Apropos of nothing, I was reminded today how much I love Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?:
[bra_blockquote align='']MARTHA: George who is out somewhere there in the dark...George who is good to me, and whom I revile; who understands me, and whom I push off; who can make me laugh, and I choke it back in my throat; who can hold me, at night, so it's warm, and whom I will bite so there's blood; who keeps learning the games we play as quickly as I can change the rules; who can make me happy and I do not wish to be happy, and yes I do wish to be happy...whom I will not forgive for having come to rest; for having seen me and said: yes; this will do; who has made the hideous, the hurting, the insulting mistake of loving me and must be punished for it. George and Martha: sad, sad, sad.[/bra_blockquote]
I work in theater, right? Not film? Just checking; I think someone must have forgotten to tell my day planner.
Exhibit A: The Entourage Video
At my work, there's a little-known program called Entourage that I happen to administer. Being the marketing department and all, we decided to raise its profile with a little informative video. Nothing special, just something visual we could use to draw a bit of attention.
Somehow it became this:
Yes, that's Rita Moreno in that video. Winner of the Oscar, Grammy, Tony, and two Emmys. And that's me, winner of the "Most Dramatic" award (Santa Teresa High School yearbook, 2002) which is...not quite the same thing. I wrote that script in about 15 minutes and the whole thing was terrifying. I wrote about it on the Berkeley Rep blog here.
Exhibit B: The Teen Movie Project
I don't know how we did it, but somehow we did it. It's over.
It took a month of filming and countless hours of scheduling, prop-making, costume-fitting, and hair-pulling, but yesterday we wrapped on production. Which is, I don't know, liberating? Terrifying? Now that it's done, there are no more chances to fix things or insert new great ideas, and it means I have to start the epic chore of editing this entire thing into one cohesive narrative. Although, to be honest, I'm really looking forward to that part. Because I was in almost every scene, I didn't have a lot of chances to really direct the thing. Fortunately, I had an amazing DP, who made it easy to let go and rely on his talent. I know he got some amazing shots--probably way better than if I'd told him what to do, anyway--and I'm looking forward to standing on his shoulders and making a movie out of his images.
And now it's finally time to relax. Haha, just kidding! I'm flying to England on Saturday and not coming back for two weeks.
Ahoy! This is one of those briefest-of-recaps posts, wherein I give you some quick updates, ordered-list style:
There's a "new" project on the Current page called Monday Night Dinner. Really, this is something that Rhonda and I have been doing for several months, but it never occurred to me to document until now. We used to just meet up and make dinner like normal people, but then we recalled a long-forgotten oath to never hang out without a costume on and decided to make them themed. So for the last few months, we've been dressing up and tailoring our menus to suit. So far, we've done Dr. Who, Dr. Mario, Dr. (Indiana) Jones...and some non-doctors like Veronica Mars and Jurassic Park. You can check out the continually-updated Facebook album if you're so inclined! .
Facts&figures is still chugging along. If "EXTERMINATE, EXTERMINATE" means anything to you, you'll get a kick out of this one. .
I've had a couple of articles published recently in the Berkeley Rep Magazine, both of which you can find here. Not only is it really gratifying to see my work printed in such a great program, it also put me back in touch with my ninth-grade English teacher, who happened to attend a performance of Lemony Snicket's The Composer is Dead and saw my name in the byline. What a small world.
And that's it for now. I'm hoping to write a short book, put together a performance, and get back to work on a comic book project by the end of the month, but...yeah. Even I recognize that that's ridiculous.
Hopefully you made it out to last weekend's top-secret Lost Horizon Night Market, because it was a blast. What is this event with the not-very-descriptive name, you ask? Good question. Frankly, I'm not really sure I know, either.
When I showed up on Saturday, all I had was a general idea: lots of people would show up with box trucks, each with a different theme, and hopefully through word-of-mouth we'd get a crowd of people around 9pm. My own truck was based on a school photo day, so I came armed with a bunch of fake order forms (with a link to a Flickr gallery) and my old high school uniform. I got there early, so while I waited for my friends, I watched as truck after truck drove silently down this quiet road in an industrial part of town. If you didn't already know what was happening, it looked totally innocuous. In fact, the street dead-ended into the Bay, which meant you had to approach from the west. All the trucks were parked facing out, so that from the entrance to the street (or the perspective of any curious neighbors or cops), it was just a bunch of parked trucks. But from the back...
The back of each of the trucks was opened to reveal whatever madness was going on inside. One very long truck had a full bowling alley on the inside. Another had a restaurant where passersby could make reservations and help themselves to free mac and cheese. Everyone's favorite truck, the upside-down ball pit, had a room full of helium balloons and some furniture bolted the ceiling.
Our photo day truck was pretty great, too. We had spare clothes for students who "forgot" it was photo day, plastic combs for last-minute touch-ups, my order forms, and a dozen or so really committed actors. I have to say, though, the award for most convincing character has to go to our photographer for the night, who could not have been creepier if he tried. (Here's me, in character as the photographer's student assistant.)
But really, all the photos were amazing. Click here to see the Flickr gallery order page where you and you mom can preview your class photos. And check out the photos of the Night Market in general (via Boing Boing!).
