I just returned from my latest excursion to NY, a very low-key jaunt courtesy of a flight credit I had to use up by the end of the summer. I've already lost count of how many times I've been there, but NY never ceases to surprise me in some way. One of my favorite surprises this time around was a matinee of Brecht's The Caucasian Chalk Circle at the Classic Stage Company, starring Christopher Lloyd as the Singer (who, ironically, didn't actually sing) and Azdak (each cast member played multiple roles). I wasn't familiar with either the play or the playwright, but I knew I couldn't miss it as CSC is one of my favorite venues, Doc is one of my favorite...doctors, and the music was done by Duncan Sheik (whose "Barely Breathing" makes up a good portion of the soundtrack to my Grade 9 life). I was not disappointed. Not only were the music, set, and acting/singing superb, but the audience wasn't too shabby either, as I got to meet the actor who played my favorite minor character from my Netflix viewings of the last academic year, John Cariani, a.k.a. Otto(bahn) from Numb3rs. I am not the type to go up to celebrities/strangers that I'm a fan of, but I grew quite attached to Numb3rs as a Joel Fleischman fix and break from translating Latin and Greek last year, and I just had to make sure I wasn't hallucinating that the guy sitting beside me looked and sounded exactly like Otto, sans glasses and physics. Turns out that John is one of the friendliest people I have ever had the pleasure of meeting on my travels, and, as IMDb told me later, he's also a playwright. Guess I'll have to go back to NY next time one of his plays opens...
(Photos via NJAL of Georgian designer Lika Kubaneishvili's 'How Coca-Cola Saved the USSR' collection, of which the Caucasian Chalk set reminded me...)
