Jefe's House

 

Dear Friends and Family:

It’s your Uncle Jeff, a.k.a. the New York Neo-Futurists’ Board President. But don’t worry, this isn’t a request for money.  It’s just a holiday letter! From our crazy family to yours.

Now I’ve never actually written a holiday letter before, so I asked the Internets for help. And they gave me five rules that are guaranteed to produce maximum holiday-letter goodness.

Rule No.1:  Keep it short, focus on highlights.

Our main show, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, is still running 50 weeks a year to ever-larger houses and ever-more notoriety. Yes, the kids are famous now!

They’re talented too! Last season’s primetime show, (Not) Just A Day Like Any Other, received a 2009 New York Innovative Theatre Award for Outstanding Ensemble. The gang was also crowned Best Performance Artists in the 2009 Village Voice annual readers poll, named among 2009’s People of the Year by nytheatre.com, and dubbed the year’s Best Arts Organization by Artists Forum Magazine.

Our 2009 primetime show, Laika Dog in Space, debuted in the Ontological-Hysteric’s Incubator series, garnering amazing reviews. Better yet, the show has been picked up for a six-week run in Chicago in 2011.

Oh, yeah—one more thing: we turned five this year, and our first major benefit raised over $15,000. We might just have to do the same thing again next year. Only completely different.

Rule No. 2:  Don’t be too boastful.

Oh.

Rule No. 3:  Don’t forget anyone. And identify everyone. (“Jane had a baby!” might be confusing; “My sister Jane had a baby girl!” isn’t.)

The Ensemble— Christopher Loar, Dan McCoy, Lauren Sharpe, Adam Smith, Lusia Strus, Alicia Harding, Jill Beckman, Desiree Burch, Eevin Hartsough, Joey Rizzolo, Rob Neill, Christopher Borg, Erica Livingston, Kevin R. Free, Ryan Good, Cara Francis, Jacquelyn Landgraf and Jeffrey Cranor— had a baby girl! I mean, they had a productive, creative and exciting year.

The NYNF Alumni and Guest Artists— Bill Coelius, Greg Allen, Lindsay Brandon Hunter, Regie Cabico, Claudia Alick, Heather Kelley, Lori Peeples, Sarah Levy, Chloë Johnson, Jenny Williams, Marta Rainer, Chris Dippel, Joe Basile, Mary Fons, Yolanda Kaye Wilkinson, Connor Kalista, John Pierson, Michael Cyril Creighton, Eliza Burmester, Katrina Toshiko, F Omar Telan, Sharon Greene, Justin Tolley and Molly Flynn—also had a productive and exciting year.

So did our Tech Crew Lauren Parrish, Chris Dierksen, Laura Schlachtmeyer, Meg Bashwiner, Marisa Blankier and Arthur Peters.

And so did my fellow Board of Directors members—Kyle Spencer, Cory Greenberg, Gary Belsky and Brad Rolston. We’re awfully proud to be a part of this dynamic organization that brings so much joy and profundity to so many New Yorkers.

Rule No. 4:  Remember to think about others.

Happy Holidays, Everyone! Here’s to Having Had a Fabulous 2009 and May We All Be Blessed With a Miraculous, Stupendous, Joyful 2010.

Rule No. 5:  Include a photo. Even folks who ignore your letter will appreciate seeing how the fam is looking these days.

With much sincere love and gratitude from the entire New York Neo-Futurist family,

Uncle Jeff

PS – If you did want to give us something—no pressure but, like, if you wanted to—just a little stocking stuffer—you could do so by going to http://www.nynf.org and clicking the big DONATE button.

I sang that then and I’ll sing it again. I was saying it in 2007 when directing a small revival of Sam Shepard’s The God of Hell, a 2004 anti-Bush play yes, but as I told the cast then, it’s a play about big government gone out of control and extends beyond Bush. I told them electing a Democrat isn’t gonna get us out of the Middle East, and that therefore this diabolical little play will remain relevant for years to come. At least Obama was up front in his platform from the outset.

I guarantee you someone out there’s printing up bumper stickers right now that read Nobomba, and they’ll sell like hotcakes to the same disillusioned liberals who put him in office. I am one of those people who put him in office and I’m proud of it. I still proudly display my Obama-Biden ’08 bumper sticker on my front door, but I’m no fool, and I never supported all he stood for. One delusion lots of his supporters seem to suddenly suffer from is that he claimed to be some sort of peace bringer, the antithesis of warmonger Bush, when this was never the case. Do you all, my fellow Obama voters, have amnesia? You’re intelligent people, I know you are. So why have you forgotten that going into Afghanistan was part of his platform all along? Don’t you remember his constant stumping that under Bush we “took our eye off the ball” in Afghanistan?

These past months of his “deliberation” about whether to send more troops and the right’s attacking his military “indecisiveness” have all been rhetoric and theatre. He knew, the right knew, and I for one knew (and come on, be honest, Obama fans, you knew, too), what his decision would be all along. At least credit him on this point for delivering the change he promised, whether you agree with that change or not: we’re getting out of Iraq and going into Afghanistan. The times they are a’changin’. And a’stayin’ the same. And deep down you knowed they would.

He is also working to stop torture, to close Guantanamo, and has been pushing relentlessly on health care reform, no? Give him a break and don’t burn your Obama t-shirts just yet.