Hello everyone…

Stop the presses…

Today is Jayce Tromsness‘ birthday.

YAY!!!

Okay… this weekend was pretty darn great.  Last weekend was great too - big audiences, lots of fun… but this weekend was something special.  It was our final weekend of Hay Fever, which is also our final weekend of our summer season.  Very bittersweet.  But here’s the sweetest part: we played to INCREDIBLE houses this weekend.  Thursday had about 60-70 people, Friday was full… and then Saturday hit.  We were sold out by 1:00pm.  We added seats.  We had people sitting in the light booth!  We had to turn away over 100 people on Saturday.  And then we did it all again on Sunday.  People crammed all over the theatre, on waiting lists, standing in the theatre… it was exciting!  We’ve been very proud of all of our shows - improv and scripted alike.  But this show really did something amazing.  We had a very short rehearsal time, a very short run… and it was just plain great!  So to those of you who were part of making it so fantastic - whether you’re cast members, ushers, friends, family, audience, press, people who were willing to watch from the booth… whoever you are… THANK YOU!!!

Now… we plan on taking a little time to exhale… but we’ll be back to our improv hi-jinks in no time at all!  So hopefully we’ll see you all soon! 

And make sure to go see As You Like It down in the park playing Thursday-Sunday at 7:00.  It’ll be a great time!

So guess what?  We had full houses for most of last weekend!  Yeah we did!  ROCK ON!  And we had a great talkback with Johnny Price of The Caleb Group on Sunday.  At that talkback, we actually had an authentic British person in our audience… no really!… and she told us that we had some of the better and more consistent British accents she’d heard on an American stage.  So we felt pretty good, coming from an expert in British-ese!  If I’m not mistaken, some of the crew is celebrating (the show’s success… not our dialects) with a visit to The Cafe and Then Some this evening.  Then it’s back to work Thursday-Sunday with 4 more performances.  And may I just say… I think we’re really gonna miss this show when it’s gone.  I can only speak for myself when I say it’s pretty fun being slutty and British!

Oh… and may I also say, this weekend The Upstate Shakespeare Festival is going to be opening their production of As You Like It down in the park.  They’ll be playing for the next 4 weekends, so make sure to make time in the next month to go enjoy some summer romance down in the park too!

Okay… we opened the show last night to a GREAT audience.  And you’ll all be pleased to know… the show is funny!  That’s right, there were actual audience members who were actually laughing through much of the performance.  Quite exciting!  That’s one of those odd things about comedy.  Comedy is extremely hard work.  Timing has to be precise, circumstances have to be heightened and very real to the characters.  If it’s done right, the characters shouldn’t find the situation funny at all.  If the character could really hear the laughter… they’d look up and say, "What the hell are you laughing at, you insensitive bastards!?!"  Lucky… the characters are actors… and we love the laughter.  But we certainly have to take each moment seriously… or it just plain isn’t as funny.

Well… that’s me waxing philosophical about the foundations of comedy.  Wasn’t that exciting?

Just come see the play.  It’s a lot more fun than this post! 

Well, last night was our final dress rehearsal.  That’s right!  We even had a couple of supportive family members watching, giving us some of those chuckles that give us hints that, oh my gosh… this play might actually be pretty funny!  This weekend, as we got our costumes and our lights and sound… it started to feel like a real play.  Now, last night was our first full run using all of our various food props.  There are a lot of food and beverage props involved in the show.  In particular, during one scene, there are a great deal of martinis on stage.  Now, the exciting behind-the-scenes insight is that they are, in fact, water with olives in them.  Amazing, right?  Well… we make them before the show… around 6:30.  And we don’t use them until Act 2… around 9:00.  So the olives have a good 2 1/2 hours to soak in the water and get their olive brine good and mixed in with the water.  Now… most of us don’t really drink them… just the occasional little sip here and there.  No big deal.  But last night I (Jen) felt compelled during one of the scenes to toss back two of them in close succession.  Now, I think that’s about as drunk as I’ve ever felt without the aid of any actual alcohol.  Truly an unpleasant taste sensation.  But you know what?  It turned out that it really helped the scene… with just that twinge of ick at the bottom of my belly.  Who knew?  Could I possibly be developing a new school of acting, revolving around the benefits of mild nausea onstage?

Nah.  

Needless to say… do make sure to come to the show.  Bring your friends, bring your enemies, bring a date, whatever.  But come on down!  And remember… we’ll be partying at The Northgate Soda Shop after tonight’s show!  See you soon! 

I know, it’s been a couple of days since we posted here at The Distracted Blog.  We’ve all been pretty busy, as the show opens THIS THURSDAY!  We will, of course, be having our opening night festivities at The Northgate Soda Shop, so please plan on joining us there.  And, for your amusement, here are a couple of action shots from recent rehearsals:

Yes. Last night was the night when we all agreed to attempt to release the safety net of a script in front of our faces and just talk to each other.  It’s always a little scary, but also kind of reassuring.  I think it turns out we actually know the scenes better than we thought we did.  And it was great fun.  This is a nutty play with all sorts of strange laughs in places you don’t even expect.  Of course… it’s also great fun hearing what comes out of our mouths when we’re just not sure.  From sputtering to cursing to silence to silly faces to just plain making crap up… it’s a good time.

Oh!  Last night we also welcomed one of our crew members, Alyssa.  We’re glad to have her on board! 

Well, it was a busy weekend for The Distracted Globe, let me tell you!  Seven people spent Seven HOURS on Sunday (on some calendars, considered the Seventh day of the week… you know… now I’m wishing we had done this on Saturday so we could have had all those sevens on 7-7-07… oh well).  We had to transform from our warm, sunny Much Ado set:

to a lovely English mansion with all sorts of lovely foliage and antique-y snobbishness:

Oh… and while we all did lots of work and painting and grunting and soreness making - special thanks to Ryan, who painted the flowers on the hanging flats… and to Rick… who isn’t even in this show, but showed up anyway!

Okay, Anne is going to kill me for doing a post full of photos of her… but too bad!  Ha ha ha!   I didn’t take any photos or video during rehearsal last night, and I think these are worth sharing.  You see, we like to do a little product placement for our sponsors in our shows.  I’m pretty sure I posted a photo of the street sign for Much Ado.  Well, obviously, we’re not going to put a street sign in the middle of the living room for Hay Fever, so we had to come up with something else.  I’m not going to tell you exactly what.  You’ll have to come to the show to see.  But I will tell you, it involves photos like these:

Well, we didn’t rehearse yesterday.  We partied yesterday.  But we do have a couple of photos for you…just to tide you over.  Because we know you’re jonesin’!