Monday, June 26, 2006

Crossed Wires

So, this weekend was a success, and a disaster... depending on your point of view.

The show opened. People seem to have enjoyed it. We successfully managed to change the set from the show before us to our set in 20 minutes, and that was with some significant problems. I was able to make various repairs to the set between shows and we found a better way to handle some of the furniture and have begun conversations on how to do this whole thing better next year. I went to a meditation workshop that Cindy Yee was running, saw Jack Rucker for the first time in a good four years, had dinner with Anais Delamour, saw Trish Tillman's show and got some great ideas for future script while talking with Gigi and Warren Jensen.

On the other hand, the Guardian reviewer got confused as to when our show started and missed our opening night, delaying our review by a week. The Bay Times reviewer needed a photograph and I managed to confuse both myself and my photographer so that we almost lost our review. Attendance was excruciatingly low, partly due to it being Pride Weekend. They physical demands of setting up and striking the show every night are about ready to do me in. My confirmation email to one of my rental clients got stuck in his spam folder so he thought he didn't have anywhere to rehearse, and I was relying on his presence in the room to allow another client into the room... so I lost rental income for both clients as the second one couldn't get into the room.

In short, it's been a busy, busy weekend and I was about ready to chuck everything this morning. Fortunately, time passed and my mood calmed and I can see both the good and the bad right now.

Still, I'm glad that I didn't have rehearsal tonight.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Preview

We have our Preview tonight. It's odd, having only two days in the theatre, and then a preview, and then two days off before opening. But then again, theatre is odd in general.

I try and get as much done in advance as possible, because things always go wrong. Better to deal with the handful of disasters than have to deal with them AND everything that got put off until the last possible minute. There's still things that have just not gotten done before now, but it's the big nasty "what the fuck?" things that make me want to crawl in a hole and cover my head.

We've gone through a few different options of how to deal with working around, or within, the "Papa" set, which is the big budget show before ours. The current, and final option is to hang microfiliment wire from the lighting grid at appropriate places and then hook fabric panels to them and allow them to drape easily over the set. We have the fabric, the grommets, the hooks and the wire. I was going to work with the theatre rep. to do these yesterday before our dress rehearsal but he got pulled away for the day. I was going to work with him today, but he got pulled out of the city and won't be back until late night. So I'm leaving work early to go and climb ladders, measure wire, and try not to kill myself. We have our first audience tonight and it'd be awful nice to have a set.

I've been checking some of the places we're supposed to be listed, and so far so good. On the odd front, however, is our listing in SFGate.com (the SF Chronicle). The entire description of the show (and I sent them a nice short blurb on the plot) is: "Dan Wilson's new social satire".

That's it.

It borders on "Mostly Harmless", and I'm not sure if I should be offended or amused. I mean, I suppose it's nice to know that my name is the only relevant information. If it's Dan Wilson's new satire, what more need be said? And here I thought that the average theatre goer didn't have any idea who I was. Not only do they obviously all know, but my name is all the information they need to come see the show!

Ok, I think I'm actually offended. I'm not sure how to change this other than email the Weekly and the Chronicle and re-send them the description.

Criminy.

Monday, June 19, 2006

lights

Well, the dry tech went pretty well. There's a handful of details to work out before the tech run tomorrow night, but all in all... we're pretty well off. I want a little more stage space, and I'm still not very happy about having to deal with the other show's set in the way that I do... but these are things that won't be an issue when we remount the show next year. These are the unique little problems that make this show special, after all.

On interesting issue was practically destroying my desk while loading it into the truck. It's this big "Dan Sized" desk that's really just fancy looking particle board. It got caught between the tailgate and the bed of the truck and whammo. Near kindling. We're able to fix it up with some L brackets, but damn it that wasn't the sight and sound to just put you off your lunch.

Again, though, nothing that wasn't fixable.

The important thing is that all of our furniture and our props are in the space. Our lights are programmed.

now we just need a few final things and to burn the CD of music and we're ready to do this thing.

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Those final feet

Vagina Dentata opens in less than a week. The show feels 95% ready, which is phenomenal. Tonight we move the set into the theatre and figure out exactly how the hell we're doing to do this thing technically, since there's another show in the same theatre with a rather ornate and immobile set that we need to conceal and replace within 20 minutes for each of our shows.

Fun, eh?

I think we've got a good solution, which involves accordion-like beams that screw into the stage that will allow us to have a free standing backdrop with only about twelve screws. No one approaches it, so we'll see how our engineering works out.

We've got a preview on Wednesday, and our first paying audience on Saturday. My only trepidation is on the technical side of things, and even the it's mostly about the time between "Papa" and "Vagina Dentata".

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The lovely Sofia Ahmad sent me this fabulous bit of mad science. While I found the videos fantastic, it's the explanation of the volatile reaction of Diet Coke to Mentos that really got me. She'll be doing Shakespeare in Santa Cruz this summer, so go see her wonderfulness if you're in the area.

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Alexis Dinno is now Dr. Lexicat, thank you very much. I was able to make a very belated appearance at her post doctoral shindig at a Fellini's in Berkeley last night, although I spent a good chunk of that time hounding Kevin Kerrick, an actor I'm trying to recruit for the Fringe Festival show in September, who happened to be at the bar. Small town(s). Alexis is now officially a super genius with a funny hat. A thousand toasts in her honor!

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I'm still getting used to the idea of having a very part time personal assistant. I had a business brunch with Mindy yesterday before rehearsal and was delighted to find that things that had been on my to-do list for a year were finally "magically" happening!

That's pretty much it in Dan-Land right now. I'm going to go and edit this week's RadioStar Improv show while I still can. Once 5:30pm hits, my life is nothing but WestEd and Vagina Dentata until Thursday.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

seeds

Vagina Dentata opens next week. We have a preview on Wednesday, and then opening night is Saturday at 10pm. The show is shaping up nicely, although I'm getting a bit stressed over the technical details surrounding it.

I was interested, however, in something I came across while removing furniture from my apartment to be used as set for the show. I found the little notebook I purchased when in Hawaii this last December. Inside were notes and thoughts and little bits of poetry that I wrote while on the beach. I was musing on the themes of my unfinished play, "Mammals in Collision", but in it, I see the seeds of what became Vagina Dentata:

"While actions may speak louder, it is through words that we best hide.
Rationales move to excuses, and in their recursive maze we lose ourselves and others, until we cannot admit, even to ourselves, what base need urged the words that first crawled from our self-deceiving lips.
The further we creep up the scale of so-called evolution, the further we move from knowing ourselves and that which drives our every thought.
We hide from that which we fear, but over time the stranger to what we hold most dear becomes ourselves,whom we have lost in a million polite excuses and enlightened precepts.
We damn and curse our hungers, decried as lusts of beasts, as though we came from different blood and flesh and knew no tears but those of aether, spirit, and air.
Yet deep behind the alphabet of ideas and masks lies bone, blood, sweat and life.
We crave, consume, desire and want so deeply that our souls quail at such passion.
It is unthinking, uncaring of lofty goals or hopes for kith, kin, and kind.
All that remains are the unenlightened drugs of taste and touch.
There is no truth here, but only sweet and savage release."

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

Off Book and on You Tube

Just a quick post. Things continue to move along nicely with Vagina Dentata. We're two weeks out from the preview and I was called an "evil, evil bastard" by one of the actors because last night was the first night they were supposed to rehearse without their scripts in their hands. The difference between working on character and lines in a living room and getting it up on its feet without scripts is so intense, and so major, and it was like a whole new rehearsal process last night. Gabrielle Guthrie came in as well with the painting that will be featured in the show, which got shocked gapes from the cast, and took measurements for costumes. We are well and truly on our way.

In other news, a documentary about Women's Will's 24 hour playfest is up at YouTube. I'm in there, although they didn't interview me. Check it out!