In mid-February I begin the second half of the final Seem To Be Player tour. It has a few weeks of cross-country travel, with performances as far away in different directions as CA, FL, and CT, plus a few weeks of the traditional Every-Grade-School-in-Topeka-KS shows.

The first, autumn half of the tour was really nice, especially when I realized how many of the theaters I had performed in before, sometime during the 20 plus years I have toured, off and on, with Seem To Bes. I actually met some parents of children seeing this production who remembered seeing me in a Seem To Be show when they were kids; it made me feel damn old but also damn proud.

This is likely not only my last tour but my last work with childrens' theatre. I have always enjoyed it, and as hard as it is for me to admit out loud, I am one of the best childrens theatre performers nobody ever heard of. But Ric Averill's Seem To Be Players are ending their touring program, and I don't want to run around the country looking for brief, underpaid gigs alongside the 20-something nomads.

On the other hand (literally), since my crushed ring finger appears to be healing mostly, and the ripped off fingernail is starting to regrow, I should soon be able to play the guitar again.

This will be an interesting year.

Yesterday I chaired my last board meeting as President of the Just Off Broadway Theatre Association. I am glad to be done with the responsibility, as it has had a very negative impact on my personal performing career for the last couple of years. Though I will continue to serve part-time as the Theater Manager, I will no longer be spending 30-50 hours a week working on theater association issues. It remains to be seen if the major projects we have been working on continue to proper conclusions.

The $960,000 building completion program is moving forward in every way - except - the actual bond money has not yet been acquired. Though the TIF plan we are part of has been whittled somewhat, all groups involved still support JOB getting its share for the construction of the rest of the building (including a scene shop/storage area that was not part of the original design). The architects are already working on the plans, with construction expected to take place between summer and Christmas of this year.

Though the Lighting Fund reached its original goal, to achieve what we need will require another $8,000. On the other hand, this remaining amount will probably be easier to obtain than the first $12,000 was.

I have put in 3 years as President, 2 more than I ever intended. The contract with Parks and Rec was renewed, the building completion is in its final stages, the theater is in better physical shape than when I started (except the lighting system), and we have more money in the JOBTA bank account. I need to focus on that rather than the things that we haven't achieved yet.

In a little less than 2 weeks Erin and I will be married. I've headed down this road twice before. The first died. The second found God, multiple times, with different names, rules and even genders, but misplaced me along the way.
God willing, this one will keep me company to the end of the road. I hope so; she's damn good company.

After a long time of not being able to get into my LJ stuff, followed by a longer time of giving up trying, I have managed to read a few friendly entries and, if this turns out, make my own update.
Short summary:
- We got the City Council to vote the nearly $1,000,000 to finally finish the Just Off Broadway Theatre.
- Erin finally got in touch with OKRF and accepted a way low offer, so we will be returning to Muskogee in 2007 as Charles V and Lady Margaret, respectively.
- Our wedding will be on April 15, at a beautiful, rustic stone and oak hall, set among wooded hills, overlooking a fishing lake.
- Preparing for White Hart has made it impossible for me to audition for TTIP's production of Fiddler on the Roof. I doubt I will ever get a better shot at Tevya around here.
- Increases in Royal Court gentlemen for White Hart will allow me to assuage that disappointment somewhat, by working on a stage act for White Hart instead of reprising Sir Richard.
- I continue to average over 30 hours a week doing the admin, tech and maintenance work at JOB Theatre, for which I am being paid a moderate 20-hour-weekly sum.

I agreed to run lights for Beth Byrd's show at Just Off Broadway this week. That includes a Sunday matinee, on my birthday. A December child, I was trained from a very young age not to expect much from birthdays. My wonderfully twisted Commedia friends gave me a birthday party a few years ago; it was my first since sometime in the 1980s.
Normally I would let this one go like many others, but this one is kinda significant. It is my fiftieth, and in about 4 months I will be marrying somebody who has already forgiven me for it.
Aside from running lights at the show, I haven't decided what to do, though three options seem acceptable. I want to watch a few of my favorite movies, I would like to play En Garde, and I might let myself get wasted and tell some outfuckingrageously unbelievable stories that really happened along the way. ( Read more... )

The 4th almost annual LollaPoeLooza, an Edgar Allen Poe reading marathon for Halloween, is back at the Just Off Broadway Theatre this year. Since Commedia was using the theatre, we gave up the space for Halloween so this semi-traditional event could happen.

It starts the afternoon of October 30 with a new element: an old fashioned family-friendly Halloween carnival outside the theatre (like PTAs used to do at grade schools), with a cakewalk, bobbing for apples, some simple games of chance and skill, and a kid's costume contest. That runs for a few hours, till 7pm, when the readings of Poe begin inside.

The reading of Poe is a free, public event. Volunteers will read the various writings of Poe from 7pm Monday, the 30th, till 7pm Tuesday, Halloween. There may be some repetition of pieces, but one of the goals is to ensure that ALL Poe's writings will be heard before the end.

I am in charge of accepting and scheduling volunteers to help with the carnival as well as readers, so if you are interested and available call the theatre (816-784-50020) or email me at kailung@aol.com. You could leave a posting here, but I don't check this often (I will try to for the next week or so).

Though the reading event itself is free, people are encouraged to donate something towards the JOB lighting fund - we need a new light dimming system and additional theatrical lights (we have a matching fund offer for up to $2,000 that we have a limited time to achieve).

Whether you come to read or listen, come in costume and bring a camera. The Just Off Broadway Theatre is a photo opportunity of tremendous worth - particularly the fortresslike ruins of the old city stables that surround the building.

And who knows? Commedia Sans Arte has the building during this period; I think we will come up with some sort of party after the official readings end at 7pm on Halloween . . .

The second Saturday of Commedia's stay at the Just Off Broadway Theatre (Nov 4 to be precise), Mark Wickersham of Five Rings Fencing Association will be conducting a theatrical fencing workshop from 10am-5pm. My first experience with stage combat training was in 1979 at KU, and I have had lots more in bits and pieces over the years. Mark is my favorite instructor (my second is another Mark, Mark Rector - I particularly like his published material on the subject).

The workshop is a heckuva deal at $25 for the day, including a ticket to see the Commedia Halloween show that evening (some might argue that should lower the price, but they should not make that argument to me at the workshop, since my weapons expertise is in firearms.

Mark has done workshops in coordination with us before, though my favorite collaboration with him was the year Commedia Sans Arte used him and Aspen (she is half fencer, half Valkyrie) as stunt doubles for our show fight scenes at KC Renfest for a couple weeks, till Faire management decided that women could not use swords that year. I used to have a video clip; they did the fastest swordplay I saw at Faire that season.

Commedia's next show opens in less than 48 hours! The Masque of the Red Jest: or, Harlequin Goes to Hell - done with our typical twists on traditional commedia dell arte. We have a very basic scenario, with tons of room for the improvisation that makes it so damn much fun to do. We are again doing a full length, single storyline (with god knows how many digressions along the way). The two constants in all performances are the haunted mansion and the characters: our old characters of Pantalone, Capitano (though our new Capitano has chesticles), Francesca, and Harlequin are joined by the Widow Esmerelda and the servants Baudolino and Polly (definitely not Purebred). And they all get mixed up in the haunted mansion - that is almost all the plot we have. Before the show, audience members will be given some cards with questions to answer - those answers will be used as major plot elements in the show. And nobody in the cast gets to know those answers except the Narrator . . . until the appropriate moment!

Just in case anybody reading this wants to come see the insanity, we have shows at 8pm Thursday through Saturday for the next two weeks (Oct 26-28 and Nov 2-4). Tickets are $10 ($8 if bought in advance), or $20 for the few, special, hoity toity box seats where people get waited on by cast members and get treats not available to anybody else in the audience. The Just Off Broadway Theatre is a delightful black box theatre, nestled among some ruins which greatly resemble an old Spanish fort (some day we will do a pirate show OUTSIDE the theatre), in Penn Valley Park, Kansas Cith, MO (the theatre website is www.justoffbroadway.org).

I have been playing non-Commedia, Court-type roles at Faires all year, so I am WAAAY ready to play hard for this show. The new servant Baudolino, played by Philip Blue Owl Hooser, is the glibbest, smuggest, punniest male character Sans Arte has had since Griffin F. For dirty old men, the Widow Esmerelda was clearly built by the same Maker as Madam Red. And I have no idea how much our Capitano and Polly's performances will be affected by their background in burlesque dance.

Last weekend was the start of my second season as Uncle Lester, ( way too old fashioned to inflict on any but the curious )