Psychotic Inaction

This past week, the usual pre-holiday stuff -- some shows to run or see over the weekend, some attempted house-cleaning that will have to be rush-finished in the next week, some attempted present-shopping, ditto, and cleaning up of business from this year -- finances, tax letters to send to donors to the company, etc. etc. And the first ramping up of the shows and other productions for 2010.

A fun day on Sunday of four shows at The Brick -- as Berit and I each had to run board on one show each, and wanted to see the other two shows, we decided to make a day of it and enjoy Craven Monkey and the Mountain of Fury, The Ninja Cherry Orchard, Butterfly, Butterfly, Kill Kill Kill, and Deck the Hallmanns. Now THAT was a fine day at the theatre! Tonight I'm going back to see Craven Monkey at its final performance and run lights again for Ninja Cherry Orchard, and it seems that more than a few friends will be there to enjoy the double-bill. Fight Fest at The Brick seems to have gone over gangbusters, and I guess we'll be doing it again -- which means I need to think about and write Fat Man Fall Down for the next one.

Two more days of work (including a 9.30 am call tomorrow, oy), and that's it for theatre this year. As for next year, we'll be going away to Maine for (I hope) much of January to work on Spacemen from Space for August, and as for something to run in rep with that one (I'd love to try and do them with the same cast, too), I'm thinking of John Whiting's The Devils, which was based on The Devils of Loudon by Aldous Huxley and was made into the film of the same name by Ken Russell. The problem is that what I'd really like to do is a new stage piece that combines elements of all three materials: Whiting's play, Huxley's historical novel, and Russell's film. I'll have to check into the legality of that . . . also, I'm not sure, but I think David LM Mcintyre may have had the idea to do that first, and may still be interested in pursuing that, and I wouldn't want to step on his toes (of course, he's in L.A., so maybe we can take the idea each our own way on opposite coasts).

And of course, the MAIN show for next year: The Wedding of Ian W. Hill & Berit Johnson: A Theatre Study (or whatever we're going to call it). I have a few pages of writing for this in a notebook I can't find, and need to get back to that as well. Rather one of the most important shows I'll ever do, so I'd better get it right . . .

In the meantime, as always, here's a Random Ten from the 25,459 tracks currently in the iPod (with associated links -- and dammit, I REALLY thought I'd achieve my goal this week of finding ALL of the tracks on YouTube or somewhere online so you could listen to the exact same tracks that came up for me, but the Adverts track at #8 broke the streak . . . maybe some other time . . .):

1. "Ooh Baby, Baby" - The Miracles - Motown Greatest
2. "I Want To Hold Your Hand (mono 2009 remaster)" - The Beatles - Mono Masters, Vol. 1
3. "Funky Boss" - Beastie Boys - Check Your Head
4. "She Said" - Hasil Adkins - Born Bad - Volume 2
5. "The Gorilla" - The Shandells - Lux & Ivy's Favorites Volume 3
6. "Forever For Her (Is Over For Me)" - The White Stripes - Get Behind Me Satan
7. "My Novel Idea" - Tom X. Chao - Micro-Podcasts
8. "Newboys" - The Adverts - Crossing The Red Sea With The Adverts
9. "Come On" - Crispy Ambulance - Frozen Blood (1980-82)
10. "I Got A Right" - The Micronotz - Smash

Just read online that the writer/director/actor/etc. Dan O'Bannon died. There's a good obit/overview HERE and here's a favorite scene from his Dark Star:

And in the holiday spirit, Esther Silberstein passed on this fine rendition of "The Little Drummer Boy" by Michael Lynch:

Okay, nap time before a sizable evening of theatre now . . .