Going for a walk in Central Park

Buttercups are my favorite flower, and they’ve just come into season! Walking along the many paths of Central Park affords a view of an amazing variety of flowers, so you are sure to find some of your favorites. The whole of the park smells like soft perfume, but the scents and scenery are even crisper and bolder right after a rainfall.

Learning Arabic

In tandem with keeping up my Spanish, I have decided to learn Arabic. It’s such a beautifully written language and it shares so many of its phthongs and obstruents with the French language. A lot of French slang has also been shaped by Arabic speakers, so it would be nice to understand the origin of the words I am using daily. That being said, it is quite complicated as it is written right to left and the alphabet is completely different. But I do love a challenge and feeling the newness of these sounds is bouncing around my mouth is a delight.

Working a middle school play

I had the special privilege recently of wardrobe supervising a middle school musical in New York City. (And yes, for those who are wondering, it was a private school - who else could afford a WS for a 3-performance run?) I say privilege because among the 12 and 13-year olds I could see the realization on certain faces that this is what they wanted to do when they grew up. It’s incredibly revitalizing to see this happening because it reminds me of a time in which I had so much hope and faith in myself to succeed, a feeling which ebbs and flows over the years.

Wonder of the World by David Lindsay-Abaire

This play is a gripping whirlwind ride when a woman decide to leave her husband and hop on a bus to one of the wonders of the world with a bucket list in hand. The surprisingly dark comedy is full of clever twists and turns and fully fleshed-out characters. My only regret is that the hilarious monologues are not long enough to use for auditions!

La Place by Annie Ernaux

This touching tale of a woman’s father and her relationship to him is only the surface of this beautiful short novel. Throughout the book we learn that her relationship to him factors in her relationships to her hometown, her mother, and especially her schooling. Reading La Place is like realizing you are growing up and seeing your parents differently for the first time all over again.

The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes by Suzanne Collins

This prequel to the Hunger Games series is just as exciting and holds just as many cliffhangers- if not more. It tells the tale of a young Coriolanus Snow, a sort of origin story as to how he began to think in such an authoritarian way. Anyone can appreciate the grip Suzanne Collins’ language has on us, and fans of the Hunger Games books will love all the easter eggs with recalls to characters we know so well.

For colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is not enuf

For a show that is entirely made up of dance, song and storytelling monologues, I did not feel like anything was lagging. Despite the nature of the title of this show and some of the darker moments it contained, the joy these women felt shone through and prevailed to be so strong it infected the entire theater. By the end of the show the audience was laughing, crying, dancing and singing along with the immeasurable talents up on the stage in front of us.

The Skin of Our Teeth

I am not the biggest Thorton Wilder fan. I thought Our Town was fantastically boring play when I read it in school and when I realized I would be sitting through 3 hours (with 2 whole intermissions) of one of his plays I was resigned to be daydreaming the entire time. But as soon as Gabby Beans opened the show with a manic Sabina (for which she’s gotten a tony nom) I was hooked. This production made full use of the stage, the actors were all brilliant, the mise-en-scène was fantastic and I could not look away.

Belfast Girls

In this New York premiere directed by Nicola Murphy, 5 girls board a boat at Belfast, headed for Australia and the promise of a better life. But soon secrets are revealed and the once-shakily established trust is broken. This play was incredibly captivating, all of the actresses in it were present in each and every moment. This two-act play had gripping ups and downs and made one realize that a boat full of angry women is in fact the most dangerous place you could be.