Category: Theatre

  • The First Time I Met Diane (Unedited)

    (This is a follow up on my post from yesterday, which dealt with the passing of my dear friend and mentor, Diane Simons.)

    I want to say that this all happened over the Summer of 1996. I was nineteen years old, and a professional slacker, as that was the term then. I was in between universities, and when I wasn’t smoking cigarettes and thinking about how great I am having accomplished nothing, I spent all my time hanging out with my old high school friends in our home town.

    One night, two of my friends thought it would be a good idea for us to go way the hell out, to the sticks of west Fort Worth, and see a play in the woods. I’m pretty sure this is how the idea was sold to me. The reason to see this play was that one of my friends had promised their theatre teacher at the community college they were attending that they would go see this play, which was “Lysistrata.”

    When I say it was way the hell out there, I mean we must have drove for over an hour, and the took the wrong exit off of 820. And this was so far away from the city that there were no street lights, nor any other people on the road. It was just darkness and trees. My friends had written down directions, but they didn’t make sense. Only when we tried the next exit off the highway, did we finally see the hand painted sign for Hip Pocket Theatre.

    There was a long drive way that lead to the parking lot in the back of the property, but along that drive you had to pass the outdoor theatre, and we could see that the play had started and we were late. We debated whether we should attempt to go in, as we were late, and concluded that we would at least try.

    Crossing the lawn to the weathered gray wood shanty of a box-office, a woman popped out of that building and waved us over. She looked like an old hippie; salt and pepper hair in a bun on the top of her head, large glasses, and lots of colorful flowing clothes. “Show’s started, but I can get you in,” she said to us.

    We forked over our money, and she lead us to a steep staircase that was next to the sound and lighting booth. “Climb that and there will be seats in the last row,” she told us. Cresting the top of the stairs, we fully took in this theatre whose stage was encircled by branches of oak trees creating a natural amphitheater. It all had a rustic natural feel, and was one of the most unique and original spaces I have ever been in.

    And the show was great. Bawdy, hilarious, offensive, sincere, playful, and sweet.

  • One of My Mentors

    I received some very sad news, which was that one of my mentors, a dear friend in fact, has passed away. Won’t lie, I had some emotional flashbacks to my mother’s passing, and I haven’t felt on solid ground since.

    There was a brief online write up today in a local Fort Worth arts weekly.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Coffee Shops, School Plays, and Merch Gifts

    (I know what boys like…)

    I did something that I haven’t done in a very long time, and that was write in a coffee shop this morning. Long time ago, I just to sit for hours in coffee shops, or diners, or IHOPS, smoke cigarettes, and write in yellow legal pads. Most of the time is was really late at night, and there were all kinds of strange people and creatures I would meet. I can’t say I got a whole lot of good writing accomplished, but I did make some cool friends. Today, I was the only guy in the place (I did get there right when they opened at 8am) and I wrote in my pretentious black Moleskine notebook. I sat in the corner, and jotted down some stuff. The people working couldn’t have given two shits if I was there, and it was a charming situation.

    Man, do I love elementary school plays! From the kids who take it really seriously to the kids who can’t wait to get off the stage, to all the other kids in-between! And just so we can be honest here, most of the time, these plays are awful; the dropped lines, missed cues, bad blocking. I mean, if we are to compare theatre to theatre, then some of these shows don’t measure up. Oh sure, now and then you do get a ringer who can belt one out of the park, or acts circles around the rest of the kids. Yet, on the whole, your get a performance of amature but earnest performers. And I just want to add, that my child is the best out of all of them.

    Looking for a good Christmas gift? Me too! Why not try my Merch Store! All proceeds go to me!

  • Paul Auster (1947 – 2024)

    I read the news today that Paul Auster had passed away. Kind’a always thought that Paul Auster would just be hanging around forever. Somewhere in Brooklyn, scribbling away, and walking around. I don’t know if any of that is true, it’s just what I expected.

    I first read Paul Auster in 1997 or 1998, and the book was Hand to Mouth: A Chronicle of Early Failure. I’m not 100% sure how this book came to me, but I’m pretty sure it was a Christmas gift from my parents. Maybe I put it on a list, but for whatever reason, it was the right book at the right time. For you see, I had just dropped out of college to peruse my career as a writer/artist, and then I read this book, wherein Paul Auster is pretty much telling me that I have ten awful years of struggle, disappointment, and failure headed my way. But he told it is such a funny and depressing way that, for all the wrong reasons, this book inspired me to continue following my path in the arts. And also, to read as many books by Paul Auster as possible.

    I had hoped to have met him one day. Not to have a conversation, or tell him how much I enjoyed his work. No, I just wanted to say “hi” to him on the street, like neighbors. And that’s the other great thing that Paul gave to me; he presented New York City (Brooklyn, actually) as this great place to meet and make friends with people who are nothing like you. There are all kinds of great things about the City, that artists have been talking about for years (the arts, nightlife, money, danger, excitement, scandal…) but he always gave me this feeling that, yes those things are here, but the people of this place, these characters of the City, are what makes this place magical.

    The other thing that I loved about Paul Auster was that the guy just wrote all the time, and produced so much work. This is the “hard working American” side of me that still sees production as one of the measuring sticks of artistic excellence. He created nonstop. He tried things, and sure, maybe not all of it was The New York Trilogy, but I have respect for the people out there that keep trying something new and producing.

    So I guess, thanks Paul Auster. Thanks for trying to talk me out of being creative.

  • A Visual Language

    Last night, my daughter told me how she has started learning about mime in her school theatre class. Just so happens that I have had some mime training, and done a respectable bit of mime work on stage in Texas and NYC. We had a fun bit playing “being trapped in a box” and “throwing a ball” to each other. Then she asked me is it was possible to do a whole show just in mime? I told her it was, which she found hard to believe.

    So, I started looking for an example to give her, and the first idea I had was to show her a silent movie; Harold Lloyd’s “Safety Last” or Buster Keaton’s “The General” or “Steamboat Bill, Jr.” Not exactly mime, but physical enough to move a story along.

    Instead, what I showed her was Jacques Tati’s “Mr. Hulot’s Holiday” which is just a sweet, sincere gem of a movie. Though made in 1953, this French film plays like a silent movie, with Tati playing the character of Mr. Hulot. Tati was a trained mime who transitioned to the French film business, and this movie was the best example to show my daughter how mime can be used to tell a story. Though it is French, there is very little dialogue in it, and what there is are just easy to read subtitles. For the best explanation of this movie, I suggest reading Roger Ebert’s review in his Great Movie series.

    And the kid got it. I mean, it did take her a minute to understand that no one was going to talk, and that though it was a comedy, this wasn’t a belly laugh, slapstick comedy. But she saw how jokes were set up, how you could read what someone was thinking about their facial expression, or how they put their hands on their hips and what that might mean when the front door is left open. And how you knew Hulot was a good guy because he was patient with a dog sleep in the road, and a gentleman towards the young woman staying in the hotel. She learned quickly, or maybe she already knew it, to pick up no what each person was doing, and how those actions help explained they type of character they were.