Press Release / Promo Email

Okay.  Too busy putting this show together to really blog this week.

What's there is great, but there are pieces barely there.  42 hours, and the show will be starting its first performance.  Woah.

In lieu of anything else new to write, for those not on my email list, the promo email (adapted from the press release):

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The Brick Theater, Inc.

presents

a Gemini CollisionWorks production


That’s What We’re Here For
(an american pageant)

written, designed, and directed by Ian W. Hill

assisted by Berit Johnson


as part of The $ellout Festival


with Gyda Arber, Fred Backus, Danny Bowes, Josephine Cashman*, Maggie Cino, Jorge Cordova*, Bryan Enk, Stacia French, Ian W. Hill*, Roger Nasser, Yvonne Roen*, and Alyssa Simon*


Saturday 6/17 at 7.00 pm / Tuesday 6/20 at 8.45 pm
Wednesday 6/21 at 7.00 pm / Saturday 6/24 at 3.30 pm
Sunday, 6/25 at 3.00 pm and 8.30 pm

With That’s What We’re Here For (an american pageant), noted NYC independent theatre creator and artsy curmudgeon Ian W. Hill joins the spirit of the $ellout Festival by creating a peppy original (and sincere, really!) patriotic revue focusing on the history of America from 1945 to now. A celebration of freedom. A 1970s TV variety show. A collision of art, industry, irony, and wide-eyed musical numbers. Robert Wilson meets Up With People. An original play about America, Money, and God is in there underneath it all, but that’s not important if you just want to listen to the pretty songs and look at the pretty pictures . . .

A stock musical-theatre Angel and Devil guide us through two days (weekday and weekend) in the life of an American family as it goes about its daily business in an America that is a combination of the last 60 years into an Eternal Present, relating this story through a series of musical numbers, tour-de-force theatrical tableaux, slides, puppetry, and video. This show is a must for all who wish to be better citizens, and better salesmen! Inoffensive, and a strengthener of one’s moral character! Any dark undercurrents you may experience are probably just there as a sop to the theatre critics. Please rise for the flag salute.

Mr. Hill has, with his company Gemini CollisionWorks, created almost 50 full productions since 1997, by playwrights such as Richard Foreman (including the world premiere of Foreman’s 1966-written farce Harry in Love in 1999), T.S. Eliot, Clive Barker, Mac Wellman, Ronald Tavel, Jeff Goode, Mark Spitz, and Edward D. Wood, Jr., as well as several original plays by Hill including, previously at The Brick, the critical and popular 2005 hit World Gone Wrong. He also directed the world premiere of Eugène Ionesco's The Viscount (in its first-ever English translation, by Hill and Berit Johnson). As a designer and technical/artistic consultant he has worked with many other stage artists in the USA and abroad, and he has also produced a number of theatre festivals throughout NYC.

at

The Brick Theater
www.bricktheater.com
575 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn 11211
½ a block from the Lorimer stop of the L train / Metropolitan/Grand stop of the G train
All tickets $10
Tickets available at the door or through theatermania.com
(212-352-3101 or toll-free: 1-866-811-4111)

* Appears Courtesy of Actors Equity Association

To-Do

And for the second close entry in a row, another document created for the show in lieu of a post.

In this case, the To-Do List I created for the show (That's What We're Here For, remember?) this morning.  I randomly started spewing this out, but then started organizing it and so forth, which I hadn't expected to do.

Making this up actually calmed me down a lot, if this is everything I actually need to do . . .  hope I didn't forget something . . .

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TWWHF TO-DO LIST 6/15/06

 

-go to ATM at Duane Reade – get $20 to pay part of $48 for rehearsal space tonight (have rest of cash ready now)  (Thursday morning)

-get milk, bread, cereal – have some kind of actual breakfast (and other meals) apart from coffee and pizza (get Coffeemate as show prop at the same time, if you can)  remember you have a coupon for Duane Reade!  (Thursday morning)

-email The Brick people to confirm about tonight in the space after the festival shows  (Thursday morning)

-email cast about various matters (prop list, anyone feel like helping out as bodies during my dry tech or helping Berit build stuff?  can anyone print up a clean copy of the script for Berit for her tech notes?)  (Thursday morning)

-email Robert Honeywell about borrowing his red tie for myself  (Thursday morning)

-email Jason Robert Bell about borrowing his monocle for Fred (is this really right for FDR?  didn’t he wear pince-nez?  check Google Image Search)  (Thursday morning)

-email Julz about borrowing a lab coat  (Thursday morning)

-email Ken Friedman at WFMU about show, and its being inspired by sound pieces collected from the FMU website (and mostly from his posts)  (Thursday morning)

-email Maggie about picking up the special costumes she’s supplying  (Thursday morning)

-email James Bedell about the practical edison circuit (where's the edison to stage-pin connector that was on the backstage cable?)  (Thursday morning)

-load the cel numbers of cast members into your phone that you’ve forgotten to  (Thursday morning)

-download and edit the video segments (can we find the “Our Job in Japan” film itself, and use that instead of just the soundtrack recording we have?  would help the scene . . .  remember to find footage of American flag waving and a good A-Bomb explosion!)  (Thursday day)

-transcribe the “Our Job in Japan” section and make up script supplement – send to all cast members in that scene  (Thursday day)

-go through our storage cages with Berit, looking for props/supplies we may already have  (Thursday day)

-go over prop list with Berit – what’s missing?  what do we need to build?  what do we need to find or buy?  what can we cut? (is my prop Bible on the list?)  (Thursday day)

-go over with Berit what she still needs to build, and in what order she should prioritize them  (Thursday day)

-make up organized sound cues plan  (Thursday day)

-make up organized light cues plan  (Thursday day)

-make up organized video cues plan  (Thursday day)

-Excel spreadsheet of all cues, organized – go over script with Berit, put in cues in proper places  (Thursday day)

-consult with Berit on organization of sound cues onto CDs  (Thursday day or late night)

-rehearse the scenes as-barely-yet staged  (Thursday night)

-rehearse the musical numbers, repeatedly  (Thursday night)

-run through the show as much as possible  (Thursday night)

-overdub Gyda’s tap routine and Bryan’s whistle onto recording of “Dirty Little Jap”  (Thursday late night)

-figure out what to do to cover the scene change from Office to Telephone Room if you’re going to cut the puppet show  (Thursday late night)

-create sound cue CDs  (Thursday late night)

-create DVD of video segments  (Thursday late night)

-finalize my own costume  (Friday day)

-devil horns still needed for Bryan!  I’m sure Berit has this on the prop list, but in any case . . .  (Friday day)

-have backup plan for the staging of the “Telephone Room” scene in case the lighting/props cannot be made to work, or made to work properly in the time involved  (Friday day)

-write light cues, video cues, sound cues and levels in space (Friday day)

-rehearse Maggie’s and my dance sequence in the space with the set pieces (Friday afternoon)

-spend extra time when in space immediately on “Telephone Room” and “We Were Talkin” (Friday late night)

-work other problem areas as needed  (Friday late night)

-run through entire show, no stops, with full tech (Friday late night)

-get a good night’s sleep before opening  (Friday-Saturday)

-run show  (start Saturday night)

-find some time to do something for your 38^th birthday, 6-16-06

-find some time to do something for Berit’s 30^th birthday, 6-24-06