moving on

Another Athol Fugard for me. With under four weeks of rehearsal (if I can get it cast before the holidays) and an opening on January 30.

First show for my (mission-less, structure-less) theatre company (vicious trap) and my first major directing gig in Denver.

The Immorality Act was an apartheid law making interracial sex illegal. Love-litigation seemed relevant to me again in light of prop 8 (and others across the country). So here I go, already in an Athol Fugard rut. This should be fun. And darker than the last one - if that’s possible.

I needed some new T-shirts, so I designed a few. They are all available from cafepress:

• dragons
• strange birds
• symbiosis

I think you and everyone you know needs a T-shirt with a dragon on it. No?

It’s Boulder International Fringe Festival time. What a busy summer. This is following the (decidedly uninteresting) Theatre Communications Group and National Performing Arts joint convention and the Association for Theatre in Higher Education conference (which only Michelle can report on appropriately, if interested). All here in Denver.

Next week is the DNC, which will be crazy. We have Arturo Ui going back up, as well as the San Francisco Mime Troupe using our space, and possibly more - All part of our own Artistic | Political Convergence 2008. Who knows what else might happen.

But this week is Boulder Fringe, so Julie and I went up for two shows last night. The second, advertised as a Butoh piece, was a sloppy bit of performance resembling improv-style exercises more than anything. You win some, you lose some. The first piece, however was brilliant (and also butoh-influenced).

Performed by One Continuous Mistake (founded in Chicago by two MFA students of Naropa University here in Boulder), it was a Two-man production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters, as de- and re-constructed with help from Shakespeare, Beckett, Sacher-Masoch, Sophocles, Genet, Camus, and Hitler.

It was the perfect mix of Three Sisters and Waiting for Godot (or Masha, to be accurate), to bring the dark subtlety of Chekhov’s piece into it’s absurd and broken proper light. Absolutely beautiful in conception and performance, with live sound/music from a third performer and an overall precision I haven’t seen in a while.

Inspired once again to create something, Julie and I decided there was no better time than the present to start a (third) theatre company. And thus: Vicious Trap, a theatre collective without a mission, vision, leadership, venue, budget, structure or plan for the future (save the whims of two “executive suckers”) is preparing to announce it’s first ever production. We are reading two scripts, and will start rehearsal on one of them as soon as we can get the Democrats out of our city and the hippies out of our warehouse in a few weeks. You’ll be the first to know what we decide on.

Because this is what I do with my days, I thought it was time to re-design this site for easier use. If you log in, you’ll notice I upgraded the back-end as well. hope you like it. I’m considering a switch from categories (which we are using now) to tags. What do you all think?

I’ll also be adding a few new features as I can get to it.

Only the index page is done as of 6:34, Sunday, Aug 10. The rest will be up and running soon.

Feel free to leave your comments on this post. What do you like? What don’t you like? What else should the site do?

update: everything should work. let me know if it doesn’t. still may be some features to come.

I’m back from tour in time for tech week on Brecht’s Hitler-analogy play. Looks like I’ll be Tech Directing (or some such) for this show as well. Good thing I have a whole week to build the ’set’ (15 dress forms, 15 hanging practicals, and 15 large banners). Should be a fun show if I survive till opening.

Tomorrow morning we pick up a trailer at 7AM, load up our set and head off for Estherville, IA. The first leg of the tour is just over two weeks through Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and back to Denver. After a day to relax, we’ll be at it again with a west coast schedule that isn’t settled yet.

The point is, we’re coming to you (unless you are Nicole or Kyle). We will be in Chicago all next weekend, with a performance on Sunday night. Then we will be based out of Goshen for the next week, performing in Fort Wayne on Tuesday and Goshen on Thursday.

Now I am going to go back and build the set. It seems about time to get that done.

I’m sitting in tech for a show I’m helping design in Colorado Springs. I’ve been downloading and editing sound, video and images all afternoon - making changes as we go. Fun times in a dark room full of people with too much sugar and not enough sunlight.

The plan was to take our tour as far as Indiana to the east, and then hit the southwest, but it looks like we might get as far as North Carolina, and come back through the south. There will be shows in Chicago and Goshen if the rights come through for them, but I’m afraid New York has been covered by other companies.

In other news, let me know what you wish you could do on this site that you can’t. I already have some ideas of changes I might make, but feel free to recommend more in the comments here.

Hey all, I’ll do some kicking off here too.

Things have gotten downright crazy ever since I left the safety of gtown this last time around. And oh how safe it was. I loved getting to see those of you I got to see, and double thanks for helping me out with a reading of my script. Next up: some sort of fairytale? Have you all started your research? I haven’t.

Now I’m trying to coordinate an extended tour of My Name is Rachel Corrie, leaving Denver on April 11. It’s a bit of a crazy time-frame for planning, but I’m excited about the response we’re getting.

What are you up to? I’ve heard rumors of interviews, tours, auditions, extended runs of shows and more. Tell me about it.

Anyone looking for web design clients? I’d be glad to send on a few jobs…