I’ve been working on Fringe stuff, and I’ve learned something very important- writing does not come easily to me. I mean, I am am pretty good with written communications. I can bang out a formal email or a whimsical blog very quickly and well, but *writing*… that’s got pressure and judgment and all other forms of ickyness around it.
So for my show, I’m going to read a series of formal emails.
Actually, I am really excited for my show. I like what it is and what it sets out to accomplish. I’m still putting stuff together for it, but I have a solid beginning, a solid ending, and some solid stuff in the middle. I just need to give it a bit more body. I think a dance is in order. Belly dance. Ha ha, get it? Body? Belly?
I put in for the MN Fringe Festival. Last Monday was the drawing. And I got lucky.
Bill and I showed up just before things were about to start, but we did manage to find seats together. I saw people I knew, Bill saw people he knew. Some were the same people, some were not. I was surprised at how many people I could name.
It was really cozy. Standing room only by the time numbers were called off of ping-pong balls..
And mine was called.
I had the 2 second “wait- that’s me!” when my number was called. A couple people actually gave a ‘w00t’ and I caught the eyes of people I knew.. giving me thumbs up and air bumps. It was a popular-like feeling. Not super popular (I’m not Fotis), but more than I expected. To humble me afterward, mnfringe twitter listed me as Jan Zolar.
After the slots were filled, there was a break before the waitlist drawing. I had told a friend I’d find out where she fell on the list, so I got coffee, Bill got beer, and we mingled. People congratulated each other or gave condolences as appropriate. Lots of people asked Bill if he got in, and my trophy boyfriend of the evening pointed in my direction. When stating that I got in for fringe, I got asked “with vil?” or “with ____ production?”… I honestly expected a worse response when stating that I was producing my own one woman show. I mean, a one woman show is so edgy and daring… that’s nowhere near cliche at the MN fringe…
Then I listened to the wait-list. It wasn’t as formal as the first part. People cheered out of a sense of completion. After about a third of the way through, pizza arrived, and a food break was called. The masses swarmed. Pizza and more wait-listing. There was conversation at this point. People discussing shows. Loud cheers for people still there that FINALLY had their number drawn.
There was elbow rubbing. Literally with certain friends. Some catching up with people I haven’t seen in a while. People asked about shows. After talking with some people who don’t even have CONCEPTS for their shows, I’m feeling better with my concept, outline, and partially written script.
Speaking of… This weekend is for writing. And even if I do seem steps ahead of some Fringers, I got a ways to go if I’m gonna write a hit fringe play.
I will say this, though. I can already tell it’s going to take a lot more than this one woman to put on a one woman show. The support that people have offered, from editing to guest “directing” to promotional shots to plugging to “whatever the hell you need…” it’s all absolutely mind-blowing. I am honored to have you people in my life. Fuck ping-pong balls… these people are why I’m lucky.
The past few weeks have been busy as hell. It’s been leaving me feeling unattractive. But I’ve been too busy to notice…
Moving: I moved. I had help from good friends. I had much help from my brother. I did a crapton on my own. Over the course of two weeks, all my stuff is out of St. Paul an into uptown Mpls. I’m still living mostly out of boxes. I have coffee… the rest can wait.
Job: After 4+ years at Internet Broadcasting, I will soon be leaving. I was offered and accepted a job at Allied Health Center, working with medical and health stuff through the UofM. Since they have scholarships that cover most of the expence, I am contemplating going back to school as well. But mostly, I am excited for the opportunity to grow in my career path. I get to play with more hardware! Hot damn!
But I am going to miss the hell out of IB. A lot.
RenFest: Has been an amazing season. Seriously. I have played hard this year and owned my thing, which is amazing considering I hardly prepared at all. Vil has been a blast, patrons have been wonderful, and my kid is bloody fucking brilliant…
Earlier, he dodged a puff of smoke and said “I just evaded 50% of that”. I said “are you sure? What if it was 51%? What if it was 49%? What if it was 43%? What if it was 57%? What if it was ..” and he said “what if.. You just be quiet?”
Hell yeah. My kid is sassy. I love it.
Birthday: I am celebrating my 1st annual 29th this year. I have some 29 year projects to accomplish. I will let you all know what they are as soon as I set them up.
I still have so much more to say that I am not finding words for. For now, I will leave you with a thousand of them wrapped up in a picture:
Before we got all sophisiticated and domesticated, the human race was a people of hunting and gathering. Searching for their desires… mostly food. They would use their abilities to find the tasiest and most nutritious. It’s a survival thing.
I am in the process of moving. Because of this, I have dropped pretty much every performance/comedy related thing in my life for the next couple weeks. Not the Renaissance Festival, because there is NO other place I can tell the jokes I do and get the kind of response I get…
Q: Why are fish so smart? A: Because they swim in SCHOOLS all day.
No other audience is going to find that funny. The Ren Faire audience goes to that venue expecting to find the entertainment they’re seeking. They know that in the land of surreal, anything can happen, and that this is the place to hunt for stupid, wacky humor and entertainment.
So, instead of doing auditions, tonight I searched for boxes with my brother. We went to Kinko’s, where I had been promised that a veritable harvest of boxes would await me. But the harvest had already been collected an hour previous. We went to another Kinko’s, where boxes were out of season. I was handed one box. I’m sorry, but my library is not going to fit into one box, no matter how many games of tetris I’ve mastered. I was told they had boxes for sale, but that didn’t really fit my budget. Besides, where’s the sport in that?
I decided to go grocery shopping. Just a couple things so I could feed any helpers I get over the next couple days. At the check out line, I asked the cashier if they had any boxes. The cashier got really excited about banana boxes. He swears by them. They are the sturdiest boxes ever.
Banana boxes have giant holes in the bottom. I don’t care how sturdy they are. If they can’t actually hold anything, they’re not going to do me any good. Just put cardboard in the bottom… What’s the point of a box that I have to finish building? If I want one of those, I’ll go to Ikea.
The security officer on duty (cause I shop at the classy places) then told me that at the end of the strip mall, there was a Family Dollar store (really classy), and behind it, a dumpster full of boxes just ripe for the taking.
Taking things from a dumpster is a misdemeanor. It violates privacy and other such things. But is it really stealing if the guy who is hired to protect the property tells you to take it?
My brother and I went to the dumpster. The boxes were perfect. It’s possible my brother made spy movie sneaking music when we were getting the boxes. He may have ducked down a lot and flattened himself against the car, shifting his focus to and fro. It’s possible we were breaking the law. He grabbed a couple boxes full of boxes, and we were off, the hunt victorious and the harvest plentiful.
Over the weekend, I will again be at the Renaissance Festival, to tell stupid jokes and entertain the masses. There is a field of audience out there just ripe for the picking. And they want to be picked.
I haven’t had a lot of time, and I am sorry for how late this post is. I have been busy getting ready to move in a week. A WEEK!!! Crap. I am SO not ready.
The Renaissance Festival has started. One weekend down, six to go. The new fishmonger character is going swimmingly. Every time I turn around, I get another idea. Like life preservers. I just now thought of that. Some one get me a giant wooden dough nut and some rope.
And I am not feeling pressured into anything. Deciding to not worry about my character and just go with the flow has been the best idea I’ve ever had. My time taking improv classes at BNI have been worth it on so many levels. The improvement to my street performance has been just one.
I gave out fish eyes. I paddled through the crowds. I worked gate. I broke for parade. I sang with a lovely lady. I marshaled fights. I played with beautiful people. I vilified the hell out of that show.
No seriously. Vilification on the first weekend always kind of flounders a little. I had about a half a match of adjustment, and then, it was effin’ ON. You see this stage? This one, that you want? You can’t have it. It’s MINE bitches.
In that list, I forgot hugs. I hugged people. Always with a invitation, arms spread out, and let them come to me. I need a catch phrase to go with it, but that was a very rewarding bit.
In the above paragraphs are several fish-related expressions. See if you can find them.
But I haven’t had much time to dwell on fest. Babies have been born. Many welcomes to Kieran Patrick William, son of Angelo and Suzanne, who arrived on the stroke of midnight (00:00:00) on Wednesday, August 20th. And I am throwing a tantrum because I have not had time to meet him.
‘Cause I’m moving. In a week. Time is a funny thing. I’m not entirely certain I believe the 4th dimension is a straight line. That, or I just like folding things too often. But I had months, now weeks, and now I am down to days before moving and I am not where I wanted to be with it all. I’m fairly certain it will all happen. But there is something about time that is just plain wonky.
“The funniest thing about time is when it doesn’t. I’ll leave that hanging there for the moment, and let you age while the shadows don’t lengthen, if you see what I mean. …Now, while the Cycle doesn’t turn, and the year doesn’t fail, and the day gets neither brighter nor darker, we begin to see things with a new perspective.”
-Yendi, Steven Brust
Even though he’s barely 2 days old, Kieran has all the time in the world. He has his whole lifetime ahead of him. Is his massive amounts of time because he hasn’t had any, and so he is owed? Is it because he has so many more days ahead of him? Is it because he has no use for time? Or is it because he just doesn’t think about it?
At Fest, I have all the time in the world. Maybe it’s because I’ve decided not to worry about it. That I will simply play and be in the moment and let things happen that will happen. But in my own life, time is suddenly running out. Maybe I could go back to not worrying about it. Just letting it happen. Maybe… the less I worry, the more time I’ll have.
Let’s face it– I have a think for saying things like “Hither” and “Huzzah!”
Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead finished out strong. We were nominated for Fringies (congrats to our director Amy for her win). We got an encore show. We played to an audience of over 375 people with an amazing energy from both audience and cast that left me grinning like a drunken frat boy surrounded by bare boobies. It was glorious, and I am sad it is over.
But no time to weep.
The Minnesota Renaissance Festival starts this Saturday. And I can’t find my bodice.
I feel like it snuck up on me. I mean, there I was, minding my own business, doing an innocent Fringe show, maybe a little stand up and improv on the side, and then BAM! There she is, my angry performance wife baring down on me for staying out too late partying with the boys. And she is not letting up.
“Well, Jen, if you hadn’t been out carousing about town getting drunk off of stand up, buzzed off of improv, and high off of Fringe, maybe you would have had a little more time to pay attention to the needs of your WIFE and HOME… you know, the place that takes you in regardless, year after year… the place that first saw your potential and nurtured your love of performance. You probably lost that bodice in a bar fight, or gambling with Time, you ungrateful little… “
And the worst part is, she’s right. I haven’t been giving her the time she deserves. But everyone needs some time out with the boys. Right?
Of course not. After all, she’s the woman. and not matter what justification I have, no matter how worthy, there is still a festival to prepare for.
So pardon me if I tuck my tail between my legs and scamper home. I have a lot to get done. Otherwise, she’ll make me sleep on the couch.
“I remember, especially like when I was in high school, going to see like Dawn of the Dead and it was like mayhem in the theater and you could barely even watch the movie. It was so fun.” -Rob Zombie
I have decided that if Shakespeare and Zombies had babies, SLotD would be the one that went to college for its Doctorate of Poetry in Zombie Motion off of a scholarship it earned from devising a way to turn plastic into pure cancer-curing energy, while Rob Zombie would be the one that dropped out of high school to smoke pot with philosophers discussing “Shakes and Shambles” and the conspiracy of the zombie war.
Which to I perfer? I like both. Philosophy is philosophy, whether formally educated or learned from the hard knocks of life. I am currently courting SLotD. But I fear our courtship will soon end. Come see us at U of M Rarig Center Thrust on these dates:
Sat., Aug. 2 @ 1:00 p.m Sun., Aug. 3 @ 5:30 p.m Tue., Aug. 5 @ 10:00 p.m Wed., Aug. 6 @ 7:00 p.m Sun., Aug. 10 @ 7:00 p.m
What? Only one show left? Well, only one guarenteed show left. There is a possibility of an encore show… we could take Best of Venue. It is pretty much down to SLotD or An Inconvenient Squirrel. So either we have two shows back to back on Sunday, or we have the honor of coming up really closely behind Scrimshaw Productions (that line sounds really gay). Either way, it’s a friggin win. And either way, Craig Anderson (in both productions) has plans on Sunday, August 10th at 8:30pm. Sorry, ladies. You’ll just have to wait for him at the after party.
Speaking of winning, SLotD is up on the Fringe Famous polls for three categories: Outstanding New Play, our Amy Rummenie up for Outstanding Direction, and the very prestegious Outstanding Production. http://fringefamous.podbean.com/On the same site, for their amazing Shakespeare/Zombie show bringing a lot of non-thebians to the Fringe, John Heimbuch, Amy Rummenie, and David Pisa have been inducted into the 2008 Fringe Hall of Fame (http://fringefamous.podbean.com/hall-of-fringe-fame/).
And the show is consistantly hitting the top three, if not the top, in Fringe reviews. We have 50 reviews. It’s like out fringe page just keeps getting longer. That reminds me of a date I had once. No wait. It doesn’t. Damn.
When I first heard about it, I knew I liked the concept right off the bat, and I had faith in John’s writing abilities. When I read the script, I knew it would be a fun play, even though I didn’t get cast as a zombie. When I met the cast, I knew I could depend on them. When I met the crew, I knew I would be supported. This entire run has been amazing, and I am really sad that it has to end. On top of the inside of SLotD, our audiences have been absolutely amazing. Not just in numbers, but in responsiveness. I have been attacked by people I don’t know telling me I’m a wonderful badass character (which amuses the hell out of me. All 110pds of me is intimidating. GRRR!).
I really want to end this blog on a comedic note, but I just don’t see how, with all the sadness and crazy possible awards. You, go vote. I’m going to go back to waiting for Rob Zombie to finish The Haunted World of El SuperBeasto (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0419724/). There will be some comedy in that for sure, and though it was set aside for a while, it looks like they may be able to bring it back from the dead.
“In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be. – Hubert H. Humphrey”
Who the hell are you to judge, Hubert? Who are YOU to judge? If we named the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome “Stinksville,” I bet the same number of fans would show.
Speaking of fans and shows, Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead is holding steadily as one of the top fringe shows, which weirds me out a bit, but I’ll take it. Come judge for yourself. U of M Rarig Center Thrust on these dates:
Sat., Aug. 2 @ 1:00 p.m Sun., Aug. 3 @ 5:30 p.m Tue., Aug. 5 @ 10:00 p.m Wed., Aug. 6 @ 7:00 p.m Sun., Aug. 10 @ 7:00 p.m
Zombies at 10pm? Holy crap is that going to be awesome. If you can’t make that, consider this post your reminder that we have a show tomorrow at 7pm, which is going to be packed with my friends, which will also be awesome. You know what’s not awesome? This horrible zombie joke I’m going to tell you.
Q: What does a vegetarian zombie eat?
A: GRRRAAAAIIIIIINNNNSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!
The show is better, I promise you. But now I have some “brain food” for you. (why the hell do people let me keep a blog? seriously, you guys. this is ridiculous)
I have medical issues that have taken a lot of research by a lot of people over several years, and is still left unproperly diagnosed. However, they can come to some idea how to treat symptoms and possibly help myself out. I have had several experts tell me that fish and seafood are quite possibly the best things I can do for my body. It has to do with the Omega-3’s. I don’t get it all, but everywhere I turn, I hear “omega 3”. Infact, the best food for me to have is sushi.
Right. I can afford sushi every week. Can I get a prescription for that?
The problem I have with seafood is that I’m pretty picky about my seafood. I hate the “fishy” taste of unfresh fish. Makes me queasy, which kind of defeats the purpose of eating it. And good fish takes a lot of prep. I have little to no time for such tom foolery.
But not all seafood is fish. The other day, I was at a super target (it wore a cape), and I found the holy grail. And sitting right next to it was a 16oz package of peeled, pre-cooked, de-tailed, de-veined shrimp. Now, I love shrimp. I love shrimp more than Bubba Gump. No lie. And shrimp is full of Omega 3’s, and other things my body could really use.
So I have now added shrimp to my regular dietary rotation. Today, I made Linguini Alfredo with Shrimp. It took me 20 minutes, and that was mostly waiting for water to boil. To be fair, Alfredo from a jar (and almost any dairy) probably isn’t good for me. But screw it. It was delicious. And it was a zombie’s dream meal. Brain food and GRRRAAAAIIIIIINNNNSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!
Okay. Stop reading. Go see the show. I’m pretty sure I left all my funny there.
We opened Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead today for 170 some people. The most important of which was my son, but other people whose opinions I respect were there. I admit, there was a tiny piece of me that was “afeared” that our somewhat Shakespeare soaked performance wouldn’t be able to keep an audience, but when the audience started laughing, it was honest laughter. Gut laughter. Laughter that makes the world go ‘round. And they didn’t stop. They laughed for the intelligent witicisms and the stupid jokes alike. It was HOT.
So far, the only critisisms I’ve heard are that it’s a pretty geeky show, and I don’t think that was so much a critisism as it was a fact. I mean, the title pretty much tells it all. Shakespeare’s Land of the Dead. No title has been more straight forward about the contents of the show since Snakes on a Plane. There will be Shakespeare. There will be zombies. If you are surprised by either one of these events occuring, it may lead to me defriending you on one of seventeen social networking sites. And I don’t mean Myspace either. I mean somewhere you would notice and/or care.
The other complaint I heard was from my son, who didn’t think I was very manly. He said it was the hair that tipped him off. Come judge for yourself. U of M Rarig Center Thrust on these dates:
Sat., Aug. 2 @ 1:00 p.m Sun., Aug. 3 @ 5:30 p.m Tue., Aug. 5 @ 10:00 p.m Wed., Aug. 6 @ 7:00 p.m Sun., Aug. 10 @ 7:00 p.m
I admit it. I read reviews to see if someone is going to call me out on not being a man. I expect to read something along the lines of “SLotD was an absolutlely brilliant masterpiece of a performance, except for the chick trying to be a dude.” My Brilliance is probably right. It’s the hair.
I was invited to see 21 Fringe shows this year. I don’t have a pass because our cast is huge, so I will not be seeing any of them. I do not have $250 or at least 42 hours out of the next 168 that isn’t already dedicated elsewhere. I am sorry to all of you who invited me… had I the ability, I would see them all.
*Last night, my child beat a large group of adults in a game called werewolf, where logic and bluffing are used to sway popular opinion. I have a feeling one or two adults may have figured him out and let it slide. I goaded the crowed into taking me out right away because I was pretty sure that he was a werewolf, and I am a mom first and foremost. Getting taken out early meant that I was available for him to talk to about strategy, and wouldn’t have to out my own son. But he didn’t really seem to need advice. I was Hella Proud of my boy’s game last night.*
