Nerd Parade, Weekend One::
It occurred. It was amazingly hot. These two things I know for certain.
After much anticipation, the Nerd Parade is underway and it is just as much (if not more) fun than I remember.
It was mind-meltingly hot and humid both days and I hadn't come close to figuring out the pacing and patterns that I needed the first day so our second show was beyond weird for me and also the last thing I did that day - after that the stabbing pain in my skull demanded attention. I decompressed a little early.
All I can say about that evening is that I caused someone to punch them self right in the face.
THAT is comedy.
Second day was much better, I drank a metric ton of water and made it through the day without distress even though I think it was hotter and possibly even more humid. Every time I passed a water cooler I drank another 20 oz or so and I think I was sweating all day just because my body was trying to jettison all the excess liquid. But it worked.
The shows didn't get any less weird but George and I are finding some new pacing things and some new habits that are fun to play with and tweak and might be taking some older stuff out of the show. Trying to take the predictable elements out of our improvised show and still keep it sane and coherent is a tough balancing act - one flanked with bionic polar-bear-otters.
Yes, it was a weird weekend.
It occurred. There are photos to document the rest.
Showing posts with label Renaissance Festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Renaissance Festival. Show all posts
Monday, August 23, 2010
Friday, August 28, 2009
Crushing one another with colossal expectations. Dependent, undisciplined, and sleeping late
Finally, a blog
I totally sat down and wrote a huge blog entry the other day and when I was almost through the whole thing I clicked "save" and .... nothing. Gone like it never happened. I'm trying to not see it as a sign and go back to months of silence between short blogs promising more blogging.
There's been no lack of things worth sitting down to write about, actually quite the opposite.
I don't know if that's the problem or not but I left off "regular" blogging all the way back during TCIF and some weird, nagging part of my brain was still telling me I need to wrap that up, as if there was a list of topics just waiting for my cheap opinions just piling up.
Anyway - the Nerd Parade is here and it is trampling everything in sight.
I feel like the standard thing is to remark on how it just snuck up on me this year but looking back I realize that's always been the case, even when I was involved in putting parts of it together - suddenly it's opening weekend.
It didn't help that I was in Denver until the day before opening and I didn't even have my costume back or my clown makeup purchased, which was great for that shift from "oh there's plenty of time to think about Festival" to "Holy Fucking Shit, there's NO time left to think about Festival!" - which flipped on like a switch the night before.
The weirdest thing is that even 12 hours before opening I couldn't tell you with total certainty about one single bit that I do on the street, more than a couple of super-regular bits in the show, or even for sure which eye my makeup goes on - but none of that worries me. I am remarkably free of worry when it comes to time to deliver on the street since none of it is planned even a little bit anyway. Sure, patterns have developed and if they keep working I'm sure they'll come back to me and if new things happen, all the better.
That's a big sigh of relief to breathe.
So the brain doesn't store anything, it all lives out at the show, which is nice.
Saturday morning I woke up early and raced the sunrise out to site, snapped my usual photo of the place waking up (I do like being there for it and it was a pretty damn decent photo for a phone camera - you can see the mist rolling back as the sun starts to come up) and soon I was in front of the greenroom mirror doing my makeup, shortly after that I was listening to Swing Low.
All is right in the weird little world.
The show itself went well, if a little off-kilter to begin with.
Our day is now broken up totally different than previous years, with no shows for a huge stretch of time I used to have to be mindful of and suddenly commitments where there were none before. Gave the whole day the feeling of being out of sync, even if the small moments were going really well.
What did I do....? Beats me, I can't recall much (which is pretty normal) but I know I had a super fun time with Kat right off the bat that ended with a big round of applause and Will snapping up the crowd like a pro
Stopped by the cage and abused Mark, per usual.
Things got weird when a guy in the audience took off his hook hand and gave it to me to throw at Mark. Just in case you missed that - a guy with an honest-to-god stump instead of a hand took off his big, solid steel hook (not one of those useful prosthetics that can pick things up, no this was straight up pirate time) and gave it to me.
When and where the hell else will THAT ever happen?!?
So we had to use it, of course. Mark was asking what I'm saving for the rest of the run while I'm busy saying fuck it, we're gonna burn it all and make new stuff and really digging it.
George and I had our show late in the day on a new stage, I was a little concerned with the switch but once we were there it confirmed what I had been thinking for a while - that we're actually a really good fit for the new stage, right in between classic clowning and literary jokes.
First day, about 75% of the audience put their hands up when asked who had never seen the show before and the reactions all around were very positive and welcoming, which was great since I came off stage feeling like we kept losing them.
I think it's just the physical dynamic of the stage, we're used to playing almost within arms reach and only a few inches higher that ground level and now we're playing a good 5 feet out and at least 4 feet up from the front row. Turns out we weren't losing them, I was just too far away to feel it like I'm used to.
the big trick then was dealing with George being gone the next day - I would hate to win over an audience, ask them to come back and see us and then have no show waiting for anyone that did actually return a day later. So Sunday I did 1 Child Left Behind.
It was FUCKING TERRIFYING. And incredibly fun and liberating.
I had something in my head about how I wanted to explain it and just be honest with the audience about the whole process, the entire thing from what my partner would normally do to how fucking crazy it was making me finding all the little bumps and things I depend on having him there for. After that I did everything I could to not allow myself to think about the show or plan anything out. And let the fear build.
So Sunday was weird. it was super weird. And scary. Right before I stepped out my brain was trying to go a million miles an hour into panic mode and sneak in some last-second ideas for what to do - and I just kept reminding myself that nothing could possibly go wrong up there - and if it did, they might just laugh at me.
it's an awesome feeling to just step into something you're scared shitless of and still know that everything, ultimately, is going to be ok. And to come out the other side was very informative.
I learned a ton about the dynamics of our show (because, since I don't let it do anything else, my brain is constantly analyzing performances for later....I wish I could explain it. Only George knows how deep the problem goes) and how I relate to the audience vs how the pair of us do it.
Overall it was very cool and I'm proud and glad that I did it.
And that was only 30 of the 1200 minutes of showtime the first weekend.
I would go say most of them were great fun, for this guy at least.
and I get to do it again in about 14 hours.
I'm excited.
Monday, August 25, 2008
The fire lasted on, through the Brixton night with a thousand angry looters who knew they were right
Monday morning blog - Renaissance Festival: Weekend 2
This weekend the wife left for Los Angeles, the twins packed up for a sleepover weekend at grandma's house and I was left with a rare, free Friday evening to relax before showtime. It could not have come on a better weekend.
The boys and I did get to spend a good day at home together before the teenager needed xrays and a splint for injuries he picked up in a fight and the twins are showing exactly how unhappy they are going to be in public school by continuing to excel and learn independently.
This week it was math - I introduced the boys to column addition after Owen was playing a math game he got for Xmas and was getting frustrated trying to add 2 digit numbers (I know, he probably shouldn't be able to do any of this, which makes his frustration even cuter and his math ability even crazier) because they were written in a line.
So I showed them putting the numbers on top of one another and adding downward and they LOVED it. For their "treat" after dinner they asked for more math problems. My kids, the geeks. By the end of the night they were adding 4 and 5 digit numbers together and glowing with pride that has no place in public schooling.
The really weird thing is the difference in the two boys - once you show Aidan the rules of what you're doing he can apply them to a number of things and he uses the tools you give him. Owen, on the other hand, actually gets the concept of what you're showing him and understands WHY math works the way it does. He dazzled me with that by pointing out that when a number in the 'ones' column adds up to more than 10 you add a 1 to the next column and if it adds up to more than 20 you add a 2 to the next column.
Aidan was just carrying a one because I had told him to and didn't really get why he was doing it or wasn't entirely clear on when it happens. Owen gets why the rules are there and therefore he knows when to use them, when they change and what they mean.
So they learned addition and 'carrying' that allows them to add numbers into the millions (and they did problems into the billions and laughed at the absurdity of how huge the numbers were. What nerds.) and I found another key difference in my crazy little geniuses.
After that grandma took over and I gathered my things and hit Shakopee for a mellow evening by the campfire with friends, turned in at a decent hour and got up to everything you'd need for a perfect Festival weekend. Clear skies, sunshine, low humidity and temps that were warm without being potentially dangerous if you, for example, dress up like a clown and run frantically around for 10 hours.
This weekend was awesome. I felt energized, positive and was happy to be doing things outside of the comfortable bits I'd been repeating fairly often. It's a strange environment out there because the audience feels like equal parts people that come because you never know what to expect and people that come because they know exactly what to expect and want to see it (and hear it) over and over again. People will come see the same jokes they can repeat in their sleep, the same shows that never change and the same street characters that will always do the same schtick.
So it can feel at times like you're stuck between not giving people what they came to see and getting put in a very small box to do a very small number of tricks. I used to push against that the wrong ways and spent half a Sunday being a completely different clown than usual before George stopped me (knowing he's one of the only people I listen do because of things like this) and said "There are people that got up and drove all the way here and brought their kids back to see you do what you do and your refusing to do it is kinda shitty" - which sounds heavy and dramatic but you only need to spend 10 minutes at our show to know that's exactly true.
This year has been a happy balance of finding new things that are still in line with what I "do" out there that people like and expect from me and pushing in directions that makes sense, running the right way with things. Man it feels so much better.
Saturday afternoon we had one of our best stage shows ever, we laughed hard along with the audience at the seriously weird stuff that we do and got a nice healthy hat-pass along with our warm, happy feelings - which is unusual. It's nice to find the balance between getting a big hat of pity cash for a show that was only 75% there and a show that we enjoyed the hell out of but the tips tell us we didn't take the audience along with us. This was also good and, like my street day, I can't really tell you specifics of what we did or why it works other than it felt right and we hit it hard.
Finished the day hoarse and happy after a close call with a migraine, put the kids to sleep in the tent and spent the evening sitting on our platform sipping whiskey like a couple of old men. It was nice.
Sunday was a repeat performance in a lot of ways - perfect weather, playful crowds that were having a good time drinking and didn't mind saying goodbye to their money. A great Festival day.
We played Vilification Tennis both days this weekend but Sunday was a unique day. Not only were we both feeling 'on' and silly - had a good time with some out-of-character hijinx and being a little more rough around the edges than usual, different pacing, made up a few new bits of material on the spot and delivery was pretty consistently spot-on and we were killing it.
Until Tony Miller, the guy we totally wanted to be when we got into this show, got onstage to tear our faces off and swallow them whole. There was a moment of shock, then total euphoria (as in 'YES, I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO PLAY THIS MATCH') and then the realization that this was not going to go well for us but we were going to have the best time doing it - and it was super super fun until Tony ended the show without question as to whose game it was.
He later told me he loved watching us and wanted to get up and play us - which is about the highest compliment possible for that show from anyone. ever. I am happy. It was fun.
Our Sunday show was equally fun, we laughed a lot and the crowd was deep.
We cut Romeo and Juliet from our regular shows, another case of upsetting some members of the audience that come for the familiar stuff so we can keep finding new material.
The sounds of love were eminating from the giraffe enclosure, there were Muppets and indestructible Danish chainsaw killers...and then things got strange.
I love our show. I love that other people even like our show.
I made it home, got the kids from next door, cleaned up and settled into bed.
When I woke up, my wife was back from California.
I have to say it was a pretty amazing weekend.
This weekend the wife left for Los Angeles, the twins packed up for a sleepover weekend at grandma's house and I was left with a rare, free Friday evening to relax before showtime. It could not have come on a better weekend.
The boys and I did get to spend a good day at home together before the teenager needed xrays and a splint for injuries he picked up in a fight and the twins are showing exactly how unhappy they are going to be in public school by continuing to excel and learn independently.
This week it was math - I introduced the boys to column addition after Owen was playing a math game he got for Xmas and was getting frustrated trying to add 2 digit numbers (I know, he probably shouldn't be able to do any of this, which makes his frustration even cuter and his math ability even crazier) because they were written in a line.
So I showed them putting the numbers on top of one another and adding downward and they LOVED it. For their "treat" after dinner they asked for more math problems. My kids, the geeks. By the end of the night they were adding 4 and 5 digit numbers together and glowing with pride that has no place in public schooling.
The really weird thing is the difference in the two boys - once you show Aidan the rules of what you're doing he can apply them to a number of things and he uses the tools you give him. Owen, on the other hand, actually gets the concept of what you're showing him and understands WHY math works the way it does. He dazzled me with that by pointing out that when a number in the 'ones' column adds up to more than 10 you add a 1 to the next column and if it adds up to more than 20 you add a 2 to the next column.
Aidan was just carrying a one because I had told him to and didn't really get why he was doing it or wasn't entirely clear on when it happens. Owen gets why the rules are there and therefore he knows when to use them, when they change and what they mean.
So they learned addition and 'carrying' that allows them to add numbers into the millions (and they did problems into the billions and laughed at the absurdity of how huge the numbers were. What nerds.) and I found another key difference in my crazy little geniuses.
After that grandma took over and I gathered my things and hit Shakopee for a mellow evening by the campfire with friends, turned in at a decent hour and got up to everything you'd need for a perfect Festival weekend. Clear skies, sunshine, low humidity and temps that were warm without being potentially dangerous if you, for example, dress up like a clown and run frantically around for 10 hours.
This weekend was awesome. I felt energized, positive and was happy to be doing things outside of the comfortable bits I'd been repeating fairly often. It's a strange environment out there because the audience feels like equal parts people that come because you never know what to expect and people that come because they know exactly what to expect and want to see it (and hear it) over and over again. People will come see the same jokes they can repeat in their sleep, the same shows that never change and the same street characters that will always do the same schtick.
So it can feel at times like you're stuck between not giving people what they came to see and getting put in a very small box to do a very small number of tricks. I used to push against that the wrong ways and spent half a Sunday being a completely different clown than usual before George stopped me (knowing he's one of the only people I listen do because of things like this) and said "There are people that got up and drove all the way here and brought their kids back to see you do what you do and your refusing to do it is kinda shitty" - which sounds heavy and dramatic but you only need to spend 10 minutes at our show to know that's exactly true.
This year has been a happy balance of finding new things that are still in line with what I "do" out there that people like and expect from me and pushing in directions that makes sense, running the right way with things. Man it feels so much better.
Saturday afternoon we had one of our best stage shows ever, we laughed hard along with the audience at the seriously weird stuff that we do and got a nice healthy hat-pass along with our warm, happy feelings - which is unusual. It's nice to find the balance between getting a big hat of pity cash for a show that was only 75% there and a show that we enjoyed the hell out of but the tips tell us we didn't take the audience along with us. This was also good and, like my street day, I can't really tell you specifics of what we did or why it works other than it felt right and we hit it hard.
Finished the day hoarse and happy after a close call with a migraine, put the kids to sleep in the tent and spent the evening sitting on our platform sipping whiskey like a couple of old men. It was nice.
Sunday was a repeat performance in a lot of ways - perfect weather, playful crowds that were having a good time drinking and didn't mind saying goodbye to their money. A great Festival day.
We played Vilification Tennis both days this weekend but Sunday was a unique day. Not only were we both feeling 'on' and silly - had a good time with some out-of-character hijinx and being a little more rough around the edges than usual, different pacing, made up a few new bits of material on the spot and delivery was pretty consistently spot-on and we were killing it.
Until Tony Miller, the guy we totally wanted to be when we got into this show, got onstage to tear our faces off and swallow them whole. There was a moment of shock, then total euphoria (as in 'YES, I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO PLAY THIS MATCH') and then the realization that this was not going to go well for us but we were going to have the best time doing it - and it was super super fun until Tony ended the show without question as to whose game it was.
He later told me he loved watching us and wanted to get up and play us - which is about the highest compliment possible for that show from anyone. ever. I am happy. It was fun.
Our Sunday show was equally fun, we laughed a lot and the crowd was deep.
We cut Romeo and Juliet from our regular shows, another case of upsetting some members of the audience that come for the familiar stuff so we can keep finding new material.
The sounds of love were eminating from the giraffe enclosure, there were Muppets and indestructible Danish chainsaw killers...and then things got strange.
I love our show. I love that other people even like our show.
I made it home, got the kids from next door, cleaned up and settled into bed.
When I woke up, my wife was back from California.
I have to say it was a pretty amazing weekend.
Friday, August 22, 2008
You lit the fire in us - and we play on in your trust
Friday morning blog -
Between doctors appointments, days spent working from home in recovery from the weekend and the wife departing for Los Angeles late last night - this week feels a bit off. I managed to spend all of 2 days in the office and I am once again back home trying to squeeze productive time out of my home office in between breaking up fights between two Wii-obsessed 5 year olds and kicking the teenager out of bed for physicals and other fun stuff he needs to attend to before the start of the school year.
But I still find time to blog. Priorities.
I still can't accept the fact that we're already coming to the end of the summer, the beginning of which gets taken over by Improv Festival madness and the end is marked by the Renaissance Festival taking my weekends for several months - but already the sun is going down earlier, the nights are getting cooler (or I start noticing it more because I'm sleeping in a tent on the weekends) and soon the kids will be in school and the Improv Festival will be open for submissions for next summer and we're right back into it until next July (which has become officially known as "the time I can rest").
It's the perfect schedule for making the time blur together.
Speaking of time becoming a blur, I cannot get my brain around the fact that my little boys are starting school already. Weren't they just in incubators?? Didn't they just learn how to walk?? They still don't even sleep through the night (just like their dad)!!
They did just learn column addition (adding tens and hundreds and how to carry-the-one and so on) the other night, which also tells me they don't really NEED the public school system anyway - but they've got cool backpacks and are excited for this new thing to begin.
I don't know how it's possible that we've arrived at this point already but I'll be in the other room, dying my grey hair back to bright red, thanks. Sheesh.
Things on the improv front are weird but good - I end up performing a very different kind of show on the weekends at the end of summer and missing the IAGG entirely the entire time but it finally feels like the two have struck a nice balance, like I'm working on different kind of improv instead of being removed from improv completely for two months.
Got our paperwork back from the State of MN yesterday - making the Actual Theater Project an official corporation, which I'm extremely excited about as it marks tangible progress and we're getting closer to being done with the tedious process of doing everything on paper and closer to the time when we get to the real business of the business.
More news as it happens.
Between doctors appointments, days spent working from home in recovery from the weekend and the wife departing for Los Angeles late last night - this week feels a bit off. I managed to spend all of 2 days in the office and I am once again back home trying to squeeze productive time out of my home office in between breaking up fights between two Wii-obsessed 5 year olds and kicking the teenager out of bed for physicals and other fun stuff he needs to attend to before the start of the school year.
But I still find time to blog. Priorities.
I still can't accept the fact that we're already coming to the end of the summer, the beginning of which gets taken over by Improv Festival madness and the end is marked by the Renaissance Festival taking my weekends for several months - but already the sun is going down earlier, the nights are getting cooler (or I start noticing it more because I'm sleeping in a tent on the weekends) and soon the kids will be in school and the Improv Festival will be open for submissions for next summer and we're right back into it until next July (which has become officially known as "the time I can rest").
It's the perfect schedule for making the time blur together.
Speaking of time becoming a blur, I cannot get my brain around the fact that my little boys are starting school already. Weren't they just in incubators?? Didn't they just learn how to walk?? They still don't even sleep through the night (just like their dad)!!
They did just learn column addition (adding tens and hundreds and how to carry-the-one and so on) the other night, which also tells me they don't really NEED the public school system anyway - but they've got cool backpacks and are excited for this new thing to begin.
I don't know how it's possible that we've arrived at this point already but I'll be in the other room, dying my grey hair back to bright red, thanks. Sheesh.
Things on the improv front are weird but good - I end up performing a very different kind of show on the weekends at the end of summer and missing the IAGG entirely the entire time but it finally feels like the two have struck a nice balance, like I'm working on different kind of improv instead of being removed from improv completely for two months.
Got our paperwork back from the State of MN yesterday - making the Actual Theater Project an official corporation, which I'm extremely excited about as it marks tangible progress and we're getting closer to being done with the tedious process of doing everything on paper and closer to the time when we get to the real business of the business.
More news as it happens.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Where the troops believe in a life of freedom - And this is all about free speech
Renaissance Festival: Weekend 1
This weekend the show went on - as it must. Or something like that.
I've felt unprepared for this year and until the show was only hours away I was still not in Festival mode - then suddenly it all clicked and started feeling familiar and all the madness and hassle that goes into it made perfect sense again.
I found myself racing the sunrise out to site as usual, going through all the familiar patterns and OCD routines of getting into makeup and costume just after dawn and the rush to get ready and worrying about the fact that my body doesn't handle the abuse I put it through like it used to all goes away and turns into impatiently waiting for the cannon to go off so I can turn it loose on the audience and hit them with both barrels of weird energy.
Saturday was all about shaking the rust off, finding that thing that I do which I can't even imagine until I'm in that stupid hat making those stupid noises and it all comes back just fine.
Hit the street in the morning to welcome back our audience and hit the old grooves and found a couple new things before finding time to hit Mark with some projectiles until I snapped one juggling club in half and broke another open.
Time came for us to take the stage in the afternoon and we hit some old grooves, missed several and realized that just finding the old bits agrees with our show about as much as heatstroke does.
We worked through it but it felt like work and woke both of us up to the fact that our show is all about spending 30 minutes enjoying throwing wrenches in the works to see what happens, not putting on a smooth show.
The evening cannon went off to close a really great opening day and I limped back to get out of costume, found a cold glass of Guinness waiting for me in the usual spot and even the fact that my body was a wreck fit in to how right it all felt.
I'm not one of those people that go to the extreme, strange and maybe crazy end of things and thinks that I really belong in the Renaissance and was born in the wrong time period or something like that but, as a show, the Festival is one of those rare places that I feel like I fit as a performer and really belong as a cast member. I know the fact that in only occupies 150 short hours every year tends to give it a lot of emotional weight while it's on but it is one of things I couldn't imagine not doing.
I drank my Guinness and realized I hadn't once left the grounds all day so I had totally forgotten to get a pass until security was sweeping the grounds - found some familiar faces on Safety Services and they told me to sit tight (I'm never going to pull the 'I've been here for 18 years I shouldn't need a pass' bullshit - I would rather get kicked out and have to drive home. seriously) and that they wouldn't be hassling people for passes this weekend. After the sweep was over we grabbed some dinner, got hassled for passes. Everything worked out.
Sunday was a whole different day.
Having no clubs as props (I almost never juggle but they make fucking great props since people will stop and ask me to juggle. It doesn't get much easier than that.) made me realize I'd been doing a lot of the same bits and coasting in a lot of ways. My groove had become a nice rut and having that taken away was the best way to start the year.
The second day could hardly have been more different in terms of interaction, energy and the moments that came out of it were a nice wake up call for me to remember to keep pushing to do things new and different.
I ran into some of my favorite familiar faces - many of them small children.
If anyone needs a reason to get out in the hot sun in layers of costume on two messed up legs and act like an idiot until you want to fall down and pass out I highly recommend having a child you played with a full year ago come give you a big hug and tell you with teary eyes that she missed you all year. Applause and laughs are rewarding as a performer and all but those things make you feel good about becoming a performer in the first place and there's nothing to compare it to.
Another thing that defies comparison is the panicky feeling of a small (but not small enough in this case) chunk of plastic that produces squeaking noises get lodged in your throat because you decided to go barge through a music show and dance.
For the first time since I had the bright idea of stealing a page from Michael Rudolph I inhaled/swallowed my noisemaker and for a few terrifying seconds I couldn't breathe or communicate with anyone what was happening. I was pretty sure I was going to be fine but wasn't sure it was going to be pretty so I made a quick trip offstage to either get it to go up or down.
It went down.
I have plenty of extras and went on with my day but I don't recommend the experience to anyone for any reason. We had a good laugh about it and I hope it's the last time but I kinda doubt it.
Showtime for George and I was also a 180 degree shift - we came out to have a good time and didn't let 'trying to hit bits we had last year' get in the way of having some fun, messing with each other in front of the audience and generally having a good time and hoping they laughed along with us. I think we were pretty successful even if the parents in the front row looked a little leary about the number of times we said 'porn' in front of their kids or nobody appreciated my mime version of the end of Hard Boiled mixed with Princess Bride and Hamlet. Read that sentence again if you're ever wondering how weird our "work" at Festival can be.
The rest of the day was spent somewhere between needing to get rest for the sake of health and needing to stay on stage for the sake of not wanting to miss a second of the fun. The cannon went off, the crowd slowly made their way out and we're a little bit closer to the end. Or at least the middle.
Lots of time was spent on weighty emotional moments around the death of a longtime Festival performer this weekend and I was talking to a longtime veteran of the shows and he pointed out that many of our cast are getting to that point - and there's no retirement plan for old hippies in this show. Why would there be?
Retirement is something for people that can't wait to be done doing whatever it is they're doing with their time - not for people that have found something they want to do the rest of their lives.
It was an interesting take on things, especially in context of the loss of a guy that performed right up until the end and was getting ready to do it again when he passed away suddenly. There was never that time at the end of his life that he wasn't able to do the shows he wanted to do.
Good for him.
I think that's all.
See you in the arena
This weekend the show went on - as it must. Or something like that.
I've felt unprepared for this year and until the show was only hours away I was still not in Festival mode - then suddenly it all clicked and started feeling familiar and all the madness and hassle that goes into it made perfect sense again.
I found myself racing the sunrise out to site as usual, going through all the familiar patterns and OCD routines of getting into makeup and costume just after dawn and the rush to get ready and worrying about the fact that my body doesn't handle the abuse I put it through like it used to all goes away and turns into impatiently waiting for the cannon to go off so I can turn it loose on the audience and hit them with both barrels of weird energy.
Saturday was all about shaking the rust off, finding that thing that I do which I can't even imagine until I'm in that stupid hat making those stupid noises and it all comes back just fine.
Hit the street in the morning to welcome back our audience and hit the old grooves and found a couple new things before finding time to hit Mark with some projectiles until I snapped one juggling club in half and broke another open.
Time came for us to take the stage in the afternoon and we hit some old grooves, missed several and realized that just finding the old bits agrees with our show about as much as heatstroke does.
We worked through it but it felt like work and woke both of us up to the fact that our show is all about spending 30 minutes enjoying throwing wrenches in the works to see what happens, not putting on a smooth show.
The evening cannon went off to close a really great opening day and I limped back to get out of costume, found a cold glass of Guinness waiting for me in the usual spot and even the fact that my body was a wreck fit in to how right it all felt.
I'm not one of those people that go to the extreme, strange and maybe crazy end of things and thinks that I really belong in the Renaissance and was born in the wrong time period or something like that but, as a show, the Festival is one of those rare places that I feel like I fit as a performer and really belong as a cast member. I know the fact that in only occupies 150 short hours every year tends to give it a lot of emotional weight while it's on but it is one of things I couldn't imagine not doing.
I drank my Guinness and realized I hadn't once left the grounds all day so I had totally forgotten to get a pass until security was sweeping the grounds - found some familiar faces on Safety Services and they told me to sit tight (I'm never going to pull the 'I've been here for 18 years I shouldn't need a pass' bullshit - I would rather get kicked out and have to drive home. seriously) and that they wouldn't be hassling people for passes this weekend. After the sweep was over we grabbed some dinner, got hassled for passes. Everything worked out.
Sunday was a whole different day.
Having no clubs as props (I almost never juggle but they make fucking great props since people will stop and ask me to juggle. It doesn't get much easier than that.) made me realize I'd been doing a lot of the same bits and coasting in a lot of ways. My groove had become a nice rut and having that taken away was the best way to start the year.
The second day could hardly have been more different in terms of interaction, energy and the moments that came out of it were a nice wake up call for me to remember to keep pushing to do things new and different.
I ran into some of my favorite familiar faces - many of them small children.
If anyone needs a reason to get out in the hot sun in layers of costume on two messed up legs and act like an idiot until you want to fall down and pass out I highly recommend having a child you played with a full year ago come give you a big hug and tell you with teary eyes that she missed you all year. Applause and laughs are rewarding as a performer and all but those things make you feel good about becoming a performer in the first place and there's nothing to compare it to.
Another thing that defies comparison is the panicky feeling of a small (but not small enough in this case) chunk of plastic that produces squeaking noises get lodged in your throat because you decided to go barge through a music show and dance.
For the first time since I had the bright idea of stealing a page from Michael Rudolph I inhaled/swallowed my noisemaker and for a few terrifying seconds I couldn't breathe or communicate with anyone what was happening. I was pretty sure I was going to be fine but wasn't sure it was going to be pretty so I made a quick trip offstage to either get it to go up or down.
It went down.
I have plenty of extras and went on with my day but I don't recommend the experience to anyone for any reason. We had a good laugh about it and I hope it's the last time but I kinda doubt it.
Showtime for George and I was also a 180 degree shift - we came out to have a good time and didn't let 'trying to hit bits we had last year' get in the way of having some fun, messing with each other in front of the audience and generally having a good time and hoping they laughed along with us. I think we were pretty successful even if the parents in the front row looked a little leary about the number of times we said 'porn' in front of their kids or nobody appreciated my mime version of the end of Hard Boiled mixed with Princess Bride and Hamlet. Read that sentence again if you're ever wondering how weird our "work" at Festival can be.
The rest of the day was spent somewhere between needing to get rest for the sake of health and needing to stay on stage for the sake of not wanting to miss a second of the fun. The cannon went off, the crowd slowly made their way out and we're a little bit closer to the end. Or at least the middle.
Lots of time was spent on weighty emotional moments around the death of a longtime Festival performer this weekend and I was talking to a longtime veteran of the shows and he pointed out that many of our cast are getting to that point - and there's no retirement plan for old hippies in this show. Why would there be?
Retirement is something for people that can't wait to be done doing whatever it is they're doing with their time - not for people that have found something they want to do the rest of their lives.
It was an interesting take on things, especially in context of the loss of a guy that performed right up until the end and was getting ready to do it again when he passed away suddenly. There was never that time at the end of his life that he wasn't able to do the shows he wanted to do.
Good for him.
I think that's all.
See you in the arena
Friday, August 8, 2008
I dig your little laugh and I'm lovin' your quick wit - I even love it when you're faking it
Friday already ?? Blog??
Holy crap, so the iPhone can partially be blamed for totally destroying my blog-ethic lately but only partially. The rest I blame on our kids.
The boys (all of them, the teenager in the basement and the twins sharing a room) got white noise machines this week to help shield them from noise that would wake any of them too early, nice little devices that have a few sounds to choose from and you can leave on all night at a nice, mellow volume to try and help them all get the sleep they need - which is great and actually seems to be working pretty well. Here's the problem: the twins so far love the sound on theirs labeled "Heartbeat", which is exactly what you'd think it is, the sound of a thumping heart.
I don't know or care if it reminds them of being in the womb or just the steady, if not a little slow, rhythm just lulls them to sleep. So far all I know is their bedroom is right upstairs from my office and after bedtime when I usually try to get a little time on the computer there's the clear sound of a thumping heartbeat coming out of the ceiling. And I haven't even hidden a body in the walls of that room yet!
So sitting down to write anything but a desperate murder confession has been difficult.
Outside of that the big, looming thing that is eating up all my attention, despite how I try to ignore it is the Renaissance Festival - which I haven't been doing any of the normal teaching and work for earlier in the year which gets me ready and arrives just as my work travel season also ramps up so I'm less prepared than normal and it's going to suck a little bit more than usual in the real-world-impact dept.
I don't write about the Festival much in the off-season and actually try to put it away most of the year for my own sanity (and the sake of my marriage) but this year feels like I'm starting cold - not ready in any way. I'm sure as soon as the costume is on and the makeup hits my eyeball the old familiar energy will be back.
there's no arguing with the fact that it's nerdy as hell - it is.
But there's also no place or performance or audience like it in many ways (many of them have to do with the really extreme level of nerdiness, but getting past that for a moment if possible) but as a performer I love the show for all the unique moving parts that go into any given Festival day and the experience and emotional level of connection with the audience that you can only find there.
Just as a space - an enclosed street theater - it's difficult to replicate what you have there as a performer. In most street theater (having never been a busker but speaking as someone that had to spend a good deal of time on the subject) you find yourself performing for people that wander by looking for something else and going somewhere else, you are a distraction even if you're an entertaining one. At the Festival the theater is still 'street' but it is now the destination instead of the distraction.
The entertainment can be stupid (says the guy that will spend at least a couple hours a day trying to hit another grown man in the groin with increasinly heavy or dangerous projectiles. this is NOT "high art"), it can be sublime and beautiful (especially when little kids are involved - they aren't a bunch of judgemental, cynical, mocking jerkwads like the rest of us and actually believe in magic and all these crazy things they see. The looks on their faces alone would get me out there) and you can push it as far as you want as a performer and it's all between you and the people right in front of you. That's pretty great.
As an audience the place is crazy - yes there are insane geeks that really think they are descended from magical creatures (yes...there are) and people that want to live out some kind of fantasy (of being dangerous, or adventurous, or sexy) and lots of other really great examples of how looney people are. But the audience there loves the show like no other audience loves a show.
You will never find a Guthrie-goer that loves the Guthrie this way (sure some of it may come from a mental illness - that doesn't make the love they have for it any less endearing or scary) or anyone at the Brave New Workshop that got up at 4am to drive for several hours to stand in the rain to be the first one in the door EVERY DAY of the run of a show.
Yes, some of them are nuts. Yes, many of them are comic gold and really easy to mock.
But they might also be the best audience anywhere.
So as much as it's going to suck for the next few weeks and no matter how tired and beat up I get because of it, there are few things I look forward to as much all year than being out in the crowd in the sun and the dirt and trying like hell to leave it all onstage.
Condolences should be sent to my family, who get the wrecked remains at the end of the weekend and who may or may not understand but have to put up with the fact that I do.
Starting to feel it a little more now....
Holy crap, so the iPhone can partially be blamed for totally destroying my blog-ethic lately but only partially. The rest I blame on our kids.
The boys (all of them, the teenager in the basement and the twins sharing a room) got white noise machines this week to help shield them from noise that would wake any of them too early, nice little devices that have a few sounds to choose from and you can leave on all night at a nice, mellow volume to try and help them all get the sleep they need - which is great and actually seems to be working pretty well. Here's the problem: the twins so far love the sound on theirs labeled "Heartbeat", which is exactly what you'd think it is, the sound of a thumping heart.
I don't know or care if it reminds them of being in the womb or just the steady, if not a little slow, rhythm just lulls them to sleep. So far all I know is their bedroom is right upstairs from my office and after bedtime when I usually try to get a little time on the computer there's the clear sound of a thumping heartbeat coming out of the ceiling. And I haven't even hidden a body in the walls of that room yet!
So sitting down to write anything but a desperate murder confession has been difficult.
Outside of that the big, looming thing that is eating up all my attention, despite how I try to ignore it is the Renaissance Festival - which I haven't been doing any of the normal teaching and work for earlier in the year which gets me ready and arrives just as my work travel season also ramps up so I'm less prepared than normal and it's going to suck a little bit more than usual in the real-world-impact dept.
I don't write about the Festival much in the off-season and actually try to put it away most of the year for my own sanity (and the sake of my marriage) but this year feels like I'm starting cold - not ready in any way. I'm sure as soon as the costume is on and the makeup hits my eyeball the old familiar energy will be back.
there's no arguing with the fact that it's nerdy as hell - it is.
But there's also no place or performance or audience like it in many ways (many of them have to do with the really extreme level of nerdiness, but getting past that for a moment if possible) but as a performer I love the show for all the unique moving parts that go into any given Festival day and the experience and emotional level of connection with the audience that you can only find there.
Just as a space - an enclosed street theater - it's difficult to replicate what you have there as a performer. In most street theater (having never been a busker but speaking as someone that had to spend a good deal of time on the subject) you find yourself performing for people that wander by looking for something else and going somewhere else, you are a distraction even if you're an entertaining one. At the Festival the theater is still 'street' but it is now the destination instead of the distraction.
The entertainment can be stupid (says the guy that will spend at least a couple hours a day trying to hit another grown man in the groin with increasinly heavy or dangerous projectiles. this is NOT "high art"), it can be sublime and beautiful (especially when little kids are involved - they aren't a bunch of judgemental, cynical, mocking jerkwads like the rest of us and actually believe in magic and all these crazy things they see. The looks on their faces alone would get me out there) and you can push it as far as you want as a performer and it's all between you and the people right in front of you. That's pretty great.
As an audience the place is crazy - yes there are insane geeks that really think they are descended from magical creatures (yes...there are) and people that want to live out some kind of fantasy (of being dangerous, or adventurous, or sexy) and lots of other really great examples of how looney people are. But the audience there loves the show like no other audience loves a show.
You will never find a Guthrie-goer that loves the Guthrie this way (sure some of it may come from a mental illness - that doesn't make the love they have for it any less endearing or scary) or anyone at the Brave New Workshop that got up at 4am to drive for several hours to stand in the rain to be the first one in the door EVERY DAY of the run of a show.
Yes, some of them are nuts. Yes, many of them are comic gold and really easy to mock.
But they might also be the best audience anywhere.
So as much as it's going to suck for the next few weeks and no matter how tired and beat up I get because of it, there are few things I look forward to as much all year than being out in the crowd in the sun and the dirt and trying like hell to leave it all onstage.
Condolences should be sent to my family, who get the wrecked remains at the end of the weekend and who may or may not understand but have to put up with the fact that I do.
Starting to feel it a little more now....
Saturday, July 26, 2008
back to the ever daily day, little to do and less to say - minds would wander and thoughts astray
Saturday morning blog -
I have been playing catch-up constantly these days and found myself emailing a friend saying "yeah, I blog everyday" and realized that was completely untrue lately and that when I do blog I keep promising more info on more interesting things "soon" so I'm trying to rectify that.... gradually.
Of course, most of what I've been "working on" isn't work at all but improv or performance stuff, for those of you interested, here's the scoop lately:
Stare Down - I got to run tech for this show the last several Fridays at the Bryant Lake Bowl and I feel like I've done a less-than-stellar job of promoting it but that's what happens when you don't get out and only communicate through scattered blogs. It reminded me of when I used to work at the BNW and in the weeks before opening they would give the cast bags of posters to help get the word out - even though the cast was essentially locked in the building until it was too late, making them the absolute worst street team in the world.
Anyway, I dig this show in a big way, it's improvised but doesn't feel like your normal, wacky improv show - instead it comes off with a clear style that sets it apart as a "theater" show and the fact that the banter and action are made up becomes secondary to creating something with a specific feel. Kudos to Stare Down - one of my favorite shows.
Things with the Actual Theater Project have stalled and that's totally my doing - I have the next set of papers to file sitting on my desk and I will be working on them today - I swear. I can't really express how much I want the paperwork part of things to be done with but it's somewhere right around how much I want to stop being the person that always talks about this thing I going to do "someday".
I've been trying to stay on track writing down my thoughts for a training document for technicians in the weird area that is improvised tech and I find it exciting even when I have to wonder if there's even people out there that want to care about it besides me. Jill has been bravely nudging me to stay on the project, which is easy to put on the back burner (which is pretty full of other things since you can move an infinite amount of things to the back of this magical stovetop without having to shuffle something else to the front..... perhaps a new metaphor is needed) and I'm stoked about the direction it's taking and regardless of any impact it may have I'll be glad to get it out of my system.
Jill - keep on me.
People that want to learn what I'm trying to teach - ask where it is.
In the meantime - Nels' return has put some fire under some other improv projects (improjects?) that need time and attention - including starting talks of Creature Feature as well as our NEW show, currently on the baord to start this winter. Trying to give shows enough time, effort and eneergy to launch them right is a new process for us and I think we'll be much happier with the results.
At the same time we're also getting workshop/class offerings ready to go so this organization can start to take on a more complete and cohesive plan of attack. While this isn't exactly the specifics of what we're doing know that once we have concrete details to announce, everyone will hear about them.
and, HOLY SHIT - the message boards at Minneapolisimprov.com have come back to life!!
Long before we had weekly gatherings or even regular shows this was the place where people that improvise in the Twin Cities would hang out online and where our community grew for a long time - it's back and you should join in, performer, audience member or otherwise.
Go to www.minneapolisimprov.com and waste work-hours with us!
The other end of business is the quickly approaching, almost upon us monster that is the Renaissance Festival - which is following the typical patterns the Festival always follows of being poorly (or at best extremely loosely) organized, governed by insane whims of a guy that doesn't understand, or give one warm crap about, things like "entertainment" and the communication one gets from the office as a performer is something like talking to a coma patient - you know they're in there somewhere but you're going to do all the talking and you should get used to that.
After some wondering how it was going to turn out George and I did get our contracts and I'm very much looking forward to just getting out there and playing on the street and getting face to face with that audience again. All the rest is bullshit - some of it deliberate and malicious, some of it thoughtless and accidental, but bullshit all the same.
I'm going to play.
Because, clearly, I don't have any work to do.
I have been playing catch-up constantly these days and found myself emailing a friend saying "yeah, I blog everyday" and realized that was completely untrue lately and that when I do blog I keep promising more info on more interesting things "soon" so I'm trying to rectify that.... gradually.
Of course, most of what I've been "working on" isn't work at all but improv or performance stuff, for those of you interested, here's the scoop lately:
Stare Down - I got to run tech for this show the last several Fridays at the Bryant Lake Bowl and I feel like I've done a less-than-stellar job of promoting it but that's what happens when you don't get out and only communicate through scattered blogs. It reminded me of when I used to work at the BNW and in the weeks before opening they would give the cast bags of posters to help get the word out - even though the cast was essentially locked in the building until it was too late, making them the absolute worst street team in the world.
Anyway, I dig this show in a big way, it's improvised but doesn't feel like your normal, wacky improv show - instead it comes off with a clear style that sets it apart as a "theater" show and the fact that the banter and action are made up becomes secondary to creating something with a specific feel. Kudos to Stare Down - one of my favorite shows.
Things with the Actual Theater Project have stalled and that's totally my doing - I have the next set of papers to file sitting on my desk and I will be working on them today - I swear. I can't really express how much I want the paperwork part of things to be done with but it's somewhere right around how much I want to stop being the person that always talks about this thing I going to do "someday".
I've been trying to stay on track writing down my thoughts for a training document for technicians in the weird area that is improvised tech and I find it exciting even when I have to wonder if there's even people out there that want to care about it besides me. Jill has been bravely nudging me to stay on the project, which is easy to put on the back burner (which is pretty full of other things since you can move an infinite amount of things to the back of this magical stovetop without having to shuffle something else to the front..... perhaps a new metaphor is needed) and I'm stoked about the direction it's taking and regardless of any impact it may have I'll be glad to get it out of my system.
Jill - keep on me.
People that want to learn what I'm trying to teach - ask where it is.
In the meantime - Nels' return has put some fire under some other improv projects (improjects?) that need time and attention - including starting talks of Creature Feature as well as our NEW show, currently on the baord to start this winter. Trying to give shows enough time, effort and eneergy to launch them right is a new process for us and I think we'll be much happier with the results.
At the same time we're also getting workshop/class offerings ready to go so this organization can start to take on a more complete and cohesive plan of attack. While this isn't exactly the specifics of what we're doing know that once we have concrete details to announce, everyone will hear about them.
and, HOLY SHIT - the message boards at Minneapolisimprov.com have come back to life!!
Long before we had weekly gatherings or even regular shows this was the place where people that improvise in the Twin Cities would hang out online and where our community grew for a long time - it's back and you should join in, performer, audience member or otherwise.
Go to www.minneapolisimprov.com and waste work-hours with us!
The other end of business is the quickly approaching, almost upon us monster that is the Renaissance Festival - which is following the typical patterns the Festival always follows of being poorly (or at best extremely loosely) organized, governed by insane whims of a guy that doesn't understand, or give one warm crap about, things like "entertainment" and the communication one gets from the office as a performer is something like talking to a coma patient - you know they're in there somewhere but you're going to do all the talking and you should get used to that.
After some wondering how it was going to turn out George and I did get our contracts and I'm very much looking forward to just getting out there and playing on the street and getting face to face with that audience again. All the rest is bullshit - some of it deliberate and malicious, some of it thoughtless and accidental, but bullshit all the same.
I'm going to play.
Because, clearly, I don't have any work to do.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)