CollisionWorks

In an effort to save those yellowing, flaking-apart clipped-out pieces of amusement that have found their way to our fridge door, under the WFMU and B-movie magnets, a continuing series of scans and posts.


First, a little something that caught my eye from the New York Post of April 14, 2005:





Reason #1472 that I love Berit: When I showed this to her a couple of days after I clipped it from the paper, she exclaimed aloud exactly what I had thought when I first saw it:


"Dear God! They finally got Luthor, and on a morals rap!"

Temptation now has three of nine performances down.


The Equity issues are settled, and all is well, though I discovered I had to cut the fog machine from the end of the show -- the brand-spanking-new 2006 AEA Showcase Code prohibits the use COMPLETELY of smoke/fog machines in AEA Showcases (when I did my shows earlier this year, I was still sent the 2000 code, which doesn't have this restriction). So the ending of the play is a bit . . . well, not what Havel or I intended. It's supposed to potentially scare the audience into running from the theatre in terror, at least as Havel wrote it (he noted that the curtain call is for those audience members who haven't fled the space), and as I was determined to actually DO it. But now, well, it gets the show done and ends the story and characters, just doesn't bring it forward and out into the real world, as it should.


But these are the compromises you wind up making, I guess. If I'd known I would have had to make this compromise, I might have actually chosen a different show. Not that I did the show for the ending, but the forcefulness of it, and building the whole show to that point, was a large part of why I wanted to do the piece -- Edward recommended the show to me after reading that last stage direction, knowing it was "right" for me.


Wednesday night at the show, I had three other members of the Northfield Mount Hermon class of '86 in the house, Sandy Beech, Ben Robertson, and Charlotte Jones. With me and Aaron there for the show, it was a mini-class reunion. There had been a talk-back scheduled for after the show, but no one apart from the old friends seemed to be all that interested in it, so we had an informal, standing-around discussion of the show and what I was trying to do with it. They liked the show, and yes, it's a good show, really. That night's performance seemed a bit rushed at times, losing some of the subtlety we had in it before, but that's ephemeral theatre, you don't get all of it all the time. Still, good as it is, I feel odd about it, almost defensively telling these old friends of mine, who've never seen my work before, and really liked this one, that this isn't the type of stuff I normally do. I feel a bit like a semi-abstract artist hired to do a craftsman's job on a big representational mural, who puts his heart and soul and talent into it, yes, and makes something wonderful, really really good, but wants to say to the people who like it, "Yeah, but you should see my real work." Which makes me feel self-centered and lousy.


I usually try to create a "world" onstage, where the acting, set, props, sound, and lights are all part of one integrated system, a constantly shifting landscape of colliding elements, where there are elements of "story" or "plot" but in a dreamlike way. Moments of stillness, silence, clarity, honor, and purity are brief respites in a universe of confusion, pain, repression, and sensory overload. Usually in something like my rethinkings of the Foreman plays, or some of my originals, there's somewhere like 150 to 200 light and sound cues in a 70-90 minutes show. Sometimes more. Constant change, then the car hits the wall in a moment to think, before backing up and driving off again, dented, wounded, and smoking.


Temptation has 31 light cues and about 20 sound cues in two hours and forty minutes. Preshow music and lights, scene lights, scene change lights and music, scene lights. Repeat as needed. Almost no underscoring except for music in the "party" scenes. Intermission music. Exit music. Almost no internal light cues.


And this is what this play should have; anything else I would add to it would just be wrong. Self-indulgent. And yet . . . I watch and I don't see a world, I see a setting -- not a bad one, either, really -- in which really FINE actors are performing really FINE text in a really FINE way. This should be enough, right? Right?


The actors are terrific, and I'm proud of what we've done together. Sometimes I climb down from the booth to watch from the back of the house for a bit -- the 10 scenes are 9 to 18 minutes long, with, as I said, almost no internal cues, and the view/sound from the booth is lousy and makes everything look dim and sound tinny. So I come down so I can appreciate how good the acting actually is, and how much I like the lights most of the time (there are a couple of places where I can't get light where I need it -- I was expecting to have the moving I-Cue units cover these places, but it wound up being I can have my practicals dimmable OR the I-Cues -- and I have to avert my eyes here and there in disgust at these bad lighting moments; luckily they don't last long). It's good work. Really strong.


I've taken a personal tack on the play in many ways, so it's certainly not uninterested, faceless work to me. Maybe it's just ego. I did Havel's play the way I thought Havel's play was best served. It's not MINE. Probably that's it. I felt a slightly similar disconnect with the other two long "straight" plays I've directed/designed, Clive Barker's Frankenstein in Love and Richard Foreman's Harry in Love, but I was also acting in both of those, so I wasn't quite so distant.


I seem to do these things well. I think the more abstract work I do actually serves me well in staging straighter things like this -- normally I'm trying to get at the "machine language" of theatre, the raw basic code behind the normally spiffed-up gestures of drama, breaking it down, showing the impulses behind the gestures, why these things "work," while at the same time making them still work. So just putting the friendly user interface back on is pretty easy. Underneath, all that code is still running.


So, it's good, yes. Audience reaction has been quite positive, and not from gladhanders. The acting is very special, and when the lights work (the way the hanging fluorescent tube lights Walter's face in the "trial" scene, for example), I'm really happy. Just wish I could be happier.


Okay, time to leave this and get going - laundry to finish, have to clean myself up. Why have I been nervous all day, as noted in each of my blog entries? This afternoon I go to a small, intimate reception for Mr. Havel to meet the people behind The Havel Festival, at the residence of Ambassador Martin Palous, as a representative of the board of Untitled Theatre Co. #61 (and as myself/Gemini CollisionWorks, of course, but I'm only there cause I'm on the board). Time to get the nice clothes out of the dryer, pull the blazer and tie outta the closet, shower, shave, trim the beard, and try and re-preppy-fy myself into something presentable. Burning a disk of the music I'm using in the show for Havel as well; maybe he'll enjoy that.

So, let's see what the iTunes drags up this morning as I cat blog in another window and Temptation blog in one more . . .


1. "Beware" - The Big Beats - Garage Punk Unknowns

Oh, a great 60s garage-rock single! Never listened to it on headphones before, and there's a saxophone in there! Never caught that. The lead guitarist is mildly inept, but he's playing a great, unique lead line-hook for the song. The "idea" of the hook may be better than the execution, but something about the descending, minor lead line on guitar backed by some dodgy-pitched backing vocals works in a young, loud, and snotty way.


2. "Drive My Car" - The Beatles - Rubber Soul

Wow, does this sound poky and unenergetic now! The piano saves it. Not my favorite period of The Beatles, but on the upswing towards Revolver. I've gone back and forth over the years on whether the "Beep-beep-mm-beep-beep-yeah!" bit is great or embarrassingly dorky. Falling towards great, now, I think.


3. "Tryin' to Grow a Chin" - Frank Zappa - Sheik Yerbouti

Silly, trivial poop from late-70s Frank, but catchy and actually kinda lovely in it's way (especially the harmonies on the backing vocals). Nice "rock" vocal from Terry Bozzio. CD is mastered low-volume and compressed. Have to fix that in the iTunes EQ.

This song does feature one all-time-great Zappa phrase-coinage, which has become a part of Berit's and my regular vocabulary, contained in the line, "If Simmons was here, I could feature my hurt!" Simmons being Jeff Simmons, who walked out of The Mothers as they were about to film 200 Motels, deciding he needed to be taken seriously as a "rock star," but more importantly, "featuring one's hurt" is a great way to describe that aspect of some artists who enjoy the public showing of "Their Pain," or as Todd Rundgren once put it in an album title, "The Ever-Popular Tortured Artist Effect."

Hmmn. Suddenly I'm a little self-blog-conscious . . .


4. "Big Iron" - Johnny Cash - American IV: The Man Comes Around

Great western gunman saga from the Man in Black. This is one of two bonus tracks on the 2-LP vinyl version of this album, the other being a good version of "Wichita Lineman," with guitar solo from Glen Campbell. This actually sounds more like something from one of Cash's earlier American albums rather than the kind of catchall group of songs that make up the rest of this one.


5. "Fourth of July" - Galaxie 500 - MOJO: Piece of Cake (20 Years of Ryko)

I know almost nothing about this except it's on a comp that came with a magazine, and it's a really great alt-rock song. Sweet and noisy, a combo I like. One of the many grandchildren of The Velvet Underground. Oh, great mournful dissonant instrumental break. Okay, gotta find more by this group, I guess, this is too good.


6. "Rainy Night in Georgia" - Ken Parker - Cover Your Tracks

Interesting reggae-flavored cover of a soul favorite, courtesy of a WFMU Marathon comp. Nice for a change-up, pleasant to come across in random, but not anything all that special on its own. The original would have been a downer to come across, and this one isn't nearly as depressing, so it fits the mood here better.


7. "Killer of Men" - The Royal Coachmen - Shutdown '66 - The World's Only 60's Punk Record

Oh, cool. Garage rock taking on "Dylanesque" and winning by a kick in the balls. Some snotty punk kid, once again spewing invective at some girl that done him bad. He's trying to be Bob, but it sounds more like Sam the Sham or Question Mark. The bridge lyrics: "Ah, you love to see blood and laugh at death! (laugh at death, cause I--) I ain't gonna be happy until you're paralyzed!" Genius. Then it just ends.


8. "Casanova" - Roxy Music - Country Life

Ow, damn this is loud! I have gone in and re-EQed all of the Roxy Music tracks in the iTunes, so they're all very very LOUD. Well, it deserves to be. Another classic from one of those first four classic Roxy albums.


9. "I Know What I Would Do" - The State of Mickey and Tommy - Tektites vol. I

Bubblegum psychedelia, pretty good actually. Well-done, nice sitar and organ stuff.


10. "White Sandy Beach of Hawaii" - Israel Kamakawiwo'ole - Facing Future

Maybe you know the big man's cover of "Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World" that seemed to be showing up all over for a while? Well, this is another pretty yet somehow sad and mournful ukulele number. Why does ukulele do "sad, memory" so well?


Okay, cats blogged and up, more on the show to come . . .

Temptation gets a pleasant, positive review from Michael Criscuolo at nytheatre.com.


You can read it here, if you like.


I wish he'd maybe spent less space on synopsis and more on the actors, but it's okay. He has one qualm which is really a two-parter, and I just don't agree with him on one part and slightly agree with him on another, but it's unavoidable, as far as I'm concerned.


The show still has seven performances:





The Havel Festival (a production of Untitled Theatre Company #61)

and Gemini CollisionWorks present

Temptation

by Vaclav Havel

translated by Marie Winn

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

with
Fred Backus - Eric C. Bailey* - Aaron Baker
Walter Brandes* - Danny Bowes - Maggie Cino
Tim Cusack* - Jessi Gotta - Christiaan Koop
Roger Nasser - Timothy McCown Reynolds* - Alyssa Simon*

*member of AEA - Temptation is an Equity-Approved Showcase

Wednesday, November 8 at 7.00 - Saturday, November 11 at 9.30 pm
Sunday, November 12 at 8.00 pm - Thursday, November 16 at 8.00 pm
Friday, November 17 at 8.00 pm - Sunday, November 19 at 8.00 pm
and Sunday, November 26 at 8.00 pm

at

The Brick
575 Metropolitan Avenue
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
(L Train to the Lorimer stop / G Train to the Metropolitan/Grand stop)

tickets $18.00 available at the door (cash only)
reservations/credit card orders through Theatermania:
212.352.3101 or www.theatermania.com

SPECIAL OFFER TO PEOPLE ON THIS LIST:

November 8 ONLY!
use the code INFORMER when ordering tickets from Theatermania
and get $10.00 tickets!

MORE INFO:

On Vaclav Havel:
http://www.vaclavhavel.cz/index.php?&setln=2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaclav_Havel

On The Havel Festival:
http://www.untitledtheatre.com/havel/havel-festival.html

On Gemini CollisionWorks and Temptation:
http://collisionwork.livejournal.com

"There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part; you can't even passively take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you've got to make it stop."

--Mario Savio, December 3, 1964


"The gears are strong, the levers heavy, and from all indications, the machine enjoys the taste of blood."

--David LM Mcintyre, March, 1993

Another link I meant to post yesterday, to an article on the history and qualities (or lack thereof) of the Budweiser of typefaces, Arial:


The Scourge of Arial by Mark Simonson


And there's lots more on that site worth looking at.


More on typefaces later - just realized I have to go.

So, we opened Temptation on Thursday night. It went okay. Lots thrown at the actors at the last minute that they handled, but the whole thing didn't have the energy it needs to work completely right (what I called in my notes to them "a jittery, caffeinated energy;" they seemed rather relaxed). The pace didn't lag, but the INTENSITY was down. Still, it worked. A good start to actual performances. Yes, GOOD.


I expected yesterday to be a day of rest and getting more things ready for tonight, but I wound up busy with a number of unexpected things. BAD.


First, I didn't break down the whole set, etc. at The Brick after the show Thursday, as I was exhausted and it would have taken me another 90 minutes or so. And I just wanted to get home. Most of the actors had left as there were service problems on the L Train, and if they hadn't left, they'd be screwed on getting back to Manhattan at a reasonable time. So it was me and Danny Bowes and Aaron Baker breaking down, and I was near useless with exhaustion. So we left, and I planned to come back yesterday and finish. BAD, but necessary.


Second, Berit sprung on me when I got home that The Ohio needed refills on some of the concessions, so she and I had to go out the the BJ's Club near us Friday morning to pick up water and soda and deliver it to the space in SoHo. A pain in the ass, especially as BJ's was really crowded, but while I waited there, Berit went and got the pillows we needed for the show at Bed, Bath and Beyond (which we had done without opening night). So kinda BAD, but ultimately GOOD.


Third, and worst, oh, god, worst by far -- on the way to The Ohio from BJ's, we get a call on my cel from Edward Einhorn, Havel Festival producer, who has just got a call from Actors Equity. They have no record of my Showcase Code application. And we opened last night.


Oh. My. God. This is NOT GOOD. This is very VERY NOT GOOD. This is an absolute fucking disaster, pardon me for saying. UGLY. (I apologize to those of you outside theatre who don't quite know the horror of this -- my show is operating under a code that allows me to use union actors without paying them under VERY SPECIFIC and VERY INFLEXIBLE conditions, which I have now not met, at all, and we could ALL be in big trouble with the union) I immediately start panicking. This could end the show right here and now, and prevent me from working with AEA actors for some time. I faxed the materials in to them on October 6, but they were incomplete -- long story, there was a whole magilla with Samuel French about the discount we were getting on the rights, so we didn't have the actual document that AEA needs to approve the code application; they got a blanket letter from Havel's agents around October 20, but they still need the Samuel French document -- and I was under the impression that I was just waiting for the signature page to come in (which the actors have to sign and then is returned to AEA for final approval), and that everyone was having delays.


Once upon a time, there were ALWAYS delays with sig pages coming from AEA -- back at NADA in 98-99, there were several occasions where I did everything right on time, and got the page THREE WEEKS after the show closed. And while AEA has, in my experience of the last two years, been MUCH more on top on things - I usually get the sig page the same day as I send in the app - with the weirdness on the rights, I figured it might take a while to sort out, and I had a lot to do with the show as it is (being the only "production staff" for the whole thing most of the time, Berit now working on the Fest at The Ohio), so I let it slide, figuring everyone was still waiting.


Nope. Just me. And not a delay, really, they just never got my stuff. So, trouble. Big trouble. UGLY TROUBLE.


Now, big trouble, yes, but I overreact to it even so. I'm seeing my whole life coming apart here. Berit is trying to calm me down and convince me that this HAS to happen to them - a bureaucracy like any other - all the damned time and they must be used to dealing with it. Doesn't help. I'm freaking out big time. I feel lightheaded, and like I'm going to vomit. I start to call the Equity actors in the show to tell them, and get a call from Tim Cusack before I get to him myself. He is actually calming, assuring me that we can almost certainly fix it, but I need to call Nancy at AEA right away. I call and get her voicemail, and leave two messages, as I keep calling the AEA actors -- I get two voicemails and two in person, who are worried, but also sure we can fix it.


We drop the supplies at The Ohio, and I drive off to The Brick to clean up, but get a call from Nancy at AEA before I get a block. I pull over and talk to her -- she's upset, and scolds me, quite rightly, for not being on top of this, no matter how reasonable my assumptions (which go from "reasonable" to "I should have damned well knew better"). Being an AEA member myself doesn't help -- I REALLY should have known better. But she is also calming, and we discuss how to make things good -- she'll let tonight's performance go forward, but I MUST have everything settled on Monday, or that's IT for this production. As I have the application sitting here at home still (or so I think), I should just be able to refax it and be set -- though she says I should actually redo the application to add the two AEA actors added to the cast since October 6 (I was just going to write them in on the sig page, as I'd done in the past with no problems). So, fine. Easy enough. NOT GOOD BUT NOT BAD.


I'm moderately better as I clean up at The Brick, still worried that SOMETHING is still wrong, or going to go wrong, or whatever, and trying to make my set pieces fit backstage reasonably. I can't calm down. I just want to go home and get the materials and fix things. Then I get a call from Berit . . . I had signed up to run box office at The Ohio tonight as part of my duties as a board member of Untitled Theatre Co. #61. Dammit. LOUSY. I now have to rush myself in my cleanup at The Brick, and drive back over to Wooster Street.


Luckily, there's parking right in front of the theatre, and I wind up talking to a couple of other directors who had the exact same thing happen to them, and for whom everything worked out okay. GOOD. Feeling somewhat better, but not great.


I do the box office and come home, and try to relax, without success. I go to where I think I have my materials to send Equity again, and can't find them. Not really a problem, as I have to redo most of them anyway, so I don't worry about it. I go online and find two webpages that make me laugh and calm me down:


A Silly Interview with Richard Foreman


A Silly Page of Cats and Captions


And that helps. GOOD. I write a comment on a post at Matt Zoller Seitz's blog, and that makes me decided to put on Citizen Kane as I sit here. The cinematic equivalent of "comfort food" for me. I start to write some more notes to the cast, but fall suddenly asleep without warning before the "News on the March" scene is over, and wake up just in time to see Charlie Kane destroy his wife's bedroom. I needed the rest, I guess. Berit came home immediately after the closing credits, and we commiserated about bad days past and to come (She's going to have a pain of a day today at The Ohio -- the first show of the day is running long. Really long. As in past the start time of the following show, which has a long and hard set-up to do. Not a great situation for the house manager. She's probably beginning to have to deal with it right about now as I write.) I finish the notes. Then bedtime. GOOD.


This morning I get up and look more seriously for the AEA application I sent in before. Now, since I'm going to redo the whole thing (as I've added two AEA actors since sending it in, and my budget and schedule - also required by AEA - have changed extensively), it wouldn't be that important except for one thing: the only copy of the certificate I have proving I have insurance for the company and actors was with that application, and it's now missing. I have another page from my insurance company that seems to be okay, but I'm not sure, I don't think it's the one AEA accepts. And I don't know if I can get another copy of my insurance page for AEA on Monday. I should be able to, but of course, I'm worried beyond what the problem deserves, as always. I can't find it. But I'll figure a way to make it work out somehow.


I spend too much of my life in a state of being sure that the worst will happen. Sometimes that's good, and makes me work hard to cover all possible bases, but other times, it's nearly paralyzing. The production of Temptation has been one of the easiest of the 49 shows I've put up (if far more expensive than I had figured by far), and I should have been able to enjoy it more. But I just kept waiting for "the other shoe to drop," and yep, when it did, it dropped hard, and right on my head. BAD. UGLY.


So, even though all looks well now, I'm still upset and worried, positive that what has dropped is just the first shoe, and a REAL "other shoe" will hit soon. But I have a show to do tonight. I have to go shower, make up some signs for the box office and front door (some credits for my show didn't make it into the Festival program, so I'll post them, and there's no way I'll be able to set up the whole show in the half-hour I have for the changeover tonight, so I'll make a sign apologizing for the delay), and get to The Brick silly early to see if there's anything I can set up in advance that will make the change go faster -- we're already scheduled to start a 2.5 hour show at 9.30 pm, I don't want to start much later than that. That would not be GOOD, maybe even UGLY.


So, tonight is tonight. This performance is all that matters now. The rest will be settled later. In six hours we'll be running (hopefully). That's all that matters. That's all that matters. That's all that matters.

More instant hits, from the only station that matters:


1. "Feel Like a Natural Woman" - Carole King - Tapestry

Something interesting in hearing a songwriter perform her/his own material, when there is a much better known, and yes BETTER, version out there. Worthwhile. Not Aretha, no, but I different take - Aretha makes all the metaphors seem more general, metaphysical; with King it's much more directly a sexual thing. Interesting, the difference between intent and interpretation.

I've got 8 versions of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine," and the one I've been enjoying most recently is a live, stripped-down version by writer Barrett Strong (with Shawn Colvin and Richard Thompson on backing vocals/guitar). He ain't Marvin Gaye, or Gladys Knight, or The Temptations, or The Slits, or Creedence, or whoever, but he's got the most quietly, ruefully bitter and sad take on the song I've heard.

(Adding this later -- I just went and listed to The Temptations' version again, which is just plain WEIRD -- this extremely "first-person" song is song mostly in unison by four men, which makes lines about "I" or "me" or "the two of us" just sound odd)

2. "Viens Danser le Twist" - Johnny Hallyday - Souvenirs Souvenirs

French-pop version of "Let's Twist Again." I love French Pop. Not sure they quite "get" rock and roll, but it gets transformed into something new and usually interesting. Here especially when taking up a corporate-created/promoted American "dance craze" and adding more sincerity and exuberance to the original (granted, "Let's Twist Again" was better than the dopey Chubby Checker original, "The Twist" which Hank Ballard did a lot better, and first).

3. "Her Father Didn't Like Me Anyway" - Shane MacGowan & the Popes - The Snake

Not The Pogues, but a good song from a good album. Still, not quite The Pogues. Can't help but feel a bit . . . warmed-over. On the other hand, everything else The Pogues did, no matter how much I liked it, never came close to Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash.

4. "9 of Disks" - Camper Van Beethoven - Telephone Free Landslide Victory

Great pretty creepy instrumental. Something I'd like to use in a show, but it's a bit too alt-rock, not "library-music" enough yet.

5. "You Lied Just to Save Your Name" - The Equals - First Among Equals - The Greatest Hits

Greatest hits? Which? From who? Don't know them, just found the album. Pop-garage. Catchy, competent, and fun. Perfect 45 rpm singles. Bitter teenage breakup song. You'll be sorry, girl. Don't go runnin' my name all over this town. Get outta my life. Sneer, spit, guitar break.

6. "Boom Boom" - The Animals - The Best of The Animals

Lovely British 60s electric blues-pop, marred only by the fact that it's not John Lee Hooker. If the comparison is put out of mind, then just shake it baby.

7. "Feminine SDH" - Z - Music for Pets

Frank Zappa's sons start a band with some great sidemen (and they're damned good on vocals/guitar, respectively) and make some okay music. Not their dad, but christ, who is? Some of this album is pretty good, some is just okay, some is embarrassing, and one good one is difficult to listen to (it's about watching their dad die).

8. "Sugar Town" - Lara and the Trailers - Girls in the Garage vol. 9 - Oriental Special"

Southeast Asian pop cover (it is a cover, right?). In an Asian language (don't know which) except the title. Great organ break: One chord, followed by two notes, repeated, and clumsily played (the organ is out of tune, too, I think), but it works. Cute cute cute.

9. "Nothing Takes the Place of You" - William Bell - Soul of a Bell

I love this song. The original version, by its composer Toussant McCall (as seen performed in John Waters' Hairspray), is better, but this one, here done by the writer of many great songs himself ("You Don't Miss Your Water," "Everybody Loves a Winner") on an album spotlighting him as a performer (a soul Tapestry?). He's not the singer most of his interpreters are, but he does a nice job here, on a song that, unlike most of the album, he didn't write.

10. "Invocation and Ritual Dance of the Young Pumpkin" - The Mothers of Invention - Absolutely Free

Papa Frank enters to show how a big rock instrumental is done, with self-conscious, "we're serious musicians here," references to Holst (in the musical intro) and Stravinsky (in the title). Makes me wanna get up and get down. In too much pain to dance, and its a quiet morning. I'm dancing in MY MIND!

More rest, more computer, more music. Now.

So, four days to go until Temptation opens.


Today, we run the show in a rehearsal space at La Tea/Clemente Soto Velez from 3-6.00 pm. With the full cast, it seems, which I wasn't expecting. One latecomer. Fine. Good.


Tomorrow, I'm building and fixing in the space all day, running out and getting whatever else I need. Michael Gardner and Art Wallace show up from 6-8.00 pm to do some set fixes for Mountain Hotel -- hopefully including that rickety door of theirs that I'm also using -- which opened last night (hope it went okay). Then my cast shows up at 8.00 to run the scene/set changes. Over and over and over. We need it; the acting is in fine shape, much better than fine shape, but we need to get the set changes down and smooth. I'll be down four cast members, unfortunately, but whatever, needs to get done. The rest will just have to go over the set change breakdown Berit's making up. Should post that backstage as well.


Tuesday, I do everything else that needs to be done. The space looks to be mine all day and night, so I take over and spend Halloween alone at The Brick, with lots of music and work. Maybe I'll bring a movie or two to watch on the big screen in the evening, if I can work and watch at the same time. Cannibal Holocaust? Eraserhead? Road House?


Wednesday, I do everything that needs to be done that I forgot about on Tuesday in the space before 5.30 pm (including going to the Halloween costume store for the supplies that I need that I am NOT going to try to do earlier). There's an 8.00 pm show (Guardian Angel/An Evening with the Family), then the cast and I come back in at 10.00 pm to do the one run-thru we can in the space with full cast, costume, set, and tech. I hate this. I hate doing this late rehearsal. Has to be, but I hate it. No other time to do it, and it's needed. Dammit. We'll be done at 12.40 am at the absolute earliest.


Thursday I fix anything that didn't work in the dress/tech, and hang out at the space all day, checking and double-checking every little thing obsessively. Maybe nap. Cast shows up at 7.00 pm (or earlier if they're as paranoid on an opening night as I am, we go up at 8.00 pm. Actually, probably a little later . . . one actor will be rushing from another show he does. Maybe 8.15. Maybe 8.20. I'll open house right straight up at 8.00 pm. I've got 20 minutes of cool pre-show music.


Berit's stuck over at The Ohio, of course, managing house and techs for the other Havel Festival shows. I think she can make the late Wednesday night run, but I'm pretty much on my own completely for this show, like old times. Berit does work when she can -- last night she made up the actual fabric part of one of the screens, and the whole big 8'x6.5' screen sits in the middle of our apartment now, looking great. Rather than just go with a translucent white fabric entirely for them, since there was going to have to be a dividing line in them anyway, given the dimensions, we decided to go with a more opaque cream color on the bottom and an abstract, floral-esque, translucent fabric on top, which can look like wallpaper (of various colors) or a garden backing depending on how I front/back light it. Lovely. Unfortunately, partly because of this, we've wound up with a definite front and back sides to the screens, so they can't just be moved into place anywhichway, making the set changes a bit more complicated. Berit worked them out yesterday, and all should be well when we have the documentation, and after we run them and run them tomorrow.


Also need to call Equity to find out where my sig page is -- I faxed them the application etc. a few weeks ago, but without the rights page (there was a whole magilla with Samuel French and the rights that's too big to go into here). They got the rights page (for ALL the Havel shows) a week or so ago, maybe a little more, and everyone else has been getting their signature pages for their shows this past week except me, it seems. One of my AEA actors is, rightly, concerned, so I better call them again (I called Friday, but couldn't reach who I needed to and just gave up on it for the day). I just hate talking to Equity on the phone -- I may be a member myself, but when I call them as a producer I feel like they're immediately combative for no good reason. Not always, in fact probably not even most of the time, but just enough to bring out my phonephobia about talking to "authority" figures on the blower. It's probably all in my mind, anyway.


Don't know what the story is going to be on my electrics, either. I'm getting the sense more and more that I'm NOT going to have dimmable control of all my practicals, and I'm going to have to wind up getting and hanging massive amounts of extension cords from the stage to the booth so I can click the lights off and on from a power strip. Lovely, huh? It'll look okay, but not as nice as I'd hoped -- all bulbs at 100%, so all the standing lamps will just be a straight 200w, the bare desk bulb at 75w, and various other small lamps (and the chandelier) at 20-60w. I hope I'm just being a worrywort again, and I'll have the board control of the lights I was told I would, but I am indeed a worrier so I can't help it. Just gotta keep telling myself, "Don't borrow trouble."


Okay, Hooker-cat has decided to get up from resting on a chair, come over to me, complain, vocally and loudly, that I'm not paying attention to him, and stand on me like this:





. . . yet again (with the addition of reaching out a paw and bopping me on the head, then head-butting me in the armpit). So I'd better give him some time before effoeing to rehearsal (and before that, OK Uniform to return some unused costumes (if I can) and The Ohio to get some things from Berit).


Maybe more soon, but very possibly not until Friday . . .

Resting at home, waiting for Berit to get home from The Ohio where she's supervising the techs going on there for The Havel Festival.


The festival opened last night at The Brick with the double bill of Mistake/The Garden Party from Oracle Theatre, Inc. A nice start to the whole thing. Edward Einhorn (festival conceiver-artistic director), Henry Akona (assistant artistic director), Karen Lee Ott (dramaturg), and I (member of the UTC#61 artistic board) were all there to see the festival in. Edward got there late, missing Mistake, as he'd been at a reception for Mr. Havel up at Columbia University. Got to shake his hand and exchange a few words with him, and wasn't sure if Havel quite knew who he was (his English isn't good). As Edward was meeting him, Havel was also being introduced to Oliver Sacks, and Edward got to talk to him briefly as well, so he was there with the two men who either directly or indirectly were responsible for -- between the Havel Festival and the NeuroFest -- most of his work for the past year.


I was at The Brick again this afternoon to work the tango sequence from Temptation with Tim Cusack and Alyssa Simon. Went well - still needs work but it will all be there before opening on Thursday. Stuck around to see the evening's companies come in and to clean up the space a bit before they did, and fix the sound system (a speaker had gotten unplugged), check if any help was needed, and so forth. Didn't stay for the show, as I wanted to come home and veg a while.


I spent a lot more of yesterday and today not working more than I intended, though. I needed a bit of a rest after the overworked beginning of the week, and to prepare myself for the killer period of the next 5-6 days. Most of what we need is in place, but the few things we need that we don't have seem to be well-nigh impossible to get with our resources.


Berit just walked in, which was my self-imposed cutoff point for this post. Think I'll just save it and come back with a few words on this week's rehearsals.


Okay, so this week in rehearsals. Over the weekend, we worked through the show as we could with an incomplete cast. Monday and Tuesday I spent all day at the space building set pieces with cast member/old friend Aaron Baker. We got the bed/bower and the bookcases made. I wanted to finish the screen frames, but my conduit cutter and two corner pieces had vanished from my space backstage (some things had been moved around by another company), so I lost $18 of stuff there and couldn't have the screens fully ready for Tuesday night, when I had to assign set change moves to the cast. I wound up with a half-built 10' long (but rolling) rehearsal prop.


Tuesday night we had the full 12 members of the cast, and we ran NEARLY the whole show -- with the set change work we went over the time I'd allotted. We did the run with only the practical lights on -- I'll be able to control them from the board (so I was told and am still assuming), and I am going to have to pump in a tiny bit of front light from the actual instruments to make the faces visible enough in some places, but I wanted the cast to get used to the stage with the actual lamps on. It looked great, if, of course, too dim in some places, but as can happen when you move from rehearsal room/lighting to the actual space/dimmer lighting, the show lost energy, got quiet, meditative, logi. The character work was good and clear and there, but the show was not an attention-holder.


Wednesday, rehearsal space at CSV, had the whole cast except Roger and Timothy, and started with the last scene, then the whole show. Great pace and energy. Funniest run we've done of the show yet (at times, maybe even TOO funny -- there are times when you shouldn't always go for the laughs you can easily get). Peppy.


So here's the note I emailed to the cast:


The difference in energy and pace between the two nights was huge. Tuesday seemed poky (and frankly, at points, quite dull), last night moved and felt full of crackling energy all the time. We took anywhere from one to four minutes off the run time of each scene, but more important than the speed was the ENERGY.

Now, some of this was changed from notes I gave last night, but I think a good deal of this comes from the use of only the practical lights in the space on Tuesday. There WILL be more light onstage in the performances - some more from other practicals, and a bit of fill light from the instruments to make sure faces are visible when they should be. But more than making the feel overly dark and moody in the house, one of the effects of using practicals this way (as I know from a LOT of experience in this) is to make the actors get quieter, less energetic, and more "meditative" in their performances. Sometimes this is wanted for the show. With TEMPTATION, it is very definitely not.

It sometimes takes a couple of run-thrus to bring the performances back up to "rehearsal space and light" energy, and I wanted you to be aware of that now. We will probably be working in the same, dimmer light on Saturday in the space, but I need to see the energy of last night in that moody lighting.

It's a very deliberate thing to light this show this way, to put the often extremely funny things Havel has given us to say and do in a non-"comedic" landscape and light. Keep filling the moments, and you'll fill the dark shadows around you - let the energy lag, and the shadows will eat you up.


Okay, small bowl of cereal and then bedtime. At The Brick at 10 am to set up for 11 am - 2 pm rehearsal.


Today's other important document:

THINGS WE NEED FOR TEMPTATION:

(sets/props)

typewriter (older and funkier the better)
chalk
globe
desk lamp for Foustka
“foliage” pieces (around bar/bower)
fake rose for The Dancer/Vilma
bandage for Neuwirth
incense burner and incense
smoke machine fluid
endtable lamps (Vilma's)
vanity/mirror piece for top of desk (or just a standing mirror)
bouquet of violets (fake)


(costumes)

FOUSTKA
needs tux shirt, jacket, and faust costume (red hat and cloak)

DIRECTOR
needs two different jackets and one tie and “devil” costume (black jacket, tie, pants, shoes, red shoes, tail, horns, shirt)

PETRUSHKA
needs uniform and “cat” costume pieces

KOTRLY
needs “wizard” costume pieces (maybe including white beard)

NEUWIRTH
needs black turtleneck for “skeleton” costume

THE SECRET MESSENGER
needs costume pieces pulled out from our collection

MARKETA
needs “PSYCHIATRY” nightgown

FISTULA
could use suspenders if we can find them

THE DANCER
needs “satyr” items for “witches’ sabbath"