Sweet nothings.
Life, like peppermint candy, comes in full circles.
Today, I was indulging in a Starbucks Peppermint White Mocha on what happens to be my birthday, and the confluence of these two events sent my thoughts leaping backward through time on a candy-coated trail of remembrances.
A little less than a year ago, my wintertime Starbucks obession was the Gingerbread Latte. I would grab one every day on my way to a workshop of The Glorious Ones, where I watched Graciela Danielle turn actors into trees in a rehearsal studio in Chelsea. Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, the authors of the show, had invited me into the workshop, since they were mentoring me through the Dramatists Guild.
Pretty much every day, I'd come in from the cold with my Gingerbread Latte, and, before rehearsal started, I'd take out my notebook and scribble some lyrics bouncing in my head from the project I was writing under Lynn & Stephen's guidance. A quick glimpse back at my notebook reveals the following snippet:
Sometimes I wish I were invisible
Able to vanish without quite vanishing.
Which never made it into the show, except to inform this:
The city tends to make me feel invisible.
Which, of all the superpowers,
Is the one I'd like to have,
But it isn't very handy
When you're trying to get noticed
As a pioneer of visual art.
But I digress.
So, tonight, as my Birthday Present To Myself, I have tickets to see The Glorious Ones in production up at Lincoln Center, where I'll get to see those actors turn into trees with costumes and lighting and sets! And, next week, I'm headed out to see the first production of Ordinary Days, the show that, less than a year ago, was nothing but scribbles in a notebook and notes in my head.
This all brings me back to my first birthday after graduating from college. I came home, tipsy from a night of partying, to a message on my answering machine from Lynn Ahrens. I was drunk and 22; needless to say, I freaked out.
A few weeks before, at the suggestion of a friend, I had participated in a series of master classes at the now-defunct Musical Theatre Works. At one class, I presented a couple songs for Lynn and Stephen. After the class, I dashed out to use the bathroom, but Lynn grabbed me by the arm before I could make it out the door. She wanted a CD and my phone number; I had both, so I gave them to her.
And then, her phone call, on my birhtday, which introduced me to the musical theater producer up at Lincoln Center, which, tonight, is presenting Lynn and Stephen's latest, which I'm going to see for my birthday, after drinking a Peppermint White Mocha, the winter speciality from Starbucks, whose other winter specialty is the Gingerbread Latte, which I drank last year, on my way to the workshop of Lynn and Stephen's latest, which I'm going to see tonight, for my birthday.
Whew.
I think I've forgotten where I was going with all of this.
Perhaps, like all full circles, this post has no point.
(Rim shot.)
Today, I was indulging in a Starbucks Peppermint White Mocha on what happens to be my birthday, and the confluence of these two events sent my thoughts leaping backward through time on a candy-coated trail of remembrances.
A little less than a year ago, my wintertime Starbucks obession was the Gingerbread Latte. I would grab one every day on my way to a workshop of The Glorious Ones, where I watched Graciela Danielle turn actors into trees in a rehearsal studio in Chelsea. Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty, the authors of the show, had invited me into the workshop, since they were mentoring me through the Dramatists Guild.
Pretty much every day, I'd come in from the cold with my Gingerbread Latte, and, before rehearsal started, I'd take out my notebook and scribble some lyrics bouncing in my head from the project I was writing under Lynn & Stephen's guidance. A quick glimpse back at my notebook reveals the following snippet:
Sometimes I wish I were invisible
Able to vanish without quite vanishing.
Which never made it into the show, except to inform this:
The city tends to make me feel invisible.
Which, of all the superpowers,
Is the one I'd like to have,
But it isn't very handy
When you're trying to get noticed
As a pioneer of visual art.
But I digress.
So, tonight, as my Birthday Present To Myself, I have tickets to see The Glorious Ones in production up at Lincoln Center, where I'll get to see those actors turn into trees with costumes and lighting and sets! And, next week, I'm headed out to see the first production of Ordinary Days, the show that, less than a year ago, was nothing but scribbles in a notebook and notes in my head.
This all brings me back to my first birthday after graduating from college. I came home, tipsy from a night of partying, to a message on my answering machine from Lynn Ahrens. I was drunk and 22; needless to say, I freaked out.
A few weeks before, at the suggestion of a friend, I had participated in a series of master classes at the now-defunct Musical Theatre Works. At one class, I presented a couple songs for Lynn and Stephen. After the class, I dashed out to use the bathroom, but Lynn grabbed me by the arm before I could make it out the door. She wanted a CD and my phone number; I had both, so I gave them to her.
And then, her phone call, on my birhtday, which introduced me to the musical theater producer up at Lincoln Center, which, tonight, is presenting Lynn and Stephen's latest, which I'm going to see for my birthday, after drinking a Peppermint White Mocha, the winter speciality from Starbucks, whose other winter specialty is the Gingerbread Latte, which I drank last year, on my way to the workshop of Lynn and Stephen's latest, which I'm going to see tonight, for my birthday.
Whew.
I think I've forgotten where I was going with all of this.
Perhaps, like all full circles, this post has no point.
(Rim shot.)
posted by Adam at 3:33 PM
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