Alexandra Silber's Blog, page 8

"Honk if You Agree"

 Honk If You Agree

— On October 8, 2022 Kanye West tweeted to his 30 million followers “I’m going death con 3 On JEWISH PEOPLE.” The following Saturday, members of a White Supremacist hate group stood on an overpass above the 405 Freeway in California, performing Nazi salutes behind a banner that read "Kanye was right about the Jews. Honk if you agree.”

*

Just as an ancient house, demolished
    liberates the vermin
    so we see them now
    in all their flagrance
    and undisguised monstrosity.

H...

End of LEND ME A SOPRANO

What a magnificent experience from top to tail. One never knows how an away-from-home experience will go— personally or creatively, but from the downbeat Soprano has been nothing but joy.
Ken Ludwig was collaborative and generous.

Our director Eleanor Holdridge created THE safest, most loving, most creative and playful playground to ask any question and try any idea.

Our Stage Managers were above and beyond. And our very generous first laughs!

The actors. Oh the actors. This was was one ...

"The Day Beauty Divorced Meaning" by Leslie Harrison

Their friends looked shocked—said not
possible, said how sad. The trees carried on
with their treeish lives—stately except when
they shed their silly dandruff of birds. And
the ocean did what oceans mostly do—
suspended almost everything, dropped one
small ship, or two. The day beauty divorced
meaning, someone picked a flower, a fight,
a flight. Someone got on a boat.
A closet lost its suitcases. Someone
was snowed in, someone else on. The sun
went down and all it was, was night. 

Multiple layers of freedom and celebration

 

End of Summer…

Sure sure, this photo is a thirst trap (and I’m 39 so that’s already a feminist STATEMENT) but very VERY real talk: I have spent so much of my life in the depths of sorrow, grief, and self-blame; truly loathing this one and only body of mine, missing out on irreplaceable experiences just to avoid being physically observed.

Then the *moment* I meaningfully healed that disordered part of my psyche? My body was hit with a ulcerative colitis — a debilitating disease that robbed ...

Ask Al: The Energy Behind the Decision

a little perspective

Dear Al, 

I have a career-related question and would love some advice: 

I just got re-offered my national tour contract. I am two years in to said contract, in a leading role. I had previously said no to year three of the tour, but now I’m thinking of returning because I love the production, the role, and performing— especially post pandemic.

It just feels potentially foolish "career-wise—" am I robbing myself of pursuing new opportunities? Am I pigeon-holing myself into this t...

A Very Personal Statement on Roe v. Wade

My name is Alexandra Silber.
And a legal right to safe abortions—as safe and accessible healthcare— is a very personal issue for me.

Now it is not just personal to me because I have a uterus, identify as a woman and am currently in child bearing years. It is not just because I support all oppressed people, everywhere.

But it is because in 2001, at the age of  18 — I had on abortion in the state of Michigan. I had become pregnant against many birth-control odds, with a committed, and incredibly l...

Endurance is Universal

Have you been to rock bottom? No shame, fellow rock-bottom-visitors; I’ve been there! But I want to put forth a not-always-meme-able idea: that the un-nuanced glorification of an individual’s capacity to endure isn’t always productive. 

Why?
 1. It doesn’t allow for the truth, ugliness and raw humanity of intense frustration, sorrow, frustration, grief, despair. We must feel free to experience all the states life has to offer.
 2. We all have this capacity-not JUST a “special few.” Stories ...

Knowing when to leave...

For the last 18 months I have been taking an online poetry class over Zoom. Oh, how I loved it! It was a place of extraordinary artistic respite for me, a place where I did not have to be a professional artist, where I was unknown to my fellow classmates, and could safely learn and grow in the company of strangers. It was an appointment I treasured keeping week after week. I kept it when I traveled, and even when I was working in London (tuning in from 10pm- 1am!). Class is taught by a celebrate...

I don’t know who to be online anymore…

• Shall I swipe on a filter and attempt to commiserate?

• Shall I slap on a bold lip and pretend this isn’t a profoundly difficult time to be semi-alive?
 
• Shall I risk over-sharing and/or TMI with a post of me without concealer/ at the doctor’s office/ or after another setback?
 
• [this is no brainer, but] More Tati pics?
 
• Who am I if I’m not posting from the dressing room / telling you I’m acting / writing / Jewish / married / in __ country / have-now-don’t-have colitis? / got a haircut?
 
W...

SO IN LOVE -- Valentine's Day in New York City

It's The Most Wonderful Time In The Year. Right?

Wrong. It’s not only deepest winter, it is February, there’s a pandemic, and in walks the weirdest “holiday” of them all: Valentine's Day. Who wouldn’t want to grab a drugstore box of chocolates and scream-cry in their sweatpants?

NOT THIS YEAR.

You don’t need a significant other to snuggle up to your cocktail and spend an intimate evening with the Grammy Award nominee Alexandra Silber as she celebrates, makes fun of, mourns, and idealizes all thi...