Tuesday, September 25, 2007

retroactive pirate

I should probably also mention a guest appearance I make on Chris Walsh's blog.

Chris is pretty much my boss at this point, so when he wants me to be a pirate, I'm a pirate!
Actually, I'll be a pirate for pretty much anyone who wants me to be one. Other guests are Jennifer Novakoski, Bob Montgomery and Bo DeLong-Cotty.

Actually, Bo's name sounds kind of piratey anyway.

Conferences, improv, illnesses, and ninjas

Things are moving along at a more reasonable pace, it seems. I've actually had a few nights this last week where I just hibernated at home.

On the good news front, my Aunt June who has been suffering from Pancreatitis has been in the hospital for a good nine months is a little farther out of the woods. She was in a "have surgery or die" situation with a surgical procedure that might itself kill her. Things were looking pretty bleak, but they got her in a day early and did a different surgery that wasn't as dangerous and removed a litre and a half of fluid from her system. It seems that her intenstines were leaking. Now, that's profoundly disturbing, but if they've fixed that problem it greatly enhances her chances of getting through this.

I got the call from my Mom last night, and I knew things were looking good since her tone wasn't somber from the get go. Of course as soon as we got that good news cleared up she had problems with the new Macbook that I bought her. She managed, on her first day with it, to drag her AOL folder into the trash. Rather than take it out and put it back where she drug it from, she decided to reinstall the program and was confused.

Some would say, "oh, it's because she doesn't understand how to use a Mac", but dragging things in and out of the trash is pretty much the same action as on a PC, so that doesn't wash. I highly encouraged her to plug in her mouse and quit trying to learn the trackpad until she felt more comfortable in her new environment. The hour I spent on the phone with her was a good reminder of why I am very glad to be leaving Help Desk duties forever.

I was in a good mood, though, since I had served on a panel for the Theatre Bay Area annual conference that afternoon. I skipped the opening session and got some much needed production work done on Sweetie Tanya and, terrified that I was unprepared and underqualified to talk about "New Media and its use in Expanding Audience", I loaded up a slew of tabs in Safari with content that reflected everything I could imagine we'd talk about and packed up my LCD Projector. I didn't need the projector as the panel after us had ordered a projector for their use, so we just used that, but having everything preloaded was a godsend, since there was virtually no network connectivity in the building. Hell, there was only one power outlet in the entire room!

I got to sit on a panel with folks from California Shakespeare Festival, Impact Theatre, Killing my Lobster and promotions guru David Perry. The panel was very well attended and I think I managed to come off as reasonably competent. I had been very stressed over it, but as usual my fears had simply resulted in me being extremely over-prepared. Great motivator, Fear.

In other news, I cancelled the last half of the Submergency run, since we had virtually no audience for three shows in a row. Two people showed on to our Sunday show, and that was the most paying audience we had managed to garner. The other two shows in that space didn't fare much better, and one of them closed as well. In an excellent example of making lemonade out of lemons, we decided to use the space on Sunday night for Radiostar and to make it a live recording with a jam afterwards. A small group showed up, despite the last minute nature of the affair and the absolute lack of publicity. This was largely because it was also an unofficial sendoff for Radiostar genius Christopher DeJong. Chris and his wife Ann are going to Camaroon for a year where they will engage in do-goodery.

None of us have managed to fully accept doing Radiostar without him, and I myself am firmly in denial about the whole thing. Still, a year will go by very quickly, and we're in enough of a groove that we can continue to do great improv for Radiostar in his absence. I imagine that his return will result in lots of exciting changes as he'll be full of pent up creativity by that point.

On a totally unrelated note, Ninja Women from Pittsburgh robbed a gas station. I don't know when the world is coming to when today's ninja youth are letting themselves get caught on tape performing petty larceny. I mean, seriously, cigarettes and lotto tickets? In my day, ninja's stuck to the shadows, clung to walls, descended from ceilings and performed ruthless assassinations. Sure, maybe a few ninja might engage in theft, but only if it involved jewels large enough to sit in the eye socket of an ancient stone idol.

Kids today.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

success, failure, life, and ...?

to say that it's been a tumultuous weekend would be an understatement.

Thursday night, I went to the theatre to drop off programs and watch the show. I was also supposed to update some of our sound files, but due to a miscommunication the necessary cable was not at the theatre. I had finally passed the stone that afternoon and my body was feeling light and I hadn't lost the glow of adrenaline that my body gets when it finally rids itself of such an unwelcome intruder. As the show approached though, my chemical uplift began to fade and I found myself on something resembling a caffeine crash. I headed home and chilled out for the evening. I found out the next day that one of the speakers had begun to go bad, and that most of the sound cues were marred by unbearable crackling. Not cool.

So, Friday comes and I'm supposed to be at the Eureka at 7 so that I can do box office for Match Play. I need to go to Chinese Angle first though, to update the sound files I had failed to update the previous night. I get there at six, and proceed to wait for a half hour for the stage manager to no avail. While there, one of the theatre techs shows up to look at the bad speaker. I can't stick around long though, and finally leave at 6:30 and just miss the stage manager with the cable.

I realize that I failed to bring a video cable adapter to allow me to use my laptop with my LCD projector (both of which I'm carrying), so I swing by CompUSA to get a new one. They are out. Aware of time ticking rapidly away, I move further away from my final destination to get to the Apple store, only to find that they are sold out of the necessary cable there as well. Hot, sweaty, and late, I arrive at the Eureka carrying lots of gear that I cannot use, having run all over downtown fruitlessly for 45 minutes after not doing what I wanted to do at the Playhouse.

I was a bit cranky.

My mood was not greatly improved as 10pm drew closer and closer. We had no advance reservations, and foot traffic was non-existant. 9:40 came and went, and we had no audience. 9:50 came, and still we had no audience. 10:00pm came, and it became painfully clear that a huge crowd was not about to appear on our doorstep. I didn't need that cable I had run all over failing to get. We didn't have a show.

We all sat and drank the concessions for an hour or so, and then headed a block up to a local bar. I'm not that much of a night owl, so I was surprised at how the bar got fuller after midnight... the time I usually make my departure from night hotspots. One of my performers lives not far, so I had a ride for the evening so we stayed out very late. One of our crew, who I see but rarely, kept petting my hair and talking about how every time she saw me I had a new identity while her husband grinned drunkenly at us both. On some level I was relieved to not have performed that night, as we were all bone tired. Still, I felt this was a bad omen.

Anastasia tried to buy me a shot before I left, despite my protests, so I ended up giving it to a young lady who had just arrived at the bar. After seeing her male friends responses to that, I advised her to keep her mace at the ready and we made our exit. Despite my having snubbed the drink, Ana declared it just what she would have done and gave her full approval.

I got home well after 2am, exhausted, frustrated, and pleased all at the same time.

Saturday morning brought my mother and aunt. We were going to visit my other "aunt", who is actually my second cousin. This aunt is suffering from severe pancreatitus, and had been scheduled for surgery on Thursday but couldn't do it due to an attack of pneumonia. I had seen her a few months earlier. She had been in an induced coma for six months, and was unrecognizable. Her hands had been fairly deformed by the swelling and her face was that of a stranger. She made an odd noise with each breath she took, somewhat like a throat clearing, and she did not move at all. Very little had changed since then. I know that she can feed herself and move, but chooses not to. The swelling has gone down, but not by that much. She needs to have this surgery immediately, or this could be the end. Paradoxically, the surgery itself might kill her. It is truly a damned if you do and damned if you don't situation. I made her smile a bit, best as I could, telling her of my friend's fixation on my new identities as her husband grinned on, but I don't know if that was to be our last meeting.

Mom dropped me off at home and I tried to rest a bit before heading into the city, but I was unable to take a nap. I had gotten a call while on the way to the hospital about further technical problems with the Chinese Angle that had resulted in a total absence of music during the two songs, forcing one song to be abandoned and the other to sing a cappella. I canceled my dinner plans and got to the theatre by 6. The light operator's boyfriend thought he knew what was wrong and promised to bring some adapters, but what had been communicated to me by my stage manager led me to believe that he was barking up the wrong tree. I spent an hour diagnosing the problem and creating a stopgap solution, telling the producer and stage manager that the only thing that would truly get us back to the way we were was a new speaker with the right connectors. No adapter that I knew of would do the trick. I mixed all our music to a mono connection so it would no longer be directional, but at least be heard out of the other speaker when the light operator's boyfriend showed up right at seven... with a new speaker. He plugged it in and everything worked perfectly again. We had both diagnosed the problem correctly, and the information I had been passed had been scrambled. I raced off to the Eureka to help with Box Office again.

Audiences for Match Play haven't been much better than Submergency, and as 10pm grew closer, I knew in my heart that we were in for a repeat. Sure enough, not one single person showed up for the show. Chris, Brian, Trish, Dave and I went to the nearest pub got some beer and played pool. I noted that a perfectly fine pub, with nice furnishings and a great downstairs pool table was practically deserted at 10:30 on Saturday night. It was agreed that this was a strong indicator of our problem. The theatre is located in a late night desert. We are not a destination. I vowed that if no one showed up for our Sunday matinee, I would end the run of the show.

Sunday. Off to Suzuki, which was a good class and I was able to talk to Jeffrey a bit about Sweetie Tanya and about what is happening with Submergency. For all its technical problems, the Chinese Angle is an enormous success, and for all that people enjoy the show, Submergency is an abject failure. I am experiencing the highs and lows simultaneously.

I go right from class to the theatre and get everything ready for the show, knowing in my heart that this is the end. Remington shows up to do lights and box office, and we catch up for a bit. The cast shows up, and two women walk up and buy tickets, thinking that we're part of the fringe festival. Ten minutes later it's time for the show to start and I give them back their money. They are very understanding and undeterred, but I am a bit heartbroken. I would have liked to make them laugh today.

Submergency is dead, at least for now. Match Play is also going to close early, so we decide to take over next Sunday evening and bring Radiostar to the theatre and do a live set for friends, followed by a farewell improv Jam for Christopher DeJong, who is leaving in a few weeks for Africa. It's turning lemons into lemonade, but we all feel good about it.

Well, at least mostly good. I am glad to get my weekends back, but sad for the failure. I have succeeded. I have failed. But the failure is hard to be too heartbroken about, when the image of my aunt looms so close in my mind. Her body essentially broken, but her will even more so. I can only imagine what she would give to be able to succeed and fail as I am doing.

I have tomorrow, as far as I know, so I'll treat that as a gift.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

having the stones for it

I woke up yesterday at 6:30 am, and I was in pain. It was a very specific kind of pain, and one that I've learned to recognize. Imagine that someone jammed their knuckle into your kidney, then left it there, and slowly twisted. That's the pain. I had experienced a toned down, and brief bout of this two nights earlier, so I knew that a kidney stone was passing, but normally I only get one bout of pain. This second bout just kept going, and going. After two hours of pacing around my apartment, trying to stretch and massage my kidneys to allow easier passage for the little invader, I finally gave in and called a taxi to get me to the hospital. I was near the verge of tears, and that's too much pain to "tough it out" through.

The cab itself took about a half hour to arrive, despite the initial assurances that it would be there in "five to ten minutes". It's one of the few times I truly regretted not having my own transportation.

Still, the emergency room at Kaiser Hospital was not terribly busy at 9am on Wednesday and I was screened almost immediately and taken into the E.R. proper. What was odd, however, was being security scanned before I was allowed to enter the emergency room. It was like boarding a plane. I had to empty my pockets and get wand scanned before I could hobble into the reception area. Life in Oakland, I suppose.

The rest of my stay was rather surprising and at times even fun. My nurse noticed my Lunatique Fantastique shirt and revealed that he had met Liebe before, so we traded stories about that and discovered that he also knew Davina Cohen and Thessaly Lerner as well. Very small world. The other nurse who took care of me was about six months pregnant, so we talked about that while she took my vitals and attempted to get my I.V. in. This seems to always be a problem with me, and sure enough I am sporting a very large and painful bruise today. I'm growing to accept that this is going to be inevitable every time an I.V. is attempted.

When I am in pain, I tend to become extra-polite. I almost turn into a Jane Austin character, I am so polite. The control I have to exert to fight the pain translates into a highly formal and pleasant personality, which may explain the extra kind level of service I received while being treated. The room I was in had a SpongeBob Squarepants television/DVD player in it, so they put in a movie for me to watch while I waited for the stone to pass. They had pumped me full of pain meds, and every time they wore off, the pain was less than before, until finally I felt quite normal again. Then they gave me lunch and waited to discharge me until I had finished my sandwich. (Egg salad)

The nurse who knew Liebe had come by a few times with an intern to practice skills on me (I had to prompt the intern once to ask me if I had any allergies), and on their final visit they felt compelled to let me know that they both thought I greatly resembled (and sounded like) James Spader. This last bit has happened to me more times than I can count, but it's the first time I've gotten it with my platinum blond hair.

I went home a little after 3pm. The stone had moved to just above my bladder and is 6.5mm, which is right on the edge of being operable. Any larger and they would have had to use the sound wave machine to blow it apart or reverted to more severe methods of treatment. This is why I had so many hours of agony as it shredded its way down my urinary system. It had reached a safer place, however, and was expected to pass without further incident.

All and all, I was incredibly impressed with the care I was given, which is not something one normally hears about a large HMO.

Sunday, September 09, 2007

in spite of myself

Last night we had an almost sold out show for Chinese Angle, and the Chronicle this weekend ran a large picture for us in the Pink Section for Sunday's paper. Very nice. The show is off and running, and will most likely be the most successful thing I've ever directed. This is something for me to ponder as I consider the ongoing role of Cassandra's Call in my life and if I'm better off just directing and not producing anymore.

Far too early to say, though. But it's not too early to say that Submergency has been suffering from my lack of attention to it, and today was much more difficult and haphazard than it should have been. Still, we had a tiny audience (The Eureka, unlike the Playhouse, is far from Union Square), virtually no rehearsal, wonky tech... and the show was still a lot of fun. The squirtguns-short form comedy combination is pretty fool-proof. As long as the performers are having a great time being vicious to each other, the audience has a good time as well. It's kind of like Who's Line Is It Anyway? meets the Three Stooges.

Still, there are various things I can do this week to make the remaining eight shows more smooth and successful, so my work is far from done. Today was more like a preview, especially since the tiny house was almost entirely comps (free tickets).

No Radiostar tonight, so I should finish editing the show that needs to go up on Wednesday, but I'm extaordinarily exhausted so I think I'll push that off to tomorrow night.

I've earned a night off.

Friday, September 07, 2007

The Chinese Angle

The show opened last night. It was a decent sized crowd for a small theatre premiere, and that was good. The show is mostly there. A few missed lines, a few slow cues, some delayed lighting, overamped sound and a collision with a bit of the set failed to mar the experience for our very friendly and supportive audience. Many of these issues have been resolved or will be resolved tonight and tomorrow night.

A critic came and quite liked the show. He asked me questions about my training as a director, which is something I've never been asked before. Other than a single course in college, my training is entirely of the "watch other directors, then do it yourself" school. It seems to have worked well enough for me, as the producers and some of the cast seem quite pleased with what I brought to the table. I pointed the critic to my Flickr page for additional color photos of the show, so between those and the press photos, he has many options to choose from.

The Bay Times has always been very good to my work. Tom Kelly was the critic until recently and wrote fair, honest, and intelligent reviews about the show without telling the reader the plot or droning on about the biography of the playwright. Rather, the reviews gave you a sense of what the play was like, and at the end you would know if it was your kind of show or not. I have high hopes for this other reviewer.

The next hurdle is the Submergency opening. Improv comedy is a radically different beast, but we have the benefit of having done very similar shows in the past and everybody being on their game pretty much all the time.

Still, until we get past the first show, I'm going to worry.

It's what I do, after all.

Monday, September 03, 2007

A True Dream

I had a true dream this morning.

I dreamt that I was on a tropical island. A paradise. I was disguised as an old man, a great acting teacher of renown and I was to go and extract wisdom from another. I went to a tunnel in the pure white sands and the further inside the tunnel I went, the narrower the tunnel became until I was on my hands and knees and the white sand was being scraped off the walls and ceilng by my shoulders and head. I finally reached a small window, set in concrete and knocked upon it. I saw my host through the opening and he came and removed the barricade and allowed me to crawl through the larger opening and clean myself off.

It was John Goodman, but he was attired like Earnest Hemingway and was himself imitating someone else. He was pretending to be Richard Burton. He asked me my name, and I could not remember who it was that I was impersonating, so I decided that he person I was impersonating was going to impersonate a "nobody" in a clever way to get wisdom. Burton/Goodman seemed content with that. I wondered at first why he was allowing this charade, but was content that he was content. We sat in his palatial room, with an amazing view of the island and ocean. I could not remember the question of wisdom, so I made something up and he was content to tell meaningless stories in order to illustrate an answer to the question but we were two men who were pretending to be what we were not, acting out this little existential exploration for some unknown benefactor and content for our own reasons to play our little game.

No wiser than I was when I arrived, I was not sure what to do next, but then a small chinese boy arrived. He was clearly poor, and mostly naked. He said that he knew the answer to my question, and we both smiled and decided to indulge him. He began telling a story that was full of racist terms and we were both embarrassed to listen, but too polite to stop him due to his age and because we had told him he could talk. His mother appeared and stopped his story, saying that she needed to take him to town to use the bathroom. Relieved that we were quit of him, I good naturedly said that we would hear the end of his story, perhaps, at a later date. The boy suddenly grew very quiet and smiled and said, "There is no need, for this will suffice. Who is the one for whom I will stop my story and obey?"

In the dream, all had grown quite still. "The one with authority over you", I said.

The boy said, "no. Authority can be resisted."

"The one who loves you", I ventured.

The boy said, "no. It is an easy thing to run from those who love you."

"The one that you yourself love", I said at last, knowing that I hit it.

The boy smiled.

and I woke up.