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Thursday night was "pay-what-you-can" night for The Underpants--I had a couple of friends show up, AND the local retirement community brought a busload of seniors, who had a blast with all the dirty jokes. Even though it was a smallish crowd, per capita it was probably the most responsive audience we've had.

Friday we were off: muddy, screwing up lines, weird blocking, not picking up cues. Fortunately, we recognized it during the first half of the show and tightened things up during the second half. One of the judges for the local theatre awards showed up, and seemed to have a good time in spite of the sloppy production.

Saturday (a show we tightened up so that it ran the way it was supposed to, with the exception of my completely muddling one line so that it came out "Plafarfs sss Versati flarble remt mummss") many of the cast members from Lysistrata showed up, along with another theatre judge. (This one had directed a production of Picasso at The Lapin Agile last season which, um, sucked. She left without saying anything to the cast, probably due to her abject shame in being pwned by a superior production of a Steve Martin play.) After the production hello_mimi stopped by the dressing room and gave my a much-belated Christmas mix CD (the lateness is my fault, not hers) which included exactly two and a half songs I knew (one was a cover) and eighteen other awesome songs with which I was unfamiliar. Thanks Meems! Afterward we went to our Louise's house for a little get-together and I was introduced to scads of Lysistrata folks who I probably won't remember when I next meet 'em.

Sunday we had a smallish house (including yet another theatre judge), but the show ran like clockwork. Afterwards we took production photos (I'll post what I can eventually) and went out for pizza.

This week: rehearsals for Little Women, line through, discounted ($30 orchestra!) tickets to the touring production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, and the final weekend of Underpants. Last chance to behold my be-underweared splendor!

They say there's no such thing as a bad review, but there can be a good review that's buried waaaaay back in the entertainment section of the paper.

( ...utter dismay...mistimings rule the day... )

I ordered a copy of The Brief Wonderous Life of Oscar Wao to have something to read in my newly-discovered free time as the show wound up, and then I got cast in Li'l ~~Abner~~ Women. So I won't really have much free time to get started on it until the middle of May. Oh well.

So, I've been asked to step in as a replacement for Professor Bhaer in the local production of Little Women, and I've got to confess I know NOTHING about the story. I always just assumed that it was basically The Facts of Life set in the 1800s. Looking at IMdB, however, I noticed that there are some relatively famous actors who've played the role over the years:

[Poll #1170890]

Any insight into the story, or the character, or snarky comments would be much appreciated.

Especially if, you know, you've actually read the book.

I should have mentioned this before, but the recurring musical theme in The Underpants in the opening and interstitial music is Marlene Dietrich's "Falling in Love Again," as performed originally, and by The Puppini Sisters, and finally, by this member of the Guild of Calamitous Intent:
( It's not Bowie )

( Ah, an Underpants update. Just what you were looking for. Also a funny story. )

Last night was supposed to be the Friends & Family performance for The Underpants, and tonight would be the ArtsMemphis Bravo! outing to make the other preview performance. Only last night was the ArtMemphis thing and they didn't tell us, and I'd already invited some friends.

One perk, naturally, is that they had the programs out two days early--with someone else's picture next to my bio--which was enough to get me to pitch the as much of a diva fit as a heterosexual man who's generally pretty low-key about stuff could muster.

Anyway, the drunk ArtsMemphis audience laughed. More previewers tonight. Reviewer, supposedly, for the opening tomorrow night, along with the group from Germantown Presbyterian Church.

We have our first preview audience tonight--the set wasn't finished as of yesterday, because the theatre's TD was off building a set for another company elsewhere. Hopefully he won't do something that really screws us up; block off a light, put up a trip hazard, something. We did get our last piece of set dressing yesterday--I took a photo of it, but left in in the theatre, so I'll have to make due with a description for the time being.

The set itself is mostly painted on flats--the effect being that we're living inside an Expressionist painting. A painted stove, cabinet, sink, coat rack--all with limited functionality. The oven on the painted stove opens and belches smoke when dinner is burned. The painted coatrack has real hooks camoflaged in it, so we can hang our coats on the wall.

The exception (outside of things we have to sit on, or the table set up at an outlandish rake) is a very real, antique birdcage that stands in the corner as a reference to the metaphor of Louise being trapped in her marriage. Inside that cage, as an homage to the author, we have placed a bird that is shaped like, well, this:

The cage is designed such that the bird actually looks kinda like a big yellow blob, but even if they could make it out, I doubt that anyone but the rarest of audience members would get the joke. I still think it's great.

Friends & Family performance tonight, for anyone in who wants to see the show for the low low price of zero dollars. Although frankly if anyone on my LJ friendslist comes to see the show, I'll make sure they get that price at any performance.

We have our "friends and family" preview audience next Wednesday (so if any of the semi-local folks who read this are in the mood for some free entertainment on April 9, feel free to show up), and fortunately I managed to make it through the whole show last night without calling for line. Now I just need a week to develop a consistent characterization, and handle timing, blocking changes, and tech. We did manage to run the whole show in ninety minutes last night, which is precisely where it should clock in.

The Executive Producer of the theatre sat in on the rehearsal last night, but I didn't get any feedback on the show quality. Don't know if that's good news or bad news--we tread a very narrow edge, and the chasm below us is labelled "over the top," but it is Steve Martin we're talking about here. Failure to completely commit to the insanity will be a tragedy.

Anyone who wishes to come to town for live theatrical entertainment will be bought beer, or food, or both. If you come April 25-27, you can catch The Underpants AND Room Service at Theatre Memphis, which will be amusing in a moderately different way.

( Because I've received so many emails telling me that there is no way to really please a woman without a large one... )

Tonight I tried to describe Theo during his seduction scene as a cross between Blanche DuBois and Fred Garvin.

For The Underpants, we had a 75-word limit, which I exceeded.

Fancycwabs has previously appeared on the GCT stage as Bill Sikes in Oliver! and as Father de Leo in The Rose Tattoo. Elsewhere around town, he has appeared in The Taming of The Shrew, Guys and Dolls, Fiddler on The Roof, Measure for Measure, and Kiss Me Kate, among others. A director recently told him that if he wanted to play the Mexican beach boy in Night of The Iguana, he'd have to appear without a shirt. He'd like to thank his wife Mrs. Cwabs for her support.

The bit about Night of The Iguana is true, and should prove doubly amusing when I appear onstage in my underwears.

Edit:A happy π and/or Steak & Blowjob day to those celebrating them.

Tonight at rehearsals we took some head shots and group shots for publicity, and finally got around to the business of working with our new Versati, who should turn out to be just fine. But before we could get to that, there was some unpleasant business to deal with.

It seems that sometime during the previous 24 hour period, someone had left a present in the ladies' room, neglected to flush, locked the stall door, and crawled out under the partition, so that the cleaning folks (I'm not sure they even have cleaning folks) had to crawl under the partition to unlock the door to clean the toilet. And we were all suspects.

We looked at one another, then decided it must be some of the homeschool kids who take classes there during the day.

Edit: But not before some uncomfortable discussion about the volume of poop that a five-year-old could generate in a single session.

Last night we blocked (somewhat) the seduction scene in The Underpants. The woman playing Gertrude made a point of telling everyone she didn't mind being groped or anything onstage, which is good, as I'm apparently getting to second base.

One of my lines in the show during the seduction scene is "Desire adjusts morality." I suggested that, translated into Latin, would be appropriate for stamping on any currency bearing the likeness of our current president.

For realistic business networking instead of zombies and pirates, I've joined LinkedIn. Naturally among the first persons added to my contacts is my old professor at Georgia Tech, George P. Burdell.

While googling my actual name doesn't turn up much interesting, googling "fancycwabs" gets some really exciting items (for various definitions of "exciting"):
- A podcast of my voice post where I sing "Bakin' Cookies"
- A joke about what a "New York Steamer" sandwich would be called if it had been invented in Cuyahoga County, from a page listing posts about the Cuyahoga County Library
- A comment from Boing Boing under the topic "Spider-Man's Radioactive Spooge Killed Mary Jane!
- A two-sentence review of an Amy LaVere album, snatched from here and put on its own page
- Another comment from Boing Boing where I make conjectures about Reed Richards' intellectual capacity, putting the garage on the top floor of the Baxter Building
- A twitter aggregator by subject called buzztter, which might be fun to play with

Jones Soda makes fizzy grape candy. I can testify that it is both grape, and fizzy. For those who might be questioning my consumption of grape candy while on a diet, I suggest the following:
- Each piece is 2.5 calories (that's US calories, Britons)
- Screw you. Grape fizzy candy!

They've blocked flickr here at work full-time now (it used to be accessible before eight and after four), so it'll be a while before I get around to showing y'all pictures of snow in Memphis, and of a barbecue sandwich I got at a cinderblock shack at the crossroads of Macon and Pisgah. I should note that the very best barbecue sandwiches in Memphis also seem to coincide primarily with places that also serve forties. Is that true in other cities?

As predicted, we had to "buy the advertising" for the little cwab's High School Musical program ourselves. I don't know if that's a scam to eliminate royalty payments (which are based on ticket prices), or some other sort of scam, but between that and all the other incidental fees charged over the year, you'd think she wasn't going to public school at all.

The first proper rehearsal for The Underpants was last night, where, as per the traditional routing, we got measured for costumes, and started blocking and talking about character and design choices. The director provided us with a concept painting of the set:

Which is supposed to evoke the background of a Munch painting, with expressionist lines and forced perspective. Then we started in with the blocking, and he said he wanted to have the first scene setup as "The Honeymooners as directed by Ingmar Bergman," just to throw the audience off balance somewhat.

Also, we have located a Versati, who has the potential of being absolutely hilarious.

Last night I headed out to Theatreworks to catch Playwright's Forum's production of Sean O'Leary's "Beneath Shelton Laurel," which I jokingly referred to as "Under Sheldon Leonard," when I reserved my ticket. It's a civil-war era ghost story telling the incidents behind "The Shelton Laurel Massacre," one of many wartime atrocities, with certain references to Iraq, but probably similar stories could be told of every war.

The play has four ghosts of victims facing off against two of the former soldiers responsible for the massacre, and the widow if some of the victims helping to push things along. It's an interesting device, but creates intended moments where everyone on stage is shouting something different trying to develop cacophony. These moments are punctuated by the youngest actor on stage wailing the title of this post.

I spoke to the director afterward, and got the sense that she wasn't happy with the production. Admittedly, there was a bit of obviously forgotten dialogue, and a tech issue at the climax that blew the suspension of disbelief, but an audience will almost always overlook those things in a live production--they're part of what make the stage a compelling destination when the screen offers things blowing up. The play could probably use one more revision, but that's not the fault of the production, and from what I understand the playwright is aware of the limitations (Playwright's Forum invites the authors of its productions to attend the run, do q&a, etc.).

I vote to check if out.

Last night was the first read-through for The Underpants, at the director's house. Being a proper guest, I decided to bring some peppered salami and cheese over for general consumption, and picked up some delicious Volpi Romano Salame from Schnuck's, where the nice lady at the deli counter told me that they couldn't slice it for me unless I paid for it in advance. Once I'd paid for it (up front) I brought it back where the other, not-so-nice lady told me that they didn't do that, and she had to be corrected by the nice lady. The not-so-nice lady begrudgingly took the salami, set the slicer to the thickest possible setting, and cut it into twenty-eight 3/16" thick slices without asking how I'd like it. If I were more confrontational, I'd probably have gotten it for free, and another one sliced properly. Still, it was quite popular at the readthrough.

Reading through the show, with minor interruptions, took about an hour and fifteen minutes, by a rough estimate--we should be able to knock the whole thing out in an hour and a half. Nothing elicited many chuckles during the readthrough, until the scene where Theo attempts to seduce Gertrude, which got a pretty good laugh every line for a page or so, but I'm thinking we'll have a pretty good audience response, since the author's name will have them in the mood for comedy.

The first really good punchline doesn't hit until the second page, and it's only a bone thrown to those of us who really like Picasso at The Lapin Agile:

LOUISEThe whole event lasted two seconds!
THEOHaven't you heard? Time is relative. (He references the newspaper)

It's a great joke, but I fear it may fly over the heads of many of our audience members.

Fortunately, there are fart jokes later in the show, so it'll have something for everyone!

Official rehearsals begin next Monday, and I'll keep everyone apprised of anecdotes as they occur. For those of you who might want to make a drive to Memphis for a weekend's entertainment, the show runs April 11-27, I'll be appearing onstage in my underwear, and there's a pretty decent bar across the street for pre-performance bracers, or for post-performance memory loss induction.

Also, new "Underpants" tag. I might make an icon, too.

Tonight's callbacks started with a dance audition--the director had come up with a little tap number to go with the ridiculously fast curtain call song ("Thanks for coming to see our show...") that was a touch difficult for the untrained dancer.

As an example, I provide the choreography for first eight beats of the song:
Thanks for com ing to see our show
Stamp, hop, fil-ap ball change, stamp, hop fil-ap ball change
Now, imagine that pace, continued, for the remainder of the song. Now, do the whole song twenty times.

I sorta learned it all (there was no fil-ap-ing, pull backs, or any other technical dancing on my part, but I did my best to put my left foot down when it was supposed to go down and my right foot down similarly. And wave my arms as they were supposed to be waved), and after going through it we were given sides to read: Liebkind's was of Max & Leo's first meeting, where Franz has some yodelling and his speech about how Hitler could paint an apartment in a single afternoon. Two coats! So I read that, (along with people who have a better shot at the role than I, just based on past experience with the company), had the musical director test my high range (which I think was sufficient), read a side for another part ("Jason," the auditionee who was previously in "No No Nietzche")

I was a little too into it to know if I'd gotten a laugh reading for Franz, but I did elicit a chuckle as Jason, which helped my ego somewhat. After that I sang the opening of "Haben Sie Gehoert Das Deutche Band?" as Franz, to Jason's music.

Then I was dismissed. I don't expect to hear anything for a couple of weeks, as they'll have auditions in conjunction with the Unified Professional Theatre Auditions next weekend. Thanks for the mojo, everybody.

Got to auditions at 12:30, was eighth person to sign up. At 2:30, was finally called into audition room, introduced myself, told the director he'd worked with Mrs. Cwabs on Jerry Springer: The Opera, and sang my song ("I'm Not Wearing Underwear Today") 2.5 times (there was a false start by the pianist)--the second time through he told me to sing it proudly.

Two minutes after I walked into the audition room, I walked out with a callback. Other folks had spent 15-20 minutes in there. Maybe I was impressive--or maybe they told him to hurry it up. Going back tomorrow, anyway.

I am reminded to ask everyone for positive vibes as I audition for the role of one Franz Liebkind tomorrow. And hopefully Sunday.

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fancycwabs

Cwabs!

April 2017

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Undapants weekend Twooooooo

The New Phone Book's Here! Wait, I mean review.

Rats.

I submit to the wisdom of LiveJournal

Love Theme From "The Underpants"

Opening TONIGHT!

Organization is apparently an overrated skill.

Anoint my head...

T-One week and counting

Update on mustache

It's all about the sexuality.

Another bio.

I stand accused:

Extra fun structured lists!

Feel the magic, hear the roar.

WOOOOOoooooooo

Underpants are on the move...

Callbacks.

Audition report

Not many people know it, but the fuhrer was decended from a long line of English Qveens.

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