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This new course covered hand-to-hand, single sword rapier, and rapier & dagger fighting. It was simply an introduction to that work, for me and a few others in the small class; I think it was a refresher for others, such as Jake Lockwood. For someone like me, who was brand new to almost everything in the class, I have a way to go before I should be trusted by a fight partner on stage ‐‐ especially with blade work; but at least I won't panic when it comes up; and eventually it will.

This was one of the times, I must admit, where I felt so much the novice and amateur. I doubt I had actually held a sword in my hand more than twice before, and never with anything close to correct form. And them swords and daggers get heavy quickly, too.

Found out I am pretty good with body rolls, though I think I already knew that a little below the surface. I do have some control to master. I showed a propensity to not stop the momentum of my body, so at the end of the roll I would sit up rather than stay flat on the floor. So I have that to work on. Of course we went over "naps," those being the body smacks and hand claps you make on stage, hidden from the audience, that create the sound of the faux punch or smack on you or your fight partner.

Bruce ended the course with a little choreographed rapier and dagger fight sequence. We never did do it at full speed ‐‐ we kept it to what Bruce calls "Tai Chi speed." Suited me just find, coward that I can sometimes be; I did not want to end the class sessions by sticking a dagger in someone's cheek, or some such disastrous event like that.

In the end though, like I said, I now have some confidence that when it comes up, if the choreography is kept simple enough, or if I have enough time to rehearse it, I can bring off a sword fight on stage. And more so, I am even more sure of myself now as far as hand to hand is concern.

This is good.

It's always a good thing, too, to come up against introductions to new skill sets. A) You're introduced to them, which in itself is a good thing; B) You are forced to push through a wall and cope with being outside your comfort zone ‐‐ always a good thing for a performer, an artist ‐‐ hell, for anybody.

I must admit, in the second part of the last session, a part of me at an emotional depth wanted 9:00 to get there sooner. I was in the midst of doing all new stuff (it was that rapier and dagger sequence) and the flight part of my fight or flight instincts was wanting to be in charge. Fortunately the student of art was in charge, that vital part of my identity who wants to continually grow and improve myself as a craftsman (I know it's all probably a bit pretentious but, oh well), So it was: "To bad! We're staying, and we're giving this our best shot!"

MIDDFEST 2007: This year we were plagued by the same problems as the last two times I have been involved: bad location for any sort of focused attention to be drawn; bad acoustical surroundings, and distracting events on a stage just outside the building.

The worst was a brass ensemble that fired up about five minutes into our first reading of Drummers. We had a microphone and still had to project as much as we could; and I think we lost most of the battle. We had two audience members for that one.

As has been the case in 2005 and 2006, we never had even a half dozen audience members for any of our performances. The most was five for our last performance, Dossier: Ronald Akkerman, Sunday afternoon.

In terms of my performances, I was much more pleased with my Ronald in Dossier: than my Raymond in Drummers. One thing that hurt me as Ray was that we were working from a British translation that was in very British vernacular. We had elected to not do any sort of dialect, Dutch, British or otherwise. It would have been confusing to use an English accent to read a Dutch play at a festival celebrating The Netherlands.

But trying to make some of the very British idioms sound natural in American English dialect was a challenge that I think I sometimes did not meet. Nobody in America says, "Right then," as an acknowledgment. I had to constantly fight the urge to slip into British dialect.

I also did not wrap myself around as solid of an idea for the Raymond character as I did for Ronald. I suppose I infused more into to him than I think. But doing it in American I found him such a regular Joe that I more-or-less played him as an exaggeration of myself in my mid twenties or thirties. I think I would have charactered him up a bit if I had done him as a Brit. The text certainly allowed for it. Probably did for my States-side version, too, I just didn't see it. Then again, as I said, I may have done him better than I am believing. Don't want to make it seem like I thought I sucked; I just was not thrilled with my Raymond.

I was very happy with my Ronald Akkerman, however. He was more interesting ‐‐ perhaps because I was more interested in doing him; a factor which I would find problems with if it's true: that I played him better because I was more interested in him. I think I should be able to get to as good a portrayal of a character, as my talents allow, no matter what. Probably overly zealous of me, but why should I not go for the very best?

I have to say that I also liked the play better and it was much easier to find cues for the characters' attitudes and emotions at any given point in the text. Drummers often left us clueless. That one was one that really needed to be studied and negotiated to come to agreement about when the characters were amiable or in conflict ‐‐ it needed far more rehearsal than we had time for; that may be why I was less pleased with Raymond: I had not had the time to develop him.

Ronald, on the other hand, was fun. I understood him and his function from the start ‐‐ though, of course, I got better understanding as we rehearsed.

Ronald is the manifestation of himself in the mind of the guilt-ridden Judith who has just come from his funeral. He committed euthanasia suicide in the last throngs of AIDS. She was his healthcare nurse. The play is really a dialogue Judith is having with herself, exercising the daemon guilt she feels. She imagines he comes to visit her and they talk about their relationship, his lover who died first, her fiancé who eventually left her, and Ronald's dying days.

Though I played Ronald somewhat effeminately, I did not flame him up. I fashioned him specifically after a couple gay men I have know; one I know now; one I used to know. It was an actor's choice to throw something in the vein of "stereotype" in ‐‐ though not really, because these are real men. We all know plenty of gay men who don't meet the stereotype at all, but a fully dimensional gay man with some of those more outwardly feminine characteristics, mostly in the voice, seemed an effective way to tell the story. So that's what I did and I think it worked well. Most of our audience members for this play said so ‐‐ meaning: three of the audience members.

THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK: Two productions of this are up locally and I know Anne in both of them. Sarah Gomes is Anne in a touring company that also played at Middfest this year. Charity Farrell has the role in the Falcon Theatre production, coming up October 12, 13, 19, 20, 26 & 27, in Newport, Kentucky ‐‐ just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.

As for Sarah's production, which was directed and I believe produced by Christine Brunner (once the managing director of The Rising Phoenix Theatre Company), I saw it this Saturday afternoon at Middfest. They had the same sort of audible problems we had, in terms of the unfriendly acoustics, but I must say that at least they had much less distractive sound to contend with.

And they had nice-sized audiences, which I attribute to a few things. First, it is a well known play. Second, it was fully staged, which is a more known method to most people. Most people need to see the action and staged readings cause a preconception to them that they will not be entertained. Now, they might actually be entertained if they would sit down and give it a try. But, they are not going to when there is a Dutch folk dancing troupe on a main stage outside at the same time. Third, I would guess it was pushed a little harder than the staged readings were.

The Anne Frank performance was only slightly hindered by this acoustical problem, and they did battle it as well as they could. I was able to see most of one of their performances and they did well. I know other cast members beside Sarah. John Michael Lander (Brother Boy in the first production of Sorted Lives at the Guild) was Otto; Phillip Smith (Edmund in the Guild's 2005 production of Long Day's Journey into Night) was Peter Van Daan; Helen Raymond, who has been a part of my previous experiences with the Middfest staged readings, was Miep Gies; Tony Weaver (whom I saw kick some serious acting butt as Mercutio in the Clark State Community College production of Romeo and Juliet) was Mr. Kraler.

TRUE NATURE: No word yet about any callback or casting in the upcoming local indy full-length. At least Fran Pesch is being cool about the fact that I may have to cancel the U.D. Law School Intrasession gig.

MORE TRAILER PRODUCTION: Looks like I'll do a trailer for I Ought to Be in Pictures. The big thing will be when I can shoot and edit if I do get the movie role. It might mean that there will have to be a special session on a weekend. This one will have to be simple and straight forward ‐‐ but that's really what the show calls for anyway.

TINA GLOSS ON PUSHING DAISIES: I finally watched my tape of Tina's prime time debut. What a nice, quirky show. Must admit I did not watch all the episode, yet; I did watch the exposition to see Tina. Tina's "Mom" character bites the dust, but what is so great about this gig is with any of her future appearances being flash back like this was, there's no problem. We already know the producers have considered putting her in another episode coming up ‐‐ and may have. If the gag works, there no reason why she can't make many many appearances as Mom. Hell, she could start showing up as a present-day manifestation

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AUDITIONS FOR INDUSTRIALS: I did screentests for two separate industrials, which was why I was at the agency office where I got the news about the movie. One audition was for a hospital in Toledo, Ohio, with a scene partner ‐‐ a nice young lady named Ann. I happen to spy some friends of mine wrapping up their screentest right before ours on the tape. The other was for a pharmaceutical company.

This first was a series of nonverbals between the two of us. I couldn't tell you how I did because I have no clue what the producers are looking for. Sometimes they either see what they want or they don't ‐‐ it has nothing to do with your talent.

The pharmaceutical one was reading copy with some medical terms. I don't believe it was the copy for the actual work, but rather just copy to see if the actor can handle the medical jargon. Actually, I think the copy was supposed to be memorized but I had something personal come up that kept me from being able to do so. My original appointment for this audition was Wednesday, but I had to reschedule due to this personal business

Will anyone be surprised to read that I was not overly enthused with my audition for this second one? I was not happy with all of my enunciations. But, what do I know?

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The damage: a new water pump, new timing chain, new timing chain tensioner, and various other minor fixes.

Took out a small signature loan yesterday so that I would be able to pay the bill and still, oh, eat and such between now and next paycheck. That was looking at a $600 bill. Then, last night the shop called me back with the news about the tensioner. So I had to amend the loan for a more today.

So what's the connection to "Artful Things?" you may ask. The answer is that it is a little frustrating to constantly write here about how I am positioning myself to buy a high-end DV camera and a new more powerful computer (along with upgraded FinalCut movie editing software). Every time I get close, the carrot is yanked further ahead.

If it would do me any good, I'd throw a tantrum!

Bottom line is: though it's not about money, the lack of money will so obviously figure into anyone's ARTFUL THINGS.

UD LAW SCHOOL INTRASESSIONS: Got the materials from Fran Pesch for the guided improv work for the UD Law School clinics coming up next week. Since I'm not in a movie, this gig is a 100 percent go. I have the facts of the case to assimilate but the first of the two days of gig is Monday, so I will be all right,. There is a "rehearsal" ‐‐ which I have found in the past to be more of an orientation meeting ‐‐ this Friday that I will likely make. There is an off chance that I'll be cast in that pharmaceutical industrial; honesty, though, I would guess I'd have already heard by now were I cast.

You know, if my agency doesn't get me cast soon, they'll probably give up on me!

BY THE WAY, CHECK THIS OUT: My page at the Roof-Goenner web site. Just to prove I am, at least for now, legit.

THE TRAIL TO THE TRAILER: Friday I will drop into The Guild to watch rehearsal and perhaps shoot some B-roll for I Ought to Be in Pictures. Before then, I'll look back through a library copy of the play, though it's the reader's version, not the actor's, to find some tasty moments for the screen. Between myself and director Fran Pesch we will come up with some good soundbytes that will interest but not spoil. I have some vague ideas for a few potential snippets, already.

UPCOMING THEATRE AUDITIONS: I am seriously considering again going after Reverend John Hale and Deputy Governor Danforth in the forthcoming production of The Crucible at X*Act, Xenia, Ohio's public theatre.

And I know I am going after at least two plays in the 2008 side of this theatre season.

F.W. MURNAU'S CLASSIC SILENT MOVIE NOSFERATU AT THE STATE THEATRE IN SPRINGFIELD, OHIO: The following comes directly from the keyboard of Larry Coressel --

On Friday October 26th the historic State Theatre in downtown Springfield will re-open for a special one-night only screening of the classic German silent film Nosferatu. Directed by F.W. Murnau, Nosferatu was the first film adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

An original live musical score will be performed by the Springfield avant-garde ensemble Equinox (Doug Baumle, Larry Coressel and Wayne Justice). Springfield StageWorks, Rod Hatfield and the OH10 New Media Center are co-presenters of this event.

Admission is $5.00 and includes a pre-show reception and a party after the performance.

Tickets will be available at the door.

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At first I was a little persnickled because this show is up in the relative vicinity of Springfield StageWorks' production of Joseph Heller's Catch 22, of which I have a big interest in. C22 had been free and clear of any conflicts for me in terms of appearance in. Then a Mamet show comes into the plot. However, all is fine in my thespian world. As it turns out, Boston Marriage is an all-women cast.

Saul Caplan ‐‐ you know, the guy that beat me out for Herb in I Ought to Be in Pictures (not that I hold a grudge or anything! ) ‐‐ is directing BM, with Kerry Corthell as his producer.

The synopsis of the play, taken from Dramatist Play Service via the DTG web site:

Anna and Claire are two bantering, scheming, "women of fashion" who have long lived together on the fringes of upper-class society. Anna has just become the mistress of a wealthy man, from whom she has received an enormous emerald and an income to match. Claire, meanwhile, is infatuated with a respectable young lady and wants to enlist the jealous Anna's help for an assignation. As the two women exchange barbs and take turns taunting Anna's hapless Scottish parlor maid, Claire's young inamorata suddenly appears, setting off a crisis that puts both the valuable emerald and the women's futures at risk. To this wickedly funny comedy, Mamet brings his trademark tart dialogue and impeccable plotting, spiced with Wildean wit.

For any Dayton area actresses who may be interested, the auditions will be held early ‐‐ December or early January. You can keep tabs on this at the Guild web site: www.daytontheatreguild.org.

PICTURES TRAILER PRODUCTION: Speaking of Saul, and in a kind, soft voice now, I will be at rehearsal tonight, as planned, to shoot a little B-roll, to generally observe blocking, etc, and to probably discuss trailer concept and idea with Fran (the director).

PREPPING FOR NEXT WEEK'S UD LAW SCHOOL INTRASESSIONS: Speaking of Fran (Pesch), I will meet with her before tonight's Pictures rehearsal for a rehearsal meeting at U.D. for next week's improv acting gigs with the U.D. law students.

SOMETHING ELSE THROWING A NEW DIMENSION INTO MY UNDISCLOSED IDEA: A while ago, quite a while ago, I said I had an idea for a project, well really more than a project, that incorporates most of my artistic ventures. I have not abandoned this idea, it just has not fallen into place yet. Now, something has caught my attention that has given me new food for thought toward this specific venture.

I recently stumbled across a Canadian sitcom called Corner Gas. It's a quirky little comedy that has given me the beginnings of an as of yet very undeveloped notion.

Great. Something else to sit on the shelf and germinate.

CRAIG ROBERTS, AKA "THE FRY GUY": Check out Craig's starring role in this Wendy's training video --- www.ebaumsworld.com/video/watch/24995.

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MORE PREPPING FOR NEXT WEEK'S UD LAW SCHOOL INTRASESSIONS: The first of the two gigs is Monday. We had our rehearsal meeting Friday afternoon and I have this weekend to get the case facts and the character understanding down.

PRODUCING PARK YOUR CAR IN HARVARD YARD: I have taken over the role of producer for Park Your Car in Harvard Yard. Greg Smith has taken over the producer's duties for Pictures since Debra Kent is now cast. So I have Harvard, officially as of today. Sarah Gomes (the director) and I had a brief confab after our DTG board meeting today. There is some good amount of pre-production to do. One big challenge is that we need a live cat for some portion of the show. Animals are always a pain. I see that as the biggest challenge for me.

This is also a heavy sound cue and sound design show. I am going to take on the design part and may operate, too. Depending on what happens with The Crucible at X*Act; if I do audition. The problem being that Sarah wants the sound cues in rehearsal at the start of January because she wants the cast to start working with them a little before Tech Week. Crucible is in rehearsal at the same time and opens the same night as Harvard. So, I can't run sound for Harvard if I am in Crucible. And, even beyond the sound run conflict, as a producer I don't like missing most of the run, as well as all of Tech Week, which I would if I am in Crucible. So, as I am writing this paragraph, I am pretty much talking myself out of auditioning for Crucible. That's not a "Definite" but it is a "Pretty Damned Likely."

See below for audition info ‐‐ *(if you read this prior to the evening of Nov 13, 2007, that is).

DUH DUH DEAUX DOH!:
Remember how I was whining about how one of the reasons I did not get cast as Herb in I Ought to Be in Pictures was because I was not from Brooklyn and that Saul was? Well, guess what, Saul is not from Brooklyn. He was born and reared right here in the old Miami Valley. Somehow I got the notion he was born in Brooklyn but then moved to Dayton in perhaps his adolescence ‐‐ because I do know he went to high school here.

He's always sounded to me like a New Yorker, and another actor had made mention of the "fact" that he was from Brooklyn. But, that fella clearly made the same wrong assumption I had.

Saul, trying to help me with my erroneousness (is that a word?)*, laughed off my misidentification of his "dialect" by offering that Jews often sound like they're from Brooklyn. Or at least to some numb-brained gentiles (for the record: this last, gentiles comment is mine, not Saul's).

*) ACCORDING TO THE SPELL CHECK FOR MY TEXTWRANGLER, "ERRONEOUSNESS" IS A WORD

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DV WOES: Since I was already in Dayton for the intrasessions, and just ten minutes away from the Guild, I went on over there, rather driving all the way home, just to come back to Dayton a few hours later to shoot footage for the Pictures video trailer. I had my PowerBook with me and had planned to do some pre-production organization for Park Your Car....

First thing I figured I'd do, once there, was get some room tone sound recorded on my DV camera for the trailer. I got everything set up then found that my camera will not play nor record on a cassette. There is something wrong in the cassette housing. So principal photography for the Pictures trailer is postponed until next week; at which point I will either have gotten my camera fixed or I'll use someone else's. I am putting the word out I may be in need of a camera to use.

Either way though my camera must be repaired.

Addendum About An Hour And A Half After Original Post:

Cannot believe I forgot to mention this.

After driving all the way home from the cancelled shoot, as I was unpacking my car, I realized I had left the DV camera case ‐‐ of course WITH camera ‐‐ at the Guild. So I had to trek all the way back, eating up almost an hour of my life. Last time I had to do that was when I left the script for The Beard of Avon there in the face of a snowstorm that was going to keep me and the text I had not learned yet, some twenty-five miles apart.

Another "dud duh deaux doh!" moment?

FREE AFOOTING ON SATURDAY: I ended up with a free ticket to see Something's Afoot at Sinclair Community College Last Saturday night. I had thought I was not going to be able to make it. To be frank, I really should have not gone, there was a lot of project work to do, but I went anyway. It was a cute spoof on murder mysteries, a musical with Reneé Franck-Reed in a lead role as Miss Tweed. Also in a leading role was Corey Callahan. Corey ran sound for the production of 'Art' I was in for Springfield StageWorks, Springfield Civic Theatre, and the Springfield Museum of Art last fall. Reneé, of course, was great; Corey, whom I've never before had the chance to see perform, did a really fine job, too. He's got good chops when it comes to "song and dance," and way more so in the dance department than this awkward fellow writing here.

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I think there were a couple sessions where my Victor did not get as high on the upset and anger meter as he could have, but I did still give the law students an upset, greiving father to deal with.

This whole practice of improving a scenario with some set facts is good woodshedding for me. I eventully will shoot short movies based on this approach. More on that sometime later.

DV WOES - Part II: My DV camcorder is not fixed, but I do have access to a nice one to shoot the Pictures trailer next week. Young Master David Sherman has been kind enough to loan me the use of his THREE CHIP camera. ¡Muchas gracias David!

AUDITION FOR A COMMERCIAL FOR THE DAYTON INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: Got an email Wednesday afternoon from Jim at Roof-Goenner with the script for an audition for the airport. We shot the screentest at the agency yesterday afternoon.

It was supposed to be a self-involved guy like Steve Corell in The Office. In the first take I came off, I felt, too rough and straight forward. As I had done the take I'd felt like I was being less intense than the tape showed that I was. So, we shot it again. We got a much better take, one I could live with. Of course, I don't like watching myself on screen ‐‐ I never see the performance I thought I was giving, or at least that I "felt" I was giving.

MR. PRODUCER GUY: The producer for Park Your Car in Harvard Yard has a few things lined up already. I got my sound operator and my light operator. Director Sarah Gomes had already procurred her lighting and set designers. I am, as I said before, designing the sound. I still have not decided if I am auditioning for The Crucible at X*Act, though it is less of a conflict now that I have a sound operator. But I still kind of don't like the idea of missing Tech Week and the first two weekends of Park You Car.... And I think I'd like to, as sound designer, be there to tweak sound volumes. So, though it has as of yet not been discounted entirely, I still lean toward not going to the audition. I would like to take a crack at Danford or either of the ministers in Crucible, though. Hell, I'd like Proctor, but I am just not young enough, I don't believe; nor am I attractive enough.

But, back to Park You Car...: I still have to work out how we are dealing with the cat we need for the show. My perfect settlement would be to find a theatre person with a docile, friendly cat, who can be the wrangler for the cat and has the time to be there in rehearsal a bit before the show opens so the cat and the actors can make friends with each other. That's what I want.

We'll see.

Right now my first big order of business is securing a dialect coach so we can get that going shortly after Sarah has cast the show. And I have, it seems, a few viable options.

TRAILER FOR HORROR FLICK THAT TOSHA AND CRAIG ARE IN: Check out the teaser trailer for the movie Natasha Randall and her hubby Craig Roberts are in, Thirteen Floors, which just wrapped not but a few months back:

myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=20728373

*(AGAIN ‐‐ A LATER-IN-THE-DAY-ADDED ITEM)....
STUDENT FILM: I must have too much on my mind; I keep forgetting material ripe for this damned blog.

I was approached late in the week about appearing in a student film by a WSU Film School Student, Ryan Miller. He and I had met a while back and I mentioned that I was both a film maker and an actor. Looks like we will be shooting next weekend (Sunday) on 16 millimeter.

That gives me Saturday to get the final cut on the Pictures trailer.

AND WHILE WE'RE ADDING THINGS, DON'T FORGET F.W. MURNAU'S CLASSIC SILENT MOVIE NOSFERATU AT THE STATE THEATRE IN SPRINGFIELD, OHIO, TONIGHT:

Tonight the historic State Theatre in downtown Springfield will re-open for a special one-night only screening of the classic German silent film Nosferatu. Directed by F.W. Murnau, Nosferatu was the first film adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula.

An original live musical score will be performed by the Springfield avant-garde ensemble Equinox (Doug Baumle, Larry Coressel and Wayne Justice). Springfield StageWorks, Rod Hatfield and the OH10 New Media Center are co-presenters of this event.

Admission is $5.00 and includes a pre-show reception and a party after the performance.

Tickets will be available at the door.

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Equinox consists of Larry Coressel, Wayne Justice and Doug Baulme ‐‐ also Andrew Gibson, but Andrew did not perform Friday. Their new age music was a perfect scoring for the 1922 film.

Of course, Larry was the director and Wayne was the other lead, Hamm, opposite my Clov, in the 2005 Springfield StageWorks production of Endgame.

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The final product will have a different approach than I had envisioned because the principal photography is not of staged performances for the camera, as were those in the Constant Wife and Two One Acts trailers. Fran asked me if I could just shoot rehearsals rather than stage the shoots so I have decided to focus on showing the material as "in rehearsal." I have done some cut-away footage of Fran, stage manager Mark Diffenderfer and lighting designer, Anita Bachmann, as they watch the stage, take notes, etc. I'll throw those into the edit on occasion to strengthen the this is a rehearsal feel.

As for the material from the play, I do know exactly what I want so I shot the same segments in both the rehearsals and will do so again tonight so I have several takes to choose from.

Last night, I wasn't completely on top of my game at every point. Some of those specific moments I am after I missed. I had missed a small piece of a most poignant moment on Wednesday night because I'd expected different blocking and thus got caught unawares as the words were leaving Annie's mouth. I did catch the exact sound byte last night, but the blocking had again been changed and I did not get a dead on shot of her face. Tonight I will shoot it from a different spot.

Yep, going back to be in the actors' hair one more night. I am pushing it, because I intend to record the trailer music, too. I am using the chords and melody from a song I collaborated on with my music partner of old: Rich Hisey. It is called "Memories of the Times Before." It is the only collaboration between us where I wrote the music and he wrote the lyrics. Usually it was each doing a little of both. Actually I could take some very small amount of credit for words here, because I did change one line.

Thing is, I want the final cut of the trailer done and posted by the end of day tomorrow. It'd be better for that goal were I to record the instrumental version of the song tonight. When I do get home tonight I'll probably just get all the footage into FinalCut then head to bed. Bright and early tomorrow I'll get the music done. Then I'll edit the video for most of the rest of the day, I'm sure. It does help that I have a very strong direction in my head for this trailer. I won't be spending a lot of time in the suite groping for direction, feeling about for undiscovered tidbits.

STUDENT FILM: I will appear in WSU Film School student, Ryan Miller's 16 mm movie, L'engagement, which will shoot this coming Sunday. It will be dramatic in mos *(without sound), with no direct dialogue ‐‐ IE: there will be no looping or ADR(**). I will probably do a voice-over(***) narrative, however.

**) ADR (AKA looping): the recording or re-recording of dialogue by actors in a sound studio during post-production, usually performed while watching a playback of the scene for better lip synchronization. Used to replace poor quality or cover for non-existent recording from production, to change the emotional inflection of the voice, or to change or add lines; the latter usually done when the actor's face is not seen on camera. Also used to replace adult words with softer PG or G rated alternatives for family-oriented television broadcast and cable networks.

***) Voice-over: Dialogue that will be heard on the soundtrack without the speaker being seen on screen as he or she says those words. The voice-over narrator may be on screen but it will be in a different time and place than that of the words said, IE, he speaks of the night of the incident and on screen we see the scene ‐‐ from the past ‐‐ he relates.

More common examples are that omniscient voice in a television commercial, the voice of a character who wrote a letter as another character, on screen, reads that letter. a voice coming over a radio or a phone, etc.

This is not to be confused with an "Off-screen" voice, which is someone who is in the now of the scene, but cannot be seen because they are in another room, or otherwise not on camera, but we hear them and know they are there in real-time and have physical presence on the scene.

MORE GUIDED IMPROV FOR LAW STUDENTS: Later this month I will be involved in more sessions with law students, this time not directly with U.D. but still through that connection ‐‐ and Fran Pesch. This time it will be for a judge who is teaching an Interviewing, Counseling and Negotiation class. I'm not sure if she ‐‐ the judge ‐‐ is teaching at U.D., at Sinclair Community College, or otherwise.

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Saturday, November 3:
• 8:00-ish) Out of bed. COFFEE! Then I set up to record the instrumental version of "Memories of the Times Before." Spent a little while just going through the chord progressions on the keyboard ‐‐ It's been a long time. They are easy, but I never claimed to be Elton John on the keys.

Here's good place to put a picture:

Here is the make-shift recording studio where "Memories of the Times Before (Instrumental)" was recorded. Notice the bass guitar, in its case bag, to the left.

• 9:15-ish) Started to record a drum machine track from the Yamaha PSR-180 keyboard, which is essentially a toy, (I never claimed to be Rick Wakeman, either) and while I laid that track, I took a little break to start this entry, then (as I finish this very sentence), head back to continue to make some music, or something close thereof.
• 9:45) Still rehearsing the keyboard progression and still making sloppy mistakes
• 10:10) STILL REHEARSING!
• 10:30) Began recording takes of the basic piano chords. Ten takes total with number 10 being good. Finished this a little after 11:00 am.

There I am in my "studio." I think this may be while I worked on the trombone voice part. I'm not sure now.

• 11:10) Began to compose the string voice arrangement
• 11:45) String takes. Three takes (nos.11-13) with number 13 being the good take.
• Noon) Composition of the trombone voice part began.
• 12:35) Tracking the trombone voice began. Thirteen takes (nos.14-26) with Take 26 being the good one.
• 1:20) Vocal work (scats) tracked with no rehearsal ‐‐ mostly used the melody from the vocal for the lyrics, which was composed in 1978. Two takes that were not numbered.
• 2:00) Locked the recording session, despite a few flaws. The horn voice could be better in a few spots, but time was marching on.
• 2:10) I had transferred the 4-track recorder to the editing suite then it dawned on me I might want to eat. I do that often when on a project: forget to eat.
• 2:30) Captured the individual music tracks on my hard drive using Cubase.
• 3:15) Began to mix the music in FinalCut.
• 4:10) The music mix was done. A little break, then I began to capture the principal video footage into FinalCut.
• 7:00-ish) Began editing the trailer together.
• Slightly before 1:00 am) The video was done, except that the font color for the credits scroll was not a good contrast with the closing series of shots (processed into grainy sepia). I had to try several different colors, and I enlarged the font size; each new version took about 20-30 minutes to render.
• Somewhere around 3:00 am) I had a locked final cut. I set FinalCut to render a fairly high quality compressed Quicktime movie and went to bed.
• 9:30-ish am, Sunday) Rolled out of bed, only to find that the rendered movie was more than 100 megs in size. YouTube restricts the file size to 100 megs or smaller. So I had to re-render the movie dropping the quality from halfway between Good and High, to Good.
• By noon the trailer was posted at YouTube.

I have some issues with the sound in various spots. Shooting candids during rehearsals is less controlled and on occasion the heater blowers popped on. There also is camcorder machine noise. The Cannon PVGS400 takes a fab picture, but one really needs to use an external mic ‐‐ the on board mic grabs the machine sound quite prominently. I was doing so many shuttle shots that had I used an external mic I would have absolutely needed a boom operator to move with me, which I did not have. There were a couple takes that I would have rather used but could not because of sound issues ‐‐ whcih usually meant the blowers. Saul's line about how they serve a good dish of conversation at Angelo's would have been better served if I could have used the shot from house left where I have his face on screen, but the blowers were just too loud in that take. With his face away from me in the take I did use, I had to bring the volume up a little to catch the line. Unfortunately the machine sound came up, too. I also used a take of Debra at the start with some pretty intrusive blower noise, but it looked the best and it was her best delivery of the lines ‐‐ and I knew almost from the gitgo that I wanted to open the trailer with that particular line.

The video quality of the YouTube rendition is pretty poor, as well. But, whatayagonnado.

MR. STORER'S TYPEWRITER: At least at this stage of the game, Herb Tucker's typewriter in the show is my father's old Smith-Corona, which eventually became mine. I wrote my second novel on that thing. It sucked, but I wrote it ‐‐ you don't think Starting for the Sun was my first attempt at a novel, do you? The first portion of my college papers were written on that Smith-Corona, as well. That's when Dad gave it to me. In fact, the first version of the short story, "The Chorus for Candice" was written on it. I'm pretty sure it's making it into the performances of the show.

L'ENGAGEMENT ‐‐ A FILM BY WSU FILM SCHOOL STUDENT, RYAN MILLER: Sunday afternoon I went to Ryan's and we shot his 16 mm movie, L'engagement. We did about ten camera set ups then recorded the voice-over of me reading a poem. I did not have a script; it was all mos with no dialogue; Ryan simply told me what he wanted right before we shot each bit.

It was a quick shoot. I got there at a little before 1 pm and was wrapped by a little after 3 pm.

So I got hime and lay down about 3:30 to take a little nap. I woke up at 5:30 this morning. Actually, I think I remember waking up momentarily about 7:45 last night, and I thought about watching the CSI I had taped this past Thursday.

AND NOW:

• I've decided to not audition for The Crucible. I just need to be available for Park Your Car needs.
• It's Park Your Car producing that is my big focus over the next two months.
• Though I do hope there are a few other gigs in there ‐‐ I know I am doing the legal improv stuff in a few weeks. And I found out the judge teaches elective courses at U.D. I hope to actually get cast from an audition through my agent, too.
• There will be one poem up for the work-in-progress chapbook The Motion In Motive; it will be posted this week at the WriteGallery site proper.
• I have neglected the re-writing of my novel, Starting for the Sun, for month and months and months, quite possibly for more than a year. I need to get back to it. I have not sent a query to a literary agent for longer, since I have not had a finished re-write.
• I'll barely mention, again, how I do not pick up my bass guitar.

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KATRINA KITTLE AND MARK DIFFENDERFER DO SEDARIS AT THE DAYTON THEATRE GUILD: The two weekends following the closing of I Ought to Be in Pictures, The Guild is offering a Holiday add-on production. Two short plays by David Sedaris, based on work from his best selling book Holidays On Ice (Boston:Little, Brown and Co.). Katrina will do Season's Greetings and Mark will do The Santa Land Diaries.

I'll be stealing the graphic from the Guild site and plugging it in below, soon.

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Still odd to see myself on screen though. Not as painful as some other instances have been. But I don't like my delivery on the voice-over poem, at all.

I'm so critically kind to myself.

I OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES: It occurs to me I did not mention the stellar opening weekend for The Guild's current production. I hosted opening night, which is my practice as house manager, and I attended as an audience member Saturday night. Both shows went fabulously and were well received. I can say that the cast was on their game at top form Saturday. Can't report on the Sunday show as I dropped in to do house manager stuff, but left before the curtain. But I can't imagine it was any less of a successful performance.

I do believe we got another of them great productions going.

PARK YOUR CAR IN HARVARD YARD

• Last Night's Audition: only had one new face show up, a lovely young lady who unfortunately is two-decades too young for the role of Kathleen. She did read a monologue from the show; I did not get to hear her read but I understand she was impressive.

  As for the cast, Sarah has not made her decision, yet. She quite honestly has several pairings that will work. She has that dilemma all directors want, how to pick from a crop of great auditioners ‐‐ more choice actors than there are roles.

• Producing The Show: Got some things going. We have D'Arcy Smith, who teaches dialect at for Wright State University's acting program, coming in Monday evening to work with that, as of yet, undetermined cast on their Glouster Mass. accents. I have made sure we will get him paid in a timely manner, which, if for some weird reason he were to stumble across this silly blog, he will be glad to see.

  Lining up methods to get budget allotments to various production staff who will make purchases ‐‐ probably through the use of gift cards with certain amounts of money credited to them.

  Tonight I will sit down and thoroughly peruse the script for all the SFX cues. I have, if I did not mention it before, taken on the role of sound designer, too. I have beau-coups of music and sound to bring together for this. But, I am up for the challenge. I have wanted to design sound for a show for a while and since I know the producer so well(*), I thought I'd volunteer this time.

  (*) I'D PROBABLY KNOW HIM BETTER IF I'D GO TO THOSE THERAPY SESSIONS LIKE PEOPLE KEEP SUGGESTING.
• Director Sarah Gomes, Stage Manager Steve Strawser, and Producer Geekapour Dorkmeister had a pre-audition meeting last Thursday and we have our production meeting tomorrow night, with as much of the production staff as we can get there.
• There are a few things in terms of production staff and pre-production that are somewhat uncertain, but overall we are pretty set. Don't have our basic set design yet, but that should be in shortly. I have not officially confirmed my light operator, either ‐‐ though I am pretty sure that is set.

"WHAT YOU ARE SEEING IS A REENACTMENT OF ACTUAL EVENTS": I emailed a PDF of my résumé (the professional movie version) and headshot to the producers of a documentary, who need actors to reenact moments from the story they are telling. It starts shooting today and ends Sunday. The call said actors did not have to be available all days, so I put Sat & Sun only.

Don't know what not hearing yet means, if it means anything. I did not send the PDF until mid-afternoon yesterday, anyway.

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But the show is now cast: As Jacob Brackish we have Richard Young; as Kathleen Hogan, Debra Kent. They were two of four major contenders, and only came in on a photo-finish.

We had our production meeting last night and it was relatively productive. The major challenge for me is still to find the right cat to play Nathaniel Hawthorne, Jacob's cat. The animal should be fat, and must be: 1) laid-back; 2) able to make friend's with strangers; 3) of a temperament that he or she will not panic when introduced to an audience. Not too much of a problem here(!!!).

Our set construction will be problematic in that it can't start until mid-December and must be done before January 6. So we need volunteers right in the middle of the busiest holiday season of the year, busiest here in the ol' U.S., anyway. So, we will probably have light crews for some of the seven potential weekend days available to us.

There are also some quite specific arrangements of classical compositions referred to in the script. As the sound designer I have a bit of a challenge in front of me locating some of them. But, between my iTunes subscription, the Rhapsody subscriptions of a few friends, my access to OhioLink, some good collections of classical recordings at local public libraries, a few good local CD stores and some folk I know with decent personal collections ‐‐ not to mention that I have already started my searches ‐‐ I should be okay.

YAY TINA GLOSS! BACK IN ANOTHER EPISODE OF PUSHING DAISIES: Ned's mom is back in a dream sequence in the Wednesday, November 21 episode of the show. The episode is titled, Smell of Success, and the major guest star is Paul Reubens (AKA: Pee Wee Herman). Tina says she did not get to meet him, however. As before, she's on early in Act I, so don't be late or you'll miss her. This time she appears in a dream sequence.

And, once again, here's hoping the producers decide Ned needs to have these dreams on a regular basis!

NO GIG THIS WEEKEND: By-the-way, I never heard back from the producers of that documentary, so I would say I have no gig this weekend.

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ANOTHER MAJOR HARD DRIVE DEATH: I believe my trusty Mac Powerbook is dead for good. The hard drive suffered a catastrophic systems failure yesterday. This time I think I am not going to put a new HD in it. The laptop, itself, is six years old. There are probably too many aging components to bother with it. Since I need to get either a high-end Imac or low-to-mid-level Macpro, I can't see me in a laptop for a while. Gonna cramp my mobile style in a big way: lunch without my laptop? What a concept.

*See, I went on-line to grab the URLS for the Imac & Macpro mentions above, and, I got sidetracked for fifteen minutes in the Macpro pages.

ME AS PRODUCER, A LITTLE WAYLAID BY THAT CRASH THING: The HD crash took a bit of time out of my weekend. I had to rebuild a little bit of some databases and retrace some banking transactions, and odd bits such as that ‐‐ things not backed up yet. But, I am still on track. In fact, the rest of my day (well, evening, now) will be devoted to the sound designer's hat. Though I do have to rebuild my ical calendar for the production. Believe me, I could have a lot more to rebuild; I've had HD crashes in the past where I lost a lot of very important data. At least, this time I lost nothing vital that became beyond any reach whatsoever.

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It would be a fun gig. The audition was fun. I won't give away the premise but it's pretty funny. I did the same thing for this audition I did in January of 2004, for Cripple: I turned my beard into mutton chops. I also went in with a green pull-over under green shirt ‐‐ the audition spec said to wear green. Jim also had one of those St. Valentineís Day plastic green derbies and a green bow tie. I saw myself on the monitor. It was pretty silly, but perfect for the screentest.

I got in late last night, so did not grab a snapshot of my "look" to post. One may show up, after all, however. Sorry I don't have a picture of my look at the audition, it was a hoot.

This could have been all short-circuited, though, by that hard drive death. I had not yet printed the script out from the Friday email when the system failure struck. Not only that, the specs originally called for actors of five-feet tall or less. I ain't a basketball player, but I am 5'6" (AND A HALF). Jim resent the script yesterday morning. I had been worried that by that late, I might not have time to memorize it, but there were only a few short lines, so, no sweat. Jim had also verified that 5'6" is okay.

I took off a half day, so I could still get to the gym as well to spend time on the script.

*YES, THAT'S RIGHT SPORTS FANS, K.L. IS ATTEMPTING TO CART HIS ASS BACK INTO THE GYM ON A REGULAR BASIS, AGAIN. HIS ATTEMPT TO KILL THE DOUGHBOY WITHIN ‐‐ WELL, OKAY, THE DOUGHBOY ON THE SURFACE!

PAHKING CAHS IN HAHVAHD YAHD: Speaking of dialect work, D'Arcy Smith, from Wright State University, sat last night with the cast of Park Your Car in Harvard Yard and began them on their trek toward authentic Gloucester, Mass accents. (And, by-the-way, that's "Glahster" not "Glouchester" or "Gloukester"). I participated in the drills, too, for a few reasons.

1. I am a back-up for the radio announcer who has several pre-recorded appearances in the play.
2. It's good for the producer to have a practical knowledge of the dialect ‐‐ the director, having spent many summers on that very cape, has a more practical knowledge.
3. For selfish motives, I wanted to sit in for my own improvement of acting skill and craft ‐‐ and I will add it to my résumé.

D'Arcy, by the way, is as good a facilitator as he is touted to be.

GREAT REVIEW OF I OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES: Terry Morris from Dayton Daily News gave the current DTG production a good review last Wednesday.

He writes that Saul Caplan and Annie Pesch are "Fun to watch and easy to like as a man accustomed to denial and young woman who won't be denied." He calls Debra Kent's performance "smooth."

I believe the Dayton City Paper review by Russell Florence Jr. will be out tomorrow.

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ANOTHER POINT ABOUT THE LEPRECHAUN SPOT: A point that I did not touch on in the first post about this Ohio Lottery spot is that is a union shoot, I.E.: a pro shoot with the talent covered by AFTRA (the American Federation of Television & Radio Artists). I get to do one union spot as non-union talent. But next time I will have to join AFTRA.

The problem with that is that in a market like South-West Ohio, a very small percentage of the commercial work is AFTRA. Well over 95% of the work is non-union (and that may be a conservative estimate), Union talent can't do non-union spots.

So, even though the pay for this spot is, I understand pretty damned good, (You know, it just dawned on me that I never think to ask what the paycheck will be!), if I get it, such will put perilously close to not being eligible for most commercial auditions in the area ‐‐ especially the Dayton area where the ratio of non-union -v- union is probably worse than in Cincinnati and Columbus.

Oh. don't get me wrong, I still want the role because it will be such a kick ‐‐ and I think get me that much closer to my new desktop Mac and three chip DV camcorder.

But I would hate to get cut out of a lot of experience while I could still use it, in spades no less.

PAHKING CAHS IN HAHVAHD YAHD: The table read seemed to go well Tuesday night. I was feeling poorly so I left early in the rehearsal and went home and went to bed.

But I am moving forward with producer duties. When my laptop died I did lose a few classical pieces for the show that I had bought from iTunes and had been stupid enough to have not yet backed up -- along with a few personal things I had bought from them over the past few months. I'll just have to buy them again ‐‐ you only get to download your purchases once; you are responsible to back them up. I whine but I recognize that Apple's position is fair. So I have to repurchase The Brandenburg concertos by Jonathan Reese, "Contata no.8" by Allan Fast, and "Violin Concerto no.2 in E, BWV 1042" by Akiko Suwanai: all Bach.

As well as Memory Almost Full by Paul McCartney and 99.9 Fahrenheit by Suzanne Vega.

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I'm also processing the cast headshots. It also occurs to me that I may have lost the bio info and the pictures of Israel Horovitz, which he, himself, was kind enough to send me about two weeks back. They were on my laptop ‐‐ that laptop that committed suicide a week ago. I may have them on the C:/ drive at work though; I'd first opened Mr. Horovitz' email while popping into my personal account at work. I think there is a copy of all the files in a temp folder on my pc desktop there. Still, I went to his web site yesterday and grabbed the text of his bio there as well as a pretty good pic of him. It does stand to reason that if the man, himself, sent me a bio and pictures, that I can be assured I have permission to use this back-up material. I refuse to email him again and say, "Hey, Israel! Guess what? I'm too stupid! I went and lost the stuff you sent me because I haven't the brains to back it up immediately! ‐‐ Yuk Yuk!" But, like I said, I may have the material he sent at work; and I do have decent material as second-tier back-up on him. Now all I need is our director's bio and pic, as well as bios from the rest of the production staff.

I will be working on sound design for most of the second part of the day. I'll be back to searching out the classical compositions and a few pop song that are referenced, too. And I may search out the SFX as well. I am sure I'll find much of what I need at Sound Rangers. And I know several people who are likely to have what I don't find there. I may create some, too.

BROADWAY BROADS AT THE DAYTON PLAYHOUSE: I keep forgetting to mention that Reneé Franck-Reed and Joan Harrah (AKA: "The Broadway Broads") accompanied by Raymonde Rougier, will do a benefit show at The Dayton Playhouse, for the Playhouse, tomorrow evening, starting at 7:00. And again, like last time, I won't be able to make it ‐‐ too bad, because I enjoy the work of both Reneé and Joan.

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The cast of I Ought to Be in Pictures Saul Caplan            Herb Annie Pesch            Libby Debra Kent            Steffy

RUSSELL FLORENCE JR.'S REVIEW OF I OUGHT TO BE IN PICTURES: It was short and sweet, but Mr. Florence's review in this last Wednesday's Dayton City Paper gave kudos to all three actors and called the show one of the best productions, so far, of the Dayton area season.

IMPROV FOR UD LAW SIMULATIONS: Yesterday I received the materials for the Interviewing, Counseling and Negotiation course final exercises, in which I will play the role of a husband and father embroiled in a damages suit that is quite complex in its ins-and-outs. (Just like that sentence)

Tuesday afternoon I will play the role with law students in the interview faze. Then, Saturday morning it will be counseling sessions. Though I do need to get the sweetened CDs to the Park Car cast and crew, I may miss the Monday rehearsal and drop them off Tuesday. The U.D. Law gig will end about 6:30 Tuesday, so, already being in Dayton, I can swing by the Guild easily. The point is, I'd like to spend Monday evening in heavy prep for the U.D. gig on Tuesday.

DON'T KNOW IF I'M A LEPRECHAUN, YET: The deadline for the screentests is November 27, so it's going to be no earlier than this coming Thursday, I would guess. I know the spot is supposed to shoot on Friday, December 7, with a possible photo shoot the day before. I am quite willing to burn up vacation time for this. I understand the paycheck is four figures.

It occurs to me that I never think to ask what the pay is for these commercials. How odd of me. I certainly have the right to know.

SPEAKING OF THAT VACATION LEAVE THING: I keep trying to build the ol' vacation leave up to a month-plus. I believe it turned out that the local indy full-length, I had auditioned for back in October, went over schedule, so I may have been in a bind. Had I needed to use more than 120 hours of vacation, put simply ‐‐ I did not have it; and the University will not let you take time off without pay unless you are granted an official leave of absence. A leave of absence for only a few days, or even a few weeks, is incredibly unlikely.

I am getting so stingy and hesitant about using vacation. I used four hours last week because the laptop suicide made prepping for the leprechaun audition impossible over that weekend. I needed the several hours before the screentest to get up to speed.

I also cannot completely ignore personal time. Things like heading to Indianapolis to see my best friend, his two boys and that lovely little girl are too important for me to cut them out. But, I am getting very conservative with the vacation use. Park Car is demanding a big chunk of my December; but I'll head 100 miles west for at least an overnight. Depends on when the kids are with Dad, as to when that will be, and whether any vacation leave is burned.

PAHKING CAHS IN HAHVAHD YAHD: I did not meet my agenda for work on the show yesterday. Every now and then, other parts of my life knock on the door and need me to invite them in. I am almost done sweetening the dialect recordings. That will be done today. And I will get some sound design work done as well as other odds and ends.

Sometime soon I have to squarely look that f@#$!%g live cat dilemma in the eye. A suggestion has been made that we use one of those eerily live-looking toy cats, and where it is not an option to be discounted out-of-hand, our director wants a live cat if at all possible. It all comes back to finding a cat with the temperament to appear on stage without incident. I am concerned we can't do it without using a show biz cat.

And on that score:
A) I doubt we could find a stage-trained cat within reasonable traveling distance
B) even if we could, we could not afford it.

I have one lead, a Guild board member who has a house cat that he believes may be calm enough for our use. I will be getting with him soon.

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It is interesting to have all this background information on the man I am playing the situation that brings him to the lawyers, and then see which information the law students draw out. What is most productive for me as a student of acting, or at least improv acting, is when a student asks a question or goes down a road I that neither the prep sheet nor my own enhancements had anticipated. That's when the real improv muscle gets flexed.

For those to whom it is unclear how a gig like this works: The actor receives a packet a few days before the sessions ‐‐ more than a few days is better but not always the case. The packet has all the pertinent information about the case. It will have the characters name, usually, if he/she is the defendant, there will be a pretty clear indication of whether or not there is true guilt. There will often be sensitive, even damaging facts that the actor is supposed to withhold unless the student lawyer pulls it out.

There are always a lot of life details missing, and I always fill those in ahead of time for verisimilitude if performance if nothing else. With this session, for instance, I had my character and his family living in Oakwood, Ohio, which is the upper-scale city right next to Dayton ‐‐ the place where a large percentage of the doctors, lawyers and CEOs live. I researched to see what kindergarten their son would attend, and what grade school next year. I had addresses for places that might be mentioned and names for all the ancillary people who were most likely to be mentioned. I even had a specific wedding anniversary date for me and my wife, and a birthday for our little boy. In fact I gave a date to the event in question, which the prep sheet did not. All these dates came into play at least once during the six interview sessions today. Some of the locations did, too.

Saturday morning, the same students will meet my character again and counsel him on what actions or inactions they believe are in his best interest. This is the first time in one of these gigs I have had follow-ups with students in a second session.

PAHKING CAHS IN HAHVAHD YAHD: Speaking of, however, I have located most of the SFX (I.E.: sound effects, AKA: "Foley sound," those this second term is technically not used in stage play productions, often ‐‐ but I am using it). There are a few I don't have that I may just create myself. I'll elaborate when I have time.

In the meantime I burned CDs of the sweetened sound files of the dialect session, and, as planned, they were delivered to the cast tonight, right after I finished at U.D.

A TUNA CHRISTMAS AT THE HUMAN RACE: And speaking of improv acting, I keep forgetting to mention that Mr. Jake Lockwood (l'acteur extraordinaire d'improvisational) will be starring with Tim Lile in the Human Race Theatre Company's holiday production of A Tuna Christmas. I am going on the preview night, which is next Thursday, Dec 6. I like going to preview night because there is usually a talk back with the actors and the director, and I find that interesting.

A Tuna Christmas, by-the-way, is not improv; the "speaking of improv acting" just refers to the one cast member and how I know him.

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I've gathered together sounds of rain, sounds of rough tide, sounds of thunder, of storm winds, of shutters banging, seagulls, dogs barking and howling, fog horns, buoy bells, radio tuning, record scratches. Intriguing, huh? All those sounds are called for by the script. There will be some mixing and some processing of these elements going on in the next few weeks. As well, I attack the list of music, with full force, starting presently.

As for Nathaniel Hawthorne ‐‐ THE CAT ‐‐ someone has offered to let the production use one of his cats. I am in the process of arranging what I suppose can be called an audition. We are going to go to the "actor" cat's house and have it meet Richard Young, who will handle it on stage, in its home environment. I see that as the least stressful way to see if the animal can make friends with Richard. That is important. The more comfortable he or she is in Richard's arms, the less chance of a stressed and freaked-out cat on stage in front of an audience (a room of strangers).

But, despite an understandable resistance from our director, Sarah Gomes, I personally have not taken "real-looking fake cat" off the options table.

ME AND THE REST OF THE SEASON: I am looking at two shows and have been reading both scripts. Gore Vidal's The Besty Man, up at the Guild in late February, and Joseph's Heller's Catch-22, up in May at Springfield StageWorks. I've given them both a quick read and have strong ideas about who I'd liked to go after. One director has indicated some vision of me in one of two roles ‐‐ I'm not sure if it's one of those two roles or both. They both look attractive enough, but there is another role that I think I would be right for and am sure I can pull off. The other director did say I should audition for that play, too.

My experience is that being solicited to audition, by the director, does not guarantee that one will be cast. I have both experienced it and witnessed it when the director "went another way."

TINA GLOSS IS PUSHING MORE DAISIES: Ned's mom is, again, back on Pushing Daisies, this coming Dec 12, in an episode title "Corpsicle." And again, Mom is in Act I. Paul Reuben's is back, too. This is the last show shot before the WGA strike ‐‐ so, as with everything else, there will be a hiatus after it's broadcasted.

Also, the show has been nominated as Favorite New Comedy Series for the People's Choice Awards. If you like the show, you should go vote for it: www.pcavote.com/pca/.

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AIFF = Audio Interchange File Format. It's a digital audio file format standard used for sound data on computers and electronic audio devices. It is the format best for across software editing on a Mac.

This was raw transfer from analog to digital where all I did was attend to the volume and have Dolby sound reduction turned on. I will further sweeten these sound files; I'll trim some space before each sound starts, enhance the eq on them, and break some collection files into individual sound bits. For instance there is a file about a minute long with more than a dozen Seagull squeals, each less than a second long. I will make each of those their own sound file, because when I go to make the seagull songs, it is easier to drop each cry in if it is its own file. Same with a collection of dog barks and one of record scratches, and other single file collection of like sounds.

I'll get a start on the sweetening this evening after I have dropped by the Guild to prep the house for our run of Holiday on Ice, which opens tonight.

IMPROV FOR UD LAW SIMULATIONS: The second part of the Interviewing, Counseling and Negotiation course final exercises is tomorrow morning and I will do some prep for that tonight, too. This will be where the students are tested on their skills at the counseling session, where the lawyer advises the client on what his or her legal options are and what is the best action to take. The instructor, Judge Kate Huffman, gave us actors a list of questions for our characters to ask their attorneys. Still have plenty of time tonight to be the Park Your Car sound designer, though.

WHAIRS DHAT POT 'O GOALD, LAD?: I've not heard from Jim at Roof-Goenner as to the result of my audition as the leprechaun for the Ohio Lottery. The deadline for the screentests was, I believe, this last Tuesday, so I am coming to the conclusion that I am not cast; especially since the shoot is next Friday.

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And, of course, I got a lot of music to still get.

PAHKING CAHS: Meanwhile, as producer, I am also moving along. I still need to get our lighting designer, Jim Sagona, together with the Dayton lighting guru, Terry Ronald, so Terry can instruct Jim in some of the rather unique quirks of The Guild's lighting system. I also still need to find a person to help execute the actual building of the set. Most of us directly involved with the show, who can be on the scene during construction, are less than carpenter savvy. I certainly long ago embraced my own drastic Tim Taylor-ness. And I am waiting for the owner of the cat we may use to return from vacation so we can have that visit with the animal and the introduction between the cat and Richard (Brackish).

IMPROV FOR UD LAW SIMULATIONS YESTERDAY: The counseling part of the Interviewing, Counseling and Negotiation course final exercises went well yesterday. I had the same six sets of law students giving their legal advice to my Bill Peterson as had interviewed Bill on Tuesday. How interesting it was that there were some common areas between most of them, but not all six sets. There were different common opinions that spread over slightly different configurations, as well. More interesting were the often drastic disparages of advice and legal opinion.

I had instructions on certain attitudes, goals and questions I was to throw at them. I found that the approaches they took often dictated which of my items I could use and how I could use them. I must say I was never able to get as agitated as I wanted, because I had to react in the context of their behaviors and demeanors during the sessions and all the student lawyers did well at diffusing higher levels of "acting out."

Another good improv workout under my belt.

POET DAVID LEE GARRISON:

A great thing has happened for Dayton area poet, David Lee Garrison. David was my college Spanish instructor and he is a wonderful poet. Quite a while back I solicited some work from his first two books of poetry, Inside the Sound of Rain (Riverside, OH: Vincent Brothers Co., 1997) and Blue Oboe (Bristoll, IN: Wyndham Hall Press, 1984), and posted the work as Poetry by David Lee Garrison. It is an honor to have work by this man at my literary web site.

Yesterday afternoon I attended a poetry reading at Epic Books in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where David read from his latest collection, Sweeping the Cemetery: New and Selected Poems, (San Francisco:Browser Books Publishing, 2007). The book was released in September and is already in its second printing.

Here's why it's in its second printing: Garrison Keillor featured two poems from the book on his daily radio spot The Writer's Almanac early last month. First was the poem "Pushing Back" on Wednesday, November 7 ‐‐ click here to read and listen ‐‐ then, "Driving with Uncle Bailey" on Sunday, November 11 -- click here to read and listen. How very cool!

Also at Epic Books yesterday, and reading from her own new collection of poetry, How Else to Love the World (San Francisco:Browser Books Publishing, 2007), was Myrna Stone, and I found her work to be top notch poetry, too. Hey Garrison (Keillor, not David), if you're googling yourself and run across this post, perhaps you can give Myrna a read, as well. Because I am just sure that Garrison Keillor has nothing better to do than ego surf.

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I didn't get anything done Tuesday; I was sick and though not in bed all day, I didn't do anything.

Then, last night I got a lot of progress on the opening storm sounds ‐‐ though I think I have to tweak the thunder. All the rumbles need a little reverb, they are dropping off too quickly. So far, I have the general falling rain, the rain on the window pane, a rough Atlantic shore in the distance, some storm wind, and the aforementioned thunder. I have house creeks, shutters bumping against the house, seagulls, dogs barking and howling, a buoy bell clanging, and fog horns to add.

As it stands, the storm Foley is five minutes long, but I am thinking about doubling that length. It is better to have too much rather than not enough ‐‐ I believe I have made that declaration before.

PAHKING CAHS: They had rehearsals this week, Mon-Wed. I did not attend, either due to sound work or illness; truthfully, Tuesday I would have been working on sound if not lying half-dead on the couch watching TV and saying to myself: you should really try to get SOMETHING done.

BOSTON MARRIAGE: For any lady actors in the Dayton area who may have accidentally stumbled across this blog, director Saul Caplan is holding auditions for the three-woman play Boston Marriage, by David Mamet, Monday and Tuesday, December 17 and 18, 2007, 6:30 p.m. at the Rosewood Arts Centre, 2655 Olson Drive, in Kettering. Click here for more detail.

Boston Marriage is up after The Best Man at The Guild. It runs April 18-May 4, 2008.

NO IRISH BROGUE FOR ME THIS WEEK: For the three people who read this dorky blog on a regular basis, since I have not yet announced I was cast as the leprechaun in the Ohio Lottery spot, which shoots tomorrow, it must be painfully obvious ‐‐ to me, mostly ‐‐ that I did not get the part.

A cuhrse on dair fahters!

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PAHKING CAHS IN HAHVAHD YAHD: Nothing new. But I am starting to think about all that is yet to be done and feeling a little anxious. I still have all that music to gather together and we are about to go into set construction. And though I am sure we will have a few people around who have some carpenter/building savvy, the Al Borelands in the crowd, I don't know who they shall be; and I am one of the Tim Taylors, sans the unrealistic self-image as Norm Abram's brightest competition. Plus, I just have that anxiety over tasks in general that aren't yet accomplished.

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PAHKING CAHS IN HAHVAHD YAHD: It "feels" like I am horribly behind, but I "know" I am progressing at a good enough pace. Today I will see our current DTG offering, *see right above, then will help strike that set ‐‐ which is technically the I Ought to Be in Pictures set dressed up for Christmas. I try to always help strike DTG sets, and rarely miss one, but I have a vested interest in this strike, so as to prep for the start of set construction next Saturday for Park.

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So, I'll drop off the new CD's at Park rehearsal tonight, confab with director Sarah Gomes about set construction and other subjects, then go home and work on sound design.

HOLIDAYS ON ICE: Closing performance went well. David Sedaris certainly has a twisted sense of humor. How he manages to make infanticide comic fair is pretty astounding. Good work from both actors, too, especially Katrina.

DAYTON THEATRE GUILD YAHOO GROUP: The Guild now has a Yahoo group that any interested person may join: groups.yahoo.com/group/daytontheatreguild.

I can also personally testify that Mac computers do, indeed support Yahoo Groups. I recently heard someone who didn't think it so. I think the Yahoo Chatrooms are now written specifically for the Windows platform ‐‐ but, as someone who has no time nor interest in chatrooms, I don't care about that, personally. But, Macs work with the Yahoo Group, because I have joined DTG's and have total access.

FICTION WRITING AGAIN: Quite a while back I started a new short story and it has sat for more than two years. I had started it just before I became aware of the auditions for Brett Hatten's indy flick The Monster's Mind. At the time I even commented in this blog on the irony that what I had begun to write was eerily similar to Hatten's screenplay and A.J. Conley's novella it was based on, both which I became exposed to through the audition that came my way.

The new Writegallery* chapbook, motivated me to get back to it, because I figure I can contribute a prose work to it. And, writers, artists, photographers out there, click here to get to the call for work. Let me also announce that a piece of fiction, by another author, is about to be added to the chapbook.

I had only written a few paragraphs for mine, which now has the workshop title of "Betty Pern." But, thinking back on that bit of a draft, here recently, I knew that where I wanted to go with the story certainly made it a good fit for a theme like "The Motion in Motive."

Here's the first several paragraphs, as they are now. The first few paragraphs are only somewhat revised from what I wrote in the spring of 2005. More than the second half of what is here is new:

It was quite a while before we knew that Betty Pern frequently used the half-inch thick rubber hose on her children. That hose was thin enough to hurt terribly but thick enough and soft enough to leave marks for only a short time. Its presence when the police search ended in the storm drain was assumed as more indication of the brutal-rape aspect. The true significance (and use in the crime) was, at first, totally misunderstood. Of course, possible retribution for abuse, as a motive, eventually became the educated suspicion after investigators turned their eyes toward Mike Pern. And it was essentially a correct assumption, with some erroneous conclusions attached.

      The news coverage was only regional at first: "In the Village of Sunnybrook Ohio a Woman Is Found Brutally Murdered." When the police starting looking closer at Mike, the coverage made the 6:30 network news broadcasts and the cycles on the CNN's of cableworld: "A seventeen-year-old Ohio man is suspected of the torture, rape and murder of his thirty-two-year-old mother." As the investigation unfolded, it became the eventual bigger story of its apex. After the case had been a Court TV mainstay for a few weeks, it was mentioned on the floor of the House ‐‐ late night on C-Span 2, referenced in a floor speech about the need to regulate the "entertainment complex and its disastrous influence on the culture," by the honorable Congressman Arthur Hamilton of Indiana's seventeenth district, addressing a nearly empty chamber, and, of course, abusing the tragedy in the most spurious of correlations.


Mike Pern is not the average kid, even in appearance. When I met him in the Clark County jail, he looked so anomalous with his deep brown hair in its Richey Cunningham trim, but a small silver nose ring, mounted with a little pearl, in the side of his right nostril. The irreconcilable elements made the appropriateness of that orange, county jumpsuit vacillate. He was a small, thin young man, but at the time, his powerful muscle-tone was hidden by the loose-fitting jail wear. Razor burns daubed his neck just below the left jowl line of his baby face, evidence of a neophyte shaver.

      As the deputy closed the door to the interview room, Mike's eyes fixed on the floor. The moment the door clutched shut, those deep green eyes shot right into the back of my brain. Then his eyes went to the wall.

      "I didn't intend to kill her," he said.

      I have relatively good truth radar and I knew there was something disingenuous about this declaration. First, was that fact that he'd avoided looking me in the eye when he'd said it. As provincial as that may seem to some, it is a very good indicator, and I came to understand that it was especially indicative with this young man when he diverted his eyes in that particular manner. Then, there was something in his voice, or rather, something missing. There was a lack of contrition, and contrition I would later know to be expected from this young man. I knew, right then, he was being somehow dishonest with me.

      "Michael," I said.

      "Mike," he corrected in a very congenial voice, and now looking again into the depths of my eyes.

      "Mike," I said, "Let's take this a little slower. First, I'm Theda Billows, an attorney. Your grandmother asked me to represent you. I don't know if I'm going to do that yet. But, this is an official interview, so, it falls under the heading of a privileged conversation. You know what that means?"

      "Yes, Ma'am," he said, still looking me in the eyes, "It means you can't tell anyone what I say to you."

      "That's right. Now, Mike, I want you to tell me what happened. How did it start, whatever it was that ended with what happened to your mother?"

      "They wouldn't let me smile for my mug shot," he said, the corner of his mouth turned up as he smiled, I believe, at his own evasiveness.

      I narrowed my eyes and furrowed my eyebrows. "I have no desire to be your entertainment, Michael. Stop the nonsense. Either start answering my questions or I'm going to leave. Got it?"

      His face went sober, then he smiled with deprecation. "I apologize, Ma'am," he said, "How far back do I go? Back to the collar?"

      "Collar?"

      "Yes, Ma'am. When I was a kid. Then all my siblings after me."

      For some reason it struck me that he'd use the word siblings, rather than saying, My little sisters and my little brother, or something like that.

      Finishing his answer, his thought, he looked at the floor to the side and said, "It's in the manual. Didn't they find it?" Then his eyes issued some sort of a challenge that quickly overcame his whole deportment. "Her notebook?" he said.

      "I'm not aware of a notebook," I said, "Your mother wrote in a notebook that was a manual of some sort?"

      "Not her. We did. We had to write in it. When she was pissed off or drunk." He looked at the table, and with a distress-filled anger or fear or sadness, or some mixture of these, he said, "Usually both."

      "So, your mother would get drunk, then angry, and she would have you write things in a notebook that was a manual."

      "Yes, Ma'am."

      I felt uneasy with the foreboding that presented itself. "What was the manual about? A manual for what?"

      His eyes came back to mine and there was serious pain in them. "'The Rules of the House,'" he said; it was clear he was giving me the title.

      "She dictated the rules to you and your brother and sisters and you wrote them in this notebook, this manual?"

      "Yes, Ma'am."

      "'The Rules of the House,' that was what it was called?"

      "Is called, Ma'am." Then he looked away and said, "No....was called."

      The smile that crept onto his face was victorious, if subtle. He looked back at me and his eyes celebrated as he repeated, "Was called."

© 2007 K.L.Storer ‐‐ all rights reserved.

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Now a point to make here is that I had done a search of our catalogue and had scant success. Particular music compositions are not straight-forward searches. It's not the same as looking for a certain book by a certain author.

I got back to my desk from lunch at about 11:40, and there was a stack of CDs (from our collection) setting there. Marty had found all but a troubling few. Those I will likely get from Larry Coressel.

So, one monumental worry is quelled.

PAHKING SOUND IN HAHVAHD YAHD: Last night my sound work was about going through the script to be sure I had all the classical music references correct. I have yet to finish mixing the opening storm, but it is on its way. That is the most complex one; everything after that will be much simpler. I do have to add a couple Foley sounds to the list: a tea pot whistling and steam from grease in water. But, these are not a problem.

Also dropped into Best Buy the other night and bought a pack of mini-CD cartridges for some of the sound sources in the finished design.

PAHKING CAHS IN HAHVAHD YAHD: As straight-on producer the big thing has been haranguing people to get their bio-info to me so I can get it to the folk who need it. Also trying to get a tech meeting or two together.

And, I am still semi-worried about getting it all together for set construction. I am sure it will work out, but still feel a small pang of anxiety.

THE FICTION WRITING GUY: As for my workshop fiction piece, I did some edits of what has already been written, but have added nothing new.

Starting for the Sun keeps taunting me about how I have neglected the manuscript re-vision for so long, too.

DVD'S: I also need to burn DVDs of The Chorus for Candice and some of the now-defunct promo trailers for Guild shows and get those out to the interested parties. The Chorus people have been waiting for more than a year!

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And, just to update (or not actually) I have heard nothing about the Stephen King Dollar Baby film, Nona. As far as I know it's still stuck in post.

PAHKING CAHS IN HAHVAHD YAHD: If you live in the Ohio Miami Valley or pretty much anywhere in the breadth of the mid-west, or you paid attention to national weather over the weekend, you know we got hit with a brief snow storm that, though not as bad for Dayton as it was for environs north of us, it was enough to screw with set construction for the show. Director Sarah Gomes and I stayed after the Saturday morning DTG board meeting and worked for a few hours. But we did not stay as long as had been planned.

Mostly we did materials handling, moving flats and such, that we do not need, out of the way so we could at least place the flats and such we do need into place. Also, not being sure what the weather for the weekend was going to play out like, we rented a U-Haul truck pretty early in the day for moving large items on Sunday. The gamble was: would it be safe to get it later in the day on Saturday; would we be able to get what we needed Sunday morning. We needed to haul big stuff in from the large properties warehouse and we needed to get some other furniture and such back to the warehouse. And it had to be this weekend.

We still left at 1:30, because at that point the roads looked pretty bad, and I had a twenty-five mile drive into a rural area. As it turned out we actually could have stayed and had much better driving conditions later in the day ‐‐ but we had no way to know, just then, that weather conditions would turn better, later.

Sunday it was again just the two of us on construction along with the board chairman Carol, who helped with the hauling.

So, we are little behind ‐‐ but we do have all the legs cut for the platform part of the stage, which will be Jacob's and Kathleen's bedrooms.

Rehearsal is canceled for tonight, already, so we are going to get a couple hours in tonight on set.

The "6:00 pm" really reflects the very latest we are likely to be there.

PAHKING SOUND IN HAHVAHD YAHD: I finished a ten-minute version of the opening storm sounds, but I decided after consultation with Sarah, to scale down the mix a bit. I did a remix that has most of the sound fading out by just a few minutes in, leaving only the rain fall to move into the interior of the opening scene. It also cuts down dramatically on the amount of thunder claps. The idea here is to load the sound heavy at start: thunder a few times, seagulls do a flyby, a fog horn sounds, a dog howls in the distance and a close by dog barks in response, the buoy bell bellows, the wind howls, the rain drums on a window pain, the wind howls, a tree limb groans against the house ‐‐ but that all gradually fades and by three minutes in, we only hear the rainfall.

I created two versions of that. One that is the whole ten minutes, with about seven minutes as only rain, but where the sound operator ‐‐ Bob Mills ‐‐ would have to fade it himself by the end of scene one. The second fades itself, gradually to infinity, by seven minutes in.

The second one is most likely the one that will be used. It will free up the sound man's attention somewhat.

CHARITY IS WENDY: I'm going to see Charity Farrell as Wendy in the Muse Machine production of Peter Pan at The Victoria Theatre in Dayton this coming January. Another really nice professional gig for this young lady.

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I am trying to bring a few loose ends together. I need to get some people together who need to consult on technical issues; I need some technical information about the hardwire for the sound system. I have some voiceover work to record, too.

There's a lot of finalization of the sound design to get done as well as a whole lot of set construction, and deadlines are looming. If I had and ulcer it would be flaring. By Opening night, I may have one.

FINAL REMINDER ABOUT BOSTON MARRIAGE AUDITIONS:

auditions for this three-woman play finish tonight. They start at 6:30 p.m. at the Rosewood Arts Centre, 2655 Olson Drive, in Kettering, Ohio

Production dates for the show are April 18 through May 4, 2008, at The Dayton Theatre Guild.

Director Saul Caplan is casting the show early so the actors can have plenty of time with their scripts prior to the start of actual rehearsals. "The characters in this show are exquisitely and delicately drawn, and will present many exciting challenges for the actresses playing them," explains Caplan.

For the audition, please bring a résumé and head shot, if available, as well as a list of all schedule conflicts for March and April, 2008. There will be cold readings from the script; however, anyone wishing to bring a monologue is welcome to do so.

Three roles are available:

• Anna and Claire ‐‐ Both are pretentious Victorian women "of a certain age." They could be believably played anywhere from the late 30s to mid 50s. It is, however, important that they both be similar in age. If they are not actually upper-class, they at least see themselves that way. They are both classically educated and well-spoken. The ability to toss off rather stilted and overly formal language with flippant ease is imperative.
• Catherine ‐‐ Early 20s, working class maid. Scottish. Outspoken and bold when it comes to addressing her "betters." Physical type may depend on the casting of Claire and Anna. Ability to cry would be nice.

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I have gathered just about all the music together for the show. At this point the big problem is Bach's "Jesu Meine Fruede," because there is specifically supposed to be a male soloist and no one has found a version like so. No character actually makes a reference to the soloist, so, if the male soloist version does not materialize soon, I am going with a vocal ensemble with no soloist ‐‐ I know I can get one of those at the iTunes store for 99¢.

I am about to get to the full mixing of all sound (music and Foley) and the organization of what will go on what medium for what source machine. I also need to move some sound up toward the start of the storm file. In observing the opening scene rehearsal a few days back I realized the action and dialogue comes a little sooner than I thought. I don't want the scene setting sounds (the dog bellows and barks, the seagulls, tec) to compete with the actors; more importantly I don't want the actors to need to compete nor have attention drawn from them.

Need still to get or make (at this late date I would say "get") the sound of a tea pot whistling and the sizzle of steam from grease in water.

And we need a small stove, like the four burner units in a lot of apartments. I am on the hunt for such. Goodwill, by-the-way, does not sell appliances. The St. Francis Thrift Store close to my home does, but they did not have a smaller stove when I looked yesterday. I'll call other St. Francis stores today.

CANDICE HAS BEEN BURNED!!: Yesterday I actually finally made DVD's of The Chorus for Candice to get out to the cast and crew. I now look to DVD's of those video trailers, though at least one of them will have compromised quality because the original FinalCut project files are gone and all that is left is an MP4.

You know, I haven't taken that broken DV camcorder to be looked at, yet, either.

IT WAS SIXTY-TWO YEARS AGO TODAY: Guild board member Ralph Dennler sent an email today about how The Dayton Theatre Guild's very first production, Outward Bound, opened sixty-two years ago this evening at the Dayton Art Institute. Tickets, says Ralph, were $1.20, which included the 20% wartime entertainment tax.

SHUTTLING A "GOOD LUCK!": NASA astronaut Colonel Gregory Johnson will be on the Space Shuttle Endeavor mission to the International Space Station in February. Yesterday a crowd of Wright State University students, faculty and staff gathered under our exact replica of the Wright Flyer, in the atrium of the library, to tape a good luck message, that I believe will be shown, perhaps on CBS in February. We made this message because Col. Johnson is a native of the area, having grown up in Fairborn, Ohio.

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THE SET: I was at the paycheck job for a whole two hours on Friday. Came in at 9:00 and left at 11:00. Spent the rest of the day hunting down a decent looking stove for the set. We have two at the Guild storage facility, but one was too large and the other too archaic. The ideal was a small four-burner range for apartment units ‐‐ the 20" wide models. I found one in a used appliance store in Springfield, but the price was too high. Our stove doesn't need to function so I was hoping I could find a broken one for say: ten bucks. Came close. A dealer in East Dayton, only a few blocks from where I grew up, had just sent one to the city dump only a week back ‐‐ the exact unit we needed, non-functional but not junky looking. I ended up buying a 29" wide unit from St. Francis Thrift Store in Fairborn. I had actually spied out that unit about a week before, but was holding out to find a narrower and cheaper unit. I ended up spending three times what I was hoping to spend. And since St. Francis is cash or check only business, I had to pay out of pocket rather than use one of the check cards we have for the production. So my bank account is a bit lighter for the present time (until our treasurer gets a reimbursement to me).

As for set construction, it was a small but mighty team this weekend. Saturday it was myself, our board chairperson Carol Finley, Mr. Brackish himself (Richard Young), a lady who asked to not be identified (because she wants to be invisible, she says), and a new volunteer who looks to be a great catch, a young lady named Melissa. By the end of the day Saturday the platform stage was up and the different sections were braced and towed together. A couple walls were up to.

Sunday it was Carol and me. But most of the walls are up, the escape steps in the back are in place, and the thrust stage area has the base brown paint that will become the wooden floors of Brackish's home. I stayed to get that paint on the floor. Tomorrow I will go in, dry-brush the floor with some black and a lighter off-brown, then use a magic marker to draw in the floor boards. The last step will be to use a solution of about 98%, or more, of water with 2%, or less, of black paint. Then I will take a little brush and trace all the magic marker outlines of the floor boards. That will give a contoured, three-dimensional appearance.

*And Oh Yeah.... (he said, being the hopeful optimist he sometimes can be)....

The invitation still stands for the remaining set building days: any of you local to Dayton (theatre people or those who want to become so) who want to help, our remaining official schedule for set construction is as follows --

Sat, Dec 29, 12 noon-6:00 pm (*after a morning rehearsal)
Sun, Dec 30, 10:00 am-6:00 pm
Sat, Jan 5, 10:00 am-6:00 pm

2330 Salem Ave. Dayton, OH. 45406

As previously stated, the "6:00 pm" really reflects the very latest we are likely to be there.

UPDATE ON GHOSTBUSTERS: SPOOK UNIVERSITY: The little promo graphic I mentioned a few posts back was not for the movie. It was for an on-line calendar of women in GB gear. Amanda Fire (from the Spook University cast) is one of the ladies. The movie is still stuck in post because of special effects.

I also sent this out in a couple mass emailings. There were some people, especially theatre people, whose emails I first acquired after early spring, whom I could not include in the mailing because when my lap top committed suicide I lost those addresses. If I have worked with you or became acquainted with you in last several months and you did not get my e-card, it was only because I had not backed up my email data since before I had your info. I hope at least a few of you end up here to see that I intended to wish you well, too.

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PAHKING CAHS IN HAHVAHD YAHD

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FILM FESTIVAL ANYONE?: I need to start looking around for a film festival to submit The Chorus for Candice. I am sure it is already too old for some and will soon be too old for most. Don't know what kind of chance it has in any festival; it has no chance in those where I don't submitted it.

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ANOTHAH MASSACHUSETTS CAST: Saul Caplan has cast his show, David Mamet's Boston Marriage, which goes up at The Guild April 18 through May 4, 2008.

Lisa Sadia as Anna
Elena Monigold as Claire
Sarah Caplan as Catherine

Congrats to all three.

DAYTON CITY PAPER GIVES KUDOS TO TWO GUILD PRODUCTIONS: Russell Florence Jr. listed I Ought to Be in Pictures and the double billed The Sandstorm/Soldiering On as two of the top ten productions of 2007. Congrats to directors Fran Pesch and Kerry Corthell and all the talented actors and crew involved with both productions.

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