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August 28, 2003
Art
Seriously, put some freakin' art in your house:
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:46 AM
August 26, 2003
Cranking back up
We started rehearsals last night for a tweaked "Neutrino Project 30,000". We're changing several about the show other than just the name:
- we're in a new theater. We're excited to bring NP30K to the 3 Penny Cinema, 2424 N Lincoln. It's an actual movie theater, which seems like an ideal venue for the show, the neighborhood has a number of interesting locations, which is so helpful for this show, and it's just up the street from DePaul University which frankly we're hoping will provide us with scads of audience members.
- Shaun and I are swapping roles -- he's going to be the director and a videographer for this run and I'm going to be an actor. I'm a little nervous about being on camera. And I'm worried that everyone's going to like Shaun as a director better than me. Does everything have to be a competition between us? No, it just is.
- Shaun's tweaking the format of the show -- messing around with the the timing and order of the scenes to give the show a better flow. New charts!
Rehearsal was fine. We've already burned one real-world location (they won't let us back in that laundromat any more) which is sort of an occupational hazard of the show -- we try not to be jerks, but some people get freaked out by the combination of our antics in character and the cameras. Fortunately, it's just near our rehearsal location, not the 3 Penny.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:48 PM | Comments (2)
Ragdale
Who needs Burning Man when we've got Ragdale?
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:44 PM
August 22, 2003
Toronto - Sunday
Sunday was our first real chance to relax in Toronto. Our hotel was on Queen Street downtown, so we walked over to Java House for breakfast (hmmm... stuffed french toast). I've now eaten at Java House every time I've been in Toronto, which has to count for something.
On the way home we shopped and shopped in all the Queen West hipster shops. I stocked up on Lush, of course. Fluevog had a sale going on and I ended up getting three pairs of shoes. I wore my new burgundy and rust Ivans to the shows that night, because no one else would have shoes like that, eh? Well, no one but Stacey and Phil of Big Belly who both have pairs. And Phil was wearing his, too. The search for an original life is difficult.
So, the shows that night were great, partially, I'm sure, because it was nice to finally be able to just sit back and enjoy someone else's show. By bouncing back and forth between the two stages I got to see All Jane No Dick (with special guest Zabeth Russell!) and Adrienne Frost's Wonderworm and Slap Happy (with special guest DJ!) and Dual Exhaust and goga and Jill Bernard's Drum Machine and Plain Cake Donuts (with special guests Zach Ward and Anthony LeBlanc!) and Big Belly (with special guests those shoes!). Whew. Then more dancing all night long in the Cabaret.
Sleep. Bus. Ticket troubles. (I shake my fist at you, Air Canada.) Finally, home.
Posted by Fuzzy at 8:49 AM | Comments (1)
August 20, 2003
Toronto - Saturday
Saturday morning, Beth and I were crawling out of our resective beds at noonish and contemplating the notion of breakfast when Shaun returned from a "run" on the hotel treadmill (he's training for the Chicago Marathon) and announced that he had remembered that Neutrino was scheduled for a tech time of 1:00 pm. Shaun and I had agreed to run tech for the Neutrino Video Projects, which as far as we knew was still scheduled for that evening. So, it was all hurry-shower and hurry-cab to the theater.
Where, hoo-ray, Neutrino was, indeed, waiting for us to show up. We've all done the show many times, so the tech set up isn't that hard, but it's always fun learning a new sound board. And I realised that I had left my bag-of-many-adapters back in Chicago, which made hooking up the Neutrino gear to the sound board a bit of a challenge. I ended up having to unhook the theater's CD player to get my setup to work. Which meant that I had to disassemble my setup so that other groups could tech, since nearly everyone else needed to use the CD player.
Which also made me note that the festival had, for whatever good reason, scheduled the three tech-heaviest shows all in a row. Most improv shows (like Bare, for example) have almost no technical requirements. Lights up at the beginning of the show, play a song while the group comes out, lights out at the end of the show. Neutrino Video Projects, the Beat Box, and Andy Eninger's One Man Seen all use lots of tech. Boxes of tech. Metric tonnes of tech. Oh well.
We dashed back to the hotel to get our show clothes, because Bare had been scheduled to a 10:30 mainstage slot that night, and then back to the theater.
The Neutrino show was nerve-wracking. From what we could see on screen, the actors all slipped into the form just fine, which was great considering that 4 of 7 actors in the show were sit-ins (Joe Bill, Adrienne Frost, Ted Hallett, and Tabetha Wells all jumped into the NVP). And the camera work was delightful. But after some tight timing, we hit a tape that was playing with jerky video and no sound. We stuck it in the other camera and it played fine, which made us figure that camera was bad. So we started using just the one camera to play the tapes. And then we hit a tape that wouldn't play in either camera. We were, I'll think it's safe to say, freaking out. Dan even brought in the camera it had been filmed on and it wouldn't play. Freak out city!
So after the show, everyone's saying "great job in the booth" and so on. Were they just being polite? Did they not notice that silent scene snippet we saw three times? Did they think it was experimental video? Or is the power of seeing the NVP for the first time ("They just made that movie right now. Pop. My mind just exploded.") so overwhelming that they really didn't notice?
Oh, and when the cast started watching the tape of the show (I tape the show. That is made up of tapes. Work that around in your mind for a while) the first thing I noticed was that I had misspelled Ptolemy's name in the credits. Sorry, Ptolemy.
So anyway, right when Neutrino ended, I had to rip half of my tech set-up apart so that The Beatbox could use the CD player. Then we had 30 seconds to breathe before Shaun had to run Andy's tech and I video-taped his show. And then, pant, pant, it was time for Bare.
Just a few weeks before the festival, we had finally gotten ahold of Joey "Accordion Guy" deVilla and secured his services as an accompanist for our show. Unfortunately, with the power outage and our show getting moved to Saturday, Joey was out of town at a wedding. Which meant that we had to rely on our own skills as improvisors to carry the show. We were doomed!
Well, except for the part where we're wicked awesome improvisors. We did our "Pagaent of History" form, where we do the life story of a famous person. We did Lincoln (the first suggestion we heard was Wellington, which I sadly had to turn down, because everything I know about Wellington is what I'm misremembering about Nelson). Lincoln, it turns out, was the child of a troll from the future. His most decisive moment was his momentous battle against a 40-foot tall Douglas (whom we wisely left un-first-named, because neither of us could remember "Stephen". I wanted to say "Frederick," but I knew that wasn't right).
So, I think the show went well. After our show, we were trapped backstage during the Johnny Lunchpail set. There's a door that leads outside from the backstage of the Poor Alex, but Shaun he was warned that horrible things would happen if we tried to go out that way. The only other exit from backstage was the stage. so we watched Johnny Lunchpail from a crack in the curtain. Physical is the word for those boys. Blue shirts, and physical.
As soon as we were free, I ran upstairs to catch Men in Shirts on the Cabaret Stage. Soon after their show, the rest of the festival came upstairs and we danced the night away. Hoo-ray for the night.
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:32 PM
Toronto - Friday
Friday morning we (Shaun and Beth and I) got up, took an uneventful cab ride back to O'Hare, where we caught an uneventful plane to an uneventful bus ride to our hotel. We weren't staying at any of the official festival hotels because we got a good deal on the Sheraton downtown, which is an easy subway ride away from the theater. Except, of course, that the subway wasn't running. Our cell phones weren't working, either, so we had to use (gasp) pay-phone technology to contact Tabetha (somehow, none of us had KPR's phone number with). That's when we found out that our show that night (that is, everyone's shows that night) had been canceled, but we were all invited over to Tabetha's house to just hang out.
A quick trip to an Internet cafe (pretty much the only net access we had all weekend) and a rolling blackout at our hotel later, and we cabbed it over to Tabetha's. (The cab driver of this first-cab-ride-in-Toronto-on-a-visit-where-we-were-going-to-be-dependent-on-cabs took us way out of our way and then had to ask directions of someone else at a stop light, which made me worried for the rest of the weekend -- fortunately the rest of our cab drivers were much more capable (though they did all take different routes from the hotel to the theater).)
Tabetha's was delightful. A ton of people stopped by to drink tons of Amsterdam and hang out. Joey deVilla, who had agreed to accompany us on his accordion for our Bare show, came by and charmed us all with his wit and accordion-playing-on-the-lawn. I think Joey made a couple of bucks at the party -- people just can't resist throwing money at a man playing the accordion. Late in the evening, Joey, Karen Wight of goga, and I went out dancing at the Velvet Underground. Joey feed me something called "Rev" that looked like Windex and tasted like soda. And had, evidently, plenty of vodka in it.
Pizza. Stumble home to the Sheraton. Sleep.
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:24 PM
August 18, 2003
Toronto - Thursday
Our flight was scheduled to leave at 3:45 pm (Central Datlight Time), which meant we were boarding about the time the power went out from Toronto to Maryland. We got out on the tarmac and sat there for a half an hour before they realized this wasn't a transient problem and sent us back to the gate. Lots of people were trying to get on the 6:30 flight, which wasn't officially canceled yet. We sensibly believed a ticket agent who told us this wasn't going to be solved any time soon, got ourselves booked on a 9 am flight, and went home. Sometimes it's not that bad to be "stuck" if you're in your own town -- we went and had a great dinner at Frankie J's on Broadway. Given the adventures Jeff and others were having, I'm double-extra-happy I got to sleep in my own bed that night.
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:59 PM
August 15, 2003
Toronto, Power-less City
We're here! We were on a plane on the tarmac yesterday right when the giant power outage happened so we spent the night in Chicago last night. We made it to Toronto today, but I guess the festival is canceled for tonight. I've been told we'll be on tomorrow night, but I don't have any details yet. So... we're just enjoying this 40% powerless city. Drink the beer before it gets warm, my friends.
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:52 PM
August 14, 2003
Toronto, Accordion City
So Bare is on our way to Toronto this evening for the Toronto Improv Festival. International Festival, excuse me (I had to dig out my passport and everything). We're excited to see old friends and to meet new ones, etc. etc. But the real news is that Joey "Accordion Guy" deVilla will be accompanying us. On, you know, his accordion.
This is certainly not the first time we've worked with an accordion player. Jose Hirohito and his All-Girl Orchestra was built around Liz's accordion (which is actually my dad's old accordion -- he took lessons as a kid). Which is why we're so excited. Nothing says "good times" like an accordion. And improv.
Saturday night the NVP will be in town and Shaun and I will be running their tech. And then I'll be part of the "Jamboree Rock-Star Jam". Woo-oo.
Posted by Fuzzy at 9:20 AM
Ruth Buzzy
Phil (feet) and Paul (silhouette) of Ruth Buzzy. I never get good pictures of Matt because a) the drums are always farther back and b) he's always moving so fast.
Posted by Fuzzy at 8:50 AM
August 7, 2003
Sweetie
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:13 PM
Conlon-Izzo wedding
I also video-taped Dan Izzo and Trish Conlon's wedding, so again most of my pictures are from before the wedding and during the reception.
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:46 PM
August 6, 2003
Ellison-Hall wedding
I was video-taping the wedding of Don Hall and Jen Ellison so I only took a small batch of pictures, mostly at the reception.
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:42 PM
Lunch Meeting
I had an interesting lunch meeting about future fast-filmmaking opportunities. I don't want to pooch it by saying where, but it was somewhere with a box labeled "Scary Masks and Ears". I need more boxes like that in my house.
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:16 PM
2 weeks left for Fratricide
That show I directed? About gay guys? And frat guys? And stuff? It's on New City's "5 Shows to See Now" list this week. (OK, it's #5. Whatev. Like you're so cool.)
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:32 PM
August 1, 2003
Comedy Hurts
The sweetie and I went out to Arlington Heights to see the Second City Tourco show at the Metropolis last night. From what I understand, it's the first time a Tourco show has done original material, so I was interested to see what they'd come up with. Many funny bits is the answer.
I was there with several Sirens, and Bob Kulhan, so Molly invited us to join the cast for their improv set. She introduced us as "an improv group all the way from Laurel Springs, New Jersey -- Quibbles and Bits!" Comedy gold. I did a prat fall off the audience suggestion of "Fall" and I think I bruised a rib. Must work on the physical comedy.
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:46 PM