On Lenox Avenue

I moved to New York City in the fall of 1989 with a musical theater degree and a dream...

and computer skills for a temp job to keep me in rent.

Back in those pre-Internet days, the primary way to find out about auditions was to scour Backstage, a weekly theater industry newspaper.

I came across a listing for a musical called "On Lenox Avenue."  It boasted to be a workshop of a new musical that would be trying out in Ohio, benefitting a homeless organization, and would hopefully be coming back to NYC to find backing.  It didn't pay much - I remember $600 for three weeks - but the deal included transportation and lodging in glamorous Ohio and some experience for my sparse resume.  Sounded good to me!

It was my first official audition in NYC after graduating college, and I was still getting familiar with the city, its neighborhoods and streets, so I got to the building 45 minutes early.  I was the first person there, even beating the guy who was running the show by 20 minutes.  I was sitting on a folding chair in the hall outside the dance studio when he arrived, and when he saw me, he seemed to pause before offering a stammered welcome and a handshake.

"You're here for the auditions?" he asked skeptically. I answered an enthusiastic YES!

On Lenox Avenue?" he asked again. YES!  He took this in and nodded.

"All right, well... we've still got time before the day officially begins.  Settle in.  I'm going to make sure everything is set up."  I offered to help, so together, we set up a sign-in table, turned on lights, uncovered the piano and organized chairs.

A half an hour ticked by and not another soul showed up.  Finally, the man in charge clasped his hands together.

"So, let's get started.  First, let me introduce myself and the story.  I'm the writer of the piece and On Lenox Avenue is about life in Harlem during the 1970's."

...

Oh.

Harlem. In the 1970's.

That's code for "Not on your life, Snowflake."

This revelatory news hung in the air, and we stood and looked at each other, unsure of our next steps. Maybe I should have volunteered to leave.  I, in all my lilly whiteness, obviously wasn't right for his casting, but it was my very first New York audition, I was dressed, I was ready, and I was needing the experience.  Maybe he should have shown me the door.  He wasn't going to find anything he needed in me, but he'd rented the space, he didn't have the nerve to push me out or he wasn't a jerk.  Whatever the reasons, the two of us continued along for the next hour with our charade that this was still a legitimate audition.  No joke.  We spent one full hour together.  I sang an uptempo and a ballad, we did a little improv together. I even changed clothes and learned his dance combination.

As we wrapped up, he thanked me, shook my hand and said a little too cheerily, "We'll be in touch!" which we both knew was a beautiful lie.  I replied, "Hey listen.  I just want to say thanks.  This was my first audition since graduating college, and you made this a lot of fun.  Thanks for breaking me in to the New York City scene."

I walked out into the sticky, late August day, feeling a certain sense of pride.  I mean, really, who else does this stuff happen to?  I was the only auditioner and I STILL wasn't getting cast for the show.

To this day, I've never met another actor who's been the only person to show up at an audition and NOT get cast.


SMACK.

Can you keep a secret?

Do you know Post Secret?
"PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail
in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard."
I read the Post Secret website religiously every Sunday morning.  It's early-service church.

I don't really have any secrets, but I'm fascinated that other people do.  Some secrets are enormous weights, others are frivolous and silly, but the amazing thing is that people share them in order to be freed of them.  Secrets are too big of a weight for me.  I'm unable to carry my own.  I can hold other people's with no problem, but my own?  Forget it.

When I was 15, my parents were gone for a night and I took the car out.  I couldn't stand the guilt.  They never would have known, but I told my mom 5 minutes after she walked in the door. (Hey, Dad.)

A secret I carry now?  Well, I like when a fly lands on me and walks around.  Come on, it tickles! If I'm alone, I just let the fly be, because he's performing a tickling service and somehow it makes me feel interesting.  Hey, this fly is checking me out.  Now, if I'm with company, I will let the fly stick around as long as possible until the normal person will draw attention it.  Maybe it's a glance, maybe it's a wave of her hand, maybe there's even a statement, "There's a fly on your leg."  At this point, I will act utterly disgusted. "Ew, gross!" I will exclaim.  "Get out of here, you, you disease-carrier! Whew, thanks for saving my life there.  I can't believe I didn't even notice that Diptera: Muscidae."

(For your information, I'm up on the roof terrace, and a fly is futzing around on my arm as I type!  Fantastic.)
...

Not long ago, I admitted another secret.  I told my husband THE CHEF that I like to mix Bisquick and milk in a small bowl, pop it in the microwave, and then eat it.  I undercook it too, so that it's this disgusting glop, nothing even close to resembling a pancake or a biscuit. It's just nasty goo that is my shameful culinary delight.   I pour syrup over it and eat it with a spoon.  Until this moment, Mike was the only person I shared this with, and it took 8 years to do that.  It's obviously not something I'm proud of.

The comedian Jim Gaffigan has this whole riff about our dirty, shameful pleasures in his recent special "Mr. Universe" (Which I LOVE and downloaded on my computer and have watched over 3 times and you should too, but don't let anyone tell you what to do because you're your own person, darn it!)

He makes the point that we all have our personal "McDonald's" - our McDonald's of the soul - "momentary pleasure followed by incredible guilt eventually leading to cancer."  This is a great relief to me.  Do you know what your McDonald's is?

My not-so-big secret - my ultimate McDonald's - is Bravo TV's Real Housewives franchise.  It is filthy and pathetic, and I can't get enough of it.  It's my pornography.  I'm not kidding.  I hear my husband in the hallway, coming home from work, and I immediately turn off the TV, spray air freshener around the room, grab a book and get comfortable.  Nothing was happening here!  Oh, and he always knows.  It's a ridiculous lost game.  He'll say, "You don't have to turn off the television," and I'll scoff, "Pfft, there was nothing on.  I was done anyway."  But really, I'm always thinking of my alternate plan. Can I outlast him and watch a rerun at 11:00?  Will he have gone to bed by then? My mind races until I realize I can actually read the Housewives' blogs online at BravoTV.com.  I can even watch video exclusives with my headphones on. I can do it right under his nose and he'll never even know...

Who does that?!  

I do. 

Secret's out.

Humbling.

(Has anyone else noticed that Rosie on RHoNJ looks a little like Ralph Macchio? I love both of them.)

UPDATE: Rosie and Ralph Macchio are related!  I was reading my McDonald's today in Huffington Post's Celebrity section.  I'm smug and shameful at the same time.