monday, monday

Hard at work on the script...

The final week is upon us. Today, guess what I saw on the bridge? Marianne Weems, the director! Valiantly chugging along ahead of me on her one-speed wonder, I saw it was her and caught up. We tried to chat but the pathway is narrow and all the Manhattan bound commuters made it impossible to ride side by side. When we got to the Brooklyn side, we went the wrong way against traffic down into DUMBO, because we are cutting-edge rebels of the avant garde. And then we pulled into Starbucks for an iced coffee because we are mindless cogs controlled by corporate global culture. See, we are complex!

Today was spent adding all kinds of exciting new video and sound to the piece. It's really looking and sounding good, my friends. In the afternoon, we did a little showing of three scenes for interested parties, near and dear to the production. It is fun to do small pieces in a performance mode, meaning that there are people other than the usual crowd present.

Also, there was a movie filming across the street from the theatre space. Recall in an early post that I described the corner where God's Little Warehouse is (Dock and Water) as one of those locations that screamed to be included in films that needed some New York City realism. Well, Griffin and Phoenix was shooting across from us today, soaking up the authentic atmosphere of a former manufacturing and shipping district. The street was lined with location trailers, craft services and trucks full of jolly Teamsters. We pretended not to look for stars as we stood on the sidewalks on break, acting like real New Yorkers who supposedly "don't care" about seeing famous people.

We have three more full days of rehearsal and then we present showings of our progress this Thursday and Friday evenings. Thankfully, the weather broke and it dried up, making the space a bit more hospitable for inviting people. It is one thing to suffer for your own art and yet another to make others suffer for it. As your humble recorder of this process, it has been a great pleasure to see it all come together, cue by cue, rendering by rendering, diet Coke by diet Coke. Onwards towards the premiere we go!

Look out, Minneapolis! Look out, Walker Center for the Arts! We're coming to your town and we're taking names!

Later Dudes,
moe.