Thursday, May. 22, 2003 | 9:47 AM

What is it that actors do? They reveal themselves in public, every night. If that idea doesn't appeal to you, then perhaps acting is not for you.

Tyrone Guthrie, the great director, once said, "In the soul of every macho truck driver, there exists the companion soul of the timid lady librarian. In the soul of every timid librarian, there exists a macho truck driver". It is the artist's function to reveal both sides of this soul in his or her work.

You can't go through this program without a complete personality change. Because you are looking at yourself and the world around you in such a different way. No longer are you trying to be what you think other people want you to be, but you're being yourself. The process is unique because the nature of the work reduces everyone to his lowest common denominator.

--Harold G. Baldridge
Director of the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre

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The Neighborhood Playhouse School of Theatre teaches the Meisner technique, which I have been reading up on all morning, and which I have fallen madly in love with. It is a system of acting that envelopes everything I've grown to believe about theatre, and everything Josh and I talked about last night in terms of art. I had no idea who Meisner was until I started reading Strasberg, who mentioned him in conjunction with the Group Theatre. I feel like an AHA! Light has gone off in my brain. To know that there is actually a formalized structure available to me to explore the philosophy I've developed in re acting is a revelation.

The hits just keep on coming.

I've also spent the greater part of the morning talking back and forth with my Cabaret co-patriots. Seems as though my hott make out session at the cast party was spied upon by several individuals, and is grist for the gossip mill. I rather enjoy being notorious, so that's fine by me.

Josh told me that the guy from Magnetic Fields is writing a Broadway musical. That is one of the greatest things I have ever heard. I truly hope he does, and if so I want to be part of it. It sounds like the greatest idea since the artistic marriage of Brecht and Weil.