An eon has passed it seems since we last spoke. The dinosaurs may have been roaming the earth the last time I had a free second to write a journal entry. A lot has happened, the dinosaurs are dead now.
How are we? Did you have a good celebration of Independence? It always leaves me a little sad to know that those stupid, red uniforms helped us get our asses kicked. Another empire collapses only to allow one more to rise. I watched the fireworks from the end of my road in Arlington, Virginia. I thought of many things whilst the gunpowder exploded in the sky but mostly how nice it is to be away from the fast pace I've been keeping up in NYC.
Sondheim on Sondheim has been closed for a week now. I miss singing Beautiful with Barbara Cook every night. Though I am determined to call her every once in a while and make her have a sing through of it with me. On the drive home, I switched on the radio and there she was, singing Baby Mine. Beautiful. Plus, we recorded the cast album in early June and once that is released in August then I can sing along with the track on the CD. It's going to sound great so do look for it when it comes out!
At Avatar Studios recording Sondheim on Sondheim
Performing that show was exactly the start to 2010 I needed. Good solid work singing a master's songbook and meeting some very influential and important people. It also led to me being asked to sing the opening number for Broadway Bares this year!! For those of you who are unfamiliar with BB, it is a charity event for Broadway Cares where many of Broadway's finest dancers, strip and get naked for charity! Not wanting to be left out I decided it would be a good idea to take my pants off too. Of course, one needs to do some topiary if one is to get ones tackle and milky white bottom out in public. That's where Vanessa Williams' knowledge of the J Sisters salon in New York came in very handy. She arranged for me to visit one of the sisters (who brought Brazilian waxing to America) and there, that very same day, I found myself lying on a counter with my legs in the air (staring up at signed pictures of very famous ladies wondering if they had lain here too) whilst a very sweet woman waxed the hair from round my lower portions. Odd as it was it feels lovely to be so freshly bare and the audience truly appreciated my shiny new rump. I was terrified of course but managed to tell some filthy jokes to help me get through and when things got really scary, I introduced Vanessa herself and Kristin Chenoweth to help me finish the number and all was well from then on! If you didn't get a ticket, sorry but it was a very special, nude night!
Then the curtain came down on Sondheim's 80th birthday revue and one quick house party later, here I am back in VA with one free week before I begin rehearsals for Chess at the Tony® winning Signature Theatre in DC. It's a soundtrack I have known since I was just a little boy and what a pleasure this summer will be singing that music and being directed by Eric Schaeffer of the Million Dollar Quartet fame!
My job can be so wonderful and exciting, never knowing what opportunities it will afford but it can really break your heart as much as it can thrill sometimes. Lately, I have been experiencing the thrill and the heartbreak in equal measure. You may have heard me mention in previous journals another show that I have been working on for some years. It is called Behind The Limelight and is about the life of Charlie Chaplin. I had the privilege of playing the great Chaplin himself over several workshops and fund raising events and have been looking forward to playing this role in production for such a long time. There have been many false starts and times when I thought the show was surely going to happen, only to be disappointed that something didn't work out and the production fell through. I came to count everyone involved in Limelight as valued friends and felt certain that someday the show would happen. Well, my certainty was right. This wonderful show finally has a public life. Out in San Diego at La Jolla theatre. Now, for the sad part. I can't be there as it runs concurrently with the Chess production!! When I found out that Chess and Limelight would overlap and there was absolutely no way I could do both I was naturally very upset. I couldn't believe that I was in this position. I know it is a position that many actors would envy-- too many great jobs to choose from! I partly wish I could be in this position more often but to have to make a choice between two projects that I care so much about was very, very difficult. In the end, I had to turn Limelight down. I was all signed up to Chess and was raring to go so that was that. You just never know what's around the corner eh? And I'm not going to let being too busy ruin my summer fun and my bliss at singing Benny and Björn's excellent score and working in a theatre I have always wanted to work in with my dear friend Eric. There was really no wrong choice just a hard one...
Plus-- I have had other things to occupy my mind. I felt recently an urgency to switch agents, which sounds like such a simple thing but in fact has not been at all easy. Personalities were clashing in my last place and I never really felt 'part of it' there. You just know when it's time to go for the good of everyone. I am, at last, with a new agency (Stone Manners) with a team I really like and trust and I look forward to our happy, busy future together. It took up a lot of time and energy but I am relieved to have all that behind me and can't wait to see what the fruits of this decision will be.
So, as I said, I have one week of freedom to enjoy before Chess begins in earnest. I am taking myself to Williamsburg to meet up with my old Civil War reenactment brigade and I might take myself to see my friend Max's directorial debut in West Virginia too. Max and I met working on Howard Katz in NYC a few years back and have become very firm friends ever since. Maybe I'll take a Smokey Mountain holiday for a night whilst I'm there too. Nothing's stopping me till July 12th.
All my summer lovin' to all my friends out there.
Have a great season and maybe I'll see you in Virginia over the next few months?!
And it'll be my birthday soon too. I'm looking forward to sitting around wondering where my hair and looks went...
Take care, be safe
Euan
xx
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