Superhero LIVE! at the 2007 Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival.

Holy moley, it's been a long time since I've blogged!!!

I'm in Edmonton right now. I came to rehearse and produce my play Superhero LIVE! at the Edmonton Fringe this year. I arrived at midnight on August 1st, and was up early the next morning to do the Fringe Media Conference. We were one of only four groups (of 140) to perform at the conference. At that time I had less than two weeks to put this show together; now we are offically up and running (both the staged show and the radio series).

I guess I should mention what Superhero LIVE! is. It is a comic book spoken word rock opera. I wrote, produced and directed for the Fringe this year. Our executive producer is Happy Habor Comics: a nationally recognized, award-winning comic store in Edmonton. (They win awards because they sponsor stuff like this!) It's a two hour show performed against a original rock n roll score played by a live band; we're doing it at The Attic Bar & Lounge as a BYOV this year. I've been producing the play as a radio-play serial, online and free to download as Podcasts at http://www.superherolive.com. I booked a sponsorship deal with CJSR FM 88.5 to broadcast each episode of the serial everyday during the Fringe. Then on August 23, 2007, we're doing a live-to-air broadcast of the full-length play from the Fringe Festival. This has never been done at the Edmonton Fringe before.

Okay, so a big task. And like I said, we only had two weeks to pull it off. Luckily, most of the cast from the Podcasts had returned to do the live performance. Alison Boyce was new to our crew, but she has been a superstar and absolutely wonderful to work with.

We've been getting pretty good press coverage: we've been plugged on SONiC radio, City TV, the Edmonton Examiner, and of course CJSR.

The run is only beginning but all ready I have some wonderful memories of this experience. Most notably during the Fringe parade. Shaun's boss at K&K Deli let us use his truck and a generator so that Shaun and John could rock out on the flatbed. We were doing a spot for City TV so Shaun and John started playing: suddenly we were surrounded by a dozen dancing clowns from another show attracted by the kickin' tunes. It was amazing and totally surreal.

Only at the Fringe.

Now that we're open, I'll try to blog a bit more often. It was a real push to get this show up and running, and I didn't have a lot of time to devote to cyber-thoughts. Hopefully now I can be a little more visable during the rest of the festival.

See you in the beer tents???

Holy Crap! It's an Oratorio... I think...

On the front page of the "BUZZ" section of the Sunday edition of the Toronto Star today:

"THE AFTERLIFE OF BRIAN: The film that delighted millions and shocked a very noisy few comes to a Toronto stage in the form of an oratorio, no less."

Inside there is a photo of Life of Brian dress rehearsal with Eric Idle, among others, standing in front of music stands, in plain dress... performing.

Dress rehearsal? This is starting to seem awfully familiar. What the heck is an Oratorio? I look it up. From the Oxford Dictionary: a large-scale musical work for orchestra and voices, typically a narrative on a religious theme, performed without the use of costumes, scenery, or action.

Holy Crap, I think. I'm doing an Oratorio.

A little backgroud: Superhero Live!, currently being released as 15-min audio Podcast episodes online at www.superherolive.com, is going to be performed in full "Live!" at the 2007 Edmonton International Fringe Theatre Festival in August. The production is NOT going to be fully staged and there will be no sets, little costuming, and no stage-fighting. It IS primarily a musical work for band and voices. And, depending on how fervent the fan, Superheroes are a religion of their own.

I was wondering how the heck I was going to describe this upcoming production to the media in the days leading up to the Fringe. A live version of the radio-play? That sounds like it's a fully staged work. A staged reading? Well, no, because the work will be completely memorized, and the performance will be much more heightened than just a reading. A stationary musical? Not really--there's no singing. An audio comic book? That's okay, but it doesn't really say anything about the show...

"Oratorio"... now that sounds impressive. Established. Distinguished--classy even. Maybe I could call it a Rock-Oratorio in my press release. "I'm gonna produce an Oratorio," I thought; I was pretty damned impressed with myself.

Of course, there are major differences for what I intend to produce with Superhero Live!, and what an Oratorio is supposed to be. First off, an Oratorio is meant to be performed with a full orchestra. I have two musicians. Second, an Oratorio is meant to be primarily a musical piece and the plot/story of the piece is somewhat minimal compared to the music. Superhero Live! is very plot heavy, and the acting of the dialogue is central to the success of the production. And there is no singing. Oratorios are basically church-friendly operas, from what I understand.

However this will all be very useful to me when we start rehearsals and it becomes my duty to explain to the cast what I want this production to be in its "Live!" form. The musical score had to play an unfortunately-but-necessarily diminished role within the Radio-play format of the Podcasts. This was for the sake of clarity: without anything to look at, we needed to make sound effects much more prominent in the soundscape of the story so that the listener would be able to understand what the heck was going on. But the original intent of the production was for the music to be much more integral to the piece: it is supposed to be as integral to the plot as the dialogue... just a different way of experiencing the piece. In the live show, the music will be more prominent, and watching the musicians (and actors) perform will be one of the best things about the show... maybe even moreso than listening to the plot.

Is the play going to be a bunch of actors and musicians standing around and delivering their lines? Yes and no. The way our venue is set up and how I'm going stage the work is going to be intriguing to watch... or not watch, depending where you sit...

I won't say any more, as I don't want to spoil it months before the Fringe starts! You'll have come check out the show if you're interested to see what I've got up my sleeve.

So I suppose "oratorio" works as well as any other descriptor for Superhero Live!, which continues to prove itself somewhat un-classifiable. It is and it isn't.

What I know for sure, and what I'm excited to share, is that the "Live!" production is going to be it's own animal. It will be different than the Podcasts, an entirely different experience. It's going to be exciting, fun and an adrenaline rush.

I can't wait to see what people think!!!

A note on Happiness

When I was 18 and living in Germany, I had a book of Plays called 10 Out of 10. It was a compilation of winning scripts over ten years for an American national playwriting contest for young adults (i.e. 18 and under).

Of course I submitted. I wrote a play called "Terrible Mistake" and it was a very dark piece about murder, rape, firebombs and suicide. It was my first play. It didn't win. (But it fit my age range very well!)

I lost the book in the move back home to Canada. One line from the whole book has always stuck with me, though; it was from a playwright's introduction to his work. He wrote:

"I am disheartened that Orsen Welles was only 25 when he made Citizen Kane. I am comforted that Samuel Beckett was 42 when he wrote Waiting For Godot."

(I maybe misquoting here, but I lost the book over 10 years ago... cut me some slack?)

Moving to Toronto, it has been a joyful-yet-surreal experience catching up with actors and artists that have also moved here from Edmonton, but came here near the beginning of their careers. It's interesting to see and hear where their lives have led them; it's interesting to observe how they seem to feel about their careers. Even within the confines of my own BFA class: from actors with featured roles in multi-million dollar Festivals to actors who have chosen to focus on their children instead of their careers.

When we were all training in "the Program," the powers that be warned us that despite the fact we were receiving some of the best conservatory instruction offered in the country (a fact that would pump up our respective egos even fuller with hot air!), not every one of us in the class would make it as an actor. I think we solemnly nodded our heads in affirmation of this glum reality... but secretly we all knew that this didn't apply to OUR class. We were the exception that would prove the rule: we were all going to be STARS!

As idealistic as we might have been back then, and despite the caution signs our profs were trying to show us, our self-deception was larger than anyone had realized: no one told us what "making it" was supposed to mean.

I'll give you an example: in 2004-05, my former theatre company (the Etcetera Theatre Collective or ETC, a physical theatre collective creation company) was having its most productive season yet. We had created two new works -- one of which was nominated for a Sterling award. We were preparing for a 5-city Fringe Festival tour in the summer. We were beginning to dream up plans for a subscription-based season of plays produced by various Edmonton-based independent theatre companies and co-ops. I was rehearsing for something in the Fine Arts Building at the University and I ran into one of my former profs. She was excited because a (more recently graduated) BFA alumnus was cast in a major musical production in Toronto. She gushed about how she loved hearing about the success of her former students... and then she caught herself and added, "And you! You've been doing well... haven't you???"

I wasn't insulted but was a little confused. Was this other gig better than what I had been doing? Was it better press for the department? Did it have more cache because it was a musical? A large production? Because it was in Toronto and not Edmonton? ... And why on earth was I feeling jealous?

I'm not a musical theatre guy. At all. In fact, the work that I was doing was exactly what I wanted to be pursuing, I thought. I was creating and performing in my own work. I was exploring alternative methods of producing and presenting theatre. I ws writing, directing AND acting. Yet there it was, inside me: the pang of Doubt.

Comparing oneself to anyone else is stupid; yet we all can't help but do it sometimes. I have to constantly remind myself that the measure of happiness can only be determined by juggling what I want with what I already have... in my life and not just in my career.

Having moved to Toronto, I am in the unique position of re-starting my career without wearing the same blinders of inexperience I had in my early twenties. This has forced me to look at what I want and need in my career vs. what I already have, and then redefine myself and my ambitions accordingly (... a process that is ever ongoing). I wrote a play. It's called Superhero Live! and it is different from most work I've seen and heard of. I secretly hope for an inflated budget and inflated cache of a Mirvish Musical for Superhero Live!... I doubt that it would be the correct path for this work, or for me to pursue in general.

... I could certainly use a Mirvish paycheque though...

The most famous actor in the world will meet up with his buddy from high school who has a stable marriage and three beautiful children. They'll sit down over a couple of beers and take a good long look at each other. They will both think to himself: "I wasted my life."

There will ALWAYS be someone who's doing better than you: cast in better role, is in better physical shape, has smarter or better looking children, has more hair on his head and less in his nose, was luckier in his career and was wiser in his life.

Right now, Brad Pitt is looking at Leonardo di Caprio and saying to himself, "That son of a..." (And vice-versa.)

Be happy with what you got. Be clear in what you want. Always remember: in the theatre, if it's not fun it's not worth doing. Enjoy your life; it's the only one you got.