Tuesday, April 16, 2013

The View From Here #158: Pretty Much Everywhere…


The new books are out! The new books are out!


After two years of releasing books in February (“Acting at the Speed of Life” in Feb 2011 and “The Big Book ofMoliere Monologues” in February 2012), I was beginning to feel like some kind of a slacker, not having anything to show for the Winter of 2013. I had several projects “in the pipeline,” but didn’t have anything ready to go for this year.

But then I started to think about some of the one-man plays I’ve developed which have a strong “fan base” already. Perhaps having them available in book form would make them accessible to the next generation of one-man-play actors, who could take them into production… Or perhaps they would provide yet another marketing angle for venues that might stumble across me through Amazon. And perhaps these (very shiny) books, might add some professional polish to the operation, serving me as another very elaborate “business card.”

Given, especially, that I’d recently performed a very rare showing of my one-man comic sci-fi thriller, “Criteria,” and the words, actions and activities were very clear in my memory, this was a chance to capture the excitement of that play while it was still fresh.

And so, in ADDITION to my ongoing projects: The vast booking campaign, editing Shakespeare’s “War of the Roses,” drawing up my next one-man play, “Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits: The History Cycle” (all ten history plays in one hour!), as well as the “Greatest Speech of All Time” study guide, I began editing my way through “Moliere Than Thou” and “Criteria.”

Whereas, in the past, the scripts were laid out for technicians, this time around, I was writing to explain the action for someone who was NOT seeing them live, but who would want to get as close to the full experience of them simply through the written word. At the same time, I didn’t want to spell out every little gesture or inflection, given that another actor might actually, one day, work to make these characters his (or her) own.

Back on the Road...

Newberry College (in South Carolina) was booking me for a record fourth time (each time with a different show!). They’ve booked almost all I have to offer, but still have not booked “Moliere Than Thou!”

This time they were hosting “The Greatest Speech of All Time,” and they’d arranged for the big, beautiful local opera house as my venue. It was a full day, as that morning I gave two different radio interviews (one on the phone outside of the studio of the other, before walking inside to do the second interview), prior to a Q&A with a student audience about public speaking. (The rare, improvised session with the students can be viewed HERE (Alas, you have to go to "on demand" scroll down to "The Transofming Power of Rhetoric" and register, and THEN they let you watch it!) 

Bremner and Lisa
The teacher had requested that I include two additional speeches I’d been working up, by Emma Goldman and Dwight D. Eisenhower. I was a little nervous, given that Eisenhower and Emma Goldman both sound like revolutionary anarchists, railing against the military industrial complex (in South Carolina!), but nobody quite freaked out. All together, there was a very strong turnout for the show, with some 150 students and locals in attendance, as well as some terrific technicians running the sound, lights and slide show.

I pushed from South Carolina on toward Texas, with a stop in New Orleans, just in time for the kickoff of their Mardi Gras celebration. I visited with Bremner and Lisa, who just moved down to New Orleans last Fall, and they brought me along to a party and the “Krewe du Vieux” parade, where more friends were made and much more fun was to be had.

In Texas, I stopped to visit cousins Kathy and Larry, before proceeding down to Laredo, where the Community College was hosting “Moliere Than Thou.” (In our last issue of “The View From Here,” the director of this program showed up at a rollicking performance at Texas State last fall, and decided to book me.)

My hotel in Laredo was barely a half-mile from the border, and more than once I was warned not to cross over to the Mexican side, where light-skinned Yankees driving American cars are bait for blackmail and ransom.

I played it safe, and the show went very well, and my host was graciously enthusiastic, hoping to book “Lot o’ Shakespeare” on a subsequent pass.

I zipped back up to Houston, and spent four days amid the excitement of the Texas Educational Theatre Festival.

This time around, I was both an exhibitor and a guest artist at the festival, presenting “Moliere Than Thou” and “The Greatest Speech of All Time,” along with my acting workshop. In exchange, the folks from TETA were covering my hotel, giving me a booth, and generally treating me very nicely.

I got to hang out with some terrific friends at the conference (a couple of dear old friends came out to see the new show), and this time around, I began to discover the value of RAFFLES.

Whereas, in the midst of my exhibit hall sales pitch, I might forget to ask someone who stops by to sign in, it’s much easier and smoother to capture their info by offering them a chance to win a fabulous shiny new book or a t-shirt (while they are spinning my bingo cage and testing my memory of Shakespeare monologues). I walked away with over 70 e-mail addresses. Most of these were student e-mails, but someday they, too, will be running their own theatre companies, or teaching high school and college… and will be looking to produce Moliere and Shakespeare, and will remember me.

Hill College Flyer
From Houston, it was on to Hill College, where, way back in 2006, they’d booked me to do “Moliere Than Thou,” and this time around were hosting “Lot o’ Shakespeare.” Even though they had a new Theatre teacher this time around, she had already read a copy of my book, and was eager for me to present my acting workshop.

The show was extremely well received, and they threw a reception afterwards, during which all expressed their profound astonishment at my memory.

My billeters from the Kansas City Fringe Festival, Alan and Sandy, were once again opening their home to me for a week of downtime (prior to a show at Johnson County Community College), which enabled me to work through a couple of fresh drafts of the new books. The biggest challenges were actually the “front and back matter,” those odd pages that have all the legal mumbo jumbo, the ISBN numbers, the contents, the introductions (and the advertisements for all the other fine books proudly presented by the TMRT Press).

Perhaps most fun (and most frustrating) were the covers of the books. My previous trend was to place the photos and illustrations over a red “gradient” (a characteristic which made the Acting text and the Moliere Monologue book go well together), the nature of the illustration for “Moliere Than Thou,” which had some white patches peeking through the Moliere curls, necessitated a much lighter background. While I’d been tempted to go with a blue backdrop (in honor of the French flag), it was a bright orange-gold-yellow background that really clicked for me, which couldn’t help but remind me of Moliere’s patron, King Louis, the “sun king.”

And, given that this choice was going to break the pattern of the “red gradient,” I could explore new options for “Criteria,” and found a great red/purple combination which brought new life to the “tattooed hand” of the “Criteria” illustration. This book cover gave me the greatest struggle as I kept adjusting and readjusting the illustration to get it centered on the cover… (every time I adjusted the position, the layout artist at the printer would compensate the positioning in the other direction), which delayed the release of the book by several days.

I made an early run over to Johnson County Community College to pick up flyers to share with a few of my Kansas City friends, and while I was there, I wandered “backstage” to use the bathroom. While I was back there, one of the students caught my eye and asked, “Are you Timothy Mooney?”

“Why, yes…” (Suddenly, I felt very self-conscious about holding a dozen flyers in my hand.)

“I’m a big fan of your book.” (He had recognized me from my book cover!)

The JCCC Bookstore!
As I’ve mentioned before, Johnson County Community College was the first school to begin integrating my book into their curriculum, and the students there were well versed in my theories already. When I returned a few days later to give my workshop, they already knew the answers to many of the questions that I ask in the course of my exchange with them, and we were able to open up the floor early to some more nuanced questions, such as: “What do you mean by ‘Currency’?” and “Can you explain the ‘Steering into a skid’ analogy?”

I also noticed a bit of a murmur that passed among them every time they caught me smiling.  It took a while for me to realize that they had long identified me with the photo that they saw on the back cover of my book, where I sport a bright, happy smile. I guess people build up expectations about the author that they see on the back cover, and look for that same persona to emerge when they meet him in person.

The attendance for “Moliere Than Thou” and “Lot o’ Shakespere” was thin, but amongst the attendees were a bunch of Kansas City friends who had not caught “Moliere” before, as well as the KC Fringe Executive Director, who has always been so busy when I was performing at her festival that she’d never seen me perform before.

After the show, I sold a bunch of books and t-shirts, and I made good use of one of those smart-phone attachments which enables me to take payments via credit card. (It’s WAY easy.)

From Kansas City, I headed on to a workshop and a performance of “Lot o’ Shakespeare” at Newmann University in Wichita. The professor and I got into several good conversations about the Shakespeare Authorship Question (I’ve come to believe that the works of“Shakespeare” may well have been composed by Mary Sidney), and whether “Edward III” belongs in the canon (which means I’ll now have more to memorize!).

Neumann had brought me in on my very first tour, back in 2002, but had constructed a new theatre building and added an actual theatre department since that time. Which means, that they might not need to wait ten years before the next time they bring me in!

A Chicago booking had cancelled, which meant that I headed directly East to my next booking at Xavier University in Cincinnati. The French teacher at Xavier had booked me perhaps three years back, and was once again teaching “Laughter is the best (Moral) Medicine: the Comedies of Moliere.” This time, she asked me to come in and work with her class (made up mostly of French students) on their performances of scenes by Moliere, featuring English-language translations of “The School for Wives,” “Tartuffe” and “The Precious Young Maidens.”

A couple of  days later, she asked her students what they had gotten out of the session, and they replied with several comments that I had seemed to hit upon several times:

“What is the joke of this particular scene?”
“How might body language reflect the action?”
“How does the scene change its direction and emotion as it progresses?”
“What is the impact of the character background and societal level?”
“How does line rhythm affect the comic tone?”

I think they just provided me a good outline for a class on performing comedy. (Although I think “The Rule of Threes” will need its own chapter.)

Similarly, the teacher from Johnson County sent me copies of the quizzes that she gives her students. It’s great to check out the things that teachers expect their students to get out of my material, as it reveals to me what the value is that people are seeing in the text.

The French Club Officers
I performed the show that night with an enthusiastic response from the French students. Afterwards, my host took me out for dinner, along with the four officers of the French Club, and we had a fun dinner at an Italian restaurant. The restaurant seemed a little crowded for a weeknight, and I realized that several couples were out celebrating Valentine’s Day. Of course, as is sometimes the case, all four of the French Club officers and their teacher were female, and I realized I was enjoying a 5-way Valentine’s Day date with five gorgeous women (see photos). At least one of the restaurant patrons high-fived me on my way out.

I stopped for the weekend in West Virginia, where Meaghan Macey, a college student who has been a fan of my work since high school, had offered to do some clean-up and refashioning of the wigs that I’ve been hauling around for the last 10 years…! (Which have gotten pretty ratty over the years.)

Meaghan Macey
I continued on to West Virginia Wesleyan University, for my third performance there. (This semester seems to be a “greatest hits” of return performances... seven out of nine performances were for repeat hosts.) It was a somewhat last-minute booking, and when we realized that it was going to fall on President’s Day, we decided to go with “The Greatest Speech of All Time,” which, of course, featured Lincoln, Teddy and Franklin Roosevelt.

The “last minuteness” of the arrangements for this performance made for some shy attendance, but the hosts gave me terrific technical support, helped fix a glitch in the slide show, and were gracious and enthusiastic, talking about doing another event again soon.

From West Virginia, I made a run out to Maryland. A booking on Long Island for Feb 22 had fallen through, which meant cooling my heels for about a week before my upcoming show at Duke University. And so, I dropped in on Maureen and Tim once again. Whereas last fall, I’d performed “Greatest Speech” at their local community center, this time Maureen scheduled me for a performance of “Moliere Than Thou,” once again to great acclaim. (I was a little distracted when one of the locals arrived late, sat to the side and seemed to be doing some sort of paperwork through the course of the show, but afterwards discovered that he had been sketching my performance, throughout... We'll post a copy of that, here, soon!)


B-More Nuts

Subliminal Messaging
Perhaps my greatest discovery of this leg of the trip was during my stop at a local micro-brewery, where Maureen and I discovered “B-More Nuts.” These were, essentially, peanuts covered with a potato chip coating, a delicious nugget that satisfied two cravings at once! These will be a serious threat to my waistline for years to come.

I raced down to Durham, NC, with a performance at Duke University. The folks at Duke took terrific care of me, with fancy on-campus lodging. The professor took me out to dinner the night I arrived, and to lunch on the day of the show. I spoke to her class about Moliere, and, while I wasn’t explaining any biographical details the teacher didn’t already know, she expressed regard for my delivery, which captured Moliere’s style, and the drama inherent in his biography. Afterwards she insisted that she wanted to bring me back again whenever she teaches this course.

That night, I was performing “Moliere Than Thou” in the “Warehouse,” a flexible conference-room space set up as a theatre venue. They set up perhaps 100 chairs in the space, and seemed to fill 90 of them. And while the crowd was enthused throughout, there was one older gentleman in the front row who seemed especially difficult to win over. I couldn’t seem to get him to crack a smile. After the show, I made mention of him to my host, and she insisted that he had enjoyed himself immensely… which just goes to show, I guess, that I may be the worst judge of how any individual performance is being received. 

The host had arranged for a reception after the show, and I went out to shake hands and visit (while enjoying a glass of wine). The server at the reception was very attentive, refilling my wine glass whenever she saw it emptying. And when I went to pack up my trunk, she brought out an unopened bottle for me to take back to my room. (Rock star treatement!)

Cincinnati
I had another week of down-time, and took a swing back through South Carolina, stopping in Greenwood, where I’d done “The Misanthrope” about four years back, visiting with several old friends. I went to see “The Music Man” at Greenwood Community Theatre, and tagged along for their cast party afterwards (surprising a number of people). I swung through Georgia and Tennessee, on my way to what was, I believe, my FOURTH appearance at Northern Kentucky University, just a few miles south of Xavier University, where I’d performed just three weeks before.

I was performing “Moliere Than Thou” in an afternoon appearance for the French Department, and this time I had a “fan” in the audience… Sophie was a student who had performed in my “Tartuffe” at a nearby high school, who was now attending the university. It was a fun show, as she, very generously, helped me out with the “Doctor in Spite of Himself” volunteer scene, and joined me for a bite to eat afterwards.

The next day, it was a short hop to Louisville, Kentucky, where this year’s Southeast Theatre Conference (SETC) was going on. This was intended to be the year that I was going to skip SETC, given that I’d scheduled myself to be on the west coast. But I was surprised to get a call from the SETC vice-president, asking after my newest show, “The Greatest Speech of All Time,” wanting to include it in their annual “Fringe Festival.”

Given that I’d performed “Lot o’ Shakespeare” in the previous year’s Fringe Fest, I’d assume that it would take a year or two before they’d let me back in… but with the chance to perform in a featured slot once again, I redrew my route and booked a booth in the exhibit hall.

I set up the bingo cage at my booth, April drove down from Chicago, to meet me up with the new copies of the published “Moliere Than Thou” and “Criteria” scripts, and I was surprised to discover how many of the students actually purchased copies of “Criteria.” I assume sci-fi beats Moliere with that crowd.

“Greatest Speech” was extremely well received, with perhaps the strongest reaction to the comic relief of the “Teddy Roosevelt” speech I’ve ever gotten. I was feeling the crowd of fifty or so punctuate that speech with laughter, and I rolled with the timing of that laughter in to feed the absurdity of subsequent passages.

I have started giving the audience the opportunity to “vote” on their favorite speech (another opportunity to capture e-mail addresses), and this was the closest that any speaker has come close to edging out the Martin Luther King speech as the “Greatest Speech of All Time.” (Dr. King edged out Teddy Roosevelt, twelve votes to nine.)


Glenville Canyon
The next day, I was on my way once again, this time trying to catch up to the west coast dates I’d scheduled prior to rerouting. Snow College in Ephraim, Utah had brought me in some three years before to perform “Moliere.” This time I was performing “Lot o’ Shakespeare,” and 300 or so students mostly filled up the auditorium. I’d alerted the host to make sure that students actually sat in the front row, given the amount of interaction that I have with the crowd, and he’d encouraged the theatre students forward… and they ended up being extremely good for my audience-involvement pieces.

Snow College Flyer
This was one of the very rare occasions in which I let the technicians hook me up with a body mic for the performance (they were videotaping the show, too), and I ended up being quite glad of that fact, given that the thin, high-altitude air seemed to have sapped the moisture out of my throat. Pushing my voice to the back of the hall would have left me hoarse for the next day’s performance.

I travelled three-quarters of the way across Nevada that night, and continued on to Sacramento early the following morning. I pulled in at around 11 am for an afternoon appearance at Sacramento State University.

Driving around the school, I started to have flashbacks, and realized that I’d performed here some six years prior, in 2007. (In the past, I have had difficulty remembering what the venue looked like, or what a given teacher looks like, but this time I had spaced out the fact that I had performed at this school at all!) 

500 performances down the road, the brain begins to unravel.

This show was going over very well, but halfway through the Tartuffe seduction scene, amidst boisterous laughter, I caught a glimpse of a woman sitting halfway back, with a seeming scowl on her face. Was she disturbed by the sexy fun of “Tartuffe?” I found myself ratcheting back on the sexy fun.

At the end of the show, I checked in with my enthusiastic host to see if I had, perhaps, crossed some line, given that there were high school students in attendance, citing the woman I’d noticed.

“Oh, I know who you’re talking about. No, she scowls at everything.”

Coincidentally, that same night, a high school less than a mile from Sac State was producing my version of “Imaginary Invalid,” and had invited me to see the show and address the cast afterwards. I sat down amidst a packed house, and was introduced during the director’s pre-show speech. The audience applauded and I stood, only to say, “I hope you still feel that way AFTER you’ve seen the show!”

"Invalid" Poster... with autographs
The show was terrific. The director had cast a female in the role of Argan, the invalid, and the audience laughed at everything. The play ended with an explosive finale, which included a confetti cannon.

I had about a half hour to address the actors, and tried to balance my honest enthusiasm for the quality of their work with my encouragement for areas for their continued growth. Even so, when we shifted over to “asking questions,” the actor playing Argan still asked… “So… did you LIKE the show…?”

The actors headed off to their cast party, leaving myself, the director, the scene designer and a couple of the faculty, and the director broke out a couple bottles of wine, as we chatted on well into the night. Even universities don’t usually allow alcohol on campus… but apparently this private (Catholic) high school, was quite comfortable with it. (And had a special stash...)

Snake River Canyon
I headed to Idaho, backtracking many of my steps from Sacramento, halfway across Nevada, before turning north to Twin Falls, Idaho, the scene of a performance I’d given some ten years prior. 

I’d kept in touch with Brenda, one of the teachers who’d attended that performance, and she was now working on her own adaptation of Homer’s “The Iliad”. She and I took some time on Sunday to work through the opening scene of her script, and her husband joined us on a walk through the Snake River canyon (the place where Evel Kenivel had attempted his famous jump). We even bumped into a fellow jogging along that path who I’d met after that same performance ten years prior!

Sunday night, several of Brenda’s friends joined us for a dinner party, and I gave each of them the option of selecting one of my performance pieces (from Shakespeare, Moliere, or “Greatest Speech”) for post-dinner entertainment. They chose Richard III, Teddy Roosevelt, Tartuffe and Hamlet. (I was working the crowd to inspire a booking for my next pass through Idaho.)

Sunset in South Dakota
Very early the next morning, I was off to the races once again, through Utah, Wyoming, South Dakota, Minnesota and into Wisconsin (stopping in Milwaukee to visit with Lisa, a new friend I’d made at the Texas Educational Theatre Association back in January) before continuing on back to the Chicago area.


"Down Time"

I threw myself into the big Spring e-mailing project. For once, I was able to begin the process of writing to the ten thousand or so faculty members that I send out to twice a year, well BEFORE they were running off to summer vacation. I spent about a week chasing down bookings in Illinois, Oregon, Washington and Texas, all the while working on my NEXT big one-man show, "Shakespeare's Greatest Hits: The History Cycle."

I was working to tell the story of Shakespeare’s ten history plays, from King John through Henry VIII in the course of a single hour. The idea was to take those already-memorized monologues (from “Lot o’ Shakespeare”) and to augment them with additional monologues and narration from each play. I was reading my way through, each time trimming two or three minutes from a script that I managed to shrink from 84 minutes down to 61.

I knew that, when I got tired of hearing the sound of my own voice, that there was more room for editing, and when all of my theatrical instincts were telling me that I should be racing toward a climax of sorts, but was, instead finding myself bogged down in Shakespeare’s quieter, more lyrical monologues, I knew that I needed to cut to the chase.

Somewhere in Utah...
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, wanting to book a return performance of “Lot o’ Shakespeare,” for their “Green Show” on July 12! I dropped a note alerting the OSF Guild Gift Shop that I was coming (given the fact that they were now carrying both “Acting at the Speed of Life” and “The Big Book of Moliere Monologues” on their shelves), and I happened to mention my “History Cycle” project to the bookstore manager. She wrote back that she’d love to take a look at it once I got it published, and I realized immediately that this was a one-man show that might well have a literary appeal independent of the performance. The reading audience could get a quick introduction to Shakespeare’s Histories, and be in a far better positon to comprehend any given one of those scripts in reading or performance. For the first time I was contemplating publishing a one-man show, even before I’d ever performed it!

In the meantime, I was eyeing the months of May and June, when I’d have down-time from my tour, and would have some serious memorization time available. If I could finish this project this summer, then perhaps I would be able to add it to my repertory in time to make it available in the 2013-14 school year.

I was also flirting with the idea of taking my venture “Not-For-Profit.” After eleven years of touring this material, with hundreds of school performances testifying to its educational value, I was beginning to realize how much support I was shutting myself off from by keeping this project as a “sole proprietorship.” Just about all of my “profits” have always been eaten up with gas, hotels, promotional expenses and administrative costs. And yet, many of these operational costs might be supported through grants, which would enable me to earn a “normal” salary… This may be another big effort this summer, and I’m also looking to bolster that with a “Kickstarter” campaign to support a project in advance of the NFP designation.

Eventually, it was time to pack up and race off again, and I pushed on down to Arkansas, performing my acting workshop at John Brown University, where I’d performed about eight years ago, and continuing on to Fort Worth, where a fellow who’d booked me for a workshop in San Antonio was now working at All Saints Episcopal School. Whereas his former school could only afford the workshop, James had convinced the new school to start a guest artist/guest speaker program, which would host me as its first guest. While there were only about a dozen students present for the workshop itself, they were extremely talented, and some of the best cold-readers I’ve encountered. (The ability to get your eyes up off of the page to recite the lines invariably makes one actor look much more appealing in the casting process when up against another actor of equivalent talent.)
Descent into L.A.

About 90 people showed up for the evening performance, and the response was terrific. At the end, a bunch of the actors, followed by the whole audience, stood for an ovation.

This completed the “Spring Tour,” and while I am still anticipating performances in New Orleans (April 18-21 at the Shadowbox Theatre, 9 pm) and in Chicago (where I’m doing “The Greatest Speech of All Time” at Dad’s senior living community, The Moorings, on May 10), there were no more school bookings on the schedule.

With a “week off” prior to New Orleans, I caught a flight to L.A. (after less than three hours of sleep, getting up in time for a 6 am flight out of Dallas). Thus, I have spent the last week in L.A., visiting with Kirsten, enjoying her recently installed hot tub… and e-mailing faculty of Louisiana, Pennsylvania and Florida schools.

Kirsten Moomey
We did manage to break away to catch a performance of "Boeing, Boeing," which Kirsten had sponsored at the local theatre... and where I managed to capture a photograph with a woman from the cast... and five of her friends...

My strategy for this year’s spring e-mail campaign is to “jump around” the map. Whereas in the past, I might have knocked down individual states in alphabetical order, or in geographical proximity, this time I decided to hit just one or two states in a given region, and move on elsewhere, before doubling back to neighboring states. That way, if I have a sense that NOBODY from a particular state has responded, I can allocate the bulk of that time over to a neighboring state, and restructure the route as I go.
"Boeing, Boeing" had a nice set...

I have officially declared the Winter-Spring of 2014 as my “Sabbattical” from the frenzied tour, opening up blocks of time for longer residencies. I already have one “taker” with Westshore Community College of Michgan offering to produce “The School for Husbands” in March, which gave me the idea to promote this as the “School Semester,” suggesting productions of “School for Wives” and “The Critique of the School for Wives” and “The Rehearsal at Versailles” as options: all four of which are thematically related, and all of which still seem to be awaiting their “breakthrough” production. Perhaps some concentrated work will enable me to continue to tweak the scripts and become better reminded of the selling points of each.

And, once again, I’m volunteering as a Group Leader for a Pathways event! This one is coming up in Chattnooga, April 26-28 shortly after my New Orleans performances. Come “change your world in a weekend!”

Miles on the Escape: 150,500

Discoveries: It’s a lot of fun seeing shiny new versions of scripts that I’ve been working with for years. * A raffle is a terrific way to enhance the sales-pitch! * People build up expectations about the author that they see on the back cover, and look for that same persona to emerge when they meet him in person. * Seven of these semester’s nine performances were re-bookings from schools that had booked me at least once already! * I may be the worst judge of how any individual performance is being received. * I may book more “Moliere” with the teachers, but I sell more Sci-Fi with the students. * When I get tired of hearing my own voice, that’s a clear clue that the show needs editing. * It’s possible that my new one-man show might have every bit as much literary appeal as theatrical. * Putting off applying for Not-for-Profit status cuts me off from support that people might otherwise be enthusiastic about giving. 

On the Nightstand: “Currency” my "self-help book" (publishing Winter of 2014?)

Temperature: Mid-70s in L.A.

Next Performances: “Lot o’Shakespeare” at the Shadowbox Theatre in New Orleans, April 18-21, 9 pm, and “The Greatest Speech of All Time” at The Moorings in Arlington Heights, on May 10, 7 pm. Also, I’ll be the featured Green Show performer at the OregonShakespeare Fest on July 12!

Timothy Mooney Repertory Theatre Tour Schedule

(Available dates in CAPITAL LETTERS; Already-booked dates in GREEN; Pending bookings in PURPLE; Festival opportunities in REDMTT = “Moliere than Thou”; LoS = “Lot o’ Shakespeare; GSAT = “Greatest Speech of All Time”

WINTER / SPRING, 2013
4/18-21 Shadowbox Theatre, New Orleans
4/22-24 FLORIDA / SOUTH CAROLINA / NORTH CAROLINA
4/25     TENNESSEE
4/26-28 Pathways Basic Seminar, Chattanooga, TN
4/29-5/3 ALABAMA / GEORGIA / FLORIDA
5/10     The Moorings, Arlington Heights, IL (GSAT)

SUMMER, 2013
6/18-23 International Thespian Festival, Lincoln, NE
7/12     Oregon Shakespeare Festival,  Ashland, OR
7/11-14 AATF, Providence, RI
7/18-28 KC Fringe Festival
8/1-4    ATHE, Orlando Florida
8/1-11  Minnesota Fringe Festival
8/15-25 Indianapolis Fringe Festival

FALL, 2013
9/3-6    WISCONSIN / ILLINOIS / MICHIGAN / IOWA
9/7       “Pathways Idol” Fundraiser, Chicago, IL
9/8-9    MICHIGAN / INDIANA / OHIO
9/8-9    Cedarville University, Cedarville, OH
9/10-14 PENNSYLVANIA / NEW YORK
9/15-19 NEW ENGLAND                                                                           
9/20     Harrison High School, Harrison NY (MTT)
9/21-23NEW YORK / NEW JERSEY / PENNSYLVANIA / NEW ENGLAND
9/24     MARYLAND / DELAWARE / D.C.
9/25-29VIRGINIA / WEST VIRGINIA
9/26     Glenville State College, Glenville, WV
9/30-10/2  NORTH CAROLINA / SOUTH CAROLINA / GEORGIA / FLORIDA
10/3-6  GEORGIA / FLORIDA
10/7-8  Georgia College & State University, Millidgeville, GA
10/9-12 SOUTH CAROLINA / GEORGIA / KENTUCKY / TENNESSEE
10/13-15 ALABAMA / MISSISSIPPI / LOUISIANA / ARKANSAS
10/16   Texas Wesleyan University, Ft. Worth, TX (GSAT)
10/17-21 TEXAS / OKLAHOMA
10/23   Northern Arizona University, Flagstaff, AZ (GSAT)
10/22-24  NEW MEXICO / ARIZONA / COLORADO
10/25-28  UTAH / NEVADA / CALIFORNIA
10/29-11/2  CALIFORNIA
11/3-5  OREGON / WASHINGTON
11/6-10 IDAHO / UTAH / MONTANA / WYOMING
11/11-13  NORTH DAKOTA / SOUTH DAKOTA / MINNESOTA / WISCONSIN
11/14   Geneva High School, Geneva, IL (MTT)
11/15-17  ILLINOIS / IOWA / MISSOURI / NEBRASKA
11/17-20  WYOMING / COLORADO / KANSAS
11/21-27  OKLAHOMA / ARKANSAS / OHIO / TENNESSEE / KENTUCKY
11/28-12/1  THANKSGIVING BREAK
12/2-5  NORTH CAROLINA / SOUTH CAROLINA / GEORGIA / FLORIDA
12/6-8  Seminole State College, Orlando, FL (LoS?)
12/9-10 ALABAMA / MISSISSIPPI / ARKANSAS / LOUISIANA
12/11   TEXAS / OKLAHOMA / KANSAS
12/12-14 TEXAS / COLORADO (Available for Colorado Thespians)

SPRING, 2014
1/3-2/14 AVAILABLE FOR GUEST ARTIST RESIDENCY
2/5-9    Region IV ACTF Festival (?)
2/15-3/6 Westshore Community College, Scottville, MI
3/5-9    SETC, Mobile, AL (?)
3/9-4/5 AVAILABLE FOR GUEST ARTIST RESIDENCY
4/7-5/10 AVAILABLE FOR GUEST ARTIST RESIDENCY

SUMMER, 2014
June:    Planet Connections Theatre Festival, NYC
July:     International Community Theatre Festival, Venice, FL