we are approaching the remaining two shows of the NYC production of “Lydia’s Funeral Video,” part of the 12th annual New York International Fringe Festival (FringeNYC), a production of The Present Company. You will be pleased (or pissed, if you don’t like me or the show) to know that the festival thus far has been going very well, and director Thomas Connors & I, along with Authorized Company Representative Daniel Simon (you don’t mess with the Authorized Company Rep, by the way) and light/sound designer/operators Anton Delfino & Whitney Mosery are quite enjoying ourselves.

RANDOM BLOG INTRUDER: No one’s interested in your uninspired summary. And when are you going to start blogging regularly? This shit is pathetic.

i’m sorry you don’t approve, but i think, sometimes, being unpredictable and adding posts at irregular intervals makes this site even more fascinating and compelling.

RBI: Not really. But carry on.

i see you’ve started capitalizing the first words of sentences, as well as first person singular pronouns. impressive.

RBI: I don’t take kindly to sarcasm.

anyway, we are fortunate enough to have two new online reviews of the show:

Lingual Tremors Blog (NYC):
http://fervidus.typepad.com/lingual_tremors/2008/08/lydias-funeral.html

NYTheatre.com (NYC):
http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/fnyc08_rev.php?0=S&1=441

thanks much to these kind folks for blogging about the show.

after a grueling week of rehearsals for LFV, director tom and i sit down for a gchat conversation. join us, won’t you?

[here begineth gchat]
8:53 PM me: get on chat bitch.

8:55 PM finally.

8:56 PM i think this is a better idea than exquisite corpse.

gchat has more authenticity.

like Lydia’s Funeral Video. ALso authentic.

clearly, i type more quickly than you do.

Thomas: Very authentic. Paticularly today’s rehearsal

me: today’s rehearsal was quite eye-opening, actually.

8:57 PM Thomas: There are times, and they are growing in number, where the acting stops feeling like acting and becomes very real. This is exciting to watch.

Today’s rehearsal: eye opening how?

8:58 PM me: because i think at the start of the rehearsal (and actually, this process has been going on all week), i wasn’t trusting the characters to speak for themselves

(on a subconscious level, of course)

it was cool to feel that as a performer, i don’t need to force anything – which i think i was doing a little bit without realizing it
it’s the whole character versus caricature question

8:59 PM Thomas: Sure

me: on the one hand, outlandish extreme caricatures ARE funny and arresting and engaging, and i think i did a lot of that in the first run

which made sense, because the play was really fresh

but now it’s had some time to breathe, and as a director, you’re bringing out a lot of the nuances and the depth in each character that we didn’t have the time to address in the first production – not as much

9:00 PM Thomas : Well, the earlier incarnations had their uses.

For one thing, you’re very comfortable with these characters’ voices and physicalities now

You know how they sound

and you’re using it

9:02 PM And so now that we have specific actions and needs for each character and a sense of what they all desperately, desperately want…

9:03 PM You’re able to play these actions in their voices and mannerisms in a way that’s interesting, quick, and real.

So we sort of have the best of both worlds…

Distinct, real needs

And unique, distinguishable characters

All this in a solo play. That’s impressive.

9:04 PM me: it had better be.

Thomas : Oh yeah

New York audiences

They’ll eat us alive if they don’t like it

Good thing they will

me: yes. mediocrity not celebrated anywhere, i don’t guess.

9:05 PM
Thomas : True

Let’s brief our readers on where we are with this, shall we?

Readers:

To date we have worked on each of the play’s scenes individually

and run it through in sections, though not yet in its entirety

It’s in that second draft stage

Tighter, leaner, meaner

Not fully nailed down yet but getting there

Tomorrow Sam goes back to SF to take care of other artistic business (traitor).

9:07 PM me: (distance makes the heart grow fonder)

Thomas : When she returns, we go about the business of nailing everything down, working on transitions, scene changes, etc.

Then tech

me: (and totally hones the performing muscles)

Thomas : And then our show!

me: (and then we drink)

and we’ll have a trailer up soon

which you’ve been editing

9:08 PM Thomas : YES

That goes up on Sunday

me: it has some of the music our composer Kendall Li created

very exciting.

and we get our final postcards next week, too

Thomas : They’re foxy

me: i think so.

9:09 PM okay, i guess it’s about time we put this gchat to bed.

or took it out back and shot it, or something.

Thomas : Look for our trailer on Monday!

me: should we say anything noteworthy, memorable, and/or profound as a closing?

Thomas : Just take a look at the trailer. It will answer all your questions about the show. It’s there for your viewing pleasure

Signing off

9:10 PM me: okay, i guess we could also say something forgettable. signing off. thanks for reading.

In preparation for the FringeNYC production of Lydia’s Funeral Video, director Thomas Connors and writer/performer Samantha Chanse convened a Secret Meeting to discuss the show, the characters, the production, and the Significance of the Universe. Below is an excerpt (a Whiskey and a Cigarette exclusive!) of the conversation that transpired between Tom and Sam this evening.Thomas Connors (TC): It’s getting late and between the two of us we’re a bottle of whiskey drunker than we were just three hours ago. We’ve spent the past four hours on Sam’s roof, arguing about everything from what the show is really, like really, about to where each character fits into the show. And finally we’ve arrived at answers we’re both happy with — it’s about choice–

Samantha Chanse (SC): –but it’s also about purpose (I can use italics as well as you can, mssr. directeur) and wanting and finding a purpose. (also, we’re only half a bottle of whiskey drunker than we were three hours ago, since it was half full when we started.) But in addition to the general themes, the piece is also a cautionary tale, as well as a (dare I say it?) coming of age tale. But an unconventional kind of coming of age tale, I think. Do you agree?

TC: I see we’re getting stuck in a blogging version of exquisite corpse. Yes, I do agree with all your points. Although coming of age is a little too reductive — it makes it sound like once the right choice is made, all will be gravy, and neither of us is interested in something that simple, I don’t think. It is about growing up, and about standing up, though, so in that respect it fits. Certainly it taps into something so universal that even though I have very little in common with your main character, I felt an immediate and real empathy with her, even though she does some dumb things. A whole bunch of dumb things, actually.

SC: Your mom does dumb things.

TC: Well, that’s all we have for you fine folks tonight! The point is that underneath all the joking and the barbs, we’ve unearthed something really meaty and universal that I think is really interesting. Tomorrow we start the more meat and potatoes work of getting Sam on her feet, inflamed Achilles tendon and all. In other words, tomorrow she begins working while I sit on the couch and fan myself and say things like, “Do it again, but better.” We’ll see who’s laughing then.

SC: My inflamed Achilles tendon wasn’t meant for public consumption; thanks, old friend. But I agree with you that this is a very exciting and complicated show, with no easy answers, in spite of the easy jokes, and for me it’s kind of a dream come true to be doing this show in our hometown. I just hope people show up to share the dream. Otherwise it’d be kind of depressing.

hey all.

my solo play, Lydia’s Funeral Video, was accepted into the New York International Fringe Festival, and there will be five performances of the full play at an undisclosed location in NYC between August 8 and 24, 2008. !aiya! how exciting.

for those of you who don’t know, i was born and raised in NYC, although i’ve banished myself to the west coast these last seven years, so this Fringe festival represents something of a homecoming to me.

and one of the very best parts of all this is that filmmaker and director, and dear friend from high school, Thomas Connors, has agreed to apply his considerable skill & talent to directing this show. both Tom and i are honored to have recently had Daniel Simon join the Lydia Fringe crew as technical director and the Authorized Company Representative (ACR), which sounds like, and actually is, a mysterious position of Awesome Significance.

anyway, we will hereby be blogging about the development of this production. Tom will be starting it off – here is his first post about the show (dated June 24, 2008; i was late in my response. feel free to send me hate mail).

Blog 1: from director Thomas Connors (June 24, 2008)

Here’s what we’ve been up to lately: talking. Lots of it. After all, this is a different production from the Bay Area show and so Sam and I have been carefully going through every aspect of the show and parsing what we want to keep from that production and what we’d like to try differently. And we’re finding quite a bit of both. The first run went over like gangbusters but we’ve also done some paring down and as we muddle through our first conversations about the play we’re both discussing things about the production we might like to change. Rehearsals don’t officially start until July 1 and the really meaty, on-our-feet work begins then – right now, it’s more picking at it, arguing anything that needs to be argued, and making sure we agree on the fundamental direction. So far it’s going great.Also, we’re doing marketing. Lots and lots of marketing. This is the part of the show where we go out and drum up business so both Sam and I and our awesome new tech director Dan Simon are throwing ourselves into getting the word out to as many places as possible. It helps a lot that we have one very well received run under our belt that we can refer to, as this lets people know that the show’s already been through the ringer once and came out fine…

Back to work. We’re going to try to make a pretty comprehensive survey of this whole Fringe process, so check back in soon.

– here concludes Tom’s post–

and, for your viewing pleasure, here’s the advertisement image we submitted for inclusion in the official FringeNYC program guide: