a poor player

It’s a Buffalo day. I had to come into the city this morning to sign all my paperwork for the Kavinoky Theatre in preparation for Forum, and I decided to make a day of it. I haven’t spent a day in Buffalo since I’ve been back from Staunton, so it felt like the perfect opportunity to do so. So I’m sitting right now in Spot Coffee, and it feels like sitting in Coffee on the Corner, with the exception that for some reason the Spot Coffee location on Elmwood Ave. in Buffalo does not have wireless. The downtown location on Chippewa does, so I assumed moving uptown to Elmwood might. No luck.

So…a funny thing happened on the way to the Kav. The Kav business manager had sent in my paperwork for the show back in late June, but heard nothing as rehearsal time grew nearer. A complication in the process was that the Buffalo-Rochester Agreement had run out, and everyone was in the midst of trying to hammer out a new one, with no success. Finally, Equity said we could work under the old agreement, but they also told the theatre that I was a Canadian citizen, and they could not process my paperwork until they got a copy of my visa. So I had to call Equity to tell them that I was indeed an American citizen. Seemed someone had managed to check off the Canadian box or something on the computer when I first applied in June. Go figure – I work non-union for close to 20 years in Buffalo, no problem. My first union gig, and Equity screws it up. The power of unionization! So, in order to make sure I was paid on time, I had to make the journey to the big city.

I haven’t been to the Kav in about 10 years or so, but things were relatively the same except for new office locations and a lot of construction installing new HVAC systems. Steve Cooper, an old-time BFO theatre presence who has worked forever at the Kav as an actor, is now doing business management. We had a laugh over my new citizenship status, and I got all the paperwork done and got the vocal book. Sheila McCarthy came in, who’s playing Dominia, and we chatted as well. One thing about Buffalo theatre that’s so great – you don’t see people for some time, but the minute you do it’s as if you saw them yesterday. So nice.

After getting all the paperwork signed, I went off to the downtown Spot Coffee in the heart of the “Chippewa Strip,” a collection of bars for the 20s-30s set. When I first started working in Buffalo back in the late 80s, Chippewa Street was where you went for hookers and drugs. Perhaps in some sort of perverse way that hasn’t changed, only glamorized. I waited there for a lunch date I had made with a former student who works as the Education Coordinator at Shea’s Buffalo, which is our local road house. She came around noon and we had a good talk catching up. She wanted to hear all about my tour with the ASC and I gave her the lowdown.

After lunch I went over to the Irish Classical Theatre to say “hi, back in town.” I ran right into Fortune Pezzamenti, the Associate AD, out on the street just finishing lunch. We walked over to the theatre and I chatted with Big Mike for bit, who is chairing this year’s Curtain Up! event, and then Vince O’Neill, the AD, came back from lunch, so I chatted a bit with him. Nice visit. Now I’m uptown writing this and trying to figure out how I’m going to upload it.

It’s nice to be in an urban environment for a day. Buffalo is such a pleasant city, with many places to walk and hang. You never get a sense of being in a rush or anything, a feeling I like. I was thinking about that as I walked about the downtown theatre district. The street was not empty but not exactly crowded. There are enough places to go without feeling like you’re overwhelmed with choices. The weather today is absolutely terrific – mid-70s and sunshine. I will be going to Shakespeare in Delaware Park later this evening to see Twelfth Night. Sometimes I feel that moving back to Buffalo would be rather enjoyable. I’m having a nice time just sitting in this coffee shop and writing; there’s activity around me, people are chatting, playing chess, other computer activities. The cute young lady taking orders at the register is singing out the orders. It’s pleasant. Very unlike Dunkirk.

For the past two days, though, I have been concentrating on doing a bit of land improvement. I went up on Monday and did a bunch of bushhogging to clear some trees and shrubs out in anticipation of the trench I dug yesterday. There is a great deal of water that pours over the treehouse area when it rains, so by digging what essentially is a moat around the treehouse, I’ve turned it into an island and given the water other options to go. I spent a couple of nights there,and on Monday night watched a beautiful moon rise above the ridge in absolute silence. Totally enjoyable as well.

Interesting how sort of difficult it is to keep both sides of the soul fueled. On the one hand, the urban part of me really enjoys the life of the city. The rural part of me totally enjoys the solitude and quiet of the country. There seems to be no way to simultaneously enjoy both. Apartment in the city while enjoying the cabin from time to time? A home in the country close to work with the occasional foray to the city? Can the problem be solved without having to burn fossil fuel to get either place? Which part of me is more critical to feed on a continuing basis? Do I want to commute every day to work? Do I want to continue to commute to theatre jobs? If I moved to the city, could I get even more involved in its artistic scene, even (gasp! gulp!) start my own theatre? Are there other opportunities elsewhere?

The way I see it at the moment, I have a year back at Fredonia to ponder such ideas. and ponder them I shall. I really have no idea where I’ll end up at the end of it all, but this summer interlude between finishing ASC and starting the next year has been raising the questions. To be continued….-twl