from the EU to the BTP

so it's been almost three months since my last post. sigh. i've never been known for being terribly consistent. it's one of my Flaws. and i'm Proud of it. yeah, that's it.

the short of it is this: we finished our experience in russia with a bang, performing in the final two weeks in three different shows, Zoya's Apartment, and two plays made up of scenes from War & Peace.

we flew to zurich, and my buds aaron, adel, and tim joined me in renting a car and having crazy sexy man-time as we drove all over europe. well not all over, but to prague and amsterdam.

it's too bad i didn't blog about those experiences, because they were truly incredible. but does anybody really enjoy reading about other people's european travels?

after europe i joined family in florida because my grandma kupfrian passed away. very sad, but it was fantastic to get the family together. we only manage it at weddings and funerals anymore. grandma lived a long life and got to see the world. she was lucky.

after spending much of june in fort worth with pop, i embarked three weeks ago on my tenth session of the broadway theatre project. you can see my delightful students above.

it was an amazing time. BTP never fails to be a creatively energizing and fulfilling time. the faculty is like a family, and the students bowl you over with talent and spirit.

and each summer i meet a handful of people that it's clear will be coming into my life to stay. this one was no different.

and these days i sit on pins and needles as i wait for my niece to be born. any day now! for emily, it will be not a day too soon.

i'm so lucky to live such a varied and interesting life, filled with amazing people. thanks to everyone!

ex-leningrad

the latest gazette sent to the A.R.T. community:


THE COCK'S GAZETTE 5-4-06

A huge hello from sunny, sweltering Moscow!

The class of 2007 is well into their third and final month of Russian living and it's hard to believe it's gone by so fast.

Yesterday the night train from St. Petersburg arrived in Moscow during morning rush hour, and we all emerged dazed, sweaty, sore, and smiling. Petersburg, we all agree, is a truly amazing place. We had incredible weather, and spent our days wandering the city, sightseeing, taking tours on water taxis and on foot, eating, drinking, meeting people, and slack-jawedly shuffling through the enormous, labyrinthine Hermitage museum.

There is nothing like the Hermitage, certainly nothing I've ever seen. It's like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, only for art- room after room, filled with Picasso, Rembrandt, Gaugin, Van Gogh, Michelangelo, Kandinsky, Monet- and then there's the rooms themselves, most of them stunning works of art in their own right: every step on intricately designed inlaid wooden patterns, every square ceiling and wall panel turned into a painted portrait, landscape, design, or else tiled mosaic, or sculpted, or gilded and sprouting columns and chandeliers on steroids. Each room bigger, longer, taller than the last. And still too much art. There's art in stairwells, in the lobby, by the coat check, in the cafe. If you spent one minute looking at every work of art, you'd be in the Hermitage for over 11 years.

The hostel was crowded but totally serviceable- we were hardly ever there. We also saw the huge St. Isaac's cathedral, the absolutely shocking Church on Spilled Blood (looks like it's made of candy), Figaro at the Mariinsky theatre, and the rocky 'beaches' around the fortress where an incredible assortment of people, who are, let's just say, well into the twilight of their lives, barely dressed, bikinis and thongs just dropping off of them, sunbathing against the wall or the hot rocks, as huge chunks of ice floated by on the river.

We're back, enjoying classes, but reluctantly showing up for them since the weather is so amazing, and it's do or die time for War and Peace. The show is going to be truly unique- not just scenes, but stylized pieces of a novel- complete with author's text and non-realistic staging.

We have more Zoyas, at least four, with a potential for a fifth nutty final blowout performance in an alternate space. The suffering of the day is due to two of our performances being switched at the last minute to different days, in one easy motion preventing Caroline's and Jackie's families, who made the many thousand mile trip, from seeing their daughters perform. It really sucks for them, but there's nothing to be done; we are enjoying popularity here and our shows are sold out. To MXAT Katia and Tolya's credit, we worked for several hours trying to figure out solutions- there just are none.

We move about Moscow now like old hands- taking the metro without blinking an eye, being adventurous, and even Tim can formulate a real sentence in Russian now! Hehe. He gets the extrovert award- he can make friends with someone in the time that it takes him to buy a bottle of water from them.

Life is good: we're learning a lot and in great spirits. We don't deny, however, a yearning for summer. We'll be back before we know it.

All our best from Russia,
Neil

gazettes

More of the Cock's Gazette, my newsletter to the A.R.T. community while in Moscow:

First, an excerpt from The Cock's Gazette 3-31-06:

Greetings from lovely Moscow!

Russia continues to ravage the apparently weak immunse systems of the class of 2007, but spirits remain high, much in the manner of soldiers bonding during an overseas conflict.

We've had three more awesome runs of Zoya's Apartment, two for sold-out crowds, and one for our beleaguered tech crew as they re-wrote the light cues for the show. We've noticed in our clinical study that 85% of the audience in Moscow for American grad student plays are women aged 18-25. An oddity, but you won't find me complaining.

Matt did the last performance with a fever- many thought it was one of his best shows. Maybe a new advanced acting technique? Henry has had a fever for the past three days, and went to the doctor today for pills. Kristen has been under the weather for a few days too with some sort of stomach virus. Several others have colds, including me.

This week we went on a delightful field trip to Leo Tolstoy's Moscow estate where everything is apparently 'just where he left it.' We walked around in funny slippers and learned that Tolstoy's hobbies were playing chess, composing music, and screwing his serfs. In all seriousness, the place was fascinating, and quite modest for an estate. In his later years Tolstoy devoutly believed in doing for himself, and that using servants only lead to moral corruption. Tomorrow we take a bus (four hours each way) to Yasni Palayani, his country estate, and the place in which he wrote War and Peace. We were assigned roles and scenes today from the novel, and now with the help of the dramaturgs, we will cobble together scripts.

And now, today's Cock's Gazette:

THE COCK'S GAZETTE 4-18-06

The weathered, beaten, bonded band of brothers and sisters that is the A.R.T. class of 2007 has finally made it over the 'Moscow hump.' With over half of our Russian adventure completed, we finally have the confidence to saunter up and down Tverskaya as if we own the place, unafraid of the Militsia with their white nightsticks, the gangs of skinheads that according to the Moscow times are wreaking havoc everywhere, and the stumbling drunks that we see even at nine A.M.

We are enjoying the ongoing rehearsals for War and Peace, although we feel a bit schizophrenic with two directors: Marina the calm, measured, steady director of few words, and Victor, the manic, overexcited director with more words than any man needs and a cell phone that rings every five minutes.

We still seem to be under some sort of injurious curse that sends us reliably to the hospital every week. This week it was poor Caroline who fell in the shower and bruised the big bone in her forearm. Jackie is still limping from her tendonitis-ridden ankle, but she is well enough to perform in Zoya. Katia had to make another trip to the hospital this week thanks to her infected sinus. We've had more colds and stomach viruses, but, at present, those seem to have faded away.

We continue to take a beating from the sadistic Bank of America- most of us have had our debit cards blocked as many as four times now, each time requiring us to call and have it unblocked, each time listening to the promises that 'it won't happen again.' A few, including myself, have voiced their plan to change banks upon return to the states. B of A might be the most convenient in Cambridge, but it's the worst choice for Russia.

Zoya proceeds apace with something like 5 shows left- we've had full houses every time, as well as lengthy curtain calls. We miss Sasha.

Some have asked about the fate of the cruel 'Coat Check Guy,' and all I can say is this: a very FBI/KGB-surveillance-looking large black and white photo of the man was given to Tolya. Tolya smiled grimly upon receipt and promised: "He weel be pah-nished." My hands are clean.

We had quite a bit of fun last week as Aaron's father insisted on providing him with a proper Passover seder. Two huge plastic crates were FedExed to Moscow. It took Aaron and our lovely angel Anya an entire day, many thousands of rubles, and many hundreds of American dollars in bribes to get the crates released and taken home. Still, there was no way we could have expected the kind of seder we had. Aaron and Brian's room was cleaned out, and in it set up two long tables, dressed in festive decoration. Almost our entire class was present, as well as many of the O'Neill students, Anya, Adam (our translator and a member of Studio Six), and several Russians. What followed were several hours filled with celebration, singing, eating, ritual, and lots of Hebrew and Yiddish. It was an amazing time, filled with laughter and tears, and lots of love. Unfortunately there was also sparse attendance at classes the next morning which got us in trouble with our teachers. (This is the only time this has happened Julia, I promise!)

Classmates can reliably be seen on the computer at the dorm perusing the webpage of the class of 2006. We think about them and hope their showcases have been awesome so far.

All our best from Russia,
Neil

sea of blue camo

it's sort of an odd feeling, saturday afternoon, sitting in this internet cafe surrounded by my classmates (shakespeare class canceled). we could be in the states. although the dance music that's being pumped in over our heads (and has the russians nearby bopping) features a female singer who, in English, is announcing 'motherfu&#er' and 'lick my a$$' in a nonstop loop.

theatre-going has been awesome since my coat check debacle at the satirikon. apparently, our complaints about the guy trickled down. tolya, our mentor here, is great friends with the head of the satirikon. the result is now, when we go, if they see we're american, they make us do our own coat-checking, way over on the side, at the empty coat check booth. pretty fun. can't tell if it feels like more discrimination or liberation!

i'm going there tonight to see shakespeare's Richard III, which several classmates have seen and said is really incredible.

normally saturday morning walks to class are great because the city empties out on the weekends as everybody goes to the country. but, this morning, in preparation for a protest organized by the communist party, we walked past 600+ police officers, military police, and soldiers. it was a sea of blue camo, and a little disconcerting. one troop of guys was much larger than the others. we're talking huge men. and they were following an older, grizzled general-type, complete with the big cigar hanging from his mouth. love it.

not much else to report- homesick, but still having a great time. missing everyone.

internet cafe

testing to see if this works

internet cafe

testing to see if this works

sour grapes

so tonight i had my first officially terrible night in moscow. my classmate cheryl and i were the envy of the class, having won the lottery for two available tickets to see 'cosmetics of the enemy,' a critically lauded show at the satirikon theatre. the show stars our acting teacher from the summer, roman kozak, who is just about a household name here in russia. i saw him on tv the other day!

we got out of rehearsal late and had to hustle to get to the theatre on time. we took the metro, my first time, and it is virtually indistinguishable from the subway in new york. we got to the theatre after a couple mile walk, about five minutes late. luckily, the show hadn't started. we dropped our coats off at the coat check, and hustled in to two free seats.

the show was virtually impossible to enjoy. it was a wordy, witty play, and, of course, in russian. everyone around me was having a great time, laughing a lot, and all the jokes were beyond me, because i didn't speak the language. there was no set change, no intermission, just 2+ hours of words.

it was fun though, to see my teacher, and he was called out four times for extra curtain calls. on the last one, i was down at the lip of the stage, and managed to hand some flowers to him personally.

the trouble happened out in the lobby. i took cheryl's number and waited in line for our coats. i was pretty quick, and got in the line early. when i got to the desk, the guy spouted something at me in russian and took the number from the person behind me. he ignored me for five minutes. i became more aggressive, getting his attention and saying 'isviniti pazhalsta' which is russian for excuse me, please, AND you're welcome. he laughed at me, and continued to smirk and handle all the people around me. i stood there for twenty+ minutes, while he laughed at me, refused to take my number, and made fun of me to his coworkers and some of the people picking up their coats. the theatre held many hundred people, and most had their coats and were gone by the time he gave our coats to cheryl, who had to physically prevent me from hopping the counter and getting our coats ourselves. it was absolutely humiliating, and there was nothing i could do.

after i missed the bus thanks to the coat check jerk, cheryl and i caught the next one and made it home. i found out once here that the exact same guy had done the exact same thing to my classmate nikki three nights ago. it's only because we're american, and it's absolutely appalling to me!

to russia's credit, everybody here has been amazing with the exception of this coat check bully and one of the cashiers at the MXAT cafeteria who also has a problem with americans. i haven't felt picked on and humiliated like this since i was in middle school and used to be called 'faggot' and beat up because i danced ballet. i'm still boiling inside. i'd like to be more easygoing- the type who doesn't let an idiot like that bother him, but i still have ground to cover before i get there.

meanwhile, tomorrow i'm gonna exploit my connections in moscow to try to get this kid fired! maybe i'll feel better then!

yours in moscow,
neil

TOCKA and the canadian alcoholic

tonight was a fun night in moscow- in the late afternoon i was in the early rehearsal stages of war and peace, which we'll be presenting here in may and at school in the fall. right now we're doing etudes, in which we riff imaginatively on the work. today, in several of my classmates' etudes, i got to die down a flight of steps, shoot a man in the back, wrestle a woman into a chair and throw an US Weekly at her, and dance at a ball.

afterwards, my classmates beef, merritt, and i met with a pair of russian film producers who want us to do some voice over work on a film that they're editing. it's just replacement work, filling in for messed up audio tracks, but exciting nonetheless. the film stars the director of the play we're doing in rep here, zoya's apartment, and has the working title of 'the canadian alcoholic.'

we left the meeting, grabbed sandwiches on the street, and inhaled them as we ran to the Bolshoi Theatre. with all the construction in moscow, we could see the theatre, but couldn't find the entrance. after accidentally going in the stage door, we finally made it inside as the bells were ringing. we had to check our coats, and the ladies wouldn't give me my number until i agreed to rent some binoculars, because we gave them such 'big bags' to store.

our seats were up in the second balcony, but since the show was about to start, and usher rushed us into the stage right box where there were several empty seats. as we sat, the lights went down in the house.

it was the opera Toska, in cyrillic it's TOCKA, and it was a grand spectacle. i was surprised that, in a city that loves the stage so much, there were 7 or 8 instances of cell phones ringing, and people took flash photos almost as many times. i loved the fact that the performers had a curtain call after each act, and that each intermission was about 25 minutes. instead of a concession stand, right outside our box they had a complete cafe, with a full bar and many little cakes, pastries, fancy candy, and sliced meats. you know how neil likes his sliced meats.

we have our work cut out for us this week, since the lighting cues all got deleted for zoya's apartment, we have to completely re-tech the show and set new lighting cues. the problem is our director is in canada directing an opera, so merritt and i are in charge of the tech. madness. will report on how it goes.

love from russia,
neil

in russia we wear dance belts

The Cock's Gazette 3-13-06

it's been an eventful couple of days since the last Gazette.

on saturday we took a class trip to the dance store to buy ballet gear. we were made to believe that if we weren't dressed properly- i.e., in FULL ballet regalia, the teacher would explode. the look on the clerks' faces as 15 or so of us filed into the tiny little shop was priceless. the attempt at conversation in russian was equally hilarious- we didn't know the russian for important words such as 'unitard' or... 'dance belt.' it turns out our AWESOME ballet teacher doesn't much care what we wear, which is pretty funny. attached find a pic of adel, matt, and myself modeling our purchases at the dorm. matt actually believed that we were supposed to show up like that to class. fantastic.

i was under house arrest on saturday night and all day sunday because i gave my laundry to the babushkas with my documents still in the back pocket of my jeans. they didn't survive. they were not pleased with me in the mxat office, but i now have new copies.

it was fine that i was quarantined because we were to have war and peace read by today. many people were finished today, and all made a valiant effort. there was a mass listening party to the abridged version of the audio book for seven hours last night- people trickled in as we got to the parts that they had read up to so far.

and today was our first day of classes! we did some serious facial calisthenics with masha the voice teacher, some sweet moves in ballet, tolya described leo tolstoy as '100 pounds of pure literature' in drama history, and we did introductory etudes about ourselves in acting class as we prepare to take on war and peace. afterwards we went and saw object work on the same stage that we've been doing zoya's apartment, and it was really great. the last half hour was particularly incredible as it forsaked the usual object work (ladders, suitcases) and took on a broader subject: the lion king. they fully did a thirty minute dance interpretation of the lion king. wow.

brian's knee is healing nicely, as is jorge\'s- but today jackie twisted her ankle. we continue to be a limping group. but we remain in high spirits.

everyone is in awe of the concept of the 11 understudy performance of R&J, and wish we could have seen it. we miss you and the second years.

love from muskva,
neil


After seeing this picture I feel I havetruly lived.

best to all
Robert

Robert Woodruff
Artistic Director
American Repertory Theatre


THE COCK'S GAZETTE 3-17-06

happy st. patty's day from sunny russia!

believe it or not, spring has sprung in moscow, and even though we still wear our hats and gloves, the sun's shining and there is that unmistakable scent of love in the air.

there continues to be no shortage of drama on this side of the world.

jackie's ankle got worse and worse, sending her on trips to the hospital for three days in a row. two nights ago we had a show, and she was unable to go on. the class came together beautifully, and we worked out how to do the show without her. it was pretty lucky that her role is doubled with cheryl, so we were just missing a model. but it turns out that more snags were headed our way- they brought out the costumes and props only an hour before curtain, and it was then that we found props missing, as well as adel's tuxedo pants, and all of our socks. we found some pants for adel just a few minutes before the show started.

that would have been enough, but this night was truly a test! about twenty minutes into the show, the light board operator accidentally wiped all the cues for the show from the light board. we had several unplanned blackouts, including a whole dance done in the dark, and for the rest of the show he just winged it, throwing up light willy nilly wherever there seemed to be something going on. big fun!

jackie is going to be fine, by the way, turns out it was just a bad sprain, and each day she is limping less and less.

unfortunately, we traded her at the hospital for katia, who has a completely ridiculous sinus infection with a neverending fever. she will spend the night there tonight. four other classmates have colds- we are truly bedraggled.

adel and i were the first ones stopped by the militsia, on our way to droznin's class yesterday morning. we did a great job of acting like loud stupid americans if i do say so myself. i handed them the letter from MXAT and adel waved his MXAT ID around. they looked confused for a while until adel suggested we call anatoly smeliansky. they waved us on. they didn't even look at adel's passport!

the first batch of mail came today and it reminded me of camp. everyone rabidly opening their mail, and me standing there with none. i guess i didn't have email at camp, though.

send us news from cambridge. we all miss you.

much love,
neil

and love to all my blog-reading friends! send me emails, i will respond!! as you can see in the picture above, i will stand at the windowsill in my dance belt and compose them for you!!

emails from russia

hello from russia!

not much time online, so i will paste recent emails for your voyeuristic enjoyment.

happy International Women's Day and i heard that you run went really welltoday. have a great first performance weekend!

Julia SmelianskyAdministrative DirectorAmerican Repertory Theatre/Moscow Art Theatre SchoolInstitute for Advanced Theatre Trainingat Harvard University

Julia!

opening night was great! Oleg Tabokov and your proud papa came to watch. we had vodka and pickles afterwards on the stage. We just came home from our celebration at Il Patio. The internet has been down in the dorm for the past few days, but i've discovered that if i put my laptop on the windowsill, i can mooch a signal.

women's day was fun! i gave a flower to our sound lady and another to our waitress at the restaurant.

everybody says hi. adel wants to tell you that he has not been stopped by the militia or the police so far! yay! sarah says to report that we all love the unpasteurized dairy products. this is true. tim says that he's waiting to go to mamushka's. i don;t know what this means.

tell everyone hello!

~neil

Well, I am very proud of you for giving flowers to the ladies. I am alsoextremely relieved to know that Adel has not been stopped by milizia yet(but that doesn't mea that he will not be soon!). Did you visit the marketby the Belorusskaia train station? Check it out - especially cheese andcottage cheese if you are into unpasteurized dairy.

E-mail when you have a minute we all want to know all the juice details ofyour life in Moscow. It is sunny and 45 here today. Romeo is in thehospital, Mara almost lost an eye, Scott is on for Tibalt...there you go.

-Julia

THE COCK'S GAZETTE 2-9-05

the show went much better tonight- there was a lot more confidence onstage. and the audience was a lot more vocal, i think because oleg tabokov wasn't there to scare everyone. roman was supposed to come, but he phoned and said he'd come in two weeks. i saw him on tv last night!

your pop came afterwards and we had a little party with champagne upstairs. there were many toasts, and we said goodbye to sasha. he's incredible, bring him back many times!

brian fell backwards off the lip of the stage tonight, it was funny! he got a very nasty cut on his knee. but he is an eagle scout and he just got finished dressing it and is now rapidly consuming chicken from POCTIK'C. jorge hurt his knee as well, so we are a limping cast. but spirits are very high.

the girls all have crushes on sasha the stage manager and pyotr the angel. the guys all have crushes on dasha the angel to the dramaturgs.

everyone is sorry to hear about the apparent mishaps on the mainstage over there, but at the same time excited that institute students have an opportunity to step up to the plate.

i'll send you reports like this regularly as long as i have internet. the cock's gazette is a good name and feel free to forward them to any interested parties.

hope all is well!

~neil

(Julia's father, Anatoly Smeliansky, is the head of the Moscow Art Theatre School, and a very famous scholar on Russian theatre and literature. 'Cock's Gazette' is a homonym for a phrase in Russian that means 'How do you say...?' I.e., 'Cock's Gazette toilet paper?')

hey mom,

things are going well here- tonight is opening night for our show. we've had no internet in our dorm for the past three days, but i just discovered that if i set my cpu in the windowsill of the common area, i can just barely mooch a signal. hopefully i will stay on long enough to send this.

i don't have any way to download pictures, but i am shooting video while i'm here. at some point i'll be able to show you highlights, or make you a dvd.

it's been fun getting used to things here. we haven't had classes yet, just many rehearsals and tech for our show. it's a 30 minute walk to the theatre, down tverskaya boulevard, which is a huge street full of traffic, populated with stores and restaurants the whole way. a lot like broadway in new york, without the times square. they don't do a lot of shoveling or salting here- it's so icy and snowy that all of us have fallen at least once on the walk. today the sun is shining though.

i need to go shave and shower and leave for our call tonight. opening night is a big deal here!

hopefully i can continue to find this windowsill connection. more soon!

~n

i miss everyone! i will continue to post relevant emails and notes from russia as long as i can squeeze a signal from this windowsill!

don't drink the water

up at 7:30 AM, with just a handful of sleep, on the day that i leave for russia.

for the next six months i will live out of a suitcase- three months in moscow, three weeks in europe (with destinations such as prague, amsterdam, zurich, and paris), and the rest of the summer in the states in decidedly non-siberian climes such as fort worth, LA, and tampa.

i'm a full-grown, (debatably) mature, 28-year old man. i have scars. i have tattoos. and i'm scared silly about this trip. i know i'm going to have a fantastic time. i know russia will be an amazing place. but it's hard to feel comfortable leaving everything you know and heading into an unfamiliar cloud armed with advice such as: "don't drink the water. don't make eye contact on the street. never carry your real passport. and, under NO circumstances, should you ever, EVER, talk to the police in russian. or get their attention in any way. even if you're being mugged. or get in their car, even if they insist."

at the same time, i know this is a place where i will witness a cat circus, where i will get on stage each week and perform an incredibly wacky play full of wigs, kung fu, and mannequins, where i will leave the theatre after said play and purchase a beer on the sidewalk, where i will be submerged in a fascinating culture and history, and where i will learn from some of the most talented and incredible theatre professionals alive today.

what an amazing opportunity. i'm so friggin' lucky!

and undeniably SCARED.