Category: Media

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Made My Acting Debut, on Gloria Allred’s WE THE PEOPLE!

 

This week I made my TV acting debut on NBC’s We the People With Gloria Allred. Several weeks ago, a casting agency I registered with sent me to audition for a part on the show.

I ended up getting cast as a plaintiff who was suing the owner of a small airline for emotional distress and the cost of her therapy sessions after her vibrator accidentally went off in her luggage. The baggage check guy alerted the airline owner who made my character take out the vibrator in front of everyone on the plane, to her great humiliation. It’s based on a real case.

Haha, my first Hollywood experience, my first role, and this is how I’m cast! It felt very Jonathan Ames! So I did it. And it was a lot of fun, and a really interesting learning experience. I figured, so L.A., right?! I don’t know how much acting I’ll do – what I really want to do is write, but I wanted to see what it was like on a TV set, how things were done, what auditions were like, etc.

Anyway, it aired this Thursday afternoon on NBC. I’m working a job with long hours right now, but fortunately a very nice co-worker who lives close to the office let me use her apartment on my lunch hour to watch the show. Of course all I could do was stress about how neurotic I came across with my shaky voice and how drab I looked, but that was the character, so it was all good. I thought we all – the airline owner, the baggage check guy, and I – came across as very real. So I’m actually pretty okay with the way it turned out despite my blah look.

It’s funny that I’m a former litigator and have courtroom experience. And Gloria Allred is such a huge personality here. So very cool that my first gig was in a courtroom, being on her show!

Anyway, if it ever goes up on YouTube or NBC’s website, I’ll embed or link to it. I don’t think it’s up yet, but if you see it please let me know! The episode is called “Batteries Included.”

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Stacey Cochran’s Book Chatter Interview Is Up!

Here’s the Book Chatter interview I participated in last night! The show is hosted by popular Claws author Stacey Cochran, and the hour-long interview includes a total of five indie authors: Zoe Winters, R.J. Keller, P.A. Woodburn, Lynda Hilbrun, and me. It was great fun – and R.J. revealed her hugely exciting news! Several viewers IM’d in questions about that, so if you’re an author, seriously, watch the video.

I haven’t watched it yet but I probably sound so squeaky-voiced and nervous! My apartment is always SO loud on Friday nights – guy and girl upstairs clomping around in hard-soled shoes and blasting music, guy next door blasting TV, guy and girl under me blasting music, etc. etc. etc. So I decided to go the Writers Room, where I have a membership, and use their designated “phone room” to do the phone-in interview. Well, for the first time EVER it was insanely loud there on a Friday night. Usually, no one is there at that time; everyone is out having a life. But last night it was packed; people were coming in and out of the phone room like mad, making calls, talking to themselves and what not, noisily picking up and rattling keys to the ladies’ / men’s rooms. Then, a person came in to re-paint the kitchen. And of course the supply room they banged around in just had to be right off from the phone room. I finally ended up in the building’s lobby where ringing bells from the elevators signaling floor stops abounded. All the noise made me so nervous! Someday, I will have to leave New York, so I can have peace and quiet in a room of my own…

Anyway, it was a blast chatting about our books and the publishing process and ebooks and Amazon and self-publishing with four other authors and Mr. Cochran. I don’t think he’s ever had that many on the show at once 🙂

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Blog Talk Radio Interview Today!

I’m going to be interviewed by Arizona author Leslie Kohler on her Blog Talk Radio show, “The Writer’s Inspiration,” today at 11 a.m. Phoenix time (PT), which is 2:00 p.m. EST. You can dial 347-945-7939 to listen in to the live conversation. The interview will focus on my novel, on inspiration for characters, etc., on book marketing tips, etc. etc. If you want hear the interview but can’t tune in at that time, no worries; it’s taped and will be up on the BTR site for a while. I’ll link to it when it’s up!

Okay, here’s the recording!

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SOLUTIONS FOR SUSTAINABLE DANCE WRITING

 

I am going to be part of a panel discussion (my first time being on a panel) next Monday evening, April 12th, at 6 p.m. at the Joyce SoHo. The event will be in a town hall format (so discussion, rather than lecture-oriented) and is organized by Marc Kirshner of TenduTV. We’re going to discuss how to brand yourself as a dance writer, how to make money writing about dance, how bloggers can attract and retain the largest audience possible, how new media writers can maintain journalistic standards of integrity, etc. — basically issues pertaining to dance writing and new media. It’s for anyone interested in or concerned about this new world of arts criticism that we find ourselves a part of. To learn more about the meeting and to rsvp, visit the event’s Facebook page.

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DEVIN ALBERDA IS HILARIOUS!

 

Headshot by Paul Kolnik, from NYCB website.

One of my Twitter followers, a law blogger go figure, sent me a link to this article, by Gia Kourlas in the NYTimes about how several ballet dancers, mostly from NYCB (apart from Maria Kochetkova and Daniil Simkin) are now actively tweeting. I found Alberda’s posts to be absolutely hilarious. Follow him!

Kourlas didn’t mention them, but David Hallberg, Marcelo Gomes, Drew Jacoby and Roberto Bolle are all on Twitter too. Roberto and Marcelo, unfortunately, don’t tweet much. Marcelo in particular cracks me up though. He started the account to tweet about ABT’s recent Culinary Pas de Deux. He had several tweets leading up to it: can’t wait for the culinary pas de deux, follow us as we tweet throughout, etc., then the two tweets the night of the event were something like: almost time for the culinary pas de deux!, then, wow that was a great culinary pas de deux! But no tweets throughout 🙂

It’s hard because dancers are so used to expressing themselves with their bodies, not their words and I know they’re encouraged to do this — blog and tweet — to reach out and try to gain new fans. My advice though: they have to make sure they remember they’re talking to a general audience, not an audience of already converted ballet fans, lest their posts be largely lost on most. They have to try to bring new people into their world, not exclude them with terminology that wouldn’t make any sense to an outsider. That’s why I think David Hallberg made the Winger so popular for the time that he was actively blogging there. He wasn’t just its biggest star; he had a way of communicating with people who don’t know everything there is to know about ballet, and of making them want to know more. I’ll bet he doesn’t have any dancers in his family and basically had to grow up doing that. His tweets are mostly about his travels guest starring all over the world.  His friend, Evan McKie, from the Stuttgart Ballet, who also used to blog on the Winger, is also on Twitter and it’s fun to keep up with him as well.

And those are only the ones I know of; there are probably many more. I don’t have time to search for people’s Twitter accounts, but just do as Kourlas suggests if you want to find them (or any other dancers): Google their name + Twitter and you should find them if they’re on there.

By the way, speaking of ABT’s Culinary Pas (see some photos of that here), my friend happened to go (she was invited by someone else, a patron, and didn’t even know it involved ABT until she got there!) She had a blast, said Marcelo and Craig Salstein (the organizers) were very nice, Craig in particular was very well spoken, which I’ve noticed before, that Marcelo and Gillian Murphy danced some duets from Dirty Dancing, including the mambo scene (said ballet dancers can’t move their hips properly for Latin dance 😀 ), and that Blaine Hoven was cutting up a rug on the dance floor along with Sascha Radetsky. I hate going to parties like this but love hearing about them afterward.

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NO REALLY, ARE YOU THE DEVIL?: ANNA WINTOUR ON LETTERMAN

For those who missed it last night (as I did; was out watching this excellent albeit very disturbing film), here is a clip of Anna Wintour’s David Letterman appearance last night. I love how he gets her to talk about Devil Wears Prada and how real the character is who’s allegedly based on her, when it’s so obvious she really doesn’t want to go there. Hehe, go Dave. No seriously, Ms. Wintour was spotted several times at ABT during the recent Met season so we like her for that reason alone. Plus, DWP is fiction…

She does seem a lot more nervous than I’d expect, and a lot younger.

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ARE THE 'BUZZIEST' CHOREOGRAPHERS MALE IN THE US AS WELL AS UK? AND DO CRITICS IN THE UK HAVE MORE POWER?

There’s currently a debate raging in London over Sadler’s Wells (the most important venue there for contemporary dance) and its new season lineup showcasing the work almost entirely of male choreographers. Thanks to Pinballpeople for pointing me to it!

See Guardian posts by dance and culture writers Judith Mackrell and Charlotte Higgins here, here, and here (and read the comments section in that last link; some are by choreographers and are very astute.)

Alistair Spalding, the artistic director of Sadler’s Wells, has apparently responded that he realizes there’s an imbalance but can’t do anything about it; he has to choose the works he thinks best. Spalding posits one reason for the lack of female choreographers as being that women are perhaps not as “assertive” as men, but it’s unclear to me what exactly he means.

Continue reading “ARE THE 'BUZZIEST' CHOREOGRAPHERS MALE IN THE US AS WELL AS UK? AND DO CRITICS IN THE UK HAVE MORE POWER?”

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Beware of Facebook's New Terms of Service

If you haven’t yet heard, Facebook has modified its terms of service to say that they now own all content posted or uploaded to the site and can use it in any way they wish without compensating you. This is of particular interest to the dance community because there are a great many of us using Facebook and uploading all kinds of pictures, videos, dance reviews, blog posts, etc. Not only can they now use without your permission anything that you upload, but, if you have a Facebook widget on your site inviting readers to post a link from your site to Facebook, it’s treated the same as an upload — you’ve automatically consented to giving full rights over that material to Facebook.

I’m not an IP lawyer but this looks on its face like unenforceable dumbassery — look at this NYTimes review for example: according to Facebook’s new TOS, they own not only Sir Alastair’s words, but the photos and slide show of Evidence as well because of the Facebook widget that pops up when you click the “share” button. So under these new terms it seems that they could sell the photos for use in a commercial or advertisement without any compensation to the dance company or newspaper. Obviously, ludicrously far-reaching consequences.

But since this has a lot of smart people up in arms, I think everyone would do best to reconsider what they upload to Facebook, at least until it’s all sorted out. For more information on this issue, go here, here, and here.

Update: Here’s the latest, kind of summarizing the whole thing.