I’m sure in every town around the country there is a bar called “Therapy”. It’s bound to happen, it’s too good an idea to pass up. However, I’m pretty sure that most of the other bars called “Therapy” don’t have a sweet struggling musical theater performer with a full beard wearing a sailor hat as a bouncer who’s passing out condoms at the door. They also probably don’t have a foul-mouthed host featuring works of new musicals every Monday.

I just don’t want to live anywhere else.

So, we had a little performance last night at this amazing bar, two stories, air-conditioned, drink specials and *totally* uptown. I’ve always been nervous in the downtown gay bars, the ones that look like they came straight out of “Police Academy: Back In Training”, because I don’t like being around people who think I’m fat and poorly dressed. But this bar last night were totally our people, professional people who love theater and happen to love sailors as well.

Originally, I pushed for us to do the opening number of the show “Fleet Week”, mostly because that way we would feature Tony Nominee Melissa Hart. But I was quickly convinced that “Queer At The Pier” was the right number, and man, that was a good call. Melissa would have been the biggest star in the joint, but our Chaplain was the Queen of the Homo-coming Dance, and that’s what the night really needed.

Rob Maitner, who should have a one man show running 365 days a year, went up as the representative of the show. He was, how do you say, already drunk. So when the foul-mouthed host of the evening (“Sailors make my pussy wet,” he said) asked him when the dates of the show were, Rob started on a rhapsody of all things “Fleet Week”. The host yanked the mic out of his hand and said, “okay, okay, you passed out postcards, we’ll figure it out…” suddenly Rob’s voice piped up, “I found the other microphone, BITCH…” and then he continued with his diatribe.

We have the best cast we could ask for. I’ve never produced a play where I didn’t think I should be playing every single role, I’ve almost never seen a show where I didn’t think I could do it better, and there isn’t a single person in this show that I could replace. It doesn’t even shame me to say that. Look, these pictures suck, but look how adorable our cast is:

That’s the middle of the song, where Sachs and Ravioli almost kiss for the first time. This will continue throughout the show.

Look at how cute everyone is! Jesus, Laura, the girl who plays Swallows, is so adorable that I will find myself just grinning ear to ear during rehearsal, and then I’ll look across the room and Jordana is watching her and grinning twice as big.

And Rob Maitner is a force of nature.

All right. One apology. I don’t have anything else to talk about but this play. When you call me, I will inevitably talk about this play. I’m really worried about my sister, I’m really excited for two of my brothers, and I’m anxious about my mom, but I can’t seem to talk about anything but this.

So.

Here’s another picture.

So, Mac came up with a publicity stunt. He got a banner made with the words “Fleet Week, The Musical” on it.

Here, I’ll show you the picture…

Okay, so, there were two days of this. The second day, Mac handed out postcards to the fellas on Christoper Street. This was him with one guy in a red swimsuit.

Here’s him with with another fella. Also, this other fella wore a red swimsuit.

Notice Mac’s black socks.

So, anywhoodle, yesterday, Mac took the boat out and screamed “Fleet Week is here to takeover New York!” and stuff like that. He made an ass of himself. Because he wants to. He wants to make an ass out of himself. And then he was all, “if I make an ass out of myself, can I sell some tickets to Fleet Week?” and we were like, “um… what?” and he said, “never mind. It’ll be cool.” Then, he bought himself a hat and went on the prowl.

So, he’s on this boat, right. Oh, didn’t you see the boat?

That’s right. Over there, sailors.

Jesus Christ.

Anyway, Mac was leaving the dock on his boat and he was calling out to the crowd at Christopher Street pier and he hollered “Okay, ladies and fellas, we’ll see you at Fleet Week The Musical!” and then turned around and promptly ran out of gas. He sorta spun around in the water for forty five minutes until he was rescued.

He was rescued. By the COAST GUARD!

Yes. The Coast Guard.

We were at a rehearsal the other day looking over the plans we had comissioned for the set, for the show we wrote and are now producing that is going up at the Lucille Lortel theater, just the three of us, me, Mac and Jordana and I asked why Jordana was standing so funny. She had her shoulders hiked up and her arms crossed in front of her.

Jordana: “My pitters stink.”

Mac (surprised): “Mine do too!”

Jordana: “It’s horrible, I have to stand like this.

I crossed over to them with my right arm up over my head.

Me: “Smell this.”

Jordana (smelling my armpit): “Your pits smell fine.”

Mac (with almost no hesitation, smelling my armpit): “Yeah, that’s just deodorant smell.” (pause) “Actually, it’s quite nice.”

Then I leaned in to look at the plans. I smelled pitters.

Me: “Yeah, y’all’s pitters smell.”

I walked away.

The plans are *gorgeous* by the way.

Casting a show is, as I said in a private email some time ago, like casting a fishing pole. You just whip that baby as far out as you can, hope it’s got something on the end that a really big fish might find tasty, and then once you reel them in, you gut ’em and eat ’em and throw away whatever’s left.

We’re casting Fleet Week, and we’ve had an embarrasment of riches. For every single role, when we’ve decided on an actor, I sit and look at the people we’re *not* offering roles to, and I can’t believe it. I can’t believe the quality of the people we’ve turned down, some of them purely because they didn’t fit right with the rest of the cast.

And it’s just amazing to be on this side of the table. I’m not sure what my reputation is among the people I’ve worked with, it’s entirely possible that I’ve come across as difficult or self-absorbed. Mostly, I want everyone to work as fast as I do, and I hate wasting time in rehearsal waiting for other actors or, even worse, the director to figure out what the best course of action is. But I can tell you, when I go in for an audition, I’m always surprised when I don’t get cast.

But, JESUS CHRIST. We didn’t cast people in this show that have twice the talent I do. I’m amazed I ever get work when I compare myself to the sleek professional auditioners these guys are. I definitely learned something from being on this side, that every single person in that room is hoping beyond hope that you will be the right person, they are all praying that you are gonna walk in and be the guy they are looking for.

For every single role, we have had two options. And when the director decided what the first option was, the roles were offered and accepted. And I sit and think, if the entire cast was the *second* option, the show would still be better than my wildest imagination. In fact, in many instances, I think the show would be almost better. But that’s why you have a director, so they can create the show based on what you wrote.

Our ideas for our next musical are already starting to percolate. A musical based on Lucretia Jones. A musical based on a group of desperate crappy actors trying to musicalize Atlas Shrugged. A musical based on professional wrestling… Once we get this script done and the rehearsals go into full swing, it will be a relief to back off just a little bit and, y’know, go back to rebuilding my house and re-introduce myself to my friends.

Go check it out.

WHY ARE YOU STILL READING THIS? GO CHECK IT OUT!!!!

fleetweekthemusical.com

It’s very pretty.

It is important to me that you understand that following without *any* possible misunderstanding or misinterpretation. There are things in my life that I will assign a certain amount of ambiguity to, there are things in my life that I’m willing to go either way about at the onset, and still other things that I feel fairly certain about but you might be able to change my mind given enough time. The following is not one of these things, the following is absolute.

If you become a zombie, and I have the opportunity, I will kill you.

It seems to me that the only strength zombies have is when someone you recognize becomes a zombie. You see a zombie coming towards you and you shoot it in the head and then the one behind comes towards you and… wait, is it? It’s your girlfriend, the girl you always loved… and bam, you’re eaten.

Not me. I will fucking kill you. I know that there are people I don’t know who read this blog. To you I say, of course I’m gonna kill you. If I don’t know you and you’re *not* a zombie, but, y’know, there’s an alien invasion or something and you’re in my way of getting food and water, then I’ll probably kill you. I don’t care if your a nun, I’ll throw you off the lifeboat to make room for my wife or something.

Now, the people I know and love, I’m not gonna kill you. For any reason. Unless you become a zombie.

There is an important thing for you to understand about all this. If there are zombies, right, there are zombies everywhere, and you think it might be funny to walk slowly towards me saying some shit like, “braaiiinnnsss” or whatever, but you *aren’t* a zombie, I’m not gonna wait and find out if you’re fucking with me. I’m gonna kill you. So don’t make that joke. As a matter of fact, if you’ve been bitten by a zombie, but you aren’t a zombie *yet*… don’t mess with me, I know how zombies work. You’re gonna be a zombie. I may as well kill you now while you understand that I’m doing it for a good reason.

Also, let’s say you’re not a zombie, but there are zombies everywhere and I have an automatic weapon. Or a bomb. Something that will kill a lot of zombies all at once. I’m gonna use it. Dude, what are you doing hanging out with a bunch of zombies anyway? You think they don’t know you’re not a zombie? They are gonna bite your shit, then you’ll be a zombie, then I’ll have to kill you anyway. If you are hanging out where zombies hang out and I have a way of blowing up a bunch of zombies, then I’m gonna blow the place up, and you should be hanging out with me.

Also, I should say, if I become a zombie and you kill me, that’s totally fine. Except I’m not gonna be a zombie. Not me. You know why? Because I will kill any zombie who even gets *close*. Including you.

While I’m at it, I need to make another promise. If I ever get bit by a radioactive spider, or if I get nailed with gamma rays or I learn I’m from another planet or something, I’m gonna go ahead and tell you. If suddenly, New York gets visited by a superhero of some sort or another, there’s no point in asking me if I’m him because I will already have told you I’m him.

Seriously, I’ve never had an unexpressed thought, let alone a secret. If I’m a superhero, then this *blog* will change to “SeanTheSuperHeroRants”, because I will totally tell everyone I’m a superhero. The neighbors will be all “Hey, thanks for saving us from that unholy terror last night that attacked the city with a bizarrely specific and unweildy plan for world domination while wearing a costume, because that would have sucked if it had worked…” except I won’t understand because all of my neighbors are first generation immigrants that don’t speak english.

But they will wave and mispronounce my superhero name.

Oh, also. If *you* become a superhero and you don’t want people to know? Don’t tell me. Because I’ll be like, “Dude, come clean. Just tell everyone. Don’t you know what level of girl you could be gettin’ if you let New York know that you’re The Amazing Shoe (or whatever you’re name is)”.

You know what, I have to go back to the zombie thing for a minute because I don’t think I’ve made this clear. If you’re my wife, I will kill you. If you’re my mom, I will shoot you in the goddam head. If you are my nephew, seriously, Sean and Lucas, if you guys become zombies, I will kill you. Kent, if your kids are zombies and you try to stop me, I’ll kill all of you guys.

I’m not gonna get bitten by a zombie. Period.

Now, if Lucy becomes a zombie, I’ll probably let that slide. Baby zombies are probably still cute and they don’t have any teeth. And I’m not sure zombies *age*, necessarily. But they can’t bite. And if they’re yelling for brains, I mean, they can’t really talk or anything…

Okay, baby zombies are fine. Unless they get teeth. If they get teeth and can bite me, that’s a whole nother story.

As for the rest of you, I will not pause, I won’t aim, then recognize you, then look up at you longingly… fuck that. I’m gonna shoot you. And if you aren’t a zombie, if you’re just near a zombie, or if you’re close to being a zombie but aren’t *yet* a zombie and I shoot you, I won’t feel bad. You’re either with the zombies or against the zombies, and you better make a choice.

I know that I’ve probably already lost my audience for this blog, and there’s probably no worse thing to tell me about something that I do, but this is just how it’s worked out. At this point in my life, I still haven’t figured out how to have a private life and a public life, I just haven’t figured out the balance. And this show I’m producing has the slightest ability to be a public experience, and for that I feel like silence is my best option.

We have written a musical that we are really proud of. It’s subversive, it’s tight and it’s meaningful. It’s funny and it’s outrageous. Now, we have to see if we can go through the re-writing process and keep it as all of these things. Initially, we had some ideas about these characters, we wanted to subvert the common thinking about so many of these people, and now we’re having to trade in on some of that.

At the center of our play are characters dealing with ideas of sexual identity and gender. We initially had a wonderful idea, that we would create a character who was fully Christian and unapologetically gay, a man who believes in Jesus but loves men. Such a man not only exists, but most of my gay friends are a thousand times more in tune with their spirituality than I am, I didn’t think we were creating a character that was impossible to believe in.

But now we have a chance for this character to be seen by the world, and there is some concern that the world isn’t ready for him. No-one in the gay community wants spirituality to be defined as “Christ” and no-one in the straight community wants to hear the word “Cock” celebrated. The great blue/red divide has come home to our little play.

So, we’ve found new ways to say these things. Sexuality can be celebrated with tongue in cheek jokes and reminders to use condoms. Spirituality can be celebrated, as long as its non-denominational and, in fact, judea-islamo-christo-tarot-non-specifico spirituality. I don’t think we’re being cowards, I think the larger points of the show will be heard if we keep Jesus and Fellatio out of the same sentence.

I’m just sad because we aren’t giving the world the character that could be there. A completely Christian, completely gay leader of men. George Bush, who happens to love men. Andrew Sullivan. A moral man who doesn’t look at sex as a moral issue, just a physical issue.

Now, a broad comedy that’s going up as part of a downtown festival might not be the place for this character… but if not here, then where? We’ve got a long life ahead of us, we’re gonna make a lot of characters, as actors and writers and producers, and this is a chance for us to be heard. There’s just a part of me that wishes we could be as obnoxious as possible…

It has been a while since I posted. I’ve been having panic attacks, to a degree that I can’t really describe. I’m just now beginning to get them under control, but I’ve not really been trusting myself lately, not really understood my place in the middle of things, and I’ve decided it would be better not to write anything while I felt, y’know, insane.

So, the good news is really quite good and there’s quite a lot of it. I can’t tell you what theater the Fringe festival has provided us with because it might change before July 1st, but it is one of the most storied houses in New York, with plenty of seats, in the middle of the right neighborhood for a gay sailor musical. Just the thought of producing a play that goes up in that gorgeous space is making a lot of the struggle with this play worth while.

We had a reading of the play last night with some of my favorite people in the world, who also just happen to be lightning amazing musical theater actors. Rick Gradone, with whom I identify on almost all levels, showed up at my house after catching a red-eye from Los Angeles and said, “I want to do this guy like he’s from Long Island”. I said, “Oh… well, none of these guys have ever been to New York…” and Rick’s eyes lit up and he said, “EXACTLY!”

That’s when you know, with a piece like this. People read the piece and look up at you and say, “Wait, why don’t they know who the Statue of Liberty is” and you should just rip the script out of their hands and point at the door. We had an interview with one guy where I said, “Do you think this takes place in 1945 or 2005?” and he said, “I don’t think it matters…” and I wanted to kiss him.

This leads to a problem. This problem has a shorthand with me, Jordi and Mac, which is “not wearing the red sweater”. We were doing a play two years ago where Mac and I played multiple characters and one of them was named “Red”. We were wearing different sweaters to delineate who each person was, so a red sweater was used for the character “Red”. Then one of us said, “what if Red is the one who *isn’t* wearing a red sweater?” and we laughed and laughed and laughed. Then the director looked at us and said, “But… that isn’t funny.”

And he’s right. It’s only funny if you know that initially we had thought of putting him in a red sweater and decided not to, in order to be absurd.If we don’t make a decision about what year the place is taking place in, then it looks like a *mistake*. Jordana and I were driving past this crappy events planning place in Queens three years ago and she said, “We should get married here…” except that everyone who came to the wedding wouldn’t think it was funny, they would think it was crappy.

But… you have to have the same page open in the book of comedy. This project needs to be married with a vision that says, “It doesn’t matter what year… but I *hate* mistakes”. We still haven’t offered the job to anyone, but I think we’re really close.

At the reading, we also had Tally Sessions who… I mean, the man is a genius. He’s an actual genius. The problem, of course, is that like any genius he can sometimes steer off into territory heretofor unknown by us mortals, but that’s, I guess, why you have a director. Tally will be going along in fifth gear and then, just ’cause he can, he’ll spin the car around and drive in reverse. But, God, I’m always so glad to be a passenger when he does that.

And then my friend Rob Hoyt. Rob has trouble getting work, and I think it’s honestly because he is so goddam bigger than life that no-one knows what to do with him. He’s the only guy I’ve ever met who is a better sight reader than me, he’s one of those “just give me the starting pitch… never mind, I think I got it” kind of guys. One of the pieces we wrote is almost a tone poem, with key changes and accidentals throughout, and Rob read it like he was doing first grade math. Which, I guess, is all music is anyway.

Rob is larger than people. In every way. I’ve known Rob since before we were twenty years old, and for some reason we have always loved each other deeply. It doesn’t make sense, we should have always been in competition, both of us singers, both of us actors, both of us obnoxious barrel chested wannabe alpha males who actually just want a pretty girl to be nice to us, and yet we really have hardly ever fought in the entire history of our relationship.

And the play? It works. We’re right at a B plus right now. We’ve got a few more little things to find out, but a lot of that will be during the next two weeks and then during production re-writes. But we’re off to a hell of a start just with the people we know, and we’ll have to see where we go from here.

THis is my idea for the ad

We’ve got a website up for Fleet Week.

fleetweekthemusical.com

If you’d like to listen to the MP3s from the show, they sound pretty bad due to crappy bit rate, but you can hear five of the tunes here

We’re very excited about the progress the show is going through. Our stripped down version of the play came in at 103 minutes, but that’s with no set changes or intermission. Also without the massive applause and laughs. We might need to cut out another five minutes to allow for spontaneous ovations.

Anyway, it’s what we’ve been up to. There’s a blog over there as well that I will write in occassionally, but it will be very dry in comparison to this. No posts on the benefit of plural marriage. No use of the word “Fuck”. I may even use it less here.

I wouldn’t fucking bet on it, of course.