Last Days of Summer

Labor Day is a mere 5 days from today, and I am bummed.

Growing up, fall was always my favorite season: returning to school, buying new clothes, lining up my notebooks and folders for every subject.  So Labor Day was cause for celebration.

But now that I've been out of school for (cough) a long time, I realized recently that I love the summer best.  Especially in NYC.  

People laugh when I say that: it's true that a NYC subway station on a 90 degree day stinks like old foot (and is just as sweaty as that old foot's shoe).  But other than that, I love that the city empties out just a little bit every weekend in the summer.  I love walking down an avenue for miles while digging into a frozen treat.  Seeing summer festivals of theater and free movies.  Going to a Mets game and drinking the coldest beer possible under the flood lights.  Sitting in the sidewalk section of a local restaurant and watching people walk by.  Ahhhh. 

So, Labor Day, take your sweet time.  Don't be laborious.  Be lazy.  I need a few more minutes of these perfect, quiet, empty-headed, cold beer-drenched days to get me through a NYC winter that will somehow be here in a mere matter of minutes.  

And thank you, gods of the NYC perfect summer, for your best summer yet.

Best Summer Vacation Ever: Improv 101 at UCB with Corey Brown

The best thing I did all summer was take the 8 weeks of Improv 101 at Upright Citizens Brigade with Corey Brown.

Outside the UCBeast Theater in the East Village.

Top 10 takeaways:

10. Immediate street cred for taking improv at UCB.  The other night a casting director called UCB the Juilliard of improv (even though getting into 101 doesn't require an audition). 

9. UCB classes sell out in two minutes (no joke), testing our computer literacy and typing speed (perhaps that was the audition?).

8.  Intellectual rigor required.  One early exercise required us to act like an expert on any topic suggested, and damn, some people riffed on geo-political strife like it was their job.  Corey's feedback was equally intellectual and insightful, too.  UCB's motto is even in Latin: Si haec insolita res vera est, quid exinde verum est? (If this is true, what else is true?).  

7. A rising tide lifts all boats.  I took Ballet 101 with a bunch of chicks who were practically members of Alvin Ailey, and by comparison to them, I moved like a legless chicken.  In the case of improv, fortunately, more experienced classmates buoyed the scenes you were in, and everyone looked better for it.

6.  Laughing for three hours, once a week, for the bargain basement price of $400.  

5. Equal-opportunity class time. (Corey always kept things moving along in even increments for everyone, so no time-sucking divas could emerge.)

4. Free admittance to UCB house team improv shows Mon-Thur with your UCB student ID.  I wish I had seen more!

3. One of UCB's fundamental lessons is to "play to the height of your intellect"--if you understand a reference made by your partner, engage as fully and as honestly as you can. 

2. There's a book, The Upright Citizens Brigade Comedy Improvisation Manual. For $25, the learning continues until I enroll in 201 in November after my upcoming fall play.

1. Final class performance at the UCBeast Theater in the East Village.  Tremendously satisfying to put it all together and see the entire class making smart choices and making the audience laugh.  Can't wait to take 201.

Book Report: Robert Rodriguez and the D-I-Y Spirit

Working my way through a suggested reading list provided by K Callan in her book, The New York Agent Book, I decided to check out Robert Rodriguez's book, Rebel Without a Crew. I had a vague recollection of seeing his movie, El Mariachi, which he made as a college student in the 90s for the complete cost of $7,000 and which is the subject of this book.

Robert Rodriguez is a D-I-Y filmmaker extraordinaire.

Drawn from his detailed diary during the period it took to conceive of the film and see it through to completion, Rodriguez's credo is: if you want to create a film, dive in and do it.  It won't be good at first (he says everyone has 12 bad scripts in them), but you have to do the work to learn what your style is and how to do different things to make it better.  By the time he gets to college, he had made 20+ films featuring his friends and family and was circulating a short called "Bedhead" on the festival circuit. This love of making stories did not make him a shoo-in to the UT Austin film school, however, which had a GPA requirement that he did not meet; he gained admittance through showing his festival-circulated short and his cartooning abilities.

Tenacity, tempered by practicality, help Rodriguez set the goal of making a full-length feature film in Mexico one summer, using a good friend from high school's home border town as home base, borrowing a camera, and strategic planning of every shot and every cost (in his case, he did a 1-month-long stint at a medical research facility to earn $3,000 of his budget, and used that time locked up to write, story board and watch movies).

Side note: Rodriguez bemoans the credit card industry's preying on students, and does not take out a loan at any point.  At times in this film's unexpected rise to renown, he has no money to speak of, but he is always mindful to keep his spending in check.

Equally crucially throughout, Rodriguez seems to know himself well enough to find ways to keep himself motivated about the work ahead in editing and selling the film.  After shooting for an exhilerating but exhausting three weeks without a crew (you have to feed and pay crew!), his first created a compelling trailer for the film to make himself see the full-length film's potential.  He knew he was going to be logging many hours to edit the images and then the sound, and he could not lose interest this far into the project.

In the end, some very remarkable things happen for Rodriguez.  A thinly-held connection to an agent at ICM leads to meetings which leads to a bidding war on his services as a filmmaker.  He flies back and forth to LA and his home in Austin to festivals in Telluride, Toronto and Sundance, making a lot of money and gaining a huge following.  Throughout it all, he emphasizes that he was making this film as a practice full-length film, meant to go straight to video in the Mexican market.  He seems as surprised as anyone by this unexpected turn of events.

Best of all, the last chapter is a "10 Minute Film School" in which Rodriguez, in 1995, presciently says he would be excited for a time when anyone who wants to make films uses their home cameras to do so.  You just have to want to do it, and to paraphrase, let your work be bad to learn what does and does not work.  This clearly applies to any D-I-Y notion, be it a film, or any other entrepreneurial/creative endeavor.

RSVP

Had an intriguing conversation with a playwright yesterday about a creative methodology for collaboration called RSVP cycles.  A quick search for this term unearthed a Wikipedia entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RSVP_cycles in which this theory is attributed to Anna and Lawrence Halprin and Jim Burns.

The letters in the acronym RSVP stands for:

Resources: anything we have to make a production happen.  Money, space, time, actors, director, etc.

Score: the written guidelines for performing the production.

Valuation: reviewing process of the work.  Rehearsals, notes, re-writes.

Performance: running the piece.

The point the playwright was making to me was that every creation of a project follows these same steps, and could be applied to a project I execute in my career in finance or in my creative pursuit as an actor and producer.  Fascinating stuff!

Month 1 of Year of Action!

Earlier this spring, I happened upon an article in my alma mater's Smith Alumnae Quarterly, featuring a remarkable woman named Erin Moran McCormick.

Erin Moran McCormick has written a book called Year of Action in which she recalls the triumph of trying things she always hoped to accomplish.  Clicking through to her Year of Action website, I was enticed to answer a call to women looking to take part in a pilot program, The Girlfriend MBA, that inspires women to have their own year of action.  Lo and behold, I was selected!

Starting in late April, Erin (as I now know her!) sent us copies of the book, which I read with gusto and promptly bought for friends.  Erin took bold steps to improve her life and it's a compelling read.

After reading the book, Erin granted the pilot-eers access to her website.  Over five weeks, Erin nudged us through a series of challenges to refine our goals, product, pitch, online presence, and marketing.  The website has worksheets (I love worksheets!), instructional videos, resources, and a forum on which we post our progress. 

Erin is a natural teacher who loves technology and inspiring people.  She pushes people in the right measure in weekly calls and personal e-mails with in-depth analysis on things like website updates.

A month doesn't seem very long at all (and maybe that's the point), but here's what I accomplished:

• Set my goal: book a speaking role on TV this summer!
• Completely re-organized my home office, making it a space I love being in
• Set a daily time, every morning, to work on my goals
• Clarified my brand on my website, www.JakeLipman.com
• Researched and inquired with fellow actors about their favorite classes and marketing strategies
• Launched Season 2 of my webseries
• Created a refined marketing list of industry contacts
• Enrolled in 3 workshops to meet casting directors on my list
• Set up an 8-week cycle of marketing to my list, having now sent out 4 of the 8 weeks of materials
• Educated myself on QR codes and added them to my marketing
• Enrolled in Improv 101 at UCB
• Put myself on tape for a TV pilot audition!

This week, the pilot program will be winding down, and I am vowing here and now to continue my year of action.  Stay tuned!

Girls Named Jake (In Commercials)

I am part of a small group of people with names that suggest the opposite gender.

Having this name is sometimes a cross to bear.  People ask a lot of questions, sometimes unkindly.  "Did your parents want a boy?"
"Where you born female?"

Sometimes it's good, of course.  People remember me at auditions, or parties, or say cute things like, "My name is boring!"  And that makes me feel better, more feminine, and sort of special.

A few years ago, I felt something else: proprietary about my name!  I ran into a girl I knew in college who has 2 first names that began with the letters J and K.  We ran into each other at Urban Outfitters, and she announced that she now goes by Jake.  She smiled knowingly at me, "Because J-K sounds like Jake!"

For the first time ever, someone calling themselves Jake sort of made me feel jealous.  About my own name.  Weird, I know.  And I know I'm never going to change it.  I'm fully grown and in my 30s, for Christ's sake.  I didn't even take my husband's last name when I got married.  This is my name.

One side benefit of the masculine, hard sound of my first name is that it makes the perfect punchline to a joke about gender.

There are two commercials that immediately come to mind:

It's 3 am and a man is talking furtively on the phone to Jake from State Farm.  The man's wife comes downstairs and asks who he is talking to, and he says, "Jake, from State Farm."  She grabs the phone and asks Jake what he's wearing and Jake replies, "Khakis."  And the wife says to her husband, "Well, she sounds hideous."

A mom and dad are driving their nervous teenage daughter to college and she is reading a piece of paper with her roommate assignment on it, "My roommate's name is Jake?"  Her dad cheerfully replies, "She sounds great."

So, in closing, I am still a tiny bit annoyed that people ask rude questions about my name.  But I'm also just a tiny bit proud that it makes for good humor.

Brilliant Lessons Learned from Smash and Bunheads

I am sometimes stunned at the lessons imparted in seemingly light television.  On the surface, neither NBC's Smash nor ABC Family's Bunheads appealed to me, and yet over the last year, I have routinely tuned in and learned a lot.

When last week's network upfronts announced Smash is going off the air, I felt compelled to explain why I will miss this show.

Smash gives glimpses into my life as an actress in NYC: auditioning at Telsey + Co., rehearsals in various rooms around the city, and acting in shows on Fourth Street in the East Village.  I totally geeked out at that cameo from Frank Dilella of NY1's Onstage (a show deserving of an entire blog post in and of itself, if not a FringeNYC play in which I play Donna Karger)!

Last week's Smash episode about book writer Kyle's death truly touched me.  In flashback, he tells Debra Messing's character that he remembers when Wendy Wasserstein died and the lights dimmed on Broadway for her.  Later in that same episode, Christian Borle serrenades Kyle with Billy Joel's "Vienna" and thus captures a moment of a sage veteran warily encouraging a newcomer.

Then I had to Google Christian Borle.  I knew he won a Tony in 2012 for Peter and the Starcatcher, but I had no idea he was once married to the feisty Sutton Foster, who won the Tony in 2002 for Thoroughly Modern Millie.

If I hadn't seen Sutton Foster interviewed on NY1's Onstage or grinning on the Anything Goes marquee on 43rd Street, I doubt I would have bothered to watch her ABC Family sitcom about dancer's life in show business: Bunheads.

I am by no means a dancer, but my liberal arts education and its requisite dance classes have given me an appreciation for the dedication it takes to be a decent dancer, let alone a working one.  Indeed, this fresh-scrubbed tween comedy emphasizes how hard a life in show business can be.  Foster's character still has nightmares about auditioning!

The most shockingly smart moment of all in Bunhead's first season was when Foster re-choreographs the rat scene in The Nutcracker to reference Kurt Jooss' dance The Green Table.  Way to go!

So for all the doubters out there, I want to say: bravo to these theater-loving writers and performers.

In the words of Billy Joel's "Vienna":

You've got your passion, you've got your pride 
but don't you know that only fools are satisfied?  
Dream on, but don't imagine they'll all come true 
When will you realize, Vienna waits for you?

Let's Go to the Movies

I live in the West 90s and there is a dearth of great movie theaters in my neighborhood.

Of course, if I want to see the latest foreign film, I can go down to Lincoln Plaza Cinemas (which I refer to as The Rugelach because they serve a lot of home-y grandma food there, including rugelach).

Or I can see a mainstream blockbuster at the AMC at 72nd and Broadway (it's pretty down-at-the-heel, however -- my heels literally stick to the floor of this place).  There's also a B-movie AMC at 84th Street, but there has never been a single movie that made it there that I wanted to see.

The nicest option is The Film Society at Lincoln Center, which has soft seats, an erudite crowd, and eclectic programming.  But not everything I want to see is going to pass through there, either.

Keep in mind that all three of the above options are a good 30 blocks from home.

Last weekend, I was walking along Broadway at 100th Street and saw this abandoned old movie theater had been bought, and I dared to hope.

Sure enough, The NYTimes Arts Blog reports that The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, a food/movie experience courtesy of a cool mini chain from Texas, has bought the space.

The Alamo Drafthouse, as the name would suggest, does indeed serve craft beer, and according to their website, amazing food, great films and programming... and they have a strict policy of no texting, no talking during their movies.  Really, Texas?  I'm impressed.

And, now for your amusement, an article and link to a video/recording of an irate customer who was thrown out for texting in the theater.  I dare say this is mighty good entertainment in and of itself.

Taking on Haman(taschen)

Last year I blogged (was it really that long ago?) about my husband's Aunt Eileen's hamantaschen cookies, which she bakes for the Jewish holiday, Purim.  The triangular cookie is meant to represent the hat of this bad guy, Haman.

Aunt Eileen noted on Facebook that this year, Purim comes early (makes me think of that Parker Posey movie!).  A good friend at work also just gave me some beautiful apricot preserve, which happens to be my favorite filling in hamantaschen.  I see this as the stars aligning, telling me to make some of my own.

Here's the recipe I'm using, courtesy of Duff Goldman, a.k.a "Ace of Cakes."  He's a baker and a member of the tribe, so I'm going to trust he knows what he's doing.  Also: no sifting of flour required.  Phew.

I made the dough and chilled it in the fridge.  It tastes lemon-y and cookie-y and the whole apartment smells that way, too.  Ahhhh!