Senior Citizen

So the school year ended. I am now a senior in college. I am forced to confront the fact that the utter terror that is the real world is a very concrete and nearby future. And I don't even get a prom to soften the blow this time!

However, to take my mind off that, both theater groups I'm involved with at Rutgers had their annual awards ceremonies!

For those of you that don't know, the Cappies (College Avenue Players) and the Cabaret Ball (Cabaret Theatre) are the annual back-pat-a-thon/circle-jerks that we in the theater community throw to help celebrate how awesome we are by giving out awards. And by drinking and wearing goofy costumes.

And now a run down (with pictures!):

The Cappies

Last year's CAP awards ceremony was kind of lame. The theme sucked ("Mythological creatures"? What the fuck?) and we were stuck in the tiny basement of Tumultis on George Street. This year, however was much better. We were at the local elk's lodge and the theme was "Classy 80s Coke and Whore Party" which was a shit-load more fun. Plus I was 21 this time!

In the end, Wacky Hijinks won Best Show which was pretty damn exciting. It would have been even more exciting had 7/8 of the cast all been on the voting committee. But whatever, we won! Whoo!

The Cast of Hijinks (minus Dave)

Next came the after party which was at Jamie and Holly's house and was a Rubics Cube Party. For those of you that don't know, a RCP is when everyone comes wearing all different colors and keep trading until they are wearing only one. I ended up completing seven damn colors (all of a rubics cube plus black) and I only ruined two girls' shirts in the process.
















Halfway through, someone asked me why I was getting so into the game. I told them it was because I had a girlfriend now so there really wasn't anything else to do at a party.


By the end of the night, things devolved into a pantsless dance party both inside and out. This may have been based on my suggestion and campaigning. At least that's what people tell me. I don't remember.

All in all, a fun night.

The Cabaret Ball

My freshmen year, the Cabaret Ball was absolutely amazing. Then last year, it sucked. I blame that mostly on the fact that the theme was "Dress as a drink". What on earth does that mean? I ended up throwing bunny ears on and carrying a hammer. I was a Harvey Wallbanger.

This year the theme was a little bit more interesting. It was "Guilty Pleasures". It took me forever to come up with something and then finally I had the perfect costume. I went as the movie Love Actually. See:

Basically, I didn't know how to dress up as lesbian porn.
Ha! You think that's gross, try this:


Anyway, my costume was simple and also a big hit with the ladies. I was making hearts melt left and right with my actual love. Here are the pictures:

One with Sam
One with Rachel
One with Maddie
One with Jade

One with Ali

And one with...uh...Bassem
In the end, Hair won Best Show which was pretty damn exciting. It would have been even more exciting had we not had the biggest cast and therefore the biggest voting block. But whatever, we won! Whoo!
Then the after party where, I don't know, we all drank more.

Wrap-Up

Anywho, junior year was a really great year for me. I became much closer with a really great group of people and we worked hard and created some great stuff. And now I have a cute girl whose butt I can grab at any time without getting in trouble. Much love, Sam!

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I don't want to leave college. Oh God, I don't want to leave college.

One Last Hair Piece (I promise)

I Google myself. Get over it.

Anyway, I do it whenever I am scraping the bottom of the barrel procrastination-wise. And, with an as-of-yet paper due a few hours from now, tonight was a perfect time for such a distraction.

Usually I just get the same responses I've always gotten, but tonight I was rewarded with something special. Apparently The Observer, a student newspaper from our sister campus Rutgers-Newark, had some pages to fill last week and ran a very nice review of Hair (after the show had closed, but whatever).

Here's a link, but I don't know how long their archive stays up so I'll just post the whole thing here:

Sex and Drugs Alive and Well at Rutgers
New Brunswick delivers an amazing production of "Hair"
ZACHARY HUFF, LIFE & LEISURE EDITOR
Issue date: 3/4/08 Section: Observations

The Cabaret Theatre is a pretty non-descript building on the Livingston campus in New Brunswick. Nothing really stuck out about it aside from some live music (heavy on the drums) filtering out of the windows and a huge sign on the lawn that read "Hair."

Needless to say, I really had no idea what I was getting into. Even as I was sitting in a folding chair, watching as the cast stumbled out of the curtains and into the giant open space inches from me, my thoughts were racing, struggling to try to take it all in.

Maybe it was the fact that it was 11:54 on a Saturday night.

Maybe it was the thick smell of pot that seemed to dance about the air.

Whatever the case was, it was 1968 and I was about to go on a trip. And as I sat there, contemplating my hands and my fingers and why the fuck we were in Vietnam, the performance took off.

Berger (played by Jon Bershad) set the mood of this "American tribal rock musical" rather quickly; his pants were off and he was thrusting at a few lucky ladies in the audience within ten minutes.

The audience was welcomed into their tribe, and we were basically told to sit back and hold on as our minds were about to be blown.

What followed was a collective of thoughts and songs pieced together by themes of love and the Vietnam War. Every cast member had their chance to shine, and boy did they shine.

Several of the players stood out in my humble eyes. Anthony Preuster as Woof was captivating, constantly demanding my attention and making me feel as though his obsession with Mick Jagger could be a matter of life or death.

Dina Graziano (playing Chrissy) persevered through a bit of technical difficulties to deliver "Frank Mills," a heartfelt song of unrequited love. Madeline Orton's portrayal of Sheila eloquently captured the spirit of protesters with shouts and stomps one minute, and the pain of a lover scorned the next.

The entire cast made the performance feel a little more than real to me. They weaved through the audience at all times, touching and feeling (and blowing) whoever they wanted.

I've never felt more involved in a performance; it was a refreshing guerrilla-style show that pretty much raped me of my preconceptions of musicals.After an hour and a half of getting to know the tribe, the first act ended with considerably less clothing and the second act began. The plot line of the second act was much more focused and driven, following Claude (played brilliantly by Ben Regan) as he examined Vietnam and the draft through drug-induced fantasies. While it wasn't as flighty and easy going as the beginning, it really grounded the musical. The resolution was heavy, and I was more than a bit sad to have to leave the tribe.

Unfortunately, by the time you read this, the production run of "Hair" at the Cabaret Theatre will have already wrapped up. Check out www.cabarettheatre.org for other upcoming productions as well as more information on the theatre.

You'd think that I'd be upset that I did not warrant a mention in his "actors that stood out section" however, I'm just glad that now, whenever I Google my name, the phrase "Sex and Drugs Alive and Well at Rutgers" appears prominently.

PS. A longer post of stuff I myself actually wrote is coming soon (I had a fairly exciting weekend filled with sex, violence, and duct tape). Soon after that the entries will slow down for a while while I am in Europe. So, sad for you and yay for me.

The Eve of Aquarius: Hair Cut-Off and Wrap-Up

"Like it or not, they got me."

Well, I finally did it. Today after class I drove to some random Super Cuts in a desolate strip mall on Route 1 and got my hair cut.

While I flipped through the latest issue of Vibe (it was that or a tabloid) waiting for my turn in the chair, a small tinge of doubt began to form in the back of my mind. And then, while Shaggy's imortal song "Boombastic" blasted out of the radio and a woman with an impenetrable Jamaican accent (I simply nodded to everything she said which resulted in my purchase of an expensive hair "relaxing balm") began bringing out her scissors, the doubt turned into a full-fledged panic. Could I do it? Could I have the chapter in my life that was Hair the musical so clearly cut short? Of course, in an instant, it was too late and George Berger had been forcibly severed from me and had fallen to the ground, where he would be left until someone swept him up into a plastic garbage bag.

Hair was over.

Obviously, part of me is relieved. I no longer have to drive to Douglass every day. I get hours upon hours of free time back. And I never again (thank God) have to sing the song "Donna" for the rest of my entire fucking life.

But still, as my hair fell down just like the Hair set came down a day earlier, I was genuinely sad. And I was even more sad then I always am at the end of a play. I think a large part of that has to do with the fact that, unlike the last few plays I've worked on, the people I did Hair with weren't the people I hang out with anyway. I'm not going to see them every day now that the final curtains fallen. And let me say, I've loved working with these people.

Seriously, this was one of the best groups of people I've ever worked with. They were just so much fun and so diverse. I genuinely feel like, had we not been working on an incredibly stressful play the whole time, I'd probably have actually enjoyed spending time with them.

If any of you are reading this, I love you all and I hope to see you sometime soon.

The other reason I was so sad, was that doing this play was so different for me and that was really exciting. I did a lead a musical with pretty much no singing or dancing talent (which is kind of like going to a shooting range with no bullets...or hands) and you know what? I survived. And hell, I even did full frontal nudity. I did everything on stage in this show that I've ever been afraid of doing on stage. And I got through it! It was truly exciting (although it's a little worrying that there's nothing left to do that really scares me except perhaps for sacrificing a Christian virgin on stage).

So, let me give a big thank you to everyone involved. Both to the wonderful cast and crew and to all of the people I knew who came out to see us. I had a wonderful time.

And now, here's a little summary of some of my favorite parts of closing weekend:

• While Thursday night's was definitely our worst performance, the last three were all fantastic (although we did really miss Shannon during the last two)
• The ad libs got stranger and stranger throughout the run. This maaaaaaaaaaaaay have had something to do with the rapidly descending sobriety of the cast.
• I accidentally kneed Danielle in the chin during the "Sodomy" blow job scene on closing night. She was very nice about it.
• Cabaret people filmed a lot of the performances and back stage stuff. I would love to see all of it. One moment I'm especially excited to see is a clip of us during Set Strike performing scenes with all the roles switched around. I'm really glad we hadn't done this until after the show was done because the directors would have definitely fired me and had Ayesha play Berger had they seen the realism and intensity she brought to the role.
• We had a big cast party at my house after Saturday's show. We christened the bong from the set which I had to name the Agora Bong and we even ate some fantastic brownies that Danielle, Ayesha, and I made before the show. Of course, I ended the night a complete mess and had to be helped to my bed in an epic quest that Rachel likened to the end of Return of the King starring me as Frodo and Danielle as Sam, boldly carrying me the last stretch of the way.

I can't believe it's over.

Today, on the way home from my hair cut, I was listening to some music (a Bob Dylan CD no less) and went to bob my head and was surprised to find thatI couldn't feel my hair bob with me.

Sigh. Ka-lookah-koo.

I'm Gonna Keep Writing About This Fucking Show Until Every Single One of You Comes and Sees It

Well, tonight was not exactly our best performance. I mean, Act Two had some great stuff in it, but Act One had really low energy and some other problems (some shithead forgot an entire verse of "Donna"...). What are you gonna do, though? First shows after a week long break always have those problems.

On the upside, I got my favorite piece of praise ever. From Maddie's mother: "You were wonderful. You're my absolute nightmare of a son in law, but you were wonderful."

Here are some more Onilx pictures to beat the point home. I'm in Hair. Come see it. I'm in Hair.



P.S. Sometimes I hate that my name sounds so much like the word "job". On the way out, some girl said, "Good job!" to me and I thought she said, "Hey Jon!" or something like that. Naturally (since this happens to me all the time) I assumed I knew her and had just forgotten her name. So I tried to play it off like I remembered exactly who she was and got real excited and said, "Hey! How have you been?". Of course I had never met her before in my life. So she was real confused. And I was real confused. And it was real bad.

Almost as bad as Act One...


P.P.S. I was pretty much just writing this thing for myself but apparently there are a few people reading it. So why don't any of you comment ever instead of just mentioning it to me (you know who you are people at dinner, play director, former ice cream clerk girl who messaged me on Facebook, and currently-European friend who told the ice cream clerk girl to read it)?

The Countdown to a Haircut Begins

Well, the closing weekend of Hair begins in a couple hours. We have four shows this weekend (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8 plus a bonus midnight show on Friday night) so don't miss your last chance to see the show. Or your last chance to see it again if you're really crazy. Show and reservation information can be found at the Cabaret website.

ps. Cabaret had this local photographer who goes by the handle Onilx come and take photos last week and they look great. You can find them on his website. That picture above is from there and here are a few more.

A Jumble of Thoughts

With a couple of days off from Hair, I feel like I'm swimming in free time. It's not true, but it feels like I am. That being the case and, having written mostly posts about other things recently, here's a random list of things going on with me:

At Cabaret Theatre, Word of Mouth is Our Best Advertisement and Use of Mouth is Our Best Entertainment: a Hair opening weekend round-up

• The shows went really well. The midnight show was actually the best, which is weird considering it was the performance we were the least sober at.
• Saturday afternoon I got a call asking if one of my housemates was a drummer. This is not something you want to hear a couple of hours before a musical. Fortunately, we got someone to fill in last minute for the one show we were missing a drummer and she was excellent.
• I spilled bong water on my lap onstage during the second performance. Very unfortunate.
• Text message from my brother during intermission opening night: "U made bershads everywhere proud in that nude scene" Touching.
• And my favorite story of the weekend: During the course of the play, there are two scenes where I get simulated blow jobs (a number I will spend the rest of my theatrical career attempting to surpass). The first one takes place during the song "Sodomy" and involves Danielle, an actress in the show, literally pushing me into the lap of an audience member in the first row and then pretending to go down on me. At the end of the song, the music reaches a climax and I, ahem, pretend to follow suit. To make this clearer (and basically to fuck with the audience even more) I usually grab someone in the first row's knee and squeeze. During the intermission of the first performance I asked Danielle if she saw whose knee I grabbed. She said yes. It was her boyfriend.

Things I'm Doing Post-Haircut
I agreed to take a small role in Zipperface??!?, the musical I wrote over winter break with Dave and Andy. Also I've got Hijinks right after that and once school ends I'm heading to South Jersey to film an independent horror movie called Sorrow Hill. All of these things things deserve their own blog entries, so basically I'm just writing this to remind myself that my current free time will be short lived even after Hair's over.

I'm Almost a Good Student
I had a very nice conversation with one of my professor's today after class where she asked about my future plans and told me I made large contributions to the class. You're all probably thinking that that's not very interesting, but it was really cool for me. The last time a teacher seemed genuinely pleases with my in-class performance was in first grade when I was the only student in Mrs. Powell's class who wrote a Season poem that rhymed.

Grown Up Food
Since I'm partly writing this blog to be read by a hypothetical future Me, I think it's important to note that I made big steps to becoming an adult type person today. I went to the grocery store (all by myself) and got some real meals for myself. Sure there was nothing that required anything more complicated than a microwave, however, any night without RU Grill or takeout Chinese is still a whole night without RU Grill or takeout Chinese.

Grown Up Food for Thought
Last week, during tech for Hair, I had next to no time to sleep. And when I did sleep, it was fitful and brief. During times like that, I tend to have really strange dreams (or perhaps I'm just able to remember them more). One night in particular, I had a whole string of absolute whoppers. It began with me being a mafia hit man and later developed into a look at some extremely dramatic Bizarro World cast party for Hair. However, the most interesting part of the dream (and the part I remember the clearest) came later.
It was incredibly vivid and took place at some kind of seaside resort town (think LBI). It was the future and I was sitting in a lawn chair, having a conversation with my parents. After a couple minutes, three young children ran up, one of whom was my son. He had bright blond hair, which I suppose he got from his mother's side (she didn't appear in the dream. He was really happy and asked me if he could go play with his two friends whom I remember quite clearly being a young Asian boy and a cute, little girl. I said yes and they all ran off. As they were leaving, I pointed to the little girl and joked to my parents that in a few more years, my son would start spending all his time trying to bang her.
Then we all laughed.
It was very odd.

Random Movie Fun!

Well, we finished the first weekend of Hair. How about that? It actually went really well and a lot of funny things happened. But, you know what? I really don't feel like writing about it. Today is officially the first day in a month I haven't had to think about Hair and I'm not going to start now.

I spent the whole day trying to do as little as possible and I think I succeeded admirably. The only real activity I engaged myself with was watching The Graduate with my housemates. Sure, it was the same time period as Hair (1967 vs. 1968) but it was the opposite side of the counter culture, so I felt safe (only one afro in the entire film!).




God, I love that movie. I have to say, it was a little disturbing to discover that I am now the same age as Ben Braddock is supposed to be (the scuba suit scene takes place on his 21st birthday).
It's interesting, I remember reading an article by Roger Ebert where he talked about his changing views on the film. As the years have passed, he wrote, it became clear to him that Mrs. Robinson is really the most interesting character of the film. In the few years since I first watched the movie I've come to the same realization. Anne Bancroft gets so much backstory across in just a couple of lines during that bedroom scene where she discusses Elaine's accidental conception. It's amazing.

However, I still love the Ben role (and Hoffman's performance). It was always my dream role to play. Back in high school, I always used to push for our Performing Arts classes to perform the play adaptation as our spring show. It never happened because there aren't enough roles (Mrs. Robinson's scripted full frontal scene didn't help). It was probably for the best though. As much as it tries, the play really is just a pale imitation of the movie and the CharlesWebb novel that inspired it (which, I'm sad to admit, I've been stuck in the middle of for an eternity. God, I wish I had more time to read for fun). I still used to use the seduction scene as an audition monologue back when I thought I wanted to be an actor.

I really love that movie.



ps. I used to love to watch the Oscars when I was little. I'd tape it and then make my parents promise not to tell me who won. Now I can't even sit through a couple minutes of it. It was a sad day when I realized the Best Picture was very rarely the best picture of the year. Right up there with the whole Santa Claus thing.

Questionable Life Decisions: How I Came to Star in an American Tribal Love Rock Musical

Did I really write a full post about a stupid celebrity scandal the other day? Wow. Good to know that when I'm exhausted I develop the writing style of a bitchy gay man.

So, why am I so exhausted? Well, Hair, of course!

You see, there are times in a young man's life when he comes to question the life choices he made that led him to where he is. Sitting under a parachute naked with a bunch of other naked people wearing fake afros while you hope your genitals look good to the paying audience is one of those times.
The first thing naked me thinks about is the fact that I was never supposed to be in this play to begin with and that's because I was never going to audition.

I'm not really a big musical guy. And I don't mean that I'm one of those theater people that feels he's somehow above plays where people sing their feelings instead of discussing them. I love watching musicals. I think they're a lot of fun and I think that sometimes, if done right, a simple song can tell infinitely more about a character than a thousand perfectly phased soliloquies. I'm just not a big musical guy because I'm not very good at them. I've never really been able to sing and when it comes to dancing, I got my rhythm from the same side of the family that gave me my curly hair and frugal financial sense. And since I'm a fragile, fragile soul, I tend to stay away from things I'm not good at.
Except baseball. For some reason I played that for years.

Anyway, out of all the plays I'd done my first two years of college, not a one had been a musical. Then last semester, I decided to go out for Reefer Madness. Sure, I was worried, but I loved the play and a bunch of my friends were doing it so I decided what the hell. A few weeks into the rehearsal process I decided I was never going to do another musical as long as I lived.
Not that Reefer Madness was a horrible experience at all. I mean, aside from some offstage drama (one of those stories that doesn't belong on a public blog) I had a lot of fun. It just wasn't my thing.

So then, when people started asking me if I was auditioning for Hair, I practically laughed in their face. The question then is, what happened? Well, it's simple.

Pretty girls asked me.

The truth is, sometimes I'm a weak man. Sometimes I'm not, but on this occasion, all it took was a nice smile and I was sitting in the Cabaret lobby preparing to sing.

But don't think that I instantly went whole hog into this thing just because of a pair of tits. I mean, that is the reason I went into it, but I only went half hog. My whole audition was basically a joke. I answered all the questions on the audition sheet sarcastically and when I had to sing, I sang the only song I could think of. What song was that? "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas".

And I forgot half the lyrics.

This right here, is the point in the story where I need to get punished. I've said it before and I'll say it again; my life is basically a sitcom. And, in many ways, sitcoms are structured like all classical drama and that means that the hero needs to be punished for his hubris. I had auditioned jokingly for a play that really meant something to a lot of people and I had done so purely for the chicks. The Gods were just itching to fuck with me.

So what did they do? The worst thing possible. They got me cast as a lead. In a musical.

So now, here I am, and it's opening night, and in just a few hours I'm gonna be naked under that parachute. And you know what I'm gonna be thinking? I'm gonna be thinking that I couldn't be happier.

I may have made a mistake when I auditioned for this play for the wrong reasons, but now I really feel like I'm a part of something special. Sure, the production has been rocky at best both on-stage (to start, our original director was fired the first day) and off (you can read about that all here) and sure, if we had a couple more weeks the show could be better. But you know what? I really love the people I'm working with and I love what I'm doing and, dammit, I think I'm growing to love being a naked hippie under a parachute as well.