CollisionWorks

Oh, one last thing I forgot . . .


Just wanted to post this Little Nemo panel, which I was determined to use somewhere in the promo stuff for the NECROPOLIS shows.


Berit felt, and I agreed, that it wasn't right as the main image for Slumberland on the card, but when I mentioned how much I REALLY wanted this on the card, she said we could get it on the back somewhere.


But when I got to see the back this morning, it wasn't there. Berit says it just didn't work. I was unhappy at first, but she's right. It doesn't go there. So she said, "put it on the blog." And here it is.

Mr. Ingmar Bergman is dead.


He passed away at his home on the island of Fårö, Sweden, where he made many of his great films, in the early morning of July 30, 2007, at the age of 89.


He directed many many films, several of them masterpieces of the medium. Perhaps most iconic and remembered are his two 1957 films (my god, he made these in the SAME YEAR?) Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal.


My own personal favorites of his - very important films to me, and not always as respected as "the big ones" - are the late-60s quartet of Persona, Hour of the Wolf, Shame, and The Passion of Anna.


If you haven't seen these, please do. They're worth it.


He was also, of course, a director of theatre. I am familiar with his work there only by reputation, but it's quite a reputation.


So much for hoping for one more surprise from the man, who had supposedly retired, but kept popping up with new work every now and then.

I just got up to get ready for rehearsal. Berit's been up all night. This will be the way the shifts work in the home for a while.

Berit will stay up all night, I will get up in the morning to work on the shows and she'll go to sleep. Today, we both have to leave for rehearsal in 30 minutes, so when we get back from it at around 3 pm, she'll go to bed and I'll work until midnight or 1 am on the sound design and email blasts.

Then, I'll go to bed and she'll work all night. We've kinda got the pattern down by now, after a few years. It's even more necessary right now, as we have to share the one REALLY GOOD computer in the house - her for the postcard/prop work, me for the sound work.


So last night, Berit pretty much finalized three things while I slept. First, a prop from Marc Spitz's The Hobo Got Too High, which will be printed out on sticker and placed on a real margarine box for the "commercial" scene:





Next, and not quite finished, but almost (it needs to be "degraded" a bit), the image for the postcard (and probably some products in the Gemini CollisionWorks store) for NECROPOLIS #0: Kiss Me, Succubus:





And finally, the postcard/t-shirt/etc. image for NECROPOLIS #3: At the Mountains of Slumberland:





Okay, have to quickly shower and make myself presentable for the actors, and shove more coffee down myself to make myself able to function. More later.

Courtesy of both Gawker and Defamer . . .


There are certain things that can make your day, even when it's 7.30 am on that day, and you're up because you can't sleep, and you have a long day ahead of you, with a lot of rehearsal work, and you'd normally be cranky 'cause you didn't get a good night's sleep. This is one of those things.


Ladies and gentlemen, the inmates of the Cebu Provincial Dentention and Rehabilitation Center, Cebu, the Philippines, 1,500+ strong, perform their rendition of Michael Jackson's "Thriller":

At home. No rehearsal today, but plenty of work. We recorded a good deal of the dialogue for the backing tracks of World Gone Wrong last night at The Brick. Today, I'll see if I can do some track constructions and mixing. I may have to spend the time pulling out all the CDs and other sources of the backing music and effects that I need.


But first, Friday Random Ten:


1. "Barnabas" - The Vampire State Building - Dark Shadows —The 30th Anniversary Collection

Unbelievably stupid and awful tie-in novelty song with the Dark Shadows TV show. So bad I have to keep it in here. Yeeesh.


2. "Jerkin' Back and Forth" - DEVO - Pioneers Who Got Scalped: The Anthology
3. "Boogie Boy" - Iggy Pop - American Caesar

now every mornin i wake up at nine

i'm eating cheerios with red wine

i'm reading that book but it's not too good

cuz my boogie head is made outta wood . . .
. . . i like to eat spaghetti with tomato sauce

i like to eat clams with spanish moss

i like to go down to mash potato town

cuz that's where a boogie boy can get down . . .

(god I love Iggy)


4. "Dirty Beat" - Gert Wilden & Orchestra - Schulmädchen Report
5. "After the Storm" - Stan Ridgway - Holiday in Dirt
6. "Together" - William Shatner - Has Been
7. "Alright Already" - Combustible Edison - mix disk from my dad
8. "Hide If You Want To Hide" - The Cedars - Pebbles Volume 12 - The World
9. "Jerusalem on the Jukebox" - Richard Thompson - Amnesia
10. "I Am the Walrus (basic track, no overdubs)" - The Beatles - Anthology 2


The iPod now stands at 21,086 songs, 72.88 gigs full. I keep whittling it down and adding more stuff. At some point, I'll run out of room and REALLY get serious about cutting things out.

And I'm down to the last two usable cat photos I have put up here yet. Need new pictures. Here's Hooker lurking under my chair, waiting for attention:





And a really old shot of Moni & Hooker curled up, before Hooker got the cauliflower ear:





Back to work.

Hmmn. Well, I don't exactly mind the result of this little quiz - designed to tell you what book you are . . .

You're Ulysses!

by James Joyce

Most people are convinced that you don't make any sense, but compared
to what else you could say, what you're saying now makes tons of sense. What people do
understand about you is your vulgarity, which has convinced people that you are at once
brilliant and repugnant. Meanwhile you are content to wander around aimlessly, taking in
the sights and sounds of the city. What you see is vast, almost limitless, and brings you
additional fame. When no one is looking, you dream of being a Greek folk hero.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

(thanks to Alison and Mark)

The Brick Theater, Inc. presents a Gemini CollisionWorks production of


NECROPOLIS #0&3:
Kiss Me, Succubus &
At the Mountains of Slumberland


written, designed and directed by Ian W. Hill


Wednesday, August 8, 15, and 22
Thursday, August 23
Saturday, August 18
and Sunday, August 26 at 8.00 pm
matinees: Saturday, August 11 and Sunday, August 12 at 4.00 pm


Two dreams – a nightmare and a fantasy. But which is which? An adult’s dream of sex, violence and cinema. A child’s dream of other, wondrous worlds, monsters, fantastic machines, and heroes. How do these dreams connect? How do our childhood fantasies form our adult personalities?

Here, two early one-acts in The NECROPOLIS SERIES (a collection of what creator Ian W. Hill calls “dubbed, theatrical dream-elegies for dead or dying art forms of the 20th Century”) are being brought back and performed in repertory with the acclaimed two-part film noir pastiche NECROPOLIS #1&2: World Gone Wrong/Worth Gun Willed.

In Kiss Me, Succubus, a group of indolent, rich, decadent (yet bored) 1960s jet-setters encounter a group of what they believe to be porn movie actors at a party and invite them home, thinking they will provide at least an evening’s amusement. Instead, their guests prove to have a far more horrible, supernatural intent in mind, and the hosts are soon trapped and fighting for their lives in a strange, hallucinatory world of sex, violence, sexual violence, and word games. Based on the arty 1960s sex-and-horror exploitation films of Jesus Franco, Radley Metzger, Jean Rollin and many others, Kiss Me, Succubus is a tribute to both the over-the-top melodrama and unintentional comedy of those movies, while also attempting to capture the strangeness, visual beauty, and ultimately moving qualities the best of them possess.

At the Mountains of Slumberland features the classic Winsor McCay comic strip character, Little Nemo, who here falls asleep (as usual in the comics) but here finds himself stuck in the universe of H.P. Lovecraft’s horror stories rather than in his usual charming Slumberland. Nemo must make his way through a more nightmarish landscape than usual, with the help of his guide, Randolph Carter, fighting Lovecraft’s dark, squamous gods, The Old Ones, and, ultimately, a surprising human enemy. Performed as a series of comic strip panels, At the Mountains of Slumberland is a study in how dreams affect art, and how art affects dreams.

As with all productions in the NECROPOLIS series, these two shows are primarily made up of collaged text from the original source materials and are performed “dubbed,” with all dialogue, sound effects, and music prerecorded and played behind the actors, who enact it as a complex, choreographed movement piece.

The company of NECROPOLIS #0&3 includes Gyda Arber, Peter Bean, Linda Blackstock, Jody Christopherson, Bryan Enk, Stacia French, Ian W. Hill, Amy Liszka, Robert Pinnock, Jessica Savage, Alyssa Simon, Douglas Scott Sorenson, Sammy Tunis, and Art Wallace. NECROPOLIS #0&3 is an Equity-Approved Showcase.


100 minutes – one intermission

So today I got to pretty much stay home. We (berit and I) have been nuts, running around busy on one thing or another, for days and days now. Between auditioning people for the casts of the four August plays, having individual meetings with the new cast members, having rehearsals with larger groups, and dealing with the administrative stuff, it's been crazy.

On top of it, we were also involved in Edward Einhorn/Untitled Theater Co. #61's presentations for this past week in Suzan-Lori Parks' 365 Plays/365 Days. I directed 2 Writers Digging Bach and Antaeus, and I think they both went quite well. It was Edward's conceit that all the plays had to be finished through audience participation, and it took me a bit to figure out how to make my two plays work that way, but I wound up making it work very well I think. I'm too tired to detail it now. Some other time. I did get a bit lucky that there were actors in the audience I knew could pull it off well - one play needed a man, the other a woman - so I was lucky to have Robert Honeywell, John Hagen, Yolanda Hawkins, and Linda Blackstock out there on Saturday and Sunday.

Also had a rehearsal for a reading of Trav S.D.'s Sea of Love which I'm in this coming Sunday out in Coney Island. Promo for that in a little bit.

Almost done with the casting for August. Still need one or two actors (depending on if one I've asked to be in the show accepts). Two and a half weeks until we open World Gone Wrong and The Hobo Got Too High. Crazy. Well, we can do it. Hobo is easy enough. WGW will be a bear, with all the tech that has to be done well in advance. Think we're okay, though. Luckily, we seem to have a good number of people who can do weekday daytime rehearsals, so I can get plenty done then. Both of those shows are completely cast.


I also got all the press materials out, so in lieu of anything else to put up here right now, I guess I'll put up the releases for each of the three programs. First, here, the cover sheet for the whole month of shows - then I'll do a separate entry for the other releases.


**********



The Brick Theater, Inc. presents a month of productions from Gemini CollisionWorks, featuring


The NECROPOLIS Series by Ian W. Hill:
NECROPOLIS #1&2: World Gone Wrong/Worth Gun Willed
NECROPOLIS #0&3: Kiss Me, Succubus & At the Mountains of Slumberland


The Hobo Got Too High by Marc Spitz


all shows designed and directed by Ian W. Hill


August 4 through 26, 2007
at The Brick, 575 Metropolitan Avenue, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
one block from the Lorimer stop of the L train / Metropolitan stop of the G train

all tickets: $10.00 -- available at the door (cash only)
or through Theatermania.com: 212-352-3101


July 16, 2007 – The Brick and Gemini CollisionWorks are pleased to bring together, for the first time, parts 0-3 of Ian W. Hill’s The NECROPOLIS Series – a collection of what their creator calls “dubbed, theatrical dream-elegies for dead or dying art forms of the 20th Century.” The productions in the NECROPOLIS series consist of collaged text from unlikely, but thematically-linked source materials, which is then performed “dubbed,” with all dialogue, sound effects, and music prerecorded and played behind the actors, who enact it as a complex, choreographed movement piece.

NECROPOLIS #1&2: World Gone Wrong/Worth Gun Willed is a restaging of the acclaimed film noir pastiche that premiered at The Brick in 2005. NECROPOLIS #0&3: Kiss Me, Succubus & At the Mountains of Slumberland are two shorter works, originally from 2000 and 2001, that combine, respectively, softcore-porn and horror films of the 1960s, and then the fantasy literature of Winsor McCay (“Little Nemo”) and H.P. Lovecraft, into a pair of hypnotic, hallucinatory dream-landscapes.

The Hobo Got Too High is a completely different kind of play – a hysterical, romantic farce about a cokehead/rock and roll fanatic who is trying to get clean with the help of his spirit guide, Marvin Gaye – written by novelist, playwright, and music critic Marc Spitz.

Designer/director Ian W. Hill has, with his company Gemini CollisionWorks, created 50 productions in NYC since 1997, including world premieres of plays by Richard Foreman, Mark Spitz, and Eugène Ionesco. He is the former artistic director of the Nada Classic theatre and co-produced several acclaimed festivals at that space, and is now the facilities manager of The Brick.

For print-ready photos or additional information about these plays or Gemini CollisionWorks please contact Jeff Lewonczyk at XXX-XXX-XXXX

At The Brick to audition another actor for the August shows. Went well, but the drive over was a mess - must have been an accident on the BQE, because it just wasn't moving at all. Got off at Atlantic Avenue and went by surface streets all the way here, which was better (I could see the stopped traffic on the BQE next to me) but not great. Took me an hour to get here, so I was a little late (2-3 minutes) but the auditioner was cool about it.

And the iPod (21,118 songs) gave me a great soundtrack on the way, which actually went along with the varied driving, stopping, and starting again that I was going through from Gravesend to Williamsburg:


1. "I'm Ready" - Fats Domino - Very Best of Fats Domino
2. "Lovefingers" - Silver Apples - Silver Apples
3. "(Let's Have a) Party" - Wanda Jackson - All the Hits and More
4. "Atom Mind" - David Thomas - Datapanik in the Year Zero: Terminal Drive
5. "Today Your Love, Tomorrow the World" - The Ramones - Ramones
6. "The Kennedy March" - Joe Meek - Joe Meek Presents 304 Holloway Road
7. "Hard Times" - Public Image Ltd. - Happy?
8. "Light My Fire" - Erma Franklin & Jackie Wilson - Deep Covers
9. "That's How Heartaches Are Made" - Julie Grant - Count on Me! (The Complete Pye Sessions)
10. "Tsetse Fly" - Martin Denny - Afro-Desia
11. "Lonesome Cowboy Bill (early version) - The Velvet Underground - Loaded (Fully Loaded Edition)
12. "Runaway" - The Bel-Airs - More Surf Legends (and Rumors)
13. "I Wanna be Loved By You" - The Human Instinct - Oceanic Odyssey Vol 09
14. "Salvaje" - Los Saicos - Los Saicos
15. "Skinny Legs and All" - Joe Tex - Atlantic Rhythm & Blues vol 7 1967-1969
16. "The Duck" - Jackie Lee - Land of 1000 Dances vol. 1
17. "WFMU" - Crazy Mary - Live at WFMU
18. "Law (Earthlings on Fire" - David Bowie - Earthling
19. "Boy Is Gone" - Lyn & The Invaders - Girls in the Garage Vol. 1
20. "Animal Day" - Wall of Voodoo - Dark Continent


No more time, too much work. More soon.

This item will be of no interest or use to anyone else in the world but me or someone so close to me as the odds of them existing are as near nil as could be.


That is, the subset of the human race that has an obscure surf guitar instrumental handy, and who listens to Tom X. Chao's Peculiar Utterance of the Day.


But if you're that one unlikely person, this is worth it enough to mention. Otherwise, move along, folks.


1. Open and pause Tom's latest PUotD podcast, "I Love Maynard's Wine Gums!"


2. Then go to your iTunes or what have you and begin playing "Bandito" by The Pastel Six. This is available on the collection More Surf Legends (and Rumors).

(or, if you're me, just happen to have this song beginning to play on your iTunes when you open Tom's podcast and forget to turn it off)


3. You will now hear a humorous short monologue by Tom X. Chao accompanied beautifully by a backing track that somehow perfectly complements the piece in rhythm and tone (hopefully the timing is right). Enjoy it.


Thanks for your attention.