Knock Knock - Opening Night week 2

Last night’s Opening Night week two audience was, quite frankly, wild.  The only problem was that I'm not sure we had anything to do with it. They were wild before we even started.  Not sure of the cause but there was a rumor that something in the tequila family was involved.  Proximity to a Mexican restaurant is being investigated.

There were a lot of friends there Thursday and many of them were “theatre people” which is to say that they have worked shows and know what it takes.  The “theatre people” label defines them as being infected with this insidious disease for which we know there is no cure.  While not especially contributing members of society, these are the people you want to see in your audience.

Add to this group of ne’er-do-wells a torrential rain which would have been perfect for a performance of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and you end up with the perfect storm – pun intended.

Control was lost almost immediately.  Frances entered for her pre-show speech (exits, cell phones off, etc.) and the crowd literally went wild.  By the time we actually began the show I was worried because there seemed to be nowhere to go but down.  I am nothing if not a pessimist.

But we persevered and they loved it.  People in their condition can't lie.

Have I mentioned we have a tin roof? 

The first major downpour coincided perfectly with my parable speech early in act 1.  (Was it something I blogged?)  If you want to know what it sounded like, take a large pot from your kitchen, put it on your head then shower under a fire hose while telling a long joke trying not to sound like you’re screaming.

Every night is different. Conditions change performance to performance. Last night was so much fun and so much work.  So much energy flowing among audience, actors and Mother Nature.  Sweet.

Quote of the day
"With despair you feel there's no hope and you might as well die; with realism you feel there's no hope but you get a kick out of it."

Knock Knock - Week 2 begins and some stats

Week 2 begins tonight.  We had a good brush-up rehearsal last night.  No costumes but we ran it pretty much full speed.  It’s hard to go back to having no audience response.  We spoil very easily.

From all reports we should have a large audience tonight and we were only a couple of seats away from a sell-out on Friday.  If you want to come, get your tickets fast.  If you don’t want to come, why are you reading this blog?!

Just a comment on the blog.  It’s a new thing I decided to try and it’s gotten very good response.  Thanks to everyone who has checked it out.

Here’s the breakdown of traffic by country.  Fascinating.

United States 1,027
Russia 38
Germany 15
United Kingdom 9
Japan 4
Canada 2
China 2
Latvia 2
Belgium 1
Italy 1

Knock Knock - Lull before the next storm

Knock Knock had a great first week.  Now we go back to civilian status for a couple of days after doing the play 8 straight days.  In NYC, they would normally do 8 performances in 6 days.  Incredible amount of energy needed to sustain performance level.

The box office is still manned or, more likely, womaned Monday through Saturday from 10am to 1pm and the week's audiences are building on good word of mouth from week one.  Tickets will also be available Thursday through Sunday beginning one hour before the show.  In other words, no excuses.  Buy your ticket(s).

On Wednesday, we’ll have a run through to see how much Teflon activated slippage our brains have suffered during our lull.  If you find any miscellaneous word fragments lying around on the streets, please bring them by the TLT Workshop, 516 S. Trade St., Tryon.  We’ll sort out which words belong to whom later.  We have a machine for that.

Thursday begins our second week. Let the adrenalin flow. 

Knock Knock - Lavin's purple heart

Saturday. We had a great audience on Saturday and tremendous laughter.  Great fun to perform and great response. The show went very well. 

However, the theatre gods struck again deep in the Act 2.  The light board from hell put us all in darkness again.  Apparently it lost all power.  We were able to wait there in darkness for a couple of minutes, then the lights came back up and we picked up where we left off.

The game ball for this performance, however, has to go to Lavin as Abe.

Early on, Lavin began to show signs that something was wrong.  It was only obvious to me but I couldn’t figure out what it was.  At intermission I found out.

At one point in Act 1, don’t ask why, Lavin's character eats a couple of bites of raw spaghetti.  One particular bit of spaghetti managed to pop a cap off of his tooth and lodge itself in his gum.  It makes me cringe just to think about it.

Then, after the show, people are asking Lavin about his eye.  That’s when I found out that in Act 2 he accidently poked himself in the eye with his glasses.  How much must a man endure for his art!

The man deserves a purple heart.

Today is the Sunday afternoon matinee and I seriously doubt if you’ll ever find an actor who looks forward to matinees.  We will do our very best and we will put on a great show but there is just an intrinsically different energy between an afternoon and an evening.  There is an excitement in the air when darkness falls that is just not there in the afternoon.

Case in point, this year’s Daytona 500 was forced to move from Sunday afternoon to Monday night prime time.  The race should obviously always be at night.

It's just so much more dramatic when the jet fuel explodes.

Knock Knock - The theater gods strike back

Friday.  I had meant to write about Friday’s performance sooner but I was prevented from using my computer or sharp objects while I was on suicide watch.  

Now this isn’t to say that it wasn’t a good performance, the audience in fact gave us a standing ovation.  It’s just that things happened.  Evil things.

Early on in Act 1, suddenly the lights went out.  I’ve mentioned before that the gods of theater do not like technology.  Case proven.  Mathew and Mimi were trying desperately to figure out what was wrong and in order to give us some light, they were able to turn on the house lights.  The result of this was that the audience was completely illuminated.  We soldiered on in true theatrical tradition but it was unnerving to see everyone when you’re used to looking out at darkness.

Bottom line was I was thrown off just enough.  I managed to get out the lines (or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof) and no one in the audience seemed to appreciably know the difference.  The lights came back somewhat after a few minutes but the kitchen area was completely dark.  At one point Lavin is in the kitchen and I’m supposed to comment on what he’s doing.  I couldn’t see him at all.

At intermission, the lights were corrected.  Apparently, the new light board we have was made by Microsoft because the answer to every problem is to reboot.

That problem essentially behind us, we started Act 2 with an organizational snafu.  Being under the impression that I had about 5 minutes before we started, I strolled into the backstage area and heard the music that should be played when I get into position on stage already going.  The lights were also down which is my signal to get into place so I rush out and sit in my chair.

Unfortunately, as I’m sitting there, I realize that Lavin, who initiates the action in the act, cannot possibly know we’ve started and is most likely in another part of the building. When lights go up, I am discovered sitting at the table praying.  I can honestly say that I haven't prayed that hard in some time. 

So there I was, alone on stage with the entire audience looking at me and I have absolutely nothing to do.  Exciting theater.  In hindsight, there is a way I could have covered the dead air but my mind wasn't there at the time.

After what seemed like an hour and a half, Lavin came in and the act started.  No harm done apart from my psyche.  At curtain call the audience jumped to its feet and gave us a standing O.  The gesture was much appreciated but there is that nagging uncertainty that there might have been more than a little element of pity involved. 

Knock Knock - Adrenalin rush aka Opening Night

Never worked so hard, had so much fun or was left so exhausted as last night’s opening performance of Knock Knock.  I can’t begin to say how much fun it was.

The audience started laughing immediately and kept it up throughout.  Even our first special effect got a huge response and we had to wait for the applause to subside.  Chris Bartol really revved them up.  He was absolute hysterical -- even more than usual. It was all I could do not to laugh at him and I was doing the scene with him.  Bravo.

Nancy’s first dramatic entrance (I’ll give nothing away) kicked things into another gear.  Just when the audience thinks they’re getting a handle on the show, it takes a sharp left turn.  She was fantastic.

Lavin and I had so much fun.  I spend a good deal of time yelling at and getting yelled at by my neighbor.  The more we do it the more intense it is and the funnier it is, even to us -- in addition to its obvious cathartic benefits.  Kudos, neighbor.

Josh, Lorin and Becky were terrific playing their myriad of roles.  Lorin, sorry about the gun.

It’s a rush, folks, no denying it, with deeply addictive properties.  There is nothing in the world like that kind of adrenalin high. 

It was one of those audiences that you’d like to bottle and perform for every night.  Just wipe their memories each day, give them a few glasses of wine and point them back to their seats. 

Thank you, the Opening Night audience of Knock Knock at the Tryon Little Theater Workshop on April 19, 2012 for that two hour moment of time we shared that will never happen exactly as it did that night ever again.  That is the essence of live theatre.

Tonight, April 20, 2012, we will create another moment.   I wonder what that will be like.

Knock Knock - Opening Night tonight! Then food.

Final dress rehearsal went very well.  The energy was wonderful.  That old saying about having a bad final dress rehearsal is a good sign is basically crap.  But justification is a powerful urge. 

However. 

We (the cast) did, however, inadvertently shorten the play somewhat.  No big deal and I think we were the only ones really aware of it.  So what if we miss a page here or there?  They’re just words after all, right? The audience seemed to really love it despite seeing a slightly abridged version.  Granted they were mostly friends and they got in free but still…

Now we get down to Opening Night.  Capital “O”, capital “N”.  We get to show the fruits of the labor of a small army of people have worked on this project for about eight weeks (and in some cases much longer) before a group of people who are actually paying money to see us do it!  Inconceivable!

As actors not only do we look forward to at last performing before a paying audience, we also look forward to eating afterwards.  Love the Opening Night reception!  We are shallow creatures, I admit.  Offer us free food and we’re there every time, upholding  a tradition centuries old.

I know we have a large audience for tonight.  (Large being a relative term because the Workshop doesn't seat that many.)  I’m not sure about the rest of the week.  It’s a busy weekend with a lot going on in our area including the Blockhouse Steeplechase so we’ll see how it goes.  We know we have a good product and the publicity has been excellent (thanks Monica and Mark) so now we’ll see.  The best publicity in this area (as everyone knows) is word of mouth so hopefully the people that see it will talk it up and we’ll have a great 2^nd week.

I’ve written before about the importance of the audience in a performance.  For us actors, what we get from an audience in terms of positive energy is unbelievably delicious nourishment.   In terms of negative energy, it’s akin to eating earwax. 

Come to Knock Knock.  Come with the expectation of being entertained.  Most importantly, come with an open mind because whatever you might be expecting, this won’t be it!

PS.  We'll all be in a smallish room together.  We can hear you too.  By that I mean that opening a lozenge slowly does not make it quieter, IT ONLY PROLONGS THE TORTURE!!  

Knock Knock - Final Dress tonight

Tonight is final dress rehearsal.  We finally get to perform before people who have not been forced to watch us ad nauseum.  These will be people who have not seen us stumble,  stutter,  shriek at transient spiders and occasionally speak in tongues.  In a way, I’m sorry because  a lot of that was funnier than what was written.

Tonight is invited guests so basically we’re inviting friends as well as people who have worked on the set construction and other thankless aspects.  Tonight we get to thank them and hopefully thank them mightily.

There’s not much more to say so this is going to be a short entry.  Last night’s rehearsal had great energy. Act 1 especially felt very good and was probably the best we had ever done it.  I had a couple of mental stumbles but for most of them I think I was the only one who noticed.  That happens more than you can possibly believe -- in all aspects of my life.

The show must go on.  Please join us.

Knock Knock - Crunch time

We’re getting down to crunch time now and I, for one, can’t wait for an audience.  We have three more rehearsals before we open.  Monday and Tuesday will be the full dress and tech and Wednesday we will have an invited audience to give us a feel for the audience response. 

The one thing that you cannot rehearse is the most important part of live theatre -- audience reaction.   Knock Knock is a smart comedy.   People will laugh.  But when?

What will bring belly laughs at one performance will bring a polite giggle or dead silence at another.  If you anticipate a laugh, chances are you won’t get one.  You can’t let it throw you.  Sometimes you’ll get a laugh at something you don’t even think was funny.  That’s part of it too.

There’s a phrase – “play the laugh”.  In performance when the audience laughs you have to be able to wait – just long enough -- but not too long – for the audience to have that moment.  That’s what they paid their money for. Laughter has its own wave.  It builds, it crests and then it descends.  To make the most of the experience, the actor has to pause long enough to let the audience enjoy the moment and then start again as the wave dissolves.   There is no formula for dealing with it.  It’s all feel.  If a laugh begins and you don't allow time for it, you can actually train an audience to not laugh.  Not what you want when you're doing a comedy.

There are two moments in theatre that are precious.  Getting laughter is a wonderful feeling.  A fantastic adrenalin rush.   All the hard work you’ve done in the previous weeks or months has paid off.

The other and most powerful moment is silence.  Not “the audience is dead” silence.  It’s that moment, that does not always come, when the audience is with you completely and you know that they’re with you in rapt attention. In that moment, there’s not a cough, a rustle of movement, nothing.  No sound but the ferocious energy of silence.  Sweet.

Knock Knock - Golf, Crotches and Trust

First of all, a quick apology.   One of my previous blogs I incorrectly identified some people.   Greg Wright designed our wonderful set.  Set decoration was handled by Greg, Rebecca Davis, Jody McPherson, Mimi Alexander and Matthew Alexander.  Set construction was magnificently done by Bob Richardson’s  wonderful team of builders.  Sorry for the misinformation but blogs are more like Wikipedia than the New York Times.  Will try to do better in the future.

I had what I thought was a wonderful idea yesterday.  At least it seemed like a wonderful idea at the time.  There was a lull in my work and I felt I the need to get outside and clear my head so I called next door to see if Lavin (Abe) wanted to play 9 holes.  With the colder weather, our lawns aren’t growing as fast right now.

It became obvious very early on in the round that we had spent way too much time with our characters in Knock Knock because we played like two men who hadn’t been outside in 20 years.  We discarded the scorecard immediately because it was evident it would exceed our combined mathematical abilities. 

Cut to last night’s rehearsal.  It was going to be a long night anyway and we had to be there are 6pm to get in costume for the first time.  (Nancy, as Joan of Arc, has having particular problems with the crotch in her chain mail which apparently was last used by a hip-hop artist.  How often does that conversation come up?) Food, and there is a lot of it in this show, for the first time. This would also be the first time for our “special effects” which coordinate lights, sound and other stuff which I won’t disclose.  All these have to be timed to work together.  Also, a photographer from an area newspaper was supposed to come and take pictures for a feature on our production.  Lots of new things.

By the time we were able to start the run-through, I was ready for a nap.  It’s not to say we had a bad rehearsal.  Most of it was very good, don’t get me wrong.  I tend to be self-critical to the point of suicidal.  I missed a line very early on that I had never missed before.  That happens and I could live with it.  What bothered me is that I couldn’t think of a way past it.   I knew what came next but I couldn’t figure out what my character could say to get us there. 

Live theater requires a huge measure of trust.  Trust in yourself, in your fellow actors, technicians, stage crew, set crew, everybody.   It is the ultimate team sport.

For the actor you need to be able to trust in yourself that whatever happens you have the presence of mind to think your way out of it and move the show forward.  And if you’re lucky, the audience will never know.  To do this you have to know the show thoroughly.  You have to sort out in a nanosecond where you are, what’s important as part of the story, what’s next logical point to go to and how do we get there.

To accomplish this you need focus -- something which I failed to bring with me that night.  It won’t happen again.

Again, 95% of the run-through was very, very good.  Even some of the 5% ended up being funnier than what was written though Jules Feiffer might not agree.  When you can make people laugh who have been watching you for a month, you have to feel you’ve accomplished something.

And as a Public Service Announcement:  Please don’t golf and act.

PS.  The photographer never showed.

Knock Knock - A week away

One week from today we open.  The actors are ready.  The set has been built and is incredible.  The set decoration is outstanding.  Dedicated volunteers are manning the box office daily and people are calling in an reserving tickets.

As with all shows the technical aspects come in later and they are always a concern.  There’s a team of people working to make sure everything works.  They are spending hours every day working on them.  It would seem, to the average person, that you could set something once and it would work every time.  This is, after all, the 21st cenury.  But for some reason that law of physics does not apply in a theater.

It’s inexplicable but consistently inconsistent.   I’m convinced if you drove a brand new car into a theater and put it on stage, it would only start 7 out of 10 times.  Put people in the audience to watch the car start and the percentage goes down to 50-50. The gods of theater are thousands of years old and I don't think they like technology.

A couple of years ago I directed Grace & Glory for TLT.  In the script it called for smoke to start pouring out of a wood stove.  I spent 2 weeks trying to make it work.  I finally came to the conclusion that three things could happen  and two of them were bad.  1) It could work perfectly  2) It wouldn't work at all and we stand there with egg on our faces  3) It works too well and the smoke drives the audience out of the theater.  We cut the bit.

On stage in The Odd Couple years ago, I once answered a phone that was ringing.  I picked up the phone, said hello, and it rang again.  What can you do?  You play it for a laugh and keep going.  In Camelot, I was involved in a dramatic moment and the backdrop behind me was supposed to fly up and reveal the set for the next scene.  The moment came and the backdrop went down instead of up.  You hate to hear laughter when you're not trying to be funny.

I saw a production of The Mousetrap years ago.  At the end of Act 1 with a single actress on stage, a hand was to reach around the corner of the set and hit the light switch.  The plan was for the set to go completely dark, there would be a scream and then the lights would come back up revealing  the actress dead in the middle of the stage.

On the night in question however, when the hand reached around and hit the switch, the lights dimmed.  They did not go out. The audience could still see everything on stage.  Well, the killer could not go on stage and ruin the last two acts of Agatha Christie's classic.  The actress on stage became very flustered and the result was that she screamed and then proceeded to strangle herself to death in the middle of the set. 

In that moment it became the only comedy that Agatha ever wrote.

Live theater is an in-the-moment experience.  Every performance is unique and different for a variety of reasons.  The actor is a human being and the status of every human being is at best “day to day”.  Technical things are completely out of an actor’s control so you just have to have a blind belief bording on faith that things will work but still anticipate what you as an actor will do if it doesn’t.

The biggest variable in any performance is the audience.  If you’re doing a comedy for instance, for a small audience, it’s typical that no one wants to be the one to start laughing.  What you get then is an audience of smilers.  They may be enjoying the show thoroughly and they’re smiling as loud as they can but, in a comedy as an actor, the last thing you want is quiet. Larger audiences tend to feel more comfortable laughing as part of larger group.

Actors feed on an audience’s energy.  Good or bad.  Actors must be salesmen.  In the first few minutes they have to grab the audience’s attention and bring them into the story they’re trying to tell.  When the audience is energetic and receptive, magic can happen.   If not, it can be a long day at the office.

Knock Knock - The Night of the Spider

I was in the bathroom with the shrieks rang out.  The sound was a mixture of hysterical fear and laughter so at first it was hard to determine what was going on.  By the time I exited the bathroom and entered the lobby, Nancy Winker and Monica Jones had the doors to the theater open and were…well…shrieking is the only word for it…for anyone who was not afraid of spiders to come and kill this massive spider.

Monica is doing publicity for us and she was interviewing Nancy for a story when a spider dropped down on the piano they were standing next to.  Now the size and athletic prowess of said spider is in some debate but for these purposes we’re giving the ladies the benefit of the doubt.

As first responder, they showed me where the creature was but not having my glasses on I can’t give an accurate description.  When I moved the piece of paper that Godzilla was partially hiding under, he reacted very quickly and jumped to the floor.  Then, in truly heroic fashion, I  “dispatched the beast with a single blow.”  (I think that’s from Camelot but don’t quote me.) 

Nancy and Monica calmed down and, like the professionals they are, they completed the interview.  Rehearsal continued, the spider was dead and I had material for my blog.  It was a win-win --- although the spider may feel differently.  The bonus for me was that I now have an undying mental picture of these two consummately brilliant, talented, sophisticated ladies jumping up and down screaming like a couple of sixth grade girls that will live for me every time I see either one of them for the rest of my life.  Ah, the memories to gained through theatre. And in the end, what else do we really have? 

Nancy is an incredible trooper and has my complete respect.  Monday was her first rehearsal back after a week in Italy so basically her body clock was still on Italian time.  I know that to reset that clock for me takes the better part of a week so I was ready and willing to give her every benefit of the doubt so that she would have time to become acclimated.

We did Act 1 twice and she was dead on.   Even with all the set and set decoration changes that she had never seen before.  It was like she hadn’t missed a day.  Well done, JArc, well done.

Rehearsal went very well all the way around.  Pace and energy were good.  Francis was happy.

We do have some technical issues to work out both with people and equipment.  They will be worked out. 

This is going to be a very good show.  Have I mentioned that the box office is now open?!

We’re ten days away from opening Knock Knock. Writing is always personal and when you spend as much time as we have to with a script you begin to wonder about the author. It’s time to talk about the playwright – Jules Feiffer.  And you find he could be the modern definition of a renaissance man.  He is best known as a cartoonist but is also well known as a playwright, novelist, graphic novelist, screenwriter and teacher.  Regardless of his accomplishments, he has a singularly warped mind.

Feiffer's comic strips ran for 42 years in The Village Voice, first under the title Sick Sick Sick, briefly as Feiffer's Fables and finally as simply Feiffer. Initially influenced by UPA and William Steig, the strip debuted October 24, 1956, and 14 months later, Feiffer had a bestseller when McGraw-Hill collected the Village Voice strips as Sick Sick Sick: A Guide to Non-Confident Living (published January 1, 1958). Beginning April 1959, Feiffer was distributed nationally by the Hall Syndicate, initially in The Boston Globe, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Newark Star-Ledger and Long Island Press.

His strips, cartoons and illustrations have also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The New Yorker, Esquire, Playboy and The Nation. He was commissioned in 1997 by The New York Times to create its first op-ed page comic strip, which ran monthly until 2000.

He won a Pulitzer Prize and a George Polk Award for his cartoons; an Obie for his plays; an Academy Award for the animation of his cartoon satire, Munro; and Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Writers Guild of America and the National Cartoonist Society. Feiffer has taught at the Yale School of Drama, Northwestern University, Dartmouth, and presently at Stony Brook Southampton College. He has been honored with major retrospectives at the New York Historical Society, the Library of Congress and The School of Visual Arts.

Following Sick, Sick, Sick: A Guide to Non-Confident Living, Feiffer published More Sick, Sick, Sick and other strip collections, including The Explainers, Boy Girl, Boy Girl, Hold Me!, Feiffer's Album, The Unexpurgated Memoirs of Bernard Mergendeiler, Feiffer on Nixon, Jules Feiffer's America: From Eisenhower to Reagan, Marriage Is an Invasion of Privacy and Feiffer's Children. Passionella (1957) is a graphic narrative initially anthologized in Passionella and Other Stories, a variation on the story of Cinderella. The protagonist is Ella, a chimney sweep who is transformed into a Hollywood movie star. Passionella was used in a musical, The Apple Tree.

His cartoons, strips and illustrations have been reprinted by Fantagraphics as Feiffer: The Collected Works. Explainers (2008) reprints all of his strips from 1956 to 1966. David Kamp reviewed the book in The New York Times:

His strip, usually six to eight borderless panels, initially appeared under the title Sick Sick Sick, with the subtitle 'A Guide to Non-Confident Living'. As the Lenny Bruce-ish language suggests, the earliest strips are very much of their time, the postwar Age of Anxiety in the big city; you can practically smell the espresso, the unfiltered ciggies, the lanolin whiff of woolly jumpers. In Feiffer's sixth-ever strip, an advertising executive is rallying his creative team to make nuclear fallout sexy, proposing 'a TV spec called I Fell for Fallout and 'a Mr. and Mrs. Mutation contest — designed to change the concept of beauty in the American mind.' The week after that, a macho poet type confides his most shameful secret to his coffeehouse girlfriend: 'I've never been to Europe.' And the week after that, Feiffer literally puts Oedipus on a psychoanalyst's couch: a hipster in a toga and Ray Charles shades, confessing: 'All right... So I marry her. But did I know she was my mother? It's not like I was sick or something.'

Feiffer has written two novels (1963's Harry the Rat with Women, 1977's Ackroyd) and several children's books, including Henry, The Dog with No Tail, A Room with a Zoo, The Daddy Mountain, and A Barrel of Laughs, a Vale of Tears. He partnered with The Walt Disney Company and writer Andrew Lippa to adapt his book The Man in the Ceiling into a musical. He illustrated the children's books The Phantom Tollbooth and The Odious Ogre. His non-fiction includes the 1965 book The Great Comic Book Heroes.

Feiffer also wrote and drew one of the earliest graphic novels, the hardcover Tantrum (Alfred A. Knopf, 1979, described on its dustjacket as a "novel-in-pictures". Like the trade paperback The Silver Surfer (Simon & Schuster/Fireside Books, August 1978), by Marvel Comics' Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, and the hardcover and trade paperback versions of Will Eisner's A Contract with God, and Other Tenement Stories (Baronet Books, October 1978), this was published by a traditional book publisher and distributed through bookstores, whereas other early graphic novels, such as Sabre (Eclipse Books, August 1978), where distributed through some of the first comic-book stores.

His autobiography, Backing into Forward: A Memoir (Doubleday, 2010), received positive reviews from The New York Times and Publishers Weekly, which wrote:

His account of hitchhiking cross-country invades Kerouac territory, while his ink-stained memories of the comics industry rival Michael Chabon's Pulitzer Prize–winning fictional portrait. Two years in the military gave Feiffer fodder for the trenchant Munro (about a child who is drafted). Such satirical social and political commentary became the turning point in his lust for fame, which finally happened, after many rejections, when acclaim for his anxiety-ridden Village Voice strips served as a springboard into other projects.

He has had retrospectives at the New York Historical Society, the Library of Congress and The School of Visual Arts. His artwork is exhibited at and represented by Chicago, Illinois' Jean Albano Gallery. In 1996, Feiffer donated his papers and several hundred original cartoons and book illustrations to the Library of Congress.

Feiffer's plays include Little Murders (1967), The White House Murder Case, and Grown Ups. After Mike Nichols adapted Feiffer's unproduced play Carnal Knowledge as a 1971 film, Feiffer scripted Robert Altman's Popeye, Alain Resnais's I Want to Go Home, and the film adaptation of Little Murders.

The original production of Hold Me! was directed by Caymichael Patten and opened at The American Place Theatre, Subplot Cafe, as part of its American Humorist Series on January 13, 1977. The production ran on the Showtime cable network in 1981.

Feiffer is an adjunct professor at Stony Brook Southampton. Previously he taught at the Yale School of Drama and Northwestern University. He has been a Senior Fellow at the Columbia University National Arts Journalism Program. He was in residence at the Arizona State University Barrett Honors College from November 27 to December 2, 2006. In June–August 2009, Feiffer was in residence as a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College, where he taught an undergraduate course on graphic humor in the 20th century.

Knock Knock - Becalmed

In any long journey there is an inevitable period of doldrums.   That period when you’re just floating along and nothing really seems to be happening.  You may be able to see the end of your journey.  And yet…it is just out of your reach.  In the days of sailing ships, they called it becalmed. 

Wonderful, gentle word for a frustrating situation.  Becalmed.

Currently, I am becalming my butt off! 

The hard work has been done.  I’ve spent countless hours with the script. I know it inside and out.  I go to bed reciting the play in my head until I fall asleep.  Lately, however, I’m not making it much past page 3.  Not a good sign.

OK.  I’ve had a couple of crappy rehearsals and I’m down on myself.  Our Joan (Nancy) is on vacation this week and talking to an empty space is proving more challenging than I would have imagined.  There is the newness of the set decoration (I’m finding new things every time I look around.  It’s fantastic.), we’re adding lights and effects and to be quite frank -- I’m not dealing with it very well. 

This is not exactly my first rodeo so I should be able to shut out distractions and focus.  Where you get in trouble with acting, and anything else for that matter,  is when you think too much.  In acting, you want to get to the place where you don’t have to "remember" what the character would do or say,  you want to be character and you say what he/she would say in that moment.   It is such a joy when you reach that point.  That's why actors love to act.  That period of time when you can get out of yourself and be someone else.  Even if it's someone more neurotic than you are. 

I have moments when I’m there.  But I’m not completely there yet.  Trying too hard.  Must relax.

Congratulations to Lavin.  There is a little line late in the play (we’ve all had them) that he has never been able to remember.  It’s one of those “nothing lines” that impacts nothing and means even less.  Those are the ones that always get you.  I’ve always found the moment very amusing because when the time comes for it, his face becomes very red and his head begins to shake violently and his head takes on the properties of a pressure cooker that’s about to explode.  It’s a pretty intense Kodak moment.

The pressure cooker moment came again last night and was equally entertaining.  He then threatened to write the line on the set.  Unfortunately, he has similar eyesight to mine so to be able to read them without glasses would involve extremely large block letters which may be a bit of a distraction to the audience.

After we ran act 2/3, we decided to just sit and run lines with moving around and doing all the business.  Just work on the lines. 

Sequence of events:

1)      I say “No!”

2)      Joan has a long monologue

3)      I say “No!”

4)      Lavin says his illusive line

LAVIN SAID HIS LINE PERFECTLY!  Unfortunately, he said it after step 1.  Oh, well.  It’s a start.  Well done, neighbor.

Bless Francis, Donna and Becky for their patience.

Knock Knock - The Mouse

Subject – Set Decoration.   Verdict - WOW!

Set decoration is an art all its own.  Over the weekend, TLT’s talented group of demented people including Greg Wright who designed the set, Rebecca Davis, Jody McPherson, Mimi Alexander and Matthew Alexander outdid themselves on the set of Knock Knock.

When the cast walked in last night, all we could say was WOW!

In life, clutter is deemed a bad thing.  When it comes to the subject of two middle aged men who haven’t left their home in 20 years, clutter’s status becomes elevated to the main decorating theme.  Our team of dementors (mostly women, please note) apparently had a wonderful time getting into the minds of middle aged men and determining what their home would look like after twenty years without a woman’s touch.  

They had far too much fun.  Think about it.  Your job is to take whatever is there and mess it up.  What could be more cathartic?  Thousands of hours of therapy no longer needed.  From what I was told there are inside jokes among them everywhere on the set.  Don't ask.  Don't tell.

My first question was “where’s the mouse?”   There has been a tradition of a toy mouse appearing on almost every set done in the last few years.  Sometimes it’s hidden in places that the audience will never see but, most often, it’s in plain sight.  It took me a long time to find it last night but yes, he/she (I refuse to check) is there - in plain sight.

I would love to show you pictures of the set.  But I won’t, I can't, I shan't.  This set is worth the price of admission by itself.  If we actors show up and actually say something, consider that a bonus.

They’ll begin rigging lights on Tuesday and by the end of the week we should be able to run the effects that are being planned.  Box office opens Thursday.

Can’t wait until April 19.  Beware the rubber chicken.

Knock Knock - SPRING BREAK

A couple of us took or are taking a spring break from Knock Knock.  JArc (Nancy) is taking her sword and armor to Italy for a week.  

Mine was shorter; just last Thursday through Sunday but as there was a theatrical theme I’ll include some comments here.   Some months ago we decided that I needed to see WarHorse on stage in NYC and this was the weekend.  My wife had seen it with our daughter a year ago and hadn’t stopped talking about it since.  And as anyone who knows Connie knows, she doesn’t throw praise around where it’s not warranted.

She did not exaggerate.  I encourage anyone who can get there to make a point to see this magnificent play and see it in the Vivian Beaumont Theatre.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  It uses every aspect of theater imaginable.  Puppets (massive), lights, sound, music, masks, effects, on and on and on…and wound around a truly emotional story.  I could fill page after page after page of this blog writing about this play but it wouldn’t do it justice.  See it.

Other bits…

It was a beautiful Spring day in NYC as we drove in Friday evening and as we spent about an hour getting to and through the Lincoln Tunnel we had plenty of time to listen to weather predictions on the radio.  They, too, did not exaggerate.

Saturday was a crappy day in NYC.  Cold, intermittent rain, winds racing down those canyons that made it even colder.   As our tickets to WarHorse were for the evening performance, we had planned to stroll around during the day and repeat one of our favorite rituals which is to walk the Brooklyn Bridge. 

When we saw how accurate the forecast was, we opted for the more indoor approach which meant going into Times Square and seeing what was available from TKTS where you can get a day-of-the-show discount.  The lines were long but Connie found a “play only” line and since we are play junkies he joined that much, much shorter queue.

Let me say right now that even though it was a crappy day weather-wise.  Everyone seemed to be in an exceptionally good mood.  Over and over again all day long we ended up in long, good natured conversations with people all over town.  The only thing I could figure out is that is that New Yorkers had been thrown off by a winter with no snow and much warmer than usual temperatures and when a day came that was the traditional crappy early spring day in March, the familiar yuckiness seemed to cheer them up.  Just a theory.

Back to TKTS.  We weren’t sure what we wanted to see and we had to do some fast research with the help of our new cheery NYC friends.  We narrowed it down to 2 – The Best Man and Seminar.  The Best Man is an old Gore Vidal play that is usually revived during a presidential political season and has an incredible cast including Eric McCormack, James Earl Jones, Angela Lansbury, John Larroquette and Candice Bergen.  We hadn’t heard of Seminar but learned that Alan Rickman was in it and that this was his last weekend.  Next Tuesday Jeff Goldbloom would take over Rickman’s role.   Since we determined that would pay to hear Rickman read the phonebook, we bought 2 tickets for the matinee.

Seminar is a smart, intelligent, well-paced, funny and thought provoking play and Rickman is a joy and will probably be up for a Tony for best actor in a play.  Thoroughly enjoyable.

One great moment before the show was overheard by Connie in the ladies’ restroom.  Obviously, one woman wasn’t quite sure who Alan Rickman was and it was being explained to her by a friend.  Finally, the woman got the connection and exclaimed:

“HE KILLED DUMBLEDORE?!”