I should’ve mentioned this earlier, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about my own show. Just finished a run-through and I think it’s okay.

So: Tonight. December 9th, 2007
8:00 pm at Theater for the New City, 155 First Avenue (corner of 9th)
Voice 4 Vision Puppet Slam.
I’ll be performing Nails in Our Feet, a puppet monologue by one of Ray Harryhausen’s retired T-Rexes.

We just finished the show and are tucked safely away in the hotel in Albany. It felt really good to be performing. I’ve missed it.

And it’s very nice to have nothing on my docket for the evening.

My business and creative partner, Jodi Eichelberger, has been doing some podcasts. Here’s the description of his latest:

From August of 1994 through the spring of 1997 Mary and I toured a production of “Pied Piper” with Tears of Joy Theatre. We were particularly close to this show because Mary designed it and I wrote the book, music, and lyrics. We had lots of adventures during this tour: towing a truck through a blizzard on the Bear Mountains, being taken from a hotel room in the middle of the night by Officer Monty, losing my big toenail during a performance…but be careful when dealing with the Piper; you never know what might get charmed away. On the morning of April 16, 1996 the “Pied Piper” disappeared, along with our van and all its contents.

He invited me to relive memories of our tour with Pied Piper. You should listen to find out who stole the Pied Piper.

PuppetVision Blog pointed out this fact that will have an enormous impact on my move to New York City. It is apparently illegal to perform a window puppet show in New York City.

§ 10-114 Street shows. a. It shall be unlawful to give any exhibition of climbing or scaling on the front or exterior of any house or building.
b. It shall likewise be unlawful for any person, from any window or open space of any house, or building, to exhibit to the public upon the street, or the sidewalk thereof, any performance of puppet or other figures, ballet or other dancing, comedy, farce, show with moving figures, play or other entertainment.
c. Violations. Any person who shall violate any provision of this section, upon conviction thereof, shall be punished by a fine of not more than twenty-five dollars, or imprisonment for thirty days, or both.

Now, I don’t normally link to commercials, but I’ve got to admit that this one makes me chuckle.

We weren’t called until noon today and then didn’t wind up doing any performance until probably three in the afternoon. Today’s sentence is: Let’s shoot him now now.

Pretty much everything was run of the mill today. I did live hands for two of the characters–this was actually the first time ever that I’ve live-handed for one of them. Funny how that happens. Actually, I guess today had a number of minor firsts. There’s a floating thing in this episode and I worked it during the finale song. This is the first time I’ve worked a puppet solo in the finale. Now, I say “worked a puppet” but really, this was a disc on a stick and my job was to roll through at specific point in the music. Very complicated…ha. But it was still nice to be doing something where I wasn’t attached to someone else.

Rob and I took a break from work to see Finding Neverland at the St. John’s Dome close to where my studio is. I loved it. The performances were uniformly strong, the film was beautifully crafted and I wept like a baby at all the places the director wanted me to.

The workshop performances of Arabian Nights continue to go well. I’m happy with the twist that I added to the design last night and I showed my rough sketches to the gang. They all seem to like them. We’ll see if it works as I start to get into the nitty gritty details.

Oh. Mom and Dad did finally make it home today.

Mom and Dad have headed for home. I didn’t get to see them off because I had to get up super early to go to the first workshop performance of Arabian Nights. It went well, but is making us rethink a number of things. I’m going to spend this evening doing some serious work on the set.

I went to see, or listen to, a live radio performance of The Hobbit that Willamette Radio Workshop did. Rob was doing the audio engineering. It was a lot of fun and the audience went nuts over it. The thing that struck me was the difference between listening and watching. I enjoyed it more when I wasn’t watching because the sound effects and voices pulled me into the story. When I watched I was more interested in questions like, “What are they doing with that plunger in the jar of water?”

I took Mom and Dad around the studio today and let them watch some stuff. There wasn’t much happening on set, because we’re just doing snow. Theoretically, we’ll do some actual performance, but I don’t know when. Meanwhile, I’ve sent Mom and Dad to the Blue Lagoon.

The art department threw a party for the rest of the company and really went all out. This is a ticket to the event.
When we arrived, they handed us a cocktail and a Dance Challenge card, much like the dance cards from cotillion. I was the only one who knew how to use them, aside from the organizers. The band was bizarre. The lead singer would sing for a few measures and then do a sort of performance art comedy routine. One episode of which consisted of a song that was an extremely long, messy orgasm. Not easy to dance to. They were better after the break, when she just sang.

I didn’t get in until three, and the party was still going when I left.