Wednesday, March 27, 2002


Woke up at 7am this morning thanks to construction next door...by construction I mean "pneumatic drill", and by next door I mean "three feet from the head of my bed." God bless New York for its intimacies, but there are days when you wish that everyone could give you a little more peace and room. On the other hand it is a lovely spring afternoon, and while it is a tad chilly I can't complain about the sun and crystal-hard sky, or the way I can finally type this from the garden for the first time this year, even if occasionally my thoughts are punctuated by staccato jackhammer bursts.

I started out very fatigued because I hadn't gotten to sleep until 3am after a run of the show at the Cherry Lane for about 60 people, a showcase of where we are at in the rehearsal process. It went well--the show is really shaping up, and more than shaping concerns now the piece needs running, tightening and a heightened attention to emotional details. In other words, the recipe may be correct but now there's the matter of adjusting how much from each dish we give people, and how we arrange the course of the meal. That sounds less important, but it is vital...you may like goat cheese, but if you have to eat a pound and a half of it at one sitting you won't be liking it much anymore.

The book goes to press this Friday, and we are closing up the very last minute editing...it's so final and deliberate, and it's strange to watch the book walking off to live unaltered while I continue to tune and adjust the live show. It's amazing to see how far they've diverged from one another, and see how the two different mediums play different melodies with the same source material...they've really separated.

I need to go fax some forms, something I can't do easily despite all the technology in my house, so I need to cut this short. More soon.