Rental Cars, Three Sisters and Ace of Base

Being unemployed (temporarily, may I remind you-I start my teaching job in a week) ...being unemployed, I am naturally keeping my eyes open for any opportunity to make cash. On Wednesday, my good friend and fellow Columbia playwright, Erin Browne, called me with just such an opportunity. Erin works as a casting director for a production company which creates documentary programs for television networks like Discovery and the History Channel. One of the producers was working on a pilot for the History Channel that involved exploring the oil industry from the inside out...I'll explain a little later. At any rate--they needed me to pick up a car at a rental place in Midtown, drive it to a gas station in Brooklyn and then be filmed as I pumped gas, pulled in and out of the gas station, paid for the gas and then--here is the inside out explaining part--they filmed me from inside a mock gas pump doing the same things....meaning: I had to take the gas pump and pull it in out of these holes that were cut in a fake chipboard gas pump while the camera was watching me through the holes....good times, huh?
So I got paid and drove the car back to Midtown...
I guess this kind of qualifies as an acting gig, right? I should have taken pictures, but it got me thinking I should post some pictures from a couple acting/writing opportunities over the past year.

The first few pictures are from the production of Chekhov's "Three Sisters" I worked on with fellow Columbian, Nadia Foskolou, a 3rd director. Nadia directed my play "Mission" in our first year and the first production of my 10 minute "Naked Fish" at Columbia a year ago. Nadia and I cut and adapted "Three Sisters" and I ended up playing the part of Kulygin.

I've posted a pic of dear sweet Nadia and one she took of me brushing my teeth at a production meeting...

The last picutres are also from a project Nadia and I collaborated on. We affectionately called it "the Bergman project" or "the Ikea/Sweddish Pop project".
It occupied our lives from December last year until it went up in March. It was an adaptation of Ingmar Bergman's novel "The Best Intentions" for the stage.



It is based on the courtship and marriage of his parents in the first decades of the 20th century in Sweden.


Nadia and I set it in an Ikea store in Elizabeth, New Jersey and used live acoustic arrangments of pop songs by Swedish bands like Roxette, ABBA, Ace of Base and the Corrigans to tell the story....you kinda had to be there, BUT here are the pictures--they might give you an idea!I played the role of Ernst Akerblom, Anna Akerblom's (Bergman's mother) brother who introduces Anna to her future husband, Henrik Bergman....(confused? Good.)
It was a lot of work and fun...in the end, I think both Nadia and I learned alot and felt proud of our work as well as the work of our actors.

Providence and Cape Cod with Molly Rice

So I decided to take the Peter Pan Bonanza Bus from Port Authority to Kennedy Plaza in Providence to visit my dear friend Molly Rice. Molly is a wonderful playwright and friend who I met while in Aspen for the Theatre Masters gig where both our plays were being workshopped. Molly often comes to the city because, unlike some of us, she is a "working" playwright. When she comes she stays up in the Inwood with Travis and I. This time she suggested I come to Providence where she lives and works at Brown, the University of Rhode Island and Trinity Rep....I have been to Providence twice before, both quick trips, and since I am presently, but only temporarily, unemployed, I was happy to come to this small little corner of New England and to spend time with Molly.

Yesterday we walked around her neighborhood, Federal Hill, an Italian area with lots of sausages, pasta and canoli, and middle-aged men in bright red Puma warm-up suits. Molly got a great suit and skirt-not a Puma one and I ate canoli.

Then we decided to go to the beach...we got ready and drove but it clouded over and since neither one of us had really been to Cape Cod-we said hey-and went. We went to a beautiful beach and lighthouse and then ate Scallops, Shrimp, Oysters and...cod baked in a dish at a place with a smoking barrell in front of it.

Then we put gas in the car and stopped at Dunkin' Donuts-I had a plain, a blueberry cake and a Boston Cream. I don't know whats wrong with me!!!

Staten Island-Oh What An Adventure!

So Trav and I decided to go a-xploring on Saturday....but being very limited in our financial resources it had to be a free 'sploring expedition...and where can you go in the NYC with just a metrocard and yourselfs? Staten Island!!!! The Ferry is free, the STI-Staten Island Railroad (which runs the length of the harbor side of the island) is just a slide of the metro card away....just look at the untouched beauty of this place...As you look at these pictures go on the journey with us as we leave the docks with the teeming masses and cross the harbor (you get a free close view of the Lady of Liberty) and experience the exotic island known as Staten...and then return through the mists to the bejeweled city we call home!

Running in the Rain with Heather

The other morning Heather got me to go running with her really early...like 7:30 am and it was GREAT! It was a beautiful rainy morning and we got soaked as we did our 'tempo' run up in Inwood Hills Park around the inlet and soccer fields. Heather has become a great runner and I am very proud of how hard she has worked. She ran her first half marathon a month ago...

Matt and Casey are married!!!! (by me)

Matt and Casey Chappina!!! They were married today in a beautiful loft on 36th between 5th and 6th. And I performed the ceremony....Yes. But, thinking more about it, I really didn't marry them--its any interesting linguistic phrase--the person performing the ceremony marries the couple--the verb subject relationship is the same as within "Matt married Casey" or vice versa. At any rate, it makes me think about what really occurred. Matt and Casey married each other. Matt and Casey made this choice before everyone. Societal convention just dictates that someone perform it. Perform a ceremony. So....It was a great experience, though. I was nervous--but Matt and Casey had written a beautiful ceremony, and for me, with a little preparation and alot of prayer! It worked!!! They were both so beautiful. It was a fantastic evening! All the playwrights except Nina and Kristen were there and a few more Columbians like Miguel.... I am so grateful for my friendship with Matt and Casey. I love them both and it was a priveledge I hadn't ever anticipated to be asked to become certified and to marry them. Ha! What started as a joke a year ago became reality today....It was really moving. Matt and Casey have been working so hard and planning so much. Their families and friends have all worked and it paid off tonight. So--here are some pictures that Travis the faithful took of the ceremony and the reception. Unfortunately the battery on the camera died just before the stunning and talented bride took the mike and sang! WOW!!! I knew Cassandra could sing--but she was FANTASTIC!!!! What a presence and voice. I love you Casey! Enjoy the pictures! I am actually going to paste the section of the ceremony that I wrote. As I said earlier, Matt and Casey put together the ceremony and essentially wrote a script and said--Nate, slip something special in here. So I fixed up my post and thoughts about Andy's wedding and thought some more about how much I love Matt and Casey and this is what I came up with. (Martha and Scarlett--you made the cut! =)


I want to personally thank Matt and Casey for inviting me to participate today. It is an, lets say, odd and unexpected honor—one that I hadn’t thought much about—but I love both of you a great deal and am grateful and feel very blessed to be here with you.

Matt and Casey have asked me to say a few words. And luckily, I have just returned from my own brother’s wedding only days ago—so I’ve had marriage and love and family and friends on the brain. While at the wedding, my sister Martha and I had a discussion about how pervasive criticism of others is today—and most likely has always been.

Martha made a very good point about how little we know of the deep down details of what it means to be another human being and therefore, when its all said and done, we are quite ill equipped to be critical of another. Remember, this discussion is all taking place in the midst of a wedding reception--a place where the people gathered, ostensibly, know each other better than any others. We were all family and close friends—And, like today with Matt and Casey, we were all SO happy. So glad to be in each other’s company.

It made me think then that even in such an intimate and joyful setting, with so many who know me so well...I thought “ even here--I am still unknown completely, through and through to others, and they to me.” But knowing this, I was still in awe of how thoroughly happy I was in that moment with my family and close friends...And I asked myself why?

And then I thought of something a close family friend told me about her own marriage--she said it took her a long time to realize what marriage was—She said, it wasn't finding the person you wanted to be with--it was accepting the person you were with for who they are and loving them just as they are and then becoming better together

Today, with Matt and Casey, I find myself so humbled by how little I know right now--and so grateful for what I do know. I feel awake to how mysterious and unknowable another human being is, and enthralled by how simple it can be to just love others. How joyful it can and should be...

I think what a wonderful thing the idea of marriage is, the idea of two people, before family, friends and society saying I will take responsibility for this person. That two people, today Matt and Casey will say I will take responsibility for this unknowable being, I am taking responsibility for them. Unconditionally. Through and through, I accept them as they are, and together we will grow and become better.

This wedding should be an invitation to expand and extend this loving circle of responsibility for each other to all of those within our influence. To not criticize or find fault, but to just joyfully love and try to know what it means to be human. In the end, let us today, with Matt and Casey realize that love is great. Being known is a gift, being touched, being heard is a gift. To know another, to listen to another and to touch another is a gift we are all capable of giving. And today, Matt and Casey commit to each other and before all of us that they will try each day for the rest of their lives to give these gifts to each other.