My Dalliance With the Theater
As I slowly recover from the hectic few weeks of the one-act festival my play was in (and made it to the finals of!), I want to make sure I take the time to express my immense gratitude for the great job and hard work put in by my cast. From left to right: Noel Dinneen, Nikki Van Cassele, Matt Klan(e), Jennifer Spragg, and there's me on the right. We did 7 performances in 17 days, with 48 hours notice for our first Round 2 performance, and 14 hours notice for the finals, which involved two shows this past Sunday, the first of which started at 11 am. Yeah, I didn't know there was an 11 am on Sunday either.
It was a great experience putting this show up and I had a blast working with such a talented cast. And since the play is about a bunch of mid-level corporate types who've all just gotten fired, I was glad we could stage it in a timely manner. The audience response was wonderful (except for the last show where they just looked confused, perhaps it was too much business jargon for a Sunday afternoon crowd) and the feedback we received was really positive.
It was interesting though seeing some of the differences between the standup world and the theater world. The biggest I noticed was dealing with time. In the standup world you stick to your time or you're not considered a professional. When there's a showcase or festival, time is strictly regulated: a red light in the back of the room flips on when you have one minute left in your set, and it starts to blink when your time is up. If you go over your time by two or more minutes, they cut the mic and the lights. In other words, you get your ass off stage on time.
Now I understand there's got to be a little more leeway in the theater world--a cast can't spontaneously edit their piece the way a standup can--so a few minutes grace is to be expected. But man, oh man, there were some pieces that were consistently over a half hour long in a festival where the time limit was 20 minutes.
Perhaps it's just my years in the standup world that have turned this into a pet peeve of mine, and I won't get too worked up about it because the slight inconvenience in no way takes away from the great experience I had with those wonderful people in the photo above.
So Thank You cast of Blowing Bubbles! And a hearty Thank You to everyone that was able to make it out to see the show! You helped make it the success that it was.
posted by Rob P. @ 12:41 PM
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