The THE FUGUE CODE Blog!

New show - new blog!

2008-01-23T19:04:00.000-07:00

For those of you who have some sort of..."feed". Like, where you'll get some kind of hacker notification that I posted something else on this blog. Um, I don't really understand those things. Anyway, I'm writing this post to get your attention out here from my little cybertuffet and let you know that I've started a NEW blog! About my new, upcoming, in-development Fringe show, "Old Growth"!

I'm sure you kinda folks like to see full addresses instead of just links. Bring on the code!

http://www.AlexEddington.com/blog/oldgrowthblog.html

The rest of the "Old Growth" pages on my website (www.AlexEddington.com) are in development.

Enjoy - and see you in your respective cities this summer!

Alex

against the wall

2007-09-19T15:33:00.001-06:00

Did you know that half of Washington State - the "Evergreen State", mind you - is desert? Desert carved by heavy floods toward the end of the last ice age. Desert without cacti. Desert with columnar basalt sticking up out of it. I feel like I'm in California crossed with Scotland.

Fringe is finished, and we're on our way back by a roundabout route. Yesterday was the first time since the beginning of June that I have set Acky the Volvo on an eastward course - except perhaps for the ferry trip back from Vancouver Island. We've decided to swing into the Shoulder of America (my term) to visit my cousins in Othello WA, before swinging back up into Fernie BC and sliding the Frank Slide all the way to Calgary and the badlands before finally settling into a responsible south-eastward progress of eight hours of driving or 1 major city per day. The other two Torontonian companies of our acquaintance who are driving home - "Dickens of the Mounted" or "Tale of a T-Shirt" - are doing so in, like, four days. But not us! We are careful, or lazy, or non-eager to enter Real Life or The Fallow Period, depending on how you look at it.

Vancouver was both okay and amazing. Crowds were good enough for me to want to return, despite only getting one very late review in the Georgia Straight. What was amazing was the weather - 12 straight days of sun and 20 degrees (my favourite temperature) and how much fun it was to perform in an intimate space to small crowds who laughed and gave me their support for an hour. Five out of six times, at least.

Goodbyes are hard. Alison couldn't leave until she'd performed a specific (even ritualistic) one with Penny Ashton ("Hot Pink Bits") and once completed, she could not reenter the bar and risk a post-goodbye encounter. The performance poet Jem Rolls threw me playfully but forcefully against a corrugated iron wall (which is the only vertical surface to be found on Granville Island) and told me to stop being so smart! But to keep producing the crazy shows. This final night behaviour is apparently not atypical for the generally un-touchy-feely Jem, who picked Alison up and swung her around BOTH this year and last at the close of Vancouver Fringe. "Dishpig" star Greg Landucci reports being playfully, but firmly, slapped.

Oh, I have drummed up my CBC performer blog from Winnipeg Fringe this year, and I will post it on my site. Look here.

Wik. I'll tell you more about the trip home soon...

I don't wanna

2007-09-07T11:08:00.001-06:00

I see it as no coincidence that we left Courtenay the day after Labour Day, the very morning that Alison's two teenaged cousins were heading out the door to their first days of grades 12 and 8. I felt the same way that I suspected that they did: how can you make me do this? After this amazing, relaxing break, after this time when I had no responsibilities, how can you make me go back there? Except that my break was shorter than theirs.

If we had taken the tour to Victoria, I'd still be running at full guns I think. I was tired after Edmonton, but not impossibly so. Victoria is a relaxing festival - I could have chilled out but I'd still be on my game. But after 5 nights in Courtenay, a rainy day trip to Tofino, and about a thousand photographs of trees, I'm just not in the mood to do another festival!

I've been in Vancouver since Tuesday. We decided to give the Labour Day ferry traffic a miss, which is why we arrived on the same day as our tech. What stressed me out more than that, though, was not being able to check in with my billet until AFTER tech rehearsal - about 11 pm. Turns out though that not only is she night-oriented, but she is greatly experienced in two areas relevant to my planned 2008 show, the Queen Charlotte Islands and mental illness. We talked until after 2:30, and she worked at 9:00. I struggled my way down to Granville Island on the transit and was (and continue to be) upset that there are no transit maps to be had! I think I've vowed to drive from now on. There is SOME free parking to be had near Fringe, if one doesn't mind a bit of a walk. I'm still debating which method of transport is less stressful to me, which is all that matters to me now.

This festival is kind of weird. We have to deconstruct our set between shows (usually we just wheel it backstage). I have to share a washroom with the public! They added a row of chairs since my tech rehearsal that makes the stage space unusably small for my purposes. I don't wanna.

It will be fine, I know. I just have to open the show, and I just have to deal with locomotion for a couple of weeks. I've planned my return itinerary, and it looks like I'll be home near about September 27th!

now with three kinds of stomachs

2007-08-31T23:39:00.000-06:00

I'm in Courtenay BC! Courtenay, to be clear, is PAST Vancouver, halfway up Vancouver island. We finished up Edmonton Fringe on Sunday the 26th with a sold-out show, the third of these that we had in Edmonton this year. I felt like a minor celebrity out on the grounds in Edmonton. Not that "The Fugue Code" was a hit of hits, or even a hit exactly, but to sell out half of six shows and most of the other three felt marvellous. Most of these crowds were great, but the final show (whose 9:00 pm Sunday slot I had been dreading all summer) was the best of the summer. They were HYPER, even in preshow, which is usually a kind of reflective time. People kept coming in and failing to locate seats and I had to play usher and aparently made good comedy of it. There was a wacky charge to the air that night. It was a full moon.

Edmonton was where I remembered that this show is a comedy again. And where I got my fifth four-star review of the summer (actually a "Daniel Craig" in a convoluted Bond-ranking system in VUE Weekly), and my first zero-star review. Zero stars! That's, like, the reviewer went to see the show and nothing whatsoever occurred! No script, no performance, no nothing. Since they obviously saw a show, and an obviously carefully prepared show...well, there's really no explanation. You can't not like a polished show enough to give it zero stars. Zero stars isn't a bad review - it's a laughable review. So my confusion turned quickly to humour. I didn't hide it, I mentioned it in the lineups. I showed people where I had put the zero stars on my flyers - right there, at the top. Oh, you can't see it? That's because there's nothing there! This is how I thicken my stomach lining against the pain and worry that can come with bad reviews.

But as I said, things ended on a really high note, and then we fled for BC. We spent a night in Yoho park, and a night in Kelowna, and then rushed out to Vancouver where we were very surprised to get on the first available ferry to Nanaimo. We broke a Nanaimo bar on the ferry in a spontaneous ceremony. Today we went up a mountain and walked in a beachside forest. We're decompressing. And I need to get my energy up for my last six shows. Vancouver needs me to invest!

hoppity, hop-hop

2007-08-18T21:23:00.000-06:00

Why haven't I written again since coming to Edmonton? We've had 2 shows! We're a third of the way through the run in this crazy town! And Edmonton, I guess, is overwhelming. This is the festival that's like a circus - the venues are connected by what is, essentially, a fairground - albeit sorely lacking a sideshow tent this year. The crowds are oppressive at peak times, especially when I need to get from "my changeroom" (the FTA washrooms - Fringe is sorely lacking an artist green room this year!) to the Walterdale Playhouse (my venue, for the third magical time in a row) in time to perform.

But Edmonton should be old hat. But it isn't. But

The ticketing system has changed everything - audience flow, hence flyering flow, being the most important. Mostly, I like it now. I have constant box office lines to flyer between busy show lines. And I can check sales reports, which today reported a sellout (my first of the summer!) for our 4:30 show. May the 6:30 tomorrow sell as out as its predecessors. May my final Sunday gather more than 8 souls. May no one request an exchange (refunds not aloud). I've heard (and made) some grumbles about the slow lines at the kiosks (satellite box offices) but heck. Heck. There were more sellouts than I've seen before on the first weekend. I think - and hope to see verified - that sales are way up.

I got my fourth four-star review of the summer today! Four squared! And four is my lucky number, as I tell the crowds I flyer. Four main characters, four stars four times, four shows left, sold out the four-thirty. And four is the crucial number of "The Fugue Code" too.

The sellout has got me in a good, good, good mood. Alison and I attempted to celebrate with Ethiopian, but Langano Skies is closed until mid-SEPTEMBER, so it was Tasty Toms for us. No complaints there. I've been eating well and I intend to continue doing so. I feel has hoppity hop-hoppy as the two giant Edmo rabbits I saw in the wet field between the outer venues (the two King Edwards) and the rest of Fringe. These are rabbits dressed for summer - but winter comes to Edmonton closely on the heels of Fringe. Don't think about that. Yikes. But seriously, we've experienced 35 degree temperature swings on this tour. Up and down and up and up and up and way down. On the way home there could be snow. Enjoy it while you can, bunny-buns.

ssssSSSPooff!

2007-08-12T22:49:00.000-06:00

It's been a little while! 10 days!

Saskatoon is done with, and tomorrow Alison and I leave for Edmonton, planning to get there in time to not only pick up the posters from Industry Images, but to poster them - along Whyte Ave shopwindows.

I'm not really all that keen about returning to the big city. Edmonton felt like a small city when I was in it, a bit too small for my Toronto-bred sensibilities. I like to be able to be anonymous in big crowds, big traffic, crowds that aren't mostly middle-class and white - but that's another story. During Fringe, though...I like my life to be kind of calm. Predictable, simple. During Fringe I don't tend to spend too much time exploring a city. I spend most of my time on the Fringe grounds and I like to be able to go home fairly quickly when it's 2 or more AM and I'm tired. And Saskatoon has been great for that. I've been billeted a 5 minute walk from the Oskayak high school, where I was performing! Edmonton will not be like this at all. I'm staying near the Stadium - which is not too far - but Alison is way out at Clareview, the end of the LRT and pretty much the edge of Edmonton. I used to drive my friend Alan home there, and at night I always worried that I would fall out of the city and be lost in endless black prairieness. There are roads near Clareview that lead into nowhere.

And Edmonton seems complicated - big city complicated. There is a new technology-dependant ticketing system. Tickets are more expensive than in previous years and getting them takes more forethought. And we have what may be the worst schedule I've ever seen: opening show first on the opening night, and in fact during the Free For All; half the shows done by the first weekend, two afternoon shows during the week, and the final show in the venue, 9:00 pm on the final Sunday after everyone's given up completely on Fringe '07.

We didn't do spectacularly well in Saskatoon, but we made some money. I'm kind of worried about heading into an overly complicated Edmonton, and a Vancouver where Fringe artists are in conflict with the juried "Encore Series" of hot Fringe shows from previous years, produced by Vancouver Fringe during primetime slots (a conflict of interest over which one Fringe performer (who happens to be an attourney) has threatened legal action). And all the while travelling further from home.

Our final show in Saskatoon was in a perfect, primetime slot, with (for once) no competition with top-selling shows. We had flyered solidly starting the night before. I felt good. But then, it rained - a little. We had 38 people. We never broke the 40 mark in this town. I'm told that the crowds are small, but "Homeless" nearly sold out 6 shows. Sigh. But you can see where my disappointment stems from, and that leads to worry when I see what I'm up against in the next 2 festivals.

The highlight of Saskatoon, as always, was the spoof night. Rob Gee (performance poet from England) nailed my costume and some of my demeanour, trying to play 250 characters (non-actor that he is), "all of them bonkers". We spoofed "Tale of a T-Shirt" by basically performing it again (quirky, even goofy high-energy skit-based show that it is) really fast and making it about the travel of a Fringe van instead of a T-shirt. Spoof night is over 2 nights here - 4-5 hours of spoofing! I don't know how many late nights I had here in S'ktoon (once I recovered from my sickness) but those two were particularly late!

Some companies are talking about pulling out of Vancouver, but I think Alison and I are going to stick with it. We're talking about a show for next year, set in B.C. The place, not the time. So we have some research to do.

S'ktoooooon!

2007-08-02T19:24:00.000-06:00

We have opened at Saskatoon Fringe!

I did NOT feel quite 100% today, by our 5:30 curtain, but I certainly felt better than most of yesterday. The fever is mostly gone and I'm well into the final stage of the illness, which, as always for me, is COUGHING. This is obviously problematic during theatrical performance. But I know that this kind of coughing is, to some degree, psychological. If I want to, I can let the phlegm build up in the back of my throat and not cough at all. I can ignore the tickle. And I did, today, until there was so much phlegm built up that every breath, no matter how light, was something of a wet wheeze that - as the hour-long show progressed - I wanted more and more to expel with a whimsical sound that would sound something like "S'ktoooooon!!" which is of course where we are. The situation was mitigated by getting to cough a bit during my 2.5 minutes offstage, and a bottle of water in the back corner of the stage that I used (always as my Jerome character for some reason) once or twice. On the whole, it was fine - and it's good to be open.

After the show I was accosted by an expert on Baroque tuning systems who enjoyed the show, but accused me (I fear, correctly) of perpetuating the myth that Well Temperament was close to Equal Temperament. And I'm the kind of person who doesn't want to perpetuate myths. I like to create new ones - and most of The Fugue Code is based on made-up history anyhow. I'll think about it.

I'm back...from the near-dead!

2007-08-01T14:52:00.000-06:00

Okay, it's not that bad. But my body has chosen this point between festivals in the middle of my tour to get sick. A summer cold (from summer heat of sometimes 50 celcius in Winnipeg, considering humidity) and fever, the kind that made for 4 hours of sleep last night in 12 hours of resting. My mind kept itself awake with endless lists and logistics, about nothing more substantial than the various lumps in my blankets, as various parts of my core and limbs continually re-evaluated how hot or cold they needed to be. Even without this illness, the 15-or-so-degree drop from when I first arrived in Saskatoon two days ago would have thrown me. (and just for those of you who are intimately unfamiliar with Degrees Celcius, them's big honkin' degrees!)

But I'm now on the mend, thanks to Cold-FX *and* Vega *and* salads *and* Booster Juice *and* Buckley's *and* sleep. I'm not taking chances: in 27 hours I'll be in the middle of my first performance in Saskatoon - performance 22 of 39 or something - and as old hat this show is becoming, every new theatre and new city is a different beast, and I need my head on straight. A little coughing, I can suppress. Fever and imbalance - not so safe for such a wordy and physical show. But I am positive, and thanks to "Foucault's Pendulum" (which I should have read a long time ago, considering that it could seemingly have inspired "The Fugue Code") I'm keeping out of trouble and in of doors.

I haven't posted here in a while, because I've been posting on the CBC Manitoba Fringe Site as an official CBC blogger. Which, just like last year, was great. People read those things - it's publicity and it makes me feel important. Not much else does these days, so I take it where I can get it. But when I come to a new festival (like Saskatoon) braced for unimportancem sometimes I am pleasantly surprised. Saskatoon Fringe has really improved its ways since last year. The programme is free and came out early - the sandwich boards are free to us - advance ticket surcharges are paid for by the buyer, not by us (according to CAFF regulations and unlike, *ahem* Toronto) - and on the whole the vibe seems better. I feel good about our venue (the pleasantly cavernous Oskayak (once "Joe Duquette") high school gym and our techs (one of whom was in that clown funeral show here last year that I loved) and even the odd eye-level lighting hang, which Alison used to great advantage when setting lights in yesterday's tech. I hope for bigger crowds than last year - and with fewer shows, that may well happen.

So that's that. I'm actually feeling well enough to go for a brief walklet. Alison's doing all the publicity work today while I sit around recovering, which is very sweet and very wise considering our two livelihoods depend on my health. You'll hear from me again after we open in Saskatoon! 'til then...

There's a rainbow in Winnipeg

2007-07-15T19:27:00.000-06:00

I've left home - or I'm coming home. Toronto is where I once lived, and where I now (once this tour is done with) live again. But Winnipeg - the 'Peg was where I began my Fringe tour last year. Winnipeg is my favourite Fringe. Winnipeg is full of serious theatre-goers, serious reviewers, serious theatre-goers who are vigilante reviewers. The CBC website is a meeting place for the theatrically opinionated. The Jenny is a free Fringe paper that has its own staff reviewers. The Fringe is contained and buzzes audibly. They like to listen and they like to think.

Toronto was good to us. But the festival is too spread out. Fringe, for me, is a festival of impulse consumption. With every venue a 10 minute walk from the beer tent, in Winnipeg I can make last-minute choices. Buzz can influence the direction and speed of my gait. In Toronto, buzz gets diffused - and is so often biased toward local shows (as is the lottery process for accepting shows, as is the media who only seem vaguely aware that Fringe is something that not only happens in other cities, but is larger and better attended and older and, and...). But we got good crowds. Surprisingly good crowds - like never less than 30, even for our three weekday afternoon slots in a row. I don't know if it was our pre-festival target marketing or festival buzz or all my family friends (hometown advantage), but it turned out alright for sure.

I'm glad, though, to (hopefully) be stepping up the intensity of things in Winnipeg. Here, we can make it bigger, if we make it big. But I won't be back to my home-home until late September. That's some serious instability.

In Winnipeg I'm also going to be a CBC performer blogger. You can check that out here (although...it might be similar to this blog for the length of the W-Fringe. TBC.

Toodles.

buzz and controversy

2007-07-11T06:23:00.000-06:00

Eye gave us 4 stars and a beautiful, sympathetic capsule review. Now gave us 2 N's (out of five) and accused the show of amateurism and even an ugly set.

People seem often very intrigued by "The Fugue Code" when I try to sell it to Fringing lineups, but judging by the audience posts on the Eye website, it can't be everyone's thing. What amazes me is how MUCH it is or isn't someone's thing. I have been people's favourite show of the festival and I have been "the worst by far of 18 shows" that one man has seen. Some come up to me after, even days after, amazed and thankful and full of questions. Some walk out (or blog that they would have walked out had the door been less close to the stage - as though telling me (and all) about wanting to walk out is all that less bad than actually doing it! (I'm anti-walkout for almost anything btw, but others of course feel differently)

It's easy to dwell on the negative. I wanted to build a show that everyone would want to grab onto and follow through to its end, but some people just don't want to take the (admitedly roller-coaster-of-a-) journey with me. But the truth that I need to hang onto is that art is not always for everyone. Entertainment aims to be for all, for now, but art is built to last longer. And (or so I feel right now, with this play) that means building it in a place where people have to come to it to see it. I just don't think that the purpose of all Fringe plays should be universal, immediate comprehension. Music is a mystery and an abstraction, and so "The Fugue Code" is enigmatic, abstract, and apparently to some (who usually assume that their reaction is shared by all around them), insumountably baffled. And people get angry when they see others following and they can't (this happened to me yesterday at "Legoland", for reasons I'm not sure about but partly because I was tired from my own show. And btw I didn't let myself get angry because I remembered that these things are subjective - and that I can't account for the rest of the audience nor even really know what they're thinking).

The real nerves

2007-07-05T20:17:00.000-06:00

I'm in Toronto. I'm in Toronto! I've been eating a whole lot of ice cream from Ed's Real Scoop in the beaches and not thinking too much about the show. Now Toronto Fringe has suddenly started with a vengeance, and I feel a little taken off-guard. Not that I don't trust that the show is still "in" me - Alison and I have done two line-runs where my unconscious mind rattled the thing off with little incident while my conscious mind listened intently, occasionally surprised at witticisms and plot details that it had forgotten. Tomorrow I will make sure my kinetic mind is good and ready as well. Theatre Passe Muraille has the kind of stage you can fall off of.

So I open tomorrow. And I had nerves TODAY. A day ahead! This is new! So if I feel good about the show, if maybe a little out of it due to too much time off performing - and if flyering is going very, very well (good and big and friendly attentive crowds of real theatregoers) - what am I nervous about?

I think it's that my parents are coming tomorrow. Really. i'm 27, and my parents have come to see SO much of what I've performed since I was 7, or 6, or born and haven't they always loved or at least supported it? Of course! But it was almost all music. The last two and a half years, when I was in Edmonton, my performing life changed. I am an actor/playwright more often than not now. Tomorrow I have to convince my parents of a whole other realm of talent, another kind of tough tough life. This shouldn't be something to worry about, but...I've got nerves worse than opening night in Ottawa!

I'll let you know how the show goes. Alison and I have been flyering non-stop these first two Fringe evenings. There's some talk of us, some confirmed ticket holders, and a lot of folk with free tickets in their hands. See you there.

One Down

2007-06-26T07:51:00.000-06:00

Ottawa Fringe came shuddering to a close on Sunday night, and now it is already two days after that, and many since I've written. Why? My girlfriend's in town, for a start. And also, I have to admit, I was and am worn out. Fringed Out. And this is only the first festival.

Why? Because The Fugue Code is a very tiring show to perform. Because it needs a charged-up audience to feed off of, and since audiences here have been small (despite one near sellout - in a 75-seat theatre!) there's sometimes not been as much energy coming back at me as I would hope (though these things are unpredictable, considering that a 13-person 11:00 pm crowd laughed louder than a 41-person Sunday evening). Because Ottawa has this odd way of being unjuried (anyone can get in from a lottery, as is Fringe standard) but judged: there are awards given by a panel of local theatre professionals, which while not as prestigious as a Dora &tc would be mighty nice to have on one's poster. So one worries, and worry tires one. If one is me.

Yesterday, though, I went up into the Gatineaus to decompress on a hike with my girfriend's relatives. In the evening I kayaked lazily on the Gatineau river, rescuing an escaped pool noodle and wishing sweet dreams to a dozing downy mallard en route. Tonight, another relative has a dinner party even further north into Quebec. This is the exact opposite of my life over the last two months: rural, unstructured, not Ontario, physical activity that isn't performing the show. Yes, my limbs can still move in other ways than the show's gestures but they complain a little.

I keep thinking about that snoozing duck. What a big, beautiful, soft butt he had. Some of the nicest feathers are underneath. Is this a metaphor? I don't care.

See you in Toronto, I expect.

yesterday seems so faraway

2007-06-18T09:33:00.000-06:00

Yesterday evening was the third performance of "The Fugue Code" in three days. Today I hurt. The soles of my feet, the tops of my feet, my ankles, my shins, my calves. My right big toe has what may be mini-splinters and what may be lacerations from the stage floor. My left thigh is strained from publicity chalking. My right knee is mysteriously bruised. My shoulders are tense, but that's usual - it's the hurt below the waist that is new to me.

We're halfway through our Ottawa run, and we've only just come out of the first weekend. Today I'm trying to convince myself to take the night off. Today is already almost noon. Response has been good - very good. No reviews yet, and I will post them when they come, but yesterday we had 49 people in our crowd (amazing, I'm told, for a sunday on the first weekend at Ottawa Fringe), including 12 performers who said amazing things to me after. That they would never have considered being that physical on stage, taking such risks, punching characters so much, trying to play four characters at once - but that when I do it, it works. It works, and it's funny and it's entertaining and they followed the story and they laughed and they we engaged throughout. And I must be snorting crack before the show.

We did not know if we could safely expect that people would climb on board and stay with the plot! But it would seem that my hard work makes them work hard too. I'm pretty happy. Alison's pretty happy. Last night felt like the real beginning of the tour. We treated ourselves to a good Italian meal before trundling off to ill-attended 11pm shows.

Friday and Saturday were good too, if a hair loose. I need to remember to spap my character changes quickly. I need to remember to breathe. I need to remember to look at specific people in the crowd. I will breathe as much as possible before our next performance on wednesday at 11pm.

We have a piece of theatre that's worth seeing. I have no idea how it happened, or how I perform it, but perhaps I shouldn't ask too many questions.

good Night, I mean g'mornig imean

encounters with the famous

2007-06-18T09:01:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I met Fringe superstar TJ Dawe. This is TJs first time performing in Ottawa, so, oddly enough, he and I are on similar pages at this point in terms of public excitement about his show. (except for some scripts that he has authored or co-authored coming here before him). Three years ago I saw "Curse of the Trickster" in a huge, packed, hot Edmonton venue, and never forgot his charisma and precision. This year he's performing "Maxim and Cosmo", which are apparently not the names of a Russian guy and a Greek guy, but the names of two respected monthly publications. I still can't shake the idea that it's a show about friendship across the divide between eastern-western Europe and western-Asia-that's-still-really-Europe. Apparently he had a decent crowd for an 11pm last night, and only 1 walkout (he seemed to prefer this to no walkouts, if I read his tone correctly)! Earlier in the evening I met TJ for the first time, in the beer ten entranceway, after years of wondering what he's like offstage. What follows is a transcript of my first encounter with this Fringe heavyweight:

Me: You're TJ Dawe.
TJ: Oh. Who are you?
Me: I'm Alex Eddington. You don't know me, but I've seen your stuff...
TJ: Oh. What show are you doing?
Me: [explains the premise of "The Fugue Code"]
TJ: Oh, are you a musician yourself?
Me: Yes, I'm a composer by training, I've only come to theatre recently. Because of Edmonton.
TJ: Do you know anything about noseflutes?
Me:...yes. I've played them before. I've performed on them.
TJ: I just got my hands on a bunch of noseflutes. [small smile betraying restrained excitement] Would you like to try them?
Me: ...Sure.

And we parted ways, beckoned by beers and shows and friends.

openings

2007-06-15T14:35:00.000-06:00

Tonight, I open "The Fugue Code" at the Ottawa Fringe festival, uncertain of several things. Uncertain my my audience: size, type, responsiveness. Uncertain of tech: although I have a fine stage manager (Alison) and a fine house technician (whom Alison *taught to tech* back at their arts high school), we ran out of time before we could finish a solid cue-to-cue yesterday. Also, the sound system is finicky, and this is an, um, rather sound-dependant show! Uncertain of myself: what will change, and what will stay the same tonight - what suprises will I give myself, despite all the line runs, all the on-its-feet rehearsal?

If I compare my nerves to last year's opening of WOOL, though (in Winnipeg)...I'm a much more put-together person. But WOOL was very personal - it disclosed things - I was ME on stage. Plus, WOOL was put together in, like, 2 weeks.

Yeah, I'm ready. Here's to a new show and a massive tour! Think of me at 9:30.

previews and postviews

2007-06-13T14:07:00.000-06:00

When Alison first sent me our rehearsal schedule, there were THREE scheduled previews for high school students in Ottawa, including one very shortly after our arrival. Despite her insistence that the kids would be in small groups, be drama students, and would have to write something about "The Fugue Code" for their classes, I never quite lost my dread until, for whatever reason, it was revealed that I would actually be giving ONE preview, at the school where we have been rehearing in Ottawa, only 3 days before our actual opening at Ottawa Fringe. So, I would be fairly ready, making this a fair test.

Yesterday, I gave that preview, and now I think I can perform through anything.

It was hot. Very hot. Hot enough that my glasses fogged when I got into my car afterward. Not only had that never happened to me, but I never knew it could happen. The auditorium was not only not air conditioned, but predated airconditioning. This was our second run with movement of the day. And the students were in Grade Nine.

Now, keep in mind that their teacher (Alison's father) told me afterward that some of these kids had never sat still for an hour before. But considering that they are a drama class, it would seem that many of them have no idea how to experience theatre. Was I like that in Grade Nine? No, but I suppose I had been exposed to theatre from a young age.

Mostly, they were good and quiet but unreadable. Hard to make laugh, or slouched, or seemingly distracted. But I had one constant, loud, and apparently peer-supported heckler.

I would say his main transgression was to say "Be a Man!" a lot. Being, of course, already a man, I was mystified by his comments, until I realised that perhaps in his eyes, the two of my characters who are gay (or possibly bi in the case of Antonius but he never tells me) are not exactly men. Matter of opinion, all sorts of reasons like being raised in traditions like Being A Jerk, but certainly not one to share with me OFF AND ON FOR 40 MINUTES WHILE I WAS PERFORMING? I certainly hope that my adult audiences realise that they are not sitting alone really close to a television screen.

Smaller transgressions (supported by neighbouring peers - there was counterpoint) include it's-dark-and-spooky vocal SFX during the blackout scene, and (actually, this was charming if really weird) CHANTING ALONG with a certain pre-recorded character in the climactic scene.

Alison says Grade Nines are like this. Was I like this?

The next day, apparently, one of the members of the class apologized on behalf of the behaviour of others - probably not his own. Sort of like when I'm in choir and I put up my hand and say something to the conductor like "Could you please clarify whether we should be in fact singing the correct pitches throughout the entire piece, because I, personally, am not sure that we actually are."

Now to take the show in front of so-called grown-ups. They don't heckle, usually, but much of the time they've confused Art and Entertainment right enough. (this show won't help)...

feet

2007-06-11T13:55:00.000-06:00

Some of you may be wondering what implications performing barefoot has had on my feet. I know I once wondered that myself. Instead of carrying the usual one-person brunt, my feet now carry 12 characters - or perhaps 6 each - or actually 6 and 5 because, as it turns out when I last counted, I really play 11 characters (will the number continue to diminish throughout the run, as my characters, um, merge or something?).

Simply put, my feet are filthy all the time - but apparently very happy being so! After rehearsals at the Ridgemont High School auditorium they have been actually black, not just the soles but also on the tops of some of my toes as well (I have no memory of walking on the tops of my toes at any point during the show, but I don't remember a lot of how I do what I'm supposedly doing anyway). It takes 15 minutes soaking in a bathtub, an ever-blackening pumice stone and heave-duty body wash (we're talking moisture beads, people) to get *some* (usually about 3/4) of the black off, but I figure that what's left jammed into the wee thumbprint creases etc. won't make it onto my sheets. The bathtub is slowly greying.

At night I put on some Burt's Bees peppermint foot lotion to cool my little ones during their rest. In the morning warmup I stand on a softball to massage my foot muscles. I manually spread my toes. I practice putting weight on the tops of my feet. I use talcum powder. I talk to my feet like they're two old friends in a nursing home.

And all this from someone who used to have trouble remembering that those two things all the way down there belonged to *him*.

Tirednesse

2007-06-08T07:39:00.000-06:00

We did runs of the show each of the last two days - first on the stage of a standard-issue 1960's high school auditorium with an audience of 300 empty chairs - then yesterday in the drama room for Alison's dad: the drama teacher. I went into yesterday's run thinking it would be low key, but somehow bringing more energy to it than I actually have - perhaps because of the apparently delighted high school student who lingered a long while by the drama studio's glass door-window, and even went to get a friend! The runs were good - the show is under an hour - the sound cues are working okay except that a boombox is not the ideal way to cue them or hear them. But now. But now! Last night I collapsed into idle consumption, letting You Tube decide my time for me as I linked from Chriss Angel clip to Chriss Angel Revealed clip. Not the way I like to live, usually, but entirely necessary for those two hours before I got up the strength to soak my blackened feet. I drove to the St. Laurent Centre to see "Fracture" but the mall was closing and there were sketchy dudes around and I couldn't figure out where the theatre entrance was (apparently it's UNDERNEATH - yeah, that makes me feel secure at night with sketchy dudes and a mall that closes at 9:30 pm out of what can only be fear) so I pretended that the suburban drive was all I really wanted, and went home to Farley Mowat (I've been reading a copy of "The Boat Who Wouldn't Float" that a library threw out). I wanted to go to Dows Lake but didn't. I can't get photos on my website to behave properly (sorry! I'll post press and rehearsal photos here at the The Blog if need be). I have a line run in 10 minutes. I have to pick up the posters, and POSTER THEM. The good news is: the sun's out, and I get to look at Parliament all day. The peace tower gives me goosebumps, in a good way.

The show opens in a week! All my publicity mentions this site. Let's hope for more traffic...

'til next,

Alex

TRNT gives way to TTWA

2007-06-04T20:01:00.000-06:00

I just realised I haven't written in a good long while! And that I'm in Ottawa, leeching wireless off of Alison's dining room airwaves. And that the show opens in 11 days - and that there are a few pages on my website whose content has been "Coming Soon" for, like, 3 months. Patience! It's a lot more work than I thought, setting up a site from scratch.

I could already tell by the end of that paragraph that blogging is restful for me and that I should do it more often. Not that I've been impossibly stressed, but there's been a lot going on of course. Of course! I'm working on my first multi-character show, my first actual play-play script. And my first 6-city tour (almost wrote 60-city. Heaven forbid. Where? Minsk? Utrecht? Carracas? Atlantis?).

So what's new? We're in Ottawa. We rehearsed in Toronto at Hub 14 right up until the exact entire end of May, then pretty much the moment I finished (ahem, minus some tweaking to be done when we return to Toronto) the massive 41-cue sound design opus we packed up our personal affects plus a home office and trucked Acky the Volvo sedan on up to Ottawa. By the way. Last year I developed a Fringe tradition of referring to tour-stop cities by four-letter code names. Did I mention this yet? Maybe last year's blog did. OTWA (or TTWA), TRNT (TDOT), WPEG, SKTN (pronounced "S'k'toon"), EDMO, VANC (COUV?). Now, we're here. I'm staying in my very own extremely empty house - the owners are on vacation for a length of time extending before and after my month-long visit - there is nothing upstairs but plaster and drywall and vague pencilled plans for fixtures. I'm sleeping on a pull-out couch in the curtainless back room, my head under a solarium window - it's actually very comfortable. I've set up a road office in the dining room - printer, laptop, press kit supplies, labels, wireless router...except that the ethernet hookup seems to have fled with the house's owners - which is why I'm at Alison's family home, not far down the street in fact.

Toronto! We rehearsed 60 hours in that fine little movement studio, culminating in a pre-preview for an audience of one who had already read the script. So many suprising things for me in this rehearsal period:

- that the perfect costume pants turned out to be the ones I was wearing all along

- that the best solution for storing small props on my body would come from a magic supplies store

- that the show needs to be performed barefoot

- that a script that was once 75 pages can become 27 and still need trimming and still say pretty much the same things but better (actually, I learned this with WOOL last year: specifically that a story is stronger when you don't have the emotional reaction for the audience, but let them have it for themselves...)

- that I can play 12 characters and keep them all straight!

- that I can fall off a ladder in a potentially horrible (but actually pretty much okay) accident because of a hand gesture.

- that I learn line changes very quickly if I write them in by hand, and much less quickly if I dictate them to Alison-cum-Toshiba.

Now we're looking forward to a preview for some Grade 10 drama students on Thursday, and rehearsals at various schools. We open on the 15th of June. TTWA may be the warmup festival for publicity, but I want the show to open with a bang - OTWAns deserve it! And plus, WPEG sends its reviews out to do sneaky early reviews, so if we want to take that city by storm...the real work happens now.

I need to spend some time with the smaller characters. Alone.

'til the next!

Two rehearsals down...

2007-05-09T15:43:00.000-06:00

Yesterday and today, Alison and I rehearsed at our rented theatre space, Hub 14. We've been working on voice and body for all the characters - and there were some surprising discoveries:

- Jerome (the Musicologist) is considerably shorter, older, and more stooped than I expected. Nigel (the Organist) towers over him and is probably (if I can portray it) taller than ME.

- I always knew Antonius (the Conductor) was catlike, but now he almost has a sort of tail, based on the way one of his hands moves.

- Antonius' accent is mostly German, but he sometimes accesses Italian, Polish and Swedish affects as needed. In his own words (if they survive): "I am...pan-Continental".

- Peter (the Singer) sort of has two voices and two ways of moving. There is the unrefined Peter, the son of miners who must not have fit in too well in his Northern hamlet - and overtop is a veneer of class, poise and vocal training that often slips with a crash to the floor.

- the President of the Ladies' Auxiliary Committee for the Classic Music (affectionately known in our circle* as "the Tart Lady") sings! She's not a singer, and her monologue is speech - but it sings! There are tunes in the way she talks - behind it - within it.

- the Dean sounds vaguely like Jimmy Stewart

- the Organ Builder may or may not be Irish (perhaps inspired by a costume jacket that may or may not be green)

- the Bishop, formerly reserved and monotone, suddenly acquired a tremulous bombast that will shake the Cathedral to its core. Like the Tart Lady (see above), his text needs to sing - in this case, infused with the "cross motives" found in much Baroque music...

Tomorrow, we begin blocking! Memorization is...okay. Lots of work ahead. I spent 3 hours in Trinity Bellwoods Park yesterday memorizing my pants off, despite distractions from baseball practice, sexy joggers, and a puzzling man who shook trees and flicked flowers in my vicinity for, like, an hour and a half.

By the way, you can read all about "The Fugue Code" here. Or by clicking on the following gorgeous logo:

* our circle is more of a line

The best Monday ever

2007-05-07T19:29:00.000-06:00

Or was it? I've had some spectacular Mondays before - but usually because they're fun, carefree, &tc. Today was great because it was so productive. And, having just driven my stuff halfway across Canada (ok, technically my parents drove the "stuff" and I drove a nearly empty car), and needing my late-starting May and all its necessary tasks to get off to a smooth start, I was so incredibly pleased to be able to solve a number of problems without ever leaving Queen West.

Even before Alison and I fully greeted each other after a long third-year of trans-Canadian phone meetings, we mounted the stony steps of Malabar costume shop on McCaul Street to pick up our Bach wig! I ordered this a long time ago, after, I swear, two months of searching for the right wig, right price, and somebody actually having it in stock. Then, in rapid succession, Alison and I located and purchased all the fabric for our backdrop curtain (four colours of tulle that together create the impression of old, dusty, tarnished brass), and half of my costume (a handsome goldenrod evening jacket with a greenish sheen, and a deep purple collared shirt - niether of these colours are anything I had even vaguely considered - but they are perfect. Each of my four main characters could pull this outfit off. It looks old, young, academic, fashionable etc. as needed. And here I thought my "neutral" outfit would be black.)

Then we took to Alison's uncle's place off of Parliament St. for a readthrough of some of the script. Tomorrow: rehearsals begin in earnest! And in the space we rented - which we visited today. Big windows (one stained-glass), two fire escape doors to let the air in, large sprung dance floor!

The other joy is that this past weekend at a wedding a new acquaintance offered to take Fugue Code publicity shots for free!

Now that's a Monday...

The blog begins...a bit too early

2007-04-11T22:33:00.000-06:00

Welcome to the The Fugue Code blog! It will be the The Blog to read if you want to follow my upcoming tour in summer 2007 - the The Summer in which The Fugue Code tours 6 cities on the Canadian Fringe theatre festival circuit!

You can learn more about The Fugue Code here...and keep checking back at the The Blog starting May 2007 when TFC goes into rehearsals in Toronto.