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.

DF380 - A debrief

Introduction
I put together a short video address a few days before the event. In it, I explain my reasons behind attempting Dribble Funk 380.

Prologue - the day before

5:44 PM 

Brad McEntire ‏@McEntireBrad31 AugDay before show. 6+ hrs of improv. No way to prep. Quiet anxiety attacks layered with moments of panic. #DF380

Day of Show  - September 1st, 2013 
What follows is a sort of play-by-play pulling together the timelines and threads of various social media that were posted during performance of Dribble Funk 380. 


5:03 PM
Travis Stuebing on FB
6 hours of improv with Brad McEntire. Here we go. — with Brad McEntire at Dribble Funk 380.

Photo by Travis Stuebing. He's holding the program up in the foreground.

5:49 PM
Matt Tomlanovich on FB

1st hour, 5 to by go-Brad showing no signs of exhaustion. Come and see if he makes it. — at Dribble Funk 380.

5:50 PM

Ruth McEntire ‏@RuthMcEntire
So McEntire is about to cross hour one...five to go...#DF380

6:56 PM
Matt Tomlanovich on FB

Hour 2, Brad beginning to sweat but that is the only sign of effort. 4+ hours left. Come see history in the making at the Margo Jones Theatre. The PBJ bar is awesome! — at Dribble Funk 380.

Photo by Matt Tomlanovich. I loved playing this big, slumpy, mumbling mobster.

7:02 PM

Jeff Hernandez ‏@thejefftweet
Currently watching Brad McEntire perform SIX HOURS of solo improv at Margo Jones Theater. I can't even stay asleep for six hours. #DF380

7:16 PM
Matt Tomlanovich on FB
Into hour 3. After a 10 minute break, refreshed and no sign of wear or tear. Brad McEntire is like some kind of Improv Terminator. Still plenty of time to see history and eat PBJs. — at Dribble Funk 380.

7:38 PM

Ruth McEntire ‏@RuthMcEntire
30 mins into McEntire's 2nd 2 hour set #DF380

7:52 PM

Ruth McEntire ‏@RuthMcEntire
McEntire's mind is impressive! #DF380

8:00 PM
Matt Tomlanovich on FB
Three Hours of Dribble by Brad McEntire

Photo by Ruth Engel-McEntire

8:28 PM
Matt Tomlanovich on FB

Half way in towards hour 4 and Brad McEntire has created over 40 characters and has moved the action from NY to an Alien Planet to Kansas to Necropolis. Like a run-away train, he hurdles toward conclusion. Plenty of PBJ and Nuttella. 3 hours left to see history. Catch him at the finish line. — at Dribble Funk 380.

8:28 PM
Diane Miller on FB
I have to admit, I think just two hours is pretty impressive as it is...

8:31 PM
Matt Tomlanovich on FB
It's just getting funnier.

8:35 PM
Matt Tomlanovich on FB

Best line so far; "Coffee is a dead language." — at Dribble Funk 380.

8:43 PM

Brad McEntire ‏@McEntireBrad
Had to take an early break at hour 4. About to pee pants. Gotta use restroom! #DF380

8:51 PM

Ruth McEntire ‏@RuthMcEntire
McEntire is so insane and creative...silly boy had to take his second 10 min break 30 min early #DF380

8:54 PM
Matt Tomlanovich on FB
Funnier... Like a runner hitting his stride.

9:05 PM

Jeff Hernandez ‏@thejefftweet
Brad McEntire is entering hour number four of six of his one man improv show. Aliens, and Broadway shows. Intense and funny stuff. #DF380

9:12 PM

Jeff Hernandez ‏@thejefftweet
Four plus hours or improv leads to phrases like, "Theater is done in dingy skank holes." #DF380

Photo by Matt Tomlanovich

9:14 PM

Jeff Hernandez ‏@thejefftweet
"You're building space/ time machines for the government? HA! YOUR SISTER'S A PROSTITUTE!!" -fifth hour magic. Brad McEntire 6 hour improv.#DF380

9:19 PM
Matt Tomlanovich on FB
New best line: "You make space/time machines for the government? HaHaHa Your sister's a prostitute!" — at Dribble Funk 380.

9:23 PM

Ruth McEntire ‏@RuthMcEntire
The memory on this boy!!! #DF380

9:25 PM

Jeff Hernandez ‏@thejefftweet
McEntire is telling a story of an alien superhero during his six hour solo improv. He's daring me to tweet. #DF380

9:26 PM
Matt Tomlanovich on FB

Entering hour 5 (260 minutes down), the Alien can speak English, cornbread has become a reoccurring motif and a bus load of children have been saved. 120 minutes left. — with Brad McEntire at Dribble Funk 380.

9:38 PM

Ruth McEntire ‏@RuthMcEntire
"Sticky Tang hands" #DF380

10:08 PM

Ruth McEntire ‏@RuthMcEntire
Ninjas have joined the story,late in the evening but...better late then never... :D #DF380

10:16 PM
Matt Tomlanovich on FB
Like a drowning man who sees the sky from beneath the surface of a stormy sea ,Brad McEntire senses an end to his historic adventure. But he's not out of the water yet. Luckily, the PBJs have distracted the sharks. 75 minutes and counting. — at Dribble Funk 380.

 

11:10 PM
Matt Tomlanovich on FB
Best line: "my son...He's on the chess team...I mean he's not a starter..." — at Dribble Funk 380.

11:17 PM
Matt Tomlanovich on FB
And so it ends. 380 minutes alone and tired. The PBJs are gone but Caligula the Musical is born. — at Dribble Funk 380.

Epilogue - What I learned...

So, I accomplished what I originally set out to do. I unfolded a completely spontaneous, created-on-the-spot story involving dozens of characters over 380 minutes (or nearly 6 1/2 hours). I am extremely proud of the resulting performance. As expected there were some lame parts, but there were also some really golden moments.

It is an accomplishment that must sink in when I tell people about it. It doesn't sound that impressive or unique until the person I'm talking to really considers it. No script, no prep, no help. A single epic narrative is spun out over nearly six and half hours by a single performer... completely making it up as he goes along! To my knowledge no other solo improviser has ever attempted anything quite like it. 

The performance yielded many lessons and observations for me, nestled as I was in the eye of the storm.

Photo by Ruth Engel-McEntire

1. A Sunday afternoon at the end of the summer on a Holiday weekend is a difficult time to get audience members out to see anything, let alone a long-ass solo improv. I had at most 9 people in the audience at one point and as little as three at another. The audience was allowed to come and go as they pleased and partake of the peanut butter and jelly sandwich bar in the lobby. Still, I would have liked to have had more audience members. One guy, who left and came back commented after the show that it was too bad more people didn't come out to see it. I agree. It was also my own damn fault. Since I was so nervous about the whole thing, I pretty much dragged my feet the first two weeks after announcing it (leaving myself an out). Better marketing could have yielded better numbers in the audience.

2. I am out of shape. I stayed in constant movement and did a lot of running between characters on the stage and by the end I felt like I had been in an intense workout. I got winded once, after the first 10 minute break (at the 2 hour mark). It didn't last long, but I couldn't seem to catch my breath on stage for a bit. Kinda scary. Today, my legs burn!

3. My voice held out, but today, the day after, I am nearly hoarse. I created a few rather loud, abrasive characters. Only one with a gravelly voice. I was proud of my vocal range with the characters, actually, even more so that the physical characterizations.

4. The beginning was really difficult and clumbersome (exposition, man) and the ending was also difficult (I had a natural end point about 30 minutes before the time was up, so had to kind of Lord of the Rings out a few more endings). The middle couple of hours were the most fun. I caught a second wind and my energy level spiked. I switched in the middle at some point from doing a lot of character interaction work to telling long rambling character monologues. The monologues were much funnier and more dynamic than the character interactions, though they did not necessarily drive the story forward as much. I would not have found this out if I hadn't had to push through the barrier of my normal limits. After I pushed past my breaking point (about an hour and half), I was in completely new territory. The Dribble Funk passed from scary to really fun and exciting. 

5. I stumbled onto a narrative structure that saved my ass and did it completely by accident. Once the main objective of the main character was put into play, I kept setting up one dilemma after another, which actually pushed the protagonist further from solving his main problem. This sort of nesting doll structure allowed me to spin the single yarn out over hours.

6. I have good friends. A lot of my close friends came and sat in to watch for a bit. There were also several people I didn't know. Local solo performer John Michael brought me a "birthday" pizza. Fellow Audacity artist Jeff Hernandez came and tweeted updates. My improv cohort Jeff Swearingen caught the final half hour. My wife and chief supporter Ruth manned the lobby while Matt Tomlanovich manned the booth. He also posted a lot of updates on FB. Without support like this, I am sure I would not have been able to pull off something like DF380. I am a lucky guy.

Oh, Ambition...

In one week I will attempt to perform a six hour and 20 minute long improvisation, alone on stage.
This is a crazy idea. What drove me to think this would be a good idea?
My stupid ambition, that's what.
I have had a great deal of ambition, but it has not been a steady stream. Whenever I’ve had an idea most of the time I've found myself bound and determined to achieve that goal, or at least to give it my best try, and usually I have some fun in the pursuit. Well, the fun comes either in the pursuit, or in the success of completion. The best is when it comes as part of the process, when I am fulfilled by simply being immersed in what I sought to do.

In remembering back over the ambitious ventures that I’ve gone after earlier in my life, I can kinda pinpoint one factor that allowed me to pursue my endeavors with such vigorous ambition. That factor, I think, was that I felt I had nothing to lose.
Nothing to lose. What a powerful motivator. It single-handedly kinda removes all fear from any ambitious idea. The disgusting truth, one that I’m so ashamed to admit, is that having “nothing to lose” is a luxury that has faded as I've entered further into adulthood.

As I inch closer and closer to the milestone age of 40, I’m so increasingly annoyed with the fact that I do, in fact, have a few things to lose. I have grown aware and precious with my process. I want. I want to make projects better than the projects that came before. So now there is the danger of sliding backwards, of wasting time, of being found out as not as good as I had hoped I'd be.
Ambition has a double edge. That gap where the nothing-to-lose once was can also prevent the move to bigger things. It can be an impediment to ultimate success.
Also, as I grow older I value other things in life, besides artistic success. I have a wife now, and as close as I can muster to a day job, and bills to pay and so on. I have responsibilities. I value my family, my friends (small circle that it is), travel and so on.

So my struggle, now, is figuring out how to balance these other points of value into my life with making theatre and art . I have never been one to only make art as my absolute priority, but time is passing and... and...

Hello, 2013...

So, today I went to the Webb Gallery in Waxahachie to see sideshow banners and Esther Pearl Watson paintings. Ruth and I listened to Macklemore, Otis Redding and the Lumineers as we drove down. We then ate an early dinner at Olive Garden via a Christmas gift certificate. Haircut then nap. Played Adam Sandler's WATERBOY in the background while I worked over tweaks on the third draft of my new play CARTER STUBBS TAKES FLIGHT. 

That's a full day. 2013 is out of the chute...

P.S. You can see pics of my visit to the Webb Gallery HERE on the Flickr.

Composer John Adams's 106th Julliard Commencement Address

"I should be doing the ritual thing and blessing you with words of wisdom and encouragement. But the truth is, all I really want to say is thank you. Thank all of you students who, against all odds and against all the pressures to do otherwise, have chosen to have a life in the arts. All the paradigms of success that we routinely encounter in our everyday lives—on television, in movies, in the online world, in the constant din of advertising, even from our friends and families—all these “models” for success and happiness American-style are about what is ultimately a disposable life, about a life centered around material gain and about finding the best possible comfort zone for yourself.

But by choosing a life in the arts you’ve set yourselves apart from all that and from a nation that has become such a hostage to distraction that it can’t absorb a single complex thought without having it reduced to a sound byte. Most people now, and particularly most people your age, live in a fractured virtual environment where staying focused on a single thought for, say, a mere seven seconds presents a grave challenge. (I mention seven seconds because a staff researcher at Google in San Francisco recently told me that 7.3 seconds was the amount of time that an average viewer stays on a YouTube site before jumping to another page.) You have grown up in a world that offers constant, almost irresistible distraction not unlike what the serpent in the Garden of Eden offered to Eve when he whispered to her, “check out them apples.”

The arts, however, are difficult. They are mind-bendingly and refreshingly difficult. You can’t learn the role of Hamlet (no less write it), you can’t play the fugue in the Hammerklavier Sonata (no less compose it) and you can’t hope to move effortlessly through one of Twyla Tharp’s ballets without having submitting yourself to something that’s profoundly difficult, that demands sustained concentration and unyielding devotion. Artists are people who’ve learned how to surrender themselves to a higher purpose, to something better than their miserable little egos. They’ve been willing to put their self-esteem in a Cuisinart and let it be chopped and diced and crushed to a pulp. They are the ones who’ve learned to live with the brutal fact that God didn’t dole out talent in fair and equal portions and that the person sitting next to them may only need to practice only half as hard to win the concerto competition.

And the wonderful, astonishing truth is that the arts are utterly useless. You can’t eat music or poetry or dance. You can’t drive your car on a sonnet it or wear it on your back to shield you from the elements. This “uselessness” is why politicians and other painfully literal-minded people during times of budget crises (which is pretty much all the time now) can’t wait to single the arts out for elimination. For them artistic activity is strictly after-school business. They consider that what we do can’t honestly be compared to the real business of life, that art is entertainment and ultimately non-essential. They don’t realize that what we artists offer is one of the few things that make human life meaningful, that through our skill and our talent and through the way that we share our rich emotional lives we add color and texture and depth and complexity to their lives.

A life in the arts means a life of sacrifice and tens of thousands of hours of devotion and discipline with scant remuneration and sometimes even scant recognition. A life in the arts means loving complexity and ambiguity, of enjoying the fact that there are no single, absolute solutions. And it means that you value communicating about matters of the spirit over the baser forms of human interaction, because you know that life is not just a transaction, not simply a game about winning someone’s confidence purely for purposes of material gain. ....I am deeply grateful for your decision..."

 via: Nonesuch.com

CHOP in Seattle - Part 2

I am back in Texas after my travels this past month to Las Vegas, New York, Houston and Seattle. CHOP just finished a run at the Seattle Fringe Festival. This was my last time to perform it for a while. I have been living pretty close with the piece for the last three years (and began writing it two years before that). I enjoy performing the piece and it was a wonderful gateway  for me to stand front and center on the fringe circuit and see what's what. Up until CHOP I had facilitated/enabled others to do the performing, with me acting as director, producer, designer, etc. With CHOP it was me. My kind of theatre written my way and performed the way I'd want to see it. I am so proud of the piece.

It is time to step away for a bit. I'm sure it will be better - deeper and more resonant - with some distance. The next emergence of the piece will be different and I welcome that. I'm not giving up CHOP indefinitely, but I do plan to release it to the greater world for other theatres and performers to take a crack at and see how it stands. And I'm moving on to other projects, with reinvigorated goals to have a really great, portable, personal touring solo show. And with it, have oodles more adventures, perhaps on the great Canadian Fringe circuit this time.

Also at the Seattle Fringe, I met some outstanding performers, met up with family (it is a rare treat to get to share my art with those closest to me... ironic, I know), and experienced great hospitality from nearly everyone we came across. It is as if the city itself were doing its best to be welcoming...

With this in mind, her's a few final pics of my time in the Pacific Northwest at the Seattle Fringe.

Ruth and I with Grant, on of the organizers of the Seattle Fringe.

At Pikes Place Market.

Our excellent hosts... Richard, Curt and wee Thomas.

My aunt and uncle from Oklahoma happened to be visiting my cousin and his partner, newly relocated to Seattle. They all came to see the show and we grabbed dinner afterwards.

If you are curious, you can see a whole set of my travel pics related with CHOP over the years HERE.

advice for creative types from a medieval iconographer

Before starting work, make the sign of the cross; pray in silence and pardon your enemies.

1. Work with care on every detail of your icon, as if you were working in front of the Lord, himself.

2. During work, pray in order to strengthen yourself physically and spiritually; avoid, above all, useless words and keep silence.

3. Pray in particular to the saint whose face you are painting. Keep your mind from distractions and the saint will be close to you.

4. When you have to choose a color, stretch out your hand interiorly to the Lord and ask His counsel.

5. Do not be jealous of your neighbour’s work. His success is your success too.

6. When your icon is finished, thank God that His mercy has granted you the grace to paint the holy images.

7. Have your icon blessed by putting it on the altar. Be the first to pray before it, before giving it to others.

8. Never forget the joy of spreading icons in the world, the joy of the work or icon-painting, the joy of being in union with the saint whose face you are painting.

via:Bremner Duthie's Blog