Theater, Anyone?

I just might dare. I might I might I might. I might just take a basic theater course IN DUTCH! A few weeks ago I attended a course, Latent Talent, but hubby was working his butt off to pay our bills, and it conflicted with my writing group in Amsterdam, so I missed the first two courses. Laying in bed last night, I really started to regret it. It was so much fun! We did all sorts of improvisational exercises. I laughed, and felt energized. People were enthusiastic, and NICE! :-) All my grumbling about the Dutch populace not wanting to be my friend. Boo hoo. Woe is me. And then I pass up a golden opportunity.

It's confession time now. As a teenager in New York I took several courses in Avant Garde theater at The New School for Public Research, and had a passion for Sam Beckett, Pinter, Mamet, Joe Orton, Capek's RUR, and on and on. We saw many off Broadway performances of Beckett plays. It was riveting stuff. I really should have taken the plunge then.

Another confession. While working as a restaurant hostess at the Parker Meridien hotel on 57th between 6th and 7th, I was approached by Tom Hanks' talent agent, Simon Maslow (Among others). Oh it was so long ago. These things just don't matter anymore. He gave me his card, and told me to call him. It took me a while, but I finally did call. Have I written about this before? Sorry if I have... Anyway, he told me that if I didn't know I was an actress by then, I wasn't an actress.

Now on to the next phase. After transferring to Hunter College, I started out by writing a few theater reviews. My first theater review was of a production of Tennessee William's Camino Real. The director was Kevin O'Connor, who would die of cancer not too long afterward, but I interviewed him on my mini cassette recorder, and I still have the tapes somewhere. His claim to fame was that he'd worked personally with Samuel Beckett in Paris, and with Vaclav Havel in Prague. I was enthralled.

Not too long after that, I started a Performing Arts rag at school, Spot. Those were my years spent as a budding journalist. Thaddeus Harden was one of my photographers. Funny, that. I'm not name dropping, just telling a story.

Before Kevin O'Connor got very ill, I went to see "By and for Havel," two plays, one by Havel, and the other by Beckett for Havel. Those were golden times. Ah, I'm so nostalgic, but moving on, moving right along.

Everyone says I LOOK young, and some even say that I AM young, so I guess it isn't too late for me. I can still have fun. I am in need of a new impulse.

Of course, I could just keep on wavering, wavering, back and forth, should I, shouldn't I. Then there's the money, but it might be fun, and on and on...

Palm Reading Student

As a writing tutor at The Hunter College Writing Center I got assigned a young female Asian student who was supposed to be one of my regular students that semester. She was either Korean or Chinese. Sorry, I can't remember. She only showed up once, and when she did, she offered to read my palm. I was intrigued.

She studied it for a moment.

"You're going to have two, perhaps three children. If you don't get married now, you won't marry until you're about thirty. You have a long lifeline, but there's a break in it, which means that you will be ill, but you will live a long life."

So far, so good.

She studied my hand some more, then developed a horrified look on her face, putting my hand back down on the desk.

"I have to leave now. I'll finish reading palm next week." She smiled a bit, and then rushed off in a panic.

She never came back.

I heard from another tutor that she had a reputation for not showing up. I always sort of wondered if it had anything to do with what she saw in the lines of my hand.