I didn’t have hardly anything to do on Friday, a welcome breather before the show’s home stretch. Eliot’s typical role as show-facilitator was trumped, for this one episode, by Best Buddy, our douchebag Big Brother wannabe. This show was a technically complicated one made all the more difficult by our inability to do a real tech/dress run in the theater. We also had some pretty dark pieces (finally), which may have alienated some of our audience but ultimately aligned with what we wanted to say about The System. Our guest comedian, Baratunde Thurston, ended up being a perfect fit, and gave the audience a much-needed break from our Best-Buddy-altaverse. He did a killer set. By the end of the show we’d touched on many facets of the system—education, politics and government, social order, the law—without veering into the land of heavy hands.
A small taste of Best Buddy…
As these shows come together at the last minute, it’s often surprising to see how many threads and themes emerge in our material. On Friday, one of our threads was Mel Gibson. Who knew he was such an integral part of The System?
Not much to say about the money show. Full house again (yay), but whether it was due to the audience’s age, disposition, or post-Thanksgiving haze, we had to wake them up with a cattle prod. By the end of the show they were on board—except for the poor old folks who hated rap, and so hated the Will Smithian ditty that ended our show. I got some decent feedback from friends in the audience, despite feeling like the two sketches I wrote and directed completely tanked. C’mon, people, suicidal talking bananas are funny! Right? Right?!
Happily Pope’s ode to the glass ceiling went over well:
I checked out for a lot of the show, which was a small problem because I was on stage for much of it. As noted earlier last week, I lost my job on Monday, and many of the filmed bits we played on Friday took place in that office. I found it hard to focus. Today marks my first week of pavement-pounding and resume updating, and all the despair that these things entail. Although I’ll be posting (whining) about the job hunt pretty regularly on this blog, I won’t be writing about the circumstances that led to this situation. Indeed, many of them are still a mystery to me. It should be sufficient to say that my severance paperwork also included a non-disparagement agreement, a wise move on their part.
Onward. Upward. There must be a job in Boston that synergizes my creative and professional talents. I can only hope it pays.
My father found this photo of H.P. Lovecraft in a book. Usually when I’m told I look like somebody else, I chafe. In this case the similarities are undeniable.
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