Looking Back at 2014

The last twelve months have been very busy and as I look back I am pleased that there's so much to be grateful for, proud of and draw inspiration from.

Since last January, no less than nine of my own plays - large and small - have been presented to the world (5 of them World Premieres).

January... 
* Directed/produced/designed/ teched Andy Eninger's THE LAST CASTRATO for Audacity
* Teamed up with TheaterJones and Elaine Liner to sort of adopt the YOLO Solo Fest which featured
* Premiered my short solo show I BROUGHT HOME A CHUPACABRA (dirercted by my lovely wife Ruth and featuring the kick-ass Lauren Moore)
* Taught two classes as adjunct for Tarrant County College (one film class, one theatre)

February...
* Journeyed to the Comedy Parlor in Tulsa to perfom Fun Grip Improv (also taught joint improv workshop there with Swearingen).
* took seven hours to drive back to Dallas from Tulsa due to ice storm. Ruth and I spent time to hatch plan to save money and get out of crappy rent houses.

ROBERTS' ETERNAL GOLDFISH

March...
* Ruth and I move to crappy Irving apartment to save money... which we do.
* Taught Playwriting Workshop to high schoolers at Dallas Public Library for Junior Players.
* Attended Austin's Staple! Fest and sold prints of my comic MY SECRET ISLAND. Drove back in another ice storm.
* Premiered my solo show ROBERTS' ETERNAL GOLDFISH at the 2014 Out of the Loop Festival. Won a Best of Fest Award.
* Hosted the Alternative Comedy Theatre's fourth annual Monologue Jam at Cafe Bohemia in Plano, TX
* Created Kickstarter campaign for Dallas Solo Fest. Raised $1,325 in two weeks.

April...
* Got hand-made letter-press cards from Lilco Press. She used my design. Expensive luxury, but they are so sweet.

May...
* Participated in "Method In Madness" Playwriting Panel at Denton Community Theatre.
* My play ARSENIC & ROSES was read at the "Method In Madness" event as well.
* Produced national festival of one-person shows called Dallas Solo Fest. Local acts as well as acts from around the country. Very successful.
* Taught Intro to Drama summer school session for Tarrant County College.

June...
* Finished last illustration in a series of art prints based on Samuel Beckett plays.
* Directed student-written one-act THE HOLDING FIX for the Junior Players/ Kitchen Dog Theatre event PUPFest.
* Co-Produced the 6th Annual Big Sexy Weekend of Improv with Alternative Comedy Theater.
* Taught workshop called "But I Suck at The Administartive Stuff" at Big sexy.
* Also performed Fun Grip and Dribble Funk at Big Sexy as well as hosting Monologue Jam.
* Taught a two week Drama Camp at Fretz Rec Center for Junior Players. My niece Kylie was in the camp. The kids performed the show I wrote for them TALKING JELLO WANTS A NEW PHONE.

The kids of Fretz Rec

July...
* Updated my ebook "7 Considerations For the Solo Performer"
* Taught Drama Camp at McKinney Rec Center for Junior Players. The kids performed the show I wrote for them THE SEARCH FOR MAGICAL STRAWBERRY SYRUP.
* Drove to Austin and PrintBombed BookPeople.
* Got horribly sick for about two weeks. Which sucked.

August...
* Emceed a three-day Benefit for Matt Tomlanovich at the Margo Jones Theatre.
* Had two plays done at Kichen Dog Theatre as part of the One-Minute Play Fest. They were I HATE IT HERE and CHUPACABRA RIGHTS.
* Sundown Collaborative Theatre did one of my short pieces LIZARD BOY EATS A DORITO as part of their "A Mix Tape: We've Done It Again" series of short works. It is performed in Denton and in Dallas by the delightfully weird Robert Linder.
* Begin teach the Fall semester as an adjunt at Tarrant County College. Two classes (Film and Theatre)
* Produce and host the first of a quarterly series called the Audacity Solo Salon, a sort of workshop for DFW area solo performers.

September...
* Teach two weeks of workshops of Improv for adults at S.T.A.G.E.
* My folks and Ruth treat me to Fogo de Chao for my birthday.

October...
* Ruth and I head to NYC to cacth Peter Brook's show The Valley of Astonishment at Theatre for a New Audience. Also meet up with Friends, including Will Harper and get 3:30 a.m. meatballs at Meatball Shop. Ruth and I stay in New Yorker Hotel suite. Fancy. Almost forgot how wonderful travel is...

November...
* Jeff Hernandez and I resurrect the long-dormant podcast Bike Soccer Jamboree.
* I help Brandon Potter produce his solo show SEX, DEATH AND LIGHT SWITCHES with some hosting from Audacity Theatre Lab.
* Taught workshops called "Making Your Characters Awesome Through Improv" at the 2014 Texas Thespians Festival. At Omni Hotel in Downtwn Dallas. One workshop had 85 high schoolers.
* Hosted pimped out version of Monologue Jam, produced by MINT Presents at Margo Jones Theatre.

CORNER OFFICE SKY

December...
* Finished fall semester at TCC. Filling for absent teachers, I ended up with four classes by the end of the semester. Big workload.
* Read excerpt of CYRANO A-GO-GO at second Audacity Solo Salon.
* My one-act play CORNER OFFICE SKY was presented as part of Nouveau 47 Theatre's "A Very Nouveau Holiday." It was directed by Becki McDonald.
* TheaterJones.com does a write-up on me as one of the "Forward Thinkers" in Dallas Arts in 2014.

Besides the month-by-month breakdown above, I read about 30 books and am contemplating writing (another) one of my own. I enjoyed my second full year of marriage to the wonderful Ruth and welcomed the addition of a new niece. I officiated my sister’s wedding last fall.I moved on from my manual labor job unloading trucks weekly at the Container Store to get another weekly manual labor job as a part-time ranch hand at a spread in Southlake.

As I wrote on my Tumblr around my birthday this year... "It seems so vacuous to list stuff off like this, but a lot of the time I get bogged down in the day to day. I look around at the continually shifting piles of disorder in my office or the unending pile of laundry that needs to be washed and/or folded and put away and just wanna bury my head in the sand. It is good to know I’m still moving and that the movement is in a progressive direction."

I am very excited about 2015. It will see way more travel, more teaching, more writing/performing/directing, more reading. It will also include exciting new projects - some outside my usual domains. It will also be the last hoorah for my 30s, so I plan to blow it out for real and take everything up a notch.

I'm mentioned on Art & Seek

I was mentioned in an interview local critic Mark Lowry recently did with Anne Bothwell on KERA's artsblog Art & Seek. Mark runs the TheaterJones website that covers performing arts in north Texas. He also writes for Arts & Culture and several other outlets. 

The interview was over what stood out to him during 2014. I made the list via the Dallas Solo Fest. It was nice of him to mention me and I'm glad the DSF has made a bit of an impact on the Dallas arts scene.

There's a transcript, but you can also listen to the interview... HERE

Pics from CORNER OFFICE SKY

Early episodes of Bike Soccer Jamboree available for download

Jeff Hernadez and I have been recording a semi-humorous/ semi-sincere podcast since 2012. It is called Bike Soccer Jamboree. It has changed a lot since we first started recording it. We did all the recording in the kitchen of my rent house on a small flip cam. I'd convert the video into an MP3 file, then edit it on a free audio editing program.

In the early days, we were on a now-defunct website Posterous (which was shut down when it was bought out by Twitter). When Jeff opened what would be the new home for the podcast, Sensational Adventure Club he started putting episodes on itunes. Unfortunately, he didn't put the first eleven on itunes and up until recently, there wasn't a way to download them.

But now there is. Head over to the Bike Soccer Jamboree site and click on an early episode. Some of the early ones are my favorites of the series. The first three episodes are now downloadable and the rest of those first 11 will be soon.

All the goodness... HERE

CORNER OFFICE SKY in the press

DeWayne Blundell as R.H. and Ana Gonzalez as Skye in CORNER OFFICE SKY

My one-act CORNER OFFICE SKY opened this past wekeend alongside a collection of nine other short plays as part of Nouveau 47 Theatre's A Very Nouveau Holiday. Here's a synopsis...

R.H. has just been promoted. As he finds a quiet spot away from the raucous office holiday party to congratulate himself he finds an other-worldly young woman named Skye. She seems drawn to a man with a good brain in his head.

The excellent Becki MCDonald directs. DeWayne Blundell is R.H. and Ana Gonzalez is Skye

The show has recieved nice write-ups, including...

"...bizzare and inventive..." ~ Christopher Soden, Dallas Arts Examiner

"...comedy reigns supreme..." ~ Danielle Georgiou, Dallas Observer Arts Blog

"... quizzical... a particular hoot..." ~ Nancy Churnin, DallasNews.com

Playing througfh December 21. Info... HERE.

CYRANO A-GO-GO at Solo Salon

I recently had the opoortunity to read an excerpt of my solo show CYRANO-A-GO-GO at the Audacity Solo Salon. I got some great feedback from the dozen and half audience members that turned out.

I was on a roster with Adam A. Anderson and Kris Noteboom. They rocked it out with their pieces as well.

Adam Anderson, Me and Kris Noteboom

This is nice...

The FB post below refers to... THIS

Recommended: David Mogolov's THIS COULD HAVE GONE WORSE

In 2010, David Mogolov began a series of three comedic monologues that left audiences questioning their life decisions small and large, from their flossing habits to their anger at Ponzi schemers. A hilarious, deep dive into the limits of human rationality, Mogolov's comedy also presents history's most thorough analysis of the smell of a Subway sandwich.

In This Could Have Gone Worse, the trilogy of shows is annotated and expanded with commentary on how they were written and produced, with an honest account of what failed and what succeeded, and why. The notes and new chapters look at it from both the perspective of Mogolov and his director, Steve Kleinedler.

I'm part way through this excellent book by solo performer and bon vivant David Mogolov and I'm going to go ahead and recommend it to all. Especially awesome if you are into performance or comedy (or both). Wonderful mix of smart and funny.

You can get the Kindle version for like $5. Here's a link... This Could Have Gone Worse: Mogologues, 2010-2014

I'm in the Audacity Solo Salon

I will be performing an exceprt of my solo piece CYRANO A-GO-GO at the Audacity Solo Salon next Monday, December 8. I will be in some fine company, alongside Kris Noteboom and Adam A. Anderson.

Here's a clip if the piece I'm working on from a reading back in 2011.

CYRANO A-GO-GO excerpt "The Text, Monsieur..." from FT Bonnigan on Vimeo.

The aim of the Audacity Solo Salon is to support and nurture both established and emerging solo performers in the north Texas area. It is also a way to extend the mission of the annual Dallas Solo Fest beyond just the festival itself. This quarterly series will be a way for solo artists to rehearse, experiement and develop their work in front of supportive audiences.

It is P-W-Y-C and B-Y-O-B, so if you get a chance come on out...

Monday, December 8, 2014 at 7:30 pm 
At the Margo Jones Theatre, 
 1121 First Avenue in Fair Park, 
Dallas TX 75210 

Bike Soccer Jamboree Episode 28 is ready for your ears!

Jeff Hernandez and I have released episode 28 of the incredibly unnecessary podcast, Bike Soccer Jamboree. In this episode Jeff discusses his dreams of a "perfect Thanksgiving" and I express my unwavering insistence on turkey as the only acceptable main dish that may ever be served. And we are on a plane.

Head over to the Sensational Adventure Club to have a listen... HERE.

Corner Office Sky to play December 11-21

My newest play CORNER OFFICE SKY will play as part of a collection of holiday-themed one-acts a the Margo Jones Theatre December 11-21. The project is called A VERY NOUVEAU HOLIDAY and is put on by Nouveau 47 Theatre. More info... HERE. 

R.H. has just been promoted. As he finds a quiet spot away from the raucous office holiday party to congratulate himself he finds an other-worldly young woman named Skye. She seems drawn to a man with a good brain in his head.

I'm not sure who's acting in it or who's directing it yet [update 12/5/14- The excellent Becki MCDonald is directing. DeWayne Blundell is R.H. and Ana Gonzalez is SKYE... yay!], but I should have that info soon. Oh, and they just put together a snazzy poster...

Monologue Jam Super Successful

Me hosting and explaining the ground rules for the Monologue Jam.

Recently, I had a chance to overhaul the Monologue Jam.Producer K. Holly Nuckels of MINT Presents presented the evening filled with games, contests and audience participations, giveaways and, of course, the usual challenge of several improvisers going about short made-up character monologues. I hosted and, though the turn out was kind of small (Sunday evening...), everyone had a blast. I'm am taking it to be "proof of concept" for the event and hope MINT will present some more down the road. 

The event was November 9, 2014 at 7 PM at the Margo Jones Theatre. Here's some pics...

Juan Perez starts off the monologues

Audience members compete in Rock, Paper,Scissors

Lip-sync challange to Del Shannon's Runaway... with audience member back-up dancers

Bike Soccer Jamboree episode 25

Bike Soccer Jamboree Episode 25... the Lost Episode!

Well over  a year ago, Jeff Hernandez and I recorded a BSJ podcast and then promptly forgot about it. Now we have dug it back up and put it online. So, if you want to hear us discuss aging, harvest moons, world politics and old school diets... give it a listen.

Bike Soccer Jamboree Episode 25 (the lost episode)... HERE

MONOLOGUE JAM gets pimped out

I have decided to pimp out the Monologue Jam. I met with the wonderful K. Holly Nuckels of MINT Presents and we brain-stormed a bunch of games, contests and audience participations that can round out the usual challenge of several improvisers going about short made-up character monologues. We're trying it out November 9. Here's the description...

A handful of improvisers present hilarious and strange 3 minute monologues, on the spot and in character, from a prompt supplied by the audience. But that’s not all! Contests! Games! and Give-aways! The audience becomes part of the action! Bring your own beverage of choice! 

November 9, 2014 at 7 PM, Margo Jones Theatre, 1121 First Avenue, Fair Park, Dllas TX 75210.  Admission $5 at the door.

I saw Peter Brook's The Valley of Astonishment

Peter Brook's The Valley of Astonishment at Theatre for New Audiences

Ruth treated me to a trip to New York to see Peter Brook’s show The Valley of Astonishment for my birthday. It is the third Brook show I’ve seen and it did not disappoint.

Director Peter Brook is a huge source of inspiration to me as a theatre artist. He turns 90 years old next year. He has a long and varied career in his wake – 70 years - and with his current show The Valley of Astonishment he proves that he hasn’t lost any of the creativity and theatrical inquisitiveness that has so set him apart.

The show is staged, in usual Brook fashion, with pristine beauty; nothing appears on the vast empty platform of the Theatre for New Audience’s three-quarter thrust stage that is not used. There are a few wooden chairs, a rolling table, and a pale stage cloth spread out like a large rectangular rug on the black stage.

The acting, like the visuals, is similarly unforced. This allows the audience’s imagination to run as extreme as the ones that belong to the characters, played by Kathryn Hunter (so amazing), Marcello Magni, and Jared McNeill. The three actors who portray an assortment of people who have synesthesia and the doctors they consult. They all seem perpetually shuffled between pain and exaltation, terror and wonder, bewilderment and revelation.

The thread of the show follows the excellent Ms. Hunter’s character Samy Costas, a 44 year-old woman of seemingly infinite and exact recall, someone for whom memory is a vivid, three-dimensional vista. After a visit to a pair of neurologists (Magni and McNeill), she becomes a nightclub sensation as a master of mnemonics. Her state of being becomes a spectacle, on a par with the card tricks of a one-handed magician – Marcello Magni, in a delightful audience participation sequence, confounding the senses of the actual audience as he spontaneously amalgamates sleight of hand with laughter.  Samy finds herself suffocating under a barrage of memorized names and numbers she can never erase.

All of the actors' performances are genial, bighearted, and memorable. Hunter, in particular, is thrilling as Samy, bravely charting her journey from a woman content with her place in the world to one who is completely lost once she confronts the amazing powers of her own mind.

Not to be overlooked are the two excellent musicians, Raphael Chambouvet and Toshi Tsuchitori.  The sounds swing from solemn to frantic, mysterious to jazzy. The chief function and glory of the music is how integral it is in underscoring the show's quiet astonishment at the miracles of the human brain.

What's refreshing about The Valley of Astonishment is how Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne, the theater-makers responsible for the script, never bog down the text in overly-detailed facts and psychobabble; instead they present their research through relatable human stories. They engross us in the human predicament of Samy, whose mnemomic power is both glorious blessing and traumatizing curse.

The thing I walk away with, as someone who studies and follows Brook’s work, is the profound mindfulness of the piece. It is so vividly presented, yet so simple. There is very little glitziness. With the exception of one sequence where a fluid wash of changing colored lighting (designed by Philippe Vialatte) covers the stage while Mr. McNeill’s painter works, all the while, listening to jazz we get no easy externalization of the internal world of the brain.

It is in essence, a very mature work. It is clean, calm and graceful. Brook is not trying to show off (not his thing). Nothing flashy. Only thoughtful. He is not trying to do anything except explore, on stage, the wonder of the human brain. With his simple aesthetic, he has trimmed away the excess.

The only real problem comes from just how simple the presentation is. It may come off too simple for the unenlightened. The argument may arise, similar to those people who look at Picasso works and think they too could “do that,” that if this wasn’t a piece done by the great Peter Brook it would just be some minimal amateurish work.  It doesn’t make a loud statement in a grand theatrical way that this is a production done by a master. It whispers and is confident with itself. The work is very entertaining and clear, especially considering it involves something as complex and mysterious as the workings of the human mind, but more than that it is distilled and essential. It is simple in the way a Zen ritual is simple. It is simple because of the mastery involved.

These Peter Brook shows are kind of like little pilgrimages for me.

Ruth and I getting ready to watch the show

While in NYC I hooked up with friends for drink and talk:
Here is Will Harper, Dominic D'Andrea and Kim Adams outside the Meatball Shop at 3:30 am.

Applying with Dribble Funk

I am applying to a comedy festival with my solo improv format Dribble Funk. This will be the first time I have purposely aimed to perform DF at a big festival, especially outside the DFW area. I have performed it outside of Dallas a few times (like in Hong Kong and in Austin), but, honestly, I don't perfom it very often. It scares me every time I do it. Sometimes I kick-ass and sometimes it is just lame. As I develop it, it has a certain two steps forward one step back thing about it.

I am at my best in the Dribble Funk when I combine solid characters with a tidy plot that gradually becomes clear. Also, I'm learning that velocity is important. If I can spin it out at the same speed I'm thinking it up, then it makes magic happen. This is way more difficult than it sounds.

I may not get in the festival, but applying has made me consider Dribble Funk lately. I had to post a link to a video performance and realized I didn't have any Dribble Funks on YouTube, so I threw one up. It is one I am pretty proud of. I call it the "Ryan's School Report or Flying Fox Set."

Enjoy.

WARNING: Strong language! NSFW!

The Holding Fix performance video

I wrote in an earlier post how I directed a group of student actors in a short student-written play at the beginning of the summer. It was for an event called PUP Fest, produced by Junior Players and Kitchen Dog Theater. They just sent me a link to the video of the show. For one week of two hour rehearsals, I was very pleased with how the young actors performed. They have their scripts in hand because technically it is billed as a staged reading.

Here's the video...


The Holding Fix from Devon Miller on Vimeo.

Originality Over Perfection

"The Collective works, ultimately, towards perfection. My idea of an Individual working in the Theatre is different. The goal is not perfection. The Individual Theatre-maker (such as a solo performer) is working ultimately for the most personal outcome. Originality trumps perfection."

~ "Originality Over Perfection." Brad McEntire

I make a substantial realization over on my Tumblr about the goals associated with the kind of theatre I persue. See it... HERE

The first Audacity Solo Salon

Van Quattro reading his work STANDING EIGHT COUNT

A lot of my theatre activities over the last several years nave narrowed on an interest in solo performance. I started a solo performance blog that touches on, admittedly, only a fraction of the solo performance happening around the nation. I developed and performed three distinct original solo pieces, including CHOP, which is probably the piece I am most proud of and which has proven most artistically fulfilling to date in my creative process. Last May I produced the first ever Dallas Solo Fest, a Fringe-like theatre festival bringing together local as well as national solo acts in a celebration of one-person shows.

Now I am extending this interest, and the ethos of the DSF, into a quarterly event, a sort of solo performance open mic/workshop series I am calling the Audacity Solo Salon.

The aim of the Audacity Solo Salon is to support and nurture both established and emerging solo performers in the north Texas area. It is also a way to extend the mission of the annual Dallas Solo Fest beyond just the festival itself. 

 

This will be a way for solo artists to rehearse, experiment and develop their work in front of supportive audiences. The Audacity Solo Salon it will serve as a collaborative gathering place so solo artists and their audiences can meet and inspire each other and help cultivate a growing community of solo performance in DFW.

This first Salon was on August 25, 2014 and featured local DFW solo performers Van Quattro, Steven Young and Beth Bontley. It seemed to go pretty well, with about a dozen audience members. The solo artists all semmed to come away with some good feedback, too. 

Culture journalist Danielle Georgiou did a nice write-up on the Salon in the Dallas Observer... HERE. And you can see pics from the evening... HERE. And a bit of info... HERE and HERE, as well.

I'm aiming to do the next one on December 8, 2014.

The Elevator Project

AT&T Performing Arts Center

The huge AT&T Performing Arts Center in the Dallas Arts District is doing an experiment. They have opened their smaller spaces to several small arts groups (theatres, dance groups and storytellers) to each do one production in the venue during the 2014-2015 season. It is called the Elevator Project. I weighed in on this yesterday after an article about the project appeared in Art & Seek, a local arts and culture website.

Here's me quoting myself...

"In fact, I think it might be a fallacy to believe more mid-size and larger theatres would be good for Dallas. There are so many smaller groups percisely because there is room to operate, room to say something unique and audiences to appreciate what is said at the smaller end of the spectrum. Dallas seems to reward gumption, spark innovation and prides itself on fostering scrappy go-getters. And I would hazard to argue that there are no groups more scrappy than the 40-someodd theatre groups spread all around the Metroplex that do little shows for handfuls of audiences at a time.

Read my whole soapbox rant... HERE.

CHUPACABRA RIGHTS at Dallas 1MPF

With fellow playwright Samantha Rios, 1MPF founder Dominic D'Andrea,
and actors Mayam Baig and Travis Stuebing at the Dallas One-Minute Play Festival

Below is a fuzzy pic of one of my pieces in in performance at the 1st Dallas One-Minute Play Festival at Kitchen Dog Theater, CHUPACABRA RIGHTS. 

The 1MPF played August 16-18, 2014 at the McKinney Avenue Contemporary, sponsored by Kitchen Dog Theater. I had two pieces in the production. Dylan Key, of the Undermain, directed my play I HATE IT HERE and CHUPACABRA RIGHTS featured the excellent Danielle Pickard and Danielle Georgiou and was directed by Second Thought Theatre's Kelsey Head.

Danielle Georgiou and Danielle Pickard in CHUPACABRA RIGHTS

The Danielles: Pickard and Georgiou

In reflection, I observed a few things about this unique event: 

1.) It was wonderful to get such a large and diverse swath of the Dallas theatre community together in one big project. Besides seeing a bunch of old friends and dear colleagues, I made some new friends and contacts as well. The scope of the project was a great bringing-together.

2.) I definitely saw the "specific to the community" angle that the founder of the 1MPF concept, Dominic D'Andrea, was shooting for. The plays were purposelfully a cross-section of the interests and concerns of Dallas. They were furthermore grouped into roughly similar themes such as racial issues, gender/sexual awareness, dense traffic, dependenace on technology, Texas pride and so on.

3.) Though I liked being part of the "community" I think it also took a little something away from the individuality of the plays and playwrights involved. Instead of a collection of individual voices, what came out was a jumbled mass of coincidently intersecting "bits." I guess a better way to say it would be that the pieces were plugged into the service of the project, instead of the project serving the voices of the individual writers. This was not necessarily a fault so much as the nature of the beast (all the plays are one-minute long, for goodness sake), but it was definitely noticeable. As an experiment and collective project it was beneficial to participate in, but it runs counter to my own m.o., so definitely not something to engage in very often.

I'm printing CHUPACABRA RIGHTS below. I added "presumeably male" in the opening directions, since I guess it wasn't clear before, particularly after seeing how the piece was presented at KDT. The director took an interesting angle with the piece, by flipping the genders and putting in a bit of interesting blocking (they are sitting in front of chairs). Not completely sure why, but it actually seemed to come out a-okay.

#     #    #

CHUPACABRA  RIGHTS

By Brad McEntire © 2014

Lights up. Two, presumeably male, Chupacabras stand facing the audience. We know they are Chupacabras because they probably have little cardboard signs on them that say, simply, “Chupacabra.” At rise A YOUNG LADY kisses CHUPA 1 on the cheek and exits.

CHUPA 1

Cute right? I’m going to marry her.

CHUPA 2

You can’t marry her. You don’t have the right. You’re not a citizen here.

CHUPA 1

So?

CHUPA 2

You aren’t even human. You don’t have the right.

CHUPA 1

I don’t see the problem. The Supreme Court says corporations have rights, like people. Why not us?

Nice little beat.

… Besides I love her.

Lights fade. End.

Helping Hands for Matt Tomlanovich

With Ms. Erin Sngleton who coordinated the fund-raiser

This past August 20-22 a benefit was held at the Margo Jones Theatre for my good friend and colleague Matt Tomlanovich. It was called Helping Hands and Hyena Haikus: A benefit for Matt Tomlanovich. I acted as emcee and we managed to raise about $6,500 over those three days.

Matt Tomlanovich has been in the hospital since April 3rd, 2014 as a result of a serious MRSA infection in his spinal cord. Since May 14 he has been in a facility receiving rehab and has been making good progress. Though (at the time that this is being written) there is hope that he will recover more use of his limbs, it is probable that he will be a quadriplegic. 

Assistive technology for quadriplegia can run anywhere from $18,000 to $400,000 so the financial goal set for this group is a very rough estimate of the cost of getting Matt the machines he would need in order to once again be creating and some additional funds for the practical costs incurred to his wife and two teenage sons during this difficult time.

Matt Tomlanovich... weird and wonderful dude.

Matt is a wonderful, weird, creative and caring guy. This infection kinda came outta nowwhere and blind-sided him and his family, and by extension, those of us around him. 

I encourage you to visit Matt's GoFundMe page and donate a few dollars. Every little bit helps.

Head... HERE.

"I hate the idea that artists should only do one subject or one style. I love the gluttonous, Pablo-Picasso-Diego-Rivera god-monster of modernism where you try to tackle the entire world with your art.

This is the best thing I've ever heard Molly Crabapple say. Great quote.

DiscoverDenton.com has nice words about LIZARD BOY EATS A DORITO

A MIXTAPE FOR THE YOUTUBE GENERATION

DiscoverDenton.com | Wed, Aug 13, 2014 | Review by: Christopher Taylor 

Tucked into the UNT neighborhoods, round about Malone and Scripture, there’s a building that one does not usually notice. Past the shadows on Jagoe, past Mr. Chopsticks (unless you need pre-show nosh), sandwiched behind a large tree that shades the entrance lies Green Space Arts Collective. The only reason that I know it is there is because I have had the pleasure of rehearsing, performing and viewing work done by any one of a number of bootstrapping theatre companies that perform outside of the gaze of your average theatre goer in Denton. This weekend, you will have two opportunities to see what Sundown Collaborative Theatre, one of the longest lasting independent theatre companies in Denton, is calling We’ve Done It Again: A Mixtape.

If you’ve studied your Shakespeare like good little boys and girls, you know that a green space represents a space where the normal structures of the world do not apply. This short works festival has nothing to do with Shakespeare (although Sundown is producing an adaptation of The Winter’s Talelater this year) and everything to do with defying the expectations of an audience used to being able to drag the scroll bar to the interesting part of the scene. Comprised of 9 short works, there is something here to appeal to all tastes. My particular favorites were John Goes to Mars by Jeff Hernandez, Role Reversal by Kelsey Johnson and Lizardboy Eats a Dorito by Brad McEntire.

John Goes to Mars reminded me of an Arthur C. Clarke story in that it plays in a world that allows for the concept of manned space travel to another planet without the need to explain exactly how it works. Hernandez focuses on the human element, the relationships and experiences of his main character to draw a larger metaphor for escape and through escape, hope. If this were an actual mixtape, John Goes to Mars would be “Space Oddity.”

Role Reversal takes a familiar genre and theme that Sundown loves, mashed up music with frenetic movement. A writer and character twirl around each other, controlling each other in turn until they come to a resolution. This might be the Tori Amos song on the tape.

Lizard Boy Eats a Dorito has, as the title suggests, one character and one point of conflict. Despite its simplicity, Lizard Boy (Robert Linder) captured the audience’s attention like nothing I have seen. Zappa.

I know. The music doesn’t all seem like it would fit together. Sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t. What does work is Sundown’s commitment to bringing creative theatre artists from Denton and Dallas together to create something unique, imperfect, yet still beautiful.

The shows do contain adult language and situations so leave the kids at home for this one and come out to Green Space Arts Collective this Saturday or Sunday evening at 8pm to see what Sundown Collaborative Theatre has in store. If you see the show, make a night of it and head down to the Austin Street Truck Stop for post-show dinner and East Side Denton for after dinner drinks.

We’ve Done It Again: A Mixtape has performances Saturday and Sunday evening at 8 p.m. at Green Space Arts Collective, 529 Malone Street in Denton.

Tickets are $10 for adults, $8 for students.

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