For those about to dramaticize, we salute you

[pseydtonne]

The performances went well. The crowd really liked my screaming and gurgling noises (accompanied by the expert sound effects men sucking on Jell-o and pushing Jell-o through plungers with holes) as I became the first human victim of the hungry chicken heart.

Then came utter tragedy. Calamity, I say!

We figured, "this is great! It's 9:30, show is done, take our bows and go mingle with the audience." Then I figured I'd go eat meat somewhere since I still haven't had dinner.

Instead, it turns out this was not the final piece for the night. Oh no. This woman whose name I forget did a half-hour of boring the crowd and making me angrier than I've been since I got on Paxil.

Let me back up a little. The director had invited this woman from Worcester to help us with the technical direction. She showed up to one rehearsal and let us borrow a couple mics. The mics she had were very nice. However, she was putting two mics about eight inches apart on a balance stick so that they only used one mic stand (to explain: mic stands cost a fraction of a decent microphone so this is not a matter of expense). This balance stick with these mics would have been perfect -- for getting ambient sound at a concert, not for micing lead performers. In turn, her stage direction of having the two lead actors on top of the mics led them to crashing into each other. Obviously this wasn't working.

I began to think that as hip as this woman may be on the mic, she had a screw loose about deploying 'em. I did not say anything more than a Japanese objection ("Perhaps it could be more effective to...") at that point because this was the director's first shot at directing anything and he was prone to self-denigration. We all wanted him to survive this. However, he came to his own decisions outside of us. She then took the mics back and our director wound up buying his own.

I had no idea we'd be seeing her again. Also, none of us had an idea that our piece would not be the end of the show -- not a smart choice when the show is named for our piece. In turn the woman missed all the important news about the vibe we were trying to convey, such as "dress like it's the 1930s" and "we've already given this crowd a nice money shot, so don't take more than couple minutes".

We're all backstage going out of our minds. My blood sugar was dropping. We were trying so hard to be stoic and not jump out from the dressing room. However, there was only one couch in a room with eight people. The rest of the room was children's toys. So I got bored and spelled out "lesbian divorce?" with wooden blocks. I'd have someone look at it, see them want to laugh, work their ass off to devoice the laugh, and then devoice my own laugh because I laugh when anyone else does.

Then Kibo started doing schtick. The guy is great at getting me into a character on a moment's notice. He rocks. Then I put on a pillbox hat and acted pissed plus indignant at a friend for not taking "Jackie Fuckin' O" seriously. I then started texting people in the crowd in hopes tkitch would do his utmost to inflict his deadly heckling on the broad. He refused.

Then I was really buggin'. I went with a few people outside to the front entrance. There we got shushed. I bugged out completely. "There are people asleep in the audience! She has to stop." I felt bad for quem98 as she needed to get going and all I could was apologize as she left.

I got so pissed. This woman was under the impression we'd warmed the audience up FOR HER. She was shilling her products from what I could hear behind the door. I was livid. I still want to know who made this scheduling effort because I know the director didn't.

There was all sorts of psychodrama elsewhere leading to this event. I just want to encourage the director to do more (just keep the crazed harpies not actually interested in our project out of positions of power) because he was good at galvanizing us. We saw his vision in the end. We got swallowed by his ravenous chicken heart. I usually come away from stage work wanting nothing to do with the director again. This time, I want to nurture him with my years of radio skills. I want to show him there is more to the gig than how we drop the script sheets to avoid noise. There is a power in audio work and we have the right group of mofos to tap into it.

Oh, and it's not like I don't have some machinery, too. I got bitten by the acting bug again...

-fire, Dante

Comments

[audioboy.livejournal.com]

Just for the record, the director *did* make the scheduling effort, however, be content with the fact that he has learned -- as pointed out to him by more than one person -- that we proved ourselves quite capable last night of going it alone. We don't need to call in professional, outside talent to entertain and hold the attention of an audience. The next show we do will be all ours, I promise.

Looking back now, I agree with the idea (also suggested to me by jenwrites) that "Chicken Heart" should have been the last thing on the schedule. Had I not been so locked into the mindset of it being a fundraiser for modpixie's film project and that it follow the pattern of her previous fundraisers, I'd have seen the logic of putting the feature act last. Especially considering the audience's enthusiastic response. It should have gone out on a high note.

Alas, it is done. I have learned a lesson. I will file it away for future reference. But I hope the frustration you feel won't cloud the most important point, which is that the play itself was a wild success. People kept coming up to me long after you left and all through the party I went to afterwards, commending me and all of you on a fabulous show.

And, for what it's worth, that was the best death by chicken heart I've ever witnessed. ;)

[pseydtonne.livejournal.com]

You read my LJ? Man, I feel like a cad now. You must've been reading this with utter disgust. I apologize.

But yeah, you really did jump into things and do well. I look forward to doing more stuff with you. I had been shelving most thoughts of radio stuff after what happened when I got out of college and could not find a job in it. All the work ethic and skills I gained transferred to other pursuits but the singularity of performance was a need I was not getting met. This got me going again.

Thank you for replying. Nevertheless, this means all of these people could be reading my LJ. I talked some serious shit here... oh, man...

-run away, run awaaaaaaay! Dante

[dimers.livejournal.com]

Heh. You complimented him throughout -- your only complaint was a fixable, and in cases fixed, lack of experience. No need to feel embarassed over that!

I would have liked to come (and had hoped somewhat to carry watercolorblue and/or maedbh7 with me), but I ended up not-near-Davis-Square that evening. I hope I'll be able to experience your talent in the future.

[audioboy.livejournal.com]

Actually, since I was pretty certain you didn't know I'd friended you, I wasn't so much disgusted as I was relieved, because I knew it was an honest posting. Trying that another way, I knew you weren't restraining yourself to keep from hurting my feelings, so it confirmed that you weren't actually pissed as hell at me. :)

I'm glad to have helped meet your performance needs. It seems everyone has gotten something out of this project and that can only be a good thing. I'd prefer to have people who think of this as something special, rather than just a job they have to do.

As several people have suggested, I am going to rest for a bit, catch up on a few other projects (my Nightfall website has been woefully neglected these past few weeks), finish editing our studio material from last June, then start working on getting the PMRP into gear for future projects. Starting with forming a Steering Committee.

Thanks for your honesty, Dante. Sometimes it's exactly what is needed.

[quem98.livejournal.com]

Because you were all so much better than the professional talent. The woman was clearly good at what she did... She just took herself way to seriously. Such pretention is deadly after the the camp joy that was Chicken Heart (and really, ask pseydtonne. I am the last one to heap praise on things unless I feel it is merited. you put on a great show, you clearly had a lot of fun doing it, and that came through to the audience. For whatever that is worth.)

[fangirl715.livejournal.com]

Forgive me for not being there to lend Moral Support, etc., but when I looked out my window at 7:45 and saw that the heavens had once again opened up with their full force (not that they'd ever actually stopped, mind you...), I couldn't bring myself to slosh on over and get soaked in the process. :-( Glad to hear your part of it went well, and sorry you had to deal with...well, what you had to deal with...and how does Death by Chicken Heart work, anyway?

[teddywolf.livejournal.com]

I would have liked to have done my Silicon Theater part but I didn't get back to the right people in time. Just as well, I've still been recovering from gunk and such.