Forward and Back, Forward and Back

Well, here I am at The Brick again, crammed in the humid dressing room while a show in The Antidepressant Festival techs in the space. They were supposed to stop about a half-hour ago, but as the theatre is free until 6.00 pm, and I have no other real plans for the rest of the afternoon, apart from going home and getting some more rest before seeing Doctors Jane & Alexander tonight in The Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas at Theater Three, and the group here could use the time to get this show teched right, I feel I should stay here and let them keep working.

This year's Festival is, as far as all of here can see, a rather fine fine superfine group of shows, and I feel especially responsible to go an extra mile over the usual extra miles to make every single show shine like a polished jewel, if I can.

(this show is, as I now write, at an HOUR past scheduled time however, and I'm beginning to get a tad antsy, as it doesn't sound all that close to wrapping up . . . {sigh})

As for the shows I designed light for, Infectious Opportunity was altogether quite excellent, and ...and the fear cracked open (which I'm also running the board for) was pretty, sweet and painful. I haven't yet been able to see a final performance of Adventure Quest or The Tale of the Good Whistleblower of Chaillot's Caucasian Mother and Her Other Children of a Lesser Marriage Chalk Circle yet, but will get to them next week.

People are enjoying the shows, and thus far we're doing good with the reviews at nytheatre.com, which has 5 positive reviews for the 5 shows reviewed thus far (and I'm REALLY looking forward to seeing the well-reviewed Samuel & Alisdair: A Personal History of the Robot War -- I was here for most of their tech, and what I saw and heard there completely blew me away).

Otherwise, yesterday I participated in a test runthru of Suspicious Package: RX, which went fairly well (some tech problems to be sorted out; the reason for the test run), then I participated in a reading of a new, crazy play by Marc Spitz going up at The Kraine sometime soon (a lot of fun - I showed up thinking I'd be reading a small part, and was given a much larger and funnier one as an actor didn't show up - I think I did okay, though I can't really do a Russian accent all that well). And last night we rehearsed Blood on the Cat's Neck with some efficiency and productiveness, though I have now lost two actresses from the cast to better-paying gigs, another couldn't show up due to work, and another was sick, so the four actors I had left and I did what we could, which was enough.

I was going to go on up to New England tomorrow for a family gathering, but it's been called off, so instead a kinda get my first full day off in a while, which I'll spend going to the big yearly Daniel McKleinfeld/Maggie Cino birthday bash for those of us with June birthdays. I intend to kick back, drink and eat heartily, and play a lot of Rock Band.

Then I have nine hours of rehearsing two different shows on Sunday.

As for now, they're clearing out of the theatre, and I have to be sure everything's going back in place correctly. I'll have to do the Random Ten from home later, too, as I have no player of any kind here. Back in a while . . .