On West Egg

Between the clock change last weekend and putting up Walking Theater's show this afternoon*, I'm kind of in disbelief that it's only 7PM right now. It's going to be so long before I go to bed...

Come over to the Orphanage, people!

*OMG THE SHOW WENT SO AWESOME THROUGH FROM BEST/SHORTEST TECH EVER THROUGH BOTH PERFORMANCES YAAAAAAAAAAAY!

First, I get moved off the campaign of suck at work and back to one here I make sales, FUCK YEAH.

Then, Walking Theatre, where we split up to continue last weeks' work, and I go off with a few others to film some Miami landmarks we planned to, with the addition of catching the ZOO that was Greek Megafair. Well, the sororities were mobbed, anyway, because the tables were in a tight, inward-facing oval. The frats were near-dead.

We get Heather playing in the wadingreflecting pool, and head to the first-year's car to go over to Western. It's a full-on VW BUS. Original curtains, half-broken doors, and everything. We all kind of fell in love with it. It's a deliciously hideous shade of something where yellow,orange, and even bit of green meet and it is amazing.

We pick up some shots on Western, and then we go to get Upham Arch, driving up that little loop 'round Bishop Woods, parking right at the top of it. Right before parking, we pass this older couple on the sidewalk who are maybe a little older than our parents.

Naturally, we ask if we couldn't film them kissing under Upham Arch for a project?

Naturally, they've never heard of that particular Miami tradition, so we explain how kissing under the lamp means you're supposed to get married, and the wife just goes "Well, we've been married 35 years! It had better keep going strong!" And so we film as we walk up to the arch (and man, I haven't seen the area around the stairs up to the arch so green), and the sun is setting behind them and where I expected us to humor us and go for a quick little peck, I think we wound up inspiring a real romantic moment for them. Even if no other good ever came of WTP's current project, that would have made it all worth it.

So we head back to the van, pick up some shots in Goggin, and then I hold the camera out the window for the whole drive from Goggin to the top of High street, then back down to Pulley Tower (with a diversion past the frats on Talawanda) and we have maybe twenty minutes of some of the most gorgeous parts of Miami, and we've got some bits already of the less-than gorgeous parts that'll be contrasted. I'm looking forward to see how it all gets edited together.

Now, though, I'm enjoying a melon-syrup'd milk. It's a dagerously sickly shade fo green, but it's delicious.

My friend got hit by a car and I was within a foot of, at the very least, being hit by the mirror, myself.

All you really need to know about her well being can be conveyed by the fact that, after rolling over the top of the car and hitting the pavement, she got up, said "ow," walked over to the curb, and sat down.

Something hit me in the shin, and I think it may have been her shoe, as it did fly off.

Still: Jon was walking with us and was also almost hit (though not as nearly as I). If the two of us had been hit, Amy, our director for the Oct 11th reading of "A More Perfect Union," would be fucked. I mean, Jon is, himself, a replacement actor for a guy who couldn't make rehearsals because of a nother show, our "Bill" (one of the main characters) is in jail right now and needs replaced, and one of our chorus members never showed up to rehearsal and we only got confirmation yesterday that she's out. If Jon and I had been incapacitated... That'd be a hell of a bad-luck'd production.

Okay, so this retelling of the PTO conference is turning into a fucking novel, but I don't care. Even though it doesn't really go anywhere, it's really helping me find my authorial voice, because I don't have to come up with the "plot" as I write it. I mean, there'd maybe be a plot if certain interests of mine* had gone somewhere, but.

So. Saturday morning. First round of workshops is, from my point of view, shit. I wakeup for them anyway, though, because I have to go talk to Ellie (the woman running the conference) to see if we can, indeed, get the main stage for our repeat performance. I'm still a little bit drunk from the last night. I inform the Iowans of this, again.

Find Ellie. Get led to a person who has the phone number of the guy who would know if the stage was being used. It's not. We've got the stage. I just fucking bagged the Walking Theatre Project its first on-(real)stage performance since October. I just fucking won at life, because I can never ask anyone for shit, like, EVER. It's a mental block taht I just hammered through like nobodys business.

Wait around for a while for people to start showing up for warm-up. We get in there and the first thing Amanda and Lindsey do is order five of us to go get acting blocks from the room we performed in before, which is understandableof them, but it comes out a bit bitchier than neccesary. Someof the three-day conferencers bitch a bit about the stage being unneccesary, given how few people will be coming to the performance. I stab them in my mind. Nobodyseems to care that I fucking got us a stage. Red Fortress isokayed, as I'd been going on about wanting the stage and I spoke to Ellie and we'd maybe get the stage and wouldn't it be awesome to have the stage? and they were, I'm sure, sickof hearing about me getting the stage, and not likely to show any appreciation. The three-dayers, however, didn't seem to react at all to just having the stage (except to bitch), let alone my acquiring it.

Performance goes well. Amanda and Lindsey don't go on so long when covering what WTP has done (the cover just as much as before, mind, just quicker. Hooray!), and more of us have stuff to say during the Q&A. Plus, the five people we had in the audience were a very good five people to perform for. they knew all sorts of stuff we didn't, and had/were contacts. Plus, oneof them totally made a connection about Michael I had never seen that's quite awesome.

Oh, and the guy Zanny had hooked up with at Players, but was done with after last night? Showed up at our performance. He sat way up and off to teh side, and it was awkward as all fuck.

Lunch! We're too lazy to walk way over to the free food (It's not in the building we were in, but at least five minutes away), because the dorm is closer and it has our groceries in it. We make our lunches and hang out in the basement, and just are having an awesome time. This is when Rosemary tells the "What Do I Do!" story, the result of which is all of us appropriating a mentally disabled kid's actions for our amusement. It's absolutely awful, but it became a better signifierfor awkward situations than either the traditional "AWK-ward..." or even the awkward turtle, so... I find myself thining it at wholly innappropriate times and stifling giggles, because I'm going to hell. But I'm going with the whole RF Crew, so it's okay.

Anyway, after lunch most of us go to see "Old, Out-of-Touch, Anti-War, Peacnik Hippies," which isan amazing two-person, anti-everything-wron-with-America show. Now, there was some awesome Bush-bashing in it, but my favorite two scenes were actually the ones that had nothing to do with Bush and his Administration. "The Church ofChocolate" was an awesome commentary on what religion should be, and the banshee scene (title of which I have forgotten) was an awesome low-key rant about Americans' incessant desire for a happy ending and neat little packages.

Then we went to the Student Union, checked emails, and tried to find a gay bar in Chapel Hill. We sort-of foundone, but all information on it was a few years old, andit seemed like it might be kinda sketch. Theplan when we head back to the dorms is that someone will take the van to the address and scope the place, and we'll go from there. Since Gay barring is still an option, I wash my stripes out and purple-up my hair. (Heh. It's even gayer now than when Norma deemed it such.)

Turns out that the barisin a building that, if not closed down, is totally sketch. I remain a gay bar virgin. I really need to do something about that sometime, eventually, somewhere. Probably. Anyway, we wind up staying in, and declaring Rosemary's rum open for free use since there's still some left after one night. By "we," I mean Bryan, but I accepted his authority on the matter. I had taken my White Cranberry Peach juice down to have between drinks as an alternative to water (Idon't know why, I never use water...), so I decided to see how passion fruit rum wouldmix with that. It was lovely. Dan even had some, mostly non-drinker that he was. I have now sucessfully invented a mixed drink, y'all. My list of life achievements has one box less to tick.

Oh, and we met Rosemary's cop tonight when she got back from her date with him. that's right, cop. The guyshe hooked up with at Players was a twenty-five year-old cop. A tewnty-five year-old cop who is totally awesome. He was sitingina dorm basement, drinking with underage drinkers, and he was not at all thrown by all of the Red Fortress's inside jokes. At least, not visibly. Not even the Iowans, cool though they be, could claim that.

And then bed.

*I really fucking want that shirt!

Okay. I'm going to try to get more than one day into this one, but I can't promise anything. A lot of shit happened on this trip and I can only type so much at once, y'know?

So. Wake up at 8 to getto the first round of workshops and presentations. See some Iowa people at the bagel table and greet them with "So, I'm still a little bit drunk right now," before noticing that the fourth person at said table is not an Iowa person. Heh. Go to a workshop on using TO techniques in scripted shows. The woman running ituses Romeo and Juliet for example, but I don't care because A) stil a bit drunk, and B) I was Paris, and actaully gained significant insight to who he is (certainly not as fullas I'd want for a real production, but still). Oh, and C) the people playing R+J all seemed to agree with me re: their patheticness. Plus, I learned not only that R+J is actually full of some really awesome characters, if you ignore the title, but I learned some very good techniques for getting actors to understand characters.

Then, the improv and PO workshop, which I only got anything out of (and it was good, but...) because I am going to be a teacher. Then, "free" lunch from the conference, which as an actor, I am obligated to take. After lunch, I skipped out on the Katrina panel with Dan and we talked for a while in his room and got into costume for the performance (all black, shoes didn't matter 'cause we'd be barefoot in performance, but I still felt like an idiot in my sandals and long pants). I needed a button-down over mytee because Ann-Elizabeth agreed that I NEEDED something more than just teh character shift I was making from Micheal to John, because of the structure of the show. (Michael = buttondown, John = tee.) I had one, butit was really, really faded, so Dan lent me THE MOST AWESOME SHIRT EVER. He uses it when clubbing, and I covet it mightily. And the fucker got it at an outlet, so I'll never find it. RAGE. (Also, at some point during our talking is when I realized that I kinda like Dan ina "He's taken, so just enjoy the pretty" sort of way. I like that kind of like, because then it doesn't matter that he most likely would not like back if not taken.)

So. Performance time. We're given not nearly long enough to warm up (we BARELY got into the Beth Warm-Up), but that's okay. Damn. There are a lot more people than I expected. Also, I really like how the costumes turned out, because even though everyone's in all-black, nobody is dressed identically. And the floor and acting boxes (which are WOODEN, not BLACK. What the god damn?) are awesome shades to be barefoot on. Show is going well. People are responding to the characters, laughing where we expect them to... I'm done being Michael. I'm just going to slowlyand subtly start unbuttoning Dan's shirt (that I'm wearing! Ye gads!), and I'llneed to do the sleeve buttons too, if I want to take it off without being noticed. Thanks for glaring, Amanda, but Ann Elizabeth told me to do this, so I don't know where you get off. Anyway, sleeve buttons.

rip

Not a big one, just...

rip

The button stayed buttoned. The sleeve is undone. Shit. At least there's another, still functioning button on the sleeve. Oh, and I suppose I should clarify my semantics here: the buttons are snaps. It's a button-down shirt, just with snaps. It's just too ingrained in me that this type of shirt has buttons; plus, Dan, owner fo the shirt, called them buttons, so. Anyway, the still-buttoned "button" can actually sort-of be used like a real button as it is, so the shirt'snot ruined. Doesn't keep me from feeling like shit.

Time to go on as John in the coffehouse scene. Zan finishes the song, aaaaand... I head Maji off at the pass, and pick the guitar off Zan before Maji can throw in her "improv" in which she gives Zan's guitar a name, and calls attention to a real-world event (the pass of the guitar) that is not actually happening in the world of the play. Go on thinking that I just screwed up a bit, Maji, I just fucking saved the integrity of the scene, no thanks to you. And please, like Ginny would name her guitar "Lucy."

And then. Quick stop offstage for teh rest of the coffeehouse scene (and Kat's










dramatic pauses) and then a choral ode. Back onstage for the homophobic dads scene, by first with lines as John. Babcha kills, despite only having one line. I love her, and by extension anyone playingher for that moment. Not that I don't love Rosemary anyway, but... Babcha, y'all. Babcha.

So then, after another choral ode, we come to the party scene. For me, this is the scene to worry about. I've never played it from this side before, just as the man with a cast (who, wisely, was edited from physical presence to abstract for this and future performances). It's a completely new beast, because this is the first real emotive moment I've had to play in this show, and it has to come off right. I totally stop worrying about that as soon as I start the scene and just rock it. Completely comfortable within myself, while being comepltely agitated as John. From what I hear afterward, I'm not the onlyone who thinks I rocked it.

Show ends. Applause. Lindsey and Amanda speak about what WTP has done in the past two years. And speak. And speak. It's impressive, if dull, and in the way of hearing what the audience thought in response to the performance. Open for questions. Yay, compliments. Wow, compliments. Holy shit compliments, because they're also about our organizational skills and our writing and our being out there and doing something as young people and you want us to give advice? Damn... You're impressing me with myself and it's weirding me out, y'all.

I return Dan's shirt. *sigh*

Headoverto Iowa's session on apathy (both audience AND activist). Fun! Learning! running out of time so we don't hear much about how to keep ourselves from becoming apathetic as activist even though that's mostly what we came for! (Everyone'ssad about that one, not just the audience.)

Dinner at teh apartment and talking about WTP's future. Amazing time: free food, free drinks, even for the underaged, from a faculty advisor. Not enough to get drunk, obviously, but that wasn't the point. Good times with everyone. For theone time the whole trip. Afterwards, the three-day workshoppers and the Red Fortress splinter again.

Some of the RF head out for liquor and stuffs to mix it in. Hereabouts, I remember that I have a cooler in which I could put the lunch meats sitting in the ice machine. Zan gets a call. We're now performing again tomorrow at 7 AM! Another call later: sorry, it's 10:05, but it's still early! And we'recalled late enough that we could have already gone out and missed the message! I run into the woman runnign the conference in the hall (she's staying in the room next to Rosemary and Ribar), and talk to her a bit about how holy shit we've been asked to perform again! That's some fucking honor right there! So I say something in passing about how we kinda wanted to be on the stage instead of in the classroom, and the woman says that if nobody is setting anything up on the stage during that time, we can totally use it; I have to talk to her in the morning.

Liquor returns.* Pregaming. We head out, searching for an 18+ bar, which there must benearby, because this is a college town. We find one, Players.

Sketch as fuck.

I stomach it, because the creepy guys are all straight, and for a shallow reason or two involving proximities on the dance floor. Plus, I'm drunk enough to dance, but still sober enough to enjoy it and, y'know, not put someone's eye out. Bar closes. We head out. Zan and Rosemary are both lip humping** guys who, it turns out, are best friends. We feel fine leaving them so long as they stick together, and we head back to the dorm.

Some more drinking, but not much. Mostly just hanging out and waiting for Zan and Rosemary to get back. Tonight or tomorrow night is the night I say something about "Too bad he's taken" in reference to Dan when I think he's out of earshot, having left for the night, but he comes back into the room for something less than five seconds later, so.

Then, bed. Which is where I'm going to stop, because the next day is as much of a fucking novel as today was, and it opens with another performance.

*This particular sentence may be out of sequence, but as far as the story goes, it doesn't really matter. It is important that the liquor return before the pregaming happens, but otherwise, whatever.

**Making out with. It comes from Mad-Libs.

I realized that at both points on the trip that we ran into other Miami students have alreadypassed in my narration. Oops.

first one was surprising, but really rather unremarkable, since we were only about an hour out of Oxford Wednesday morning. I mean, that there was a Miami student at that particular gas station at that particular timeto recognizethe school van was probably unlikely, but... not far from Miami, y'know?

The other one, though... We were in Harris Teeter, and this guy just walks up to us and asks "Do you guys go to Miami University?" and we're all "What the god damn?" and he tells us that he went to Miami for a year before transferring to UNC (he just graduated). Plus, at one point he lived in the dorm we were staying in. He saw the van in the parking lot, so his noticing we were Miami students wasn't creepy, but... We were in a grocery store in Chapel Hill at, like, 11:30, and we ran into a former Miami student. Eyebrow-worthy, that.

Wake up on Thursday. Put stripes in my hair. Rehearsal from 9-11, pretty uneventful, though this time it's in the room we'll be in to perform. We also decide to have a short rehearsal after the conference opening, at 11 that night. Oh, and the first thing Norma said to me (besides "You're trouble!" when first meeting me the night before) was "Your hair is so gay!" It took me a while to realize that she thought it was a character thing for John, and not just something I (who she could not have possibly yet known to be gay) did because, but I still got it was a compliment immediately.

Lunch. Awesome little pizza place on Franklin Street. Sarah Kollar corroborates Bryan's stories of point systems for hooking up at Jewish youth group conferences. Having heard so much from the three-day workshoppers about how much they want Julian Boal's babies already, Matt puts up a standing offer of twenty bucks for hooking up with Julian (making out counts). Back to the CDA for the one-day workshop, with Julian in his ill father's stead (he works with TO all the time, too, so it's not like it wasn't productive).

I don't get the Julian love. I mean, he's not unattractive, but... he's the kind of person you expect one person in your group to have the hots for, not most people. I am joined in my not-getting-it by the rest of the Red Fortress crew, to whom Sarah (who flew in the same day we drove) has already been accepted. The workshop goes well, there's a hot guy with a British accent working the conference (he was hot before the accent. He was inside-melty with). Red Fortress is already starting to get to know some of the Northern Iowa people we'll be familiar with by the end of the week. Bryan gets to be a maybe-racist in a quick Forum Theatre, except we find out afterward (not everyone, just those of us hanging out with him) that all his intent was was to get a beer, so accepting that he was shot down was in character for him, even though most of the conference assumed RAPIST! on his part and took issue with his choice to give up.

Dinner: oog. We have Zan go to getthe van so that we can get "uptown"* and back in our time limit. We wait an hour or so for the van. With about half an hour left, we give up and head into Cobb to order something in, and... there's the van, parked in front of the dorm. We stressstressstress uptown to get food, hoping to make it back for the opening of the conference (where Augusto Boal will be teleconferencing), and when four fo the lot of us (we split up to save time) head into Jimmy Johns, there's only one guy working, which is something heretofore thought impossible. Somehow, we made it back in time.

When sitting way far away in the audience, I sorta get the Julian!Love. And then I remember seeing him from closer, and remain confused. Augusto is nice, but not quite who I thought he'd be. I have to admit, I tranced out a couple times while he was talking. Julian tells the same stories about TO he told during the workshop. I'm glad that I wasn't at three-day, because he apologized for repeating himself at the one-day. The joke about Brazilian handgrenades was only sorta-funny once. Presentations from the three-day workshoppers, as examples of Forum Theatre and image work. Another British accent. Maji as the US Army. Stuff that's well-intentioned but a bit poorly executed.

And then rehearsal. Oh, rehearsal. We finish the scene work from the morning, beginning at my party scene. Amanda is working with the chorus in back as I monologue, and it's incredibly distracting, but Ann-Elizabeth either doesn't notice or doesn't care. Plus, the chorus got it: "I smell fruit," [clap]. I was giving a monologue the whole time Amanda was working with them and I got it before she felt she was finished. We finish the scene, and thelast scene, and then... speed through. With full emotion. In other words: the impossible. Sure, it helped our transitions and the beer pong scene, but growing resentment and feelings of second-class citizenship among a significant portion of one's cast is not what a director wants.

Then, we go to buy groceries to help fit meals into alotted time (and to save money). The place is named Harris Teeter, which of course gets mocked. We get foods for a couple meals, including some lunch meats because hey, we've gota fridge in the basement! Oh, and we get some drinks too, because we're theatre people. Drinking is what we do. We go back, find a nice spot to set up bas in the basement, and... the refrigerator is not where Bryan found it. The refirigerator is, in fact, nowhere. Lunch meats go into the ice machine. Drinks go into actors.** Good times are had by all. A rearrangement is had by the basement furniture. Then, sleep.

*Chapel Hill does not have an "uptown" in name (that we know of), but Franklin Street serves the exact purpose of Oxford's uptown, and in fact looks similar, if nicer. Hence, we do not ever speak of "going to Franklin Street," but of "going uptown".

**Matt and Dan don't drink. Matt as a rule, Dan because he's not a beer person. Hence "actors," and not "the actors."

Continued.

The PTO Conference began, simply, with a car ride down to Oxford. I arrived quite early in the afternoon, and headed to King to see if I had a return email from Amy with her fiance's phone number, so that I could let him know when I'd be coming to the house to spend the night. It had not yet arrived. It never arrived. I found a copy of "Games for Actors and Non-Actors" by Augusto Boal, and started reading it, interspersed with other bits of writing and a bit of internetery.

At nine, the library closed. I headed to the house and slightly surprised the fiance, who had heard nothing after the copyof the email Amy wrote me saying "If I'm the only one who responded,let me know, and I'll email you his number." I spent the night on an air mattress. It was noisy.

The next morning, I parked just west of campus on Spring St. and walked, uncomfortably, with all of my stuffto the CPA lot on the other side of campus (the short way). I was there for about an hour before anyone else arrived, because I thought the intent was to leave the lot at 8, not start loading then. Not that the intent much mattered, because Zanny and Ribar had slept through alarm(s?) and were running late.

We pack everything in and set out, and get to bonding, because the seven of us (Me, Bryan, Zanny, Ribar, Matt, Rosemary, and Dan) would not have hung out were we not forced together by circumstance. Not that we particularly disliked each other, or even were strangers, we just run in different circles, generally. The can ride is nine-ishhours, and quite entertaining. Mad-Libs, stories, Never Have I Ever, "What the god damn?", Sarah's excessive concern for her lottery tickets when Zanny spilled her water at Sbarro, mocking of Zanny's name appearing as "Zane" on all trip materials, lots and lots of inside joke-making, Zanny's nipples, Rosemary's romantic history (abridged, I'm sure), the most sketch-tastic gas station I've ever been in, worries of being lost (but not really being lost), and the Christening of the Red Fortress made the ride a good one.

We got to Chapel Hill, got vaguely settled into our rooms, and headed out for dinner. The three-day workshop attendees, who had been in Chael Hill for three days already guided us to Franklin Street, gave us a time to meet up to head back to the dorm, and split up for food, leaving the Red Fortress alone to find food. That was the first sign of things to come. We ate at this awesome little place called Spanky's, and the server was quite of the attractive. We head back to the dorm, a bit late, but knowing where we were headed (though it seemed Amanda and Lindsay thought otherwise, because we were the Red Fortress, and they were Facilitators, or some such). Then, rehearsal, done in a tiny dorm lounge and not somewhere remotely conductive to rehearsing, working out blocking, and just generally being... guh.

I'm pretty sure I headed right to bed after that, because we didn't use the basement until we had alcohol, and though we already had plans to stop at a grocery store and take advantage of the kitchenettes on each floor, we hadn't any alcohol yet. Also, Bryan found a refrigerator in the basement that night.

This seems like a good place to break.

So, the PTO conference was pretty much the best thing ever, and more detailed stories will be up soon. I apologize in advance for the ninety-bajillion Red Fortress inside jokes I'll be using all the fucking time.

I get to go to North Carolina for a week and conference and workshop Theatre of the Oppressed with awesome Walking Theatre Projectors, and you don't!

Leaving Oxford tomorrow at 8. Coming back to Oxford the 23rd. Home (sigh) the 24th.

(Oh, and I sighted Sarah Shepard today.)