John McCain, my dog is more equal than you.

1984 fans everywhere raised an eyebrow as John McCain, author of the doublethink masterpiece, The Internet Freedom Act, was proposed to Congress. Obviously, the man has no understanding of net neutrality, nor its implications. According to his wife, he doesn't even know how to send an email, and yet he proposes legislation that would allow ISPs to control or eliminate content. The information highway, brought to you Google free by MSN. Awesome.

One thing I have to give to conservative thinktanks; they understand Orwell better than we do. If we'd have named the public insurance option the Freedom Option for Liberty, we'd have single payer healthcare by now.

On being a comprimario.

I have a friend, an excellent singer and actor, who decided to quit singing because noone would hire him to play leads. They only wanted him to be the funny little sidekick. He refused. I could never wrap my brain around that. Character parts are so much more fun than leads. Have you ever had the experience of working for hours and hours on a project, only to have someone come in at the last minute and totally steal your thunder? That's what comprimarii do. Coming in for 5 minutes, blasting it out, and then leaving with the furniture is so much more rewarding than the slog of romantic melodrama. I'll let the skinny shits work like dogs and deal with the crazy divas. I just want to be a pirate, or a chef, or a retard, or a soldier, or a toady.

And give me my motherfucking check.

Of course, there are a few pitfalls. One downside to being a secondo is being treated with a lack of respect. I guess people are so used to small parts being performed like shit, they get used to the idea that the people that do them are in some way diminished. I had quite a few people come up to me after the last performance and tell me they have never heard my role sung that well. Seriously? I feel horrible for people that had to endure a bad Antonio, or Remendado, or Magician, or Li'l Bat. Companies are so used to young artists playing these roles for no money, they get dismissed half of the time. That really is a shame.

Sometimes is can be a disadvantage to one's career to be good in small parts. Anton Coppola told me many times he couldn't hire me as Don Jose because he would have a way harder time casting the gypsies. He said having people in small roles whom he doesn't have to worry about is worth its weight in gold. Having seen how a bad walk-on can derail an entire production, I can see his point.

I sincerely hope there are more henchmen in my future. I have a Beadle and another pirate coming up, not to mention the giant garbage pail kid in the ring cycle. This big performer loves coming in small packages. Wait, that didn't come out right. There are no small roles, only small actors, and I am in no way small. Wait...aw fuck it. You get the point.

Waiting for direction.

I have worked with hundreds of directors in my lifetime. I can count the number of them that actually knew what they were talking about on one hand. Apparently, the only criteria for being a stage director are 1) a healthy loathing for music and/ or theater 2) a bucket of contempt for actors and singers 3) A reasonable amount of dupes so that one can pad the resume.

I was in a production of Carmen where the director thought it would be great if we did the Les Miserables march step in place during the finale of the act 3 chorus. Gypsies marching in lockstep, seriously. The director of Lucia di Lammermoor, right after the first musical read through ended, asked the cast to gather around the piano so that he could "hear how the first scene went". Direct quote. A very famous director, during a new production of Porgy and Bess, decided to the make entire cast sit on the front of the stage with their legs dangling off during their rousing rendition of "Oh, I can't sit down." My wife asked her if she was being ironic and the director asked her to take her poodles out for a pee. I have had numerous directors in numerous shows shove me into a scene that I was not supposed to be in, for the direct purpose of singing in the chorus, even if I wasn't chorus. In one of them, I had died in an earlier scene.

Recently, I had a Shakespearean director make an impassioned, hour-long speech about character preparation and motivation. We would be tested, he said, on the reasons we made certain choices, and not knowing was not acceptable. In the next rehearsal, he had us beat up a character for no reason, out of nowhere. "Grab some stuff, put it on him, twirl him if you want, tie him up, leave him." I asked if we could add something earlier in the show that would set up this seemingly random action so that it would make sense. "Yeah, that would be great. Do whatever." Three days of "whatever" later, we had an impassioned, hour long speech about only doing what the director tells you. Improv is not acceptable. Thanks, Shakespeare guy.

Now I'm doing a musical with a director who thinks the show is crap, and therefore we must nod and wink ourselves through the entire production. Hey audience, we GET it! It's CRAP, see? Wink, wink. Have a hackneyed cliché and some choreography from Music Man! Oh, and by the way, we need you to sing in the chorus.

What the fuck is wrong with these people? If they hate the art form so much, why do they do it? What's wrong with a tiny bit of research, and maybe just a teensie bit of continuity? I love anachronisms as much as the next guy, but I loathe it as a directing style.

Of course, this leads to the question, "OK, dipshit, if you know so much, why don't you direct?"

Frankly, I'd love to. I don't know how to get started, but I think I have the requisite amount of contempt, especially if I had a couple of directors in the cast.