to give that can send the scene in a new interesting direction. Once you see it implemented, you realize that was exactly what needed to happen.

I need to work on my attention span, because I find myself unable to do that. I always feel the need to jump in and fix every moment as it comes up, especially early in rehearsal. As I watch and learn, I realize my old methods might just pick at small details and ignore the overall picture, which would create a very disjointed show. This is why we have to assist the veterans before becoming one!

I wanted to go see another show tonight at The Globe, but apparently they did not have a show tonight due to Pride Celebrations in the San Diego Zoo. The outdoor stage buts right up against the zoo, so a large celebration would be very distracting on stage. It seems to me that having a LGBT celebration inside a zoo is not the message you want to send... but what do I know?

Besides running lines with a cast member (which I actually enjoy immensely because it gives me a sense of purpose) I did not do much with my night. I have found myself in video game withdrawal and I have been scouring the internet for an interesting flash game. I settled on an Emulator for Pokemon, thinking that would hold my interest, but the gameplay was so slow that it ended up putting me to sleep. That was my weekend!

Day 13 of 33

I'm behind schedule! Do not fear, I am ok.

Saturday was a fun day. The whole San Diego to Los Angeles has been in anticipation of the much hyped CARMAGEDDON. It involved shutting down the major freeway for the weekend to do work on an overhead bridge. There was much concern that it would cause traffic nightmares, since it is already one of the highest trafficked highways in the county. However, they built it up so much, that nobody even bothered leaving their homes and it was absolutely no issue.

At the same time, San Diego was celebrating Pride Weekend. We had the Pride Parade on Saturday which was momentous since it was the first time there was active military marching in the parade. I think that is pretty cool. Pride weekend was also very hyped up to me from all the locals (between this and Carmageddon, I had high expectations for the weekend!) and they told me the neighborhood we were in was "Ground-Zero" for the celebrations. One person told me to leave extra time to get around and not to even bother trying to ride my bike.

Well, when I left in the morning, there certainly seemed like more people walking around than usual, but nothing that would stop me on my bike! I spent the majority of the day inside between rehearsal and running lines with actors outside of rehearsal, but I headed out again Saturday night. I walked down to the main strip in the neighborhood, University Ave, hoping to do some serious people watching and perhaps join in the festivities. However, I felt it was pretty underwhelming. There were throngs of people waiting to get into clubs with dance music blaring, but that seemed like your typical Saturday night in Hoboken. There were people showing pride, but nothing worth people watching, just your typical East Village fare.

I must admit, I was disappointed with San Diego. I thought more people would be, you know, showing their pride! Especially with everything that is going on in politics and society. Then I thought about it more, and why should we be that excited? I mean, you should be proud of yourself, regardless of orientation, every day. It's sort of like doing your homework - Yeah it's great that you did it today, but everyone should always do it.

That is why I thought a city like San Diego might be just be over it. For instance, when New Orleans won the Superbowl, it sent the whole city and state into a state similar to a sugar-hyped child. When New York won the Superbowl a couple years back, it was cool, but not the first time we've had a sports team win. Perhaps cities like New York, San Diego, San Francisco, etc are just past their honeymoon period when it comes to celebrating LGBT pride. Now we just have to get the rest of the country on board.

Day 12 of 33

Today in rehearsal, I was reminded why I want to be a director. I want to be in control! Certainly I cannot complain about my current situation, because I am working with a brilliant director and cast, in a fantastic theater, and I am learning very much. And certainly nobody is discarding any ideas I have or shutting me out of conversations. In the end, however, I am an assistant - wet behind the ears, and I know my place. It's just that it drives me crazy. Hopefully it can drive me forward as well.

I went out after with some of the company members to go to dinner and to see Harry Potter. Dinner was at In n Out Burger, a West Coast institution known for their Secret Menu. I ordered a Cheeseburger "Animal Style" (inside the quotes in the secret, pass it on). Animal Style means they cook the patty with mustard, and then top it with extra pickles, grilled onions, cheese and of course the famous spread. Once we had succeeded in slowing the flow of our arteries to a gentle trickle, we headed to the movies. Even though we had purchased tickets in advance, we still arrived at the theater, over an hour early, to find ourselves at the end of a long line.

Expelliarmus!

This post has been hijacked by Harry Potter and other rambling thoughts.


Remember when they were only that old? It is funny to imagine how long we have followed this craze. Even further back than this if you were one of the earlier literary fans. I watched the final installment of the movie series tonight and I find it very interesting how everyone reacts to it. One person I went with was speechless in the lobby, quoting "Catharsis". Other friends on Facebook have noted this day as the end of their childhood. That is how deeply this phenomenon has affected some people.

Well, I enjoyed the movie. Looking back, I think I enjoyed some of the other movies more. However, I don't know if I enjoyed the actual movie less, as much as the movie going experience. This is no knock against any of the brilliant people in the Cast and Crew of The Old Globe, but it does not compare to going with your family over Thanksgiving break, or getting a group of your best friends together and spending a night together.

It made me wonder whether the movies we look back on most fondly are not influenced more by our movie watching experience. I can still remember the first time I watched the original Star Wars trilogy. There was a marathon on late at night, and we had a large group of family staying at our house. All my cousins and I were allowed to stay up into the wee hours to watch the series, and we ended up making popcorn and all those things. That trilogy still holds a special place in my heart. Each movie of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy came out near my birthday, and I went to see each one with my family ON my birthday. I went to see the first Pirates of the Caribbean (really the only one I can remember liking) with a large group of high school friends dressed as pirates in lieu of a graduation party.

However, the movie theater experience does not really encourage collective audience reactions. Of course there are moments where everyone will laugh, cheer, clap, or cry, and these moments are more poignant in theaters where there is a large group of people. The movie moves on, though, and quickly! You must focus on the story, and often you will miss the next line of text if you are clapping or laughing. This is what we THRIVE on in the theater, and really one of the only reasons theater must continue to survive, despite the fact that a Broadway show is almost 10 times the cost of a movie ticket.

Do we realize what we have in the theater? Do the movies realize what they are missing?

I don't think either business has figured out how to successfully capture and market the experience of watching. There is so much more to our entertainment than just the value of the media. What can we do to capitalize on this? I don't know, but I'll keep thinking.

Day 11 of 33

I have hit the 1/3 mark of my stay in San Diego.

We kept plowing ahead in rehearsal, and today I also got to sit in a design meeting for sound. Everything continues to progress well, but continues to be very boring to tell.

After rehearsal, I went to the Padres vs Giants Baseball game at Petco stadium. This was also my first chance to see downtown San Diego. From the view of the car window, it seemed more or less like any other city. Perhaps another night I can really check it out.

I have only gone to baseball games in New York and LA, and San Diego had a very different feel. The crowd was decent, but almost half seemed to be San Fran Giants fans. In general, the West Coast baseball fans don't hold a candle to East Coast fans (and I'm not even a baseball fan).

That's all for today.

Day 10 of 33

Rehearsals continue and all is well on that front. Also, the US Women are advancing to the finals of the World Cup!

I'm running out of museums that I can visit, since many of them are open only during our rehearsal hours. I will never forget the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco has "Nightlife", where they stay open late once a week and open bars inside the museum! It was a great way to cultivate a different crowd to come to the museum, and I'm sure they made a mint off it, as well.

Well, I stumbled down to the San Diego Air & Space museum, where I had an hour to poke around before they closed. They actually have a deceivingly large space and a very nice collection of planes, especially the WWI collection that I spent most of my time on. I learned that Charles Lindbergh's plane that he commissioned to fly across the Atlantic, Th Spirit of St. Louis, was built by a San Diego company. They had a full replica sitting right in their entrance.

Of course, they also had another important achievement in air, space & TIME travel: One of only 3 remaining DeLoreans used in the filming of Back to the Future !

I feel I have learned a little about San Diego now, especially from my visit to Old Town on Monday. However, I can't say I feel I know the STORY of this city. What really created the city, what cultural influences paved the way, and what makes it how it is today. In short, what would you put in SAN DIEGO! THE MUSICAL? I add this to my list of goals to accomplish while I am here.

I leave you with this picture. These are "filling stations" for Electric Cars that I found sitting in the middle of this parking lot! I guess if you are in the know, this is where you leave your car to charge while you wander the park. Only in California...

Day 9 of 33

I've found the novelty of my situation is starting to wear off. I miss my present life and my future wife. My situation here makes it difficult to find a group to socialize with. Anyway, lots of exciting things are still going on.

We returned to rehearsal today and finished blocking the show. John, the playwright, has returned home until we get to tech rehearsals. In his absence, I found that I had a larger role in the rehearsal process and thing became more engaging. I'm looking forward to seeing where we go from here.

After rehearsal I decided to "take the night off" and get some shopping, cooking and cleaning done. This leads me to one of my culinary disappointments in San Diego. I expected that, coming to California, there would be a wealth of fresh produce available at very cheap prices. However, I found that is not the case. Please see Exhibit A:

This is a pot of chicken chili that I made tonight. The recipe called for fresh corn on the cob, and I was not even able to get it at the local supermarket! I was forced to get some salty corn in the can instead. Am I spoiled by what is made available to me in New York?

For the past week I have been in San Diego, I have been hankering for some fresh guacamole. My first day I bought some avocados, which apparently transformed into green bricks on my way home. I wrote it off on getting the cheap avocados from Trader Joes. However, in each of my subsequent food trips to different markets, I haven't found ripe avocados. *On a side note to this story, I have found no local markets for buying produce, only large supermarkets. This is kind of a bummer also* Today, after feeling up the newest batch of green bricks, I decided to at least purchase some guacamole. I figured there must be some local producers putting out guac with some west coast flair. I purchased a tub and brought it home.

Well, it certainly had a west coast flair. This guac tasted like none I had ever had before. I looked more closely at the package, to discover this was actually Guacamole FLAVORED Dip and contained less than 2% Avocado!!! WHAT?!?! I mean, I should have known better than to buy the guacamole from the toothpaste aisle, but still... Why is it so hard to get Avocados in California? Isn't this where New York gets its avocados from?

It got me to thinking, though. The last time I was in California, it was in Northern California where there is rich farm land. In San Francisco, you could not go two blocks without running into a produce market. San Diego, on the other hand, is basically a desert. Perhaps the markets here are actually being greener and trying to stay local, even at the expense of having a poorer variety.

Therefore, I will endeavor to find out what the local food really is and see if I can live more locally. (endeavor is the key word... you can't stop me from indulging in some Diet Coke and M&Ms).

On to the next day!

Day 8 of 33

If I were as ambitious in my work as I am in my rest, the very Earth would quake beneath my feet in anticipation of my genius.

That seems like a very Shavian thing to say, in respect to the show I work on. In all seriousness, I do so much in my "time off" that I relish the idea of relaxing when I return to work. Today was my day off, so naturally I did as much as possible.



I thought perhaps I would hit the beach today, but it seemed a little chilly when I woke up (70s... chilly out here) so I decided on something historical instead. I rode my bike over to the San Diego Old Town. It really was not a bad bike ride, but since it was at the bottom of a canyon, it was decidedly more difficult to come back.

My first stop in Old Town was actually a small "Heritage Village" which featured houses of architecture more akin to New England than New Spain. They had been built in downtown San Diego by some wealthier transplants, and later moved to this little street in conservation efforts. All but one were closed off because they actually plan to convert them to Inns! That is pretty interesting. The one that remained open contained a gift shop and a nice women named Pam, who was easy to strike up conversation with. She enjoyed praising my career gains (I make it sound nice) and offered to adopt me after commiserating about my local San Diego family that is proving so difficult...

I then moved on to the Mormon Battalion museum, run by the Church of Latter Day Saints. It seemed like an innocent enough museum from the outside, but quickly turned into an interactive experience where historical characters were trying to get me to read the Book of Mormon. Moving on from there.

I found myself actually inside the Old Town Park, which was neat. They call it a Living History park, but it is far from what you would expect from something like Williamsburg and the like. It really just means the shopkeepers, as all the buildings are essentially tourist shops, are in costume. I capped my Old Town experience with a tour, which everyone bailed on except for me and two other people, leading me to think we got a better tour. I learned a good deal about the original settlement. Primarily, the original Spanish mission was headed for Monterrey, and not San Diego. As they headed north, many of the soldiers and workers were struck sick with scurvy and other things, so they left them in San Diego in around 1769. So began the first European settlement in California until the actual mission reached Monterrey.

I knew it was a big ol' tourist trap, but I decided to treat myself to some beers and fish tacos anyway. Fish tacos are apparently San Diego's specialty: grilled or deep-fried fish with crema mexicana (sour cream?), and salsa fresca on a soft corn taco. I enjoyed them.

Once I finally wound myself back to my room, I promptly headed out again for a night of entertainment. The Old Globe was trying a new type of performance centering on Balboa Park that they invited some company members to attend. They sent me an mp3 beforehand, which I can play on my iPhone during the performance. We lined up for the start of the performance, and once we started our music, we began a slow tour around the park. There were performers located along the path, creating an interesting story. The "story" seemed to center on a wedding and relationship and how both parties were connected with Balboa park. It was interesting and opened my eyes to some new possibilities of performance and modern media. If you can make it out below, there is a woman in a bride's dress under this rather large tree.


I went directly from this performance to another performance at The Old Globe. Hershey Felder, a "Canadian playwright/actor/pianist" who was doing a one man show called "The American Songbook". It is basically a sing-a-long of classic American musical theater songs punctuated with Felder's humor and stories. I enjoyed it, but I didn't 2-hours-and-15-minutes-without-a-break enjoy it, if you catch my drift.

All in all, a very successful day!