Friday Rainy Day Fun Random Ten

Okay performance of WGW/WGW last night. In the house was playwright Jeff Jones, whose 70 Scenes of Halloween I once directed at NADA -- well, kind of, we had to cancel the production because we were being evicted, so we did a weekend of free performances of it as a staged reading (though the actors surprised me by learning almost all their lines anyway and not using scripts except for a scene here and there). Bryan, who was in that production as The Beast, was working box office and had a nice chat with him about it. I hope to restage that production someday. Though I don't think Mr. Jones liked last night's show very much. Oh, well. I don't know if I could get Frank Cwiklik and Michele Schlossberg back to play Jeff and Joan, but I could get Bryan and Christiaan back as The Beast and The Witch -- I don't know why, but its always been important to me that the two couples in that play be played by real-life couples. Jeff Lewonczyk and Hope Cartelli would be great as Jeff and Joan, too, though the image of an onstage young married couple sniping at each other being played by a real-life young married couple might be a bit more uncomfortable when the actor shares the same name as the character.

And why just "okay" last night . . ? Well, I've never been able to cure second-show-slump. There's always that big DIP in energy after the cast has gotten one show under their belt and feels like they know what they're doing. A bit low-energy last night. And a little low-attentive. I had fixed the sound a bit, mainly to eliminate the giant pauses I had on the soundtrack between scenes, during the transitions. But I seem to have gone too far, because almost none of the transitions got done on time last night, and people were always still out on stage changing things when a new scene would begin.

At the same time, it wasn't only the shorter time, but that people were being a bit slower about it, too. On opening night, everyone was still so jumpy and nervous about getting the transitions right (we didn't rehearse them nearly enough, of course) that they just WENT FOR IT. Last night, I could see the cue line for the transitions happen, which people are supposed to GO on, but there would be a beat and a breath and then they would tentatively start for the stage (not everyone, but enough to make a difference). It got better as the show went on, and the cast realized they had a lot less time to move things, but it was still wonky to the end.

So I'm lengthening the transitions a bit, where needed, but I also have to get people to go faster and with more purpose and focus. Berit and I will fix the light cues a bit too, as they should go down faster at the end of every scene (it doesn't encourage people to start moving on a transition when it looks like they'll be walking into a fully-lit scene, though the lights will be changing right along with their move). The transitions are a little harder to deal with on this production, as compared to the 2005 original, because we've replaced the rolling trunk on a dolly with an actual desk, which needs two people to move it (carefully) as opposed to just quickly rolling it into position, and the power cords for the light stands now trail upstage rather than out a downstage aisle, and they tend to get caught on things more (unfortunately, now that they are being controlled from the board, that's where they NEED to go . . .).

The show between the transitions, however, was good, if not so sharp as opening night. Tonight I'll take a closer look at whether I should tighten up some of the scenes in dialogue editing or not.

My plan for today was to finish the transition-lengthening, drive to The Brick and drop off the new disks, pick up lots of cards for both shows, L Train it into Manhattan and schlep around from theatre to theatre (and a couple of rep movie houses) dropping off packets of cards, hitting as many Fringe NYC venues as I could. But the weather is not so great for this . . . Still, has to get done. Then I'm meeting a friend at The Brick at 3.00 to just hang out for a bit. And around this I want to work on my performance and lines for The Hobo Got Too High, which we'll be actually doing for an audience for the first time tonight.

So, maybe I'll just work on my lines and other Brick things, and do the theatre runaround tomorrow. The weather's gotten worse as I've been typing.


And on the iPod this morning, from among 21,056 songs:


1. "Where Are We Going?" - Marvin Gaye - The Very Best
2. "A Day in the Life" - The Beatles - Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
3. "The Gremmie, Part 1 (alternate version)" - The Tornados - More Surf Legends (And Rumors)
4. "Glass Onion (remix)" - The Beatles - Love
5. "Sweet Dreams" - Roy Buchanan - Sweet Dreams: The Anthology
6. "Liar, Liar" - The Castaways - Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era
7. "Summertime Blues" - Blue Cheer - 45's on CD Volume III ('66-'69)
8. "Sunday Morning" - The Velvet Underground - Peel Slowly and See
9. "Marlene On The Wall (live)" - Suzanne Vega - Live At Stephen's Talkhouse
10. "Settle Down" - The Flirtations - Northern Soul: The Cream of 60's Soul


More after the weekend, when I finally have a day off (and I think I'll be making a MoMA trip, finally, for the Serra).