Three days ago Richard hosted a reception for his high school alma mater, Brooklyn’s prestigious Poly Prep school. He was there from 5th grade till college (He then went to the University of Michigan.) He loved his prep school and awhile back gave the lead gift to build the Richard Perry Theatre, a state of the art theatre on campus. Meryl Streep made her directorial debut there and all her children went to Poly Prep. I will see the school at the end of April when I will accompany Richard to his 50th reunion. I have encouraged him to go. I love reunions; love seeing people I knew so intimately for so many years, so many years ago.  I figure it will be the same for Richard and maybe I’ll learn something about him, as well, because I find it’s a way to learn about yourself, be reminded of who you were and perhaps some insight into who you’ve become…and who your fellow classmates have become. I find it is always surprising.

One of Richard’s classmates was Richard Rosenberg with whom he formed a doo wop singing group, first called The Legends and then The Escorts. I just about fainted when, awhile ago, I was bragging that I knew a song in Latin and began singing Gaudeamus Igitur when Richard then began singing along with me and then put on an old LP of The Escorts on which they sang a doo wop version of the Latin song!!! OMG! I may sing it with them at the reunion if we get any chance to rehearse.

The reunion was a big success, needless to say.

Next to Richard is the former Headmaster, Bill Williams, then another alum, Nick Schenck. In front of NIck is the current headmaster, David Harmon

Richard, me, Nick Schenck and Richard Rosenberg

Last night we had a little party with the amazingly special Catherine Keener, documentary filmmaker, Amy Berg, who made the extraordinarily powerful documentary, “Deliver Us From Evil,” about a pedophile Catholic priest, Samantha Mathis, who played my daughter in “33 Variations” on Broadway and who I adore, and producer Sandy Stern who is becoming a dear friend and, hopefully we will work together. Alas, I forgot to take any pictures!!
 
It was a really fun night and ended early cause I had to get up this morning and do a photo shoot with Matthew Rolston for the covers of my new DVDs. I so adore working with Matthew. He is kind, quick, talented and the photos really look good. It may seem strange to you that the DVDs won’t come out till next January and yet we’re doing all this now but it may be the only time I get to do it—so at least it’s out of the way. I’ve put more lighter highlights in my hair and I think It’s better. The all-dark brown got a little helmety.

What else? That’s about it. The pollen-filled L.A. Air that has got me feeling tired and ill has finally blown over and I’m back to normal. Tomorrow we go to New York where I will rehearse the narration of the “Grapes of Wrath” opera that is being performed one night only with symphony orchestra and chorale (and Christine Ebersole!!!!) at Carnegie Hall. I’m excited. So many people I love will be there: Eve Ensler, Pat Mitchell, Annette Tauper and her husband, Joe Allen (Richard’s college roommate), my daughter-in-law’s parents, Dee and Boswell Bent, Roger Freidman, Kenny Vance, Jean Doumanian, Stan Dragotti, Patricia Bosworth, Hilton Als, Nat Bickford, Leslie Stahl, Eva and Yoel Haller…and Catherine Keener!!! What fun it will be.

I will take photos of it all, including the 3 days of rehearsals between Saturday and Monday night.

See You Next Time.

Samantha Mathis, who played my daughter in last year’s Broadway play, “33 Variations”, and her friend, producer Sandy Stern, came to dinner with Richard and me at the Chateau Marmont. Rosanna Arquette, her date, Todd Morgan, stopped by before we all went on to a party honoring Oscar nominated director (Hurt Locker), Kathryn Bigelow. Some of the crew of “Precious” stopped our table by as well: director Lee Daniels and Lenny Kravitz.

Producer Sandy Stern, Samantha Mathis, Rosanna Arquette, Lenny Kravitz, Richard, Lee Daniels director of "Precious", and Todd Morgan

with Kathryn Bigelow. That's my friend, Forest WhItaker, behind us

me with Rosanna and "Twilight" director Catherine Hardwicke

I’ve been writing this over the course of today. Here’s how it started:

It was fun having Oprah sitting right next to us-Samantha Mathis, Susan Kellerman and me. Gayle King and her daughter were with Oprah. Both of us were sobbing at the end and I had to pass her tissues. It’s a truly powerful and important play about the war in the Congo and what it has done/is doing to women. This is what Eve Ensler’s organization, V-Day: Until the Violence Stops, is focusing on. In fact, Eve is in east Congo now, at the hospital where Dr. Mugwege receives the raped and brutalized women and sews them up. V-Day has recently broken ground on the ‘village’ we are erecting to house 100 women. There are so many women flooding into the hospital they aren’t able to stay and completely heal, so the village will provide a safe place next to the hospital for further physical and emotional healing. They will receive therapy and learn microentreprenurial skills. Some of the actors in “Ruined” saw Eve when she testified about the Congo in Washington D.C. recently.

Phylicia Rashad’s daughter is in the play, her Broadway debut. She is brilliant-beautiful and talented (as is her mother). She can sing like a dream, too. This is a must see play! Derek McLane, who did sets for “33 Variations” and is nominated for a Tony for them also did “Ruined”-again, brilliantly

I asked Oprah to follow my tweets and she said she would. I follow her. I was the second person she interviewed for her “O” magazine. It was during that interview that I realized I had to write my memoirs. I told Oprah that last night.

Oprah and fabulous actor in “Ruined” Simon Shabantu Kashama

Back stage after “Ruined” with the cast, Samantha, Susan, Oprah, and I am there, behind somewhere.

Samatha, Susan and I had dinner after at Trattoria del Arte and closed the place down.

Don’t we look happy?

I am discombobulated today. Partly because I took a pain pill last night cause my knee hurts so bad. The pill has thrown me for a loop. Went to see “Reasons to Be Pretty” by myself this afternoon. Unfortunately Thomas Sadoski, who was nominated for a Tony, was replaced by his (very good) understudy. I was hoping to see him but I was told his wife fell and cut her head and he was with her in the emergency room. Good priorities. Still, I found the play riveting. Strange. Not easy. But riveting.

I took pictures of people taking pictures of me in front of my Times Square hotel as I waited for my friend, Lisa Birnbach to arrive and pick me up. It’s funny cause normally I go around anonymously. Then I went with Lisa to the Tony cocktail party at which Phyllis Newman was honored. The Phyllis Newman Women’s Health Care Center is one of the beneficiaries of Broadway Cares. I’ve known Phyllis from decades ago. She and Adolph Greene were close friends of my fathers. Zach Grenier (my beloved Beethoven, also a Tony nominee) was there, and Moises Kaufman, our writer/director, and Roger Friedman and Michelle Lee and Lucy Arnez and Oscar Eustis, Director of the Joe Papp Public Theatre and many other friends. It was fun and, once again, I felt embraced by this wonderful Broadway community.

After that, Lisa and I saw “The Norman Conquests: Round and Round the Garden,” the third in the trilogy. I loved it and wished I had seen all three. Scott Peacock and Alice Waters sat right behind us. Scott’s going to be at the Tonys tomorrow. A cheering section.

To end the day we had dinner with Jeff Daniels, his wife Kathleen whom I had not met before and who is smart and lovely as I would have expected and Jeff’s manager and friend, Paul Martino. We’re all looking forward to the swag tomorrow at the Tony rehearsal. It was Jeff who first told me about swag. Jeff and the others in “God of Carnage” have all re-upped for continuing the play in the fall after a 6 week break. I wasn’t sure they would but, clearly, having a good, reliable and fun job to count on till the year’s end is not to be sneezed at-not in these times.

Rehearsal is fairly early so I’m off to bed. I still dream about the play and still feel the Galapagos ship rolling under me. I’ve probably forgotten a lot of stuff from today but too bad. I’m pooped.

See you next time.

Boy did we have fun last night! I didn’t know that so many folks from the cast and crew would come to Sardi’s for the unveiling of my portrait. As you may know (or not) the walls of Sardi’s are covered with portraits of Broadway actors. Nowadays they are portraits. In former times, they were caricatures. View the difference between my portrait and my father’s caricature.

The owner of Sardi’s, Max Klimavicius, threw a fabulous party for us. I was intending to go home early–after all I was up at 6am yesterday to leave Montreal. But I couldn’t tear myself away. It’s not often that all of us get a chance to chill and share stories.

My dear friend, Robert Osborne, who hosts the Turner Classic Movie channel was there looking dashing. He has lost a good bit of weight and it really becomes him.

My portrait (photo: Bruce Glikas)

Standing in Sardi’s next to Dad’s caricature (photo: Bruce Glikas)

Dick Pollak, Diane Walsh, Me, Cletus Karamon and Melissa Spengler. Cletus is the “Production Electrician” on “33 Variations”. (photo: Bruce Glikas)

That’s my agent, Joe Machota in the middle. Pretty good looking guy, yes? (photo: Bruce Glikas)

Our Producer, David Binder, Don Amendolia with Tulea, Samantha Mathis, Me, Susan Kellerman, Diane Walsh our pianist, and Linda Marvel, our stage manager on either side of my newly inaugurated portrait. (click photo to enlarge. Photo: Bruce Glikas)

My portrait and my dad’s. Hmm. Guess I am happier (Photo: Bruce Glikas)

Don and Tulea (Photo: Bruce Glikas)

Susan Kellerman and Jeff LaHoste, 20 year partner of Moises Kaufman. (Photo: Bruce Glikas)

With Dr. Barry Kohn. He’s is the doctor who treats actors pro bono whom I have blogged about in the past. (Photo: Bruce Glikas)

Michael Winther, Linda and Samantha (Photo: Bruce Glikas)

Sardi’s owner, Max Klimavicius and me with newly unveiled portrait (Photo: Bruce Glikas)

With Michael Winther. He, by the way, is responsible for “33 Variations” winning the Broadway Cares skit and is about the nicest person one could ever meet. Played one of the husbands in “Mama Mia,” fantastic singer. His new CD is “Song’s From An Unmade Bed.” Right now he is understudying Beethoven and Diabelli. (Photo: Bruce Glikas)

We had a good matinee today. Tonight my beloved friend and Zen teacher, Roshi Joan Halifax is coming. I’ve been waiting for this since the beginning. For me, this play is very Zen. Besides, one of the things Joan focuses her attention on (and her writing and teaching) is death and dying. She spends much time with the dying and I have learned a lot about this from her. One of my bloggers asked if in my next book on aging I intend to also focus on death and she sent me some suggested reading. I have read what she recommended and much more and, you bet, I intend to focus on death. I do not like the way we in the United States tend to avoid any discussion of death. We seem to want to deny our mortality or at least not be reminded of it. All cultures are not like this. I think, especially, of Mexico where they seem to include the presence of death even in their festivals. I think our denial robs us of living a meaningful life. Just as noise gives meaning to silence and sadness gives meaning to happiness, so death gives meaning to life. I try to stare death in the face, make it my friend and ally. I envision my dying–sort of like rehearsing for it. I want to be intentional about my dying just as I try to be intentional about my living. The dead and the living are woven together in this play and, for me, the final minuet says to me that no one really dies. We live on in other’s hearts and prayers and imaginations. Just as the cells that make up our bodies are composed of cells that have existed for eons, part of the stars, so, for me, we maintain a presence after our death–an energetic, cellular presence. Moises has called this up in this play and it speaks deeply to me just as, I think, it will to Joan.

Joan Halifax (photo: Michael Rudd)

After the play, Joan and I and another friend of hers will go to dinner. We have a lot of catching up to do. I will dedicate my performance tonight to her.

Now for my between-shows nap.

See you next time

Moises came to the show sunday night and today he sent me his notes. Great!! Just what I needed to rein me in and remind me of the importance of rigor.

The cast, along with Moises and Jeff, had a great party after that Sunday show. We’d been planning it for over a month and it was well worth it. We started at Samantha’s apartment on what must be the best, most charming street in New York–down in east Village. It’s an old building inhabited at one time by Mark Twain. Her walk up has 15 foot high ceilings, crown molding and an old carved marble mantle. I really liked being in Samantha’s space. It suits her to a tee, from the minimalistic furnishing to the huge abstract oil paintings she inherited from her mother, to her dog–a rescue that looks like a Rhodesian Ridgeback. An Anita O’Day cd was playing and Diane Walsh’s very funny husband, Dick (a former editor of “The Nation“) said to Sam, “it’s reassuring that someone your age still listens to this music.” After beginning to party there we moved on to the Chinatown Brasserie (I know, it sounds like an oxymoron) where we had our own room and, thanks to Don’s forsight, the menu was all pre-ordered. How good it is, how cathartic at the end of a long week, to laugh so hard you’re doubled over.

Yesterday I went back to the throat doc, had new larynx-porn print outs made which showed my throat is hunky dory but not my head so I’m on a new anti-biotic. Like anyone should care and I have to ask myself why I even go into these things. I guess I feel guilty for not blogging yesterday and worried I don’t have enough to write about.

Learned yesterday when I woke up that “33 variations” has received nominations for 5 Outer Circle Critics Awards including the play itself, Moises, Zach as Beethoven, the set and the lighting. Hooray!!

Last night I received the Theatre Artist Award at the Chairman’s gala of the National Corporate Theatre Fund Elaine Stritch presented it to me after making an hillarious speech and singing me a song. What a trooper. She’d driven 2 days from Detroit to be at this event. She comes from Detroit and was there doing a benefit for the preservation of some historic park or landmark. I like that, like Jeff Daniels, her heart is there, feeling the pain of her home state. Her memory astounded me. She remembered every single time we have met over the decades. What would “monster-n-law” have been without her dynamic appearance as my mother at the end, reminding me that I had once been reduced to drinking red wine out of a box!

For those who don’t know, the National Corporate Theatre Fund provides support for non-profit theatres around the country… something my father was a real believer in.

Alas, I neglected to take any pictures of the cast party or last nights awards. I’ll try to get some of Elaine and me in tomorrow’s blog.

See you next time.

Had a fun time with Sally Field and my Atlanta friends, Helen and Laura. I enjoy the lasting ties I have made with people from Atlanta, which has been my home for only 18 years. Sally and I just soaked each other up-we always have so much catching up to do about our family lives (she is a very involved mother and grandmother) and our acting lives. I could see all over her face how happy she is for me that I am in a strong, hit show and that I am really happy doing this. She reminded me of those 15 years when I thought I’d left the business forever. “See, Jane! You really are an actor!!” For complex reasons, I feel very close to her even though we don’t see each other that often. But when we do, it gets intense real quick. Fun!

So, I said that today I’d write about my fellow actors. I have come to really love and appreciate actors from doing this play with these seasoned performers. They’re not in it for fame or money. It’s in their blood and bones. They are totally reliable, steadfast, loving, funny and sooooo talented. I know this is one of the things that drew my Dad to theatre.

I have the great pleasure of standing next to Don Amendolia every night before the show starts. Both of us are usually in our places in the wings before places are even called. I am dressed in a sharp contemporary suit and he, as a rising music publisher in the mid-1800s, is dressed in a snappy, velvet jacket and ruffled shirt. Two different centuries side by side about to appear on stage together. It is his character, Anton Diabelli, who wrote the original waltz that inspired Beethoven to write his 33 variations. For 200 years Diabelli’s waltz was considered mediocre and my character, the musicologist Dr Katherine Brandt, is obsessed to find out and write a monograph about why Beethoven did this at the end of his life when he was going deaf and was ill and writing his most famous, important works-the Ninth Symphony and the Mass-why devote 3 years to all those variations on a mediocre waltz.

Don’s home is in New Jersey but right now, for this run, he’s here in the city. He can sing (beautifully), dance and do many styles of acting. In this play he is wonderfully over-the-top as he pantomimes his frustrations to Beethoven who is going deaf. I am often in the wings waiting for an entrance, watching the scenes and Don always makes me laugh. On top of all that, Don is also a director.

But being able to stand next to him every night before the show starts is a real pleasure-and reassuring. He’s a glass-half-full kind of guy, a perfect antidote to my tendency to fret about how the house (audience) looks, etc. He seems to almost chomp at the bit so eager is he to get out on stage. “Oh, I’m going to have such a good time tonight!” Like me, he likes to know who’s in the audience and as I can’t see as well as he can and am always complaining that I can’t find a particular friend or celebrity, he gave me some opera glasses last night and I had a ball scanning the crowd. (This totally shocked Sally who doesn’t like knowing who is out there.)

Right before the house lights go down, we look across the stage and there, regular as clockwork, silhouetted against a blueish light, is Colin Hanks, waving overhead to us. Sometimes Samantha is there to. But always Colin. And right before we go on, Don and I whisper “En bocca del Luppo” to each other: “In the mouth of the wolf.” The opera’s equilvalent to “Break a leg. We haven’t missed this little routine once in the 2 months we’ve been performing.

At the top of the second act, I make an entrance from back stage center and walk slowly down to the footlights. I’m usually in my place early and so most of the other actors cross behind me to get into their positions. First Don with an upbeat comment about how great the audience is or what a fun time he’s having. I tell you, I kvell at the sheer joy he derives from his profession. It’s contagious. Then comes Colin, squeezing behind me (it’s a narrow space) who usually whispers, “See you in Bonn,” because in the second act that’s where he has come so he can be of help to my daughter (Samantha Mathis). Colin plays a male nurse. Last, comes Susan Kellerman who plays Gertie, the keeper of Beethoven’s archives in Bonn. She gently pats my shoulder as she passes and says “Give ‘em hell” or “You go girl.” (Usually in her character’s German accent)

There are some scenes that I’m not in but that I get to watch from off-stage while I wait to make an entrance. I try to get there early so I can watch most of the scene and see the different audience responses. It’s amazing how very different they can be and how that doesn’t necessarily predict what the curtain call will be like-on their feet cheering or more subdued. There are some scenes that make me laugh so hard I’m afraid the audience can hear me.

Like when Samantha and Colin bump into each other early in the play while they’re waiting to get their computers repairs. Or the scene in the second act when Susan tells Samantha she wants to find me a male prostitute, “I think he should be a Turkish man, zey are very gut with women. Zay take zere time.”

That’s all for now. I’m going to nap with Tulea. Oh yes, turns out I lent “Man on Wire” to Don and he forgot to return it so today the kids and I watched “Himalayas”, an award winning movie that showed the terrain I will trekking through in a year and a half. I dropped the kids back off with their mother who is in a media training session at the Women’s Media Center. When we left, my apartment looked like a cyclone hit it due to the grandkid’s fondness for making forts using every pillow, bolster and blanket in the place. “Man on Wire” will have to wait till Sunday.

See you next time