What more than one character??!!

I spent some time this morning formatting and tweaking my new solo piece, which I think I will call Sacred Ground. At any rate it's the two hander I've been taking to the Fringe this winter and it has been getting nice feedback . . . so I think I am going to get it ready to send to the Abingdon Theatre, to see if it flies with them. They have a nice development program, which Where the Rain Never Falls benefitted from. They do a reading and then a staged reading and if they think it'll fly it moves to a production . . . I think it was the technical aspects of Rain that killed it there . . . at any rate, we'll see what happens.

Bette's 'review'

I forgot to mention in my previous posting that I got a real good omen yesterday morning: when walking the dog I found a $20 bill in the middle of the street!

Here is Bette's posting from Facebook about last night's performance of The Red Hand Of O'Neill:

I wish you guys could have seen Ric as O'Neil's father. Try acting in a one man show (1) that had 19th century references, vocabulary and syntax; (2) was historically accurate; (3) was non-linear; (4) was both funny and tragic; and that you wrote yourself. People loved it. He was amazing. (And as his most severe critic, I oughta know!) Oh well, maybe next time


Thanks Bette.

Red Hand performance!

Last night's performance of The Red Hand of O'Neill exceeded my expectations. Especially in light of the fact that the previous two night's rehearsals had not left me feeling all that good about things. Thursday I rushed from work into the city, rehearsed with Wallace for a couple of hours and then went straight to the tech. Tech can be a strange thing in the best of times, and One Man Talking makes it very easy, great folks . . . so we did our tech and then the run through . . . whether it was the new space (after rehearsing in my living room mostly)or my exhaustion . . . it felt flat and just plain wrong. Got home about 12:30 AM up for work the next day, so when I ran it for Bette Friday night, exhaustion again took it's toll and I was happy to get through the damn thing . . . it would have been easy to throw up my hands and surrender to giving a less-than performance, but I decided I'd be ready . . . one way or another . . . I had spent the previous few days concentrating on the performance, I decided Saturday would be spent making sure the lines were right . . . all the work that Bette and Wallace had done with me was really good and helpful . . . I had to trust that structure and make sure the foundation was solid . . . so first thing after my run on Sat. morning I read through the script. Then in the course of the day I went upstairs and ran the show a couple of times . . . by the time we left for the city I felt prepared.

When we got into the car to leave I told Bette: I'll either return carrying my shield or lying on it . . . at any rate, once I got on stage it felt natural and good. Just the right balance of bombast and drunk for the character, all of which is covering his tragedy, which comes out ultimately. There we one or two line blips, but nothing major . . . no flat out blanks, where you don't know what comes next. It was magic, for me, and Bette and Lisa both liked it a lot, and both are honest folks who would tell me if it sucked.

All in all a worthy experiment. I did the piece in the first place because it seemed like a stretch, and it was . . . and boy did it work. Now? Onward. A reading of my new solo piece on the 31st, maybe it'll be my next OMT shot.