Thursday, Apr. 03, 2003 | 8:39 PM

I don�t think anyone quite understands how often I act out entire soliloquies and perform searing Broadway numbers in my bedroom.

That�s the wonderful thing about living alone. You can be a fucking diva, and nobody will accuse you of trying to get attention.

I don�t imagine being able to live if I couldn�t conduct monologues or sing showstoppers or dance a soft shoe in my living room.

The two things that still to this day, despite having become cynical, sad, and skeptical, bring me complete and total joy are:

1) reading poetry

2) theatre

When I�m rehearsing, all of my sadness and horror is just gone. I mean it�s there- easily accessible, to dredge up in a song or make me cry on demand during a monologue, but it�s suddenly malleable as opposed to being a dead weight crushing my personality. I can control it, use it. It suddenly is an asset and can mingle with the sheer joy I feel from performing. It becomes so rich and so real and such a gift. And when I�m onstage sobbing my eyes out during a pivotal scene, I am truly thankful for all the hurt that lives just below the surface of my skin. That I can access it so easily and use it to good ends.

And when I read Keats or Shelly or Sexton or Auden or Creeley or Ferlinghetti, I can feel my heart, damaged as it is, rise and heal and become full where it had been starved. Especially when I recite aloud. There�s something about sharing with other people. And likewise hearing other people share.

You know what I want to do? Have a poetry reading circle�Tara and I had talked about that once when we were drunk and never followed up on it. I would love to hear other people recite poems. Is anyone in on this? Another thing I would like to do is have a play reading circle�just a bunch of people getting together, each choosing a part in something, and reading aloud through a whole play. My immediate pics would be as follows:

Angels in America

A Doll�s House

Long Day�s Journey into Night

The Glass Menagerie

True West

Death and The Maiden

The Tempest

Antigone

After the Fall

Is anyone into this? Instead of just sitting around drinking, let�s sit around and read (and drink if you want). Let�s explore these plays. This is what sets my heart on fire. This is what opens me and makes me a real person. I really really want people to do this with me. We�ll assign parts a couple weeks in advance so you can read the play and learn your character�no blocking, just reading aloud. Plays are meant to be read aloud. IS anyone with me? Please say you are. If you�re in the Boston area, whether I know you or not�hell, whether we�re on speaking terms or not�fuck all that. I want a play reading circle. I need it. We can leave personalities at the door. You can read any part that suits your fancy. Are you a 25 year old girl and you wanna be Roy Cohen in Angeles in America? FINE. I�ll get the scripts and copy them.

Even with the amount of rehearsal I am doing on Cabaret, it�s not enough�it�s an addiction for me�a good one. And if I love you (or loved you) I want you to be a part of it. Or even if I don�t know you but you read me or I read you, email me and we�ll set it up. Don�t be shy. PLEASE join me in this. It would mean the world to me. And I think it would be wonderful.

Everything stops hurting for me when there�s a play or a poem to read or a song to sing. Performance cures all wrongs. And it�s not because I�m a diva�I mean don�t get me wrong. I CRAVE praise. But that�s not what performing does for me. It�s suddenly being in service of the piece, whatever it is�being a part of something greater, something real, something that can touch people. I NEED that. That�s why I love being in shows like Cabaret-- something collaborative, where it�s in service to a larger point.

PLEASE share that with me. It would mean everything to me in the world.