SUPERduperVISION

Chambana-lana-ding-dong

2006-10-08T19:15:00.000-04:00

Hello from Champaign-Urbana,IL, the cornbasket of America.

The Builders have touched down here in central Illinois and it has been an autumnal blast. For those of you who know nothing of this place beyond what the University of Illinois invokes for you football-wise, it is not all just corn stalks and pumpkin patches here in the heartland.

Champaign is home to the first web browser, Mosaic and IU has all sorts of sophisticated web and digital technologies happening. They refer to this place as the "silicon prairie" and there are lots of folks doing all kinds of incredible research and art and interesting stuff. We had two lovely performances at the Krannert Center for the Arts which is the Lincoln Center of the Great Plains. Ambitious programming and large scope, the building was also designed by the fellow who did the Lincoln Center on the Hudson and there are common architectural themes.

Our time here has been very productive and everyone at the Krannert was really great with us. It is a gigantic building and the university has a big theatre and music department, which includes an opera department. Rehearsals for things were going on a lot of the time we were in the building and it was cool to leave backstage for the corridors and hear choral music or band music or opera floating through the concrete echo chambers of the catacombs.

Let me not forget to speak of our fabulous accomodations. Now, I personally really like a hotel or a restaurant with a good theme. The greater the commitment to the theme, the better in my eyes and the place we are staying here in Urbana is really on my top ten of theme hotels.

It is called Historic Lincoln Hotel, which was its original name, but it has more recently gone by the name Jumer's Castle Lodge. It has a special Illinois hybrid theme of Olde English Inn and Germanic hunting lodge. There are two full suits of armour in the lobby. There are many taxidermied heads peering down at your breakfast eggs in the "Library" restaurant. Every room has a brass chandalier!

Apparently in days of yore, the good people that worked here were made to wear period costumes to do their jobs but now this practice has sadly gone by the wayside and there are no more dirndle dresses or puffy sleeves or codpieces to be seen. Sigh. This does not detract from the magic of Historic Lincoln and I highly recommend this inn as a place to stop on your tour of old theme hotels, if you embark on such an expedition.

OK, gotta hit the road for Chicago friends. You can catch Super Vision at the Musseum of Contemporary Art there, this coming week (October 12-14) if you are in the neighborhood. Please feel free to stay after the show and say hi. It takes me a while to get out of my outfit and all, so be patient. You can talk to any of the folks from the company. They are all very friendly and like to make acquaintances in towns we are visiting so please do stop by and say hello if you come see the show.

corny as Kansas in August,
moe.

fame and fortune is a magnet

2006-08-12T20:30:00.000-04:00

Hello Supervisee-

We are still in San Jose, where this ZeroOne Festival is splayed out all over the downtown of the city. It is causing a lot of unusual pedestrian activity and bringing a lot of people into the town core to walk around and look at stuff, just like we used to do in the olden days when I was a child. Some cities still do that but a lot of places we have visited on this tour are in the process of rediscovering themselves in terms of urban space. The inner cities were often abandoned in terms of commerce and that usually leaves the poor folks and the artistic types and the urban pioneers that want a lot of space to live in for cheap rent. Eventually, somebody figures out that the city is being "wasted" and so they start pouring money back into the commercial corridors to "revitalize" things. They may put in some newfangled transit and start renovating former manufacturing districts into luxury condos. They may tear down buildings that are considered eyesores and build shiny new office towers. They may sink a small fortune into a new city hall, like here in San Jose. And people may actually come downtown and hang out. Or not.

I was standing in the plaza in front of the art museum yesterday, in the middle of the day and there were maybe 50 people standing around and looking at the various art projects going on and I heard s woman remark "it's really crowded here today" which led me to believe that it is usually entirely deserted, despite all the spiffy-fication that has gone on. So, I'm glad that the festival is bringing people out to enjoy the pleasure of pedestrian life in their own city. And there are excellent burritos to be had for very cheap all over the place. I love it.

Tonight, I will be doing the final show of this venue with my friends here. I want very much to put a picture of the interior of this theatre on the blog because it is INCREDIBLE, so I will try to make that happen. Then after the show, we are all going to see a performance by the acclaimed apocalyptic performance group Survival Research Lab, who have not done a show in a number of years. They got kinda turfed out of SF, their home, because they explode and burn a lot of things and somebody decided it was too dangerous. I am very excited to go see a show that might hurt somebody or destroy property in an unplanned way.

I will report fully, of course.

Meanwhile, keep on truckin'.

do you know the way

2006-08-09T13:55:00.000-04:00

The Builders are back on tour, after a couple of months of doing whatever for the summer. We've currently in San Jose, CA as part of a festival called ZeroOne which is here because of the ISEA conference. For those of you not aware, ISEA is the Inter-Society for Electronic Arts and that's what it's all about here in San Jose for this week. The whole town seems to be involved in one brand of interactive electronic art or another. There are projects involving cell phones, pigeons wearing GPS chips, and making music as you walk down a rigged street, to name a few. It's quite impressive and bursting at the seams with creativity and we're here to put our Builders' spin on the concept.

Everyone seems good so far. I haven't seen the entire company quite yet, though most and everyone looks a little sun-exposed and happy after some time off. San Jose is a little odd since it's kind of like they tore down the old downtown and rebuilt it all nice and I just don't trust that. I know the crappy part must be around someplace and god knows there must be poor folks here but so far, I haven't seen it. In time, the urban grittiness will reveal itself but for now, it's all clean concrete with not even pesky skater kids to be found. I will seek out the countercultre and report back.

If anyone out there has some tips for me on where to look, I'd appreciate it. Please write in.

Must go off to rehearsal now. It's been a long time since we've done the show so I will have to brush up on my lines. Got new makeup when I was in New York so that I will be all looking pretty again in no time.

milestones of euro touring

2006-06-13T14:06:00.001-04:00

As everyone drifts to their various post-show corners, there are a few milestones of touring that need to be mentioned, the little things that perhaps did not make it into the blog entries, but are nonetheless worth noting. Some of these are true, some are fictional, all are affectionate.

Claire Hallereau, Tour Producer & company Manager: June 3, 2006, Madrid. Claire takes Jamie and Neal to a macrobiotic lunch and not only do they clean their plates but they do not perish, much to her astonishment.

James Gibbs, Co-creator: June 9, 2006, Salamanca. James is followed by suspicious ham leg in a supermercado. Manages to ditch it in impressive 2-aisle section of orange beverages.

Marianne Weems, Artistic Director: May 21, 2006, somewhere over the Atlantic. Marianne is subdued by air marshals after attempting to remove navagational equipment from 747, "for the next show".

Rizwan Mirza, Actor: June 2, 2006, Madrid. Rizwan completes the doner kebab trifecta, after eating at least one kebab in every country we have toured to.

Kyle Decamp, Actor: May 5, 2006, Liverpool. Kyle discovers a doorway on one of her many walks that leads to 1987.

Keith Bomely, dbox Partner: June 10, 2006, Madrid airport. Keith is refused exit from Spain until sketchy "bacon tax" is paid to customs official.

Dan Dobson, Sound Designer & Composer: May 25, 2006, Liverpool. Dan creates sound cue that silently downloads credit card information from audience members and uses it to order complete boxed set of Jethro Tull for cardholder.

Harry Sinclair, Actor: June 10, 2006. After final gig in Salamanca, Harry flies to Portland and attempts to take the Pences out for a "family dinner".

David Pence, Actor: May 5, 2006, Liverpool. Inadvertently discovers location of elusive Beatles' artifact, Paul's second girlfriend, by walking backwards down Penny Lane.

Jamie McIlhenney, Technical manager: May 4, 2006, Liverpool. Jamie witnesses fistfight in the middle of the night; some loud drunk guys vs. sleep-deprived members of the Slovakian handball team that were staying in our hotel. Blood on pavement the next morning.

Joe Silovsky, Actor & Tech Director: June 7, 2006, Salamanca. Using available spare parts and a donated kidney, Joe builds a stagehand with English and Spanish voice recognition feature.

Neal Wilkinson, Production Manager: June 6, Salamanca. Neal finds cellar where devil's magic was supposedly performed in the 15th century and is disappointed to discover it was merely devil's basement rumpus room.

Hal Eagar, Video Associate: May 27, 2006, Glasgow. Hal buys plaid skirt for "someone else" and decides to keep it for himself, claiming it is a kilt.

Jeff Morey, Video Associate: May 30, 2006, Madrid. Jeff is cruised by hunky nude statue in the Prado; becomes separated from Moe and Riz when he stops to politely refuse mobile number.

Tanya Selvaratnam, Actor: May 24, 2006, Glasgow. Tanya bums cigarette AND rice pudding off of Dan for that perfect smoky sweet goodness.

Miranda Hardy, Lighting Lady: June 7, 2006, Salamanca. Miranda carves 38 top hats for the lighting instruments out of the local sandstone.

Kim Whitener, Executive Producer. May 6, 2006, Liverpool. Kim demands refund for day tour which covered neither the liver nor the pool. Or the pool of liver.

Moe Angelos, Actor: June 7, 2006, Salamanca. Moe is first company member to use the bidet in her room, without irony.

more salamanca

2006-06-12T11:35:00.000-04:00

The tour is on vacation for the time being and we Builders head home to our day jobs, partners, pets, depression, unemployment, creative pursuits and if we are really lucky/insane, all of the above rolled into one tasty morsel, destined to overwhelm. But we are always up for a challenge.

There are a few things left to be said about our last host city, Salamanca. For instance, did I mention that Salamanca also featured the additional personnel of dbox on board with us? No? I forgot to say the best part? Que bruta!

So, on this last leg of Le Grand Tour, we were ever so fortunate to have Mister James Gibbs and Mister Keith Bomley of dbox with us who came along to document visually the process of loading in and loading out the show. Along with their stellar personalities, they brought with them some incredible cameras to capture the setup and takedown of SuperVision. It was most pleasant to have them along on our voyage and to get to hang out with the two of them and share the stranger-in-a-strange-land vibe with them.

I would also like to say a word or two about the festival we were a part of, el 2 Festival Internacional de las artes Castille y Leon (www.festivalcyl.com). This is a new but a tremendously ambitious festival and we were honored to be a part of it. The streets and theatres and museums of Salamanca, already rich on their own, were flooded with performances for the time we were there. The work came from all over the place in Europe, North America and beyond and was very impressive in its scope. Especially for a city the size of Salamanca, which is a university town full of lots of students there to learn Spanish or medicine, but is not a huge city. It was really something to see the Plaza Mayor filled to its renaissance max with dancing fans of Asian Dub Foundation the night before we left. Now that's a cultural mix I probably wouldn't have come up with.

Last Thursday morning, we were treated to an incredibly special thing. Sonia and Guy, the producers of the festival, arranged for a few of us to take a tour of the archival library of the university. It is the oldest library in Spain and the first one to have a paid librarian. It houses about 16,000 volumes, if I remember correctly, and they are all beyond the belief of someone like me who has been raised in a place where we consider anything more than 50 to be old. These books start around the 15th century though some are from earlier, the oldest being from the 12th I think. Those that escaped the editorial "process" of the Inquisition did so with a few scars, at least those that were not purely non-secular in nature. The librarian showed us some interesting techniques that the Inquisitors had for getting the books to come out kosher, so to speak. Scratching out, pasting over and just outright removal of undesirable parts left some of the books looking like they'd had a very bad day at Kinko's. Nonetheless they were beautiful and more than one of us had tears in our eyes to see such precious volumes.

We just don't have that kind of stuff in our country. Plus, it was very, very special for us to be allowed into this room at all as it is temperature controlled and restricted to scholars only. Too many warm bodies and the books don't like it. It felt like we were in a good scene from the DaVinci Code, the one where the foreigners are in awe of the scope of human history contained in the room where they stand.

So many thanks to Sonia and Guy for making that visit possible and also to Javier, who escorted us around and to the charming fellow who was the librarian and patiently showed us the books that he has the priviledge of being collegial with every day. I never got his name but please, Sonia or Guy or anybody a the festival if you read this, please thank him for us. It was an amazing visit.

Not to change the subject and harp on the whole ham thing too much but I had a revelation about the pork situation that I feel I must relay to the blog-reading public. This is of course the great danger of the blog itself: too many people with ideas they think everybody else needs to know about. I realize too that this entire blog is a prime example of that but I figure if you've read this far, you will indulge me this once more.

I was thinking about the expulsion of the Jews and the Moors in the 15the century form Spain. OK, first of all, let's just talk about the 15th century for a minute, shall we? Those Spaniards were busy little beavers during this century, running all over the world "discovering" things (OK, Cristobal Colon was italian but at that point he was from the Aragon/Castille hybrid), building incredible castles and palaces and cathedrals, making all manner of Inquisition and kicking people out who didn't make the grade. So the Jews and the Muslims fell into the latter category, despite the fact that they had been in Spain for hundreds of years.

After spending time in Spain I have come to the conclusion that this was all a question of pork. It was simple test back then: you eat pork, you stay. Sin comida puerco, salido por favor.

That is my little revelation upon the history of Spain, its peoples and its eating habits. Viva Jamon Nacion! Pero con todos los gente de todos typos! Please excuse my terrible Spanish and I hope I have not said something bad by mistake!!!

con besitos de jamon,
moe.

mira, el toro

2006-06-12T08:49:00.000-04:00

Madrid, 3 Junio 2006 (photo by Jamie)

Yes, mi gente, we went to the bullfight in Madrid at Las Ventas. This beautiful photo was taken by Jamie, who was part of the cultural search party sent out by the Builders to take in this extreme sport of Spain. Also in attendance were Neal, Claire, Jeff and myself. I will try and relate what happened, though I am still in a state of disbelief about the whole thing.

First, there were the snacks. Jeff and I arrived at the appointed hour after spending the day on a lovely trip to Segovia with Rizwan, who did not opt for the bullring but had other plans. He loves the nightlife, he's got to boogie, what can we say? Anyway, Jeff, or "Yeffie" as we have taken to calling him in Espana, went to the street vendors in search of pre-bullfight snacks while I waited for the rest of the group to find us. Yeffie came back with bottles of water (good move) and these delightful roasted corn kernels covered in salt and I believe cheese flavor. The rest of the group arrived and brought a whole other snack option, tortillas and cerveza frio. Tortilla in Spain is sort of like a big round omelet with stuff cooked into it. We trundled happily into the arena and found our concrete seats. Jamie rented little butt pads for us to sit on, as he is a gentleman.

So the thing began. There was live music coming from two bands which featured lots of brass, as in the Tijuana kind. Bullfights and Other Delights, but in a totally classical Spanish style. There was no public address and absolutely not a scrap of advertising anywhere in the place, unless you count the colors of Spain, red and yellow, which were everywhere. This was going to be serious business, which sort of worried me as I had convinced myself that the bullfight had to be more than just fighting the bulls and that there had to be Solid Gold Dancers between the acts. How wrong I was.

Horns blow, a door opens on the perfectly circular beautiful ring and out comes el toro numero uno for the night. He is not happy, and I could not blame him as someone has stuck a little thing in his back with a couple of ribbons flying off of it. He runs around looking for someone to express his anger towards and these guys that look fabulous in their shiny outfits come out and flap their bright pink and yellow capes at him. El Toro runs towards the taunters and they run behind some big wooden thing so they don't get hurt.

More horns and out come the picadores on horses. There are two of them and the horses have stuff covering their eyes so they cannot see that a very angry bull is about to run towards them, which he does and rams full-on into the side of the horse. The horse wears an outfit that seems to be made of a giant horse basket that protects him from being poked by Senor Angry Toro. The picadore has a big long stick with a pokey thing at the end that he jabs into the bull's back repeatedly as the bull is trying his best to ram the only thing that he is allowed to ram, the horse.

More horns and the horses go away and then comes the baderilleros who run on foot at the bull and stick six pokey things with little ruffles on them into his back, two by two, while the other guys in the team distract him so El Toro won't really have a chance to poke the guy back. The pokey things can be bought in souvenir versions outside Las Ventas and all over Spain. I think my brother had a set when we were kids, though I now can't imagine why.

More horns and out comes the main man, el torero, the one who is really going to fight the bull after he has been put through the provoking phases by the others. He has a fabulous outfit which glitters in the low sun of the Madrid evening. His movements are very graceful and strangely balletic, considering what his job is. Which is to mortally wound a bull weighing at least 1200 pounds with a sword so that he falls down. This is done by thrusting the sword up to the hilt into the top of the bull between his shoulder blades. At least, that's what I think was his objective. As I said, there are no announcements and you are just expected to know what's going on. When the bull is dead and being dragged off by a team of horses, there is no mistaking what has occurred.

So what can I say about this event without sounding like a militant vegetarian tree-hugger with an animal-substitute bone to pick? The outfits were fabulous. There was beautiful music. The dance of alpha male vs. alpha male was fascinating. The ladies in front of us where very, very sweet in explaining to us what was going on and when someone was good or bad. We were sitting in the next to top rows and it seemed to be populated by "real" fans of the bullfight. We were the only foreigners I spotted and it was nice when the people disapproved when a bull was not killed cleanly.

But still, the bull was killed. Except for the ones that were deemed not good enough to fight and were sent out after the initial tormenting by the guys with the pink capes. These lucky few get to go home and get their bullfighting instincts in order before they are shown the ring again. A herd of white castrated bulls with bells on come into the ring to get these spared toros offstage. The failed fightee joins the herd and trots off. That was a happy moment for me.

There are eight bulls for each night of fighting. No dance numbers in between, no Torovision scoreboard with highlights, no audience member winning a Ford Explorer by poking an untested bull with a sharp stick. Just angry bull against guys in good outfits. There is a fair amount of ceremony, the code of which I could not always read which makes it all go on for a substantial time.

Claire says that there is a "big polemic" happening in Europe right now to abolish the bullfight. I find it hard to imagine that this thing which is so a part of this culture will disappear from the landscape. I don't understand the appeal of watching this on a regular basis as a sport, but it is not my culture. It is for the Spanish to decide I suppose though for me, it was way hard to watch. I went to the bullfight, but did not see much of the important action, as my eyes were covered by my hands, which were salty with tears for the bull and cheese flavor from the corn. And call me unsportsmanlike, but I was rooting for the bull to get one of the teasing men in their fancy outfits and Strictly Ballroom hairdos.

I could go on at Hemingwayish length about this experience but I will close now. Like seeing the fantastic Goyas and El Grecos of the Prado, the bullfight is also a cultural slice of Spain. There is deep beauty but also there is deep pain, and that is life. At least I think that is the message.

ole,
moe.

que rico!

2006-06-08T07:21:00.000-04:00

Teatro Liceo, Salamanca (photo courtesy of Dan)

Greetings from the land that vegetables forgot. Spain and more specifically Salamanca would be by my account, the ham capitol of the world. There is ham in everything, including the very buildings themselves, according to James who knows a thing or two about architecture. During the war years and other lean times, the locals apparently subsisted off the well-known"ham bricks" that have been used in construction here since time began, giving all the areas edifices that warm pink glow. Some of these ham bricks dated back to Roman times and it is also well known in the area that even a ham brick from the years before the Christian era can be eaten for nutritional value if boiled properly for long enough.

Seriously, these folks take their ham to heart. There is a ham store on almost every block that is usually covered with drying whole hams, chorizo and all manner of sausages. The hams are very Spanish hams and so they feature the intact hoof on the business end, just so you know you are not getting Spam or some likewise ersatz pork rendition. At breakfast every morning in the hotel, there is a ham bar which features about five or six different configurations of pork. For the vegetarians, Hebrews or Halalistas, Spain is a challenge.

But, the picture above tells the other tale of Spain: beauty wherever the eye lands. Salamanca is especially chock full of jewels of medieval, baroque, renaissance and even some Franco-era gems. It is truly incredible and fully deserves it's designation as a world heritage site. If you are ever in Spain Dear Reader, try and make the trip to this incredibly rich artistic and hammy place.

Tonight was our first show of two and I apologize for not dropping in sooner with you all but we have been busy and the internet has been spotty for me. This lovely theatre above is where we are playing. It is called Teatro Liceo and is another gem in the tiara of Salamanca's architectural crown jewels. Part of the theatre was at one time an ancient church and the backstage and rear wall of the stage feature Roman (not Romanesque!) arches made of big old stones that scream out indentured servitude to us. You cannot swing a dead gato without hitting some other piece of antiquity.

We are making our way with our broken Spanish and it is interesting to see who is pulling the high school Spanish from the cobwebs of their mind and who has some command of the language a takes charge of communication and who just plunges ahead, chopping the lovely language to bits but making themselves understood on some very basic level nonetheless. It all reminds me once again that I need to learn this language, as it is so useful in my very own city, as well as here where the franchise began.

Another quick note on an interesting feature: red wine comes in the catering snacks provided backstage to the cast and crew! Viva Espana! Ole!

All right, I must hasten myself to the bed. Tomorrow is the last day of sight seeing and the last show. I still have not been to a convent, though there are at least four that are still in operation, still cloistered and accepting visitors. And apparently there is a church where some kind of nefarious black magic was practiced back in the more expansive, pre-Inquisition days of the catholic church. Gotta see that.

Sleep well todos, y hasta manana (sorry I don't know how to make the correct accents on the words).

Besitos,
Moe

la vida es sueno

2006-06-01T16:32:00.000-04:00

I had a dream the other night, here in Madrid. So, the Builders were doing a new show and Marianne, as usual, was taking it to a new level and this show was going to be in... outer space! And this new dimension in theatre required a big, complicated mechanism that had to be built by Joe and Jamie and Neal and to top that off, it had to all happen in sub-zero temperatures.

So, there we all were, living together on some kind of scientific station on Antarctica and parked right outside where we could all see it was this huge oil tanker which housed the mechanics to make the show happen in outer space. This thing looked like some kind of oversized heating system like you would find in the basement of a huge building. Big pipes, covered in some silver protective wrapper, shot up above the deck of the tanker, spewing out steam, elecric bolts and fire at intervals.

Plus, the ocean that the tanker was in was some strange combination of salt and fresh waters so that the fresh water floated on top of the salt water and did not freeze, but the brine beneath was solid, making it possible to walk on water. Freaky.

All the company was there, pitching in with the huge amount of labor that making the show go into outer space was going to require. It was costing an incredible amount of money to make this thing happen and in the times we were not directly working on the show and using the rig, we were renting out the thing to "space magicians" to use for their shows.

I ran into Neal and Joe in the science station and I started complaining to them that the tanker was just spewing fire all day long. They explained to me that it was because we had a renter in the thing and he was apparently sort of a space magician hack and was wasting a lot of resources. When I asked what all the fire was about they explained to me that it was liquefied natural gas that had to be forced through a chamber that was filled with six feet of granulated sugar, at the rate of one and a half gallons per hour.

I have no idea what all this means, but I felt compelled to document it here on the blog. Anyone out there who understands about "space magic", please send in your knowledge. I myself know nothing, except for the part about the natural gas and the sugar.

hasta luego,
moe.

a tale of two Davids

2006-05-29T11:45:00.000-04:00

These two fine looking gentlemen are both named David Pence. The one on the left is David who is in SUPERVISION and the one on the right came all the way from Maine to see the show in Glasgow! I consider this a heroic act of support if ever there was one and if a David Pence, Jr team hat existed, I'm sure the guy on the right would have a hard time choosing between it and his beloved Red Sox cap.

It was a total pleasure having both David Pences in place for the run in Scotland and we all spent many an hour after the shows talking to David Sr about the junior and all things Pence. If we could all have such fine fathers, the world would be a much better place.

We are now all dispersed once again to the various corners of our lives, as we are in a week of in-between engagements. Claire, Rizwan, Jeff and I have all gone ahead to Spain and are now finding our way around the fabulous city of Madrid where everyone should live at least once in their lives. This is our collective opinion after less than 24 hours in the city. It is incredibly friendly and there is an absolutely fantastic street culture, which includes going to cafes and sitting around and drinking beers and talking, sitting in the many plazas and talking, wandering the streets and talking. It is muy fantastico. And everyone I have encountered is so sweet to me as I butcher their beautiful language right before their very eyes. I speak only enough Spanish to navigate the laundromat on my block in NY (though recent demographic shifts have changed the working language of doing the laundry on my street to Bulgarian) yet everyone I have had contact with has cheerfully tried to understand me. Que rico!

Our boys Jamie and Neal headed to Amsterdam, to look at this year's fine tulip crop no doubt and will meet up with us here on Saturday. The rest of the company returned to the US to their very busy lives and will rendezvous with us all on Saturday as well to make our way to Salamanca, the final leg of this European tour for the show.

Our last night in Glasgow was swell and we had a lovely show. We said our farewells to Steven, the fabulous artistic director of Tramway and Stewart, our genius set and costume designer and to Kate, our friend and assistant director. We hope we get to come back again soon and spend more time in yet another great city. Because the weather was not good for golf and I still did not have my vegetarian haggis! Though I did load up on the shortbread and I am grateful that my granny pants for the show feature an elastic waist. Once again, the genius of Stewart is apparent.

More later from Salamanca.

Love and cafe con leche,
moe.

makeup house arrest

2006-05-25T12:40:00.000-04:00

I am onstage in the theatre. I am alone. It is a sort of Rose's Turn moment, where the deranged actor is left in the empty house and imagines that the loud and large crowd is loving the flawless act that is going on in her head. Actually, it is not that exciting and I am here by reason of my character, confined to the non-public spaces of the theatre by the house arrest of my makeup. See, I put it all on for the dress rehearsal and now I've got it on and I can't go anywhere without feeling extremely conspicuous. My face is covered with latex and layers of color and I look like a weirdo in the harsh light of day. Inside the theatre, the darkness and the forgiving lights make me able to not be a freak. And so I stay here until after the show when I can return to my civilian garb after a nice hot shower.

Had a dress rehearsal, as I mentioned and it seemed to go quite well. Everyone is off now eating the various things there are to eat in this neighborhood where the Tramway is located, called East Pollockshield. Go out the front door of the Tramway and there is a little South Asian strip nearby, featuring curry shops, Indian sweets and the ubiquitous doner kebab. Go out the back door, and you can treat yourself to KFC. I saw a Subway downtown and will get the combo and report on the Scottish version of my favorite sandwich indulgence. On my break on the Continent, I went to Amsterdam for a few days and had an elaborate conversation with a Yank friend who lives there and had the theory that Subway will not take hold in Holland because the Dutch do not like to mix things on their sandwiches. They are a bread and cheese only kind of culture. And indeed, there was not one Subway that I saw there.

If anyone knows a good joke about a bagpipe, please submit it to me in the comment department. I am also trying to find jokes that other cultures tell about Americans, but so far, no luck here on that one. The kind of joke that starts something like: "an American walks into a bar..." You get the picture. I guess our current status on the world stage is just not that funny these days. Even a mean-spirited joke would do, but perhaps our genteel hosts here in Scotland do not want to offend us with crass anti-Americanism. I say, bring it on. A joke tells you a lot about true feelings and if there are no jokes that means there is no affection either. Sigh.

Tanya has joined me in the empty theatre and is going to have a little pre-show lie-down. She is feeling a little under the weather this evening and she is not the only one. Jeff and Joe both have colds and Dan seems to be having a bit of a resurgence of the cold that he thought he was beating a couple of days ago. We all deal with our conditions and just keep on going. There's no people like show people, as Mama Rose would say.

And in case anyone was wondering, I did not yet have sticky toffee pudding but I did have some most excellent shortbread cookies from the grocery store and they were organic. It's all about the butter, my friends. Dee-lish!

peace and single malt love,
moe.

2006-05-24T11:32:00.000-04:00

Glasgow, Scotland

May 24, 2006

After a two week jaunt on the Continent, having Continental breakfasts and driving around in our rented Lincoln Continental (just kidding), Claire and I regrouped in the Chatelet station of the metro in Paris and made our way to Aeroport Charles De Gaulle. The metro, technically it was really the RER or commuter railroad, was fine despite the many irritating stairs that we were forced to lug our luggage through in the Chatelet station. But once we got to the airport, our journey began in earnest. I don't know what it is about that particular airport but I feel it has been purposely designed to confound all logic and common sense. It is huge of course and the signs are confusing and this clogs the common areas with loads of befuddled travelers trying to figure out where they should go. And let's just say that the post September 11 world of additional security measures, plus the advent of take away coffee in France has not made things any better. I was soundly lectured at the metal detector by the security fellow who said I should not bring cafe creme through security in the future because I could be hiding something in the murkiness that is French coffee. O, la la.

We arrived finally in Scotland and came to the hotel and settled ourselves. Claire and I then took a walk around the main shopping district or "high street" as they say in these parts. Claire took me on a special tour of the Quality Hotel, which is where TBA stayed the last time they were in Glasgow. It is an enormous, byzantine establishment that is wrapped around the outside layer of the train station and is in the process of being renovated. It is also quite haunted, according to some of The Builders that stayed there last time. Yes, ghosts were encountered by company members. Claire and I climbed to the tippy top floor which is sort of derelict and though it was broad daylight, it certainly was a good setting for a haunted scene, if ever there was one.

I met up with the tech fellows yesterday morning at breakfast, where they could be found fortifying themselves for the first day in the theatre by eating eggs and doing sudoku. They wandered off to the Tramway, the venue where we are performing, and I stayed behind reading the paper and shortly Marianne and Tanya appeared, jet-lagged yet radiant, fresh off the plane from New York. We had a little breakfast together and then I dispensed them off to naps and I headed to the high street to poke around.

It took barely 24 hours, but I heard my first bagpipe version of Scotland the Brave on Buchanan Street and it was a lady piper. They are all about the piping here in Glasgow and there is a school of piping and a museum of piping. I look forward to more encounters with the piping as the week unfolds.

Had a lovely dinner last night with our old friend Kate Stannard, who you might recall from one of the earliest posts of this blog, way back in August. She lives here and is fully Scottish and is just a pip. She's working hard at lots of projects, including a new piece called Slope, which will also be at the Tramway in July and is designed and directed by our very own other Scot, Mister Stewart Lang. It was lovely to see Kate, who is flourishing and she took us to a great vegetarian restaurant called Grassroots Cafe, which she accurately described as "dead nice".

Today we load in and continue the life cycle of the show once again. Please tell all your friends in Glasgow to come see the show. Even folks from Edinburgh might want to make the trip west. C'mon, it's not that far. We'll take ya out for a wee dram after the show.

More later,
Moe.

another closing

2006-05-20T13:34:00.000-04:00

May 6, 2006
It's our last night in the 'Pool, as James says and we will be sad to say goodbye. Everyone has been really lovely and have showed us a good Scouser time. I forgot to mention the swell reception after the first show on Thursday. The theatre has a fabulous bar down in the basement. It's all been recently refurbrished in a comfy, armchair style and we got a nice buffet and drinks do after the show. Which was lovely because of course we are always hungry after the performance and usually end up with doner kebab in the great cities of the world. A kebab is the late-night unifying factor of western life, as far as I can tell. Slightly different in each place but essentially the same: grilled meat on bread, stick optional. But on Thursday, there were to be no middle of the night cases of indigestion for us, as we were treated to a nice array of little things to eat with your hands and drinks and conversation with the audience and folks from the cultural council.

I should mention here the amazing producer of the show, and the head honcho (honcha?) of Liverpool '08, which is the entity that is busy highlighting all the cultural phenomenon here so that when the rest of the world shows up to see it in 2008, they will know where to look. The person that runs the show is the indomitable Robyn Archer, imported very wisely by the Liverpool people from her former gig running the arts council of Tasmania, among other things. Robyn, for those of you who have not had the pleasure, is a force of nature and one of the most jovial I have encountered. She truly loves the arts, is a great champion of expression of such and also happens to be a mean cabaret singer. Liverpool was one of the venues that commissioned this show and without its support, and that of Robyn, the Builders would not have been building. I think I speak for the entire company when I say we have been delighted to be here and show this cool city the piece it helped to create.

See you in the highlands next.

moe.

dipping into the pool

2006-05-20T13:24:00.000-04:00

May 5, 2006
The show has opened and it goes nicely in the theatre. The good folk of Liverpool are an attentive audience, quiet and then very appreciative at the end. I forgot to mention that we welcome our man David Pence back to the show, after his short leave of absence during the Southern Pacific leg of the tour. He is a "family man", as the traveler character in the show says and has "sufficient binding ties" to keep him from joining us on all legs of the tour. I think I explained all this before in Perth but Perth was such a culture shock in so many ways that the fact of Harry stepping in for David may not have been entirely clear.

Plus, I am bad at posting the blogs on these days. But I'm trying to get better.

In addition to doing the show here, Marianne and a bunch of the Builders like Kyle and James and Dan came a week early to do a workshop involving local artists and introducing them to the world of our work. This TBA team of artistic first responders have been on the scene here, figuring out what's what and that has made it a lot more interesting for us. We got here, and there was already a built-in bunch of folks to talk to and tell us where to go out and get the good fish and chips. They've been coming around to rehearsals for the last couple of days and that has been nice. I did not yet have fish and chips but it is reported to be really good. I have not had scouse either, which is the local food specialty, a beef stew sort of deal that has a wide reputation. It is such a memorable stew in fact that locals, people that hail from Liverpool are referred to as "Scousers" and they have Scouse accents. I love that the nickname for somebody who lives here is a food! Imagine what the world would be like if everyone could be identified by the food specialty for their region. I guess for people from Hamburg and Frankfurt, this holds (though I have had neither a hamburger or a frankfurter in either place) but what if New Yorkers were called "Slicers" for our devotion to pizza by the slice? Boston is Beantown, but I think that is somewhat archaic, as I have never even encountered Boston baked beans there. Besides, "Beaners" is not so appealing somehow. Not that Scouser is so lyrical. It sort of sounds like a method for cleaning the inside of an oil tanker or something.

Please send in your suggestions for what locals should be called according to the food specialty of that place. I think it is an excellent way to name where we all come from.

Besides the scouse, the Liverpoolers like the sauce too. It is a drinker's paradise here and bingeing seems highly encouraged and a source of local pride. The boozing combined with the local love of football, make lively weeknd nights in town. Our hotel is located right near the theatre in the city center which by night, is populated by roving groups of drunk people, cheerfully singing at the tops of their lungs. Kyle encountered two groups of young men the other night, both wailing songs about girls with their trousers down at the tops of their lungs, walking towards each other in a military tattoo style. She said they sounded like "Welsh miners" as their basso profundo man-voices bounced off the shuttered shopfronts of the retail district. She emerged from this encounter in awe of the powerful combination of ale and a lower register.

More later,
Moe.

'Poolvision

2006-05-20T13:04:00.000-04:00

May3, 2006 Liverpool, England

Reporting live from the cultural capital of Europe for the year 2008, I'd like to welcome you all to Liverpool. A few facts about our position. Liverpool is very old. Or very Olde, as some shops, or shoppes indicate on their signage. For instance, on the way back to our hotel tonight, Kim, Dan, David, Tanya and myself stopped into a pub that dates from 1726. OK, so understand this everybody, that bar was there getting people hammered before America was even invented! George Washington was just a gleam of a gleam in his grandparents' eyes and right down the street from where I now sit, folks were letting the merrie olde tymes roll. So, things here are old. There is even Roman stuff nearby.

Yes, the Beatles are one of this city's most famous exports, more popular than Jesus Christ to quote the Beatles themselves. That one got them in trouble. But that was back when rock and roll as a concept was considered the words of the devil. Now, Rock and roll has its own legitimate and quite profitable devil market. Oh, how times have changed. It is all Beatles, all the time here. You can indulge in many a Beatles tour (yes, one is called the Magical Mystery Tour), lots of Beatles merch to buy everywhere and plenty of talk about when Paul will come back next. Upon our arrival our cab driver Mick took us on the quickie tour and Tanya and Rizwan and I got to see John Lennon's house, Strawberry Field and Penny Lane. I will try and put a picture of us that we took in inevitable tourist fashion.

And there is also the Royal Court Theatre which is where we are hanging our hats for this week. It is an enormous hall in the center of town and it is apparently haunted by a guy called Lez who was once a stagehand and can be spotted on the fourth floor most reliably. I have been too busy to go find him as yet but be sure I will make the trip and report on any activities of the supernatural sort.

The Royal Court has been in various stages of disuse lately and Robyn Archer, our producer, has put her marvelous staff to the task of reviving the old lady. She is a beaut, with two balconies and a lovely proscenium arch and the tech people and staff we are working with are doing an absolutely heroic job of making the theatre a proud venue once again. It is very exciting, actually. I am charmed by the auditorium, ghosts and other more terrestrial tenants included. It is really a gem and Robyn and her goodly folks are doing a great piece of work to get the place functional and up speed once again. It is a great service to Liverpool.

The company is all present now and we spent the day doing a tech rehearsal in the space and dealing with the usual idiosyncrasies of putting the show into a new space. I would also like to extend a warm TBA welcome to the newest member of Team SV, Miranda, our new lighting lady. We finally wore dear Alan down to a nub and don't fret about his hospitalization (just kidding). Truly, Alan is off to have a normal life and we are all envious of his bold decision to join civilization by not enduring jet lag and late night dinners scavenged from mini-bars in the hotel rooms of the world. Good on ya, Alan. And welcome Miranda.

Please send all your friends in Liverpool, Manchester, Merseyside or anywhere abouts the northwest of England to see the show. And please remind them to wait and say hi afterwards if they have the stamina for a bunch of freaks from New York with very good intentions.

Yours Bloggedly,
Moe.

Did I mention Wellington…

2006-05-20T12:56:00.000-04:00

Feb 28, 2006

We converged yesterday in Wellington New Zealand, after various individual and group adventures here in the Southern Hemisphere. More on these stories as the week unfolds, but in short there were a couple of expeditions to the Margaret River for the full-on vacation experience, trips to Sydney for big city life and the visitation of relatives, hiking in the Kiwi wilderness (here it is referred to as "tramping" and they are really big on it) and other varieties of adventure by our adventuresome crew.

We are performing at a place called the "Event Centre", which is right smack on the waterfront and is enormous. We qualify as an event, though it seems that the usual tenants are the local basketball team. It is a huge building that is mostly constructed of corrugated tin (as is a lot of stuff in this part of the world) and there are authentic locker rooms for the sports teams that we are using as our dressing rooms. Though there are people who would pay good money to have their way with a tiled room full of shower stalls, we are sticking to the smaller rooms next to them for our changing areas. Still it is fun to be in a sporty kind of place and OK, I admit it, it's a little sexy too. I imagine myself to be the 5'4" star center of a basketball team of little people athletes, and that and a diet coke and I am good to go for an afternoon of tech.

Wellington is a very very windy place as it is located at the Cook Straights and is sort of in a giant wind tunnel. The wind makes the local news all the time we are told, with stories about old people, children and the otherwise skinny being blown into something and injured. Things must be cancelled on account of these gusts and we are lucky to be performing indoors. But there are also several wind sculptures in town which move with the breezes and they are delightful. It teaches you to be humble about your hairdo and we are all gaining respect for the solid awnings that the buildings have downtown. Because it also rains you see and umbrellas are just another cruel joke from the British.

Excellent coffee abounds and though I have been caffeine-free for many years, I am succumbing to the siren song of speedy addiction. I know it is not so good for me, but I LOVE coffee and am enjoying the fun of this readily available and delicious drug. I too give in to the pressures of the road. All those songs about being alone and in another hotel room a thousand miles from you are true and sometimes I need a friend and I have chosen coffee. I will get the monkey off my back when I return home no doubt but for the time being I am really enjoying the wild ride of caffeine. It makes me talk to strangers even more than I usually do and yes, I whistle a happy caffeinated tune in my drug-induced cheer, but now I see the reason why the whole world is addicted to this stuff. It is so darn fun! And in New Zealand it is so darn good. These Kiwis do not know how to make a bad cup of joe.

That's all from the moral failings department for now. Though chemically dependent, know Dear Reader that I am happily so and though I may very well need a program of recovery to regain my former dull life, I am fully enjoying the fun ride of caffeine in its many forms.

More tomorrow, fellow travelers.

Zippity do da,
Moe.

Wild, drunken dancing

2006-05-20T12:51:00.000-04:00

Well it had to happen sooner or later, the craziness in us was unleashed last night at the festival tent. For those of you not familiar with the practice of the festival tent, in places where there are big perfprmance festivals, there is often a big tent that is where the after-show partying takes place. The tent organized here at the Wellington Festival is a copy of an ancient one from somewhere in Germany and is called the Spiegel, I believe. It is a tent like you have never seen, with a raised wooden floor composed of lovely inlaid hardwoods and a bar and stained glass parts on the roof. Frankly, I was pressed to figure out what exactly did qualify it for tent status, as it appeared to be a solid octagonal building to me. Maybe that is what tent means in German? Let's just say it's not the kind of thing you would take with you backpacking, unless you were going with about two hundred gay men from the 1970Â's. In a word, it is fabulous.

So last night after the first show, we all ended up at the Spiegel tent, partying the breezy Wellington night away. There was a certain amount of wine and spirits involved, making all who imbibed just a little closer to the god of fabulousness and lots of crazy dancing happened. We managed to be the last to go home and by that time in the evening, we had taken over control of the music in a bloodless coup of the DJ booth and we were all dancing to music off of Rizwan's i-Pod. It was a night to remember, and ironically a night that I imagine is forgotten for some. But high spirits were in abundance, no matter where they came from. We had a good time! There is perhaps photographic evidence to back this up so I will try and find some backup.

Oh yeah, and the show went very, very well. We had a full house in the giant Event Centre and it was an event! I could get used to stadium seating and I see why the movie theatres are all going in that direction.

One more thing about food

2006-05-20T12:44:00.000-04:00

Sorry to go on about food but this one ties into history. Well, sort of.
I have noticed on my travels about the city of Perth that there are two phrases that I see repeated over and over again and both of them speak to a certain cultural sadness here in Australia. They are the often-seen words Âconvict laborÂ and the sadder still Âfood courtÂ.

Most Australians get pissed off when outsiders remind them of their former colonyÂs penal outpost status. But I have to say, there are a lot of places that have little plaques on them that tell all about the convict labor that was used to build them. I say to you Australians, be not ashamed of this past. The buildings the convicts built seem to be a lot nicer than the newer stuff that the multinational construction conglomerates have put up so I say take pride. And the construction people might want to think about returning to the convict pool for a source of labor. They seem to have done a mighty fine job, way back when.

And I donÂt know what it is about food courts, but this country is crazy for them. Not that the US is not and I would be willing to bet that we exported this scourge over here. But it would seem that every little shopping arcade and big building in downtown Perth is blessed with a food court. It makes it easy to locate the Subway sandwiches, I must admit.

It is our last show tonight and then we scatter for parts apart. We have one week of break before we reconvene in Wellington, New Zealand. A whole new town and a whole new country and whole new money but it still has the same Queen on it. She gets around, Liz.

Our time here in Perth has been swell and we are sad to leave the warm beaches and beauty of the temperate Indian Ocean. Everyone at the Festival has been great to us and they really run a fine operation here.

I leave for Sydney to see friends, along with Tanya who has a busy schedule of family weddings and events and even a debutante ball to attend! Others are going straight on to Wellington or elsewhere in NZ. A large group is heading south here in Western Australia to the Margaret River, which is supposedly gorgeous and there are lots of good things to eat there.

I must admit I still want to see a koala bear and I am a purist so I want to see it in the wild and not at a zoo. Are there koalas in Sydney? Are they urban-type marsupials, like our own North American possums, who can be found ransacking the trash cans of major cities? It is a stupid thing to want, a tourist thing I know, but what can I say? Though I snobbily would prefer to think of myself as a traveler, indeed I am also at times just another American tourist, looking for the food court to eat her Subway combo.

Ozzie, Ozzie, Ozzie! Oi! Oi! Oi!

2006-05-20T12:39:00.000-04:00

So, we keep asking what is the native food around here, what is the thing that we absolutely have to eat before we leave Australia. I have to admit, I have not got a very satisfactory answer. Yes, you can eat kangaroo, though to the indigenous folks, it is a totem animal so you might not want to eat it unless you would care to be menaced by kangaroos in your dreams. There is abundant and incredible seafood. These giant prawns and langostinos that are a big item in the US, we are told. Tanya has decided that the really Australian food is pies and has taken a liking to this chain operation called Jesters Serious About Pies, which produce good pies with unfortunately cute names that I will not go into. I’m sure they have a pie web site if you are really interested.

For some reason, I have been having a Subway sandwich kick and let me take a few moments of your busy day avoiding your boss to tell you about Subway, Down Under Version. First of all, the usual Subway Combo (sandwich, fountain soda and chips or cookie) only comes with the cookie in Australia! This is Subway sinning, as far as I am concerned because the cookies are the least palatable of all of Subway’s offerings, are loaded with transfat and will knock you right off your lose-1000-pounds-by-eating-Subway diet. And no salty crunchy goodness of chips is wrong, just plain wrong. Otherwise, it is pretty much a Subway experience.
But let me say something about Super Vision, since that might be why you are here. The show last night was Super Weird because guess what happened? The computers in the video department were just not having it for whatever reason (stayed out too late at The Verandah, the festival club) and they just plain quit in the middle of the show! It was very exciting in an utterly nerve-frying kind of way. There we were, all onstage in our Sunday best and everything ground to a halt. Joe bravely assumed control of a microphone and explained to the audience that no adjustment to their set was needed and that they should just chat with their neighbor for a moment. Team Video of Hal and Jeff booted up something or other and switched over to it and we were back on track as fast as was humanly possible and we were off again.

But it was very curious to have the whole thing stop. It did allow me to get through the crossword puzzle I was working on, as my “character”. But it’s strange to think about the show suddenly ceasing to be a show. We forced everyone into our reality and then we kicked them out again (or the computers did) and then we invited them back in again. Lucky for us, they came along without complaint and seemed to enjoy themselves.

Many of us went out for dinner together at an Indian joint over in the little neighborhood called Northbridge, which apparently was really bad once and then got cool and groovy but is now on its way back down. Being an outsider, it all looked just ducky to me. A nice commercial strip with a zippy blend of foreign food restaurants, gay clubs, strip joints and Olde English style pubs. And lots of drunk people! But hey, it was Saturday night.

digeridoos and kangaroos

2006-05-20T12:29:00.000-04:00

(cool picture of guy playing the digeridoo goes here)

A bit of history
This morning we were treated to a performance by the Yirra Yaakin Noongar Theatre company. To explain a bit, the Noongar are one of the many aboriginal nations that live in this part of Australia and are recognized as the custodians of the land. Yirra Yaakin means “stand tall” in the Noongar language and the Builders, along with members from La Compagnie de Hanneton from France and Teatr Piesri Kozla from Poland were given a special performance of traditional dance and stories and digeridoo in a park. The performers were all men and young boys and their portrayals of different animals were incredible. As was explained to us, “you need to know how an animal acts so you can know how to catch him”. Emus, kangaroos, birds all came to life in human form. It was truly a treat to get to meet these artists and see a bit of their work. Thanks to all the people at Yirra Yaakin who made it possible for us to have such a warm welcome.

After the show, we wandered off to find some kangaroos, which live on the little island where we were, protected by a big fence that they can’t jump over. And we found some! Australians are understandably not impressed by seeing kangaroos, as they are everywhere, but for us it was as exciting as getting a free sample of something that you really like and want. What strange looking creatures, with their big deer/mule heads and the tiny front feet that hang down their bellies and their big old jumpers on the bottom. And yes, they do jump like crazy when you get too close. These were more tame and used to people than most and we watched as a random bicycle guy stopped and went up to a little joey and petted him. Adorable! But probably not advisable treatment of the kangaroos. They are not all Winny the Pooh, Kanga and Roo, but are in fact wild animals the can rear up on their big tails and kick your lights out.

Show tonight was good, even with some technical strangeness that happened. We have been experiencg all sorts of equipment malfunctions, a lot of it due to the trip getting here which is not so kind to sensitive electronic equipment. So for any of you out there fixing to come to Australia from North America with a lot of high-end electronics, be forewarned that you must not put anything in the hold of the airplane that you want to function again once it comes out. Carry-on, is the simple answer.

under construction

2006-02-22T21:30:00.000-05:00

Dear Readers of the Blogvision-

Due to circustances of internet access difficulties, this here blog is a little behind in the times. As head engineer, I apologize and plan to rectify the situation as soon as I (and the rest of the company) get to Wellington where I hope to have a clear line to the internet from which to post my reports.

I am right now sitting in the library housed in the former Customs House at the Circular Quay in Sydney, which is a lot nicer than the backpacker-infested internet cafes I have been prowling to do the most rudimentary of e-mail tasks. That's right, those of you paying attention, the show has moved from Montclair, New Jersey to Australia. You can basically draw a direct line between these two stops on the information-age performance circuit. Anyway, we did some lovely gigs in Perth and move on next week to Wellington, New Zealand where there is a lot more dairy in store for us as well as whole new breeds of adorable animals.

I promise to report fully from there. With pictures!

Pardon our appearance and thanks for your patience while we strive to make your blogging experience a little better.

Signed,
The Management.

sock lag

2006-02-12T10:22:00.000-05:00

Woke up semi-bright and early at around 8:30 AM local time, which is somewhere around 7:30PM yesterday back in New York. Staggered down to find Claire, our irrepressible tour manager and off we went for a walk in King'’s Park, an absolutely huge land mass in the middle of town here. Being respectfully scared of the Australian sun and having spent the entire summer indoors rehearsing this show, I slathered up with sunscreen, put on my new mall flip flops and my new t-shirt and my decrepit jeans from the plane and off we went. The first part of the park is your botanical gardens situation, manicured and tortured into submission, but featuring the many varieties of plant life that are special to the very special ecosystem of Australia. These plants look like nothing I have ever seen except in the world of Dr. Seuss. To my eye, strange segmented greenery and incredible succulents of various types that have adapted over the millennium to this special climate. I guess I have just outed myself there, and the blog-reading public can now confirm what was long suspected: I am not a creationist, but am an old school believer in evolution. What can I say? It was drummed into me by my biology teacher Ann Terry in jr. high and I have not had the available cash to check myself in someplace to get the deprogramming done. Please do not hold this against me.

But before going to the park, I had an interesting discussion with Joe and Neal regarding the disappearance of socks when one crosses the international date line. Both these fine fellows have been here for a few days longer than the performers, setting up the show and getting all the technical aspects squared away and somehow, they both reported that they needed to do laundry again, though they had only been here a few days. We devised a theory that not only time is lost when crossing the date line, but so are socks and clean underwear. So there is also sock lag, in addition to jet lag.

As it is a day off today, everyone went their merry ways. A day of snorkeling and exploration awaited the ambitious among us who took off for Rottnest Island and its special ecosystem and reefs. Claire and I observed nature in its unnatural setting of the botanical park and then we hung a right and in about two minutes time found ourselves in the middle of the bush! Let me explain for those of you who do now know this expression. To say we were in the middle of the bush does not mean that there is one specific bush that we stumbled into in some tragic shrubbery mishap. No, "“the bush" is what the Australians call the woods or the forest or anyplace where there are not a lot of people and there is a bunch of nature. So, Claire and I were deep in the Australian forest, but it is entirely an urban forest, one way more forest-like than anything either Central Park or Prospect Park or the Bronx Botanic gardens has to offer. Amazing!

We walked for hours and finally made it back to the hotel where I searched hopefully for my suitcase which had not yet arrived. A few hours later, it had and I and the rest of the New York contingent enjoyed tearful reunions with our toiletry items. I spent the rest of the evening staring dumbly out the 14th floor window of my room, watching Perth get all twinkly before turning in to sleep after I had deemed that I had stayed up late enough to try and regulate my sleep cycle.

I will try to add a picture of some of the animals on Rottnest, as soon as I get one off Claire. There is a really cute one of Dan with a really cute Australian animal!

arrival down under

2006-02-10T22:13:00.000-05:00

We did it. We survived 30 hours on a plane. On several planes actually to get our butts from New York to Perth. Nearly missed our connection in LA, and in fact, our suitcases did not make the flight, but other than that, the switch from American Airlines to Qantas was like a breath of fresh air. Even in coach with the goats and chickens and screeching children and everyone's SARS viruses spewing forth, it was a pleasure. Not to dis American, but the Qantas folks know how to run an airline, in the old school sense of the word. The staff is neither surly nor overly ironic and hip, but are in fact pleasant despite the terrible truth of their jobs, which is babying a 747 carrying a human cargo of regressive-slash-entitled brats. The food was actually quite nice, especially compared to what this already overly-maligned aspect of the airline experience has become in North America. And they had nice uniforms and were well-groomed and cheerful in demeanor. The way it used to be, back when getting on a plane was a special experience that involved dressing up and behaving oneself. Thank you Qantas. Marianne even coined a modifier for the experience: Qantastic!

So then it was Saturday morning and we arrived baggage-free but all in one piece. Felt a little jiggled up, like we had been in a centrifuge, nerves all gone raw but not raw enough to be truly worried. And dried out, no matter how much water is consumed on the long flight. It reminds one of a hangover.

The Qantas people, thanks to the expert care of our lovely handler Ann, doled out a hundred bucks each to us so that we might go buy some undies and whatnot to tide us over until the bags got to us. Good thing because we had a function to go to first thing so we all ventured out into the painfully bright midsummer afternoon sunshine and grazed the offerings at the mall, located a short distance from our hotel.

Then we were off to have wine and adorable little finger food at the home of the US consular to Perth. Incredible view of the Swan River from up high on the hillside above the majestic Swann River and we were treated to a lovely evening of conversation and were able to meet a few people and begin to understand that we were not in transit any longer. The folks here are lovely and everyone we have encountered so far has been unflinchingly kind and warm. The whole experience of looking out over the harbor in the warm evening, freshly showered and packaged in our new clean clothes, made more than one of us consider the option of joining the foreign service. Many thanks to Mrs. Robin McClellan for welcoming us so warmly into her home.

My personality seems in need of serious revision at this point in the sleep-deprivation game so I will close now. I am hoping that a little sleep and a meal eaten with grownup size silverware will begin the process of restoring me to my regular state of disrepair, as opposed to my current acute situation induced by 30 hours in the air.

opening night

2005-11-30T11:20:00.000-05:00

It is almost time for me to get my butt on the #4 or 5 train to Nevins Street to get to the theatre but I will check in briefly to say that our opening was really lovely last night. We had a warm, friendly house who went along with us in the journey of the show and I would like to think that they really got something out of it. There was lots of animated chatter going on in the lobby after the show and many friends of the Builders and other assorted fellow travelers of the avant garde could be found representing for our show. It was really wonderful.

And afterwards, there was a party! BAM rented busses and shuttled everyone, audience included, over to the Brooklyn Brewery in Williamsburgh for a food-and-brews blowout. There was tasty middle eastern fare for the nibbling and a few varieties of beer on tap in this very large room that also contained two giant brewing vat things where beer was silently birthing itself as we partied below. There was also a fat, relaxed kitty who wandered around the place, completely at ease and showing none of the signs of social anxiety that the party was bringing out in me, for instance. Ah kitty, you have it so good.

We hung out with our friends, loved ones and random audience people and chit-chatted the night away. Then it suddenly got to be "late" and I was feeling the pull of bed, despite the stalwarts who continued to party on. We got back on the bus, which deposited us at the L train subway stop. And yes, there was a DRIVING rainstorm that I managed to avoid until the subway moment. We were let off at the train but uh-oh, it was one of those entrances with the red light which means that it's closed and you have to walk a block down to the one that's open. Shoot. So me and Jeff plodded along to the station and got a little wet In the process. By the time we got to Manhattan however the rain situation had reached Category 4 proportions and we both got soaked to the skin going home, though we each live about a block and a half from the train. Lucky for us, it was not that cold.

I went to bed damp and content, and let the three pieces of baklava I consumed at the party give me sweet sweet dreams.

Off to work,
moe.

back to the cradle

2005-11-29T01:19:00.000-05:00

Yo yo yo Brooklyn! We are back in Brooklyn, back to the place where this show was born, once called the borough of churches, now known as the hip place to live and work. Brooklyn is the new Manhattan, only better in my opinion because its neighborhoods have not been blandified by the homogeneous creeping crud of lots of people with too much money to spend. I will stop with the Communist rant for this entry anyway.

We are all very excited to be playing SUPER VISION at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, one of the co-producers of the piece. We are performing in the beautiful Harvey Theatre, which is not in the big BAM house but a couple of blocks over on Fulton Street. The Harvey was originally called the Majestic and served downtown Brooklyn as a vaudeville house and then a movie theatre I believe for many decades but fell into disrepair In the 70's, along with the rest of New York City and was shuttered for several years before BAM bought it and renovated it in a "shabby chic" style, leaving all the old plasterwork and not attempting to renovate in the way we think of nowadays. The seats are new and nice, and the electrics and plumbing and other systems were upgraded but the old majestic quality of the theatre is intact. It feels as if the many spirits of shows gone before are lurking in the house, inhabiting their old stamping grounds and watching over us. It is really a spectacular venue.

Today was spent with actors rehearsing and watching a videotape of our last performance in Seattle and going over notes with Marianne. We could not get onto the stage today until late, as the load in was still happening, but BAM has a crackerjack crew of stagehands from the union local and under the good shepherding of Neal, Joe and Jamie,they got it up and running in record time. Because we open tomorrow, people! A fact I did not fully recognize until I was at rehearsal today. Lucky I did not schedule my liposuction for Tuesday evening like I'd originally thought! I decided to postpone it until after the holidays when there will be more to suck out, but that's another story.

So we had a long day today, as we needed to get in a run-through before tomorrow in case any major problems occurred. There were plenty of snacks backstage to get us through and since we are in downtown Brooklyn, the eating options are pretty good. Rizwan favors the Golden Crust Jamaican patty place around the corner on Flatbush. I walked by on my way to Subway (my indulgent junk food of choice) with Kyle who bravely had her first Subway with me. We checked out the Golden Crust but opted for Subway in the end. Tomorrow perhaps, the Crust.

It is late and I must get myself back to Brooklyn tomorrow on the early side so I must sign off for today's report from the front of performance-making. If you are in or near to Brooklyn, please come visit us and we will take you out for a nice piece of cheesecake at Junior's afterwards. It's just a couple of blocks down the avenue. They make a nice egg cream too.

peace, love and cholesterol,
moe.

show show show

2005-11-12T00:55:00.000-05:00

It's after the last show in Seattle and things could not be nicer out here. This is in fact the verdict on Seattle: a really really nice town. It's on the water, always good for the body and soul even if it is way too cold to swim in most of the time, it's nestled between a couple of ranges of purple mountains majesty, not to mention Tahoma the big old mountain, also known by its slave name, Ranier. There is great food and good culture and really really nice people everywhere. And green green ever so green. There is a rich, potting-soil smell to much of the town and moss grows freely in the places that people don't step too much. And I believe the moist weather to be good for the complexion. There are many reasons to like Seattle.

The shows have gone well and we have been sold out, which is always a nice vote of confidence from the viewing public. We continue to make small changes and adjustments to the performance each night to fulfill Marianne's quest for perfection. Between Dick's burgers, fries and shakes and the oh-so excellent coffee drinks of Caffe Ladro up the street from the theatre, we go fueled in body into the process of tweaking every day before the show.

Did I explain that part to you? Forgive me if my decaf-addled brain has misplaced the fact that I already went over this part of the process but I will recap. When we are out on tour with the show, we must adjust it accordingly to each space we inhabit. They are all different and things like sight lines and acoustics have a lot of variation from venue to venue. So, there is the process of tailoring the show to each space, sound, lights and visual-wise. Then once we are actually doing the show, Marianne and James will watch the thing and get new ideas about how it can be better. Then the day after the show, we have notes on the betterment process and then we try and apply the notes to the show in rehearsals before the show that night. The show is a growing organism, and like a bourbon-eating fruitcake, must be "fed" with new ideas and energy until it reaches maturity. We are getting there and have thankfully left the ugly teenager phase way behind us. It's looking good, friends.

But hey, come see for yourself at one of our upcoming venues. See the SUPER VISION web site for touring details: www.superv.org and come visit us when we hit your town.

OK, gotta go to sleep now. It's been a long week of art.

zzzzz,
moe.

rain city arrival

2005-11-08T20:40:00.000-05:00

Hello from Seattle, stop number three on SUPER VISION World Tour. It is not raining. We arrived yesterday from Columbus via Delta, which I think is filing for bankruptcy? I still live under the impression established in my youth that bankruptcy is a bad thing and a shameful corporate death but apparently it is now a cheerful corporate rebirth, complete with possible federal and state bailouts. Anyway, that has nothing to do with the show, but that is the beauty/horror of the blog form. Be thankful I am not making dumb comments about famous people or something. Not too dumb anyway.

This evening we were treated to a lovely gathering at the home of Sally and Charlie Weems, the people that brought us all Marianne Weems, our director. Sally and Charlie live on an incredible houseboat in Freemont, spitting distance from headquarters of Adobe and a great barbershop called Rudy's and a statue of Lenin that was bought somewhere "behind the Iron Curtain" and transplanted to the People's Republic of Freemont. Yes, there is a food co-op too. Meanwhile, Charlie and Sally have this beautiful house that FLOATS, even though the basement is made of concrete! I know this success story of solids over liquids has something to do with displacement but I also still live under the impression established in my youth that concrete doesn't float. Please, someone explain.

The house of Sally and Charlie is lovely and comes with all the things a regular boring old land house has: bedrooms, bathrooms with all the nice plumbing, pet cat hiding under bed until intruders leave, cheese plates and very good guacamole, and very nice spirits and soft drinks. We had a lovely time in the floating house and it was such a pleasure to spend a little time with the folks who are responsible for the cheerful diabolical genius that is Marianne. Yes, there were some embarrassing stories regarding Marianne's early forays into the performativity of the downstairs playroom, but I feel the need to invoke source-reporter priviledge at this point.

I wish I had a picture to show you the twinkly night lights of Lake Washington but I do not. I will ask around and post later if I dig one up. Use your imaginations in the meantime and think of all the Builders on a comfortable concrete flotilla with that calming water smell all around as we eat smoked salmon and cheese selections and chat with the Clan Weems.

Tomorrow we get things going in the theatre. Yesterday was our day off and many of the Builders chose to explore the hamburger options of our neighborhood, Queen Anne. Directly across the intersection from our hotel is Dick's, a fine hamburger establishment and Seattle tradition. Fries and shakes and burgers. That's basically all they do and they do it right. And down the road is a somewhat more fashion-forward place called Kidd Valley, which features a veggie burger and garlic fries and Mr. Pibb soda.

Your Correspondent,
moe.

mixing work and pleasure

2005-11-04T15:35:00.000-05:00

This is Joe Silovsky. He is in SUPER VISION, playing a series of helpful civil servants and he is also the technical director. In other words, a double threat. In this picture, you are catching him "mid-charade", as he is apparently trying to get you to say a little word. Joe and the rest of us were doing a little mailing project for the company one night after the show in the lounge area of our hotel in Columbus. And we decided to play a little charades to enhance the fun of stuffing envelopes and having a night cap. Notice Joe's really good outfit, which gets him a lot of attention from the ladies and the wee folk.

We've done two shows and it seems to be going well. Marianne and the crew continue to work things out and refine each little moment into perfection and we are getting good feedback from the folks that stick around to give us some. That's always nice.

Tomorrow is Saturday and that means college football and OSU really really means college football and we are curious and a little scared to see what happens to this town on game day. When the stadium is full, it can accommodate one tenth of Columbus' population. That's a lot of Buckeyes, folks.

O-H-I-O,
moe.

hello Columblog

2005-11-02T18:27:00.000-05:00

Greetings from the green room backstage at the Mershon Auditorium, part of the Wexner Center for the Arts at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio. We have been in town for about 3 days and have loaded in and rehearsed the show in a super-compressed fashion, because everything about Super Vision is SUPER! Thanks to Neal and Jamie and Joe for all rheir extra efforst and the fabulous pros here at the Wexner.

Rehearsed all day yesterday, and were in this afternoon checking stuff out. It's always a little different in each theatre we load into and this one is especially different from the last venue. Why? Because the Mershon is a large, beautiful house and we are not using the entire auditorium and are performing on the stage with the audience up there with us! This is done all the time by the folks here at the Wexner, when the desire is to create a more intimate space and get the audience closer to the action. And oh boy, are they close! I can almost reach out from my little outpost downstage right and touch someone. But I would not touch them in an inappropriate way.

We are staying a couple of miles south of the theatre in a very nice Hampton Inn which includes breakfast and a USA Today and a walk across a parking lot to the very fabulous North Market, which is a very cool food and produce market where there are loads of nice things to eat for sale. I was very excited to discover a stand selling caramel popcorn on the first day and they also sell cheese popcorn and for any of you that have had the pleasure of eating this combination together in Chicago for instance, you will know the happiness I bought myself for a buck. Sounds weird, I know but trust me and if you ever encounter this combo, do yourself a favor and try it. Moe may steer you wrong on things like love advice and fashion, but she will not make a mistake about food.

David Pence, one of my talented cohorts, is at this very minute enjoying a nice baguette and some brie he bought at the market and transported to the campus here. The theatre is on one of the perimeter streets of the university and that means all manner of food that attracts college students can be found within walking distance. The main qualifications for success of these establishments seems to be quantity and cheapness. In other words, lots of food for very little money. That usually means starch in various forms and if there is something tasty that can be put either under or on top of a bread product or a pile of rice or a potato, it can be found for sale across the street. David had the presence of mind to import a high quality bread and tasty dairy item of his own in opposition to the wall of melted cheese across the street.

The very good news is that Jennifer Tipton, our lighting designer has finally been able to catch up with us here in Columbus. Circumstance made it impossible for her to join the production fully up until this point and we are delighted to have her back with the show. A special shout out to Alan Hahn, who courageously took the helm in her absence and made it so I was very very pretty in all my scenes. And that is what I think really matters when it comes to lighting. Welcome Jennifer.

The fall leaves are swirling nostalgically along the paths of the campus here at Ohio State. There is Buckeye paraphenalia all over the place and it is obvious that this school is very, very serious about football. We have a show on Saturday and I believe it is a game day here in Columbus and I am looking forward to experiencing the full-on tailgating phenomenon, which I will try to report on if I remember what happened. In my forties, I am seeking that leaf-strewn quad, college experience I never had and hope that nobody slips me a ruffie, which is an innovation since I was in college and we relied on keggers and other charms to have a social life.

Camera check in 10 minutes, then show in another hour. We go for Indian dinner afterwards at Indian Oven, the best south Asian food around. They are staying open late for us and we are very grateful, since we have been eating the above-described food for the last couple of days. Bindi masala, here I come.

namaste,
moe.

Cabela's

2005-10-16T23:00:00.000-04:00

OK, listen up and listen good 'cause I'm not gonna say this twice.

Cabela's, the hunting and fishing superstore, located outside Minneapolis (and other places around the US of A) is incredible! Please note, that I am not at all a hunting and fishing person and am in fact a militant vegetarian who likes to impose my strident views on the cruelty of factory farming at any perfectly nice dinner party. But Cabela's almost converted me into a cold-blooded, well-outfitted killer of animals. Or into a Civil War re-enacter. Or into a homemade jerky producer and connoisseur. Or into someone that likes to sneak around the woods, undetected by even the trees, who would consider me one of their own.

There were two excursions to Cabela's, one yesterday that I went on and one today that I opted out of as I feared I was going to get sucked into the hunting and fishing lifestyle. Oh sure, they make it seem as American as any other cult and equally harmless, but my first visit (and if god is willing, my only visit) hooked into the needy, weak side of my personality that makes me want to join stuff and wear matching outfits. I'm not proud of this character defect, but at least I know what I have to contend with in myself.

This Cabela's is HUGE and it just opened a few days ago. Not the "Grand Opening" as a helpful sales clerk informed me, for that is later at the end of the month and there will be sales involved, but the plain old opening where they hire some rent-a-cops to manage the incredible traffic stampede, open the doors and sell merch. But stores are not what they used to be and Cabela's is more like a retail experience set in a taxidermy theme park, with a very impressive live-specimen walk-in aquarium thrown in. You have to see it to believe it people.

I was so enchanted with the stuff, all the stuff. The guns alone made me want to buy one. I consider myself a pacifist and not at all in what Cabela's would probably view as their target audience (pun intended) but picking up a long-ass, heavy, serious business 30-06 rifle with a site that would turn my blind cat into an assassin gave me the terrifying surge of power that such a weapon is designed for. Yes, I wanted to buy it for a second. Because I realized I could kill something if I had to or wanted to or accidentally left a round in the chamber and decided to show off one night after a few brewskis. I learned a lesson about what makes people want to hunt and probably put us at the top of the food chain. I knew I had to get out of there, or I was gonna end up taking a piece of baggage back to New York that was going to require more hassle than taking my shoes off and pulling my laptop out of the bag.

But enough of my musings on my "epiphanies". The show was especially interesting tonight because we had an early curtain at 7:00 that ended up turning into a regular 8:00, thanks to morbid malfunctions of the sound computer right before we were scheduled to begin. Translation: Dan's computer was playing dead and if the computer goes, all bets are off. The audience patiently waited for Dan to do triage and get the thing operational again and after his heroic efforts and a lot of sweating, he resurrected the beast and the show went on. Hats off to both Dan and the Walker audience, who all patiently endured the unexpected pre-show intermission.

We are sad to turn our bikes in and leave Minneapolis but this is all in the ephemeral nature of the theatre. It is an experience, not something to hold onto like that pretty rifle in Cabela's. You can't take it with you, except as a memory and a memory that will easily pass through airport security. Farewell, Twin Cities.

Next stop, Columbus, Ohio, home to the OSU Buckeyes and the very first Wendy's. And the Wexner Center for the Arts and as yet untold adventures in retail consumption, making theatre and maybe some fall foliage thrown in.

So long for now,
moe.

Mall of america

2005-10-15T23:14:00.000-04:00

This is Stewart. He is our designer. He designed both the sets and costumes. That's how they do it over in Europe. Stewart is European, though from this photo, he blends in seamlessly with the scenery at Camp Snoopy. Stewart had to leave us today and we are all sad to see him go as his quiet-but-deadly wit kept us going jauntily along through the rehearsal and premiere process. Farewell Stewart, we'll see you back in Brooklyn in six weeks or so.

No trip to Minneapolis would be complete without a visit to the Mall of America and today before Stewart left on a jet plane, he, Marianne, James, Rizwan and Tanya made the trek to go to see the world's largest mall. It was apparently everything one could expect from the world's largest mall, and more. Stewart got to ride on a roller coaster for the first time in his life. He may be European, but he is apparently nonetheless, sheltered. I am so envious! I have taken many a roller coaster ride and I can't even recall the first one I went on. But Stewart now has the indelible life experience of not only going on his first roller coaster INDOORS, but also his first coaster ride was right next to the food court of the world's largest mall! The Cyclone at Coney island barely holds a candle to this experience.

But it wasn't all just Camp Snoopy for the day. There was also the ostensibly main attraction, shopping. Tee shirts were bought and Macy's-parade-balloon-sized cinnamon buns were ingested and various other retail experiences were had. One store sold only bean bag chairs. There were four Gaps: Baby Gap, Kids Gap, Men's Gap and regular Gap. I feel like the Gap needs its own Gap, the Gap Gap for people who have been raised from birth on the Gap system and qualify for a higher level of commitment to the Gap lifestyle. It is only a matter of time before we have Elder Gap for the aging boomers like myself to buy stylish-yet-comfy plushy track suits. But enough about the Gap.

Show has gone well and we are all pretty dang happy with it, I'd say. The final performance for the Walker is tomorrow night and then it's back home for all of us, until we meet up again in Columbus, OH at the Wexner Center.

Until then, I will report on company matters as well as my own usual flights of fancy. Stay tuned.

moe.

another opening

2005-10-13T23:44:00.000-04:00

Hello My Blog Pals-

Yes, the show which brings you to this blog, SUPER VISION, had its world premiere this very evening, here in Minneapolis, MN at the Walker Art Center!

I feel it is safe to say that all our diligent efforts carried the evening along and we had a spectacular show, by my standards. I will also provide the caveat that the bar was perhaps at a medium height, as I was hoping to get through the night with no major disasters and my tepid expectation was bettered beyond my dreams by the TBA crew tonight. It came off not only hitchless, but dare I say we shimmered up there on that beautiful stage at the Walker.

New York City representing, yo!

After tea show, we were taken to a most lovely and delicious meal at the very nice restaurant in the Walker, 20.21 which is a Wolfgang Puck situation and lemme say, the food was beautiful and delicious. I had the angel hair pasta (thank you angels for donating your hair) with several kinds of tasty mushrooms and there was an assortment of appetizers which were delightful. The meat eaters did very nicely with lobster entrees and Hal, who was sitting next to me, had duck which arrived at the table sleeping its peaceful sleep of the afterlife in a little pool of the prettiest sauce. Hal enjoyed very much his interaction with the little duck's ride through the food chain and he said it went down like a dream. Thank you duck, as well.

And dessert was incredible!

Many toasts were made by Marianne and Kim, our loyal producer and Philip, the main curatorial man in performing arts at the Walker. It was a jolly good start to this juggernaut and may the ship sail surely onwards on the sea of creativity for many months to come.

After parties took place at local clubs, one a dance place and one a little more, um how can I put it? A little more racy. I begged off that part of the evening as I am the designated wimp in the party hardy department. But there were some good stories that emerged from the latter hours of the night and if you come to one of the shows, do ask us afterwards about our antics in Minneapolis on opening night.

We are all happy and relieved that it went so beautifully and breath a sigh of thankfulness to Thespis and all the other gods and goddesses and muses who came to our aid and guided us through the darkness of the evening. As Rizwan would say: "YAY!!"

More later,
moe.

live from dress rehearsal

2005-10-12T20:21:00.000-04:00

Hello My Bloggy Friends-

I report to you live from the dress rehearsal of the world premiere of SuperVision, here at the Walker Center in Minneapolis, MN. We are way north up here and the light is beautiful, as I think I have mentioned previously. As I write to you, Tanya has just finished the opening and now we have transitioned beautifully into the first family scene starring David Pence and Kyle deCamp and the fantastic animations of dbox, the video genius of team video and a soundscape to make you weep with pleasure from Dan the Sound Man. All kinds of acting is going on and it is cool to watch it all up close and personal from my little station downstage right.

It rained a little today but we hardly noticed since we were hard at work in the dark womb of the theatre, making the magic happen. We piled in the minivan with Rizwan acting as the daddy and driving, and went to the local food co-op on the dinner break which is called The Wedge for some reason. Sounds to me like a progressive radio station but no, it is where one buys their health food and bulk items here in the Twin Cities. I have yet to venture over to the other twin yet but will make the trip to St. Paul before the week is out. On our bikes, we are free to go where the roads go and for those with mountain bikes, the off-road experience calls as well.

The folks at the Walker have been great with us and we have a terrific crew and a beautiful space. It is like this show has a perfect scale for this house. Very nice dressing rooms and green room, complete with working fridge, microwave and sink. It is comfortable here and we are loving the good treatment. Can't wait for the people to show up! Many thanks to the programming folks at the Walker who booked the show and were happy to premiere it here in this gorgeous space. And extra-special thanks for agreeing to help us out with information that plays into the show. Don't want to spoil the fun for everyone who might come see the piece so I can't say exactly what it is they gave us, but it really makes the show interesting! Thanks for taking the chance.

OK, well I gotta go get ready for my scene so I will check in later and tell you how it went. So far, the show looks great and I am really happy with how it's shaping up. Stay tuned for further developments.

Off to the dress.

your thespian,
moe.
ps-Sorry I don't have any pictures to post yet but there is a cable shortage and I don't have the wire that makes the pictures go into the computer from the digital camera. Hope to get this straightened out soon.

on tour with TBA!

2005-10-10T15:56:00.000-04:00

Hello there supporters of the lively arts-

It is I, Moe your faithful correspondent reporting to you live from the lobby of the Marriot Towne Suites in Minneapolis, MN where TBA has arrived to launch Super Vision upon the unsuspecting public. We all managed to make it here from New York yesterday, despite the scare tactics warning us that the subways are going to get blown up any second by some terrorists from Iraq. Isn't it funny how Iraq has suddenly been implicated in the terrorism chain of command? I guess they could not be blamed for Hurricane Katrina but it was only a matter of time before they were saddled with some other crime so we can feel good about invading their country and sending all the National Guard to build democracy, thereby diverting them from less sexy tasks at home like searching nursing homes in New Orleans for dead people. Ok, don't get me started...

Meanwhile, back at the show. Some of the crew arrived on Saturday and the rest of us made it here Sunday. The tech crew came a day early to set up shop and get the whole thing going. We are performing in a gorgeous theatre in the Walker Center. It is brand spanking new, having just opened in April and it feels very luxurious. Quite an unusual design, which incorporates fabulous decorative elements, like the walls of the house which are made from a black metal mesh that has been pressed with relief designs of a sort of leaf pattern. Quite nice. And the crew here is great and they are busy at work right now putting in the set and doing the lighting hang and focus. Very exciting!

It is the start of fall here. Blue clear high sky and lovely warm bright sunlight, lower in the sky than what we have in NY. Days noticeably shorter here as we are further north. It reminds me of Canada. Oh Canada, I could drink a case of you and still be on my feet, as Joni Mitchell says. It is lovely and we all have bicycles to ride to and from the Walker. Claire Hallereau, our company manager, had the brainstorm to rent us bikes since the theatre is pretty close but a little too far to walk practically. This morning, Tanya and David and Marianne and myself rode our cycles to work, like some post-modern theatre bike gang. It was so fun! Claire rented them en mass from a great organization here in town that recycles bikes and does its part to cut down on gas use. I have to admit, this is the one piece of advice that the president has given that I feel I can get behind. Drive less, people!

OK, friends, I must go and get myself back to the theatre. We are doing a run through of sorts at 5 and then there is some party we are going to and we will soon be familiar with the hipster side if Minneapolis. Someone will have to point it out to me of course as I am hipness-awareness-impaired but I will report what comes my way.

Any suggestions from the public about what coolness is to be had here in the Twin Cities would be greatly appreciated.

Peace, love and summer sausage,
moe.

does whatever a spider can

2005-10-04T22:13:00.000-04:00

name: Spider
job: video intern and production assistant
height: 5'2"
computer: i-mac
What makes you a Builder?: "Avanti last year in South Bend, Indiana."
favorite thing about the Builders: "People are nice."
snack food of choice: potato chips

This is Spider. Spider is her stage name. Or camera name, I should say. She lives in Flushing. We meet Spider last year at Notre Dame University, where she worked with us on Avanti and when she got the call to come to New York and work on Super Vision, she packed her bags and here she is. Spider is good people, as we used to say in DC.

It is now about ten days since rehearsals have finished. We did two showings of the piece for invited friends, sort of dress rehearsals with audiences and I think they went really really well. The weather was atrocious the first night, Thursday the 22nd. The humidity reached Katrina-like proportions and inside the theatre, it was predictably swampy. The second night was better, as the damp sort of dissipated.

I must make a correction to this blog. All apologies to the little Chihuahua and I hope she will not be too mad at me for this but I have spelled her name wrong! It is Poireau, not Poirrot. She is a little leek, not a fictional inspector. Sorry little doggy. We love you still.

After the showings came the monumental task of taking everything apart and putting it in the road boxes that were built by Neal and Joe and Jamie and the rest of the crew. This took a lot of work and a long time and it was a Herculean effort to get it all ready for the arrival of the truck to carry it all away. There were several all-night experiences I believe and as far as I know, they did not involve fun drugs beyond what the Red Bull section in the local deli case had to offer. Hats off to the brave heroes of the strike and thanks for all your hard superhuman work.

It's all in the truck now and it is somewhere between NYC and our first gig. The world premiere at the William and Nadine McGuire Theater at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN. We are all looking forward to letting the great big world see our work and seeing how this inquisitive exploration into the datasphere impacts real spectators.

I was thrilled to learn that Minneapolis does have a women's roller derby team and I was crushed to find out that they will be in town and doing there thing the same night we are, meaning I cannot go. And I have missed the state fair by weeks. I'm sure there will be other ways to entertain myself (in all my copious spare time) and I will endeavor to log on and report the findings of all adventures taken by our band of avant-gardistes. If anyone out there has good suggestions on what to do when in the Twin Cities, please feel free to comment. But do me a favor and don't post comments that act like they are saying something personal but just turn out to be advertising. Spare us all.

I did not take the bridge either to or from work those last two days. Rain threatened and then I was way uptown in Manhattan and did not have the travel time to get to Brooklyn on my own power. But I did ride my cycle home on the Saturday after the showings, after going to fetch it where I'd left it at the theatre and helped a wee bit with an exciting upholstery project that Stewart and Marianne had taken on. The bridge was full of happy cyclists, not the usual hard boiled commuter weekday crowd. And a gaggle of tourists blocking up the pathway, as tourists the world over do. They seemed to be enjoying themselves up there on that beautiful day. We all did.

See you in Minneapolis,
moe.

introducing Ela!

2005-09-21T22:52:00.000-04:00

(not pictured)

name: Ela Orleans
job: stage manager
height: 180 cm
computer: Apple G5
What makes you a Builder?: "I am a painter!"
favorite thing about working with TBA: "working with nice people"
snack food of choice: croissant from Almondine and gallons of coffee

Ela says: "I like hanging with people that make me laugh."

On the bridge this morning was sleeping guy, next to the traffic of the off-ramp. I guess nobody bother him there. Nearby him was a squatting Asian man, having a smoke under the shade of a little tree. There is a sort of plaza on the Manhattan side, that used to be the site of a substantial homeless encampment until the city renovated to bridge entrance and opened the pathway on the north side of the bridge. Where the homeless people went, I know not. Perhaps sleeping man falls into that category.

Today was a sort of cue to cue rehearsal in the morning because Marianne, in a daring artistic moment, decided to change the order of some of the scenes at the end of the piece. She's a wild woman! So, there was re-cuing to happen and then by about 3:00, we were ready for a run. We suited up fully in our show clothes (also designed by Stewart Laing), makeup, accents and attitudes and got going. It looks pretty spiffy, friends and I encourage you all to try and see this amazing visual and aural banquet. And it is not just pretty either, there is content, people! Meaningful, thought-provoking and moving content. There is something for everyone.

If you are curious about where to see SUPER VISION, you can go to the web site of The Builders which is www.thebuildersassociation.org but a quick rundown of our fall engagements looks something like this:

October 13-16 Walker Center for the Arts, Minneapolis
November 2-6 Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus
November 11-13 On the Boards, Seattle
Nov 30- Dec 3 BAM Next Wave Festival, Brooklyn
December 8-10 Montclair State University, Montclair

I should mentions too that the Walker, the Wexner, BAM and Montclair State are all co-producers of this piece. We at The Builders are greatly appreciative to all the support these fine organizations have given to make this large, ambitious piece of work possible. It is no small matter to gather the necessary funding and development support to make this piece of original performance possible, and without the sustaining assistance of institutions that are brave enough to go with The Builders down the path to creation, it would not happen. These fine institutions help make it happen and we could not do it without them. Please lend your support to them and subscribe to their season or go see one more show than you think you can afford. Think of it this way, just one grande frappucino a day for a month can send you to see a whole year's worth of exciting live performance. And I won't even go into the caloric savings. It's a win-win situation folks.

Tomorrow night we do a presentation under simulated performance circumstances (live audience!) for an invited audience. I am excited and looking forward to hearing what people have to say. I will report on how it all goes. Wish us luck, though that is apparently bad luck so we shall break a leg, as the show people say.

your bridgewatcher,
moe.

today's builder is..

2005-09-21T01:51:00.000-04:00

name: Kate Stannard
job: assistant director
height: 5'2"
computer: Apple powerbook G4
What makes you a Builder? "I guess I'm the token English girl. Everyone needs one. Plus, my ability to be an 8 year old boy, a 40 year old man and a 60 year old grandma in the same day."
favorite thing about working with the Builders: "the people"
snack food of choice: naughty- yogurt covered pretzels nice-"I eat a lot of apples. An apple a day and all that."

Today the bridge was tidy! It's like somebody walked along and cleaned up and picked up all the trash. And changed the bags in the garbage cans that are improbably up there. That was in the morning but by my ride home in the early evening, the trash had come back. Not a lot but a Bud can in a paper bag and a random plastic bodega sack. Still a gorgeous ride home.

Spent the day today doing the infamous cue to cue rehearsal, where we go from one cue to the next, as the name implies. Usually this is a rather tedious day spent in the theatre but I must say I was feeling no pain and felt fortunate that I did not have to put on my makeup or costume. It got all humid and nasty again here in New York and it felt really sweaty in there again. Moist brownie, as Tanya would say.

The little showing of three scenes we did yesterday provoked a lot of encouraging feedback and that is good. Way better than discouraging feedback.

And today was James' birthday so at the end of the day we raised a glass (plastic deli cups, really) of champagne to celebrate the genius that is Mr. Gibbs. That's right, he is not just another pretty face but has the brains to back it up. I am so pleased that I have gotten to work with him on this show. He is a first rate person.

Happy birthday, James!

I remain bloggily yours,
moe.

monday, monday

2005-09-19T20:08:00.000-04:00

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.

meet a Builder!

2005-09-16T21:21:00.000-04:00

name: Kyle Decamp (not pictured)

job: performer
height: 5' 5 1/2"
computer: Apple Titanium G4. Cat ripped off keyboard, resulting in dates from 19th century

What makes you a builder?: "1993 maybe, god. Marianne Weems and Jeff Webster approached me and asked if I wanted to do Master Builder with them. The rest is history."

favorite thing about the Builders: "Working in a room full of extremely competant people."

snack food of choice: "Moe's midday Baked Lays Potato Chips"

This is Kyle. She plays Carol, wife of John and mother of John Jr. She has been in several Builders' shows and was most recently seen in Alladeen in fabulous Champagne-Urbana, Illinois. She rides her bike across the bridge too.

Today we ran through the show. It was exciting to see it take more shape, layer upon layer like some crazy digitally delicious cake. I am all makeup makeup and that is an interesting challenge given the intense heat situation. My costume is 200% polyester (washes up good and dries fast on the road), my wig is human hair and my face is now covered with the new added feature of latex, for that old 'n' crinkly look that screams granny. So, essentially I am encased in plastic from head to toe. And it is really really hot in New York now. Did I mention that? All the tropical storm activity is shoving these humid air massses our way and though it seems like rain should happen any minute, it never really comes through to clear things out. They predict it will be cooler and dryer by Sunday but are "they" ever right? Meanwhile, we all hydrate ourselves like crazy (that means drinking water and sports beverages) and some have even taken to carrying towels for swabbing of the brow.

Saw a pair of Hanes crew socks on the bridge today. Hmmm.

more later,
moe.

the pipes are calling me

2005-09-12T22:11:00.000-04:00

This evening on the way home, I heard bagpipes on the bridge. Yes, I thought that I had had one too many Cobras, but indeed I was sober as a fence post. I could not figure out where the pipes were coming from until I got closer to the Manhattan side and saw that they were from a circle of pipers and drummers that were gathered to practice on one of the piers beneath the north side of the bridge. As I got closer, I noticed that this were no ordinary pipe band but was in fact the pipe band from the NYC Department of Sanitation. They were standing in the shade provided by a garbage truck and a street broom that were parked there. It was the Sanitation pier, where the trucks go to rest when they are not hauling the trash off of this here island. Wish I could have seen them up closer but it was sweet to hear the strains of Scotland the Brave and other pipe favorites drift high above the East River.

We stumbled through the show today and picked up a little speed and many new visual and sound moments. It all changes quite fast these days. There is always new stuff coming in and new situations to be dealt with. This all takes an incredible amount of time, much of it spent on computers making cues, otherwise known as "rendering". It has a sort of slaughterhouse feel to it, doesn't it? But really, it is very gentle and does not draw even a drop of blood. Let me reassure you that no computer technicians or animation artists were harmed in the making of this piece.

It is hot as a skillet on the equator and it has made working in the space a unique challenge because who in their right mind would subject themselves to such conditions? Despite the humidity that threatens civilization as we know it, we press onwards in our tropical delirium. It's all because of the hurricanes, this time it's Ophelia pressing her crazy self up against us with her humid air mass. There is a lot of talk of "feel factor", which is not a new reality show but is the way the weather people try to gauge how hot it "seems" to a human and not a thermometer.

But I will not talk too long of weather and hurricanes, as this is a sad sad subject indeed in this great land of ours. We ought to be ashamed, when we are not bereft, for what has happened in New Orleans. Not to get overtly political, as this may end up on the Senate floor one day (stranger things have happened), but Mr. Bush please consider pulling the National Guard out of Iraq and sending them to New Orleans to have them restore order. While they're at it, a little freedom-building might also be a good idea, so that the people of New Orleans can have opportunity, just like the folks over in Iraq. I'll shut up now.

keep the faith,
moe.

crawl-through

2005-09-10T01:36:00.000-04:00

Today, we made it through the show for the first time. Starting at the top, we went through scene by scene and tried to assess the state of things. When all was said and done, I think it looked pretty darn good. Yes, there is lots of work to be done still but we are in a great place, considering we still have two and a half weeks of work time left and nobody has had a nervous breakdown or "artistic difference" with the show. I get the feeling all the players want to make this the best show we can and are all working with that in mind. It may come as a surprise to some of you out there in Bloglandia to discover that this is, tragically, not always the case. The machine is humming along and yes, there are many rows still left to hoe, the crew seems ready for the task and making great things each and every day.

Yes, the running time was a little longer than ideal but hey, it was a first run through. If we left it right now, it would be suitable for a Lincoln Center kind of Euro import thing that you watch over the course of a couple of days with box lunches provided. It is not at its fighting weight at all, but is just in training and will in two weeks' time, be lean and mean and ready for action. I was proud of everyone that we all made it through and with a minimum of stoppages and no disasters.

Go Team Super Vision!

More partying detritus on the bridge today. I guess Thursday night is a good night to hang up there above the river and pound back a few tall Buds, smoke some Newports and contemplate the nature of life in the big sparkly city. Maybe we should consider having our cast and crew wrap party up there. I will pose it to the group.

peace, togetherness and malt liquor,
moe.

latecomers will not be seated...

2005-09-07T22:14:00.000-04:00

A terrible thing happened this morning. I thought that I did not have to be at rehearsal and so I did not go to the warehouse. Doh! Ela, our trusty stage manager, left several messages on my home machine that ranged from puzzled to concerned about my safety. Marianne also called, giving the whole incident of my stupidity the stamp of official disbelief. How could I have not realized? Oh well, I didn't and did manage to get myself there once I had realized the error of my cognitive process. I jumped on Big Black Bike and tore ass across the bridge, observing nothing on the way.

Spent the part of the day I managed to show up for working on the Jen and Grandma scenes. Adding new visuals all the time and trying to weave the story through them. Tanya, my human cohort in the scenes, plays a lovely granddaughter and if there was some way for me to really become this Sri Lankan lady and be her granny, I would take up the job in a heartbeat. Alas, I will have to settle for being her video stage grandma. Sigh. We are having a fun time working together in the crazy world of the elderly relative and the super tech-savvy modern gal.

Tanya is teaching me some Tamil to say in the scene and that is fun. It all makes me want to go to Sri Lanka one of these days. Must wait until it's not summer anymore though. I think it is hot here and I think I do not even know what hot is, compared to the subcontinent.

so long for now,
moe.

make up, revisited

2005-09-06T21:57:00.000-04:00

I was off for most of the day today, as other things were being worked on. I showed up at 5:00 to meet once again with my personal stylist Dick. Dick is a lovely fellow and a real honest-to-god genius with makeup. He does makeup for models and fancy people who want to look younger and more fabulous and my character is somewhat of an inverse situation, as he is trying to make me look old and anti-fabulous. Maybe not anti, but just regular.

We played around with my base color and accent colors and eye, cheek and lip colors, trying to find that balance for an older lady from the mandatory makeup era, who has maybe lost touch somewhat with modern standards of beauty. It is really fun and I have not done such intense makeup for a long long time. I looks scary in the light of day but under the beautiful stage lights of Allen Hahn and with the forgiving lens of the video camera and Dick's expert guidance, it is looking very very convincing. Very fun and very theatrical. I hope I can maintain this regime throughout the run of the show, as I am a notorious non-makeup person in real life. Anything for my art.

I did not take the bridge today, as I was already on the subway in the city and continued on out to Brooklyn. Not much to report on the train. The usual supersaturated pee smell in the 2nd Ave station that takes me back to the olden days of New York, before the Disney Store and the Warner Brothers store and the Hershey's store took up residence in 42nd Street. And now there is this new thing where the cops can search your backpacks and bags on the train or in the station. I prefer to be free on the bridge, where "the fuzz" can't go through my stuff.

see ya folks,
moe.

chicken on the bridge

2005-09-05T21:44:00.000-04:00

OK, now it is getting spooky.

I'm not lying to you people when I say that this evening on the way home to Manhattan, I saw a black plastic bag like you would get at a corner store and sticking out of it were two chicken feet that were, I imagine, connected to the chicken that was inside the bag. A real chicken! What is that about? Does it have to do with some religious ritual that I am not familiar with? A sacrifice to the bridge gods? Someone's stray dinner? Or did the chicken have a heart attack and die while walking across and some kind soul "buried" it in all they could find, a plastic bag? What is up with the chicken?

Today was all about the family scenes. David Pence, Kyle deCamp and their son, played by various incredible pieces of technology. They are a kooky household, let me tell you. I do not want to spoil it for the audience but I will say that they have a beautiful home as rendered by the d-box team of animation specialists. I will introduce you to the animation crew as soon as I can get a picture of them. They are hidden from view of most of us, as they are in their little animation crow's nest, surrounded by computers that generate a lot of heat. They have an air conditioner, but it does not much condition their air. But they are troopers and are patiently turning out the animation brilliance under the guidance of James.

If someone can tell me about the chicken, I would appreciate it.

McNuggetly Yours,
moe.

day off!

2005-09-04T20:47:00.000-04:00

It is Sunday, and it is a day off. I am thankful, Yesterday was a short one for me, as I was only called for four hours. There was a lot of stuff to do that did not have to do with me and though I found this reality ego-crushing, I sucked it up and was professional about it all.

Let me explain about the chihuahua above. That is Poirrot, the official mascot of SUPER VISION. Why is she the official mascot? Because Poirrot has very big eyes as you can tell from her fetching photograph and we figure if anyone is going to have supervision, it's going to be her. Poirrot is quite a creature. What she lacks in teeth, she makes up for in ferocious growling that sounds roughly like a human sneeze. She is sweet and approachable except when food is nearby and she is eating it or thinking of eating it and then her protective chihuahua nature comes out. She is very comfortable around the space and goes to her place in the front row and watches the show and naps. She belongs to Tanya's brother so she especially pays attention to Tanya's times on stage. As our mascot, she is seeking to rehabilitate the chihuahua image that was demonically planted in the US pop culture psyche by that horrible Taco Bell ad campaign a few years ago. Poirrot is a creature of great dignity and could give a hoot about chalupas. She's high art, people and you will be hearing more about Poirrot.

Today on the bridge I saw the sleeping man again. This time he was not near the subway tracks but was right next to the off-ramp into Manhattan. Sound asleep! I will take a picture at some point so you can see what I mean when I say it must be like sleeping on a median strip. To each his own.

Hope you are having a nice weekend everyone.

moe.

cobra on the bridge

2005-09-03T02:41:00.000-04:00

Hello Blogworld-

Today, riding across the Manhattan Bridge, I saw several big empty cans rolling around in the path. They were black and grey and silver and said Cobra on them. Now, I'm not sure what Cobra is exactly, but I would guess from the design that we're talking malt liquor. Tall boy cans with Cobra written in a sort of heavy metalloid font. If anyone out there can give some testimony about the nature of Cobra, I'd appreciate it. There are so many ways to get your buzz on now, I can't be expected to keep up with all the innovations in drinking.

I'd like to take a few moments to introduce the Builders and talk a bit about their jobs in the company. Today's installment features my observations on a fella we all love, Dan Dobson. That's Dan right at the top of toda's entry. He's standing in front of god's Little Warehouse (over his right shoulder) and the lovely Brooklyn Bridge is behind him. Dan is a Brooklyn man himself and proud. He is the sound designer for the show. Dan has been with the Builders for many years and many shows and is responsible for the aural landscape of the theatrical situations we cook up. Let me explain to those of you who have not yet had the pleasure of experienceing the theatrical experiences of which I speak, the sound is like another character in the pieces. It is not just "regular" theatre sound. It is not show tunes. It is not a soundtrack. It is a landscape that the show traverses from start to finish. And Dan is the guy who does his magic to make this richness happen. Like record album reviews, writing about sound is somewhat sad and I advise you all to come see the show to get the full-on Dan Dobson surround sound infiltration. I'm telling you, I have dreams where Dan's soundscape is the soundtrack! Freaky. But so good freaky.

Today we had unusual hours of operation and began work at noon and went until 7:00. Isn't that fascinating? We are working scenes individually and incorporating a ton of new material every day. The video unit and the animation unit are pounding out the visuals and they are getting more and more gorgeouser by the minute. These different tracks get laid in as we go: sound, lights, animation, video, acting, scenic. It is a process of aggregation, layering. So instead of all these elements that are considered "technical" coming in at the last week of rehearsal during what is traditionally called tech week in the theatre, they are there all along and are these other living presences in the piece. Or that's how I like to think of it. They are the co-stars with the humans.

Alright friends, I must get me to beddy-by now. Tomorrow is our last day of work this week and we are some tired Builders. Tired in a good way, from making stuff that we really care about. We are cultural workers, humble carpenters crafting things for others to appreciate, just like jesus christ.

amen,
moe.

i feel the magic

2005-09-01T10:36:00.000-04:00

Good morning world-

It is the exciting day after makeup! The picture above shows me applying something-or-other to give me the desired aged look for the show. Did I mention that I am playing a grandma? A Sri Lankan grandma? That's the avant garde for ya. We're all about the non-traditional casting here at the Builders Association and thanks to the magic of my genius stylist Dick and the forgiving nature of video, I will magically be transformed into Granny. It's so theatrical! Really really fun.

Rizwan Mirza, who plays "that handsome guy" (according to Granny), also got some makeup support so that he can attain the look of a haggard frequent flyer which should be familiar to anyone who has had to go through airport security or been made to brave the Long Island Railroad on a Friday evening. Dick made him look haggard, but could not take away the handsome part. Sorry that Granny objectifies you, Rizwan, but she's from that generation, you know.

We worked on the scenes where Granny appears with her granddaughter Jen, played by the fabulous Tanya Selvaratnam, and then had a story meeting with the creative brains of the operation, Marianne, James and Constance. Also in attendance was Kate Stannard, Marianne's super-capable assistant director, who has come to us from Glasgow. Ideas were flying and decisions were made about the direction of the scenes and the tone and the message and all of the important conversations that end up being distilled into the final product. The audience does not see all of this, but believe me, it's there.

Meanwhile, things are buzzing all about the space as Joe and Neal and their colleague Jamie McElhinney the tech manager continue to build and construct and, since it is the avant garde, deconstruct the set and its workings. Stewart Laing, the show's designer has created a beautiful design that serves a quite complicated set of technical demands of this piece elegantly. It is all coming together, with new pieces being added each day and it is all coming together beautifully.

All this to say that today, I think this thing is gonna be great. Rest assured, dear public, that we at the Builders are hard at work, burning the midnight oil to bring you the highest quality avant garde theatrical experience that blood, sweat and tears can coax and that money can buy. Isn't it so exciting for you? It is for us.

more later,
moe.
PS-On the bridge today, I saw a guy sleeping. No lie, he was sound asleep against a fence that keeps the subway trains separated from the pedestrian path. Five feet behind him, rumbled the passing D trains.

view from the bridge

2005-08-25T21:53:00.000-04:00

Here's what I see on my way to work. It's looking north, up the East River. It's a blue collar view of New York. Not the glamorous midtown or downtown skyline. The Willamsburgh Bridge is on the left there and the boat in the middle is the Circle Line I believe. To the right, you can see the stacks of the Con Ed plant and the shoreline of Brooklyn, once a busy waterfront and now in various stages of revitalization/decrepitude.

This morning there was evidence of more partying on the bridge. A big green empty quart bottle of some kind of screw-top malt liquor and I think I counted three empty packs of Newports. You know, Alive With Pleasure? Anyway, there must have been some fun had up there the last few nights.

I was not called to rehearsal the past few days, as the scenes I appear in were not being worked. I can't reliably tell you what went on in rehearsal, just as I cannot for sure tell you what happened on the bridge the last few days and nights. I can only read the traces of each. And it seems that much was accomplished and the scenes that I am not in are going very very well.

Today though, I was put to good use and got down to business with my scene partner and stage relative, Tanya. We have a mediated video relationship which is odd only in the sense that we are actually in the same room together and usually these things occur when people are separated by geography. It will all make sense when you see the show (and you are going to see the show, aren't you?) but let's just say it is very interesting to be acting in a scene with someone who I cannot directly see.

We also had script discussions with the writer, Constance De Jong and Marianne and James to try and work out some of the wrinkles we were running up against. The video, sound and animation must all work in concert with the text (duh!) and sometimes, those design elements are in place before the language is exactly. It is a curious and intricate dance to try and make it all balance out elegantly.

Had a frozen hot chocolate from the diabolical Jacques Torres today. It was exquisite. Jacques has quite a thing going and it is apparently a stop on this bike tour that I have seen coming through twice now. I only noticed because there was one person standing on the sidewalk one day guarding about a dozen identical bikes while the tourists that had been riding them were lined up to buy high-end chocolate goods, still wearing their helmets.

Incredible rain storms the past few days. Wish it made the heat disappear but alas, it just makes for more steamy sidewalks. Water comes into God's Little Warehouse beneath the rolling gate and through some holes in the ceiling. Not near the equipment or stage area, thankfully. It is so loud, it sounds like a fake sound cue.

Hope you are enjoying summer, wherever you are. And if there is summer, wherever that is!

bloggily yours,
moe.

end of the first week

2005-08-20T23:40:00.000-04:00

OK, people!

We have come to the end of week one of rehearsals. We are on schedule, thanks to perseverance on the part of everyone to get through the script and roughly block out the major movements for the actors, scenery, props, video, sound score and lunch habits.

I mention lunch movements because as I mentioned in an earlier post, DUMBO is a neighborhood that is becoming a neighborhood. Not a whole lot of folks lived down here, though it offers spectacular sweeping views of Manhattan's east side and the river, until the last say 5 years. Yes, there are old timers who still must run from the landlord and pretend that they don't "live" in their zoned-manufacturing lofts, but the major influx of dwellers has been in the last five years. This presents a peculiar problem. A neighborhood where there are not yet people services but people are living there. For instance, there is no grocery store. And this is where lunch comes in. There are two delis, a pizza joint, a couple of restaurants and Grimaldi's pizza (excellent pie, by the way) within walking distance. We New Yorkers are used to having a lot of option for our midday meal and the 2-deli situation is troubling for me. There is always Jacques and his chocolate world down the block I suppose.

Anyway, the first week has gone swimmingly and despite the heat, we press on and make great headway in getting the piece on its feet. It can walk now! Yes, they are baby steps it takes but it does have legs, as we say in show biz.

Today on the bridge I saw several tall boy cans of Bud. One was still strangely hooked to its plastic six-pack thingy, but had been drunk. Party on the bridge! I guess you go for the view? And there is a little bit of a breeze up there, though it mostly comes from the D train going by on days like these.

bon weekend,
moe.

the day after the second day

2005-08-17T22:05:00.000-04:00

Here it is, my commuter's view of the Manhattan Bridge. See, I live in Manhattan and I ride my bike to work in the mornings over this path. It is really nice, I gotta say. I feel very special that I get to live in this incredible city and do stuff like ride across its bridges on my bike. Even after living here the better part of the last 25 years, I still love the place.

The reason why I bring up the bridge and its path is that I have noticed in just a few crossings back and forth, that a certain amount of activity besides commuting goes on on this bridge. I can tell this because there are traces of said activities left behind. This morning, for example, there was a half eaten whole wheat bagel in the middle of the pathway, on the Manhattan side. I spent the rest of the bridge wondering how that bagel got there and why, why, why was it there. If any readers out there have an idea about this mysterious bagel, please feel free to let me know. Puzzling bagels and all, it is a fine commute and I can get from my apartment to the space in about 25 minutes. More on my commute later.

Spent yesterday reading through the script again and talking through it, while we all sat around the big table and swatted flies. Yes, there is a fly issue. The doors are open for ventilation and the wild fauna feel free to visit us. I try to direct the flies to the Jacques Torres chocolate factory down the block where the pickins are most certainly better than my lunch crumbs, but they do not speak my language apparently. Anyway, we read and talked through the show again and people threw out ideas and Marianne and James elaborated on what the stage directions indicate is supposed to happen. All very exciting.

Today we began staging scenes, very roughly and inserting the animations, sonic landscape and video. I think it looks incredible so far and we've only just begun to live, as Karen Carpenter would say. It is so great to be in the rehearsal room and have all the designers there all the time and to have the people who the actors usually meet during "tech week" at the very end, there and creating their cues in juxtaposition to the actions and movements of the piece. It's amazing, all of this gorgeous content, and I know it takes a village to make it all happen. Wait until you see it!

More on this and other matters later.

your bloggy friend,
moe.

day one

2005-08-15T23:56:00.000-04:00

Hello there blogsphere. It is I, Moe, your friendly guide to the making of a new, exciting piece of theater. I'm here in New York City, in the borough of Brooklyn in the up-and-coming neighborhood known as DUMBO, at St. Ann's Warehouse. St. Ann's is neither a church nor a warehouse any longer, but the name suggests the kind of faith-based initiative that perhaps will get us some funding from the feds. But I am already off track.

So, it is the first day of rehearsal and all souls were in the house. It's hot here in New York on August 15 and it is really hot in our warehouse-turned-performance-venue. Last week was worse from all accounts and due to the incredible self-cooling efforts and stamina of our production manager Neal Wilkinson and Joe Silovsky, the tech director and the magical crew of people that were here sweating away, we have a beautiful set in place, ready for all the theatrical hijinks we can muster.

There were close to 35 people in the room on the first day, including the video and sound crews, programmers, animation fellows, tech people, production assistants, designers, performers, producers, writer, research and demographics consultants and documentarist, to name a few. It is an impressive group of talented folks and to top it off, there is the tag team of masterminds behind this whole she-bang, our director Marianne Weems and her co-creator James Gibbs. Where they are leading us precisely, we know not, but everybody in the room is on board for the ride.

St. Ann's, or as I like to think of it, God's Little Warehouse, is located on a street that any location scout in their right mind would recognize immediately for its New York City "authenticity" (see photo above). DUMBO, an acronym for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass, is a collection of former warehouses, bus depots, manufacturing and shipping concerns that are now in the process of being converted into a residential neighborhood by the powers of developers. The nabe is still a little on the bus-depot side of things and on the next block is a Transit Authority building where things go to get repaired. Due to the heat, combined with the lack of air conditioning, we have the big roll gate open to the street to coax some semblance of breeze into our midst. This does not happen enough, but the busses roaring by do and they must be paused for by anyone speaking. Welcome to the gritty reality of New York City, friends.

Today we sat around a big table and talked through the ideas of the piece and read through the script, to get a feel for what direction we are going in. It was all very exciting, to hear what the vision of SUPER VISION is. I don't want to spoil it too much for those of you who will have the chance to see the show, but according to the web site, the show is about data surveillance and our data identities in the increasingly important data world. These are the kind of big ideas that make my head want to blow off its precariously fragile stem because if I stop to think about who knows where I use my ATM card, I will have to stay in bed all day and worry about it. I am hoping the process of doing the show will give me some better handle on what all my personal information is doing in those big databases and what is the lighter, up side of being spyed on without my direct consent by marketing firms. Oh, did I really write that? OK, forget I said that last part. Suffice to say, I am really excited about the show!

I will try and check in here as often as time and brainpower allow. If you have any questions, please feel free to post them in the comment zone and I will try my best to answer them here.

Stick with us friends. It's going to be a long process. Five weeks of rehearsal (and I am leaving out all the workshops and readings that have preceded this) then touring around the US for this fall and further touring across the seas next year. I will provide a performance schedule soon enough so that you may plan your theatre-going vacations with us with as much lead time as possible.

Thanks for spending some time with us. I know there are millions of other ways to while away your living moments here on the internet. But hey, it's cheaper than playing poker with a machine that you've never met or buying prescription medications.

Your Little Theatre Friend,
moe.