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April 30, 2004
Neutrino Project 30,000 @ CIF
My work will be on the CIF mainstage tonight, in the form of the intro video. The only reason I have time to post this is because I'm rendering a version of video right now. (Shaun and I did a brilliant all-over-the-city shot on Wednesday night, but right at the end of it, the marquee sign at the Atheneum was turned off. Makes Fuzzy grumpy.)
But your first chance during the festival to see my work for real is Monday night at 7 pm. Neutrino Project 30,000 will be performing as part of "Video Night" in the Chicago Cultural Center's Claudia Cassidy Theatre (78 E. Randolph Street). The show, I might add, is free. Free! This show sold out! All the time! And you can see it for free!
Nick Green says in this week's Chicago Reader: "This show offers the chance to see something you've never seen before assembled with unrestrained enthusiasm."
Posted by Fuzzy at 6:14 PM | Comments (1)
CIF
Well, the Chicago Improv Fest starts tonight and takes over my life for the next week (in fact, it's taken up most of this week already). I'm the "multimedia co-ordinator" which, as far as I can figure out, is a fancy name for "video guy."
We'll see if I can get a chance to give you a glimpse of the sights and sounds of the biggest week in improv(tm).
Posted by Fuzzy at 6:02 PM
April 26, 2004
Phoenix, Day Three
So, Friday night at the festival, they started the night off with a showing of Cesar Jaime and Jeff Pacocha's documentary about Del Close, The Delmonic Interviews. Somehow, I had never seen the film before, but Shaun has seen it 5 or 6 times. That night he mentioned that watching the film always depressed him because it made him think about what he was or wasn't doing to advance "the work".
And later that night I happened to overhear some of the Tucson improvisors discussing who was going to performing the next day. "Well, there's those guys from Utah and there's Bare." "What are Bare like?" "Oh, a friend of mine from Chicago told me that they're, you know, crowd-pleasers."
Crowd-pleasers? Is that an insult? A compliment? Just accurate? I mean, we do strive to entertain the audience. We are, modesty aside, pretty funny. Is that bad?
In any case, on Saturday night when we were trying to decide what to do for our show (Hotel? Small Town? "Who would do that?"? Pageant of History? (which we will be doing this Wednesday at The Playground's Motel 6)) I jokingly threw out "Actual Theatre."
Actual Theatre was a show we developed two years ago with director Don Hall. It was an improvised show that centered around the real relationship between Shaun and me. We used personal monologues and (long) scenes that were usually half-a-step from reality to explore our often-contentious relationship and build to an exaggerated argument which would end when one of would get so angry that we'd storm out of the theatre. And that'd be the end of the show. We did a run at WNEP Theatre and really felt like we accomplished our goals for the show. Good friends of ours would leave the show asking Don if he thought we could do the show the next week since this week "ended so badly."
After listening to (and about) Del for an hour the day before and having been mulling over that over-heard comment, it was suddenly attractive. If we did it right it wouldn't be crowd-pleasing, but crowd-affecting.
There were a number of good reasons not to do the show.
- we hadn't done it for two years
- We were the closing act of the festival, and it could be a very odd way to end the festival
- when we did do the show, Don was the maestro, calling scene changes and monologues with light and sound cues
- The audiences that came to see Actual Theatre at WNEP were prepared for, if not the exact show they saw, an evening of more dramatic theater than happy make-em-ups
- even if we did the show well, it wouldn't necessarily be fun for the audience
- there were some kids in the front row and Shaun said "I can't be 'emotionally honest' without swearing." Fair enough.
We tried to get some people to talk us out of it. We asked José if it was alright to end the festival with a odd, maybe jarring show. "Sounds great," José said. We called Don to ask if he thought we could do the show after two years and if he thought it was OK to do that to the festival. "A festival is the perfect place to do Actual Theatre! Have fun!" Don said. "Do it! Doooo it!" Jen yelled in the background.
So... it looked like we were stuck. I didn't want to go back to Chicago and tell Don we had wussed out of doing the show. We went out into the parking lot and worked out some structural changes to the show to accommodate the lack of Don or really any light control and to work within the audiences expectations. "No sense in warming up," Shaun said. We went back inside to watch JoKyR & Jesster. Their show ended all too soon (it turns out their was a miscommunication about pulling their lights and indeed, it was too soon).
And... we did Actual Theatre. The opening, movement to music, went better than we could have expected. The first loooong scene went so well that Shaun told me afterwards that he was considering trying to figure out how to indicate to me that we should just do that scene as a 40-minute scene and be done with it. But we jumped into the monologues that took the whole thing into a (controlled) spiral into chaos. At about 40 minutes, I asked Shaun if I could join him in his improvised car. "No," he said, "get out." "Fine," I snapped, and left the stage and the building and headed down the street to Fat Cat's for a shot and a beer and to wait for Shaun.
And... it worked. The show was, by turns, funny and confusing and dramatic. The next day people were still asking "Is Bare OK?" Whew.
Jesster's pictures from Phoenix
So... some more pretty pictures of Phoenix:
More unrealistically beautiful palm trees and blue sky.
Koi at the Chinese Cultural Center.
Windmill at the Castles & Coasters miniature golf. Which sucks, by the way, Far too many of those holes where you have to get the ball into a specific hole on an upper level and then it drops through a pipe into a lower level.
Apollo 12 invokes "comic book".
Bare begins. Thanks to Amy Carpenter for taking photos of Bare.
That first long scene, just sitting in chairs.
I'm usually the one taking the pictures, so I'm just enjoying having so many pictures of Bare to choose from.
Shaun does a monologue in the one well-lit spot on stage.
I lecture an imaginary class about working together.
I deliver a rambling monologue.
Things start to get ugly and chairs are thrown.
Shaun sits in his improv car and watches me leave the building.
Phoenix Day Two
Phoenix Day One
Posted by Fuzzy at 10:17 AM | Comments (2)
April 24, 2004
Phoenix, Day Two
Woo-oo! More Phoenix
The sky is so blue here it's not realistic.
Of course Tommy C has a trunk full of puppets.
A monologue from Mark of Galapagos.
Dueling monologues from Men in Shirts.
Shaun starts off the 40 person jam at the end of the night. At this point there were 6 people in the audience, including me.
Chicken and Waffles! Lo Lo's had good chicken and one of the best waffles I've ever had.
Phoenix Day Three
Phoenix Day Two
Phoenix Day One
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:26 PM | Comments (1)
April 23, 2004
In Phoenix
Well, we made it to Phoenix. Tonight at the festival was "Arizona Showcase" night with 6 Arizona groups, then a jam with Bare, Men in Shirts, and 5 randomly selected Arizona players.
It's late (4:15 AM Chicago time) so here's just a mess of pictures (sorry if you're on dial-up):
Shaun is here.
And so am I.
José Gonzalez, Bare's "den mother" for the duration of our visit here.
José's sweet 1975 Pontiac.
Evidently, there aren't many restaurants open late downtown, but El Norteño saved us from McDonald's.
I know well the trouble of keeping a multi-group evening on schedule. Each group's time left is projected on the wall, in rather large numbers.
The time is also visible to the rest of the audience, reflected in a large window. Oops.
Men in Shirts made it down from Detroit.
And, oh yeah, there were some groups performing. Here's Jester'Z.
The first neighborhood bar we visited tonight, Fat Cat's, had Magic Johnson leering at a lady.
And the second, Bikini Lounge, had tikis everywhere.
Phoenix Day Three
Phoenix Day Two
Phoenix Day One
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:36 AM | Comments (2)
April 21, 2004
Phoenix bound
Bare is headed out to Phoenix, Arizona tomorrow for the Phoenix Improv Fest and we just received the best "here's what you need to know about coming to our festival" update we've ever gotten. They included a weather forecast! I'm looking forward to this festival.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:30 PM
A good old-fashioned meme
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
"Not when the ambulance was taking forever to come."
(via Tyrone Shoelaces)
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:37 AM | Comments (2)
April 20, 2004
Rough Cut
Phillip and I have been editing Party Beach USA for a month of Mondays now and tonight when we got to the end of our editing session we finally watched a rough cut of the whole film. We've got some bits and pieces to fill in, normalize the sound through-out, etc. But it didn't look half-bad.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:04 AM
April 19, 2004
Your Little Ponies
Your Little Ponies at WNEP's Around Midnite Series.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:53 AM
Still Life for Don
Everything looks fancy in black and white.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:40 AM
April 16, 2004
Noises Off
I rode the motorcycle out to Arlington Heights last night (highway! windy! exciting!) for a corporate gig that was frantic and trying. But it happened that because I was already out in the 'burbs that I was able to make the opening night of Noises Off at the Metropolis Arts Center.
I love Noises Off (I've seen 4 or 5 productions of the play, not counting the movie) and this production is directed by my friend Sandy Marshall (of Schadenfreude) and stars Jim Jarvis and Paul Grondy (and several other talented people). It was delightful. Totally worth a frustrating trip to the suburbs (well, hopefully you won't have to do a gig while you're out seeing the play).
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:25 PM
Ike Reilly @ Subterranean
Ike Reilly at Subterranean a few weeks ago.
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:29 PM | Comments (3)
Something a little different
Well, we're coming to the close of our second run of Cinema 2.0 and we thought we'd mark the occasion with something special. Usually, of course, we show B-movies and replace the dialogue and soundtrack. For this show, we're going to show a good movie and replace the dialogue and soundtrack. Our movie next weekend (Saturday, April 24) is... dun-un dun-un/dun-un dun-un.... Jaws!
I've cut the movie down to a extra-taut hour for your late night viewing convenience and our talented cast will be improvisationally creating new dialogue for the movie while Ben Taylor and Todd Leibov improvoise a new score.
(This weekend we have the last Wild Card show of the Around Midnite Series, featuring the rock-your-socks-off musical stylings of Your Little Ponies. Get out and get some rock!)
Posted by Fuzzy at 12:19 PM
Dancing With Gaia DVD
I've mentioned that Dancing With Gaia is available on DVD and VHS for general purchase. But I'm mentioning it again. Because Matt pointed out a nifty affliate program from the place selling the DVDs, so if you follow one of these links and buy it, I get a few pennies. Pennies!
Posted by Fuzzy at 10:10 AM
April 15, 2004
Where I'm At
I'm finally updated my GeoURL to reflect my move one mile north and one block west.
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:00 PM
Fuzzy and Franky
One of these men has a show closing next weekend. The other has a show closing next weekend.
(Thanks to Catherine for the picture.)
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:38 PM
April 13, 2004
Last Fight Club
Tonight is the last Fight Club for the foreseeable future. So if you've been thinking of coming out, tonight is the night. The Playground, 3209 N. Halsted, 10:30 pm.
Posted by Fuzzy at 11:45 AM
April 12, 2004
Winning Weekend
I was also the big winner at the last Sickest Stories, raking in a big $8 (I might have won more if the dealer could have stayed focused on the game instead of his own stories)(I kid, I kid).
We had an excellent range of the kinds of stories we've had over the years at SFSIEH... puke stories, poop stories, awkward sex stories...
Thanks to Don, Shaun, Rebecca, Amanda, and everyone who came out to see it for giving the old show a nice send-off. (sniff)
Posted by Fuzzy at 5:12 PM | Comments (0)
April 10, 2004
External Validation
Details to follow (it's 3 am and I have a video shoot at 8:30 tomorrow. Umm... today. Soon.) but suffice to say that the Chicago "Really" Short Film Fest was a lot of fun and I am now an award-winning filmmaker.
Update:
Well, the whole evening was pretty fun. The films were a big variety -- some comedy, some drama, a couple music videos, mostly from Chicago but a couple from California and New Jersey -- and all under 15 minutes. And three bands played, including the roof-tearing-off The Mystechs.
Ted McGillicutty, Man of Action came home with two honors -- Ted was one of three films chosen from the festival to be shown on WTTW's Image Union. And Chicago film critic Erik Childress chose Ted as the winner of the "eFilmCritic.com Award" (it's a very nice certificate).
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:06 AM
April 9, 2004
Buy my car, if you dare
1974 Datsun 260Z
2 seater (converted 2+2)
85,000 miles
For a 1974, this car is in great shape. Very little rust on the body, new tires a couple of months ago, super-cool leopard print seat covers, etc.
In July 2003, something blew a big hole in the engine. I bit the bullet and had it replaced with a (supposedly) low mileage engine from Texas. All the work was finally done in September 2003. Well, then in January the engine started making a terrible noise when I was just out of the parking lot. I turned around, headed home, and I've only just gotten it back over to the garage. It turns out there are pieces of metal in the engine and it would need another one. I'm not going through that again.
I'd like to get $1000 for the damn thing.
Posted by Fuzzy at 6:05 PM | Comments (0)
Last Sickest
A few years ago, Don Hall and Shaun Himmerick were talking at one of Don's summer cookouts. Shaun likes playing poker and wanted to develop a show where he could just sit on stage and play poker (there have been worse artistic impulses). Don had just seen The Weir, where the characters just sit around in a bar and tell ghost stories. It'd be great, Don said, to do a show like that, only WNEP-style, so they'd be gross stories.
Before you could say "You got your chocolate in my peanut butter..." they had created a new show, "The Sickest F***in' Stories I Ever Heard". (The asterixes are part of the title. I loooove swearing, but Don and I both think it's funnier that way.)
The show is a simple idea: five people sit on stage, drink real beer, smoke real cigars, play real poker for real money, and tell real stories from their lives. Which, you know, tend to be gross.
It's so simple and so compelling, that we've produced the show for three seasons and it's been performed in Boston, Memphis, New York, Seattle, and Toronto. And tomorrow night at midnight is your last chance to see this show in Chicago.
The Around Midnite Series, which has been Sickest's home for the last years, is wrapping up this month (Your Little Ponies next week, Cinema 2.0 the week after, and the Gong Show Finals on May 15). And so is The Sickest F***in' Stories I Ever Heard.
We've had dozens of guest players over the years, but for this final one we're bringing it back home to WNEP. The cast will be me, Don Hall, Shaun Himmerick, Amanda Cohen, and Rebecca Languth. I've got a couple of stories I've been saving up...
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:09 PM | Comments (0)
Kick It!
I've joined a kickball team, and I've been reminded that I should mention that there's still plenty of space on the Chicago Deep Dish League. Go James Brown's Celebrity Hot Tub Party!
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:08 PM | Comments (0)
"crazy hat guy"
OK, this isn't a review of Dancing With Gaia, it's a review of the trailer for Dancing With Gaia. And they call me the "crazy hat guy". But I'll link it up anyway.
Posted by Fuzzy at 9:48 AM | Comments (2)
April 8, 2004
"a cross between Will Ferrell and Philip Seymour Hoffman"
Erik Childress, who is one of the judges at the Chicago "Really" Short Film Festival, has posted reviews of all the shorts. I quote his entire review of Ted here in full:
Ted McGillicutty, Man of Action is so funny that it may not strike you until near the end of its 4 minutes that it’s all been one unbroken shot. Imagine sticking in every cop movie cliché you can into a confined setting that our hero must maneuver through. In just a few minutes, filmmaker Fuzzy Gerdes and star Dave Colan (whose style strikes one as a cross between Will Ferrell and Philip Seymour Hoffman) produce a satire that gloriously pokes fun at those tidbits savvy moviegoers grow weary of. Truly hysterical stuff.
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:24 PM
April 7, 2004
Congrats, DG
Newcity has published a great review of Dan Izzo's Damnation Game:
RECOMMENDED BY NEWCITY!
#4 on the List of 5 Shows to See Now!
The Damnation Game, Fridays at 10:30 at the Bailiwick through April,
1229 W. Belmont.
Hell in the 1950s might have looked something like this. Local improv vet Dan Izzo directs a six-person cast in a biting adaptation of "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" that relies on audience participation and grants prizes to those who sacrifice themselves for inevitable embarrassment. But it's all in good fun--a pre-show handout asks if you’re willing to jump up on stage, so if you’re shy, don’t sweat. Much like the British- turned-American improv show, the comedians play for prizes, including a considerable amount of Rice-a-Roni this time, in the name of an audience member. Erica Nos[c]hang’s exploitation of drunk, socialite America is priceless, while Bill Cochran keeps the audience wrapped in giggles with mere facial expressions. Izzo does an effective job as the show’s "host," a pissed-off Drew Carey of sorts, leading a young, promising cast of actors who work well together.
-Tom Lynch
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:52 PM
Un Elefante
This elephant wants to know why there are no monkeys in this pack of animal crackers.
Posted by Fuzzy at 4:10 PM | Comments (1)
April 5, 2004
Hmmmm.... Succulent
And in more film news, a short film by Melissa Cordero, This Meal Is Succulent, will have its world premiere next Friday, April 16, from 6-9 pm at Hanging Gardens, 8301 W. Belmont, River Grove. With musical guests One Below Nothing, who scored the film.
This Meal IS Succulent stars me, Shaun, Sean Cusick, Dori Goldman, Mike McNamara, Elizabeth McNaughton, Jessica Rogers, and some actress whose name I can't remember. Sorry. Maggie Malone.
We shot this film from March to June 2003.
Posted by Fuzzy at 3:40 PM
Found Magazine issue 3 is out
I have no reason to plug it except that it's really cool: issue #3 of Found Magazine is out now.
Posted by Fuzzy at 2:41 PM
Ted PR
Got an email from Rick Ramirez of the Chicago "Really" Short Film Fest today, letting me know that the Fest had been plugged on Nick Digilio's WGN radio show by Erik Childress. Evidently they specifically mentioned Ted and me and fuzzyco.com. I should check the logs and see if there was a spike in traffic Sunday morning at 2 am. In any case, coolio!
Posted by Fuzzy at 1:52 PM
April 2, 2004
In case you were wondering
Thea Lux's "one lady show" Will Sell Out for Money opens Thursday night, April 8, at 10:30 pm. Not Thursday night, April 1, at 8 pm. Not that I was at the Playground last night on the wrong day at the wrong time or anything.
Posted by Fuzzy at 9:54 AM