Jane Austen's Pride & Exhaustion

A few hours have now passed since the end of our second performance of Weasel Erotica ... and what a week it has been. I am feeling a bizarre mixture of pride, apprehension and exhaustion. We have now given two performances to good sized crowds who certainly seem to be enjoying the show. At least no one has rioted yet.

Some of the folks in the show have asked me how I feel ... and it's really difficult to answer. I once heard an analogy saying that creating theatre is like a woman giving birth ... painful and filled with anxiety and once the process has begun, you can't go shoving that baby back in. It's out there, for all to see. In some ways I am fortunate in that I am also in the show and therefore am not out in the house helpless to do anything to save my baby should disaster arise. Because I am part of the production, I don't necessarily get to watch any of the other scenes and can, in all actuality, listen to very few of them. I just trust in the work of these talented folks on stage, have faith in the direction that Melissa Jo has given, do my best while I'm out there and just hope that there's at least somebody in the audience who gets it.

Mallory Jensen over at the Gothamist appears to get it ... here's what she wrote for our listing:

THEATER: Baby Hippopotamus Productions' new comedy Weasel Erotica may sound like something you don't even want to know about, but fortunately the show probably won't live up to your fears, unless your fears are of a show that's unrepentantly, and delightfully, silly. Melissa Jo Talent directs a cast that includes her brothers King and Mo (collectively, the three are "The Talented Talent Brothers") in this farce in which a rare performing weasel is brought to a town's zoo for the purpose of raising money to save the zoo from an evil land developer; then the world's only flying weasel expert has to be hired too, and the game is on.

You see, sometimes I think folks just want a show that doesn't necessarily mean anything, but is just a good time.

The Load In

Okay, so Thursday was "load in day." For those of you folks who might read this who are not familiar with theatrical terminology (I have a hard time buying that there is such a creature!) that simply means that over the course of one day, the day before we open, we have to load all of our set and props into the theatre, hang and focus lights and do all that technical stuff to get the show ready to roll. When you operate off-off Broadway and have no real budget, that means the cast doubles as crew and works their collective ass off for 24 hours.

Add to that a heat wave in NYC and a well-ventilated, yet un-air conditioned theatre and what do you get? A whole mess of sweaty and exhausted folks doing some hard-core manual labor. But that's when you know you've got a group of troopers ... everybody in this cast busted butt to get everything ready. I am fairly certain that I lost 6-8lbs in the sauna that was our lives for a day and may very well have suffered a minor heat stroke. Somehow it all came together, somehow it all got done. Don't ask me how it happened.

Now, on to business ...

After two years I'm really starting to believe that the Talented Talent Brothers are actually a justifiable property. Now we have a good and proper vehicle that grew out of last year's experience with Abnormal Stew. Tony and Matt have been on fire on stage and Mel's done a remarkable job getting this thing all put together. This is hands-down the best, most enjoyable cast I've worked with in New York. They all get it. They all understand that sometimes it has to be more about having fun and less about all the intellectual garbage that the theatre all-too-often breeds.

Have fun ...share the fun. It's not an overly complex mantra, but it's the one I'm operating on. It's time to get butts in seats and get some buzz going on in NYC. Stew was the infant crawling ... now we're a gangly teenager running wild. When this act finally matures, I want to be able to move on it ... we deserve it. These folks deserve recognition. They deserve the sweet and juicy fruits of their labor. (Jeez ... I'm letting about half-a-dozen dirty jokes go unwritten right here.)

So I'm feeling that it's time to put away the creative part of my persona for a bit and start to concentrate on the more managerial role. Equate it to having a band ... you find the players, write the songs, get the set good and tight ... but who comes to your gigs? How are you going to eat and pay rent? That's the question I now must answer, not only for myself, but for the family. It's just so damn overwhelming to create, riff and let the juices flow while trying to manage a business ... all on top of a day job that foots the bill and a personal life that is ... well, convoluted to say the least.

I think I'm finally going to read Gene Simmons' book on business ... this guy turned a flashy rock band into a merchandising machine ... maybe I can learn a thing or two from the fire-breathing demon. I would love for the Talented Talent Brothers to become vaudeville comedy's counterpart to Kiss ... 'cause after all, we rock and roll all night and party every day too!

Lastly, a big thanks to Rebecca for all of these rehearsal photos ... she's my hero!