We have survived tech

I am falling in love with my show all over again.

Seriously.

The technical rehearsals this past weekend were astonishingly smooth, thanks in no part to my multi-talented and on the ball Lighting & Set designer and crew. Thank you so much!

And the show is starting to look sooooo sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet!

So get your tickets...Only five shows and only 60 seats (it's a small house).

Info below.


Bellevue College Theatre Arts/Drama
Presents

7 Minutes to Midnight
World Premiere

Conceived and directed by Dennis Schebetta developed with the actors

Stop Gap Theatre
Nov. 14, 15, 21, 22 - 8:00 pm
Nov. 20 - 7:00 pm
$10 Students, $12 General

Buy Tickets early at Brown Paper Tickets


Please join a panel of BCC scientists, and the artists for a discussion following the Thurs. Nov. 20 performance.

Are you ready for that great atomic power? On July 16, 1945, the Trinity test in New Mexico awakens the Greek God Kronos (otherwise known as Saturn). After killing his father and devouring his own children, he was banished to the underworld by his son Zeus and is just waiting for the end of the world which will set him free. The dawning of the atomic age means the time draws nigh. Using text, movement and music, this ensemble-based play weaves together several stories from 1945 to now, showing Oppenheimer and other members of The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists as they try to warn the military and others about the impending cold war and the arms race. It examines the "nuclear" family of the 1950s, the fear of the 1980s, and how millions grew up under the shadow of a mushroom cloud. The clock is ticking for us all. Kronos is waiting, certain of mankind's destruction. What are you waiting for?

For more information about The Bulletin and The Doomsday Clock, check out the website: www.thebulletin.org.

Bellevue College is located at:

3000 Landerholm Circle SE
Bellevue, WA 98007

This is interesting

I think this map is interesting, given the most recent election...

Note to self: DO NOT move to any of these areas of the country.

Wrong Turns

We are in the home stretch here of the show 7 MINUTES TO MIDNIGHT (opening November 14th, next Friday, get your tickets now by going here--okay, here endeth the plug).

The most important thing of any show is the beginning.

This is true for writing a play, screenplay, novel, what have you. Its especially true if you're a director. That first ten minutes--heck, the first minute--is crucial. Either you grab your audience's attention right away or you spend a long, long time trying to bring them into it...the former is more effective. This doesn't mean you have to open with some huge TV serial killer moment or shock the audience or placate them or hit them at the lowest common denominator. It means that first image, sound, text is going to be crucial. So you gotta get it right.

For the past month, we hadn't gotten it right.

It's not the actors fault--they were actually doing quite well with what we had been working with in the aspects of the opening. But it just didn't fit with the show we were creating. It was too long, too tangential, and not quite as meaningful. It didn't set up the tone for the rest of the show.

We struggled to work with the opening a lot these past few weeks.

I'm proud to say that on Monday night, we found it. Or it found us. Whatever.

It is a simple, beautiful, and appropriate way to start our show...

Yeah for us!

(And man, am I ever relieved as Tech is this weekend...phew!)

But as I said to one actor, "Some times you have to take a lot of wrong turns before you finally figure out which road is the right one."

Just part of the process.

Can a Vote be Rocked? And how would you rock it?

Did you vote?

I'm not going to say who I voted for (Obama), or tell you which candidate I think is best (Obama), but I do think (Obama) that it is time for change (Obama) and that no matter which candidate (Obama) you vote for (Obama), you need to have your voice heard (Obama).

Get out the vote.

Wassup 2008

True.

More fun with random poetry

From Walt Whitman:

Now for the last--let me look back a moment,
The slower, fainter ticking of the clock is in me;
Exit, nightfall, and soon the heart-thud stopping.

Something in the Zeitgeist

[These are not pictures from my show. Photos are of Mike Daisey from his performance of How Theater Failed America and from the recent NYC production at the Met of "Dr. Atomic".]

It seems everyone is doing a show about the atomic bomb these days.

I already knew that the Met in NYC was opening “Dr. Atomic”, a new opera by John Adams with libretto by Peter Sellars, taking excerpts from government files and other research. That show, which got a really interesting write up in the NYTimes is more about the creation of the bomb and Oppenheimer’s work on The Manhattan Project (taking a very Faustian approach).

But then I just read that Mike Daisey opened his latest monologue show at Joe’s Pub in NYC called “If You See Something Say Something”. The title is taken from a host of public service ads on the NY subways. I remember seeing them all over the place, sometimes accompanied by a photo of a lone briefcase on a platform (because there might be a bomb in it, get it?).

Here’s an excerpt from the review today by Charles Isherwood:

Mr. Daisey’s ambitious new show traces the philosophical roots of our metastasizing contemporary security apparatus back to the early days of the cold war, when the newly energized war machine was kept in a state of tense alert, the better to rout the Commies should they suddenly spring into action and swamp American shores.

It’s a smart, provocative thesis. Mr. Daisey argues persuasively that the heightened security measures enacted by the current administration echo the Red Scare tactics of the 1950s, when the fear of Communism caused some serious erosion of the ideals enshrined in the Constitution. It has certainly been suggested — and Mr. Daisey adds his voice to the chorus — that the “war on terror” is having side effects similarly toxic to the moral health of the nation.

You can read the entire review here. .

What I find fascinating is that unlike the opera “Dr. Atomic” which focuses on the story of the bomb’s creation, Daisey is, like me, more interested in the current echoes of the cold war with the present day. He seems to compare the heightened security measures of those two eras, especially those in major U.S. cities post-9/11.

From the review he seems to work from an honest place of fascination with the test site in Los Alamos, NM. The Trinity test site is where 7 Minutes to Midnight starts as this is the event which awakens Kronos, signaling him that it’s the end of the world and freedom awaits. In similar fashion, we move forward in time, examining how the atomic bomb affected us in the 1950s, the 1980s, and even now in the present day. And we’re using the myth of Kronos as a lens in which to see these differing times, taking a more abstract approach to the stories.

I admire Daisey for taking on the bomb and I know that his raconteur-ing (that is a word I think I just made up) will add interesting personal commentary to a subject much in need of talking about.

I feel like perhaps we are only now coming to grips with what the legacy of the atomic age means to us now. What does the future hold for us in this world of nuclear weapons and mass destruction. It’s been sixty three years since that first test in Alamogordo on July 16, 1945.

It’s like the world has PTSD and is only now starting to sit down with the therapist and say, “Holy crap, what did we just invent?”