Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah and Habari Gani (I hope that’s right). This time of year is always my favourite – gifts, good food, family and carols always make me happy. Being thankful for what I have is a recurring theme of the season and I always try and tell those I love how grateful I am that they are in my life. In the style of an awards speech, I’d like to thank the following people for being wonderful friends and family to me, no matter where on the globe they are:

Mum, Dad, Joel, Luke, Gran, Vince, Liam, Fiona, Phil, Carrie, Wendy, Sue, Keith, Matt, Becca, Jane, Gerhard, Sarah I, Sarah E, Timothy, Alexis, Mike, Sarah T, Lauren, Karen, Pete, Emory, Hank, the folks at Inverse Theater, the US Campaign for Burma, Right Management and of course the insane bunch over at Spaced Out. Love and Happy New Year to you all! xx

I was invited to be part of an opera libretto reading last Friday, which was quite a unique experience. ‘The Drowing of Rasputin’ is an opera in development with the Centre for Contemporary Opera and as part of their development process, they stage readings of the librettos and invite a panel to speak afterwards on their response to it.

I was playing the Chorus, which presented rather unique challenges. In many Greek pieces the chorus is now often played by one actor, and can be modified to make that believable. However, as this was intended to be a reading of the piece as is, to see how it stands up on its own, we could not make any changes to the script and so I had to try and make a section of lines intended to be sung as solos into a coherent, one-character speech. Other than adopting a twitch and becoming a schizophrenic, I wasn’t sure how to go about it but with the help of Chris Pressley (the director) I managed to pull off something that seemed fairly well received. It was fun to read a libretto as a play script and I think was a useful exercise for me to work with different kinds of text. I look forward to seeing what happens next with this piece!

….or at least cheap stuff!

My friend Doug got wind of a $5 lunch (three courses, no less) that the Paramount Hotel offer on the 5th of every month to anyone who brings in a headshot. So we trundled off yesterday, headshots in hand and enjoyed a delicious meal in a swanky hotel for 5 of those green paper things. New York is a great city for being poor in – there are so many fantastic places to eat, go out, drink and have fun for relatively little cost. Here are my favourites:

Jake’s Dilemma, Amsterdam Ave between 80th and 81st Sts – the whole bar is half price on Fridays till 8pm and Saturday and Sunday till 7pm. They do a bunch of other drinks deals during the week so I can enjoy a cold beverage for less than $3 and a chilled Grey Goose on the rocks for under $5. Bargain. Plus, the bartender during happy hour is a lovely lady named Karen who deserves your tips.

Alligator Lounge, Metropolitan Ave, Williamsburg – get off the L at the Lorimer stop any night of the week and enjoy a free brick-oven pizza with the purchase of any drink. It’s a great bar and the pizzas are some of the best you’ll eat.

MoMA – it’s free on a Friday night if you don’t mind it being busy and full of other poor actors.

Central Park – it’s huge, it’s free and it’s pretty.

The Paramount Hotel – get a three-course lunch for $5 on the 5th of every month if you bring a headshot.

American Museum of Natural History – the admission is a suggested donation only; I usually pay $5 to get admission to all the general exhibitions. The Met is the same and they have to accept whatever you offer as a donation. So be nice, but be in your budget as well!

Share your knowledge of free and cheap fun!