Gremlins in the works

When I was in high school, our second night tradition was to stamp out the gremlins that would infest the theatre after that successful opening night. We'd stamp our feet and chant something, so that we could go out on the boards for a second performance that would be as strong as the first. Tonight, my Big Love could have used some gremlin stamping. Nothing really "went wrong," but it wasn't as sharp as it has been in the past. I didn't feel as connected to my big monologue as I have for the last two nights, and the slippery, water-logged stage has started presenting major problems for both traction and balance. All in all it was a good show, but not a great one.

But as a consolation prize, I've attached a James Bond photo. We were doing our runthrough of the rappel, and I happened to be already dressed in my tuxedo. It doesn't get more James Bond than this.

Opening night!

Last night was the opening night of our show, followed by a pizza and soda reception in the dining hall around the corner (college, I know!) and then we headed off to the local bar for some drinking, nachos, and then slightly drunken kareoke. It took me a beer or two to get up on the stage, but I rocked it out with Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire." I had the table near the stage clapping along with me, and Tim was doing appropriate gesture work in time with the lyrics. It was pretty special. I realized that it has been a long time since I closed out a bar, drinking and singing until 2am. It was a really great night.

But isn't that just like an actor to go straight to the drinking and the party, skipping straight over the part about the show itself. We had a nice size crowd, not big not small, and it seemed like it took them a little bit of time to warm up into the show. They were laughing at it, and yet at the moments when I expected silence I was rewarded with it. They seemed to go with the ending bit where all the chaos and destruction erupts onstage, laughing it up as Michelle and I shoved cake into each other's face. Then we got to go to that reception and have people compliment the show. Now every actor likes being told how good he was, but for this show it was even better. This physical work is something that I've never done before, and it's great to hear that it connects with people, and that they can really appreciate the art that we are bringing to it. We have three more shows to go and then it's over. I wish we were doing more, but I'm also excited to head off for R&J. But I'll miss this character, this show, these people. I made great friends here, which is one of the reasons to do it.

Rappeling photos

So, this is one of the promised pictures of us learning to rappel. That's Dave on the ground with me, our firefighter who helped train us. You can see the scaffolding from which we are working, hanging off into the middle of nothing.

The harness has been getting more and more uncomfortable as I added other costume pieces to it. It's really rough to be up on the balcony waiting in my harness, hooked up to my line. But it's still one of the coolest things to do on stage.

Dead, naked, and covered in cake

A few nights ago, Tim gave me the note to grab a big handful of cake to smush all over my bride's head. So when she shoved a good amount into my face, I grabbed a big ole handful for her head. As I pulled the cake and approached her, I heard everyone in the audience draw their breath, and when I smashed it onto her head and then wiped some icing down her cheeks, everyone started laughing. We then had to do our little sex and violence dance with cake all over the place, with Michelle all the while swearing vengeance against me. Overall, it was pretty funny. But after the show, while washing the cake from my face, I realized that it's only going to escalate from here. Hopefully, I'll get some pictures up here.

The end of a busy weekend

Over the past weekend, we did our 10 out of 12 hour technical days, which now means we are running the show at full intensity at full speed in full costume. Granted, I have yet to purchase the eye makeup that I need to wear in such a large space, but I've got everything else that I need. I've actually been having some bad luck in the last few days, in the sense that I've actually broken the same prop two days in a row, in two different ways. The closer and closer we get to opening the show, the more and more excited about it I become. I did my cake-covered pre-death striptease last night for the first time, after which I die beside the pool and get absolutely soaked from the roman fountain. It's quite a dramatic spectacle of a death scene, and I will certainly confess to loving it. In my mind, one of the reasons to be an actor is so that I can do things that I wouldn't get the chance to do in real life, and this show as given me a lot of them. It's not high-profile or high-paying, but it's a lot of fun.

Our amps go to 11

Tim challenged us tonight to play the entire show at level "11," raising the stakes on everything we have done up until this point. But instead of being a little too extreme, the show finally started to take shape. I was slightly proud to have come up with the two moments of the show that were deemed "too far." But the challenge to hit 11 gave us the freedom to take a lot of risks, which livened up the show and made it come alive. It was compared to the moment where Frankenstein's monster moves and starts to come to life. Everything we worked so hard on for the last few weeks finally took on a life of its own. We came up with some great stuff, some of it is very effective, and we get to play with it more tomorrow. Also, tomorrow I promise another post with pictures from rapelling!

First shooting morning for Paper Cuts

You may ask why I was out of the house before sunrise this morning, and it was so I could catch my train to Philly for the first shooting day for the new season of Paper Cuts. In fact, it was so early in the morning that I actually watched the sunrise from the train as we headed into the city. We shot for about an hour and half, accomplishing everything we wanted. I pitched some new jokes into the show, as well as contributed to the blooper reel. My costar Tim was sitting in the front row, and there were numerous times when just looking down in his direction would make me laugh. An entire scene with him was an exercise in maintaining focus.