Never Understood A Single Word He Said, But He Always Had Some Mighty Fine Wine
So the fundraiser went off pretty much without a hitch last night. It was a smallish turnout, but on the other hand, people were definitely there to buy wine, and buy they did. Not sure what the final take will be, once receipts are netted out and such, but all-in-all, I think they did pretty well. Plus, the board president managed to finnagle an additional chunk of change out of the assembled to match a pledge from another board member to replace the theatre's sagging, and completely ADA uncompliant garage door (the venue being located in an old underground parking garage).
Amazingly, I managed to get all the way through the evening without a single hit on my credit card. I did bid o an couple of items early in the evening (the Fantagraphics compillation of works was particularly attractive), however, I was (thankfully) deterred by the fact that: A.) the starting bids of most of the wine lots already exceeded my initial spending limit; and B.) the paying customers were clearly there to spend some serious money. so this turned out to be one of the rare instances in which I've attended a charity auction (even in a volunteer capacity), and gone away empty-handed, but credit-balance-full.
So, that's one more project out of the way for the year.
Next up, a couple of days hanging Phase One of the sound baffling project for the other theatre, followed this weekend by our annual Company Retreat (which, although we really do talk about Art, and Finances, and Big Ideas, is in addition to all that, just a good excuse to go tromping around in the woods for a couple of days). Then it will be a few more sound mitigation work parties in the beginning of December, after which there will be a brief respite until we get to work on the next show.
Baby, Whatever Comes Monday Can Take Care Of Itself
Show #1 of the season was put to bed last night, and we're already doing pre-production work on Show #2. Fortunately, we've got a couple of months to go, but in the meantime, we'll begin phase 1 of our sound mitigation next week.
Now, all I've got on my projects plate is the wine auction on Monday, followed by a couple of evenings of sound insulation installing, followed by a three day theatre retreat next weekend, and then I'm pretty much in the clear for the holidays.
On the Home Front: Moma and Dale have returned to town from their brief "holiday", and he begins the second part of his treatment sometime next week. According to my mom, they'll reinsert all the T-Cells removed during the previous procedures in one massive dose, then the remainder of the regimen involves monitoring his immune system to see whether the level of reintroduced cells was large enough to wipe out the cancer, which should take roughly two months to determine. So, we'll be spending a quiet Thanksgiving at the Cancer Hotel, and with luck, they'll be able to head home before Christmas.
Not much news on the Work Front. The search for my boss' replacement continues. We did some interviews last weekend, but the search committee wasn't sufficiently impressed with the candidates to make a final choice from among them, and they've directed our National Exec to repost the position, and cull through the previously submitted resumes to see if maybe someone with the right combination of qualifications was somehow overlooked (unlikely). Essentially, we're back to "square one", which means the chances of finding a successor, making the offer, having them accept and be on-board before the end of the year appears slim. Which further means my boss probably won't be able to actually retire until, well February at the rate things are going.
THURSDAY 11/01: Tech/Dress for SPF; possible birthday imbibement, if time allows.
FRIDAY 11/02: SPF performance
SATURDAY 11/03: SPF performance
SUNDAY 11/04: SPF performance/strike.
In the meantime, I need to finish the sound design for my Ghosty character, scrounge up a couple more props and costume pieces, do a bit of clean up in the theatre prior to our Thursday show, scrounge up a couple of props for the SPF piece I'm directing, and try to get in a couple of nights of theatre attendance in-between everything else.
And then I get a week of respite, before the theatre fundraiser I'm co-chairing, which goes up on the 12th, followed by our annual Annex retreat on the 16th - 18th.
Closed bothshows last week, and both ended on high notes with a number of sell-outs, including both closing nights. Hadn't been back to see the "Twilight Zone" since opening, and was quite happy with the results, and with the minor exception of a pesky table lamp that refused to work properly, the piece was executed exactly as I imagined it. Of course, the fact that about half the house was filled with friends, colleagues & supporters didn't hurt, but at the same time, they're not the sort of people who are shy about voicing criticism, and several indicated they thought it was one of the strongest nights they'd seen in the 10+ years of the series.
Coming up, I've got a number of small projects all bubbling away on the theatrical stove: I'm directing one of Annex's 365 Days/365 Plays slots - on July 4th, naturally - and am also helping out a friend with a short play directing project she's working on. Plus, Annex is still trying to hash out the productions for our upcoming 21st Season (the slogan: "This year, we're legal!"), plus what seems to be an ongoing, almost never-ending lease negotiation for our performance space. Still, all this will be wrapped up before I go on vacation, and after that, the remainder of the summer looks like smooth sailing.
Well, except for the somewhat substantial amount of maintenance work I need to have done to actually get the boat back in sailing condition, that is.
I can barely walk today. Evidentlly, six plus weeks of semi-regular exercise counts for nothing when compared with three straight hours of intensive yardwork. I actually had a moment yesterday at the mega-hardware store, when I knelt down to pick up something off a bottom shelf and was afraid I wouldn't be able to straighten myself back up again. Three 500 mg generic Tylenols did little to aleviate the pain last night, and today I've developed the posture of a little old man.
This will not do.
On a positive note, I received an email on Friday from the Artistic Director of this theatER, asking if was interested in directing another episode for their next round of "Twilight Zones" late night performances, so I spent my chair-ridden Sunday afternoon watching a half dozen of them online, and found a couple of likely candidates. Of course, this is once again all falling together a the last minute, as apparently they've switched their late night programming around, and these weren't originally slotted until August. So, auditions next weekend (which of course conflict with my last round of tax appointments), and then jumping right into rehearsals. Still, it shouldn't be too tough, having done this before, and also because I'm only going to be directing one of the two episodes.
Don't Let The Sound Of Your Own Wheels Drive You Crazy
Not much on the blogging front. The late-night show closed this past weekend on a very good note; most of the houses were sold out, and even though we didn't get any press, word-of-mouth was extremely positive. It was a lot of fun, and I'd do it again in a New York minute, if asked.
The other show comes down tonight, and we'll spend a couple of hours afterwards tearing apart the cleverly-designed set, removing all the furniture, storing the props & costumes, removing the lighting equipment, and prepping the space for the next show, which opens in less than a month. Sounds like lots of time, but really it's not that far away, and there's lots of work to do in the meantime.
Evidentally my brilliant piece of artwork still hasn't sold; I authorized a drastic price reduction last week, but still no takers. Too bad. If a scarf made in the image of a giant slice of bacon can go for $100 (and I would have paid that much for it, if someone else hadn't beaten me to the punch, as it were), then I figure mine should be worth at least that much; heck, just the matting alone cost over $50, so really, it would be a steal at that price. Oh well, if it doesn't sell now, I'll just save it for another fund-raising event down the road. There'll be another; there's always another.
And for what it's worth, it really did inspire me to start doing more of the same. I've got another project literally "on the (art) board", and a couple more in various stages of planning, so that'll give me something to do in my copious amounts of spare time this spring, when I'm not helping to put together more shows, or doing taxes. Heck, maybe I'll even take a class or two - assuming I can find something that fits both my schedule - and my pocketbook.
All The baggage I Brought Wouldn't Fit In A Mid-Size Car
So, my friend T Lazz invited myself and another friend, the lovely Lisa V. out to dinner at her last night, indicating in her invitation, she had a "project" she wanted to propose to us.
Now, those of you who know Teri, also know she's not the sort of person to whom one easily says no, because the word doesn't really exist in her vocabulary. I figured the mysterious project had something to do with the theatre she's been managing for the past couple of months, and that it was going to involve helping her out with some sort of grand scheme, although exactly what the nature of that might be was anybody's guess.
Well, turns out I was pretty much spot-on with my induction, as LV and I are now officially the coordinators for the Schmea's annual wine auction fundraiser, which HOPEFULLY (based on whatever their board decided last night) will happen sometime in the fall. Lots of time to get prepared, but really not, considering how much prep work is involved in setting up this kind of an event. Supposedly their board is going to be doing most of the leg-work, and we're there to ride herd on them, make suggestions, offer advice, etc. But, also knowing that the theatre needs a big financial shot-in-the-arm, and that this could be rather a make-or-break event for their short-term stability, there's a certain amount of - well, not pressure, perhaps (at least not yet!), but rather expectation that this will be a spectacularly successful fundraiser.
And believe, me - and again those of you who know Teri know this - she is not someone you want to dissappoint.
We've got our work cut out for us, and just so's ya' knows, those of you in Seatown are going to be getting the phone calls and emails from one of us in the not-so-distant-future, because WE'RE going to need a bit of help ourselves.
Yeah, yeah "Global Warming", blah, blah, "El Nino", blah. I've heard all the scientific explanations, and sure it makes sense, in a sort of counter-intuitive way, but seriously, we here in the Upper Left Hand are getting sort of sick of all this snow, snow, ice, snow, snow, and snow.
Admittedly, it could be a lot worse - we could be in Nebraska. And yes, it's supposed to start melting away in the next few days, so really, we've got very little about which to complain. And frankly, the only thing it's really negatively impacted in my own life is a longer bus commute (assuming the bus actually comes, which in a couple of instances, it didn't), a kaput DSL line at home, and a couple of cancelled rehearsals for the show I'm directing, which are all inconvenient, but realistically not anything insurmountable. At least the stores are open - and nobody's slid into my parked car yet, so really, things aren't so bad.
Still, I think we're all looking forward to some good, old-fashioned, above freezing mid-January temps come later this week.
Heck, I'll bet some of the immigrants even forget to complain about the rain for a few days.
- Confirmed the participation of the first, best "Rod Serling" to be in the shows - CHECK!
Still a lot left to do, but the above represents a sizeable amount of progress in just one week.
Now, if I can kill the stupid mycoplasms or bacteroids or whatever it is that's taken up residence in my left bronchial passage, I'll really be a happy camper.
