I have the updates that you and I have been waiting for.

Let’s get to it.

Your Daily Lex.

So first, I know you’re all wondering, will Sierra be going to school on Friday?

There was a lot of really good debate on both sides that people wrote in to me with, and I ended up landing on no, Sierra won’t go to school on Friday.

And here’s why.

On Friday, Sierra’s going to repeat an activity that they did in sixth grade, which was two years ago.

There’s a thing that sixth grade does each year where you go to Biz Town, where all the kids take on fake jobs for the day, and it’s in some big office complex, or maybe it’s a fake office complex, I don’t know.

There’s stores that they run and jobs that they have, and it’s a fun thing that kids look forward to each year.

Sierra did it the pandemic year, so they had to do it all virtually, and it sucked.

Since they know that they’re going to have very spotty attendance on Friday, they’re having the eighth graders do that same thing again.

So once again, doing it virtually, which she’s already done, and that’s the entire day.

There’s no point to that, so I’m not making her go.

But no, that’s not really what you guys want to know.

You want to know about what’s happening with Avenue Q.

So I got the call last night.

I had been debating all day, would I actually send an email if they didn’t contact me.

Some very strong arguments for, and some very strong arguments against.

I was leaning towards giving it an extra day, but I had until 9 p.m.

because that was when I was going to send an email, and before that time, they called me.

They first apologized for how slow the process has gone.

Great.

Then they said, I had done a really great audition, so I’m assuming this is a breakup call.

It was not a breakup call, my friends.

Instead, they’re like, so, you were amazing, we really enjoyed meeting you, and you did a great job in your audition.

We’d like to offer you the role of Brian.

So if you’re not as familiar with Avenue Q as I am, it is a musical that features many Muppet-esque puppets and a handful of human characters, much like Sesame Street.

Brian is the only male human actor played by a male-identifying person.

The character of Gary Coleman is typically played by a woman.

So that’s the part they offered me.

I did say yes.

I had given this thought.

I’ve never said it on this podcast in the past, but I do love this show, and what I was excited to do was puppeteer in the show.

I was excited to be in the show, and I was excited to be in the show and be doing the puppeteering work.

I have been cast as one of three people in the show who doesn’t use any puppets because they are humans instead.

There are many ways to look at this.

One is, oh, they thought you were such a fine actor, they didn’t want to have you hiding behind the puppet in any way.

They wanted just all of you.

Or it could be that they thought that other people did better voices or better characterized those puppets.

I don’t think it was anything about who actually physically puppeteered the best because they didn’t really have people do a lot of puppeteering in the audition, and I think I’m pretty good at that side.

But yeah, so they cast me as the human.

I had already, as I told a couple of people who were waiting with bated breath, it was interesting.

There were a couple of friends who really wanted to know the outcome of this and wanted to know as soon as I knew, so I texted them.

And there were a couple of listeners who were like, no, no, no, I don’t want any spoilers.

Don’t tell me what happened because I want to hear it on the podcast.

I’m looking at you, John.

So as he’s telling me this, I’m like, oh, I really appreciate that.

Thank you for wanting to cast me as Brian.

He took that as simply the director, he took that simply as a yes, which it is.

Like I’m going to do it.

But it’s fraught.

Usually you want to get cast in the show and be like, yay, I’m cast in the show.

And I do have that, but I also have, oh, this is hard because I’m going to be, I’m going to be a little sad that I’m on stage with people who are getting to do all the fun voices and puppets and stuff like that part will be hard.

I have to throw myself into this human role.

I was realizing earlier this morning, it also means I’m going to have to actually dance a little bit, which the puppets don’t, I mean, the puppets dance, but puppet dancing way easier for me at least than human dancing.

But yeah, so it’s hilariously not the outcome I was predicting, but now come I had anticipated as possible, certainly.

And I had concluded several weeks back that yes, even if I got cast as the human Brian, that I would still want to do the show because I love the show that much.

So I am excited.

And, you know, I’m certain that I will both be jealous of the, the fact that the other actors who are doing some of these puppet characters get to do them.

I’ll likely, I’ll also be jealous of their talents or skill at doing them because I’m sure they were cast for, you know, good reasons.

So there you go.

That is the outcome.

Funny enough, I hadn’t put any of the show dates into my calendar because, you know, I’m not tempting fate and I wasn’t in the show.

So why would I put them on my calendar?

But now that I know I’m in the show, I was adding some stuff to my calendar and saw that I’ve got a show that a Saturday night show that overlaps with a rare Saturday night, Philadelphia Eagles game.

And we’ve got a brush up rehearsal.

It’s a rehearsal in between weekends of doing the show on a rare Thursday night Eagles game day.

So if I needed reason to not do the show, it would be the Eagles, not the role.

But anyway, that saga is now over.

Sierra is going to school on Friday.

I mean, it’s not, it’s not, it’s not.

Sierra’s not.

Everybody tell her that I said she’s going.

Sierra is not going to school on Friday.

And I am doing Avenue Q as the one part I didn’t want.

But I’m excited nonetheless.

And I think it is a net positive outcome, even though there’s, you know, some mourning to do over the parts that I won’t get to play, but that’s okay.

So anyway, happy Wednesday.

We’ll talk tomorrow.

We’ll Tonight, O.)