CollisionWorks

And all is well. For all I wrote last time about "mistakes" and so forth, as a friend said to me in an email full of praise for Devils, you wouldn't know it from the front of house, and it's a hell of a show. Well, yes. Just have to remember that. It was such an incredible, stress-filled hassle getting up that I tend to forget that we DID get it up, and rather well (after a shaky opening night).

Everyone seems to be having a good time doing the show now, too, for the most part (it's still incredibly crowded and hot backstage, of course, so that's a real cause for and of complaint). Last night, though, was one of those "we haven't done the show for 5 days" shows, with some real rough edges - slow cues, paraphrased or dropped lines, etc. Nothing that would be hugely noticed from the house, but apparent to us on stage. I had gone in early to set up and work on my performance, and felt pretty good, but got thrown myself by strange lines being thrown at me. At least my fake facial hair stayed on for the most part (the beard began going at one point, but I got offstage and fixed it in time). I think the rest of the weekend will be back up to speed (though I will continue to worry about my fake hair).

Certainly Christian Toth, who jumped into a not-insubstantial role with two days prep last night (and excellently, too), enjoyed himself and the show, not that he got to be a part of it, so probably it's terrific if you didn't go through the worst parts of making it. This happens sometimes.

Oh, Berit and I SO want to leave town for a while when this is all over, but we are stuck here helping run The NY Clown Theater Festival opening later this week and running through the end of the month. Well, we should be here anyway, as there are family matters connected with the last entry that really require our help in NYC for another month at least. But then we won't have much time between the end of Clown and the start of our work on UTC#61's production of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? at 3 Legged Dog, which, it turns out, will also keep us from going away during Thanksgiving as we had hoped. {sigh}

Guess it's nice to be getting the work done, but sometimes I wish it was s p a c e d o u t a bit more . . .

And here's this week's Random Ten, from the playlist of 2,816 tracks on the iPod that have never been played on the device (a larger number than last week, as I realized I haven't added anything to the playlist since February, and there were plenty of songs in the category):

1. "I Don't Know Why" - Yoko Ono - Onobox 5: No, No, No
2. "This Girl's In Love With You" - Marva Whitney - It's My Thing
3. "Free Four" - Pink Floyd - The Pop Side of The Floyd 1967-1972
4. "That's All Right" - Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup - Roots of Rock n Roll
5. "Slightly Drunk" - Squeeze - Cool For Cats
6. "Lil' Red Riding Hood" - Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs - Monster Rock 'N Roll Show
7. "Bongo" - Slim Gaillard - Laughing In Rhythm, #2 - Groove Juice Special
8. "Race Against Time" - Public Enemy - download
9. "Secrets" - Mission Of Burma - Vs.
10. "Not Fade Away (live 1966)" - The Rolling Stones - So Much Younger Than Today (Honolulu 07.28.66)

Huh, two weeks in a row where the iPod's thrown up some Marva Whitney in the #2 slot (James Brown producing a Bacharach/David song here no less). Here's the video playlist of the above (or as close as I could get -- couldn't get the Slim Gaillard or the exact original Yoko, but the Rolling Stones bootleg track was there, go figure):

Hey, haven't had a cat photo here for a bit, so here's one I just took now -- grainy but sweet picture of Hooker having a nap . . .

And now, off to a rest period before tonight's show . . .

As usual, we started work on the shows with a dream cast of people we knew in our heads. Usually, we only wind up getting 2/3rds to 3/4th of our dream cast, but that's fine, we cast others and move on. We're often in touch with our ideal group early on, but no one can ever commit until the couple of months before the shows. That's when we suddenly discover who we DON'T have for the shows.

Well, this year was one of those times (like with World Gone Wrong in 2007) where we discover, after getting the June show out of the way and moving on, that we are, in fact, short of the vast majority of the actors we need - which with two shows that have casts of 21 (Spacemen from Space) and 26 or 27 (Devils, depending on how I double the actors) means a LOT of seriously fast casting.

So word went out, and a general casting notice went up, and we've been doing auditions to an extent we normally don't, and which I'm not that fond of. Luckily, it's working out okay - mostly good people we'd love to use (with the usual frustrations of also seeing really good actors who are completely wrong for anything in the shows). We still haven't seen anyone for a few of the parts, but by the end of tomorrow, I think we'll be fine.

But I'm tired and need to get some sleep before the 8 solid hours of auditioning tomorrow, so I'll leave it at that.

Except of course for the Random Ten. But since I don't want to disturb the iPod playlist I've been using in the car on the way to and from the theatre, I'll do a Random Ten today from the "Recently Acquired" playlist in the iTunes on the computer. This is the playlist made up of all the music I've been gathering, much of which I've never listened to, that I'm trying to catch up on, bit by bit. Currently, this playlist consists of 9,936 tracks and lasts almost 22 days. I sometimes get to listen to up to 6 hours of it while working of an evening, but I've never seen it descend past 15 days long. Well, at least I'm trying to catch up with it. Here's what I get tonight . . .

1. "Put It Where You Want It" - The Crusaders - All Day Thumbsucker Revisited: The History Of Blue Thumb Records
2. "Town by the River" - The Units - History of The Units
3. "Holiday Ring Mold" - Katie's Kitchen - Holiday Freakout
4. "Floyd The Barber [KAOS 87]" - Nirvana - The Chosen Rejects: Broadcasts
5. "random pop" - Various Artists - The Conet Numbers Project
6. "Been Teen" - Dolly Mixture - A Reference Of Female Fronted Punk Rock 1977-89
7. "Step Lightly" - Ringo Starr - Ringo
8. "The Female Smuggler" - Rasputina - Ancient Cross-Dressing Songs
9. "I Think I'll Just Go And Find Me A Flower" - Moorpark Intersection - Soft Sounds For Gentle People: Vol. 1
10. "Telephoning Home" - Wreckless Eric - Wreckless Eric

And here's a playlist of nine of the tracks above (or something as close as I could find):

Now to go off to bed, after looking over the scripts of Spacemen from Space and Devils to remind myself of how much I love them and why I go through the hassle of making this stuff.

It's wonderful when the bits of Spacemen from Space come together as they should. It just seems that every couple of days, I get to the point where a character enters and says . . .

Well, SHOULD say something, but even though I know the information they need to get across, I can't find the right words. The problem with writing a pastiche like this is that I'm fanatical about getting the right tones and cadences for each character, whether gangster, cowboy, g-man, alien, or supervillain -- kind of a poetic UR-tone that contains the entire FEEL of this character's type -- and when the right rhythms don't come, NOTHING works. One character, Cowboy Adam, just re-entered two days ago, and it took me a day to realize the first word out of his mouth was the very obvious "Howdy" before anything else he had to say was able to come.

Interestingly -- as I always work with music or video playing, or I can't do anything, for some reason -- while the Michael Powell and Mario Bava movies I had had on in the background worked for me (rich material that I know so well I don't have to pay any attention to it usually is the best for this, as I kinda mentioned last week), and a day of my favorite "odd" movie musicals (Phantom of the Paradise, Jacques Brel Is..., and a few others) wasn't bad, it turned out to be marathon listening to The Firesign Theatre that got me in the groove again the last two days. I had thought that their dense wordplay would be far too distracting, but it turned out to be just the pull I needed to move me forward (and kept me aware that this IS meant to be a comic/satiric pastiche, not simply an near-exact copy of a 1930s cheesy serial).

A spate of insomnia kept me up insanely late last night, and while nothing came in writing, I WAS able to cut nine pages from the Devils script. It needs about another 10 pages to go before it's a length I'll feel okay presenting (three hours including two intermissions - it's big, but it HAS to be). These nine pages were fairly easy to cut. The next ten will be heart-breaking.

And the Wedding script also moves forward slowly, but is happening, and is acceptable.

I've also been The Brick's point person on the upcoming Tiny Theater Festival which is coming together nicely, with 12 pieces in two programs. Now I have to go buy and cut the PVC pipe to make the 6' square cage all the shows have to be contained in.

And again, the Random Ten for this week comes from a specific playlist on the iPod, rather than the whole thing -- the playlist is called "A Brandnew Bag," and consists of tracks primarily from favorite artists that have not yet been played since they were put on the iPod (usually over three years ago). So here's 10 out of 3,323 in this playlist (with YouTube or other links for the song or the closest thing I could find):

1. "Wonder When You're Coming Home" - James Brown - Think
2. "The Ballad of Johnny Burma" - Mission of Burma - Vs.
3. "Frustration" - Rocket from the Tombs - Rocket Redux
4. "Feeding Time at the Zoo" - Sarah Kernochan - download from her website
5. "The Journey" - John Lee Hooker - Walking the Blues
6. "Verb: That's What's Happening" - Schoolhouse Rock - Grammar ROck
7. "Main Title" - Herbie Hancock - Blow Up
8. "Don't Defile the Sacred Mountain" - Tom X. Chao - Micro-Podcasts
9. "Let's Make It Easy" - The Parliaments (as The Fellows) - Testify! The Best of the Early Years
10. "Frog Dick, South Dakota" - Bob Martin - Midwest Farm Disaster

And here's a video playlist as close to the above as I could come . . . (if you're on Facebook, you'll have to click the link to the Original Post to see this):

Tomorrow, I'll be working again with David Finkelstein on the improvised work that he transforms into video pieces. We've been primarily working with a new form of improv this year (which David calls "landscape" as opposed to the other "musical" style we worked in before) and it took a while to find my footing in this form. Last week, though, David found an image that not only helped me find my way in this form, but I think may wind up a breakthrough in my acting in other ways.

But that's a longer story for another day. Back to work.

Actually, we haven't HAD any recent viewing in our home, as our lovely big 35" old Sony Trinitron monitor just suddenly went {BLIP} one day about ten days ago or so, shut down, and refuses to turn on again. I have another big Sony TV over at The Brick I could bring home and plug in (as well as the 13" 1973 Sony Trinitron I still have that STILL has a great picture!), but I haven't felt a great need to watch anything recently. I have a LOT of music I've acquired and not listened to -- about 16 days worth -- so I've been spending time as I write getting to know the things in my iTunes that I don't know as yet. A good thing.

The next big actual event -- other than the benefit party for Untitled Theater Co. #61 tonight at Bohemian National Hall after the performance of Rudolf II -- is the first reading of Devils on Sunday with a cast of 20 taking the parts of the ultimate cast of 28. Well, maybe I'll finally find out if the script works or not as it stands.

I am still hoping to play the central role of Grandier in the final production, which may be crazy -- it's a big part in a show that will be more than enough for me to handle as director/designer/producer, but if it's not me, I'll have to audition for someone new, as I'm just not happy with the idea of anyone I know in the part. The reading on Sunday is also for me to see if I am as fully comfortable in the role as I think. At the same time, I am frankly not in good enough physical shape to play the part right now. I've been dieting and working out, and have, thankfully, begun to see results, but it may not be enough. I'll have to decide in late April for sure if I think I can do it or not.

At first, the diet was effective, but lacking some of what I obviously needed, nutritionally, so I became a bit woozy, lethargic, and lightheaded, but with some adjustments I'm in fine shape now -- although I still would rather be hunkered down at home writing than going out, but I'm forcing myself to do that more and more so I don't become some kind of stir-crazy hermit.

And, as always, from the iPod, a Random Ten out of 25,452 in there, with associated YouTube links:

1. "Ghosts" - Strawbs - The Very Best of Strawbs: Halcyon Days (The A&M Years)
2. "Que Sera Sera" - Pink Martini - Rare On Air Vol 5, KCRW Morning Becomes Electric 1998-99
3. "Camarillo Brillo" - Frank Zappa - Overnite Sensation
4. "Rock, Sound & Vision" - Go Home Productions - GHP Complete - CD15 Trashed-The Ultimate Bootleg Rejection
5. "Faithless" - Scritti Politti - Early
6. "Dr. Fucker M.D. (Musical Deviant)" - The Cramps - Fiends of Dope Island
7. "Every Day I Feel Depressed" - Christopher Guest - The Best Of The National Lampoon Radio Hour
8. "Our Prayer/Gee" - Brian Wilson - Smile
9. "The Leaping Nuns' Chorus" - Peter Cook & Dudley Moore - Orphaned Film Songs
10. "Tzena, Tzena, Tzena" - The John Buzon Trio - Inferno!

No good cat photos this week, but here's a couple of videos I found and liked.

Ann-Margret may never have actually done an ad for Patio diet soda, but she sure did a weird-ass one for Canada Dry:

I've watched the classic clip of Roy Head doing "Treat Her Right" on Shindig QUITE a few times, and shared it before here, I'm sure. It's a HELL of a performance.

Here's another video of Roy doing the same song (lipsyncing the studio version this time) on another show, Action, from around the same time. It starts out a lot more contained, as he's on a much smaller stage, but with his hands free, he's able to do a lot more with them, so it starts as an interesting, smaller version. Then you realize there's a LOT more space in front of the stage as he decides to fill it. Nice.

Roy's still touring and still singing this song, but he doesn't dance all that much anymore -- the man is nearly 70, and I get the impression that if he can't do it the way he used to, he's not going to do some half-assed approximation. He can still belt it, though.

Oh, man, daylight savings is screwing me up -- didn't realize how late it had gotten. I have to move. The benefit tonight is meant to seem like a 17th-Century costume ball given by Rudolf II, and I literally have nothing to wear that works for this. Berit has suggested that I show up in my most raggedy, moth-eaten clothes and be a plague-ridden peasant that has crashed the party, so I may try that out . . .