Dear Diary,

Today was the official NYMF press conference! How exciting! And to top it off my fabulous husband flew in last night so he was able to attend as well!

Our first call was 10:15 am to participate in filming of a documentary for NYMF. The whole cast was there, looking fabulous, decked out in Plane Crazy t-shirts and black skirts for the gals and black pants for the guys! The cast was filmed at Dodgers Stages on the Altar Boyz Stage. First, Randy, our choreographer, re-spaced the 3-minute Plane Crazy number to fit the stage and then they ran it and filmed it a couple of times! Very cool.

Our next call was at 3:45 pm for sound check and walk through with the other shows and Kris Stewart and Isaac Horowitz from NYMF. You could feel the electricity building in the room. My hubbie and I brought down the Plane Crazy press bags (awesome Plane Crazy totes filled with important info) and gave them to Adriana from Shaffer-Coyle to distribute to the press. The press filed in around 4:30pm. I watched as they got their Plane Crazy bags, and started pulling out the poster and ooohing and ahhhing. Way to go to our graphic designer Michael Karst!

Then Kris Stewart welcomed everyone and introduced Isaac who then introduced all the numbers. Plane Crazy kicked off the whole thing! It was so cool to hear Isaac announce my name in front of the press. Then the cast and Seth, our musical director, totally nailed the Plane Crazy number. They were so polished. Great applause, and I must confess a fair bit of hooting and hollering from the Plane Crazy supporter corner!

Then the other shows did their numbers -- The Ballad of Bonny and Clyde, The Mistress Cycle, Nerds, No Boundaries, The Big Time and an improv musical featuring the music of Brian Lowdermilk and lyrics of Kait Kerrigan. It was great -- the Festival is going to be amazing!

After the show part was over we went and mingled with the press, had our picture taken by Broadwayworld.com and I got interviewed by TheaterMania and Broadway.com!

Thanks to everyone who made Plane Crazy a smash at the press conference!
And thanks to NYMF!

Back to rehearsals tomorrow!

Photograph by Ben Strothmann. Ben Strothmann has been photographing portraits and live theatre for 10 years. Since building his first darkroom in his hometown of Milwaukee WI, his portrait studio now looks out over Manhattan where he shoots headshots for actors and cd covers for musicians. Born to a famous cheesecake lady (Suzy Strothmann of Suzy's Cream Cheesecakes), Ben is also an actor and pianist. Currently he lives in Astoria and studies guitar and Icelandic. See www.benstrothmann.com for more info.

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