It’s a long travel day. I left Jan’s place around noon and drug my luggage a mere block and a half to the bus to Newark airport. Painless. Now it’s around 3 and my flight doesn’t leave for an hour. I don’t get into Louisville till 10 pm and I just realized there’s no time change. It really will be 10 hours of travel by the time I get there. But it leaves me lots of time to reflect and assimilate this experience.

It was so…significant. One of those times that you know you’ll look back on as a line drawn down the middle of your life after which you - and the way you view the world, your work, your family, your self, your existence - will be forever changed. I don’t quite know how - ask me in a year. But I’m not the same me I was when I started.

I’m so grateful for the relationships this trip engendered. Cincinnati, as a festival, was really more fun. It was more cohesive and you felt like you were in the middle of something. The people I met there will be glad to see me if I show up again. But it really was summer camp kind of relationships there. The New York festival vibe was more dispersed and I often felt like I was lurking on the perifory of the scene, not knowing how to jump in a be a visible part of it. But the friends I did meet feel more permanent. Caitlin, the Lauras and Mark, my publicist feel like they will be in my life from here on out.

Now it’s off to Louisville to care for my Mamma who has been diagnosed with lung cancer. A whole new chapter. Thanks for reading along, ya’ll. I’ll do one more entry with random pix, but this is the end of the NY Fringe stuff.

OK - we’re boarding!

Probably my last late night balcony report. The show went quite well today. Audience was good and I had a fun, quirky performance. I got so excited when I saw Deniece at the skating rink that I actually took a little tumble. Also knocked Daddy over early on. But, those were just little blips – everything went really well and the audience was with me every step of the way.

After I took my stellar crew out for a burrito. It was fun to unwind with these people who were mere strangers a couple of weeks ago, but ended up holding me in the palm of their hands. I love theatre people. I love professionals that can just take a show and run it like it’s their own. I feel good that I chose wisely and lucky that my instincts about Gregory, Kwame and Caitlin were on the nose.

Today I said goodbye to Patty and Jeff. They leave town in the morning. It was so good to spend quality time with Patty. We’ve been through so much together, but haven’t really had any casual hang time for years. She’s like a sister to me.

Ditto for Jan on all counts. She left town today, too (if you live in Manhattan and it’s August, you leave any chance you get.) I may not have many people left here from my 80’s life, but the two I got are about as good as it gets,

Saw a modern adaptation of Trojan Women by an Irish Theatre company. It was quite good but I was quite tired. It was hard for me to keep up with even a well executed updated classic.

Caitlin and I met up with Laura Poe and her man Dan after that. Laura’s show, Mothers of Invention ended tonight as well. We all walked over to the East Village to some Russian Deli for perogis. I’m now suffering some late night indigestion. Surprising it hasn’t occurred more often.

As we walked east tonight I found myself drinking in the city. Laura was apologizing for taking us so far (she could only think of one place that was open…it’s just so funny to me…so many places are open in Manhattan) Anyway, I know my time here is coming to an end and I’m just reveling in this place and time. I’m so thrilled for this opportunity.

My blog absence has been noted by several of you and I must plead spotty internet. My balcony and Mr. Default have been unreliable as late and Starbucks closes at midnight. I don’t get whistful and reflective till after that.

Now I sit in Starbucks and have been here for two hours catching up on e-mails and doing promotional stuff - reminding New York people that there’s only one more show…that sort of thing. After two hours I still haven’t gotten to the blog and I’m feeling antsy. I need to get out there. New York is slipping through my fingers.
My good friend Mareli hates the whole blogging thing. Says people spend all their time writing about where they are instead of being there. Guess I’ve been spending the past few days being here. I’ve seen some great shows. Talked to some fascinating people. Seen some really cool things.

I’ve been vascillating about going to the WTC site - Ground Zero. I could perhaps use a good cry and that will be assured there. But Laura Park went and saw a family of tourists standing before the gaping hole smiling for the camera. Smiling for the camera. She’s sobbing and they’re saying “cheese.” That’s like propping up Grandpa in his casket to get one last shot… Thats like the kind of oblivious that has other cultures hate us enough to create big holes in the ground to pose in front of.

Caitlin says to go at night to avoid that stuff. It’s lit. It’s reverent. I think tonight’s the night.

I’m on the balcony – Jan is sleeping.  It’s almost one.  My shows went well this weekend, but audience was down.  I did have an off performance on Saturday night – I think that review was stuck in my craw.  Plus, I spent the afternoon resizing all my images to fit the new projector because our fancy venue one crapped out on us.  So instead of my usual mind-numbing nothing prep, I had my head in the computer, stressing I was leaving something out (which I did!)  Also, and this sounds silly, but I didn’t take my vitamins.

Anyway, today made up for all that, as I was realigned.  Which was great because Lois and Peter Heymann were in the audience.  I met Lois and Peter Heymann in Edinburgh when they picked my show out of 1800 choices.  They were the only two people who picked my show that day.  They got a private performance.  And I gave it right to them.  At the end, they gave me a standing ovation.  I felt like we had all been on this journey together.  We kept in touch all this time and they showed up today.  So glad they saw this particular performance.  I was really on.

After the show, Peter, Lois, Caitlin and I went to a café and hung out for a while.  We had great conversation and a fun afternoon.  Nearly every day I’m spending time with people I didn’t know prior to this trip and having a wonderful time.  This is my new New York and I love it.

So one more NYC performance. I really want lots of people on Thursday.    If you are out there reading this and you haven’t been to see the show, I hope you can make it on Thursday.  If you know someone that’s here, please send them the Backstage NY review and recommend the show to them.  Thanks to all of you who have sent people.

Saw my Fringe buddy Laura’s show today at 5:15 - she’s so good! REALLY love her work. What a relief, right? Wouldn’t it suck to hang out with this person then get there and not get their work? Her show, Park-n-Ride is a narrative of her road trip from Wisconsin to LA. She does lots of different characters brilliantly and cracked me up. She has great physicality with all of it. If you are here, go see her at the Flea Theater on White Street.

I’m at Patty’s tonight on 49th between 9th and 10th. If the place looks familiar at all it’s because this is where I lived in the 80’s - yes, the four-room railroad that Bruce got in 1978 that’s lease daisy-chained to life-long friend Patty Murray. It’s a great place and I will always feel at home here. People often refer to friends as family, but Patty really truly fits that catagory. So this apartment has been in the family since 1978. (There is more where this came from … )

[This post will embrace the verbal tenant I often employ of using the word “gestalt” as much as possible and following it up with “if you will.” Also entertaining is the combination of “milieu” and “so to speak”, but they are of course, not interchangeable.]

So I didn’t end up going to the party that night – it was late and I am old and sober, so I took the train home with Laura Poe, mother of “Mothers of Invention,” an outstanding one-woman show also showing at my venue. She plays several different characters brilliantly, many of which actually happen on video while she’s offstage changing. It’s about genetically modified foods. Yeah, and it’s hilarious. Anyway, we connected over the whole one-person show gestalt, (if you will,) and she lives in Hell’s Kitchen, so it was a pretty natural connection. Here is Laura Poe mere moments after purloining a South Beach Diet Bar from a well-stocked, yet unattended Craft Service table we passed in the Village on the way to the train.
Yesterday I saw “I Couda Been a Kennedy.” It’s a real, two-act play (There is more where this came from … )

Getting ready to go a-fringing. Love this festival and the people and the city. Last night’s show was a blast, despite the near-constant ringing. Tonight I go see The Day the Universe Came Closer by Hiram Pines. I met him after my show last night. We’d been e-mailing each other about cross-promotion. When the ringing started, he got up and tried to do something about it. Kind of a chivalrous fellow performer thing.

Tonight there’s finally a party. Gotta admit Cincinnati Fringe leaves NYC in the dust when it comes to the hang. Most companies are local and they have their own deal in their own parts of town. Everything is so spread out. There’s starting to be a camaraderie with fellow one-person shows. Like, I’ve spent some time with Laura Park, who I met in LA at the Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival in 2005. We were talking and I said I lived in Burbank. She said she did comedy in a backyard in Burbank. I told her that that was my backyard. It was – March 2004 – the Spike Heels Backyard Benefit. I didn’t recognize her because I was inside getting ready for my set when she was on. She saw my show last night for the first time. I’ll not see hers till Friday. But it’s nice to have a little LA Fringe buddy.

God, I’m loving this.

A weird weird night. Firstly, I am exhausted. The show went quite well, however, there was a mysterious ringing that started about 15 minutes in. It seemed like a cell phone, but it rang literally 20-30 times without stopping. Then it would stop and start again about 5-10 minutes later. It literally rang all the way through my show. I was distracted, but not totally. I’m usually so “in” that the audience disappears and it’s just me up there behaving. But this ringing kept happening and pulling me out. People were still so into and touched. And I think I got extra sympathy points for keeping it together. But I was bummed that there was the slightest distance between me and the audience. And it took so much more energy to focus, that I was about 3 times as tired after as I usually am.

But here it’s 1:15 and I’m still going. There’s just something magical about tonight. (There is more where this came from … )

Been carrying the laptop around the apartment looking for that elusive signal to scam, but to no avail. New Yorkers are all savvy to that shit - they all have their fancy passwords that won’t let you jump on. EXCEPT Mr. “default.” If a network named “default shows up, that means someone who can’t even handle naming the signal got a wireless modem, so you know they don’t know enough to put on a password. And Mr. Default showed up when I finally brought the laptop to the balcony. So this is my workstation: And this is my view:

Just wanted to blog in before bed. The show went great. One of my best shows ever. Definitely the best first show of a festival ever. And my trusty staff was brilliant. Poor Kwame got stuck in traffic. I think he got there just as they were opening the house. I was late, too. There was some Catholic Festival in the Village so it was gridlock for days. Mary Alice and I got out of the cab and walked for about 7 blocks with my big prop case, stuffed backpack, Jan’s fabulous wrought iron/vinyl seat chair and Parents on a Stick. So, there was some adrenalin pumping by the time we got to the Center for Architecture. I did cut it close. I would’ve been late if we hadn’t hit traffic. I think I do that unconsciously to get the energy and excitement going.

I hate that I figured that out. Because it works. Now I know it’s just an elaborate covert self-manipulation, it may just loose its power. Damn my inciteful self-analysis!!!! (There is more where this came from … )