After partying with the folks of Players Theater, then backtracking the 9 miles from their hotel to mine, I got to bed it 2AM.
As I awoke Friday morning, I kept debating getting up and going to the morning workshops, or just rolling over and sleeping in. At 8AM I finally decided to get up, and arrived at the theater at 8:46, just as I did yesterday. (Sessions started at 8:45)
I attend workshops on running a one-act festival, and building props on a budget.
After lunch (which for me was just a soda– breakfast was some bagels provided by MTI), was the show for today. First up was an original production, from a group in Colorado, called “CrossWords” which deals with an elderly couple and a grave salesman which comes into their lives. A tragedy here: the play ran 1 hour and 20 seconds. As I write this, they haven’t said what’s to be done about that.
The next piece was Eleemosynary, by Lee Blessing, performed by the Haywood Art Repertory Theater of North Carolina. Or actually, just the first act. (It ran just 51 minutes). It deals with the three generations of women and their relationships. Noteworthy about this show was that it was the only one so far that starred a young actor – The granddaughter was played by a 16 year old.
For the first three sessions, the plays had fallen into an interesting pattern: A Play I’d never seen before followed by one that I had seen. Today, there were three shows in the one session, so that pattern was modified a bit: two I’d never seen, follow by one I had, which in this case was the second musical of the event, “A New Brain”, performed by The Chameleon Theater Company of Minnesota. As opposed to “…Forum” here they kept the songs and jettisoned much of the dialog, performing it mostly as an operetta (I think they only did the first act, up to just after he awoke after the surgery). The singing was very good, but their props/sets were very lame. Mostly plain screens with bad drawings on them; that’s a bit understandable since they had to transport them across two time zones, but a good drawing is just as portable as a bad one. They did have a handle on their running time, clocking in at 58:35. (At this point, I’ve switched to the more precise stopwatch on my PocketPC)
My original plans for dinner got screwed up through a miscommunication, so I ended up having dinner at a little Italian place around the corner from the theater, then back to the motel for a relaxing evening of TV. A few random thoughts about the accommodations: My room has this rather odd smell which seems to be a combination of beer & wine – apparently it was the site of a rather good party recently. And the volume on the TV doesn’t work. Clicking the up or down buttons on either the remote or on the TV itself displays the bar but it doesn’t move. This is troubling because it was rather loud.
Also, across the street is a carpet store. Outside they have side advertising carpet remnants. But “remnants” is too long a word for the side so they cut it down to just “rems” — which is also slang for “rapid eye movement (or deep) sleep.” And the “t” fall off the sign, so it now says “carpe rems” – “Seize Sleep”
Well, at this point, I’m alone in a motel room, watching TV on a Friday night. This seems like a good time to try the Jazucci.