The last two days in Romania.

On Tuesday, I took a break from my work to walk through the cemetery here in Cluj.  It sits a few blocks south of the central square in town, on a hillside. It was beautiful, and sad, naturally.  Most of the gravestones had multiple names engraved, indicating either that multiple people were buried there (stacked, like in the Jewish Cemetery in Prague) or just in memoriam. I snapped a lot of photos of gravestones, in search of the oldest ones.

Here's a site from a relatively recent burial. Note the mounds of pine branches. It smelled like Christmas. I imagine it's a holdover from the days when the stench could be overwhelming.

This plot had five spaces for caskets, but it appears that the deceased are buried two deep. The little engraving in the middle of the edifice indicates which people are buried in which positions.

Dripping black paint? Creepy.

A Greco-Roman temple entrance on an Egyptian pyramid. Just covering your bases, I guess.

This is one of the oldest stones I found.

Later that day, after the cemetery and a bowl of warming soup, E and I headed down to the theatre to see our show open. The performance was good, but not great. Everyone in the company was a little thrown by the audience on Saturday night, and I think that there was more than a little bit of milking going on.  But still, it was a good show, and afterwards, E and I joined some of the company members for some pizza and beer to celebrate. One of the clowns, Catalin, joined us for the dinner. He and I went running together last week along the river in Cluj, and he suggested that we run, or if the rain let up, we go for a bike ride. A bike ride sounded more interesting to me. Cata said we'd ride about 20km (12.5 miles).  Sounded good to me.

When we met this morning, the rain was gone, the roads were dry, and it was a beautiful day. We hopped on some mountain bikes and rode into the Transylvanian mountains. It didn't take us long to get out of town, and once we did, Cata ducked us onto a mountain trail. The trail was not particularly fun - very muddy, and a little treacherous for me (a novice mountain biker). We didn't last long on the trail before he popped us out onto a road where we could ride without mud. We trekked up the mountain road, on pavement, gravel, dirt paths, etc. Up some fairly steep inclines. We rode through deep forest with sun-dappled trails. The last part of the incline was so steep that I fogged up my sunglasses by exhaling. We popped out onto a grassy hillside area, about 1200 meters above town, south, looking over some beautiful mountains. The air was cool and crisp. 

Cata took us around, past the observatory used by the local universities, up some more hillsides, before we got back on a road and began our descent. And what a descent! I was in the highest gear, pumping madly, and still wasn't adding much energy to what gravity was providing. We sped down the road, around corners, in and out of shadow and light. It took us a fraction of the time to get down as it did to get up. 

Here's the map of our return journey. The ride up was a shorter distance (we cut the corner where the distance/time marker is), but I think it was about 30 miles all told. My legs are a wreck.

Now, it's Wednesday evening, and E and I are about to head out for our last meal in Romania. Tomorrow, we get up super-early to catch our flight. I can't wait to go home!

Morning in Romania

I'm back in Cluj Romania after a long journey. On Sunday in LA, after S and I went to a baby shower (which was made terrificer because this was the first where we were thinking about our own parasite), she shuttled me to LAX. I met E, my director and traveling cohort, at LAX, where we had a drink and boarded the flight to Munich. 5.30pm liftoff, 1.30pm touchdown.  I watched movies (Kramer v. Kramer, Chariots of Fire, The Maltese Falcon), and slept about four hours.

We had about eight hours of layover in Munich, so we checked our carryons at the airport and took the train into town. We went to Marienplatz, a big public square, full of people and shopping. I dug the button accordion players (who must've been 7' tall), and we wandered into a few churches.

For lunch, we found a little beer hall and did our best to order without asking for the English menu. I saw a couple of word roots and ordered what I thought was going to be grilled sausage. Nope. What came out was a sort of German antipasto, with slices of sausages, cured meats, hard cheeses, soft cheeses, radishes, pickle cucumbers, greens, butter, and brown bread. It was terrific - a nice size to share, and we got to try a bunch of different things. Also, good German beer.

We continued to wander Marienplatz until it was time to head back to the airport for our flight. Getting all the way to Cluj was easy, and Mihai (the artistic director) and Delia (a generally awesome staffer) were at the airport to meet us. They took us to our apartment, which is above one of the nicer restaurants in town, and we started to unwind.  Eli tested each bed twice to see which he preferred. I'm using the loft space.  It's a nice place, with plenty of room.

When we finally crashed, I got about four hours of sleep again. I thought about going for a run to jumpstart my body, but decided to wait one more day to let my body clock adjust some more.  (knock on wood), I'm feeling pretty jet-lag free.  Tired, yes, but not jet-lagged.  I'm going to bed at appropriate times and waking up at appropriate times. Cross fingers for continued sleeping success.

It's 8.40am now, and C will be here soon to have a chat about the visual designs before we head to the theatre for the first rehearsal.

Opening

It's the day of the show, y'all! Time to wrap up here and get ready for the next adventure. I took a final run along the river, washed some laundry, and started packing. S and I joined Eli, Mihai (the artistic director), and Anca (Mihai's wife) for lunch at a new local restaurant called Adi's Steakhouse. 

Adi's Steakhouse has an interesting business model: they rely entirely on referrals from previous customers. They don't advertise and don't even call themselves a restaurant. Rather, the only way you can get a table for he first time is through a referral. It's a little weird to me, but if they can generate buzz through a little bit of exclusivity, more power to them. 

The meal was excellent. We started with bread and two pate-like spreads: tuna and artichoke. Then, an awesome green salad (the tomatoes here in Romania are perhaps the best common tomatoes I've ever had, btw). For my main course, I had the ribeye. I'm not usually a steak guy, but the head waiter (Adi himself?) talked it up extensively. It was exceptional beef from Argentina. Finally, for dessert, we sampled a few dishes, including a Hungarian rum cake that I'll dream about tonight. 

Back at the room, we took a small snooze. Well, I did anyway. S has had a very rough time sleeping since she arrived.  The beds are terribly hard and she can't get more than 30 minutes of sleep without waking in pain. Hopefully Croatia will be better. 

I got to the theatre about two hours before curtain to help the clowns warm up. They were in great spirits and used the warm-up to tease each other and limber up. There was an exchange of gifts and some preshow celebration. Then, the show...

...which was awesome. The clowns were excited, which rubbed off on the audience. The audience was excited, which rubbed off on the clowns. The show was terrific! Not flawless, but exceptional, with everyone using each others' energy to create the piece. The curtain call was easily 10 minutes, and Eli and I were pulled up on stage to participate. After the show, there was a party in the upper lobby, where I got to talk to most of the cast and say goodbye to them.  S took off for home early, but I stayed a little later.  Truly a great night. Congratulations and thank you to everyone at the National Theatre of Romania - the cast, the administration, the crew, the audience... you made this experience memorable and exceptional!  Thank you so much!

And so ends a very busy spring for me.  Since mid-March, I've opened four big shows in four different cities on two different continents. I've had two dance pieces premiere at a national conference. All this while teaching full-time at UCI. I've earned a break.

Tomorrow, we fly to Croatia to meet Chris & Elysia!  Hooray!

Work notes and a short day

A short day at work today. We only had the morning to rehearse, so E called in the company to work a few notes.  On the docket was a restaging of the curtain call, a refresher on finding your light with the company, and a couple of clean-up moments regarding audience interaction.  

Before rehearsal, I snuck down to the trap room and shot this photograph. The machinery to raise and lower the traps are all original, dating from almost 100 years ago.  This shot is from upstage left, looking towards downstage right.

After rehearsal, we met up with S and grabbed lunch. Then, en route to our afternoon wanders, we ran into Matei and Ramona, who were hanging out and causing trouble. Ramona went home, but Matei spent the afternoon with us at the awesome Ethnographic Museum. That museum had lots of artifacts from Transylvanian life, including tools, clothing, musical instruments, cooking equipment. It was really something special!

After the museum, S peeled off to relax, and Matei, E, and I went to check out some more of the city (and have a beer, natch). We stopped off at a street faire so Matei could buy a gift for his girlfriend and Eli could buy some stuff for his wife and daughter. Then, home for a siesta. 

S never got up from the siesta. She's all jetlaggy, so E and I went for dinner and the ice cream festival before heading into our rooms for the night. S was still napping.  I hope she's not up all night...

Tomorrow, we open!

Short Day

Today was a short rehearsal day. We ran the show in the morning and cancelled the afternoon session. There's a balance Eli's trying to achieve between drilling for precision and keeping enthusiasm up. As you might imagine, those two ideas are inversely correlated. And, since the level of precision we're used to isn't really happening with this cast (they are terrific in many ways, but performance consistency isn't one of those ways), there are diminishing returns when it comes to drilling scenes.

Other than that, the show looks great!  A bunch of us went out for lunch after rehearsal. After lunch, I swung by the grocery store to pick up some food for Sarah - she arrives tonight!

--later--

She's here!  That is all.

Breakthrough!

We’re finally back in tech today.  We started the day with a run, which went mostly well.  Clowns were filled with new ideas, we had a bit of a personnel shift, and we stopped and started a bit.  Still, not bad. After the run, I made some changes (some new content, lots of placement/cueing changes), and Eli and had lunch. During the meal break, I made my way into a small cathedral across the square for some beautiful photographs.

The Cathedral

Inside the Cathedral

The National Theatre

After the meal break, while doing notes, I had a discovery with Shoby, the guy running sound for the show. We’ve been having a bit of a language block and have been calling a translator for many of the more detailed notes. What we discovered was that while my Romanian is virtually nonexistent and his English is only slightly better, we both speak passable Spanish.  Suddenly, we were able to communicate much more clearly.  Hurray! In the evening, we shot some posed photos before starting a run.  

Eli gives notes to the cast.

The run tonight was the first time I got to hear the show from the house (I’d spent tech and the first run in the booth with Shoby, making sure his notes on cue placement were accurate).  Shoby his all of his cues in the run, but I have a bunch of level notes and a handful of rebuilds to do… … but instead of notes right away, we went for dinner and a few beers with Cristi (the scenic/costume designer) and Jan (Jann?), another composer who works at the theatre. Terrific conversation about theatre v. cinema, the value of rhythm, Muppets, and Buchla synthesizers. Now, back to work for me.

Tech!

Today was the first day of tech.  We started out with a bit of bad news.  We had to let one of actors go. C is a terrific actor, but he was having a hard time working as part of an ensemble. After trying to get him to be a team player for a few days, Eli finally had enough, and he removed C from the show.  The rest of the cast was pretty stunned; I gather that no actor had ever been removed from a show before. I was sorry to see him go, but it was the right decision.

Losing C meant that our morning schedule was a bit screwed up.  Eli met with the cast to explain the situation (there were some tears), and then we had to reshoot the poster.  While that was happening, I was working with Soby the house sound guy to set up the computer to play back sound. 

Then we tech!

Sort of.

Not everything was ready for tech today: we had no video, and we were missing some key visual elements of the scenery.  Plus, there was the expected amount of cultural differences regarding how tech rehearsals run.  Eli and I expect a certain sequence of events, but things are, of course, different in Romania.  Here are some observations from our first day of tech:

• The stage manager here is in charge of the technical operation of the deck. Not wrangling actors, and not calling a lot of cues. Most of the cues are taken by the operators themselves. I spent today standing next to Soby, telling him where each cue goes. He took good notes and we used a translator for much of the day, but I’m a little bit nervous about what happens after a two month break between shows or a change in operators. 
• Nothing looks as beautiful as a high-powered fresnel an a low setting. It’s so warm – like hugging a candle. But with less fire.
• I spent the entire first half of the day scribbling notes on paper. I hadn’t written that many notes by hand in tech in ten years!
• For all of the weird lack of punctuality regarding rehearsals and breaks, we started back with tech rehearsal at 5.05pm after a 5pm call.  Guess that’s what happens when you don’t have to wait for half hour.  Also, when we took a 10 at 8pm, the actors were back onstage at 8.10.  They’ve NEVER been that punctual. I don’t know if their motivation was wanting to finish for the night or a little fear over the loss of C.
• We’re cutting cues left and right. Well, not cutting, but consolidating.  It makes me a little nervous, as the consolidation means that we’re making sonic events a particular length of time, which means that the actors can’t ever deviate.  We started the day with about 60 cues in this 75 minute show. Now we’re at 48.
• I would kill for a bilingual & bicultural stage manager.
• The difference between audio connectors that look ALMOST similar but are quite different was never more apparent than this week.

Dinner break was pizza at a bar with some of the cast and crew. We told many inappropriate jokes. I learned a new one about camels.

For all of my fears about our collective lack of preparation, we made great time! At 8pm tonight, with two hours left in our day, we finished teching through the show. Eli and I were astounded. We never expected to finish in one day, and here we were with time to spare. We went back to do a little review work and broke for the day at 8.30pm. There’s still plenty to do, but at least we got through this beast.

Onward and upwards!

Poster

Here's our show poster.  Dig it:

And Anca & Ramona taking a break:

After rehearsal, Eli and I went to grab lunch. We finally found a nice little Romanian restaurant. We each had soup, and then a main course (Eli had turkey and potatoes, I had cabbage with minced meat). Also, I had a glass of tuica (a plum brandy).  For dessert, I had a dish that was similar to noodle kugel, and Eli had pasta with crushed walnuts (and lots of sugar!).  

Later, I took a walk around town and shot this video of a bunch of sports fans (soccer/football? rugby?) parading through the streets.

In the evening, we headed to the Hungarian Theatre to watch their production of Death of a Salesman. It was fascinating - very eastern-Europe in every sense of the word. Deconstruction, dirt, yelling, nudity, singing, etc. It was a remarkable production, though in the last few days, I've seen two productions of American Classics, both of which were deconstructed, updated, and filled with song.  I'm not sure what that says about how Romanians view the American cannon. 

Eli and I ended the night grabbing some pizza at Vinny's Cafe, where we ran into one of our clowns with his friends. 

Did I buy a house in Romania?

The most interesting thing that happened to me today was that I signed a power-of-attorney document for tax purposes here in Romania.  This way, I've designated Oana (an employee at the theatre) to make arrangements on my behalf to pay taxes and other things related to my work here in Cluj. To do it, Oana and I went to a nearby lawyer's office, where a Notary Public and a translator met us.  The translator translated every word of the document, and then we all practiced our signatures a lot.  The translator seemed to do a good job, but for all I know, the papers I signed married me to Oana.  Or bought me a house.

Before and after that was our first day in costumes. Ionut learned how to ride a bike AND smoke a cigar:

We also shot photos of the clowns for the poster.  After the shoot, Eli and I got in for a few shots:

Then, on a break, Ionut and and Matei went out to a local park to play with the normal humans. They both made quick friends: 

In the evening, we ran the show for the designers/technicians/us and called it an early night, but not before I got a chance to snap a photo of the stage managers's board backstage.

Italy re-post

As part of the new getting-to-know-your-new-blog exercise, I'm going to repost and re-organize my Italy posts here. I'm going to time-stamp them more appropriately as well. Scroll down for fun Italian adventures!

Italy 08: Day 7, part 4

6.47pm, EST

I'm back in the states now, having just landed from Rome. I bought some food at duty-free, so when I was filling out my customs form, I indicated that I was bringing food into the country. Of course, that then started a whole host of special attention. I got scanned at customs and again as I passed into the domestic terminals. I've got about 45 minutes before my plane to Minneapolis boards, so I'm grabbing some dinner. I've already talked to Sarah and have texted with Denise. Whee!

Italy 08: Day 7, part 3

Somewhere over the Atlantic...

All told, I've had a tremendous time this week. I went into this project with some big questions. Can we assemble a show with three days of rehearsal? Can we do it with the vast majority of our performers being foreign to us? Can we teach those performers clown technique sufficiently enough that the play can be performed in nose? Can I create a design that quickly? Can I perform it by myself? Can I still maintain significant levels of improvisation and spontaneity when performing the design? Did the preparation and programming I did in CA pay off in the end? All of the answers to these questions are, more or less, 'yes.' We used this project to conduct some very interesting theatrical experiments, and we're already talking about the next stage of these experiments.

In addition, I had a great time hanging with the UCI folk and meeting the international folk. The bulk of our clown troupe came from Trinity College of Dublin, and we were blessed to have such a strong group of well-trained and cohesive folk to work with. The fact that they had spent so much time training together meant that they already worked well as a team, and they were able to use that to help keep the entire troupe working as one organism. And, as you might imagine, they are a tremendously friendly and wonderful bunch of people and they know how to spend time at the bar (it's their fault that I only got two hours of sleep last night). So, cheers to them, our Italian, Hungarian, and American clowns, the staff & crew at the Festival & the Academie, and everyone else who put in the long hours to create such an incredible experience!

Italy 08: Day 7, part 2

HEADING HOME

First, here are some shots from the morning of 17 June, our performance day, just so you can get some perspective of what our show sort of looked like in the morning and afternoon:

Here's Giusi, whose role was sort of amorphous but who basically served as a festival production manager. She's holding Michael's Bill doll, who is, appropriately, in nose:


Rehearsal onstage:


Rehearsing the don't-push-the-button sequence from the show:


Notes after the run:


Where my set-up was, relative to the stage:


Here's Jaymi, writing cues during our lunch break. I'm still not sure how she did it in sunlight:


Shortly after I blogged yesterday, the rain started coming down. We had taken many precautions with the equipment (canopy, rain shields, plastic paint coverings), so I wasn't worried about the equipment getting damaged. I was, however, worried about the show. If it was raining, we certainly could not perform outside.

I spent the afternoon at the antifeatro, babysitting my gear from both the elements and thieves (you never know). Cambria, Benny, and I amused ourselves by playing Scopa. At 5.30, one of the festival directors came over to talk about whether we should cancel or not. Eli wasn't around, so we decided to reconvene at 7pm to discuss our 9pm show. The director came back a few minutes later with an alternate plan: the weather report said that the rain would let up by 8pm, so we would reconvene at 8.00 to figure out whether we could do the show in the antifeatro. If we chose to abandon the antifeatro, we would have access to the academie to perform. They had a small rehearsal hall that we could use. We'd have to restage a bit and perform without Jaymi's lighting design, but we would at least be able to perform.

Over the next hour, we watched the rain come down. We thought that we'd see breaks in the clouds, only to have the rain redouble its efforts at squashing our show. The group from Berlin that was scheduled to perform at 11pm had already cancelled their show, as they could not rehearse due to rain. Since we didn't have to finish in time to let the Berliners start, we decided that we could also delay the curtain to let the rain let up.

By 8.15, the rain was more intense and the sky was getting dark. Jaymi and I talked to Eli, who was helping the clowns get into whiteface, and we decided to move the show to the academie. Michael, Jaymi, and I immediately started breaking down our equipment, and a teacher at the academie started shuttling our 20-ish clowns to the academie from the antifeatro (a 7-minute drive or a 30-minute walk). Contrary to popular belief, you can not fit 20 clowns in one car, no matter how small.

When we got to the academie, the staff and students were already prepping our room for us. It was very live, so I asked students to bring in racks of costumes to absorb sound. They set up chairs, cleaned the floor, and tidied up a storage closet for a greenroom. Jaymi and Fiona taped down speaker cable:


I set up my gear. Michael and Holly were prepping softgoods and costume pieces. The last-minute rain-out and change of venue created a tremendous energy in the room. Here's our company moments before the house opens:


We opened the 'house' at about 9.40pm. It filled up in about 5 minutes, which was great considering that so many people had driven from Arezzo to the academie to see the show. Jaymi, instead of creating a beautiful and nuanced design, was in charge of the light switches. Eli filmed. I did what I do.

And it was incredible. From the very beginning of the show, when Benny and I forgot our interplay and improvised his awkward strip tease, to the birth of the clowns, to their death, resurrection, exodus, and landing on earth, the show was moving. It was funny, sad, weird, and immensely enjoyable. I was blown away by the experience of it, and everyone afterwards had great things to say.

Here's Fiona & Cambria after the show. Look at that excitement!


After the show, we packed up and zipped back to Arezzo. We had dinner at Mr. Bloom's, a local bar, which was packed with our people and Italians celebrating the soccer win. Here are two shots from the bar:


Dinner turned into some drinking and celebrating, and the short and the long is that Jaymi and I ended up getting about two hours sleep. We got home at 3.45am and got up at 5.45am. We caught the 7.14 express to Rome, had some breakfast, wandered town for a while, and then I caught the train to the airport. I'm sitting in the airport now as I write, waiting for my flight to JFK. From there, I'll get a flight to Minneapolis to see Sarah and friends!

Italy 08: Day 7

I have to run to catch the train, so I'll make this a brief, Arezzo Festival Haiku:

Rain, incessant rain.
Tried to ruin our clown show,
but we persevered.

It was spectacular. More later.

Italy 08: Day 6

Again with the no sleep. Judging by my record and the fact that tonight is both our last night here and our only night of performance, I don't imagine I'll get much sleep tonight either. It's alright - I have a two hour train ride, followed by a 9-hour plane ride, followed by a 3-hour plane ride. I suppose I can get some sleep then.

Michael came by with the car at 9.20 this morning to load up the gear that Jaymi and I needed to bring to the antifeatro. When we got here, it took a while to set up. I needed an extra table and some covering at the FOH position. When I finally got set up, we had a spacing rehearsal, followed by a lunch break. The house techs here are all agog over the JazzMutant Lemur that I brought. On lunch, I stayed with the gear and did some more work.

This afternoon, we had a run-through. It went well, and after a few notes, Eli released the cast to get some rest in anticipation of tonight's show. All of my gear is set up in the space, where security is lax, so I'm staying around to make sure nothing walks away. Some of the other Californians are going to relieve me in a bit, so that I can do a little packing and maybe grab some dinner. It's 4pm now, and the show isn't until 9pm.

Oh, and the wind has blown clouds through. Now, the covering that was protecting my gear from the sun this morning is protecting my gear from the possible rain now. Michael has hung plastic sheets around my area of the canopy in case the rain comes. So far, so good. Knocking on wood.

Italy 08: Day 5, part 2

Last night was not as productive as I would have liked, on many levels. There was too much wind and traffic to get a good recording of the bells. The first show we saw at 6pm was a very well-done commedia piece in French, but as I'm not a commedia scholar and I don't speak French, I was bored. Jaymi and I went for dinner after, and we ended up missing the highlight of the evening, which was a Hungarian student dressed as a cowboy doing an impersonation of Elvis singing 'Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.' After that, we saw another American group perform, but it was pretty disappointing and offensive. At midnight, we began load-in for our show but since the other group loading in had a first-time lighting designer, we ended up getting nothing done. I left early to go back to my room to edit our preshow cues, finally crawling into bed at about 3am.

Today is our long day. It's 9 now. We have rehearsal from 10-5, and then a performance at 9. Wheee!

Italy 08: Day 5

DAY 3 OF REHEARSAL

This morning came a little too early again (must stop trying to keep pace with 19-year old Irish students), but again, we were back in the hall for our last day of rehearsal with them. We added to the show some more and it's becoming quite interesting. We've got 30 minutes of useful material, which is saying something, considering that most of our clowns have never clowned before and we've only had about 11 hours of rehearsal with them.

Here are some photos from today's rehearsal.


We ran through the show a few times and then broke our rehearsal space down for the last time. After rehearsal, Eli, Jaymi, Holly, Michael, and I went for a late lunch. The restaurants were all closed (the Italian siesta), but we found one that would serve us. While we were eating, some of the Irish students joined us. Here's Holly's lovely Arugala & Gorgonzola pizza:


Now we're back at the B&B and taking a little downtime before the first of three shows tonight. I had to fix a couple of notes, but now I'm about to go out and record the bells in town. Then, off to the show, then dinner, then another show, then lighting focus! Will post more tonight, if I'm awake.

Italy 08: Day 4, part 2

Well, I set my alarm for 6.30, but apparently my body needed a rest. I woke up at 8.10 and missed meeting up with everyone else for dinner before the 9pm show. The 9pm show was great - it was a Swiss group, who did an entire piece about being a spectator at a play. It was done without voices, but with a lot of music (that the performers played). Also, they were great dancers. Truly an amazing piece of theatre.

The 11pm piece was also good, but in a different way. This was the group from Ireland, who did an ensemble piece about a Irish myth. The performances were good, but I got a little tired of the story after a while. Alas.

After the second show, we went with the Irish folk back to the bar. It's 3.15am, and we're just now getting to bed. Fortunately, I both had a nap today and don't have to be at the rehearsal hall at 8.15 tomorrow morning. Phew.

Italy 08: Day 4

DAY 2 OF REHEARSAL

The 7.15 alarm came too early this morning. Jaymi and I struggled to get ready after our night of revelry with the Irish. We were at the rehearsal hall by 8.15, ready to get set up for rehearsal. Rehearsal started at 9am, with a few more instances of the clown training that we did yesterday:


At 9.45, the Californians convened for a quick re-assessment of our casting. At 10am, the clowns came, and we divided them into specialty clowns, who would have a small role in the show but would also handle preshow work, elder clowns, who would be featured in the show, and those clowns that we could not fit into the show. We quickly got to work staging the show.

Here's our company:


The staging turned out surprisingly well. We explained the rough structure to the clowns, and then we went through the piece, element by element. Most of them were quick to pick up the idea, and they were both interesting to watch and responsive to my work. We had a great time, and by the end of rehearsal, we were able to do a rough run of the whole show. I was particularly surprised to see that many of the clowns that we elected to not use in the show stayed to watch our rehearsal.

After rehearsal, we grabbed lunch (pizza with sausage, artichoke, mushroom, and ham on different quarters) and then adjourned to a bar/gelateria called GREEDY BAR for a glass of limoncello and gelato (I had the pine nut). Mmmm. Here's Benny at lunch, talking with Lucy, an American student at the Academie and one of our company members:


As I write this, I'm taking a siesta before meeting the Californians for dinner at 7.30. We have shows to see at 9 and 11pm. Then, probably a drink or two before bed.

Italy 08: Day 3

DAY 1 OF REHEARSAL

Last night, I finally slept well. I woke once, but immediately feel back asleep. When my alarm finally did go off (after almost eight glorious hours), I was in the middle of dreaming that I was on the phone with my sister. When my alarm went off, I said 'Denise, I have to go now. My alarm is going off, and it's time for me to get up.' We said a quick goodbye and I woke up. Thanks, Denise, for being so understanding.

Between when Jaymi and I walked up the hill last evening and when we got back last night, the other two rooms in the B&B had been filled. This morning, I ran into one English speaker (Irish? British?) in the bathroom and three eastern Europeans (Hungarians?) in the kitchen nook. All very pleasant, but we didn't talk much. The Hungarians and I don't share a language, and the English-speaking woman was scrambling to get out the door to an appointment.

Michael picked Jaymi and I up at 9.30am to take us to the rehearsal space. The hall was packed with artists - Holly, Michael, Jaymi, Cambria, Benny, Eli, me, and about 35 would-be clowns. Eli did an amazing job getting the actors to discover their inner clowns, and I played a big part in helping that happen. We worked with about 25 clowns in this fashion: Cambrian would call their name, and Benny would give them a pep talk while he helped them into nose. When they first emerged for the audience, Eli would give them some initial direction while I did a quick read of who they were. In about 45 or 60 seconds, I usually had a good enough idea to start throwing sound at them. 90% of the time, I was pretty dead on with the music or sound I used. Sometimes I'd use music pulled from CDs, sometimes I'd use my mic and voice, and sometimes I'd use the step sequencer that I built. We had an amazing afternoon, and I'm impressed at what Eli was able to pull out of them. Here are some shots of that the session:

An Irish clown:


An Italian clown:


Another Irish Clown:


Two more Italian clowns:



The class:


One of our favorite clowns of the day:


Me working:


After rehearsal, we scoped out the ampifeatro, which is a 1st century amphitheater in town. We'll be performing there next week. The space was smaller than I expected, but the sound gear is better. Phew. Here are the 1st century walls:


And Here is the stage:


Then, we went to lunch, where we more or less cast the show, had some good food, and played Scopa!


After lunch, Eli led Cambria, Benny, Jaymi and I through town...


...and the valley...


...and past an ancient Roman aquaduct...


...to the Academie, where he and Holly are staying. The Academie is an arts school loosely associated with the Festival. It's a 20 minute walk from downtown (here's the Arezzo church as seen from the Academie:


), and it's deep in the heart of Tuscany. Eli napped while the four of us hung out, and then we all caught a ride back with a Festival staffer.

Back in town, Jaymi and I chilled at the B&B with a bottle of wine while waiting for a meet up with Holly & Michael. Michael and Holly thought the meet-up time was different than we did, so we ended up not meeting with them. Instead, we met up with Cambria, Benny, and Eli at the ampifeatro. Along with the Californians, we meet up with the Irish folk, and we all went for dinner at a great Italian (natch) place. I had the tagliolini con tartufo nero, which was basically pasta with black mushrooms. Mmmmm.

Jaymi and I were invited to hang with the Irish students after dinner, so we decided to prove that we weren't stodgy by obliging them. Here's Irish student Fiona at the bar:


We stayed for a beer, but when the Irish students got up to leave the bar, we joined them. All in all, it was a great day, but now there's less than five hours before I have to be up tomorrow morning. Oops.