Break a Leg

As usual, I have been extremely busy trying to put my life into some semblance of order this last week:  I had a special performance of Shrew in the middle of an old-growth Redwood forest, cast party, going away party, battlegrounds to run, a roommate to find, a $1000 fine to avoid, a house to clean, my wife to murder, and Gilder to frame for it...wait, I think that last bit was from somebody else.  Anyway, point is, I've had a lot on my mind.  So when it came time to write this blog I was completely blank.  So I asked one of my coworkers what I should write about.  Guess what he said.  Can you guess what he said?  Go ahead and guess what he said.  I bet you can guess what he said.

Now, I don't know a whole lot about farm animals.  Aside from they are tasty with gravy.  In fact, I think the idea stemmed from the fact that not 5 minutes prior to me starting this blog somebody had mentioned having ribs for lunch, which spawned a conversation about where one might conveniently and locally acquire said delicacy.  Most places are too far to be convenient to make the trip there and back in our 1/2 hour lunch break.

See, personally, my lunch break is about far more than filling my stomach with nutrients.  It's time away; a slight repreave from this madcap word of sign making.  I get my food, yes, but more importantly I escape the world for a little while.  I generally like to get a lot of reading done.  So if I have to spend my precious time running hither and yawn without getting to rest my brain and let somebody else do the work by opening a book....I feel unfulfilled.  I'm sure you can relate.  And now I'm completely off topic.

Over the weekend, at one of the parties I was attending I was told more or less the following story:

A fellow actor of mine, an older gentleman who's life partner had been in the interior design business, was at a party courting some rather rich and famous clients.  The owner of the house where this party was held also had cattle on the property, as eccentric Hollywood types are commonly wont to do.  Some of the guests decided that they would go have a look at the cows in question "for a change of pace."  One young starlet, respendant in some extremely expensive evening gown, asked if she could milk one of the cows.  So it was arranged.  While she was under there yanking inexpertly on the udders she asked, "Isn't it supposed to get hard?"

Wow.

Makes you think about just how much you know in relation just how much other people know.  I know a lot of people are somewhat scared of large barnyard animals.  I mean, if that thing decided it would rather reverse the order of the food chain, you could suddenly have 2 tons of stomach charging your opposable-thumb-having ass in an effort to make some Jennifer pate.  But actually, most of the farm animals I've encountered are pretty resigned to their role in life:  "I eat, I sleep, I poop, I get turned into dinner."  Or: "I am a beast of burden.  I carry this asshole around, I carry that asshole around.  Fine.  Where are my carrots?"  When I was in Korea everywhere you went you would see withered old men standing in the middle of a rice patty with a cow attached to a string.  What was the cow's job?  To poop.  What was the old man's job?  To hold the string.

What the hell does this have to do with anything, you ask?

At least I'm working on Break A Leg and not pooping in a field while tethered to a withered old Korean man.

Not an eloquent statement I know, but  I think it gives you some sort of perspective.

Happy Jenday!

The new video is up and ready for your viewing, everyone! Check it on YouTube or here on the site. Don't forget to comment and tell us what you think! Thanks!

Now back to your regularly scheduled Jennifer.

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So, this last Thursday, I get an email from Yuri saying we needed content for Monday and when could I be available to shoot.  I had friends in town from out of town, I had a brush up rehearsal for Shrew in which we had to rework all the blocking for the entire show, it was my grandmother's 84th birthday, I still haven't found a new roommate, I need to get a smog check, and my blood elf priest is still only level 35.   When would you have time to shoot? 

So I said I was available that night.  Yuri said great, we'll be there about 9:30.  At about 10:30 they showed up. Typical.

But I didn't mind as much because it was Thursday and Thursday as traditionally the night that Nate comes over and we drink vodka and play Cribbage.  Anyone who has ever done this knows just how cool it can be.  Now, the reason I didn't mind the lateness was because A) I knew I wouldn't have much to say so the shoot wouldn't take too long, B) Nate's cool and patient and didn't need me there so he could drink, and C) Vodka. 

Now, the timing of this was actually perfect because with one room newly vacated, we had a near perfect place to shoot.  I say near perfect because it was about 90 degrees in the room, and I was sweating in quite the same way that pigs don't.  Aside from that, this was probably one of the easiest Break A Leg shoots I've had the fortune to participate in.  First, they came to my house, which I thought was very generous on their part.  Second, it was just a couple of short lines, no interaction, so I only had to worry about making myself look good and not having to drag others along with my creative genius when they were incapable of bifucating the condiments.*

And C) I got to do improv.  I love improv.  I'm good at improv.  I don't get to do enough improv, with the exception that pretty much every single conversation you ever have in your life is something you make up as you go.  But as far as getting up on a stage or getting in front of a camera, given a scenario (usually comic) and then just getting to run with it, I just don't get enough.  I probably could get into a group around here and start doing shows...but that's just one more thing to add to the list of things I should/could be doing.

So after we got done shooting the scripted stuff, I asked Yuri and Justin if we could just leave the camera on while they asked me questions.  We did that for a while and there were laughs all around.  Finally we felt we had enough material and I was about to resume the vodka and the cribbage when I saw the penny whistle and was inspired.  DId the shot in pretty much one take, if I remember correctly.  And the rest, as they say, was history.

*cut the mustard

This was the closing weekend of Taming of the Shrew for me.  And with that came a whole hell of a lot of other stuff.  I'll get to that in a second.  First: the show.

(This is me mooching for food and wine before the show actually starts)

Firstly, we set a record for audience attendance with this show, so congrats to us.  It's outdoors on a lawn in a park in a small town, so the most the theater had seen before was something like 250 people.  On saturday night we had around 340.  They were scrunched in like sardines.  The gave us a  standing ovation.  It was awesome.

(This is me and co-star Ben Stowe placing the flag and singing a pirate song.  Usually it would be Jay Rogers and myself, but he had a personal emergency and had to miss Opening weekend.  The producing director of the theater, Scott Phillips learned the part in 4 hours and held Jay's place until Jay could return.)

Children, particularly loved this show, mostly because it had pirates in.  They didn't care that it was Shakespeare and couldn't understand anything we were saying.  They were rapt.  In fact, there was this one little boy named Oliver that was about 5 and made his parents bring him to almost every single show.  I think he missed two.  And he always came dressed in his own pirate garb.  It was awesome.  He would usually leave at intermission because it was his bed time, but before he left he would always come back stage (our backstage was some picnic tables and some of those stand-alone barbeque pits which nobody ever cleans out) and he would yell "Yarr!" at us.  We would yell "Yarr!" back. this would go on for several minutes until his mother or his father dragged him off in a cart that for some innocent, child reason had a huge town train in it. 

Anyway...We had to get dressed at the theater, which was about 2 blocks from the park.  Once we were dressed we would walk up the main street on our way to the theater.  Imagine about 20 people walking down the street in some podunk little town dressed as pirates and offering to buy any woman we came across, or yelling at every car that drove by as if we might run out and steal their hubcaps if they weren't carefull.  Then there was the final approach to the stage: we had to walk through a play ground and then through the crowd just to get where we were going.  I decided early on that it should be more than a walk through.  So we got a drum and marched along in cadence, yelling "RUM!" in rhythm with the drum.  It was awesome.  On closing night, just when we were gathering to start drumming and yelling, Oliver comes running up in his pirate gear, with his little pirate sword and his little pirate flag, with a little pirate mustache painted on his little pirate face.

It was the cutest thing I have ever seen.

And as a group, and completely unspoken, we decided that Oliver should lead us in.

So imagine sitting on a lawn in a park, and suddenly you start hearing drums, and people yelling...

Tum, ta-ta-tum, Ta-ta-tum, Ta-ta-tum, Ta-ta-tum 'RUM!" I threw in some penny whistle just to add to the ambience.  And here comes this group of pirates, sneering, dirty, smelly, dangerous, without moral terpitude...and a cute little blonde kid leading them all.

And when we were halfway through the crowd...Oliver sees his mom and bolts.

It was awesome.

So good closing.

Couple that with working 9-5 M-F and doing shows Thurs-Sun, while trying to find a roommate because one is moving out and having to deal with the fact that i just got a notice that my registration is expired effective 1 month ago even though I just got the notice last week, my credit card is expiring and all my online bill payments aren't going through, and I got a speeding ticket which will cost me about $1000 unless I am able to jump through more hoops than the Cirque Du Soleil...AND...I'm no good when it comes to women....AND...AND...they edited RIGHT THROUGH THE MIDDLE OF THE COMBAT ROLL....it's been a busy week.  But I did just get the last piece for my Epic PVP gear set, so that's ok.

Happy Jenday!

Completely Unrelated Editor's Note: Thanks to everyone who went to the TV Week site and wrote Break a Leg as their  favorite show! You're our favorite FANS, so THERE! If you haven't posted a comment, keep sending them in (the link is in the blog below)!

Thanks guys! Words can't describe how much we love you -- but actions can. Which is why we built a whole, super cool ramp -- just for your entertainment.

Thanks!

Now back to your regularly scheduled Jennifer...

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I don't have a lot to say today.  I'm pretty tired.  Shrew is going very well.  I urge any with the ability to come see it to do so.  I have a lot of older women coming up to me after the show and telling me how sexy I am.  And when I say older women, I don't mean the hot older kind.  I mean 60-70 range.  It's a little disturbing.  There's only one weekend left...for which I am sorta glad because once next week is over it'll mean I'll get a day off for the first time on weeks. 
This is going to be another one of those blogs where I just kind of let me mind wander around the general area of my topic while the idea germinates in my mind even as I write it.  And I guess the topic is loosely related to the Liar Blog, so there may be parallels: perhaps not actually stated, but ones that form themselves in your mind through the genius of creation.  And now you're thinking "Why the curse word are you giving us a disclaimer?  Just get on with the bull."  So anyway...

The way I see it, stories are made up basically of 2 things: things we want to happen, and things we don't.  There are the things that are wonderful and good, like love and food and fun, and there are the things that are not so wonderful and good, like plagues and cheaters and stab wounds  A lot of the things in the stories, both good and bad, are completely unlikely to happen or come into being: like dragons or magic or Keanu Reeves' acting ability.  And there are things that, while possible, happen so rarely and so far away that they might as well not happen at all.  The stories don't need these things  to be true for the stories to live on. 

But there is some part of us that wants the impossible to be true, so we tell ourselves stories about killer cricket-playing robots or a guy and his demi-brother and their god for a father.  We want to believe that there are special things that go on without us knowing about it.  And why?  Because, sometimes, life sucks.  Stories tell us that if anything can be true somewhere, then something might be able to be true anywhere.  And that any where just might be where you are.  And that something might make the world just a little bit more tolerable.

But in a story, it's not your life that sucks, it's somebody else's.  You get to ride along with them and watch them suffer, struggle, endure, and usually emerge victorious at the end.  We may empathize with them, but when the shit hits the fan, you can close the book, hit pause, turn the stereo off and go take a dump.   Actually, I like to take the book with my into the loo.  I like something to focus on other than one of the more disgusting realities of being an earthling.

Stories are to inspire, educate, entertain - they make a shape of the world for us to fit our minds into.  It's through the understanding of stories: things which are not true, that we can see what is true about the real world.  It's that whole "mirror up to life thing".  It's like the mice.  It's like...well, it's like a story.

And plus...we would be bored as hell without them.

Happy Jenday!

Well, it's been busy week all around.  New people coming into existence, people celebrating another complete circuit of the sun, the release of the hilarious Episode 14, and a sudden, unexpected fascination with burritos. 

Though I will admit that burritos ARE tasty.  Did you know that "burrito" means "little donkey"?  Hope I didn't just ruin the experience for anybody.

Anyway, the pirate version of Taming of the Shrew that I've been babbling about for months finally opened this weekend.  For the most part, everything went swimmingly...hmm, perhaps that's not the best term to use when talking about pirates.  People loved the show.  People have called us a dream cast (not the video game system, but a talented assembly of actors).  The park has been full almost every night, and even when it wasn't we were given standing ovations.

There were a couple hitches, though.

One of the actors had some personal emergency, so two hours before opening night, the director had to find a replacement.  The producing director of the company went on stage that night with book in hand.  The next night he went up with the part fully memorized.  This is not the first time I've seen this guy do this.

- A couple years I was doing a show with this company called The Fourth Wall.  There are only 4 people in that show: two men and two women.  After the 1st rehearsal the director had to drop out because his wife had cancer.  It took two weeks to find a replacement director.  During that 2 weeks one of the female actors dropped out for whatever reason.  So we had to replace her as well.  THEN, 1 week before we opened the other male actor still couldn't learn his lines.  It turned out he had a brain tumor.  So the Producing Director (Scott) learned the part in a week. Pretty impressive. -

So, everything was going well, the audience was loving the show, I got to sing pirate songs to a group of people who had, by and large, never heard them before and laughed at all the funny bits.  A bunch of my pirate friends came and saw the show in full pirate garb.  They dranka lot and had a lot of fun, as pirates do.  Because of this, the director said they could come back any time and see the show for free as long as they came in garb, got drunk, and had too much fun.  Which is how we always roll, so no problem there.

Then, Sunday night, just as we finished the 1st scene of the 2nd act, the lights went out.  Probably some bad wiring because they could get the lights to flicker, but not stay on for more than a few seconds.  And what did we do?  Well, as they say: the show must go on.  There was some meager lighting from the park lamps, some of the lights backstage werre still working, and one of the volunteers went to the back of the lawn and stood there with a flashlight for the rest of the show.  As I mentioned, the tech crew was trying to fix the main lights, which would flicker now and then, so we had a sort of strobe effect, but only if the strobe machine was being run by an epilecptic cat with no rhythm and a serious case of the trots.

But the audience hung in there, and yelled "Yarrr!" in all the appropriate places.

That's one of the things about live theater that is so unlike film: in film when you're watching it, if you haven't seen it before everything is new and hopefully exciting.  Then, when you watch it again, it's the same.  With live theater, every night is new for both the audience and the actor's and we all have to find ways to deal with whatever goes on.  You know that tingle of excitement you get every Monday morning when you log onto this site to see the new Episode?  Well, take that excitement, multiply it by 10, then add that same amount of knee-trembling, bladder-squeazing fear and give it to about 300 people and squeaze them all onto a small lawn.  Because it really is a shared experience between the actors and the audience, and if the actors are doing their jobs right, then the audience is right there with them, sharin whatever it is they're going through.  And at the end everybody feels like they just survived something.  It's powerful stuff.  The stuff that dreams are made off.

Happy Jenday!