CollisionWorks

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

Still a depressing show, but beautiful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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