There's nothing quite like a week in New York to remind one that life is grand - especially if one is there for the business of the theatre.
My week started on Monday, September 17 with Black Theatre Network mixer at B. Smith's restaurant on Restaurant Row (great calamari!). Hosted by incoming BNT president Michael Dinwiddie, this extraordinary event brought together about 70 actors, directors, producers, playwrights, dramaturgs, and stage managers from NYC's brilliant African American theatre community. I even got to shake hands with the incomparable André De Shields and give an AAPEX award to superstar Petronia Paley.
The next morning I ran up to ASCAP to talk musical theatre with Michael Kerker, then back down to E. 15th Street to rehearse LA VIE EN ROSE with my former cabaret partner Topaz for our appearance that evening in Roxie Roger's METROPOLITAN ROOM gig - and before the show spent an hour interviewing Metropolitan Room's manager Bernie Furshpan. Despite flash flood and tornado warnings, we played to a full house and the audience's call "Encore" pinned the tail on that donkey!
After the show, my publicist Penny Landau grabbed me and we ran off to another fabulous NYC club, THE IRIDIUM, where my mind was blown by an awesome performer named Terese Genecco, who sounds a lot like Tony Bennett and delivered a kind of 50s style floorshow that I thought only exists in daydreams.
The rest of the week I bounced up and down Manhattan like it was a pinball machine, meeting with such folks as 96 year old Anita Velez Mitchell (who took over for Chita Rivera in WEST SIDE STORY), and film makers Claire Panke (www.lightyearsfilm.com) and Melissa Maxwell whose film FETUS ENVY is on the bill for the ArtLightenment Film Festival back here in Nashville.
The week ended on Friday with my friend, actress Arlene Love, reciting THE RAVEN over breakfast in the diner at the corner of 2nd Avenue and 23rd Street.
Only in New York, folks.
Jaz Dorsey
The Nashville Dramaturgy Project
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