more notes from the road

Last night's show was fantastic. A few minor timing/staging faux pas, but all in all, it was one fantastic show. It seemed like we all had a really good time, and really sank into the piece a little bit too. I spent the last two hours before the show crying...right through warm-ups, and had to re-do my make-up. Not sure what was up with that. I think maybe just a release of all the tenion of the week. But I channeled it into the dancing, and it enhanced things, so it was fine...and by the end of the show I felt much lighter, actually.

The audience loved the show (standing ovation!), and they were very engaged...which is good...because it was in direct contrast with the cranky audience the night before....AND, I suspect it also might be a very interesting contrast compared to the audience we are anticipating tonight.

If there IS an audience.

Get this one (you're gonna love this):

As it turns out, that sight seeing bus full of elderly patrons on Friday was exactly that...they came together. Apparently they are fiscal supporters and friend of the owner of the venue we are performing at. It would seem that they bought out a huge block of tickets for Friday night, and created a huge guest list for all of their friends.
Ahhh, I night on the town.
Lovely.

As mentioned in the previous post, they didn't seem to enjoy the content of our show, and I have a sneaking suspicion that some of them weren't even prepared for it to be a naked performance. Like I said, Lovely.

As it also turns out, the venue owner and somebody from this Lovely Group bought out the entire theater for our final show, which is tonight. Kind of bizarre if you ask me, but I guess the idea is that they would have a private showing. Oh. Did I mention that the tickets were going to be donated to a group home? Some type of rehab center???
Lovely.
A audience full of a bunch of (I was told) "spiritual" folks coming down off drugs and alcohol and lord knows whatever other addictive behaviours, coming to a naked dance show.

Hmmm.
Let's all scratch our heads together and ponder this for a moment.


Anyhow.
Several of the OldFartTourBusLovelyGroupPeople that were here on Friday night walked out during intermission, and I guess one of these Old Farts is the Grand PooBah on the board of directors of the aforementionted group rehab center.

He called the box office Saturday morning to cancel the entire one hundred reserved seats, which had not yet been paid for. AND we've been turning people away for weeks now, telling them the show is sold out.

Hate to keep repeating myself, but let's say it again together people....
LOVELY.

*sigh*

I guess Eric did some negotiating and made arrangements to have the tickets be paid for anyhow. I'm not sure who's picking up the tab, if it's the owner of the venue or if the bill is going to the Grand PooBah-Elderly-BoardMember-Who-Has-Deemed-Our-Show-Too-Innappropriate-For-Those-Detoxing (ummm, duh)...but someone agreed to pay. So at least the money stuff is fair and square.
So I guess all things are all good.

Except the part where we have no audience tonight hahahahahahahaha.

*sigh*

TheMIG got on LA Craigslist and posted the show in the events section, and a few folks maybe got on Tribe or other LA list-serves, I think. Several of the enthusiastic audience members said they were calling all of their friends and letting them know we only had one more night here (and they didnt even know about our little "box office issue"...they just loved the work and want the world to see it, yay!). And I'm calling back the yarn store ladies, as they also had wanted to come tonight, but I had told them it was sold out.

So maybe we'll have an audience full of knitterati.
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I wish I could fly in all my friends from my home front to see the show here.
I'm very concerned about how this show show is going to play out in San Francisco in a few weeks. Our show is running full length at about 1 hour 40 minutes right now I think, and in San Francisco, we have to cut it to about 1 hour 10 minutes. I can't imagine for the life of me which parts will be cut...because they are all really great, and most are integral to the story line of the rest of the show. I'm glad I'm not Eric trying to figure this one out.

I think a big chunk of time might come from skipping the "community chorus" concept that we experimented with down here. The chorus was wonderful (I worked with them closely), but it was hard on the scheduling to make the time to get a chorus well integrated. I have a feeling the community chorus sections might have appeared a little disjointed, not because of what they brought to the piece, but more from the lack of time for us to work with them closely.

Also in San Francisco, we are going to have a ton of staging and production issues, my greatest concern at the moment being the lighting. Which may be none. Some of our show will travel outdoors for a bit, and for all I know, we might just be bare assed under the streetlights. The dancing is going to be great either way ('cuz we rock!), but lighting really does make a difference in enhancing a production, especially when you need a blackout to get into position, for example. So this could get strange.

I think eventually this showing here in Venice is going to be the best this show gets...but I'm open to making it work in SF. And have total faith in Eric, too. If anyone can do it, he can. But hopefully the dvd that ends up coming together will be mostly of stuff shot here where the lighting makes our bums have a wonderful peachy glow hahahaha.