Tonight was the New York Innovative Theater Awards "Nominee Announcement Party," held in the spacious basement (Demo Hall) of Our Lady of Pompeii, in Greenwich Village, near NYU and all the places I lived in and hung out at from 1986-1990 or so.

I once saw a Fringe play in this hall about the Bronte clan done by an L.A. theatre company, featuring my old friend David LM Mcintyre; they weren't too happy about their show being put in a church basement with no AC and no real tech facilities.

The area has changed a lot, but certain recession-related artifacts are beginning to result in a slight resurgence of seediness that seemed to have been wiped away in the last decade.

I was amused to see that the IFC Center movie theater is showing Blood Simple as a midnight show currently, as on my first solo trip into NYC in the Summer of 1985 I saw that very movie, still on its first run, in that same theatre when it was still The Waverly.

I had been asked to come by early to be interviewed by local cable TV (actually, one of the best interviews I've done in terms of saying what I wanted to say without tripping over my tongue, swearing, or omitting something important, and remembering to get a plug in for my upcoming shows, which won't air, of course, but still . . .), and then I had time to kill so I got a sandwich and hung out in the little park on Father Demo Square (once, for an NYU location sound recording assignment, I recorded the sound of this little park, noting that I believed that "Father Demo" was the patron saint of 4-track recording, appropriately for the Village; my teacher was vaguely amused by this).

Having left the space after the interview meant not being let back in until the doors opened for the event, which happened later than planned, but once in, the joint got hopping quickly.

I didn't realize these nominee parties were such a scene, but as Brick Grand Pooh-Bah Robert Honeywell and Erez Ziv of Horse Trade (both visible below at front) said, "It's like being at a prom with the people you WANT to hang out with!"

It's a little sparse still in the above shot because everyone was still at the rear of the house getting the free drinks (I had quite a bit of sangria, myself):

By the time I went back for the third sangria, the whole place had filled quite a bit, and it was hard to move around. Unlike my last time there, the hall was definitely air conditioned, but it either stopped working or was just not up to handling the number of bodies that crowded into the room:

Gyda Arber, her mother Wendy, Robert Honeywell, and I were the first people in the door when the place opened, so we commandeered the table most front and center as soon as we got in, where we got to hang out and somewhat hold court as friends from all across the Indie Theatre community came by and said hello (and we also kept going away, mingling with other groups and friends at their "courts," and getting more drinks ourselves).

We were there to represent The Brick en masse, and six of the seven staff members wound up being there (Berit decided to stay home and have an actual day off from rehearsal) -- and yes, we all knew we had some nominations coming up. Here's (a lousy photo of) Hope and Jeff of The Brick and Piper McKenzie, who were most directly responsible for me being there tonight, instead of at the rehearsal I decided to cancel:

The tables had nice arrangements of candy on them, and other neat things. I made the mistake of trying to eat a Tootsie Roll with my dental plate in. Ouch.

The executive directors of the NYIT Awards, Nick, Shay and James, came out and spoke:

And then announced the people who would be reading the nominations -- I knew two of them, Aaron Riccio, writer//critic, and Stephanie Cox-Williams, stage manager/propmaker/actress (at center):

Then the nominations were read -- it took almost 40 minutes; there are quite a few, and everyone nominated for "Best Ensemble Performance" was listed -- and there were some big ensembles in that category.

Several favorite groups or people were listed and I joined in the cheering.

And eventually, some of the Brick-related nominations came up. Here's the second:

And here's Ivanna (who I got to direct as Aunt Fanny in my Ambersons) with her nomination certificate for her performance in Piper McKenzie's The Granduncle Quadrilogy: Tales from the Land of Ice:

To my pleased surprise, Gyda's nomination for Suspicious Package was for "Outstanding Production of a Play"! For her interactive Zune Player piece. This is cool:

And Gyda was happy . . .

And, yes, there was indeed a definite reason I had decided to show up this evening rather than have a rehearsal for a show this evening, and why I was there early to be interviewed by the cable TV people . . .

And this actually means an awful lot to me . . .

Despite the fact that I've actually done more lighting design for theatre than I have anything else, including acting, I'm still quite surprised and delighted by this validation that - sometimes at least - I'm doing something right as an LD. If you gave me an actual budget and needed a plot drawn up, I'm not sure if I could actually do it (I last drew a proper light plot when I was 17, when it was all by hand on paper with drafting tools and the little plastic stencils I had - and still have - with all the different light shapes that are now outdated), but if you show me the room, the script, and tell me what you want and show me the pile of equipment I have to work with, I'll make it look as good as it can within the limitations there are.

You can see some images of Granduncle, with my lighting, in two sets of photos by Ken Stein HERE and HERE. My own photos of the production aren't as technically good as Ken's, and were done at a dress rehearsal with incomplete costuming, unfortunately, but the color palette in them is a little closer to how it actually read in performance, I think, and they can be seen HERE.

It really is an honor just to be nominated.

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: John Lennon - "God Save Oz" - Anthology

Okay, first we started hearing about "Swarm Robotics." That is, the creation of robots that, as the name suggests, interact and are able to swarm together to accomplish a shared task. Interesting, yes.

However, a few months ago, Berit and I were a hair unnerved to read that one of the tasks that was being looked into for these robots was the ability to swarm together to hunt down human beings, for military and/or law enforcement purposes.

Okay. Now, B & I are fairly big pro-science people, but not so much that red flags don't go up when we read about the CREATION OF ROBOT TECHNOLOGY THAT CAN HUNT DOWN HUMAN BEINGS.

As in, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU GUYS THINKING?

So merciful Cthulhu help us if they combine that technology with another that is now being worked on. Here's a press release that's meant to be comforting and as a bit of damage control after some concern was expressed publicly about a new and understandably exciting (in many ways) technology coming our way (h/t to Brad DeLong, Wired, and a few other places online, all of whom have generally headlined their stories with the classic pull-quote boldfaced below):

POMPANO BEACH, Fla.– In response to rumors circulating the internet on sites such as FoxNews.com, FastCompany.com and CNET News about a “flesh eating” robot project, Cyclone Power Technologies Inc. (Pink Sheets:CYPW) and Robotic Technology Inc. (RTI) would like to set the record straight: This robot is strictly vegetarian.

On July 7, Cyclone announced that it had completed the first stage of development for a beta biomass engine system used to power RTI’s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot (EATR™), a Phase II SBIR project sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Defense Sciences Office. RTI’s EATR is an autonomous robotic platform able to perform long-range, long-endurance missions without the need for manual or conventional re-fueling.

RTI’s patent pending robotic system will be able to find, ingest and extract energy from biomass in the environment. Despite the far-reaching reports that this includes “human bodies,” the public can be assured that the engine Cyclone has developed to power the EATR runs on fuel no scarier than twigs, grass clippings and wood chips – small, plant-based items for which RTI’s robotic technology is designed to forage. Desecration of the dead is a war crime under Article 15 of the Geneva Conventions, and is certainly not something sanctioned by DARPA, Cyclone or RTI.

“We completely understand the public’s concern about futuristic robots feeding on the human population, but that is not our mission,” stated Harry Schoell, Cyclone’s CEO. “We are focused on demonstrating that our engines can create usable, green power from plentiful, renewable plant matter. The commercial applications alone for this earth-friendly energy solution are enormous.”

Okay, fine, this is . . . somewhat . . . reassuring. At least it was for me until Berit pointed out what wasn't mentioned in this official press release . . .

Nowhere, NOWHERE, does it say that these robots are or will be INCAPABLE of feeding on human beings.

Now, if YOU were putting out a press release designed to assure people that your foraging, biomass-powered robots would not be feeding on living or dead animals or human beings, and if it were true that these robots couldn't actually feed on flesh, that it was indeed IMPOSSIBLE, wouldn't you feel that this was one of the ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY things to say in the press release?

And yet, this release makes no such claim or statement.

I'm stocking up on some big mother-effin' magnets.

Current Mood: terrified
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Proctor & Bergman - "Tobor Radar Robot" - TV Or Not TV

We officially open the first show of our four August productions three weeks from tonight.

As we're incredibly ahead of schedule on several things and a bit behind on others (no more than usual, but still, behind), I'm variously either strangely euphoric or hideously depressed moment-by-moment all the time right now.

The casts are in pretty good shape, and one is in much more than that. Now I'm just all panicked about the tech stuff. Here's a picture of my breakdown of the sound cues for George Bataille's Bathrobe, which I've only scratched the surface of finding and creating:

There you can see cues A through OO -- the breakdown goes up to cue NNNNN, that is, 118 sound cues in a 75-minute-long show. Whee. And I still have to record, process, and mix lots of those cues. Blood on the Cat's Neck is a bit better -- just 101 cues in 80 minutes, and most of them are just straight music needle-drops, with no additional elements.

Next, the incredibly complex Little Piece of the Sun soundtrack/score, which will be like composing an almost wall-to-wall underscore for the two-hour show, transforming samples and sound fragments into musical themes or at least tonal drones (and possibly also adapting some of the themes/drones for electric guitar as well, if I have the time).

So, as I may have mentioned before, I'm incredibly happy with where the actorial/performance elements of the shows are (though all need work, in different ways/at different levels), HOWEVER, the tech elements are making me unbelievably nervous to the point of paralysis - exactly NOT the reaction needed. I may just relax about it through the weekend if I can (not much time between now and Monday to do anything anyway, with rehearsals tonight, and both Saturday and Sunday afternoon and evening) and then just dig in first thing Monday morning.

Oh, right, I also need to get my lines down for Little Piece At least, having done the show 8 years ago, they seem to be coming back quick, and I've already been off-book for sections of rehearsal.

Here's three shots from this week's rehearsals. First, a large-cast shot from Little Piece, as a vision of Issa Kostoyev appears to young Andrei Chikatilo at Stalin's funeral:

Most of the cast of George Bataille's Bathrobe is visible here (two of them obscured) as Frank Norris prepares to smash his glasses:

And a shot from Blood on the Cat's Neck that features the whole cast:

A whole big album of rehearsal shots can be seen HERE. I'm pretty well done taking rehearsal shots now, I think, except for some more Little Piece ones, as I'd like to get a few with the entire cast in them.

And here's today's Random Ten from the 25,594 on the iPod (most of the additions since last week being the Nino Rota cues I'm using to score Bathrobe and the Ennio Morricone cues scoring Blood):

1. "Psychedelic Pill" - The Tyde - Gravel volume 5
2. "Pesadelo" - Patife Band - Corredor Polones
3. "Cry For Fame" - Dieter Meier - Cry For Fame 7"
4. "Bad News Blues" - Grahame Bond - Love Is The Law
5. "Gimme Some Lovin'" - The Spencer Davis Group - The Finer Things
6. "Toybox" - The Geraldine Fibbers - Butch
7. "Here To Here" - Peer Pressure - S/T 7" EP
8. "Civil Defense Spot: Excellent Chances" - Groucho Marx - Atomic Platters: Cold War Music From the Golden Age
9. "See Emily Play" - David Bowie - Pin Ups
10. "Past Is Past" - The Dishrags - Past Is Past 7" EP

I've taken too much time here today as it is when I need to get back to work on the shows, but here's some pictures of our sweet little kitties from this morning.

Hooker appears to be deep in thought (hah!):

And Moni enjoys her cave amongst a pile of old props, fabrics, and supplies:

And here's a couple of videos that have kept me sane this week.

First, a very SERIOUS PSA that is a bit FAIL because some celebrity spokespeople just don't work doing these kinds of things . . .

And sometimes, you just need a Scopitone of 1960s French interpretive dance to pep yer spirits up (and yes, the song, "Psyché Rock", by Pierre Henry and Michel Colombier, is the one Matt Groening gave to Danny Elfman as an example of what the Futurama theme should sound like, and someone on WFMU has used it as a sound bed for years). Here's Les Ballets Jackson with "Fiesta Hippie" (NSFW):

Back in a week . . . if not before . . .

Current Mood: wary
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: The Possums - "She Loves Me" - Shutdown '66 - World's Only 60's Punk Record

Waitaminit, it's Friday!

Boy did THAT week pass quick. But, luckily, productively.

We are now into less than a month before the shows all open, and, fortunately, they're all in pretty good shape. All need work, and in different ways, but it's happening. From now on until opening, Berit and I have at least one rehearsal a day for a show -- on Sundays (and Saturdays after tomorrow) we have two rehearsals for different shows.

It's tiring, but actually worth it -- at least I feel more like it is this year than I have the last two, where I've spent a good deal of the month asking myself if the ultimate reward of the shows was worth the work and exhaustion of this month before they go up. Yes, it always is, but at least this year I can feel that way in the hours outside of the rehearsal room (I'm always happy when I'm in rehearsal, but more and more often I've been spending the hours before rehearsal dreading the work to come and just wanting to quit this whole process; this has, for some reason, not been the case this year).

Me last night, directing:

So every day Berit asks me "which one is it today?" And I check to be sure myself and we grab the correct script or scripts from the pile and go off to either The Brick or Brooklyn Arts Exchange for rehearsal (in the past, we've also been at Champions Studios or The Battle Ranch, but except for one more time at the latter, we're down to just the two locations now).

Here's what I was directing last night in the photo above -- half of the cast of Blood on the Cat's Neck, at BAX (two others were there, but not in this shot):

That's Rasheed Hinds, Gyda Arber, Shelley Ray, Roger Nasser, and V. Orion Delwaterman, in the middle of the opening "monologue" section" of the Fassbinder play.

Here's a shot from two nights ago at The Brick, rehearsing the "racetrack" scene of George Bataille's Bathrobe -- our first night together with the full cast (which we're fortunate to have for the rest of the rehearsal process, amazingly), and here's 6/8ths of them -- Bob Laine, Sarah Engelke, Liza Wade Green, Bill Weeden, Justin R.G. Holcomb, and Timothy Reynolds (with Berit's hands and stage manager script lower right):

More recent rehearsal shots can be found HERE.

We've now had a chance to stumble through each of the shows a few times, and what needs to be worked in each one is more and more apparent. Bathrobe just needs to be gone over start to finish as much as possible with the full cast, now that we have them, so that everyone can remember the dream logic of the play that links the bits together -- people keep forgetting what's happening and why, as we haven't been able to connect the bits of this fairly abstract play together too well as yet. I think repetition will help (French for "rehearsal," I'm told: répéticion). The pattern needs to be felt in everyone's bones.

Blood is in the strongest shape of the three now, and is at the stage where it's all about lots and lots of niggling little notes to the actors about pace and word emphasis. And this will keep up all the way through tech and after into performances, I get the feeling.

A Little Piece of the Sun needs aspects of both the above to be worked on, but not to the extent of the other two shows -- the pattern needs to be felt more in everyone's bones, and I need to fix the tone of many little bits. Just not as much of each as in the above shows.

Actually, pace will be the continuing problem, I think, as it ALWAYS is for me (I get physically ill when the pace is off in my shows; it upsets me more when it's "wrong" than almost anything else). I know it's been drilled into actors more and more that "faster is always better," but it's not true, and especially in my shows. Cue pickup is usually meant to be quick (and if it isn't, I'll tell you), but too often I'm asking the actors to PLEASE slow the damned lines down for chrissakes! When you do shows that are fairly meditative, many beats need to have time to land and be thought about for a moment before the next one rushes in, but more and more I'm really having to demand that actors slow the hell down. I don't want milking of lines and moments, but I want the impression sometimes that what is being said is being thought about before, during and after it hits the air.

We have another 6 or 7 rehearsals for each show, followed by two tech days each and a private invited preview before proper opening, and I think all will be set fine by then.

And the 4th show, Sacrificial Offerings is going at its own, slower, pace as it's a short, easier show (we start our tiny rehearsal process in a couple of weeks). I just cast the fifth actor of eight in the cast -- Ben Robertson, like me a graduate of the Northfield Mt. Hermon School, Class of 1986! I think we last acted together at the age of 15 in Lanford Wilson's The Rimers of Eldritch at NMH. With him in that show and Aaron Baker (NMH '86) in Little Piece, I'm now directing 2 people I've known over 25 years in two different shows. Weird.

David Finkelstein last night gave me the draft of his video version of the same text - now called Marvelous Discourse - to be used in the middle of my play version. It's unfinished, but quite wonderful, and will work well for what I need it to do in my stage piece.

Tonight, Little Piece at BAX. More little things to fix. Whee.

And so, this week's Random Ten from an iPod now full of 25,570 tracks (with links to the songs or something similar):

1. "Monks" - King Missile - Failure
2. "All Messed Up" - Jess Hooper - Tennessee Rock 'n Billy 1955
3. "Heroes And Villains" - Brian Wilson - Smile
4. "Surfari" - The Boardwalkers - NPR's International Beach Ball
5. "Dreamer" - Joyce Harris - Domino Records Story
6. "Everybody's Got A Little Devil In Them" -Tommie Young - Soulin' Vol 1
7. "Didn't I Do It Right?" - Gary Glitter - 22 Of The Best
8. "Don'cha Know" - Bill Cosby - TV Characters Sing Just For You, Vol. 1
9. "Wurlitzer Jukebox" - Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth
10. "Roadrunner" - The Heinz Kiessling Orchestra - Like A Breeze

And, yes, some newer kitty pictures of the little monsters.

Here's a drowsy Hooker kitty napping on the sleeping Berit:

And here's BOTH kitties napping on the sleeping Berit (these are the easiest times to get pictures of the brats, when they're curled up and sleepy, which usually means they're sleeping on top of one of us humans):

Now, time to get laundry and nap before rehearsal. More shots from the rehearsals soon . . .

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Elvis Costello & The Attractions - "Clowntime Is Over" - Get Happy!!

A nice, busy week. Whee!

Well, the three larger August shows - A Little Piece of the Sun, Blood on the Cat's Neck, and George Bataille's Bathrobe are completely cast, and Sacrificial Offerings is 1/2 of the way there. These are some fine fine superfine casts that it's a pleasure to work with, and here they are:

A Little Piece of the Sun
David Arthur Bachrach*, Fred Backus, Aaron Baker, Olivia Baseman*, Adam Belvo, Eric Feldman, Ian W. Hill, Colleen Jasinski*, Gavin Starr Kendall, Roger Nasser, Tom Reid, Melissa Roth, Patrick Shearer, Alyssa Simon*

Blood on the Cat's Neck
Gyda Arber, Eric C. Bailey*, Danny Bowes, V. Orion Delwaterman, Rasheed Hinds, Toya Lillard, Samantha Mason, Amy Overman, Roger Nasser, Shelley Ray*

George Bataille's Bathrobe
Sarah Malinda Engelke*, Liza Wade Green, Justin R.G. Holcomb*, Bob Laine, Kathryn Lawson, Patrice Miller, Timothy McCown Reynolds*, Bill Weeden*

Sacrificial Offerings
Eric C. Bailey*, Larry Gutman, Stephen Heskett*, Eve Udesky* and four others as yet unknown (though I've asked two people and will be reading a third shortly).

*appears courtesy of Actors' Equity Association, as I have to say even here I think, so AEA readers, you can get in free to all of these, space permitting (I doubt it will be a problem but I hope it will, of course).

So now we're 35 days from the first show opening, and 31 days from planning to have them all "finished" for several previews/final dress-techs for close friends, Brick staff, and significant others of the cast (maybe press if I think we're all ready long before - each show has two tech rehearsals before that, a damned luxury for me, so we may actually be ready before opening, for once).

Now, besides having to deal with some things coming into (and continuing at) The Brick in the next week, I just rehearse and rehearse and rehearse. All the shows are now almost completely blocked, I just need to plug in the actors we haven't been able to have in there yet, and run and run and run the things. From now until August 9, Berit and I are in rehearsal or tech every single day anywhere from 3 to 10 hours (except tomorrow, where we're working at The Brick most of the day and night).

And in our downtime, we have to design and send out the postcards for each show, build the set and get the props (and hope we can do this early and store them in The Brick while the July shows are going on), do the fairly complicated sound designs, and figure out what the hell we're going to do about costumes. B & I can do everything in theatre except costumes, hair, and makeup, and we were only able to hire a costume designer (the always-wonderful Karen Flood) for George Bataille's Bathrobe this year. So now, with very little money and resources, we struggle to imagine what we want for the rest of the casts (as opposed to other design elements, we just CAN'T visualize costumes; we know what's right when we see it, but before that, it's just vague senses of color, cut, and period).

But actually, four shows or no, we're ahead of where we normally are on all of them at this point, so we're feeling okay. Not cocky, but okay. Paperwork and press releases all done (though I made a minor date mistake on two of the releases I'll have to fix in an update in a couple of weeks). Moving forward.

This week, I took the time to clean about 200 songs off the iPod that I didn't really need on there, and then I wound up grabbing about the same amount of songs from the iTunes playlist of "Things I Want to Move to the iPod When There's Room" and putting them on, so it's full again, at 25,612 songs (with another 401 that I still want to definitely move over when I have to chance to clean it up again). Here's a Random Ten from the newly-cleaned iPod:

1. "Roll Over Beethoven" - The Beatles - With The Beatles
2. "Teacher Teacher" - Rockpile - New Wave Hits of the 80s Volume 3
3. "Let Me Sorta Touch It" - WFMU - Station Promos
4. "Remorse" - Gerald Fried - Star Trek - "Amok Time"
5. "Audience Of One" - Peter Ivers - Terminal Love
6. "Blue Suede Shoes" - Johnny Winter - The Johnny Winter Story Vol. 2: Eternally
7. "Flypaper Boogie" - L.B. Lawson & James Scott Jr. - Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950-1958 vol. 1
8. "New Dawn Fades" - Moby - Heat
9. "Trackin' Down Jody Pt. 1" - Darker Shades LTD - Jody
10. "She's A Drag" - Dry Grins - Back From The Grave 8

And we have the camera charged and ready around the house once again, which means we're back to shooting endless pictures of our kitties.

Here's Hooker demanding attention by grabbing B's foot:

And here's Hooker with Moni on a chairload of clutter (including, I see, an obsolete rehearsal/performance schedule for one of the August shows):

And I've saved up too many good videos to drop all at once, but here's two I really liked this week (reminder - if you read this when it reposts on Facebook, the videos won't make it there; you have to click on "View Original Post" to see them). First, on a Sammy Davis, Jr. show in 1966, The Andrews Sisters meet The Supremes, and a medley is done . . .

And Hitler's subtitler, like so many others today, thinks having a lot of fonts makes them a typesetter:

And finally, a couple of other classic images, from the history of advertising, with a Cats & Dogs motif.

First, beware of the lean dog of Despair:

And second, a product for making pussy stay away:

Oh, right, and lastly, an album cover depicting one KILLER team-up adventure:

Current Mood: anxious
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: The Beatles - "Tell Me Why (mono)" - A Hard Day's Night

We wound up having to cancel last night's rehearsal (too few actors could make it), which was nice on another hand as it meant we could spend a few hours at Coney Island helping Sarah Engelke (who has appeared in GCW's The Magnificent Ambersons and Everything Must Go) celebrate her birthday along with her fiancee Timothy McCown Reynolds (who was in Ambersons and Temptation for us -- and both of the couple are currently in George Bataille's Bathrobe coming up in August) an a couple of other friends of theirs.

It was only actually about three hours of leisure time, but it felt like a long, lovely, incredibly pleasant day at the seaside.

Here's Sarah and Timothy right around the start of the day's festivities:

There had been some worry about thunderstorms, which had been predicted to show up at 4.00 pm, right when we were all going to meet, but . . .

. . . it didn't quite work out that way.

I brought our camera, and had a fine old time shooting pictures like I haven't done in years, so, behind the cut, a giant load of shots from a lovely, fun afternoon/early evening had yesterday by Berit and I with friends.

(and this is only a third or so of the shots, all of them can be seen HERE or HERE, the latter with tags and commentary):

( Sarah's Birthday at Coney Island - 07/01/09 )

Current Location: Gravesend

Well, here we are, on our way with the four August shows.

Today, the press releases all went out en masse to every bit of NYC and Tri-State media outlets that might want them. Which I do every year, so here's hopin' it works out this year. Sometime it does, sometimes it doesn't.

Five - count 'em FIVE - separate releases went out. Took me forever, with trying to format them to look good int he body of an email, and send them out without any of my email ISPs deciding I was a spammer.

Here's the first one of the five -- I'll be posting them all over the next couple of days -- for the overall month in general. I apologize if the formatting comes out wonky -- I've been trying to get these to resemble the originals, but it keeps changing without me doing anything . . .

**********

06/30/09
For Immediate Release, please list under Off-Off Broadway
Critics are invited to all performances
Contact: Ian W. Hill/Berit Johnson: Gemini CollisionWorks
geminicollisionworks@gmail.com / 718-339-3116 (phone/fax)

The Brick Theater, Inc. presents

The Collisionworks

an annual presentation of theatre from
Gemini CollisionWorks

August 7 to 30, 2009

designed and directed by Ian W. Hill / assisted by Berit Johnson

For 11 months of the year, Ian W. Hill and Berit Johnson are the technical directors of The Brick, one of Brooklyn’s (and New York City’s) most vibrant incubators of innovative theatrical arts. But every August, when other theatre festivals run amok with whatever crazy-sounding stage enterprise they think will bring audiences into small, inefficiently-air-conditioned rooms, The Brick hands the keys to their moderately-sized, moderately well-air-conditioned room over to Hill and Johnson and they become the creative entity known as Gemini CollisionWorks, producing multiple works in rep that have run the gamut from Hill’s NECROPOLIS series of dramatic collages (including the acclaimed World Gone Wrong) and his original plays Spell andEverything Must Go to the rare Richard Foreman boulevard farce Harry in Love and the bizarre Marc Spitz comedy of addiction The Hobo Got Too High.

This year, Hill, Johnson, and GCW are pleased to present four new productions, running the gamut from a violent, bloody comedy of manners to a dark documentary of institutional lies and murder in Soviet Russia to an improvisation-based combination of séance and video art to a surreal look inside the head of an elderly, dying writer on the slide toward death. These are:

A Little Piece of the Sun, by Daniel McKleinfeld, a documentary for the stage, examining the stories of serial killer Andrei Chikatilo and the 1986 disaster at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor through a collage of found texts that reveal these two stories of mass death to be one story of institutional corruption in a theatrical autopsy where Art is the only scalpel sharp enough to cut through the mangled flesh of the lies to reveal the glowing fragment of truth underneath it all.

Blood on the Cat’s Neck, by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, (sometimes subtitled Marilyn Monroe vs. The Vampires) a 1971 play by the iconoclastic playwright/filmmaker in which a beautiful, blonde, vampiric Amazon of a space alien is dropped into a bourgeois cocktail party of an unlikely group of guests to attempt to learn about human beings, without much success, until her plundering of the guests’ minds becomes a more direct and physical acquisition of their life essences.

George Bataille’s Bathrobe, an abstract play by Richard Foreman that here receives its first fully-staged English-Language production, is interpreted by Hill as the story of an elderly, controversial writer in a prison (perhaps real, perhaps metaphoric) on his dying day, as he is confronted with his memories and regrets made flesh, both tormenting him and attempting to help him pass out of this life with peace and acceptance.

Sacrificial Offerings, by David Finkelstein and Ian W. Hill, began as an improvisational performance duet created by the two authors as the basis for a multilayered video artwork (known as Skewered Remarks) by Mr. Finkelstein for his Lake Ivan Performance Group. Mr. Hill has taken the improvised text and transformed it into the story of a drawing room séance among the upper class of many decades past, with a version of Mr. Finkelstein’s video presented mid-performance as the appearance of the “spirits” into the room.

For more information on these four productions, and exact dates and times for all performances, please see the individual press releases you should also have received or contact Gemini CollisionWorks at the number or email above.

Director/designer Ian W. Hill has created 59 stage productions since 1997 as Gemini CollisionWorks, including works by Vaclav Havel, Richard Foreman, T.S. Eliot, Clive Barker, Mac Wellman, Ronald Tavel, Jeff Goode, Mark Spitz, and Edward D. Wood, Jr., as well as several original plays. As a designer (light, sound, projections, sets) and technical/artistic consultant he has worked with many other stage artists and theatres for the past 20 years. Berit Johnson has been the co-director of Gemini CollisionWorks since 2001, and has stage managed, created props and puppets, and designed many other elements for many NYC theatre companies since 1997.

at The Brick

575 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn 11211

½ a block from the Lorimer stop of the L Train / Metropolitan-Grand stop of the G Train -- www.bricktheater.com

All tickets: $15.00 (except Sacrificial Offerings: tickets $10.00) -- any two shows for $25.00, three shows for $35.00, or all four shows for 40.00!

Tickets available at the door or through theatermania.com (212-352-3101 or toll-free: 1-866-811-4111)

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Neil Young - "Broken Arrow" - Neil Young Archives #1: Live At The Riverboat

Well, this just went off to the Gemini CollisionWorks mailing list, and I'm posting it everywhere else I can -- Facebook, MySpace, etc. -- so I might as well include it here for anyone who would miss it elsewhere.

Ah, yes, it's the annual Season announcement, and more-than-annual request for donations. Not the most enjoyable part of putting the shows together, but now that we can actually receive tax-deductible donations, we need to do this to keep the shows going at a reasonable level.

So here's what the several hundred people I've acquired on the GCW email list over the last 12 years are getting today:

You're receiving this because you're on the Gemini CollisionWorks/Ian W. Hill/Berit Johnson email list - if you don't want to be on this list, please reply with REMOVE in the subject header, and we'll take you off it. We apologize to those hit by this on both our mailing list and our Facebook list, but thank you for your interest and support.

**********

Hi friends!

Once again, it's nearly that time of year where we stop being mainly the tech directors for The Brick and once again take over that space -- Brooklyn's "most vibrant incubator of innovative theatrical arts" -- to present our yearly collection of theatrical work, our "factory showroom" of the ideas, techniques, and styles we've been thinking about and looking at this past year.

Our now-Annual collection, henceforth called The Collisionworks, is comprised this year of three shows that have been on our wish list to do for many years now, and a fourth, original work that has happily appeared from our recent collaborations with another theatrical company. This August's shows are:

A Little Piece of the Sun by Daniel McKleinfeld

Blood on the Cat's Neck by Rainer Werner Fassbinder

George Bataille's Bathrobe by Richard Foreman

Sacrificial Offerings by David Finkelstein and Ian W. Hill

Rather than take up space here, you can find out about these shows, including brief descriptions, the cast members and (soon-to-come) performance dates and times at either our Facebook page or The Brick's page for our shows.

We're glad that our association with The Brick for the past 4 years has led us to become a more secure and business-oriented company (as much as one run solely by two people who really only know how to do theatre at this point can be), and has led us to create work of a grander scale than we were first able to do when GCW first started producing work in 1997 on Ludlow Street at NADA (about 60 productions ago!).

However . . . larger budgets and scale, presented in a small space at a reasonable ticket price, can pose some financial problems. Rehearsal space, costumes, set construction -- and a lot of it is needed this year -- can - and has - cost a pretty penny.

So, remember -- and yes, we're aware of both the recession and that the majority of people receiving this are also struggling artists, sorry -- you can always . . .

DONATE TO GEMINI COLLISIONWORKS! IT'S TAX-DEDUCTIBLE!

a. If you wish to donate by check, they MUST be made out to "Fractured Atlas," with "Gemini CollisionWorks" in the memo line (and nowhere else), and should be given to us personally or sent to us for processing at:

Gemini CollisionWorks

c/o Hill-Johnson

367 Avenue S #1B
Brooklyn, NY 11223

b. You can also donate directly online securely by credit card at

https://www.fracturedatlas.org/donate/1394

(please double-check to be sure you're at the "Gemini CollisionWorks" donation page)

All donors will be listed in all our programs for the August 2009 season under the following categories:

$0-25 - BONDO

$26-50 - RAT RODS

$51-75 - CHROME

$76-100 - LOW RIDERS

$101-250 - CANDY FLAKE

$251-500 - FLAME JOBS

$501-1000 - T-BUCKETS

$1001-2500 - SUPERCHARGERS

$2501-5000 - KUSTOMIZERS

over $5000 - BIG DADDIES

(NOTE: If you give $1,000 or above - and someone actually always does - you will need to fill out a special gift form to accompany your donation, so please let us know so we can supply it to you)

We both hope to see you at our shows this August, and thank you for your continued support,

Ian W. Hill, arts
Berit Johnson, crafts
Gemini CollisionWorks

Gemini CollisionWorks is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Gemini CollisionWorks may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

**********

Gemini CollisionWorks online:

blog: http://collisionwork.livejournal.com
images: http://www.flickr.com/photos/geminicollisionworks/
info: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=32799964037&ref=ts

http://www.myspace.com/geminicollisionworks
store: http://www.cafepress.com/collisionworks

Current Mood: hopeful
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: a loop of Elvis Presley singing "slander my name all over the place"

Meanwhile, back in the clean world . . .

My friend - and author of one of the plays I'm doing in August - Mr. McKleinfeld, has had some GarageBand fun I wanted to share.

Here's a particularly hideous piece of video news:

And here's Daniel's remix of same:

Enjoy! Happy Pride Week!

Current Mood: amused
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: The Jackson 5 at MSG, 2001

Busy and satisfying week, for the most part.

Between Sunday and yesterday, Berit and I auditioned 17 actresses for the 7 female roles we had to refill in the four August shows (and we saw one man for one of the 5 male roles in one of them, Sacrificial Offerings, and he was good for one of the parts, so, great).

We saw a lot of good people, and have wound up with a list of people to ask, though I'm waiting a bit on informing them as Berit is still asleep, and I want to have one last discussion with her before I send out the "we want you for the part, do you want it?" emails.

For two of the parts, in two different plays, there were four different women who were all REALLY good for the part, in wildly different ways. I think B & I decided on who we most wanted for Lyuba Kovalevskaya in Little Piece of the Sun, but there was a time yesterday when we were weighing three different actresses and Berit was saying, "I wish we could have a combo of bits of the qualities of all three." But (I think) we went for a way that was VERY different from the way we originally cast the role, as well as the way it was originally cast and played back in 2001.

And I also have to wait until B is up to hash out who we want for "The Mistress" in Blood on the Cat's Neck. Again, a wealth of choices for that part, of vastly different types.

I may just email the two women we want for The Brundi Twins in George Bataille's Bathrobe right now -- we know who they are . . . okay (he typed a half-hour later), they've been emailed.

Now I'm in a holding pattern on emailing people, as the next steps are dependent on the first answers I get -- as in, if the first people I ask to play one of the Brundis from George Bataille's Bathrobe and Lyuba in Little Piece say no, then I have to move around the people playing The Model and The Mistress in Blood on the Cat's Neck to other shows/parts to get the mix right. Let's hope for all the first choices being on board . . .

Wow, everything seems to be going fine and full-bore ahead on the shows . . . B & I are just waiting for the other shoe . . . ANY other shoe . . . to drop.

Yesterday was a nice big 14-hour day at The Brick for B & I, but work was done and shows were seen, and the two sellout/near sellout house we had were good and easy to get in and deal with. Berit's on duty again tonight, and I'm hoping she'll be okay with me staying home.

And as for this week's Random Ten from the 25,596 tracks in the iPod (nothing has changed there for a while, no time to keep clearing the thing out and refilling it, though I have an iTunes playlist of 322 to put on there once I clear out some dross), here it is . . .

1. "Tacoma Trailer" - Leonard Cohen - The Future
2. "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2" - Esquivel - Four Corners Of The World
3. "I Need You" - Eurythmics - Savage
4. "I've Been Crying" - Tommy Louis - Lost Deep Soul Treasures 3
5. "Mucha Muchacha" - Esquivel - Space Age Bachelor Pad Music
6. "Met a Girl on the Corner" - The Orchids - A Taste of Doo Wop Vol.1
7. "53 Miles West Of Venus" - The B-52's - Wild Planet
8. "Yeh-Yeh!" - Georgie Fame & The Blue Flames - Mod & Beyond
9. "Ain't Gonna Worry About You" - George Tinley & The Modern Redcaps - Club Au-Go-Go 6
10. "Reject" - Green Day - Nimrod

Well, that was an odd collection of pop songs that for some reason could all sound kinda mournful and elegiac on a cloudy Friday morn, following a long week and a whole bunch of surprising deaths that probably shouldn't have been (surprising, that is), which now lead to me dumping a TON of video on y'all.

Well, Michael Jackson is gone.

I can't pretend immense fandom of his work, but I can damn well support the more-than-a-handful of brilliant, timeless pop singles he created and co-created, which (I hope) will long outlast what anyone knows or claims to know about his life.

I was only going to post two videos of him that are the way I'd prefer to remember him, but some Facebook comments came up on the man that I wanted to mention.

Scott Williams noted, summing up my feelings quite well, that he was "getting sick, both of the bathetic sentiment slobbering wetly across the media and facebook over the recent death of certain talented (but increasingly irrelevant) people, and over the mean-spirited (but mostly humorless) haters who think that acting like they don't care shows their "rebellious" side. If you're gonna be a hater, you gotta learn to be witty, too, or you just look like an asshole." (Scott notes later he was also referring to Farrah and Ed McMahon with this).

And an old friend of mine, who I won't name, comes close to being in the latter category, but JUST not quite, when she notes that she "understands the 'MJ as life soundtrack' thing for some folks but she was listening to P- Funk, The Who and the Clash. And the pedophile thing was a turn off. Sorry, but there it is."

So I wrote a response to her and then didn't have the balls to post it directly to her on Facebook (I'm too Scandinavian at heart to deal with conflict I don't have to), though I surprised myself with being so red with anger:

You seem to be on the edge of a false dichotomy here, XXXXX. Some of us were listing to MJ, and all of the above you named, and a lot more, and whatever else, and a lot more whatever else. One does not preclude the other. And I sure as hell don't see his hideousness (which goes beyond "issues") being ignored anywhere, we're all well aware of it (though, hey, anyone remember the anti-semitic lyrics he wrote and got in trouble for at one point? "so-called chosen, frozen?" yeah, that seems to have vanished down the memory hole . . .)
UPDATE: D'OH! Speaking of memory holes . . . Daniel McKleinfeld points out on Facebook that I am misremembering my anti-semitic remark controversies -- it was PUBLIC ENEMY that had the "so-called chosen, frozen" lyric . . . MJ had the "jew me, sue me" lyric . . . ick . . . that's what I get for not listening to the little voice in my head that was saying I was making a mistake here . . .

And lots of personal things (about even some of the artists you name) were as big turn-offs -- look into the life of Keith Moon, which sure as hell isn't all good-natured fun as often presented, for a long list of unforgivable, immoral and criminal behavior. Or how about Mr. Peter Townshend's collection of child pornography?

Or the actually-convicted-of-crime geniuses that are Ike Turner, James Brown, Arthur Lee, and Chuck Berry, to name a few (where are the white folks? do they get off with a slap on the wrist and "boys will be boys" when they do hideous things? like Keith Moon did?).

But I will listen to "I'll Be There" and "Billie Jean" with as much pleasure as I do "Rocket 88" or "I Can See for Miles" or "White Man in Hammersmith Palais" or "You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks" or "Political Song for Michael Jackson to Sing" (or for that matter "Song for Michael Jackson to $ell"). Sorry, but there it is.

His main criminal act for me personally was becoming artistically irrelevant the older he got, but then so do a LOT of artists.

Two other comments sum up much of my feelings on this, a balanced view from Matt Zoller Seitz and a fairly negative one from music critic Chris Morris which discusses the basic coldness and hollowness of even Jackson's better work (h/t Jim Emerson). In this, I agree with Morris' observations, but not necessarily his conclusions (I believe that "warmth" and "fullness" are nice things to have in art, but by no means automatic virtues, nor the absence of them automatic debits). And Crooks and Liars posts two amazing comparison videos of The Jackson 5 doing "I Want You Back" on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1970 and (unfortunately, a brief fragment) at Madison Square Garden in 2001.

And of course, The Onion has its own last word.

And - spending more time on the man than I would have ever thought myself caring to, and probably more than I've ever spent before all put together - here's three videos of MJ in ways I'd like to remember him, from Free To Be... You and Me (with Roberta Flack), the famous (and yes, COLD) performance from the Motown 25th Anniversary show, and a fan-made video that puts together the vocal tracks on "I'll Be There" with a TV lipsync of the song . . .

As for Farrah . . . I actually missed a lot of her cultural impact. For some reason, though I watched endless hours of bad 70s TV, Charlie's Angels never actually made it in there (at least while FF was on the show; I think I watched it in later seasons). I remember her instead, and happily so, from The Burning Bed, Extremities and Myra Breckinridge, the latter of which is one of those "bad" films I will defend tooth & nail, in which FF plays an apparently dumb blonde, who winds up with more layers than the title character figures on, and whose humanity and kindness winds up shaming Myra into realizing how cruel she has been . . .

Also gone, a man whose music is quite a bit closer to me than MJ's was, and who had his own odd and famous (to his cult audience) problems, Mr. Sky Saxon, lead singer of the great band The Seeds:

And as for Ed McMahon, let's end on a laugh . . . a piece of video that makes me crack up every single time I see it . . .

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Squeeze - "Take Me I'm Yours" - Singles 45s and Under

Well, here it is, later June, and the August shows are under way, and I'm back to casting bits of them, as always.

Besides the two dancers for George Bataille's Bathrobe that I've been trying to cast for a while (or rather, HAVE cast twice and then had to recast), I now have three other parts in two plays where actors have had to leave for more lucrative jobs that have come up. So here I am, trying to write this entry in between sending out emails setting up audition times to around 30 actresses that have been recommended to me by trusted friends and collaborators (and a few that came from a public posting of my email to friends that got out by accident, but it's okay).

I understand, of course, people having to leave my shows for better-paying gigs . . . I can't pay more than transportation for rehearsals and performances, plus promise a split of profits, if any (there are NEVER any - only three of my sixty shows have shown even around $100 profit at most - I ALWAYS lose money on them). And sometimes I'm slow on paying back the transportation (I still owe over half the performers from 2008's shows their money -- the unexpected huge costume expenditure on Ambersons ate up over half the year's planned budget).

Still, it's frustrating to feel like a "safety school," that my work is the work you do until something bigger comes along. It is, after all, my work, and it IS what I do first and foremost. I can't begrudge people who leave for a job with a salary, or an Equity Card, or more exposure, but I can feel hurt anyway.

And, of course, it's hard to cast this year's shows in any case -- the Foreman is fairly abstract and hard to make out on the page what the hell it is, the Fassbinder is all wonky and doesn't read well either, no one's seen David's & my script (now called Sacrificial Offerings), but I'm sure that will simply confuse people as well, and Little Piece has such graphic descriptions of serial killings and deaths by radiation that some people are just too disgusted by it to want to do it. Great.

Well, 30 women and a man have got notices from me about the 4 shows, I have two auditions set up already, and time put aside all next week. Hope I get what I'm looking for. Well, I always do, or close to it . . .

Anyway, back in the iPod, here's today's Friday Random Ten tracks from out of the 25,596 on there (with more actual links to YouTube versions of the songs than usual!):

1. "Saturday Night, Stay At Home" - Suburban Reptiles - Saturday Night, Stay At Home 7"
2. "Glad I've Got Nobody" - David Bowie - Early On (1964-1966)
3. "Sole Spento" - Caterina Casselli - Rato's Nostalgia Collection 9
4. "You Better Get a Better" - The Beatstalkers - Decca Originals: The Freakbeat Scene (1964-1968)
5. "Do You Love Me?" - The Sonics - !!!Here Are The Sonics!!!
6. "Bible School" - Delinquents - The Master Tape
7. "What If?" - Bongwater - The Power Of Pussy
8. "Single Girl, Married Girl" - The Carter Family - Anthology Of American Folk Music, Vol. 3A: Songs
9. "Stranded In Time" - The United States Of America - The American Metaphysical Circus
10. "Ocean" - Sebadoh - Single (remix)

And now it's 35 people who've gotten the notices, and 5 auditions are arranged for Sunday/Monday. Back to more emails out . . .

Current Mood: awake
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: The Amboy Dukes - "Gimme Love" - The Amboy Dukes

So, didn't make it back to a computer yesterday to do the regular Friday things . . . it was longer getting out of The Brick than planned, as the company teching made a little error with the curtains at the rear of the stage (they're paging them up to the grid for their show and throwing dustcovers over all the backstage items, which looks very cool) and accidentally disconnected them, which meant an hour of me supervising them in rehanging them properly -- it actually takes at least that long to hang the curtains correctly so they hang evenly mask what they're supposed to. So I didn't leave the theatre until 3 pm, 2 hours later than scheduled.

But whatever, it got done, and I think the new curtain hang is better on two out of the three points I judge it on, so better all around. Then last night I went off as mentioned and saw Edward Einhorn's Doctors Jane & Alexander at Theater Three.

Originally here I wrote several paragraphs worth of critique of my friend Edward's show (and by critique I mean critique), but I've decided to wait on publishing them until after the play closes tomorrow.

Suffice to say, I have been involved in one way or another with this play that Edward wrote (and assembled from found text) about his mother and grandfather since 2005, I'm a member of the artistic board of his company, I've been through many drafts and readings of this text, have very strong feelings about the piece, and my opinions, while not suspect, may be very personal in ways that wouldn't matter a jot to non-involved audience members (they certainly weren't to Martin Denton in the review linked above), so I should keep my trap shut until it's over.

I will note that the cast is excellent. Jason Liebman is a perfect stage-version of Edward -- it's been my pleasure to direct Jason, and whenever I watch him in anything I always wonder why he isn't a star yet. I mean, I work with and know many MANY brilliant actors, but when I watch Jason he just has that quality that makes you wonder, "Why doesn't he have a sitcom or a movie or something like that yet?" You just LIKE him and like watching him. He's a sweet, comfortable actor to watch and listen to.

And, of course, Alyssa Simon, who I first cast in the part in the short version in 2006, IS Jane, and brilliant at it. Alyssa came up to me after the show last night and asked me if I had still seen some of the work we first did on Jane together, as it was certainly there, and I was touched, as I could still see some of my work there, but she and Edward took that work much farther and deeper than she and I had been able to do in the short version (I think her voice and cadences still owe something to me, her eyes, posture and general physicality are hers and Edward's fully).

It still plays today at 6 pm and tomorrow at 1 pm. As for now . . . further, deponent sayeth not.

Not a lot of available links for this week's songs . . . too many too obscure (and one of the bigger ones not there probably due to copyright claims). But here's a Random Ten that just came up from the 25,596 currently in the iPod . . .

1. "Dog" - Sly & The Family Stone - A Whole New Thing
2. "King Of The Mountain" - Proclamation - Oceanic Odyssey Volume 12
3. "Sweeney Todd, The Barber" - Stanley Holloway - Cannibals-A-Go-Go!
4. "I Shall Be Free No.10" - Bob Dylan - Another Side Of Bob Dylan
5. "Walk It Down" - Talking Heads - Little Creatures
6. "Who Cares?" - C.I.A. - God, Guts, Guns EP
7. "Every Wednesday Night At Eight" - The Innocents - One Way Love 7"
8. "Crazy Little Thing (live 1974)" - Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band - 04/22/74 Cowtown Ballroom - Kansas City
9. "Come On Mary" - The Abandoned - Back From The Grave 3
10. "The Imposter" - Elvis Costello & The Attractions - Get Happy!!

Okay, time to pull it together, get the day's chores done so I can go off and enjoy the annual McKleinfeld/Cino bash for those of us with June birthdays. And about time.

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: The Mothers of Inventions - "Let's Make The Water Turn Black"

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 . . .

Current Mood: cranky
Current Location: The Brick, Williamsburg
Current Music: none

Well, tonight, The Brick's Antidepressant Festival opens. Hooray!

I've been at the space for many, MANY hours every day since Monday working to get the space and some of the shows together for yer dining and dancing pleasure. I'm very tired, but fairly satisfied at this point. We're just about completely ready for everything. Except that I have to have the space's five stage cubes (the ones Berit and I built for Magnificent Ambersons) painted black by tomorrow, and I have no idea when I can get this done. I'll be booking over there shortly to see if I can do it while techs and other prep are going on.

The space got put back together in great shape by a crew of Bricklayers (the theatre's helpers) on Monday night. Tuesday night we teched Theatre Askew's The Tale of the Good Whistleblower of Chaillot's Caucasian Mother and Her Other Children of a Lesser Marriage Chalk Circle, which went well, though, as expected, a bit late. My lights look pretty good. I was a bit unhappy briefly by being asked to do some particularly ugly things (the framing device of the show is played in massive bright flat front light, ugh), but they actually wound up looking "correct" when contrasted with the more parodic body of the show -- and I enjoy getting to do "parody" lights ("Okay, now do a bad version of Mother Courage . . . okay now do some bad musical theatre lighting . . .").

Wednesday, there was a bright-n-early morning tech for Afternoon Playland's 2012: A New Dawn -- I didn't design that one, but I was there to supervise and all looked good.

Then I spent most of the day pre-programming cues for the evening's tech, Adventure Quest, which is both a simple and hard show to light. Simple in that the actual looks are pretty basic and easy to make look good. Hard in that there are projections going through the whole show, and we'd like to wash them out from being visible on the actors' bodies (given our space and where we have to have the projector), and doing that sometimes means pumping the lights up to a level where they stop looking good. I think I wound up splitting the difference okay (I still have to go in and fix some of the cues to make them work right).

Adventure Quest went really really long, especially for me as I'd gotten less than four hours sleep the previous two nights and had been at the space since 9 am. After the cue-to-cue, there was a run, which didn't get started until a bit later than planned, and I wound up sleeping through most of it. Well, my lights looked okay in the cue-to-cue, they should be fine. Got home sometime after 2 am.

Yesterday, Michael Gardner supervised Matt Freeman's Glee Club during the day, then I came in and pre-programmed again, this time for that evening's tech of Infectious Opportunity from Nosedive. It was a fast, well-organized evening -- they came in and did a rehearsal of the many complex set changes while I showed my cues to Pete, the director, and he passed them or worked with me to fix them, then they did a cue-to-cue and we were out by midnight.

Well, except I discovered I'd left the car's lights on when I arrived that afternoon and my battery was dead. Luckily, AAA had someone there really fast, and I got home in time to get a hair more sleep than I had been this week.

So I'm extremely happy with the shows I'm seeing, and pretty happy with my own lights for them. There are bits of Whistleblower and Adventure Quest where I may wince a little, but I did the best that I think could be done there with the space, the equipment, and a Festival house plot. The Nosedive show looks maybe a little better than that, and they were much appreciative (the first two shows really REQUIRED me to go all out and be wonderful just to make the lights work on any basic level; Infectious could have gotten by with much simpler work, but I think I gave them more than they imagined, and they seemed very grateful).

So, what do I see all around in the Antidepressant Festival? Comedies and "feel-good" shows that don't really feel all that good. Bitter, nasty, angry, and very VERY funny comedies masquerading as palliatives. Please come and enjoy.

Today, I have our main iPod again instead of Berit, as it might be needed for music at the party after the Opening Night Cabaret, so I'm able to listen to a Random Ten from the 25,596 tracks on this one . . .

1. "Until Yesterday" - JC Chasez - download
2. "Firing Squad" - Subhumans - Firing Squad 7"
3. "Jagged Time Lapse (BBC version)" - John's Children - Smashed Blocked
4. "Computer Date" - Suburban Lawns - Suburban Lawns
5. "I Bet You They Won't Play This Song On The Radio" - Monty Python - The Final Rip Off
6. "Coconut" - Harry Nilsson - Nilsson Schmilsson
7. "Sweet Dreams" - Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - The Psychomodo
8. "In A Hurry" - Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra - Ubiquity Studio Sessions Vol.3—Strings & Things
9. "Don't Eat Stuff Off The Sidewalk" - The Cramps - Psychedelic Jungle
10. "Weird Cornfields" - David Thomas & The Pale Orchestra - Mirror Man - Act 1: Jack & The General

In the midst of all this tension, exhaustion, and craziness, sometimes you need to relax. I relax with YouTube . . .

Here's a two-minute clip from an art installation in L.A. that looped several short sections of Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan just before and after William Shatner let loose with his classic yell of . . . well, you know (I think the full piece ran 15 hours). Meditating on everything going on in the Shatman's face in these short sections can be very relaxing . . .

Also relaxing . . . baby tiger cubs . . .

And for humor relaxation, here's one o' them "Literal Music Video" memes sweeping the internets. Everyone's posting the new "Total Eclipse of the Heart" one (which IS pretty funny), and there's no loger a good copy of the original "Take On Me" one (still my favorite), so here's a lesser-seen one, as done by The Fab Four. or not quite:

Okay, now I'm back off to the theatre to paint some boxes black. Ah, art!

Current Mood: satisfied
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Muddy Waters - "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man" - Blues Masters

The work goes on.

Last two nights we rehearsed the Richard Foreman play, George Bataille's Bathrobe at The Brick, and it was nice to stage the thing in the actual space. We had only a trio of actors (out of eight total) for most of Wednesday - one showed up later - and five yesterday, with, again, one showing up towards the end, so we did some scene work that we could do with the people we had and got some solid work accomplished.

Everyone says the play becomes clearer and makes more sense as we work it. I know it makes sense of a kind, but it's a kind of dream sense, and I don't always know what it is until we're on our feet and doing it (if then). One longish scene - Scene Nine - received a lot of work on both nights, and by the end of last night had come together enough to make it clear the whole thing was going to work just fine.

But we need to keep hacking away at it bit by bit. What makes Foreman work is getting all the little details and multiple possibilities of all the lines all going at once. We don't touch this show again until June 7, when I should have the entire cast together for a rehearsal, finally.

I rehearse the other two shows already in progress (as opposed to the still-being-scripted BBQ) the next two afternoons, then also don't touch them for a week. In between, I'll be too busy getting The Brick set up for The Antidepressant Festival and doing the light design for four of the shows in that Festival: Nosedive's Infectious Opportunity, Ten Directions' ...and the fear cracked open, Sneaky Snake Productions' Adventure Quest, and Theatre Askew's The Tale of the Good Whistleblower of Chaillot's Caucasian Mother and Her Other Children of a Lesser Marriage Chalk Circle (phew!).

And FIRST, tonight, I go and help babysit a benefit going on at the space, with a break in the middle to join my old friend Sean Rockoff in seeing X at the Bowery Ballroom. I'm really happy to be seeing one of my favorite bands for the first time, but kind of tired and weary and wondering how I can bounce around and enjoy the fine fine superfine rock of Exene, John Doe, Billy, & D.J. in this state.

I'm sure it'll all be fine when the music starts . . .

Meanwhile, back in the iTunes (Berit has the iPod today - she's working the UTC#61 festival from 9 am to midnight or so), here's a Random Ten out of 71,285 tracks (so I've added 228 tracks since last week, huh?) . . .

1. "Juliano the Bull" - Jason Crest - Circus Days Vol. 4 & 5
2. "Read It & Weep (live 1975)" - Rocket From The Tombs - The Day the Earth Met the Rocket from the Tombs
3. "I'll Never Let You Go" - Steff - U-Spaces: Way Out Wonders vol. 1
4. "Love Me Like I Love You" - Me & Dem Guys - Quagmire 3
5. "Longarm" - Wall Of Voodoo - The Index Masters
6. "Yo-Yo" - Pylon - Chomp
7. "Modern Things" - Voice Farm - Sleep / Modern Things 7"
8. "The Bride Stripped Bare By 'Bachelors'" - The Bonzo Dog Band - Keynsham
9. "Country Kisses" - Sheb Wooley - Country Boogies, Wild & Wooley!
10. "Segue 5" - The New Power Generation - GoldNigga

Again, no new cat pictures this week.

But meanwhile, in the Cool News of the World -- as someone who's not the world's biggest Obama fan (he's okay, but I'm still fairly to the left of the man and his policies - and believe that those calling him and those policies "Socialist" are insulting Socialists - but I recognize he may be as good as we're gonna get in that office in my lifetime - may be), I am at least quite pleased by the Obamas' choices for new art to display around the White House, as discussed in a Wall Street Journal article HERE.

The only work of art I was aware of being on display there was Frederic Remington's The Bronco Buster (1903), and I got the impression that the style of art otherwise on display there had not advanced very much from that time and style. I didn't know that Hilary Clinton had been personally passionate about acquiring an O'Keeffe and a Henry Ossawa Tanner (whose work I'm not familiar with) for the permanent collection while there -- every administration displays works on loan from various sources, museums, whatever; some works are acquired, under stricter policies -- usually works older than 25 years, from dead artists, so as to not unduly effect the market rates, though the Bushes accepted a donation from Andrew Wyeth. Also, Jackie Kennedy pulled out some Cezannes from the permanent collection there, and Laura Bush had a Helen Frankenthaler on loan for the private residence. But these have been exceptions to the mainly middle-of-the-road work on display at the White House.

I had heard the Obamas had put out a call for more works by minority and female artists, fine, okay, the Dead White Male club could always use some shaking up (and I speak as a fan, primarily, of Dead White Males), but they've gotten a good share of work for display in the White House, some of which surprised and pleased me. There's a Johns, a Diebenkorn, an Albers, a Ruscha, a Rauschenberg, a Nevelson, a de Staël, two bronzes by Degas, and two pieces by Alma Woodsey Thomas, which fulfill both the "female" and "minority" calls while also being abstracts. Currently being looked at for possible inclusion is a set from the Art Institute of Chicago (where the first couple went on an early date) that includes works by Franz Kline and Beauford Delaney.

It's not a big thing, I guess, but it makes me happy to know that the home of the First Family has in this way finally entered the 20th Century.

As for videos . . .

Just because I dig it, here's a video recently linked to on Facebook by Kim Morgan which she described (accurately) as an "Ike and Tina meet David Lynch meet Guy Maddin clip of brilliance." It's a lip-synced performance of beauty that almost doesn't make me think this song is overrated in Phil Spector's oeuvre (it's muddy and overdriven - a Wall of Sludge rather than a Wall of Sound - and sounds better over computer speakers than on record).

Among the Ikettes on this occasion is Ms. P.P. Arnold, who I'm a fan of (and I didn't know she was an Ikette). Two clips of her being wonderful on England's Beat Club can be found HERE and HERE.

What, not more redubbings of the Hitler/Downfall scene? Yup. Here he has some strong feelings about J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot (h/t flyswatter):

And here, a meta-commentary version created by Brad Templeton of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (who describes in detail the efforts he went to in being sure his version of this meme was 100% legal in an interesting post HERE), in which Hitler finds out the limits of copyright protection:

And, hey, courtesy of Tom X. Chao, here's a recent photo of myself and Berit, from Gyda Arber's Memorial Day backyard BBQ (Berit is wearing a spare hat of Gyda's to keep herself from sunburn, a problem that seems to have almost vanished for me entirely - though I have a permanent "trucker's tan" on my left arm).

We actually look pretty relaxed, huh? A combo of mead, champagne, cider, Mike's Hard Lime, and (in my case) a some big hunks o' meat will do that to you . . .

Now to take a nap in prep for a LONG weekend of action . . .

Current Mood: drained
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Electric Frankenstein - "Can't Keep a Bad Man Down" - A Tribute to the Nomads

Well, things move forward on the four August shows.

A Little Piece of the Sun is about three-quarters blocked. I should finish that this coming Saturday. Going fairly smoothly. Once the blocking is done, onward to working the details. Luckily, the show gets tighter and simpler as it goes, so the rest should be a snap. Ha. Ha.

Still a depressing show, but beautiful.

Meanwhile, George Bataille's Bathrobe is still casting a part, and not the part I was last casting. One actress has dropped out, getting a gig somewhere else that actually pays more than travel, but Justin R.G. Holcomb, so much fun to work with on The Magnificent Ambersons, has come in to play the Doctor, as we'd all hoped he be able to. So, I'm auditioning people in the next few days for the last dancer/actress role, Annabelle (one of "The Famous Brundi Twins!").

The show is completely blocked now, at least. In the big moves, anyway - there are dances and other physical work to be choreographed. Tonight I only have three of the company available to me, so I'll do some scene work with them.

Blood on the Cat's Neck moves a little slower in some ways, as the blocking is more difficult and specific to get down right away. The play is in one room in three parts: One actress (Gyda Arber, as Phoebe Zeitgeist) starts the play onstage (from preshow), then one by one, the other nine actors enter, each one having a monologue (some have two in this first section), but all remaining onstage after their first appearance. In the second section, it is as though a party is going on in the room, but we have individual scenes as all the characters except Phoebe have 2-person scenes with each other, but everyone keeps moving around the whole time (and setting themselves up for their own scenes), and it has to be carefully worked out.

Next time, we'll get to the third section, where everyone is interacting at the party the whole time. I may have to work that out with a chessboard or something in advance. Fun show, but the onstage logistics make my head hurt sometimes -- I strive for combining efficiency, clarity, beauty, and a sense of inevitability in my blocking, and I often have trouble getting more than two of those at a time with this.

I've transcribed the improvised performance David Finkelstein and I created and videotaped, and have been working out the script for that as the remaining theatre piece I'm doing in August. The working title is still BBQ, but that really doesn't fit the show now, so I need to find some other title (preferably from the text) to call the thing.

It's become clear as well that I need to show the video piece that David is making of out the same original footage in the middle (or rather, three-quarters of the way through) my theatre version, as my piece is now about a group of people at a fancy-dress party who attend a seance of a kind, but there's a space in the text where the "appearance of the spirits" needs to happen. So I'll make David's video act as the "spirits" in my stage piece. Now that I have the characters set, I need to see who wants to act in this -- it's a short piece, really (the script is six pages long!), but it will involve some work, and being able to do all nine performances, including sitting onstage and watching David's video with fascination each time.

Now it's also on to the next press releases, postcards, and other publicity as I try to sell these mostly downbeat shows. Nobody liked - rightly, I guess - the idea of calling it The Bummer Festival (you can't sell a "bummer"), but I have no better name just yet. I'm back to using lots of bare light bulbs in my designs these days . . . maybe something like Bare Bulbs? Nah.

Oh, and as far as design goes, an anonymous donor has gifted The Brick with computer-controlled irises for our moving I-Cue units! We can now not only move those lights, we can open and close the size of the beam! This has been on my wish list for the space for years, but we could never afford it. Now, we have them. I'll be setting them up next Monday/Tuesday, so I'll have them for the four shows I'm designing in The Antidepressant Festival (and everyone else will have them as well, of course).

Some lovely gatherings this past Memorial Day weekend -- seeing my father and stepmother on Sunday (I made people jealous later mentioning the mojitos and homemade cardamom ice cream, yum) and then a barbeque at Gyda's prior to Blood rehearsal on Monday. With the heat (sometimes) and the humidity (ditto), it all became a dreamy slide of sensation that achieved that equal balance of very enjoyable and very very tiring. Still recovering a bit from that.

Gyda's finished the trailer for this year's installment of the smash hit interactive theatre experience from last year's Brick Summer Festival, Suspicious Package: Rx. I'm pleased to be prominently featured in it (though not pleased by the feature of my prominent gut - yes, I'm dieting and exercising as I undergo PT for the nerve problem in my leg), and Berit's hands actually make a cameo appearance at the end of the trailer.

Here's Gyda's trailer, which is a good leadin to the whole piece -- I've seen just about all the footage, I think, and this should be a doozy . . .

And for sheer cuteness' sake, here's a pygmy jerboa . . .

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Quincy Jones - "Redeye Running Train" - soundtrack to the film Dollar$

Goddamn DOG!

Okay, so the next door neighbors have a very loud dog that runs up and down their apartment. It doesn't really bug us. Whatever. We're easygoing here. After all, the apartment on the other side of us has "Angry Baby," a child with the amazing ability to scream and cry at the top of its lungs all day and night long WITHOUT CEASE (the child has hit toddlerdom now, and words are beginning to appear in the midst of the screaming; I saw her once briefly when I went to get a package accidentally delivered to them by mistake, and the child had the TENSEST and most SUSPICIOUS face I've seen on any human under 12).

Again, Angry Baby, like Big Damn Dog, is more an item of bemusement than annoyance (I swear the kid has somehow naturally learned circular breathing). The sounds of Angry Baby and Big Damn Dog come through the walls quite clearly, so we just remark on it when they're being particularly boisterous. A shriek will start up, and either Berit or I will say to the other, "Angry Baby is angry," and we're prepared for anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours of non-stop shrieks. Then we'll hear the sounds of mad, racing feet running up and down the mirror image apartment on the other side of the wall, and something crashing off a table, and occasionally a human voice screaming, and we know that Big Damn Dog is on the move again.

However.

While working here at the computer a while ago, with my back to the living room window -- open so that I can enjoy the lovely weather, a cool breeze, and the smell of mown grass; screened so that the kitties don't escape -- there was a GODAWFUL loud noise that caused me to jump and spin - as I saw the cats running frantically away from the window (they had been resting on the sill) - and find the snarling muzzle of Big Damn Dog sticking THROUGH a nice new hole in the middle of my screen, trying to get to the felines! I shooed the foul beast away, with much waving of hands, and, realizing I now had a cat-sized hole in the screen, slid the window down so my sweet things couldn't go leaping out -- being cliched little cats, they had already run BACK to the window, even though they were obviously terrified (Moni was shaking and making little crying vocal sounds), to continue to watch the nasty noisy thing trying to get in.

You see, there is a "patio" area outside my (and the neighbor's) first-floor apartments. It's actually the roof of the building's parking garage, but all of us on it have doorways out to it, and we were somewhat sold on the apartment by having a "patio." Of course, we now have gotten messages from the management company (my old bosses) telling us that this area is, in fact, off limits and we can't use our doors, and all the nice little plantings and barbeque areas and so forth that people had created out there had to be removed, immediately (we had to get rid of some outdoor chairs and a table we had, but it really wasn't a great loss, as it turned out no get a little windy and dusty to go out there for breakfast, as I had hoped).

Still, Berit goes out there to paint props or when using some kind of adhesive or solvent that shouldn't be used in an enclosed area (to my latent-huffer disappointment), and some others let their dogs out there, not to crap (thankfully), but to exercise. This includes Big Damn Dog, who I (and the cats) have seen on one or two other occasions. Today appears to have been the first time he noticed the cats, and it flipped him out.

So I dealt with the slobbering pea-brained mastiff while simultaneously trying to calm down a cat that was both terrified and fascinated by what was terrifying her and trying to get closer to it while wailing piteously. Great.

I got the window closed (at least enough that the cats can't get out) in the middle of this, and the cats began to lose interest as the dog went running off elsewhere for a bit, but it kept coming back to the window and sniffing around, looking for the felines. It's a big, cute dog, to be sure. I prefer cats, but there are some dogs I like, and big, dopey-looking ones with big sad friendly eyes are up there, so I was a little taken with it for a moment.

Then I remembered what it had done and looked again at the hole it left in the screen and I took the squirt bottle of water we use to discipline the cats and gave the big fucker a good shot in the nostril, and it went loping away, not to return.

(and I thought that anything I wrote today would NOT be influenced at all by the fact that I just reread Hunter S. Thompson's The Great Shark Hunt and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and am again partway through Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail '72 -- no, I'm back in the Raoul Duke mindset; I used to occasionally go to costume parties as Thompson/Duke, and the character comes back easily . . . selah . . .)

Now the damn monster is back indoors, and in between writing bits of this I'm doing loads of laundry, so every time I cross from my apartment door to the elevator to the basement, the hound hears me and begins barking and clawing at the front door of the other apartment, causing me to shit myself EVERY time I pass by, even when I know it's coming.

Flashback to childhood, at least ages 6 to 15 -- there was this tiny little connecting branch between the parallel-running Field Road (where I lived) and Valleywood Road (where my grandparents lived) in Cos Cob, CT, and I would often walk it to go see my grandparents or uncles if, for some reason, I couldn't go across Mrs. Hyland's yard (her backyard abutted ours, and her front faced my grandparents'). There was a house on this little road with a big-sounding, mean-sounding dog that seemed to live in the garage, with the garage door being kept open just low enough so that the thing couldn't get out, but it could bark at anything that passed, and scrape madly at the driveway and the door. I never saw anything more than a paw or two for all those years I walked that little, creepily-shaded road, but almost every single time I walked by, that DAMN DOG would find a way to start barking madly at JUST the right time to make me jump out of my skin. I hated that dog, and still do, and I never even got a look at the thing. I tried to figure out ways to get it to bark on cue, so it wouldn't startle me -- throwing pebbles ahead of me, stomping hard on the ground, whatever -- but they never worked consistently enough.

So now I have the same thing happening to me as a 40-year-old, walking across a Brooklyn lobby to do my laundry. I'm tempted to go over to the door and bark and snarl back at the thing until I confuse it enough to shut up, but I'm afraid one of the owners appears to be home, and I don't want them opening the door to find out what madman is trying to outsnarl their mangy mutt.

(oddly, I'm only concerned about what these damned owners might think -- the other people on the floor - the parents of Angry Baby, the nice new young couple that smiles at us all the time, the two other couples that look at Berit and I with an odd suspicion - I don't care what they might think of me barking and snarling in the lobby)

Of course, I have to be careful in any case because I can't be 100% certain that the dog that came by was the Big Damn Dog from next door. It could have been someone else in the building (or one of the three connected ones). I could be blaming the wrong people and the wrong dog here.

Just like I can't be sure the owners of Big Damn Dog are the ones that fog up the lobby with pot smoke from their apartment all the time, but I'm pretty sure they are. Again, not that B & I would mind the pot smoke, whatever, fine, but for eight years now we've been putting up with it being the foulest, SKUNKIEST damn pot smoke in the universe creeping out, and occasionally into our own home. I mean, really! The damned lobby, at least once a week, smells like when a semi runs over a whole family of the little smelly bastards on some remote Maine road. Damn.

Of course, on one occasion, there was a (justified) complaint that our catbox odors had made it to the lobby, when we let things get a hair ripe and were using a litter that just wasn't cutting it for a brief time. I was quite embarrassed and have been VERY MUCH on top of that since, but now I just feel that if it comes up again I may think about casually bringing up Angry Baby, Big Damn Dog, or Skunky Weed to the respective neighbors and seeing what response I get.

Meanwhile, Berit is off at Theater 3, working on the Festival of Jewish Theater and Ideas all day and night today, so she gets to have the iPod, which means that the Friday Random Ten has to come from the overloaded and bloated iTunes library itself. Yikes. Here's what comes up from the 71,057 tracks I have in there today . . .

1. "Love Is Fire" - The Parachute Club - Poptronica Romance
2. "Amor" - Ben E. King - Atlantic Rhythm & Blues vol 5 1961-1965
3. "I Got Love If You Want It" - Slim Harpo - Hip Shakin'
4. "Have You Met My Pet Pig?" - The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band - Where's My Daddy?
5. "Two More Days" - Little Eddie Mint - New York Notables
6. "Song Of The Healer" - The Sallyangie - Children Of The Sun
7. "The Sneak" - The Towers - Las Vegas Grind! - Volume 6
8. "Security" - Thane Russal & Three - Club Au-Go-Go 11
9. "Dirty Love" - Mandre - Mandre
10. "Shop Around" - The Miracles - Hitsville U.S.A., The Motown Singles Collection 1959-1971

No new cat photos today, either (the charger has been misplaced again), so instead, four videos of recent note.

First, a (dubbed) word from FDR to a grateful nation . . .

Meanwhile, on the other side of the war, Adolf Hitler is having his own problems (as interpreted by Rick Crom, who I had the pleasure of working with years ago at the York Theater Company on Merrily We Roll Along):

And, considering that (as I've mentioned before, with shock and loathing) they're now planning movies based on fucking BOARD GAMES such as Battleship and the like, is the following any more ridiculous?

Finally, a LEGO and musical adaptation of a modern classic . . .

Tonight, I'm off to finally see Nosemaker's Apprentice at The Brick, which I hear is damned great. It's gotten me up and out tonight, at least. And having to run soon, so no updates on the shows right now, though I certainly have some. Maybe tomorrow.

Enjoy the long lovely weekend, folks.

Current Mood: drained
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Jimmy Griffin - "Little Mary" - Big Apple Boogie

Oh, the joys of insomnia induced by a combo of nervous active cats, being unable to achieve a acceptable temperature, and half a mind that decides to start racing while the other half is trying desperately to enter torpor.

But I am up, and it is time for updates and thoughts.

All three shows are under way, rehearsal-wise. All primarily blocking right now -- nuts 'n' bolts work, starting, as I do, from the point of the physical structure of the piece, the big strokes, and moving inward with more detail. As long as I get where people move right, most of the rest falls into place just fine.

Two rehearsals (post first-readings) thus far for A Little Piece of the Sun, and one each for George Bataille's Bathrobe and Blood on the Cat's Neck (I also just got 100% confirmation yesterday on the rights to the latter two, in emails from Mr. Foreman and the people who handle Fassbinder in the U.S. of A -- that's a relief, though now I need to be sure I have the money ready to pay for the Fassbinder rights by the due date in a month; time to send out the donation request email to my list . . .). Going well, with some frustrations, as to be expected.

Oddly, Little Piece, with the cast of 14, is the one where I can generally get most of the cast at every rehearsal. With the others . . . well, it's a struggle.

Little Piece has been a surprisingly fun rehearsal process despite being one of the most magnificently depressing shows in theatrical history (personally, by the end, I find it a HOPEFUL work, as I believe Daniel, the writer, does, but we seem to be in the VAST minority on that one). Maybe it's the unremittingly unpleasant subject matter of genocides, nuclear accidents, and serial killing that causes me to be a little lighter, breezier, and more on my toes and trying to make sure everyone is having a good time working on the play than usual. There are lots o' jokes 'n' laffs on this one from me and the cast, many of them at the expense of the horrible subject matter. Perhaps it's to avoid crying or screaming.

There was still a slight chill last night as we ended rehearsal with the staging of Andrei Chikatilo's first, horrifying, murder and violation, that of nine-year-old Lena Zakotnova. A mix of clinical and messy. A recent re-reading of From Hell was more inspirational than I had figured. Ick.

Foreman's George Bataille's Bathrobe has a great cast I wish I could get all together at one time (actually, I'm still waiting for one person I'd like to do it to confirm he can), but that'll have to wait for a while. One blocking rehearsal that was a good start, and, as always when I'm doing Foreman plays, immediately started clarifying everything, and all kinds of new, interesting ideas came up that will make Berit's and my lives harder as we now have to make or acquire more and more oddball props.

Unfortunately, I had fewer people than I had expected for the first rehearsal of Fassbinder's Blood on the Cat's Neck, and it was almost silly to work on the blocking (though it was nice working outdoors in Gyda Arber's back garden on a pleasant Spring night), but it wound up being a good start that will come in handy, and then the half of the cast I had and I retired to Ms. Arber's living room to watch Bunuel's The Exterminating Angel, which has been inspirational for me in thinking about the play. If we have another night like that, or a rain date, we'll go on to the Bunuel-influenced Merchant-Ivory film Savages, written by Michael O'Donoghue and George W.S. Trow. The Fassbinder will be a more problematic play in a few ways -- it's made up of lost of interesting bits that don't have a major dramatic pull forward until very late in the play, which is somewhat broken up into three main sections: a series of monologues, a series of two-person scenes, and finally a full-cast scene. The middle section is rather long compared to the other two, and weighs down the two ends quite a lot. I'll have to use a fine hand and some directorial magic to make the whole thing feel like one solid work moving forward, and not overburdened in the center. Some serious sprightliness needs to go on there.

And here's this week's Random Ten from the rapidly being-cleaned iPod that now has 25,598 tracks in it . . .

1. "Ban Deodorant (Skydiving)" - unknown - Psychedelic Promos & Radio Spots, vol. 7
2. "Suzie Q" - Creedence Clearwater Revival - Suzie Q
3. "Winners and Losers" - Iggy Pop - Blah Blah Blah
4. "Professor Nutbutter's House Of Treats" - Primus - Tales From The Punchbowl
5. "Blue Train" - Cibo Matto - Stereo Type A
6. "Ginny In The Mirror" - Del Shannon - Hats Off To Larry
7. "When I Was Cruel No.2" - Elvis Costello - When I Was Cruel
8. "Do The Residue" - Kontakt Mikrofoon Orkest - CherryStones: Word
9. "Doctor Wu" - The Minutemen - mix disk - Daniel
10. "Woman's Gone" - Brainbox - Nederbeat The B-Sides 4

I have no new cat photos, so here's two old favorites from a night when a combo of flash and ambient lighting caused some strange distortions I havebn't been able to replicate . . .

I miss the days of truly awkward and odd promo films for songs (pre-"music videos"). Here's one (I suspect it's an actual Scopitone by the style) for The Tornados (of "Telstar" fame) doing "Robot," a Joe Meek production:

And here's a 1967 Italian cover of "Hold On, I'm Coming." Any ideas WHY this setting? Scarecrows?

I love how bored and unenthused Italian pop stars always seem to be in the clips I see . . . what, are they going through with this so they can wear nice shoes or something, and they're far too cool to bother actually performing?

Hey, it's a day off. Now what?

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Sam the Sham & The Pharaohs - "I Never Had No One" - Pharaohization

Happy Mother's Day . . .

Current Mood: relaxed
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: Five Man Electrical Band - "Half Past Midnight" - Five Man Electrical Band

Good lord, it's 11 pm and I didn't do the weekly blog post I always do, come hell or high water (or other occasions where I've forgotten or was too busy)?

Busy week, busier day. Every time I think I have casting, or rehearsal schedules, or rehearsal spaces, all lined up in a row and ready, something comes along to kick them all over.

I'm seeing a few people in the next few days for the last remaining parts, so that's okay. As for rehearsal space . . . I'm still working on that. I have it for much of the time I need, but not most. A few emails to make tomorrow on that . . .

We had the first rehearsal of A Little Piece of the Sun on Tuesday, which was just blocking, which isn't really a "just" on this complicated show with lots of bodies moving around (and I didn't have all the bodies around either so I could keep track of them). We got through a quarter of Act I, which wasn't bad, and we should go faster next time. The cast pays attention and works quick, which will be essential to get this big mother of a nasty documentary play done.

Sunday we read Foreman's George Bataille's Bathrobe with most of the company for the first time. We're still missing three cast members, which should be solved in the next few days, so at the reading Becky Byers, Maggie Cino, and Bryan Enk showed up and helped out by reading the missing parts. Sounded good and became a lot clearer to the actors -- it's somewhat of an abstract script if you're not inside my head, but hearing it aloud and discussing it made the company "get" where it's going, I think. The cast we have will be terrific. Now to get the last three members.

And before that, we read Fassbinder's Blood on the Cat's Neck with most of the cast over in Gyda Arber's garden on a hot sunny day, and everyone but me seems to have gotten a sunburn (Berit missed bits of her arms with the sunscreen and wound up with some VERY unusual patterns of burn there). And THAT cast was dead-on perfect from moment one.

So . . .

. . . in many ways I'm in great shape for the August shows. Except that once again it's becoming impossible to get all the members of any cast in one room at one time (no matter how early I cast everybody, in this group they're going to want up doing other shows in June, or even July, and their availability goes out the window), and each of these shows has large sections that NEED to be rehearsed with the full cast or they're impossible to work (and Bathrobe is ENTIRELY like that). But it can't happen, it seems, so once again I have to work around it as best I can -- a skill I have by now, but don't enjoy the employing of to the slightest degree . . .

For relaxation, I keep futzing around with my iPod in the continuing, silly, pointless, obsessive attempt to make it the ABSOLUTE BEST 80GB iPod in the civilized world, cutting things and adding others, updating old versions of tracks as I find better digitized versions of them, or as I did recently, replacing most of The Beatles' released catalog as it exists now with the original mono mixes (which are better). Also, discovering that an iTunes upgrade a couple of months ago rejiggered my settings so all new tracks I put in were being sampled at a higher bitrate than I require for digital use (and thus taking up WAY too much disk space), so I had to spend time going back and redoing those tracks properly (and freeing up 10GB of disk space in the process).

This means that sometimes playing with my iPod as a "relaxing break" from the play work backfires and I just get intensely focused and irritated that I can't "fix" things on the iPod as fast as I'd like (since I have to listen to at least three sections of EVERY track that I don't know so well - or at all - that has wound up on there so I can decide if I want to keep it).

Here's what comes up as a bedtime Random Ten from the 25,645 tracks in the little bugger right now . . .

1. "Something's Gotta Give" - Pere Ubu - The Tenement Year
2. "Innocence" - Kirsty MacColl - Galore
3. "Colossal Youth" - Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth
4. "The Mercy Seat" - Johnny Cash - American III: Solitary Man
5. "I'm So Glad" - Screamin' Jay Hawkins - The Night and Day of Screamin' Jay Hawkins
6. "I Enjoy Being a Boy (In Love With You)" - Linus of Hollywood - Right to Chews: Bubblegum Classics Revisited
7. "I Got a Bag of My Own" - James Brown - Star Time
8. "Hey Joe" - Patti Smith - No Thanks! The 70s Punk Rebellion
9. "Carry Me Home" - AC/DC - Dog Eat Dog b/w Carry Me Home 7"
10. "Delitto al Ristorante Cinese" - Detto Mariano - Poliziotteschi Graffiti

Berit's going away to visit her family for a few days, and I'd love to go with her, but I have too much work to do here -- besides the work on my own shows I'm doing some more work with David Finkelstein and helping Tom X. Chao out with something for an upcoming show of his. Berit and I also spent a fun but tiring LONG day last week helping Gyda Arber shoot her sequel to last year's interactive hit Suspicious Package, which will be in The Antidepressant Festival at The Brick in June.

Oh, right, and we had a great benefit party at Galapagos! Well, I don't know if the "benefit" part was a success (not my department of The Brick), but the "party" part was great. Photos of the big event can be seen HERE (and Berit can be seen in a couple of shots - I appear in NONE of them, which may be for the best, as I became a kinda scary hobo whenever someone paid attention). It was a helluva bash!

(I had a unfortunate end to the evening when one of the three bottles of mead, brewed by actor/friend Heath Kelts, that I won in the raffle - which I had REALLY REALLY wanted - was lifted from my bag, and I was a little angry and sharp at the end of the evening, but got over it -- and I wound up getting a replacement bottle form someone this week, which was good . . . I'm still pissed about the original theft, though . . .)

And I don't have a show of my own in this year's Summer festival at The Brick (THANK GOD!), but I am MASSIVELY jazzed about the lineup we have going on, including shows from some of my favorite theatre artists: work from Nosedive (James Comtois and Pete Boisvert here), Ten Directions (Audrey Crabtree and Lynn Berg), Blue Coyote (Matthew Freeman), and a brilliant company I've long been hoping would do something at The Brick, Theatre Askew (Tim Cusack and Jason Jacobs). Also new work from Adrian Jevicki, Gavin Starr Kendall, Danny Bowes, and the terrific looking Adventure Quest.

(I haven't made my life any easier by being excited enough by the work that I've agreed to do the light design for four of the above companies . . . ah, well . . .)

Anyway, I need to get some sleep, and there are no new kitty pictures this week yet again, but I like this combo photo I made up to go in a little double frame Berit's giving a special someone for a special holiday this weekend . . .

Current Mood: aggravated
Current Location: Gravesend
Current Music: The Hardtimes - "They Said No" - Psychedelic Archaeology volume 2

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CollisionWorks

an occasional view of internal craft and external insanity

Recent Entries

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