CollisionWorks

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"

Fewer photos than usual this week.


In fact, just one photo.


My flickr account is full for the month of October.


So, just the last one I haven't posted yet:





Back in the morning with more entries.

Sometimes a product just seems to have it all. A zillion uses. A nice plastic bag it comes in. Classic use of fonts that don't belong together in ways you JUST don't see anymore. It's a miracle.


Like the . . . Magic Super Grip . . !




(oh, that reminds me, I sure would like some o' that good ol' Hallmann's mayo on a sammitch right bout now)

Alison Croggon posted a review of a Melbourne production of Richard Foreman's Now That Communism Is Dead, My Life Feels Empty at her site.


Prompted by this production, she wonders about how possible it is for other directors to stage Foreman's plays. Matt Johnston, knowing I've directed multiple plays by Richard, suggests I answer, and I do.


I didn't exactly think my answer was fully what I wanted it to be -- I started on a track that would have become a far-too-long essay, then deleted it and started over, trying to keep to a "comment" format -- but, to my surprise and pleasure, Matt referred to it as "inspiring" and Alison as "moving," so I guess I should link to it.


Here it is in context, with the review and comments before and after.


I've directed eight plays by Richard, I think . . . lemme see . . . Lava (two different staged readings), Egyptology, Cafe Amerique (English-language premiere), Film Is Evil: Radio Is Good (three productions of the same basic staging), Miss Universal Happiness, Harry in Love (world premiere), Symphony of Rats, and . . . I guess you could halfway count The Mind King, maybe -- I "conceived" the production and script into a one-man show for myself, and asked Emma Griffin to come in and direct me in it. I brought it back a few years later, but Emma didn't have the time to work with me on it again, so she asked me to drop her credit from "director" to "consultant."


I really, really want to bring back Harry in Love sometime soon. Next year at The Brick, if possible, with most of the original cast, if I can (Josephine Cashman, Ken Simon, and Milo Barasorda, at least, maybe Michael Bruno, if I can find him). Not enough people saw that one. Someday, I'll get to George Bataille's Bathrobe, the last Foreman play I'd like to direct that I haven't yet. I have some slight directoral feelings towards Sophia=Wisdom pt. 2: Total Recall, but probably not enough to actually make it necessary.


I love directing Richard's plays, but I got tired of having the rep as "the guy who does all the Foreman plays," so I laid off for a while. Frankly, I'd really like to do most of Sarah Kane's plays now.

Just scanned, partially fixed, and uploaded two of my old photos that I have passable prints of.



So here, more than 20 years old, some old friends.



Grant This Day


Dream Shave

Well, OKAY! This is more like it, goddammit!


So, here was a stack o' tracks, some platters that matter, to get some some dip in my hip, some cut in my strut, and get me up and out and working. Unlike last week's lame-o ten, which was like being sung a lullaby covered in warm oatmeal.


Here's what got me going today:


1. "I'm Not in Love" - Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings and Food
2. "Like Jimmy Reed Again" - The Yardbirds - Having a Rave Up
3. "El Groover" - El Vez - G.I.Ay Ay! Blues
4. "I Can't Turn You Loose" - Was (Not Was) - What Up, Dog?
5. "Oceanside" - The Super Stocks - Toes on the Nose
6. "Immigrant Song" - Led Zeppelin - Golden Years 01
7. "Mythological Sunday" - Friend - Tektites - Vol. 1
8. "You Better Stop" - Maltese - Ear-Piercing Punk
9. "Life in Mono" - Mono - Pure Moods III
10. "Sam Hall" - Johnny Cash - American IV: The Man Comes Around


Yeah.


Yesterday, Berit and I brought a load of set pieces over to The Brick - a desk and pink rolling chair (formerly from That's What We're Here For), two endtable/mirror pieces, and two flats I scavenged from a hauling job the other day, which I can use as the basis for the two bookcases I need on the set. We were going to hang at the space longer and work on the set pieces -- Berit was sanding down the endtables and we bought some (pink) paint down the block at Klenofsky's on Metropolitan to put on them, but I had been mistaken about what was in the theatre that night. I thought Michael Gardner was having a rehearsal, which we could work around, but Qui Nguyen was still having his staged readings with Vampire Cowboys, so we had dinner from the Mexican joint and went home.


James, the house light designer, was there when I showed, and we went over what I was hoping for from the house plot, and it looks like I'm getting it -- both Michael and Glory, as it turns out, are planning to light their shows, as I am, almost entirely with practicals, so that's definitely being set up (what is it about Havel plays that brings out the desire to light them with onstage lamps?). Glory's set designer was there, and I guess had put together the set to look at it and was breaking it down efficiently (thank goodness) to a small footprint in the backstage (the size and shape and place I was planning to take up, but no prob, I grabbed a spot right next to them).


So, I have to run out and get groceries for the weekend before Kosher Palace closes, and then we're back off to The Brick to work on set things. Last night I also made up a list of all set/prop items needed for the whole show -- what we have, what we need, what we need to build, buy, or (hopefully) find -- and sent it to the cast for their double-checking and possible help. I need to do the same thing tonight with costumes (I started last night but got too tired).


Onward.