I thought I'd share how things have been going the past couple weeks. It's been pretty busy, and all to lead up to our opening night!
Venue prep day was pretty much as expected. A lot of cleaning and setting up the lobby area. I believe I swept every single corner of that theater, even the hallway for the audience entrance. There's three other venues in our building and it took everyone's help to get the theaters up and running. On a side note, there's a somewhat new addition to the FringeNYC intern/volunteer staff - the FringeTECHNICIAN. I don't know where they came from, but they rocked the venue prep day. These folks worked very hard and did a lot of the hard work, which was much appreciated by the participants who did not have much technical experience.
Tech was this past Monday. Perhaps since we've been through this a couple times, we knew the rundown and it ran super smooth. Thank you to Kate Gibson for taking some production shots and Molly Garber for a second eye as well as keeping on book during the run.
Yesterday was our opening. Thanks to those of you who shared our evening. Since I am the ACR for the show (that means I act as liaison to the cast and crew as well as sign off on the Box Office tickets), I am required to stay in the lobby area. As I sat listening to the audience laugh and clap, I swelled with pride for my husband. I am so glad that we've been able to share these beautiful pieces of work inspired by Edgar Allan Poe.
Kevin and I are so very thankful to the support on Kickstarter this past month! We reached are goal. That's fantastic, and we are so touched that everyone rallied together to help us. Thank you, thank you, a million times thanks you!
This week is Venue Load In day. This is where I will go to our venue, #3, CSV Kabayitos and help hang the lights, focus and generally clean the space with all of the other shows that will be participating in that space.
This is a great segue to talk about how hard at work everyone has been in rehearsal. Every evening our team, John, Kevin, Megan and Andrew work through the show. I sat in recently and it was awesome. I laughed out loud even though I knew what was coming! This week we'll be working with the camera and video projector. This will be how the audience will be able to see all these little pieces.
We've been getting the word out on our little show with fun craft projects. It's just one of those things Kevin and I enjoy sharing with our audience. It fits in that 'spirit of play' we have in our mission. Recently Kevin gave away a couple DIY Pocket Poes to the gang at Dramatists Play Service. As you can see above, they're pretty fun!
We are very happy with our Venue assignment again this summer. Venue #3, Los Kabayitos is located inside the Clemente Soto Velez Cultural Center, which is also the home of 3 other theaters participating with FringeNYC.
Los Kabayitos is a puppet theater and when not hosting FringeNYC in the summer, it offers a repertory of Latin American children's classics, folk tales, and traditional art forms.
During the participant walk through, you can't help but notice the depth of the stage, about 6 1/2 feet! Since we'll be working on a table top, this is an ideal depth as the little theaters may get lost in a larger stage. The intimacy of the space and the audience is raked, so it will provide optimal viewing of the show.
Kevin is plugging away at finishing up the matchbox theaters. Our son Edison has been watching Kevin work for some time now. As Edison watches he gives advice on what Kevin needs to add or fix on whatever he might be working on. This gave us the idea to let Edison create his own matchbox theater. He designed a great little theater and we couldn't be more pleased. So this year has really been a family effort!
Our Venue and dates have been finalized:Venue #3 - CSV Kabayitos
In the Cerebus Guide to Self-Publishing (see how handy it is for theater companies) Dave Sim wrote about comic book conventions:
The basic point is that you can go to a convention, set up your table, and sit there obviously hating everyone and everything within sight, assuring yourself all the while that your stuff is just too good for these lowlife fan boys; or you can decide to take a few positive steps toward creating a core following that you can build on in the years to come.
This is true of Fringe Festivals as well. In 2009, Jennifer and I spent so much time worrying about our show that we kind of missed the whole experience of the festival. We ended up seeing only a handful of shows: Jack and the Soy Beanstalk, Ukrainian Eggs, The Boxer, Scattered Lives, and Viral. Since Jennifer was the lighting designer for Ukrainian Eggs, I’m not sure that it an optional viewing experience.
This year Playlab NYC did a much better job participating in the Fringe experience. I took a couple days off of work to be able to take in more of the shows at the festival. Jennifer volunteered so much that she ended up being named an Honorary Volunteer Staff Member at the closing night party.
Between us Jennifer and I took in nearly double the number of shows from last year. We might not have put much of a dent in the 197 titles available, but we are getting better.
So what did we see? Well…
As You Like It - BAMA Theatre Company
I’m a sucker for Rosalind; she has all the wit of Hamlet without the angst. The BAMA Theatre Company presented such a straightforward production of Shakespeare’s text that I wouldn’t have thought that it was a Fringe show at all. With eight actors and one trunk of costumes and props, the show was very well acted and cleanly directed. The actors, who came out of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival together, worked well as an ensemble. Usually when I see As You Like it I fall for the Rosalind and the others disappear into the background. The BAMA Theatre Company presented me with a Rosalind who was a part of the company as a whole and many of the other characters, including Celia, had their moments to shine.
Bagabones - Jonathan Nosan
Jonathan Nosan is a contortionist who presents audiences with a collection of vignettes that explore confinement. The whole show is presented in around and on top of a black box that Nosan’s assistants roll around the stage. The sound design was amazing and many of the images from the show I will never forget.
Energy Man - Hope Theatre, Inc.
This was the biggest disappointment of the shows I saw at this year’s festival. I felt like it was a bait and switch on the part of Hope Theatre, Inc. Based on their postcard and blurb, I believed I was going to a Fringe show about comic book heroes and instead got a Sunday school sermon about how being a good person isn’t enough if you haven’t accepted Christ as your savior. I had such a visceral dislike of the moralizing of show that I contemplated leaving at intermission, but since the house was only a quarter full I decided to stay.
Good Good Trouble On Bad Bad Island - Endstation Theatre Company
In this well conceived children’s show, a good good girl finds herself challenged by the ruler of Bad Bad Island to complete a series of impossible tasks in order to be allowed to journey home. The script and the production are destined to travel the country in a van like a TheaterworksUSA production. The script could use one more draft, especially at the end when it suddenly turns into Aesop’s fable of the lion and the mouse for little reason.
The Great Galvani - The Magpies
The Chicago based company, The Magpies Project created one of my favorite shows at this year’s festival. Presented as two short monologues, it hit a few of my sweet spots, dime museums, carnies, circus freaks, and a mash-up of historical research and fictional biographies. The opening monologue was about a Bearded Lady who had an encounter with the artist Toulouse-Lautrec. In the second and longer piece we meet Luigi Galvani Junior, the fictional son of an 18th century physicist who was himself an inspiration for Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. Running of only half-an-hour long, I was glad I paid for a $5 participants ticket. I’m not sure I would have been as happy if I had spent $18 for the show. It seems as though the two monologues are just fragments of a larger show. Perhaps The Magpies cut back on the show in order to easily get it to the Fringe, but I was left wanting to see more. And isn’t that a good thing?
The Hyperbolist - bang-bang-fou!
As much as I had hoped to get to it, Jennifer saw this one alone. She tells me that it was a collection of little Buster Keaton inspired movies, and live puppets, and even a flea circus all performed by Joe Mazza. The evening was built around an investigation of Love. Jennifer was enthusiastic about the show and Joe Mazza as a writer and performer, feeling that he seemed like a good fit with Playlab NYC’s sensibilities. Sorry I didn’t get to it.
Magical Exploding Boy - Chicago Physical Theater
This mime/clown show was written and performed by Chicago artist Dean Evans. The Magical Exploding Boy presents a variety of little stories including: an evil doll with mind control powers, an amoeba struggling for life, and two men in a fistfight. I had a great time, but felt that a number of the pieces were strong enough to warrant a whole show, especially the finale of an astronaut battling a killer plant in outer space.
The Order of Blattaria, A Kid's Guide to Survival - Arimaw Productions
This was my favorite show of the festival. I liked it so much that I brought Jennifer and Edison back to see the show the next day. Built around the conceit of a summer camp orientation, the three main performers have collaborated on a show that plays to each of their strengths: bug knowledge, bubbles, black light puppetry and sing-a-longs. These men have clearly worked with a lot of children and are great at keeping people engaged. Michael Ari Wulffhart as Dr Z in particular is wonderful at teaching while being entertaining. The show becomes a little disjointed, but with a little more focus it could easily end up as the Beakman’s World of the Discovery Channel.
Stripes: The Mystery Circus - Wayward Productions
Sarah Hayward, the writer and star, built the show around one woman’s audition to get into the circus. She reenacts eight different circus acts including a Two-Headed Lady and Burlesque dancer. The character of the Two-Headed Lady was very inventive and funny - the highlight of the show. The character is so iconic that Hayward features her in all of her publicity materials. Unfortunately the character is the first one out of the gate, and the rest of the show never lives up to the image of a woman wrestling with herself.
I could easily name another twenty shows that Jennifer and I had talked about seeing, but time runs out fast.
Stray Observations:
