Last (Work) Day!

Last week of working at Strasberg. And last full week of living in New York without having to have a real job or pay rent or really do any of those things that make you into a real adult. Not looking forward to any of that when I really move here.

Also on the list of things that I'm not looking forward to:
1. Packing
2. Unpacking once I get back to Michigan
3. Turning thirty (I am very prone to midlife crises, I feel)

This last week of work was pretty marvelous. Lots to do, because everyone is busy registering for their Winter Session classes. I helped Amanda get Young Actors organized, I called millions of parents about registration.

And I continued my new daily activity of recording all the attendance. And I will be forcing all teachers to take a new seminar called Tim Crouse on Attendance. (Tim Crouse is a fab teacher at Strasberg.) All his Absences are in red felt-tip pen and all the people present are in black pen! INSPIRED. GENIUS. POTENTIALLY WORTHY OF A NOBEL PRIZE. The Peace Prize, obvi, because it keeps me from SHANKING SOMEONE AT WORK.

This week started out kind of lame and picked up as time went on. I spent most of Monday at work wrapping Hannukah gifts for Anna Strasberg's grandchildren. Devil Wears Prada anyone? Anyone? Bueller? RIDICULOUS. But then I wrapped gifts for children in the pediatric ward of the Harlem Hospital, and that was more legit. On Monday night, we had the 305 Holiday Party. Our sponsors were invited, so Amanda and Donna made the trek up to twenty-ninth and eighth to put in an appearance. We ran into Michael Fentin (!) which was marvelous, because I won't be seeing him for quite a while. We ate, we chatted, a good time was had by all.

On Wednesday at work, I was running errands all afternoon, and when I got home, Amanda pulled me into her office and said, "Oh my god, it's Donna's birthday and we completely forgot. Run to Whole Foods and buy a cake! Any cake!" And she shoved me out the door and down the street.

So I am freaking out and I run into Whole Foods like a bat out of hell and yelp at the man behind the counter at the bakery: I NEED A CAKE! ANY CAKE! He believes that I am insane and have a deathly cake addiction. So I calm down enough to explain that we completely forgot our manager's birthday and we need to pretend that we didn't and got her a cake. He picks up a beautiful cake, deftly writes HAPPY BIRTHDAY DONNA in gorgeous script and off I go.

I call Amanda from outside, she lets me in the back, we dig up some candles and walk into Donna's office, singing Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you...

Ummmm, except SURPRISE! It's a party for ME! Because I was an awesome intern!

The problems with this?

I sang Happy Birthday to someone whose birthday is in March. AND I BOUGHT MY OWN CAKE! AND MY "YOU'RE AMAZING, KELLY" CAKE SAID HAPPY BIRTHDAY DONNA!!!

Haha, I jest. It was amazing. I was totally surprised and I've never had a surprise party thrown for me before. And they gave me the most amazing present - a hat with ears and mittens like paws! I look like a polar bear! It's precious.

Thursday night I saw Billy Elliot. Notable mostly because I went all by myself! And I won't even eat alone! Yay me!

The show was amahzing. Trent Kowalik did approximately eighteen pirouettes in rapid succession. The dancing was phenomenal. Literally, beyond words. The dialect work was flawless and the story was heartwarming. Wonderful. And the four people next to me left after intermission (!) so I got to move more towards the center for act two.

And today was my last day of work! My main goal was not to cry. This did not happen, even though I'll be seeing Amanda tomorrow. But I cried at the very end. I'm going to miss everyone so much, and the entire semester was just such a perfect experience.

But it's SO REASSURING to know that I'll have a job when I come back here. Donna even put it in writing in my Christmas card, haha, and told me to bring it back as proof of a guaranteed job. That's so much worry off of my life, knowing that I will be able to pay rent when I get back here. I finally have a plan! I haven't had a plan for the last twenty years!

And tonight, Nick and I saw A Little Night Music. Catherine Zeta-Jones, Angela Lansbury: what could be better??? The show was lovely. And lovely is a perfect word to describe it too. Sondheim is a master - the lyrics were witty and beautiful. Catherine's rendition of Send in the Clowns was beautiful and heartbreaking, which was exactly what I was hoping for.

And Angela was PERFECT, as she always is. I literally watched the show and thought to myself, "Angela Lansbury is perfect in this role. How could anyone else have ever played her? It wouldn't work, because the role was waiting for Angela." And then I smacked myself and said, "Kelly! Pay attention!"

However, she stood us up at the stage door again. I understand that she is eighty-four years old and it was very cold out, but STILL. She has now stood us up multiple times. I am very upset.

But I met Catherine Zeta-Jones. And I meant "met" in the sense of "laid eyes on". She signed my Playbill and she was absolutely beautiful. She is one of those flawlessly attractive people who turn heads simply because they are so classically beautiful.

Just. Not. Fair.

Yikes. I want time to just keep spinning out and out and out and slow way way down. I'm only here until Wednesday. Tomorrow we are going ice skating and then seeing Ragtime. Sunday, Nick and I are planning on mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, Superior Donuts and then our last UCB show. It's going to be Days of Last. And those are my least favorite days. Last Class. Last Walk to Work. Last Jamba Juice. Last Broadway Show. (Yikes, I'll cry again. Gotta stop this line of thought.)

I should also probably pack at some point. (See above: list of things I am not looking forward to.)

Merry Christmas, everyone! I'll see you soooooon!!!
Miss you! Love, Kelly

Holi-Day!

Remember the last time that I blogged and it was snowing? Marvelous, n'est-ce pas?

MALHEUREUSEMENT, it has not snowed since then. It has rained multiple times (of course, because my rain boots eventually bit the dust and I had to throw them out because "well, it's October - it's not going to rain anymore!", so please raise your hand if you regret that decision. Kelly raises hand. THAT'S WHAT I THOUGHT) which is no fun.

But since the wonderful snowing/Christmas tree experience, much has happened.

On the work/classes side of things, everything has been great. I had my last classes for everything except Singing and Dialects last week, and it was bittersweet (heavy on the bitter). I ADORED my classes. I won't be sad to see my one crazy scene partner go, but I'll super miss my awesome one, and my teachers were all great and talented and fun and (in the case of Irma) intimidatingly awe-inspiring.

I was horrendously ill for my final scene in Lola's class. She took one look at me and told me to go home and go to bed, but I had dragged myself all the way there, so I was going to perform, dammit. And she told me that I'm hilarious and that I could be on SNL (!) and that she doesn't think I should be going back to Michigan because "credits transfer so why on earth can't you just stay here???".

Needless to say, I walked around high on praise for a few days. Still feeling good about it, actually, haha.

And work has been fun. I have been getting some free lunches out of it, and as everyone knows, I love the lunch. I took approximately six days to register the first and second year NYU students for their second semester, which is about five days and six hours longer than it should take. I'm pretty sure I just kept getting distracted. Amanda would have a story, or someone would start yelling and then all was lost.

I also helped out at Young Actors at Strasberg which is a) exhausting, b) chaotic, c) the most bizarre program in the world and d) the best birth control EVER. Watching fifteen screaming seven-year-olds reenact The Wizard of Oz was potentially the most terrifying thing I have ever seen in my entire life. If anyone ever asks you if you want to help out in an acting class for seven to nine year old, just SAY NO. IT ISN'T WORTH IT.

And this last weekend was Young Actors Open House, where parents are invited to attend and watch what their kids did all semester. And I felt terrible for the kids whose parents didn't bother to show up or anything. Devastating. Perhaps this is because I was raised by Rob and Nance Voigt, who not only attended every single thing I have ever been in, but also usually offered to sell tickets, bring pizza to the tech day and gave me flowers afterwards. They also went to every single Evelyn Schuette Choir Concert and Christmas Spectacular. Good for them.

And actually, speaking of Christmas Spectaculars...

WE SAW THE ROCKETTES.

And it was amazing. Carol-singin', high-kickin', wooden-soldier-slow-fallin' and between-5'6"-and5'9"-bein' and everythin'. Calling it a Christmas Spectacular is no hyperbole, my friends. It was so much fun. Radio City is huge, and it was totally decked out in wreaths and holly and mistletoe and lights and trees and it was amazing. And the Rockettes were just so FUN! I saw them a long time ago, when I was little and they came to Detroit, but I had forgotten just how much they do. My favorite might have been the tap dance number to the 12 Days of Christmas. I'm a sucker for a tap dance number. But the LIVE CAMELS at the end also hold a special place in my heart.

LIVE CAMELS. Seriously. Just hangin' out. Celebratin' the birth of Our Lord and Savior Jesus H. Christ. Ain't no thang.

Later in the week, Nicholas and I went to the opera. And let me tell you, there is nothing like a show at the Metropolitan Opera. We saw Il Trittico, which is a group of three Puccini short operas. The first two are tragedies (a man kills his wife's lover in one, and in the second, heartbreaking one, a woman who was sent to a convent for having an illegitimate child finds out that her child died and then she kills herself) but the last is a comedy and it was HIGH-LARIOUS. I love the opera. The set was mobile, and there were THREE DIFFERENT SETS. ONE FOR EACH SHOW. That's incredible. They struck and entire set and moved on a different one in twenty minutes. Beautiful. And then there was a different light design for each one! Aaaggghhhh!!!! The magic of the theatre, my friends. MAGICAL.

Last night, Nick took me to a reading of a new play at MTC. It was called Glenhawk. Sometimes I find it hard to listen to staged readings, but this one kept me engaged. The play is pretty good. It could use a rewrite and a bit of commitment to some of the character choices, but overall it was fun. And more importantly, I got to see where Nick works every day. SO LEGIT. He works in a real office. With a real desk. With a real mug of pens and pencils and a real computer and a real tray with dividers and folders and important looking papers.

Perhaps I am only in awe because I hope to never work in an office, but it was all so REAL. He has a REAL JOB. Wowwwww. Hooray Nicholas!

And that was pretty much the week.

We're getting down to our last few days here, and it hits me a little harder every single day. For a while it was easy to say, "Oh, a month longer. That's AGES." But now we're down to ten days, and I have seriously PACKED those days. I'm excited to come home for Christmas, but sad to end the best semester ever and say goodbye to the best city in the world. Such a double-edged sword (my favorite phrase as of late). Coming home a new person? Maybe. I think just more of a person. Plus also I got a Twitter while I was here. So there's that as well. Haha.

Miss you! Love always, Kelly