Spoon Lake Blues: Next Monday through Wednesday, the casts of Election Day and Spoon Lake Blues will meet and perform for the author Josh Tobiessen. This will be great, meeting the author of the play. Monday, the cast of Spoon Lake Blues will perform. Tuesday is a Q&A with Josh and on Wednesday Election Day will perform.

Yesterday at set build, Pat Hurley mentioned the cast of Election Day is far ahead of the cast of Spoon Lake Blues for being off book. And as I thought about it, most of the cast on Election Day do not have day jobs. If I had all freaking day to learn lines…still, nobody else’s problem but mine. I should be off book with confidence by Monday.

Bright Flames TV: Started rehearsal a few Wednesday’s ago on Episode Two. In this episode, I play Ulrich Zwingli. Besides Robert Howell, who is the host and writer, I am the first returning actor to play a different role (Soren Kierkegaard in Episode One).

Editing for Episode One is nearly done. It will need to be entirely reshot but the thought is to try to get funding. Episode Two will go a lot smother then Episode One and will be shot in multiple segments to get all the shots needed for editing. I do hope this goes somewhere: History Channel, PBS, etc.

One Flew Over the Cookoo’s Nest – 10 down, 5 to go

But let’s backup a bit. The weekend actually started on Thursday evening with an 8 PM showing of Cookoo’s Nest. And as I write this, I cannot remember how many people were in the audience; less than 10, I believe. Friday saw a very responsive crowd of about 30 or so. For Saturday’s matinee, I had arrived in time for cast call having just left the Bright Flames TV shoot. Really had no time to spare between those two. Saturday saw our largest crowd of over 50 people. That was a great night.

Sunday Slush and Calamine

I had been hearing for about 5 days or so, that there would be snow on Sunday, but as Sunday drew closer with no significant drop in temperature, I figured whatever snow we did have would not stick. So as I am driving towards the theater it turns from rain to very heavy snow. Still, I was thinking that nothing was going to stick to the roads. I can admit it; I was wrong. Some of the streets were starting to be covered in slush. Even the parking lot was covered in wet snow.

Once I get to the theatre, which is in Duluth, I am thinking I am not going to drive to the Alliance Theatre after the show. I had an appointment with Pat Hurley for practicing my monologues. From the Alliance to my house in Buford is 37 miles (74 miles round trip). And from Duluth to the Alliance is 12 miles less. Rescheduled with Pat for Tuesday evening.

Meanwhile in the dressing room, the cast is going over who is going to do what if 2 of our cast members do not show up. Who is going to say this line? Do we need that line? What lines are important? So we kinda work this out, but thank goodness they show up.

Meanwhile, again in the dressing room, I was saying I was not going to get dressed until we have an audience. “There are 20 people on the books.” OK, nevermind, I will get dressed. We didn’t quite have 20 but still a larger crowd than we had for Saturday’s matinee even with the snow.

Later on stage: There is a point in act ii when McMURPHY and HARDING are mixing a drink concoction from the medicine cabinet. Greg (McMURPHY) grabs a wrong bottle and puts it into the hot water bottle that is being used to hold the drink. When he poured it out into small cups it was this white-ish looking liquid. Only one or two people drank it. I had a sip thinking maybe it was a treat from the stage hands. Turns out it was Calamine lotion. Vant (TURKLE) and I have to take all the cups and bottles off the stage at the end of the scene. And usually I will drink anything that is still left in the small cups, but I was not drinking this stuff. I sit at the table near the end of that scene and so in character, I emptied all the small cups of Calamine laced liquid back into the hot water bottle. Had too. Could not get it all off otherwise.

At the end of the show, the snow had lessened and even was beginning to melt off. By 6 or 7 PM, it was nearly all gone, at my house anyway. I could have gone to the Alliance.

Bright Flames TV

Finally, after about 5 months for me (longer for the rest of the cast), we were able to get in the studio and actually shoot. And we didn’t get done. We had until noon and really only got 1 hour of shooting done. Tech took a long time, but they needed it. Focusing lights, sounds, etc.

On Friday, I received a frantic phone call from Teresa. The group providing the costumes lost the measurements for everybody. And the phone number for Teresa was on that sheet of paper. So I gave here some measurements and they grabbed some costumes, but did not have time to alter them. So Saturday morning, I pull up the paints and I look like I have just done a commercial for losing 100 pounds. What was worse was there was no belt loops or suspenders. I borrowed a belt from Doug and sort of just put the belt around my waist to hold up the paints. Once the vest and jacket were on, you could not see the belt.

So with an hour studio time left, we actually begin to shoot. I had never used teleprompters before, but I knew the concept. What was unfortunate was that the teleprompters were on 2 of the cameras. So for large swaths of dialog, people are actually looking straight into the camera. The early thought was to have 3 cameras: Straight on for all five people and one on each side for the 2 people on each side. The teleprompters were supposed to be just off camera.

And we did not finish, damn it! I believe we need another 3 hours of shooting, to get various camera angles, hopefully without looking directly into a camera. Robert wants to do some close ups, etc. I hope this turns out to be an OK production.

Eventful weekend to say the least.

Tonight will be one of two things: Ether voice over for on the short film I did in August (The Interview). And/Or rehearsal for Bright Flames TV. Let’s talk about The Interview. My understanding is that this is nearly complete in post-production. Matt McGahren is hopping to submit this for the Atlanta Film Festival. Deadline is this Friday. I assume the voice over is for my part. I guess the sound is not what they wanted when originally shot. If not tonight, then tomorrow evening.

On the Bright Flames TV front, apparently Robert Howell has found a crew with equipment so we are not dependent on the local community TV studio. The local community studio never could get their act together, so this will be good. Robert wants me (and I assume the rest of the cast) to do a voice over for a trailer. And the new shooting location is at Callanwolde Fine Arts Center. Looks like a very nice place. If The Interview voice over is tonight and early enough, I can make tonight’s Bright Flames rehearsal.

Tomorrow AM is a stress test with the cardiologist to see if I can exercise without killing myself. I have been on medication for high blood pressure now for 6 days. Not fun. I have to drink plenty of fluids so my pressure does not drop too low. It did Saturday night, not enough intake during the day. So light-headednes kept me from going to the Gladiators game that night. Last night I did not sleep very well. Due to fluid intake/output, I believe I am short on Potassium. My back of my legs really ached. Very painful.

Tomorrow PM. Depending on if I do not have to do The Interview voice over tomorrow night, I plan on auditioning for BOOLIE WERTHAN in Driving Miss Daisy at Act1 Theater. BOOLIE is the son of DAISY WERTHAN. But if the voice over is tomorrow night, then I will audition on Thursday night, missing another Gladiators game.

Wednesday PM is an audition for Sabrina Fair at Kudzu Playhouse. I think I would make a good DAVID LARRABEE. DAVID is the younger brother of LINUS LARRABEE JR.

Thursday PM will hopefully be a Gladiators’ game, but that depends on … well, see above.

Friday PM is supposed to be another Bright Flames rehearsal.

So everynight this week is something. <sigh>

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As of now, we have studio time scheduled for December 23rd. We have had studio time before and we were double booked. Hopefully this time, we will have the studio to ourselves.

Robert wants to use that time as another tech run, but with the cameras recording. Hopefully we can get some good footage to use and work on improvements.

But, I have to say I am tired of this. So ready for final shoot. But, I am also excited by the possibility of future episodes. Robert has written a brilliant script for Episode 1 and hopefully after completion, Bright Flames will be picked up by a larger network with better organization.

What we planned on doing is a tech rehearsal. Create the set, light and sound and some lines, just to get an idea of how this would work.

Yesterday we tried again. We were originally scheduled at 5:30 PM and then rescheduled to 3:00 PM. They double booked that time slot and we waited. The station manager said that the show currently filming would be done in sections so they would be out soon. So we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

So after two hours, I finally left to eat and go to Bartending School. I hope Robert was able to get in and plan things out. It does not sound like the Station is well run.

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From their MySpace page:

BrightFlamesTV is a forum for some of the best minds in World History to “duke it out” in a talk-show format a’la The View

Similarly, in the 1970′s host Steve Allen (The Tonight Show) developed “Meeting of the Minds” in which famous (and not-so-famous) political, artistic, and literary types came together to debate points of view from their respective time periods and the current events of the day. Imagine Julius Caesar analyzed by Sigmund Freud, or a mano a mano between arch-feminist Simone deBeauvoir and the austere John Calvin, just to name a few!

Bright Flames is a developing episodic tv series and will be filmed and aired at Comcast Community Television in Atlanta, GA.

The goal is to sale this to someone like PBS or The History Channel as an ongoing series. Teresa is working with Robert Howell on the Project. They have access to a professional studio at Comcast. I met with them about the project and like what they are trying to do.