Comedy in Truth

I was walking home from a dinner with Friend Alison the other night when she started recounting stories of various klutzy moments in her life. In particular, she mentioned a time that she was walking down the street and walked directly into a wall so hard and unexpectedly that she 1) fell right on her butt with 2) legs splayed and 3) skirt up over her head. I, of course, thought this was classically hilarious, and suggested we should get her a camera crew and a YouTube channel, just in case it happens again. She balked at this notion, and we moved on to stories of when we have tripped and fallen UP stairs . . . but I think I can bring her around.

Alison (and I) fall, unexpectedy and dramatically. I own a cat who humps himself to sleep at night. Wife Megan's occasional, inadvertent experiments with grammar. The Internet. These are all funny things--comedy--and all happen without any prompting or effort. In life, comedy is easy and plentiful. In acting, we can make it very difficult for ourselves.

It's a kind of magic trick, a well-executed comic bit, requiring a certain sense of dramatic flare and sleight-of-hand (or foot, or butt, etc.). Except in this trick, the performer is fooled almost as much as the audience. When I teach pratfalls, I regurgitate a good bit of advice that is so timeless, I can't begin to remember who first told me of it. The best way to execute a convincing trip, is to actually trip. You simply trail your back foot over your front heel as it's taking a step forward, so you then have to catch yourself on the other side of that step. That's not the trick, however: anybody can do that. No, the trick is in believing that there is no possible way you will trip, even as you set yourself up for it. That's what makes it spontaneous, and that's what allows everyone to believe the real payoff: your reaction to just having tripped.

Way back in the day, now (we're talking 2001, people), I played a broadly comic character in a little original production called

The Center of Gravity.

Moe Franko was the owner of a gas station, a sort of arrogantly naive fellow who was pretty crass 'cuz he just didn't learn any better. (I grew a mustache for the role; me + mustache = comedy.) At any rate, my hands-down best laugh of the show was one in which a strikingly attractive young woman visits the gas station and is introduced to my character. It's already been established that I'm freshly returned from using the facilities, and when we shake hands, she makes a face, to which I reply, "Oh don't worry, it's just water. It's not urine or anything." Their handshake disengaged, Moe turns away, and his face registers every little realization of how awful the thing he's just said is and, by extension, how awful he probably is. It got a laugh, every single time.

Which can totally and utterly ruin a joke. Anticipation is one of the worst sabotage factors of a good gag, and it applies both to the performer and the audience member. I have botched a perfectly good gag innumerable times through this very error. So why didn't it ever take down the water/urine gag? Well, I was quite young and the woman playing the interloper

was

exotically attractive, and I had a mustache (no, you don't get a photo). So that covered a lot of the sincerity bases in terms of the given circumstances -- I really did feel a little excited, and awful, and embarrassed. Perhaps more importantly, the line felt like something I might say, minus the Texan twang, of course.

I'm thinking about this because I just signed on to act in

an original comedy performing in June

. The role is probably going to require me to stretch my comic imagination, by the prospect of which I'm both excited, and slightly intimidated. It's good to remember that, ultimately, being real is what makes things really funny. I like this about comedy, that it is served best by truth and belief. Sure: It's all very rehearsed, and calculated, like any bit of good theatre. But all of that is for naught if we can't believe in it in the moment. The impact isn't what's funny; it's the way we deal with it afterward. Not the action, but the reaction, and the best reactions come from that very moment, and no other place.

Gary C. Hopper

"

Acting!

"

"

Theatre

is my

life!

"

I received most of my formal acting training in the undergraduate program at

Virginia Commonwealth University

. Lots of factors contributed to my decision to attend college there. For example, I didn't make it into William & Mary; had I, I would have definitely gone, and my parents would definitely be much poorer, even to this day. When I enrolled, I wasn't even committed to being an actor -- I was just in the habit of approaching colleges

as

an actor, or theatre student, because that was the mode in which they were most likely to have already heard of me, through the conferences I attended in high school. I still had an abiding love of all things literature (except Dickens [even to this day]) and hoped to double-major.

VCU was an interesting program, one whose curriculum was in a state of near-constant flux during my four years there. Teachers and administrators came and went. In fact, the gentleman I auditioned for was no longer there by the time my first day arrived. This general situation caused me a good deal of angst during my time, fretting over the state of my and and my fellows' education. (To be fair, causing me angst in those days was not by any stretch a challenging maneuver.) Not to put too fine a point on it, I was often pretty pissed. At the most difficult times of that struggle, I think the only thing that kept me enrolled was returning to the foundation we actors received from the guy who insisted he teach each and every incoming freshman actor: Gary Hopper.

Mr. Hopper was, and delighted in embodying, an amiable terror to the freshmen. He made it clear, with a blistering smile all the while, that we were there to

work

and, furthermore, to work with enthusiasm. I can still hear his voice in my head as he jogged around the room with us in our daily warm-ups, quasi-facetiously pepping up our teenage slack-i-tude with interjections of, "

Acting!

" and "

Theatre

is my

life!

" There's a philosophy of teaching, I believe, that makes good use of the teacher as a character, as someone intriguing and idiosyncratic, who fascinates and keeps one on one's toes. This approach makes the students a little bit like gladiators, wily and ready to adapt: engaged --

if

it works on them. It certainly worked on me, but it's an approach that is full of risk and takes a lot of commitment and energy. Sort of like, you know, good acting.

Now, I don't know if Mr. Hopper intends to be as eccentric as he can be, nor whether it's to this end. My guess is he does, but I also believe most of his idiosyncrasies are ones he comes about quite honestly. He really is a man who sees the purpose in life to be inextricable from living with energy and intention. He really would like to yank the cigarette out of every smoker's mouth, then have them thank him for saving minutes of their lives. And yes, theatre is his life. In my time he directed one main-stage show per year, and often a second-stage or regional show to boot, and these were always,

always

something to experience. Every show wasn't for every audience member, but that goes with his territory. That's risk-taking, and that's art. I could tally off every show of his from the Fall of 1995 to the Spring of 1999, and would enjoy the hell out of it, but just take my word: Must Sees.

Of course, I was involved in a few of those. As a sophomore I ASM'd his

Little Shop of Horrors

, which involved various misadventures with a turntable (oh, that f&#$%ng turntable),

Intellabeams

and an honest-to-goodness motorcycle. And, as a junior, I did what I'm afraid was an astonishingly mediocre job in his adaptation of the play

Stand-Up Tragedy

, which, Gentle Reader, involved risky stunts and fights, a life-size, bleeding Christ sculpture and -- most terrifying -- me, rapping. Finally, in my senior year, I had the excellent good fortune to work with Gary on a farce:

Hotel Paradiso

. Holy crap: THAT was FUN. I'm not sure any show I'd done before has influenced my adult career so specifically and completely. I knew before

Hotel

that I had a unique (being kind here) sense of humor and an appreciation of pratfall, but it was this show that taught me how important these were to me.

In fact, I probably owe the man royalties (nothing substantial, I regret to admit). Firstly because I believe to this day -- in spite of years of experience prior to college -- that I didn't learn how to act until I studied with Gary. It can be hard, more than a decade on, to trace the sources of one's techniques back to their origins. In spite of this, I very definitely carry on in a specific G.C.H. tradition, both in my acting and in my teaching. "Actors must be athletes," is an axiom that gets included in every single commedia dell'arte or acrobalance workshop I lead, and a great many of my exercises and challenges are taken directly from the Hopper repertoire. I still score my scripts, feeling somehow delinquent if I haven't done so by opening night, and I continue to subject my poor, poor actors, when I direct, to the STOP method of line memorization.

STOP is a good way to illustrate the infuriating and exacting way Gary has of demanding not just better, but the specific best from his actors. In this exercise, everyone gathers in a tight, standing circle, and we run lines, with the stage manager (

never the director; I learned how important this is the hard way

) on book. Whenever someone misses, transposes or paraphrases a single word, the SM says, "Stop." And only: "Stop." It's then up to the actor to repeat the line and, by the timing of "stops" figure out his or her mistake, and correct it. Believe me: It is not for the weak (nor the humorless).

Of course, college is about a hell of a lot more than the classes one takes, or even the productions a theatre student may be a part of. Gary had his small, yet profound, influences on me there as well. None of it is of general interest, all of it proved very important to the person I've become. College for me was personally tumultuous, and very probably that was a result of my own doing, and growing. I suspect that is not uncommon, yet when you're in the thick of it the experience is a rather difficult one of which to take a long view. Gary's spirit, his approach to challenges and belief in rooting all that ecstatic expression in solid groundwork, provided me with an example of how to be both exuberant and responsible in life. Plus, without ever tearing me down (more than I needed it) he constantly reminded me not to take myself too seriously. To say I'm grateful to him doesn't quite cover it.

Sometimes when I'm in the midst of a warm-up on a tougher day, I'll start (quite unconsciously) whispering to myself "

Acting!

" and "

Theatre

is my

life!

" And I smile, and I can't help it. Gary's spirit is unsentimental and infectious, and it would appear I remain infected to this day. Happy birthday, Gary, and thanks for all you've done for us.

Theatre Is Dead

We like to have fun here at The Aviary, as verbose and pretentious as we can sometimes be. (For example: Referring to ourselves in the collective third person.) Theatre, after all, is all about the play, and so it would be contradictory to approach writing about it without a certain sense of playfulness. Occasionally, however, we have to address serious issues the severity of which no amount of levity can affect. In that this 'blog is about a personal journey as much as it is about larger issues of a fulfilling life and artful journeys, naturally some of these more-serious topics are going to cut pretty close to the bone, and come up here as a result of being personally important to me rather than due to timely relevance or any particular external instigation. In this case, however, the issue is both personal and timely.

The theatre is in serious danger of being killed off. I'm not leaning on hyperbole by phrasing it in this way -- I very specifically mean to suggest a murder. It's a killing by little pieces, a sloughing-off of life as if by erosion, and so it is insidious in the extreme. An alternative form of entertainment is taking over the theatre's former place in our lives, and we may not even appreciate the threat, simply because we are so entertained by it. This form of entertainment is characterized by flashy effects, easy laughs, baser instincts and extremely brief demands on our collective attention span. Moreover, as impossible as it may seem, it is spreading rapidly in popularity by merit of its availability and relative lack of expense, both to produce and to enjoy. There is no greater threat to legitimate theatre, nor has there ever been or likely will be again if we don't take a stand against it in a timely manner.

The new entertainment I refer to is, of course: "The Vaudeville."

Naturally, I know you will react dismissively to this assessment, but I beg of you to hear me out. I, too, rejected the premise when initially it came to me. Though it may seem absurd in the extreme to regard this cheap, new-fangled idiom as any kind of threat to the grandeur and history of the theatre, I have noted several indications of late which suggest that The Vaudeville is not only encroaching upon the theatre's domain, but that it threatens to wholly and utterly usurp said domicile. You will argue against it, naturally. I can not hold this against you. But forgive me whilst I demount any and all of your protests:

• The theatre has stood as a standard of verisimilitude for too long to be torn asunder by the actions of gag men. While patently true in its own sense, this argument is actually irrelevant to the particular threat at hand. Of course The Vaudeville can never hope to approach the sheer reality of a truly produced theatrical endeavor; no amount of colloquialism can hope to make up for the utter lack of design and artistry. However, dear friends, note that the equation has reversed in the case of The Vaudeville. It does not seek to imitate life, because life is imitating it.Why, just the other day I approached a fellow in the hopes of acquiring a newspaper, to which request he replied, "Hang it for a tick, guy. My Bob's ah'summin'." Needless to say, I did not remain to inquire who or what constituted this man's "Bob," or in what state of which it could be said to be "ah'summin'." No, recognizing the idiomatic language of the small stage, I departed in terror of this Vaudeville language, or "VAUL-speak."

• The Vaudeville, unlike the theatre, does not elevate our beings; in fact, it degrades us with its total lack of style or substance. Again, Dear Reader, I must agree. And yet again, I must with great regret dissuade you of conventional priorities. That is to say -- and I say so with tremendous apology and concern -- the larger audience may not be interested in having their beings elevated. I KNOW, I know: It is an horrifying concept. Yet all my observances of late suggest that people seem to want their entertainment to, above all else, entertain them. This The Vaudeville does exceedingly well, albeit with prattling mechanics and base, visceral humor. Of course we all respect and admire the astonishing word-play of Mr. Shakespeare, particularly when a seasoned actor may truly take his time over each, and every, word . . . but how can we not but laugh when any fool falls to his bumpkin? It is base, as I say, reflexive, even instinctive, but there can be no denying its immediate effect. Laughter-as-opiate can only draw, however gradually, more and more addicts from our ranks of thespian-enthusiasts down to the cellar of The Vaudeville.

• But the theatre is an event, a special and discriminating experience that must be planned for, researched, sacrificed for, and ultimately - we may occasionally hope - baffles our expectation! Reader: I know, and I empathize utterly with your devotion. But kindly brace yourself for this next: A growing number of people are valuing convenience. Convenience! It's true: there is nothing so wonderful as the sheer effort involved in attaining the hard-earned income for a ticket to the theatre, attempting to attain that ticket, and thereupon spending more money and time on the ceremony surrounding a trip out to the theatre. Can anything afford greater satisfaction than this? Of course not! The idea is pure tomfoolery! Yet imagine for a moment, if you will, a whole neighborhood of people who are never afforded the opportunity to experience this reward. And why? Because just down the block is a tiny space that costs not two bits to enter, and wherein food and drink are all served amidst a rabble of conversation and entertainment. Terrifying, isn't it? Just. Down. The block. Not two bits, and anyone can not only attend, but contributeto the evening's experience.

Chin up, my friends. We must show no fear in the face of this threat, and stand confident in the continued importance--nay, necessity!--of the theatre. But a threat this The Vaudeville is, and will continue to be, unless we prove our superiority. It is not enough, comrades, to be resolute yet docile in our stuffed-velvet seats. We must rise up, and resist the new order and its slavish devotion to progress with our greatest weapons: Consistency and Ostentation. It is only by relentlessly doing things specifically and exactly the way they have always been done that we can hope to overcome this entertaining, inexpensive and inclusive so-called "theatre." We can do it, my friends. Onward, my histrionic soldiers, onward...

(

Happy 1st o' April, one and all!

)

An Emotional Response to the Physical

Not at all sure what the questionable-quality food items are all about...

This video got me thinking about how I enjoy things like the comedy of Buster Keaton, and Rube Goldberg machines, and then not but two weeks later, OK Go! released an Internet 'asploding music video featuring an incredibly elaborate machine (and well-directed video, I may add) comprised of everyday items:

If you haven't seen the above yet, you're welcome, and you are a jerk. Yes: a jerk, for your ignorance. Mental Floss also put together a bunch o' Rube for your viewing pleasure ovah heeyah.

So what is this attraction to inanimate objects? Particularly those engaged in some unintended use? I'll break down some ideas I have as to the appeal, both personal and (perhaps [in some cases]) universal. Breaking it down 'til the break of dawn:

1. It makes us feel optimistic to think of objects as fulfilling purposes, instead of being merely lifeless tools. Purpose connotes design connotes meaning.
2. It makes us feel optimistic to see supposed purposes up-ended, and still demonstrate some sort of function. Creativity connotes a larger purpose.
3. When objects interact with forces, we ascribe behavior to them, which makes the world a bright-n-shiny adventure, filled with personality.
4. There is a sense of wonder created by acts of metamorphosis.
5. By manipulating objects, we gain a broader sense of control over ourselves and the world. Comfort in safety?
6. Objects are SO NOT controllable, in that they're animated by the same myriad physical forces that manipulate us; of which there are so many, we can never guarantee that the dang ball will go through the dang hoop (much less that we won't, say, trip on a staircase today). Objects are, therefore, spontaneous. Excitement in danger?
7. Wish-fulfillment and family-building. Our pattern-recognition is based in distinctly human forms and features. In other words, we are continually, subconsciously, "recognizing" the things around us -- we want our cars to have faces, and we need to think of that table bit as a leg, that lamp bit as an arm. Objects are, by extension (pun acknowledged and admired, I'm not ashamed to admit), our children. We made them.

Okay, whether that's all rubbish to you or gospel for some new, quasi-dystopian religious beliefs (Tom Robbins, I'm looking in your direction...) I'm sure you can name a thing or two that you feel an abnormal level of affection for. Objects, physical and inanimate, populate our world and play out scenes with us daily. It is natural to incorporate objects -- or "tools" if you prefer -- into ourselves and our passage in/through time. It's a blurrier line than we may imagine, too, the distinction between animate and inanimate. Certainly physics could make an argument that nothing in existence is or could be truly in-animate, but even on a simpler, perceptive level we have to distinguish between the life of a plant and the life of an animal, or even the life of a planet and the life of an atom. Are we objects? Sure we are, divine ones or no.

Emotions may be even more difficult to define than objects. My opinion is that emotions are by-and-large sublimated survival instincts. They evolved in response both to changing survival priorities and the development of our particular self-awareness and abstract thinking. If you accept that theory as I do, it makes emotions at once very pragmatic and rather mysterious. They can be played upon, manipulated, but they also play upon and manipulate us. They are internal, with tremendous external effects and implications. And of course, our emotions allow us to connect with one another beyond a purely mechanical way. This possibility alone may be the best distinction between ourselves and other "objects."

In other words, it seems completely natural to me that when a hat flips up to land perfectly on someone's head, I am applauding for the hat itself. Or, when I stumble over an errant bit of sidewalk, to curse the day it was born. But here I'm hitting on another reason we respond so emotionally to the physical world: Because all the world's a stage, and all of us players, and players in our own unique play, at that.

6/15/10 Update: Over at tor.com, Jason Henninger discusses similar questions as applied to robotics.

The Spectacular Scrantonian Spectacular! : A Spectacular Summary

Well, we did it. It may not be topping the charts anymore, but I and some generous friends of mine, we put on a show; a variety show; a "spectacular." On a personal level, it was a really nice adventure for me. I got to produce something I want to see more of in the world, and though it was really my first time producing something completely solo, I got to experience that anxiety (comparable, frankly, only to the anxiety I felt in the week leading up to my wedding) in a familiar environment at ETC. In fact, this was sort of my Zuppa show for the year, as Zuppa del Giorno is on an indefinite hiatus from our show-making. Maybe that explains the anxiety -- I was squeezing two months' worth into about two days.

The greatest disappointment of the show was really a fairly insubstantial, and familiar, one. That is, the audience turn-out and (presumably) corresponding community awareness. I worked quite hard at getting that part of it supported and improved from the theatre's usual struggles yet, given the fact that the event was only $5 with an open bar, have to concede defeat. This short-fall is one thing when you know you're doing something experimental or otherwise unpopular, and much the same thing when the product turns out below expectations for one reason or another. Neither was the case here, though.

My performers...were...AWESOME. Seriously. You should have been there. AWESOME. I can admit to some bias, but really, I am quite cynical when it comes to productions of which I'm a part; especially when I have some creative control beyond the actor's usual lot. I'm here to tell you that unless you were one of the 30 or so members of the audience, you missed out. Fortunately, I'm here to sum it up for you a bit. I may post video in the coming weeks, too, with the performers' permission. In the meantime, some pithy-tude and photography, the latter taken largely by Ms. Alicia Grega-Pikul.

The real process began with the arrival of the performers around 2:00 the day of the show. That gave us approximately four-and-a-half hours in which to look at what we had, what we needed, and string it all together into a pleasing shape. Billy Rogan and I -- with a little very helpful directorial assistance from Heather Stuart -- spent some small time Sunday figuring out the framework that we as MCs would use, but apart from that it was done on the day. Kate Chadwick, Richard and Sheridan Grunn, Patrick Lacey, Billy and I in the room, figuring it all out. The experience was especially solitary because neither the administrator of the second-stage program nor the technical director of the theatre were in town. This made for a kind of hectic weekend of prep for yours truly, but was also truly nice when we nervous jumpers-in (of the head-first variety) got down to brass tacks. Six of us in a space, working. It would have been a mess if I had performers who were especially insecure or needy. Such was not the case. So as people showed me their pieces, other people searched for props, and still others went about experimenting with linking their performances with other folks. And by 6:30, we knew what we were about.

That's a total lie, but not knowing exactly what we were about was part of the idea in the first place. So...

There were pre- and post-show slideshows during the mingling and sipping. The pre-show one was made entirely of sketches of people's visions of the future as they imagined it between 1890 and 1920, which I loved having projected across a shredded ballroom from the 1800s. When we got underway, I said a few introductory words about Scranton and vaudeville, and then introduced Billy, who was late due to mingling with the crowd. Billy and I opened the show by establishing our relationship as guys who had different ideas of wanting the show to be good -- me uptight, he relaxed, which segued nicely into his playing one of his songs to open. We set Billy up so he could move about, but had a nice old easy chair stage left for home base. This worked really nicely, so that he belonged on stage, but didn't have to distract from the more independent performances. Billy's a very versatile and charismatic performer, as both musician and comedian, and I owe a tremendous amount of the show's function to his presence. In fact, you really should be listening to his music while you read this, just for mood's sake.

Hard on the heels of Billy's lyrical opening came Richard's Urbano's Kitchen, in which a rather mad-looking Italian chef unleashes dish after dish upon an unsuspecting restaurant. Richard has the kind of dash that can pull this kind of act off, and that's a rare quality. Essentially, the act consists of him excitedly throwing trash on the audience in the form of yarn spaghetti, paper farfalle and plastic-bag salad. Richard has a way of doing this that compromises none of the anarchic spirit, yet feels somehow inviting, and he had the perfect counterpart in his Vincenzo, a slow-moving old man played by his four-foot son Sheridan. He and Billy were really a one-two punch at the top, relaxing and then getting the audience laughing in turns.

After that it was more music, this time in the form of an a capella performance from Kate. She took the stage gently after a brief introduction from me, and explained her Irish roots before proceeding to sing a favorite Irish folk song of her grandmother's. Kate has a beautiful, strong and well-trained voice, so we can be forgiven for not immediately recognizing Beyonce's Grammy-winning Single Ladies. As this pop song rolled out in a grandly nostalgic, traditional style, the audience went to stitches. What was really funny was that it took awhile to get through this pop song in that style, which -- rather than seeming to run long -- made the song and our appreciation of it only feel funnier and funnier. And did Kate crack a single ironic smile? She did not.

After that it was Patrick's turn to take the stage, and Patrick had some very cool things up his sleeve. I set up one of his props -- a kind of glowing crystal ball -- and bantered a bit with Billy as he prepared to play the music he and Patrick had put together just hour before. As he played eerie electric wobbles and loops and...uh...sworls (technical musical term) Patrick emerged from far stage right curtains as an impossibly tall fortune-teller. This was a new mask, and a new piece, and it was thrilling to watch Patrick debut it. The audience was geared up for more comedy, which I think actually made some of them nervous as this seven-foot woman floated to the crystal ball. She looked into it briefly, then began to convulse and collapse, until she was just a heap of fabric on the floor. Then the fabric began to twitch and convulse. Billy's music ceased, and out from under the fabric emerged a transformed creature (a cat, though debate rages on). The audience loved this piece as Patrick did something he does brilliantly, and the crystal ball becomes a cat toy as the piece transforms into something utterly playful. And, for this one, there's already video.

The piece segued directly into one of Billy's songs, a playful number called Perambulate, and after that, it was up to me and Billy to clear the stage. I came out on my stilts to ham it up for a bit and remove the prop while Billy removed the abandoned costume, and then Ms. Kate Chadwick returned, sans introduction (I think; Kate, check my miserable memory) carrying her singin' stool. The stool was a ruse, though. Billy took a seat in his easy chair as she set foot on the dance floor, setting off a click from her heels. My goodness! Tap shoes! How did they get on there? Kate does a little tapping, much to the audience's delight, and then Billy mocks her a bit by thumping out rhythms on his guitar. They get into a comic duel, which gives way into Billy's Ravi Shankar, a very energetic, rhythmic song of his with thumps and ticks that accelerate throughout. They perform a duet. THEY MET THAT AFTERNOON, AND THAT NIGHT, THEY DID A TAP'N'GUITAR DUET. I, for the record, have never, ever done anything to be so lucky as to have these people performing on my program.

Patrick then performed his masked movement piece, Emro Farm, a moving sort of dance that tells the story of a woman living on a farm -- a single place -- for her entire life. It's hard to explain this piece with words, but it's easy to describe the effect it had in the context of the evening. Patrick really grounded the whole affair with his contributions, lending it a chance to be more than just a "spectacular," allowing it to have moments of meaning and reflection that I for one am enormously grateful. Emro Farm is repetitive movement set to beautiful, occasionally melancholy, music, and the final repetition ends in silence. Due entirely to my mismanagement of rehearsal time (all four hours of it), Patrick was interrupted a bit early in this final silent repetition. I think it still worked, however. I was very fond of the transition we found. Sheridan's character, Vincenzo, enters upstage at his glacial pace, stands center and opens up one of the props for the final act: a music box. This gentle interruption of the silence and gravity of Emro Farm was really quite wonderful, and allowed Patrick's character to leave the stage in character, which was essential to the mood he had created.

The last act of the evening ended us on a playful high note, as once again Rich took the stage as Urbano. This time, it was Urbano's Circus, a rollicking puppet show of sorts that mirrored the spirit and content of the whole evening's variety nicely. With his (t)rusty assistant, Urbano wheels out a grocery cart full of eccentric puppet performers who leap (are thrown) through the air, run about (remotely controlled) on the ground and generally act up in their particular routine. It involved audience participation, gleeful imagination and of course Rich's persnickety, anarchic orchestration. He had a wonderful gimmick for it, too, in which Vincenzo would at his command open different electronic greeting cards in front of a microphone for theme music. Flight of the Valkyries never sounded so apt. It wrapped up with an unwrapped "fin" sign -- perfect punctuation on which to end the show and lead us into our curtain call.

We said goodbye, I on my stilts, and I took off my hat as I bowed, unleashing a torrent of ping-pong and bouncy balls on the unsuspecting audience and performers. Billy played a new composition on which he's working, and the evening segued into chat and another slide show, this one of black-and-white photos of strange human endeavors. The balls may have been a slight misstep on my part, as a certain segment of the audience decided to begin a bit of a war with them (resulting of course in my getting absolutely BEANED in the temple by a bouncy ball) but the mood seemed entirely jovial and it was nice to have everyone lingering afterward -- a sure sign of a job well done, as far as I'm concerned.

Attendance expectations aside and owing nearly entirely to my performers, I feel it was a resounding success. I hope the participants feel the same. Probably the most resounding lesson I take away from the experience is that when producing this kind of show, the performers are all -- get good ones, and then make them as absolutely supported as possible, on stage and off. They will be amazing. Spectacular, one could say....