Today I head back to NYC after spending time with the family in Missouri… Happy Holidays to everyone who reads!

I often find myself wishing I could better help in donating time, money, or resources towards deserving projects#–but it’s just so difficult to really make it happen.

Enter the World Community Grid and the Fight AIDS at Home project. In short, the project uses a screensaver you download onto your computer to help process data necessary for finding a cure for the AIDS virus. No single computer can handle the processing power necessary to do the job, but by spreading the data out over large numbers of computers, all working on the same thing, the data is suddenly manageable. The best part? The work is only done while your computer is in screensaver mode#–it won’t interrupt your work while online, gaming, or doing anything else on your PC (or Mac).

So what excuse do you have for not downloading the software and helping in the fight against AIDS?

I’ve set up a team page here…

http://ncoleman.com/blog/nyc-actors-fighting-aids/ 

Forward the link to your friends, and encourage them to jump onboard. The more people who join up, the quicker a cure can be found.

The Christmas Show I’ve been working on was mentioned recently on the radio station WNYC in a piece about alternative Christmas entertainment offerings around town#–I grabbed the MP3 online and edited it down to the bit about us…

MP3

Windows Media

For the full show, go here:
The Brian Lehrer Show #– Other Ways to be Merry

Opening Night

I didn’t have the opportunity to properly post about opening night, and since several shows have now passed I’m afraid the experience has dimmed a bit in my brain. Because the show was constantly evolving (all the way up to the first performance) it was a little more nerve-wracking than other performances in which I’ve been involved. I’m not usually one to have opening night jitters, stage fright, or attacks of nervousness but this show definitely gave me stomache butterflies. The first piece, Thornton Wilder’s A Long Christmas Dinner, is a classic one-act that has been performed (one is led to believe) successfully before, but the second show of the night, a mostly improvised and updated version of A Christmas Carol, is a new work#–a somewhat zany comic convolution that has never had an audience. To tell the truth, we really weren’t sure how the audience would react.

Tonight was opening night for the Christmas Project for New York Theater Experiment… I’ll post all about it tomorrow (I’m too tired tonight).

I do, however, need some help with picking my new headshots. On Saturday, I went in to Dave Cross Photography and sat for a headshot session#–all part of my planned attack on pilot season here in NYC. The session yielded a lot of options, and now I would like a little help in deciding which two photos to start with in getting printed. I can always go back and print something else, but I need to pick two shots that I can start sending out as 1) a "serious" look for Soaps, Film, and Theatre and 2) a "commercial" look for Commercials and Sitcoms. Ive narrowed the choices with some help from friends and family, but now I need to narrow some more. So help me out already! Head over to Flickr and tell me what you think of the following:

Serious Headshots

Commercial Headshots

Not an article, per se, but this listing will more than likely send us a lot of traffic. So get your tickets early!