Tuesday February 7, we debut on Showtime! Okay it's at 6am, but I'll be up with Ferris the 15 year old Jack Russell who rules my life. If you have a chance to log in to Showtime and give us some stars, please do. It will help us get re-upped for another cycle! Maybe we can actually pay everyone's deferral. That's my dream----------------- UPDATES: Right now the outrageously talented Denny Dillon is at the Hartford Stage Co. in BOEING-BOEING

She's also the fearless leader of IMROV NATION, which will be performing at Shadowland in Ellenville March 31st.

The Improv Nation company includes in top photo: David Smilow (Confederate soldier who kills Strathairn's Harry in Racing daylight), Denny Dillon (the Gossip in R.D.), Nicole Quinn (me), Sophia Raab Downs (producer of Racing Daylight), and Jason Downs (Edmund). In the lower photo are all of the above, along with Davis Hall, (doctor in Racing Daylight) and his lovely wife Ingrid Price (costume designer Racing Daylight)and Mikhail Horowitz, latter-day beat-poet extraordinaire, as well as Laura Shaine (author of Sleeping Arrangements, Dreams of Rescue and A Place in the Country, as well as penning an authorized biography of Melissa Leo). All in the family.----------------------------- Jason Downs will be bringing his one-man show "Why Aren't I Famous" to the Shadowland stage mid-March 2012.-------------------------------------------------------------- David Strathairn has been busy filming LINCOLN, with Steven Spielberg, as Secretary of State William Seward. He's also been gracing the small screen as Dr. Lee Rosen on sci-fi channel's ALPHAS

Today I'm off to the Rosendale Theatre with my dear friends Annette Finestone, age 95 and rockin' it, Sophia and Jason to see the wonderful monologue show TMI

Which sold out both Friday and Saturday night shows! I'm so glad I have tickets in advance.---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Look for more trivia and updates next week, when we'll focus on the crew of RACING DAYLIGHT.

SLAP&TICKLE READING

Twenty actors met us at the Atlantic Theatre studios yesterday for the first reading of "Slap&Tickle" our next project, Sophia's and mine. It was awesome! We invited members of our Racing Daylight crew who have already signed on for the next round, Stephen Harris, our d.p., Jamie Kirkpatrick, editor, and Michelle Baker, locations and on the producing staff, and of course Donn Gobin who is the best cheerleader exec. producer in the world! Ingrid Price will be returning as costume designer, Melanie Dimitri as key in makeup ... so reassuring to us, that so many have wanted to work with us again. Quality of life as hallmark.

The performers were so supportive of the quirky way we devise a screenplay reading which eschews the narrator and has the characters reading their own actions. Melissa Leo told me that the staged readings of Racing Daylight we did this way helped her get the charcter deeper into her bones. With small budget films rehearsal is all but nil so this method of reading seems to give us a bit of rehearsal we hadn't anticipated.

Slap&Tickle, unlike Racing Daylight, is a more traditional narrative in construct, and content, though there is a twist. The multi-generational and multi-racial nature of this depression era story surprised the cast and the small invited audience. They have never seen this movie before, with a family that looks less like the segregated stereotype of the Hollywood renderings, and more like America. This is the American family I know from the inside out.

Our potential investors and partners were smitten. YES!!! They laughed, they cried.

Racing Daylight has opened many doors. One in the can proves you can get it there I expect. I also suspect that moving on to the next project frees up the first from over-mothering. But lest you think I have forgotten this first in the excitement of the second, fear not, we are looking at some very interesting and cutting edge methods of distribution for our first love-child, RACING DAYLIGHT.