BATMAN!

School has kicked it into high gear.

Finally.

Movement has become a disco dancing ordeal: we're learning the hustle and all sorts of funky moves in what Robert Tunstall (our larger than life instructor who is very well liked...even loved) calls the "across the floor exercise". It's so amazing to watch a group of people with such mismatched talent just give in to the groovy music -- at one point it devolved from an exercise to an all-out class dance party. This, by the way, is well deserved after "ab time". Oh and "push up club"! That is our new little method of torture, in which we count out forty push ups in varying silly voices. We're also starting to put together our "All That Jazz" Chicago routine, which is getting progressively more difficult. It is also getting progressively more sassy.

Acting is starting to get interesting, to say the least. Our instructor is very grounded in the method style of acting. This is to say that she is very into the moment, and on stage honesty. This creates some interesting exercises. Today we were asked to bring toys to class -- I, of course, purchased a Batman figurine and spent the entire two hour long acting class reliving my childhood. I even told the "Paper Bag Princess" to the class. Now, I know you may be thinking I just blew a large sum of tuition money on a school that sounds an awful lot like preschool, but I promise it did have a point. It was very interesting to watch the class gradually shift from pretending to be five, to actually being five. By the end of the class, we were playing hide and go seek, singing "I'm a little tea pot" and pushing around hot wheels without feeling dumb or judged. I can only recommend it to everyone: if you're ever feeling stressed, or fake, or what have you, go out and buy a toy that your five year old self would have loved and play with it.

George and I are both learning to ween out our Canadian accent in favor of a neutral North American one. To set an example: say Orange. Now say Aw-range. That second one is how we are supposed to pronounce it. It may feel weird, and it sure as hell sounds it, but hey.... all in the name of theatre?

OK, now that I've bored you all with details about class, I can move on to the fun bits about the city! More importantly, the BEST and I mean the undisputed top dog Pizza in New York city. And it's not what you would have expected.

It's just a little place in the East Village with a hell of a lot of tastiness. Nothing but Italian ingredients including fresh buffalo mozzarella (the only real mozzarella), tomatoes from Napoli and ample basil and garlic. All fired in a wood burning brick oven in under two minutes. If anyone decides to drop by, this is where we are going for dinner.

And then we'll go get cupcakes.

G&G