+ Tasty breakfast at Scup's with muffyjo  and eclecticavatar 
+ Walk along the marina, drooling over a very pretty little ketch (or maybe yawl, I'm not positive)
+ Seeing eclecticavatar 's lovely new home
+ Having her dog Rufus actually allow me to pet him for an extended length of time
+ Driving to Salem with muffyjo  to go for a sail on the Schooner Fame
- Finding that the 3pm sail was totally sold out
+ Hot chocolate and crêpes at the Gulu-Gulu Cafe
- muffyjo  deciding to head back for other festivities
+ Deciding to stay for the 5pm sail anyway
+ That meant I could borrow her warm jacket since my fleece was not going to be enough :)
+ The captain remembering me and welcoming me back
+ Great wind and a lovely sail
- Having to wait a while for the commuter rail back
+ Using part of the time to browse the few shops that were still left open
+ Finding a Roald Dahl book in a used book store to read on the way home
+ The conductor not collecting my fare
- Arriving at Sullivan Station minutes after the last 89 towards home left
+ Having an iPhone to find that out without having to wait for hours first
+ Finding a cab at the station that got me home quickly and not too expensively
+ Being home!

All in all, I'd certainly call today a big ol' plus!

 From the packing slip, once my new friend arrived:

Not quite what you wanted? Feeling buyer's remorse?
Like mailing packages (or the cute delivery person)? Whatever the reason,
you can send your books back for a full refund of the purchase price.
Just send an email to help@betterworld.com and we'll get back to you lickety-split.

Unfortunately, we can't offer a refund after 30 days. Not even in leap years.

FYI, tonight begins Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year.  It goes from tonight until Friday night, which then goes directly into shabbos.  So I'm offline until Saturday night.  Catch you all then!

(Mental note: go to library and pick up a *lot* of books today...)

I ordered a book the other day.  

( It just sent me an email. )

We had such a good rehearsal tonight that I'm feeling the same sort of high that I normally only get from performing.

Shit.  This directing this is going to be addictive, isn't it. Well, like they always say, first one's free...

Seriously, I'm so impressed with my amazing and hard-working cast.  I give them notes one week, and it's clear that they actually think about them before the next rehearsal.  They're willing to run a scene or a line over and over again until they get what I'm going for, and they're endlessly patient with my attempts to communicate my ideas ("Like the White Rabbit in Alice in Wonderland!  Like a drunken Santa Claus!  Try moaning with your mouth open!") They think about what lines mean, and can instantly tell me the unwritten ends of sentences that get cut off.  And they're making these characters so much deeper and richer (and scarier!) than what's on the page.  Honestly, I have to say, I think our production is going to be better than the original Nightfall one!  And that's before we even add in the foley, which I know will add another amazing dimension to it all.  I can't wait for you all to hear it!

Speaking of which... the ticket page is now live!  Go forth and buy tickets! :)

You've probably seen this in someone else's LJ by now, but given that it is only one night, I'd hate for you to miss it, so...

Come see my show! Staged reading of A Language of Their Own by Chay Yew, directed by Judy Yen. Tonight only! 8pm, Unity Church of God, right off College Ave in Davis Square.

dpolicar has put it better than I can:

 Also, I'm performing in a play!

Theatre@First has started a program of staged readings called Bare Bones, and I'll be playing Robert in A Language of Their Own.

Ming is a young, twenty-something assimilated Asian-American who lives with his lover Oscar, a somewhat older Asian man. When Oscar tests positive for HIV, he tells his lover of four years to leave. Both men move on to new partners, Oscar with a younger Asian man, Daniel, and Ming with a Caucasian man, Robert. The play chronicles the four men's struggles in their relationships, highlighting the nature of love, desire, sexuality and self-identity in a series of interconnected stories. Performance pending agreement with playwright's representatives.

It's a great play with some really fabulous language, and it's not a part I'd ever get to play in a full staged production, so I'm thrilled to be in it now.  Hope you can come check it out!

ONE NIGHT ONLY!
Thursday, August 26th at 8pm
Unity Church of God, 6 William Street, Somerville, MA 02144
Suggested Donation $5 - No reservations required

I am beyond proud to announce my cast for But Oh, What Happened to Hutchings!

Mrs Candle: Mindy Klenoff
Talman: Nick Bennett-Zendzian
Hutchings: Andy Hicks
Meacham: Alex Nemiroski

I heard so many great auditions, there are many more people I'm very sorry I couldn't cast. Thanks to everyone who tried out!

(Seriously, when directors say "It was a hard decision"?  They're not kidding!  But so far I'm enjoying being on this side of the table even more than I had expected, and I'm really looking forward to getting down to work with my rock-star cast.)

 I'm way behind on reporting on my sailing adventures.  I haven't mentioned that I've started taking out less experiences sailors for instruction -- there's nothing to show you just how much you've learned like teaching someone else! -- and I haven't talked about the second time muffyjo and I went out on the Schooner Fame in Salem, on a windy enough day that they had put a reef in the mainsail, where I got to take the tiller for a good long while, including taking us through some tacks, while the captain casually chatted with passengers on the middeck and only one of the greener hands was watching me.  (Although of course I'm sure the captain was complete aware of what the ship was doing, and would have corrected me if necessary -- he did have me alter course slightly a few times to better catch the wind.)

But yesterday was perhaps the best adventure yet.  Community Boating does Harbor trips a during the summer; most of them are on Saturdays, and the last Sunday one I tried to go on was cancelled due to thunderstorms, but we had glorious weather yesterday.  About 23 of us met up at CBI around 8:30am (this after I had been out until 2am celebrating a friend's birthday with drinks and ballroom dancing).  We were split up into groups of 5, assigned to boats (Rhodes 19s), loaded up all the necessary equipment, took off the booms, folded down the specially modified hinged masts, took a look at wind and weather conditions, and decided that our destination would be Lovells Island, a nice little island near Georges Island in Boston Harbor, a little off the beaten path.  Each boat had a skipper who has experience and training on Harbor trips, chart-reading, etc, and they were *supposed* to have a crew member who had been trained as well.  We ended up with 3 crew members, not 4, and I was the most experienced of the bunch.  But our skipper was great, assigned us tasks, talked us through what had to be done, and we managed pretty well.

The five boats were all tied together into a line, and the lead boat was attached to a motor launch.  The launch towed us under the Longfellow Bridge, through the locks near the Museum of Science, and out into the Harbor.  The skipper, Don, asked for a volunteer to man the tiller during the tow, and no one stepped forward, so I ended up doing that.  And then when we got into the Harbor and got the mast back up, well, I was already at the tiller, so somehow I ended up just staying there and sailing us all the way through the Harbor, with the skipper navigating and giving me occasional suggestions, until it was time to drop anchor off the island and get a lift in on the launch.  There was definitely some good wind; luckily the Rhodes have a way to secure the mainsheet so that I didn't have to manage it by hand the entire way, but still, I was pretty tired by the time we landed.

One couple had accidentally left their bag of supplies and lunch on the dock, so a bunch of us found a picnic table and laid out a nice shared feast.  After eating, I spread out my picnic blanket, blew up my inflatable pillow, and lay down for a rest.  Didn't manage to actually nap, but it was still very relaxing.  We were on the island for about two hours, then set off to sail back.

The two other crew members took turns on the tiller for a while (although the skipper managed the mainsail for them) so I got a chance to mostly hang out and enjoy the ride.  It was a little choppy and overcast, and somehow I evinced a particular talent for managing to turn forward just in time to take every major wave right in the face.  But once we reached the inner harbor the water got calmer, the sun came out, and I went and sat out on the foredeck, back against the mast, face up to the sun, and just soaked in the sun and the gentle motion of the boat until it was time to take down the mast, re-form our little convoy, and ride back to the docks.

All in all it was a really great day.  I got lots of time on the wato feel useful and competent, and I had a lot of fun talking to the skipper (who is a big geek, in the best way, so we kept discovering shared references that made us think "Aha, you're one of my kind of people!"  He's promised to take me out on a 420 some time soon, woohoo!  That's a much higher performance boat than any I've been on so far.

And then I got to run to auditions for PMRP, which ayelle  had been ably handling for me, in time to run the second and third group of auditions myself.  I feel good about the way I managed to assign sides -- a more challenging task than I've ever realized! -- and run my part of the readings, and I heard some very exciting auditions.  Looking forward to hearing more tonight! ...after I take some ibuprofen, a hot bath, drink more water, and take a nap.  I hadn't realized sailing was quite the strenuous, but I feel like I've been run over by a truck.  Oof!

I will be making my directorial debut with the Post-Meridian Radio Players in their Big Broadcast of 1946, to be performed at the Somerville Theatre this October!

My play is one of the "Tomes of Terror", a piece called But Oh, What Happened to Hutchings!  Set in London in 1825, a divinity student gets more than he bargained for when he's befriended by a disreputable young doctor with a sideline in "cadaver acquisition" and a retired missionary with fond memories of his days proselytizing among the headhunters and cannibals.  There's also a great tubercular landlady role.  It's a really compelling script, with some good meat to the characters, and I'm very excited to try my hand at directing.

You can sign up to audition here.  The talented and capable ayelle will be serving as my casting director, since I unfortunately have pre-existing conflicts that prevent me from being there for some of the audition times, but we're very much on the same page about what we're looking for, and the auditions will be recorded so I can hear them before we make call-back decisions.  And I will be there for call-backs, so everyone we're seriously considering will have the chance to read for me in person.  I have a lot of thoughts on how to make this show a positive experience for my actors; I hope you'll give some thought to auditioning!