We've posted a video (split into 9 parts) of the entire performance of The Absurdity of Writing Poetry at last July's 01 Festival. Go here to watch all eight parts, and check out photos, reviews, and more while you're there.
In fact, here's Part One, just to whet your appetite. Enjoy!
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Congrats to us! We got nominated for a 2006 Cincinnati Entertainment Award in the category of Alternative Theatre. Sweet! I think we got nominated for one of those last year, as well. Awesome.
All the nominees can be viewed here and winners are decided by the public, so, as Georgie says, vote for us and vote often.
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This made me laugh out loud.
Matt Slaybaugh's rapping is especially awesome - where did that come from??).
-Jen Spillane, on the Cincy Fringe Blog
Jen has an awesome show, too. I saw it Tuesday, and I hear it's gets better every night, so get over to InkTank. It's called VIRTUE: did she fall or was she pushed?
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One of official Fringe photogs, James Czar, or Jimmy Z, as I will now call him, posted some pix from our show on the Rosetta Stone website. Thanks, Mr. Czar.
There's a rumor going around the Fringe that the Enquirer won't be reviewing the Festival shows that are in "non-professional" environments - like Kaldis. There's also a rumor that City Beat won't be reviewing all the shows.
So far, this has added up to NO REVIEW for The Absridty of Writing Poetry. That stinks. It's not that I care so much about reading what one individual has to say about the show, but a decent review is good publicity, which brings more bodies into the space to see the work. And that - getting people to see the work - is what I care most about.
So - if you've seen the show, please help me out.
1) Tell everyone you see - everyone you know, everyone you can reach - about the show.
2) Post to the Fringe blog. Just head over there and let people know what you think of The Absurdity of Writing Poetry.
3) Write to the papers. A good letter to the editor is just as useful as, if not more useaful than, a good review.
Thanks for your help. The Festival has been a blast so far. I'm really looking forward to seeing some more shows, and talking to everybody out there about what we're seeing and doing.
UPDATE: I got a review.
Thanks, City Beat. It's here.
Dan W. has provided a large number of great pictures from opening night at Kaldis in Cincinnati. Here are just a few.
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Due to popular demand, the script for The Absurdity of Writing Poetry is now available as a PDF file for your viewing and downloading pleasure. All that we ask is that you give credit where credit is due, and share it with your friends.
Click here for the script.
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Well, here's the place. What did you think of the show? What did you think about it? Any questions for us? Any comments? Anything words of wisdom? Anything you'd like to share?
Please post comments. WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!!! FORREAL!!!
Wow. We opened. Hooray!
First I want to say THANK YOU to everyone who came out to support us last night. You were an AMAZING crowd. You really did your job well, and I can't express how much I appreciated it. It was a great way to kick off our time in Cincinnati this year. Thank you Thank you Thanx.
The show itself also went really well, I was changing a few things as I went along, to adjust to the depth of the seating. I was quickly realzing that a lot of people in the back couldn't see me when I lay down on the platform. Also, anytime I went stage right, the light were blocking some people's view. I only forgot one tiny, little bit of text. However, it was an important bit, because it contains the (essentially) title of the play. Duh! So, for those who saw the show last night, let me reproduce it here.
Below is Wislawa Symborska's poem "Possibilites". I don't do the whole poem in the play, but I do about ten lines.
I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems
I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned here
to many things I've also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.
And again - THANK YOU.
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Ahhh ... the life an artist. I barely have enough cash to make it to Cincinnati, so we're foregoing programs this weekend. It is, however, important to me to give credit where credit is due, so ... here's what would be in the program (and hopefully will be next weekend).
Available light [theatre]
The Absurdity of Writing Poetry
Featuring Matt Slaybaugh
Sound by Dave Wallingford
The following authors are quoted extensively:
James Kochalka
William Ball
Anne Bogart
Fernando Pessoa
Annie Dilliard
Margaret Atwood
Jonathan Franzen
George Saunders
The poems used in the piece, in order, are:
I Wanna Hear a Poem ? Steve Colman
Mein Kampf - David Lerner
Who Is a Poet ? Tadeusz Rozewicz
Manifesto ? Lawrence Felinghetti
Hip-Hop ? Mos Def
Americus I - Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Hard Rain ? Tony Hoagland
Howl - Allen Ginsberg
Coded Language ? Saul Williams
Possibilities - Wislawa Szymborska
The Pioneers ? Kele Okereke
See also:
The Writing Life ? Marie Arana, editor
Bookmark Now ? Kevin Smokler, editor
And, especially:
The Believer Book of Writers Talking to Writers ? Vendela Vita, editor
Big thanx to:
King Ave. Church, Lauren Hines, 1/2-Price Books Lane Ave., Kathy & Allen Burkman, Geoff Martin & the Columbus PAC, Cincy Fringe and the Best Team in Town (Jason, Jeff, Gina, Sean, Sarah, Steph, Gabe, Lindsay, Jay, Liz, Jaquelyne, Rachel, & Cincinnati Advance), John Dranschak, Ian Short, Dan Welsh, Acacia Duncan, Michelle Schroeder, Robert Duffy & weColumbus.com, Brant Jones, John Kuhn & Actor's Theatre of Columbus, Matt's Family, Dave's Family.
Matt dedicates his work on this show to two of his favorite poets - Sean C. Lewis & Jenn Fawcett. ?If anything comes of this, it's your fault.?
A couple of weeks ago, when Jenn Fawcett was in town, we sat down and taped interviews with each other about out respective shows.
Dan Welsh shot the footage and has been kind enough to edit my interview down to a palatable 8 minutes. Thanks Dan, you totally rock.
You can view the video by clicking here.
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Time is almost up. Fringe is here, it opened tonight in the Nati. Wow. How did I get into this?
I'm maybe a little bit scared. We added two elements to the show tonight that I had almost forgotten about. Well, one I had completley forgotten about. But, it's kind of good to do that. It guarantees a little extra energy to push you through to opening night. Anyway, that's what I'd say if I was directing. As it is, it's two more things for me to worry about. As if I didn't have enough, since our tech was pretty much a disaster. I'm pretty sure I'm going fall off the platform. It's the walking backwards part that'll do it. So, I have two big problems. I may die, and even if I don't I'm going to look timid as hell. Alas and alack.
It's been a harried process getting this show together. The worst part of it, I think, has been the fact that Dave and I have been doing it primarily on our own. We've had great help at some moments (John, Ian, Dan, Brant, Acacia). But, for the most part, there hasn't been anyone to turn to when we've been tired or scared or too busy with other things to make this a priority. For that reason, I do miss the Group.
On the other hand, it's my turn to get my picture in the paper. Woo-ha!
Just kidding.
I'm really excited to open tomorrow. I hope some people are there to see it. I hope you are.
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We did our un-official Columbus preview performance tonight. It went really rather well. Going into it, I wasn't even sure if I would do the last 3 scenes, because I haven't memorized my lines yet. But, when I got there, I was having a good time, so I just kept going.
We had 4 people in attendance, which isn't great, but they were the 4 perfect people. Thank you very much to them. Very, very much. I was very gratful to have someone to talk to. Dave's great, but he's usually looking at his computer.
A strange thing was that I forgot an entire poem. It's in the middle of the rap. (Yes, if you didn't know before, you do know. I rap in this show.) Anyway ... it's in the middle of the rap, but somehow I got off and skipped to the end and didn't even realize I'd skipped one of my favorite parts of the show. I don't know how it happened. Wow.
But, all in all, it was really fun, and I do think those 4 people got their money's worth.
And ... Dan Welsh came by with his super-spiffy camera and shot some crystal clear footage of the show. So, we've reduced it's quality to nil so we could post it here on the web for you.
Enjoy!
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Great rehearsals the past couple of days. Tonight really kicked ass for me. It was the first time we actually ran through the entire show. I wasn't really nervous about the ending, because I've been working on some of it for longer than anything else in the show. But, it's important, and the show felt incomplete in my mind without a sense of how we were going to do it, how it was going to feel and sound.
So, we rocked all the way until the end. It was fun. The show ran 50 minutes and it actually feels worthwhile, like it has value. I knew I wouldn't be caught dead doing something I didn't believe in, but there was some question of if I would ever be convinced that someone might enjoy watching this show. So, I'm saying it here for the whole world to read - "I think this show has value. I think it's worth seeing. Some of you may even enjoy it." So ... there.
Seriously, it's a good feeling. I've had a weird sort of tension on my left side the past week and I wondered if my heart was having problems or if it was the manifestation of some larger issue. Well, I'm pretty convinced now that it was the manifestation of a smaller issue, that issue being the show. I've got very, very little tension right now, and I think it's because I'm feeling so good about the show. Tomorrow of course, when I face trying to remember all those words in front of people, it'll be a different story, I'm sure I'll be tense as hell (in fact, I'm getting pretty tense right now just thinking about it). Anyway ... onward.
I wonder if anyone's coming tomorrow.
Oh, I know more people read the whole thing if there are pictures at the end. So, here are a couple of crappy cell phone pictures of Dave's (AKA sound designer extraordinaire AKA DJ Easy D) rehearsal set-up. Enjoy!
We've been hard at work the past week or so. Sorry about the lack of blogging, but it's been a difficult week for various personal and professional reasons.
Jennifer left town on Monday and I spent the first couple days of the week rehearsing on my own, just running through what I had done so far. Working on the lines, which I hate doing. I'm much, much happier after I get my lines down.
Anyway ... Dave came back last night, Wednesday and we had a great night, ran through everything twice. Same thing tonight, until the storms hit and the lights went out at the church. Still, we're making real progress.
We're feeling the heat of our Sunday deadline. We're going to present whatever we can to a small, invited audience in Columbus. The purpose is to learn what we can from the audience reactions and to scare the crap out of us enough to make sure we get everything done before the last possible second. It's not that we like to procrastinate, but sometimes even the most dedicated people like to nap and browse the internet.
Anyway. Here's a picture of the church where we've been rehearsing. I actually took it a couple of weeks ago. Our room is the one alllll the way at the top.
And here's one of Dave checking out the weather tonight. This was about 30 minutes before the world went black and the lighning was scaring the crap out of us.
Anyway. The Fringe kick-off party is tomorrow night. Much to my regrets, I don't think I'm going to make it. Too bad, it's always a good time, but I think I need to rehearse, and maybe go see my fiance's show, and maybe go get pissed off at X3 too.
I can tell you that at this point I have 2 full pages yet to memorize and one scene yet to block. So, that's probably a little more work than I'd like to have with the Columbus preview staring me in the face, but just fine considering I have another week till we open in Cincy.
See you all there!
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A couple of days ago we found out that the performance space at Kaldi's in Cincinnati will be significantly smaller than we anticipated. This initially presented a pretty serious difficulties based on the movement that we'd set for the show thus far. Throwing a chair behind me when the wall is only 5 feet away is just plain a bad idea. So, Dave and I had a couple days of feeling very frustrated.
But, once I got some rest and got a lot of tedious things done (a good way to open your brain up) I started thinking about ways to use the situation to our advantage. This led to an almost complete re-conceptualization of the show on my part. A little crazy at this point, perhaps, but totally necessary as I see it. I re-wrote the opening of the play, too.
The plan at this point involves packing as much stuff as humanly possible into our tiny 8'x5' performance space and using the obstacles to re-enforce the themes of the show. After all, it's all about the absurdity of trying to make art. So, we're going to make that absurdity a little more concrete and present through the physical life of the play. I'm excited and looking forward to a good rehearsal.
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So I took pictures of myself today, attempting to capture one image decent enough to send to the Fringe Festival as a press photo. I borrowed John's digital camera (Thanks, John!) last night and picked up an old typewriter from Actors Theatre of Columbus (Thanks, other John!) and today I cleared some space in my living room to take the shots.
Here are some of the pics that didn't make the cut, in chronological order.
That one's not too bad, but it was just the test shot.
It's not an act, I'm really in pain. That thing was heavy and had lots of sharp edges.
And there were about 20 more that were so bad I won't even put them up here.
FYI, I hung that piece of paper in the corner to make sure I knew where to stand.
None of these were sent in. As for what was my final choice, you'll just have to wait and see.
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I hope those of you watching this appreciate my willingness to humiliate myself. Seriously. When you see me flopping around on the floor in this video, remember, I'm doin it for the art.
Dave returned to rehearsal with a vengeance tonight. He even got me rapping by the end. (Yes, there's some of that on the video as well. Good grief.) I was pretty tired though, and we cut out early.
John Dranschak shot the video and gave some useful advice. Thanks dude.
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The word of the day is tedium. Sometimes you spend 5 mintues of a rehearsal trying to figure out one little detail. Sometimes you spend most of a rehearsal feeling frustrated because you don't know all your lines yet. Sometimes you look back on a rehearsal and feel slightly embarrassed. And then, if you're me, you put it on display for the whole world wide web.
Enjoy the movie.
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Back to work and it feels so good. I failed to mention on Monday that I moved out of my apartment and into another work space at the King Ave. Methodist Church here in Bustown. They've always been good to us and this time is no exception. We have a favorite room on the third (or 4th, depending on how you look at it) floor, way up high. It's the only room on the floor, very isolated, nice and big, lots of windows, and a nice view. We can be pretty loud up there without anyone complaining. It's great to have a place with no distractions, I've really been much, much more productive.
Tonight I had help from both John Dranschak and Ian Short. Hooray! They both manned the camera at times, and they both helped direct me through a scene on which I had done no work whatsoever. It was the only scene in the show with which I really had no idea what I was going to do. Ian even did some ViewPointing with me, which was GREAT. That's the part in the video where we're running and falling over each other.
So, yes, there's some video. It's long, too, since we've been doing without for a while. I also tried to trace the process a little more clearly, since we used it so well this evening.
Warning: I got a little cross-fade crazy on this one. Sorry, but it's 2:33am, I'm getting on a bus for the Chicago Hip Hop Theatre Fest in less than 7 hours, so I'm not re-editting the video. But, I hope you enjoy it.
See you next week.
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How do people rehearse alone? Seriously, I know some of you out there do it, but I just can't get used to it. Lucky for me, herr direktor extraordinaire, John Dranschak, stopped by for the last 45 minutes of my rehearsal to save me from certain disaster. I'd spent the first 90 minutes running around in circles, struggling through my lines, and shouting off that list of names. I'm getting pretty good with most of the lines and movement I've rehearsed so far, but I'm ready to move on to some new material.
John is very insightful, and he and I work well together, since our collaboration goes back almost 20 years now. (JD & Slay, Est. 1988) Okay, I need to take a minute to deal with my age.
Okay, that's done.
JD was most complimentary about the part I'm most nervous about, so that was very comforting. It was great to get concrete notes and have someone with an objective eye tell me that it doesn't look like a total mess. Another month of work and it might just be worth seeing.
Next rehearsal is Wednesday. I promise some video, over hell or high water.
Oh, and if you're reading this - thanx.
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Dave and I went back into rehearsal tonight after a bit of a break. We've got the first four scenes pretty well sketched out, and we have concepts for 3 or 4 others, including a bit of audience participation, which is always scary to think about. Hmm ...
Then we went to Stauf's coffee shop to work on the script. We've had about 7 drafts of the script already. Not all of them are radical departures, of course, the last 4 have just had minor adjustments to a few scenes at a time. Tonight I rewrote one scene completely, made major edits to one, and trimmed the fat from a couple of others. I also re-wrote the rap yesterday. (Did I mention there was a little hip-hop?)
A lot of the script-work at this stage, at least the way we've been working for the last year and a half, is just that - trimming the fat. We're always trying to clarify the thought, the logic, and at the same time cut-out as many unnecessary words as possible. One of the great challenges is to do both at the same time. But, I enjoy it. It feels good to look at the word-count and see that you've dropped 432 words or so. And then it's even better when you read the scene over and find that it makes more sense and moves better as well. There's definitely some satisfaction in that.
Well, more to come. We'll bring the videos back next week.
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Wow, can you believe we're already at video number three? Time really flies. It really does.
Well ... anyhoo ... we rehearsed at my apartment tonight, which is just about the right size based on the spaces we'll be in. Dave started to cook up a little sound, and he gave me a beat to practice rapping to. I'm very excited.
Thanks to John Dranschak, who shot the video.
PS. Yes, John's okay.
Well, we had our first rehearsal for The Absurdity of Writing Poetry last night. We did some good work. Dave and I are trying to figure out how to go about creating a one-person show without a director in the room. It's actually made a little more complicated by the ViewPoints techniques and the ways we're used to using them. So, we soldiered on and we're learning as we go.
Of course someone (Brant Jones - thanx Bubba!) was in the room with a camera, and try as we might, that did make it a little different.
So ... here's 3 minutes of video. Enjoy.
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This is our first video weblog entry. It's not much, but here we go.
Quicktime required.
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Well, I've just confirmed that The Absurdity of Writing Poetry will be performed at the 2006 Cincinnati Fringe Festival, May 31-June 11. Guess we better get started.
(Matt dials the phone.) Dave? Whatcha doin tonight?
First up is The Absurdity of Writing Poetry. It's a play about making art and not making art and how that can all be pretty challenging sometimes.
It is the unoffical follow-up to The Pursuit of Happiness and A Lonely Crowd. It has a lot of poetry in it, a little bit of hip hop (believe it or not), and I'm hoping it will be fulfulling artists and non-artists alike.
How about an excerpt? Let's see what I can pull-out for you.
It begins as a lump in the throat - like a homesickness. You go to a far, secluded place, mentally, ideally physically as well. Or you go to a coffee shop, to be surrounded by activity. You put on the familiar trapping - pajamas. For me, a black t-shirt, beaten-up pants and one of two button down shirts, which are exactly alike in every way except their color. Many people think these are the only clothes I own. The point is, to find a space and make a home for yourself and your work.That done, you can begin, as always, with the same question, "Where to begin?" The answer, as always, "Start as you mean to go on." Well, of course.
Thus, in the name of:
bogart, picasso, HURSTON, kandinsky, LENNON, KHALO, warhol, WHITMAN, hemmingway, dylan, neruda, stein, BALDWIN, GINSBERG, eisenstein, parker, gillespie, fitzgerald, armstrong, HOLIDAY, DAVIS, COLTRANE, mingus, monk, JOPLIN, beckett, havel, elliot, kerouac, ferlinghetti, motherswell, styll, olivier, brando, dean, SHAKESPEARE, rushdie, keats, rakim, kweli, def, RACHMNINOV, ELLINGTON, GAYE, HENDRIX, PLATH, RUMI, FELLINI, truffaut, goddard, LA ROCK, MARLEY, SHAKUR, brook, lepage, joyce, kushner, kertesz, oe, coatzee, mossman, mcewan, foster wallace, barth, eco, crane, sandburg, rich, reed, cale, byrne, eno, ramone, strummer, mitchell, micheline, lerner, levy, baraka, pollock, waits, mailer, marquez, cassady, burroughs, gaines, estep, scott-heron, bruce, hicks, pryor, pinero, cohen, nabokov, evans, ellison, sim, mucha, cobain, kuti, copeland, bernstein, cage, gould, mahler, elling, sondheim, redding, simone, vaughn, cooke, wonder, charles, jagger, richards, kundera,woolf, rauschenberg, monet, manet, seurat, growtowski, boal, graham, balanchine, robbins, de mille, meisner, ailey, cunningham, oida, foreman, chaykin, winterson, cervantes, murakami, ishiguro, kurosawa, gilliam, herzog, foreman, bergman, bunuel, almodovaR, kobayashi, fugard, sontag, carver, pessoa, conroy, faulkner, woolf, plath, blake, rimbaud, proust, twain, bangs, Symborska, kafka, donne, blake, wordsworth, shelley, dickenson, yeats, marlowe, kafka, and pound
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This page contains an archive of all entries posted to Available light [theatre] in the Adsurdity of Poetry category. They are listed from oldest to newest.
A Lonely Crowd is the previous category.
Dead City is the next category.
Many more can be found on the main index page or by looking through the archives.
