So, we're just about a week into the third annual
Clown Theater Festival at The Brick, and all is going pretty well there.
New companies are coming in from all around the country (and world) every few days - there's a big turnover, the way it's scheduled - people show up, do a few shows in a few days, and are gone - and all the techs have to be supervised by someone from the Brick staff who is competent to answer tech questions, which means me, Berit, or Michael Gardner. As we've split the duty hours for running the Festival between the 7 Brick staff members and the 3 other Clown Fest directors (as we can, as the latter are now all out of town on jobs), B & I are getting most of our hours out of the way running techs for the companies coming in, which has mostly not been any trouble. I'm in today myself from 2-5 pm on a tech and that's it, so, light day.
We're not doing much in the way of board operating for shows, so it's much lighter than last year - Berit is doing the weekly cabarets and an upcoming show, Kill Me Loudly (a clown noir), and we've each handled board for a show that's already closed, so it's not like last year, where Berit ran board for something like 15 shows total over the Fest (she spent a LONG time up in the booth one Saturday when she ran six out of the seven shows in one day).
The big problem, for the person in charge of the physical plant - that is, me, is the sheer amount of STUFF that needs to be stored in the space. As you might imagine, many clowns have props. Lots o' props. Boxes and boxes and stands and carts and STUFF. And they aren't always good at informing you in advance of how large it actually is - when you're told, it's a really big set, but it folds down flat, it is indeed a really big set that folds down impressively into a much smaller space, but a space that's still something like 4'x5'x7', which ain't flat. Or you're told, I just have a couple of boxes, and they turn out to be very BIG and very HEAVY, and then a number of people have things like that, and then there's NO ROOM for ANYTHING in the space.
For next year, B & I are going to prepare a nice document to send all the companies in advance, telling them what will and will not help their stay and tech in the space - we need to do this for ALL festivals, but the clowns have specific needs and ways of dealing with things that should also be addressed specifically (and often this boils down to - don't be afraid to ask for things and let us know what you want, we can probably do it for you if you're clear enough, we know most of you are used to working with less tech options than we can give you, and the rest with much much more, but just be clear and polite and we'll do everything for you that we can, and don't be put off by Ian & Berit's sometimes sour demeanors - especially Ian's - they're just working hard and concentrating on how to make all the shows, including yours, work as perfectly as possible).
And coming up this Monday, a Penny Dreadful fundraiser, including mini-episode #6.5, which B & I dry-teched yesterday with Bryan Enk. Looks to be a fun evening.
I've pulled out the copy of Richard Foreman's George Bataille's Bathrobe that he gave me and will start retranscribing it into a computer today for probable production next August. It will be an interesting transcribe - it's a xerox of Richard's typescript with lots of cross-outs and rewritings, and it's hard to tell sometimes what the "final" text is. Sometimes there are several alternate lines around each other, or other handwritten lines that I can't tell if they're new lines or suggested stage directions (Richard's dialogue and stage directions can sometimes be identical). It is, of course, as with most of Richard's plays, just lines on paper with no indication of character, setting, or plot.
I see this as taking place in a prison (what, again?) with an elderly imprisoned writer-figure - kind of like a Henry Miller who was much MORE extreme than Miller in all ways - an early 20th-Century American Communist, a poet-philosopher, essayist, novelist, intellectual, womanizer, writer of erotica and/or pornography, in the jug for years now for some kind of political crime (in the USA? where? should it ever be mentioned? or suggested?). A bit of Krapp - surrounded by writing and recording implementa. Trying to get his story down (and straight) before he dies (is he afraid of execution?). The third line of the play is "I am Frank Norris" so I think that's his name - good, strong American macho name. Of course, it's a semi-famous writer's name already, but whatever (actually, that picture of the real Norris on Wikipedia is a damned good image of the kind of man I'm thinking of).
Who to be in this? I always saw Tom Reid as Norris, but he'll probably be in A Little Piece of the Sun for me in the demanding role of Chikatilo, so doubling shows wouldn't be a good idea. I could play it, but I'm also in Little Piece in the also-demanding role of Medvedev, and I won't act in two shows at the same time again anyway, so, no. A few possibilities - maybe Timothy McCown Reynolds? He might seem too immediately smart and sensitive - Norris should seem like a big, burly, bull-headed type you wouldn't think would be an artist and intellectual, and who uses that. Maybe Gavin Starr Kendall? How old to play him? We see him from youth to elderly years - could be played anywhere in there. Bill Weeden maybe? Time to think about this.
Women in his life. Becky Byers and Sarah Engelke come to mind - faces/bodies that would look good in early 20th-Century clothing - overcoats with fur collars/hats/muffs (in The Brick in August - great). Stripping down to satin lingerie and stockings. Louise Bryant figures. Wives and mistresses. A pair of twins is mentioned - maybe dancers (a couple of "women, like fashion models" appear at a door at one point, are they "the famous Brundi twins!" mentioned elsewhere?). They could do an "act."
This play is exciting. Ideas are rushing. I need a new sketchbook. And a pencil. Charcoal, maybe. Color pencils. Get to it.
So, over in the iPod today, now with 26,166 tracks in it (remember how I said I needed to cut stuff out of it? well, instead I added a whole bunch of Dylan & The Band's basement tape recordings . . .), here's what comes up on random:
1. "Ghoul Friend" - The Ravens - Highly Strung vol. 1
2. "She Loves Me" - The Possums - Shutdown '66 - The World's Only 60's Punk Record
3. "Air Force Promo Spot" - The Bob Seger System - Psychedelic Promos & Radio Spots, vol. 4
4. "Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" - Looking Glass - Entertainment Weekly: The Greatest Hits 1972
5. "Love Her With a Feeling" - Paul Butterfield - The Electra Sessions
6. "Hi-Tone Mama" - Walter "Tang" Smith - Sun Records: The Blues Years 1950-1958 vol. 3
7. "Lovers of Today" - The Only Ones - D.I.Y.: Anarchy in the UK - UK Punk I (1976-77)
8. "Tico Tico" - Esquivel - Four Corners of the World
9. "Narrow Your Eyes" - They Might Be Giants - Apollo 18
10. "Crimson and Clover" - Tommy James & The Shondells - Anthology
I have to say I'm enjoying the new iTunes v.8 "Genius" feature - though it took FOREVER to set up for us, as it has to go though your entire iTunes collection, and THAT'S got 53,474 songs in there.
What it does is, you select a song and how many songs you want in a playlist, and from your collection it chooses songs that - supposedly - should work together in a playlist. And it actually does a pretty interesting job, I have to say. I'm not sure how the algorithms work, or how it's been programmed or makes its "decisions," but it's fun to see what it puts together, though sometimes it gets odd in the transitions - though it did 25 songs starting with Link Wray's "Rumble" for us yesterday that were just perfect together.
Of course, it doesn't know many obscure artists/songs and can't do anything with them, but I'm surprised at what it DOES know - I just started a run with Jimmie Spheeris' "Seven Virgins" from Isle of View (never heard of him? me neither - I don't know where I got this from, but it's really good and I'm glad to have it), which is an easygoing FM-sounding galloping rock song from, I assume, the early 70s, and Genius has decided to then go through The Byrds, David Bowie, Randy Newman, Dr. John, Brian Eno, The Yardbirds, The Nazz, Richard Thompson, Steely Dan, Michael Nesmith, Jefferson Airplane, Leonard Cohen, Herman's Hermits, Tim Buckley, Cat Stevens, The Youngbloods, and Traffic (and The Besnard Lakes . . . who the hell are they?). And somehow these songs all DO work good together. Odd. How do it know? Berit thinks it somehow knows how to match tempo, too. Well, iTunes does keep beats-per-minute info on files, so I guess that's not unlikely.
So B & I were having fun plugging in odd songs and seeing where it would go from there ("Wait, wait, do 'Black Angel's Death Song!" "No, no, I wanna try 'Lick My Decals Off, Baby'!").
I have noticed that if you give it some kind of pre-1970s "classic rock" number, you'll get a pretty middle-of-the-road playlist of other numbers from 1956-1973 that you would have once heard on "oldies" radio that otherwise have nothing to do with each other, so it don't do too well there. I just gave it an obscure Ventures track, for example, and got back a list of things like "Maggie May," "Johnny B. Goode," "Mrs. Robinson," "Somebody to Love," "California Dreamin'" etc. etc. you get the picture, with Blondie's "Heart of Glass" as the wild card. Also kinda happens if you choose a "punk classic," something like "TV Eye" - you'll get "Personality Crisis," "Sonic Reducer," "Neat Neat Neat," "Blank Generation," etc. and a few interesting wild cards. It does better with non-"classic" songs.
In any case, for those of us who like to use randomization of an immense collection of tracks as our own private radio station, it's another useful tool.
Okay. Off to make Art happen now, more soon . . .
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