Sunday, October 11, 2015

The View From Here # 167: Summer/Fall, 2015

Yorick & Hamlet (L-R) (Photo by Dale Jessen)

I have often thought that life on the road is just like real life, only more exaggerated, with higher highs and lower lows… Having enjoyed both in the course of the last 48 hours, I’m thinking it’s time to gather thoughts and update the blog… I now notice that it’s been quite some time (six months) since the last release... April 7! Those have been some very full months!

I tend to do much more updating on Facebook, so if you’re interested in more live action play-by-play, you might want to check in with me there… (Right now it’s just a personal page, but one of these days, I’m going to set up a performer page and find out how many people “like” me.) 

And, at least one friend (I'm looking at you Bill Webster!) has complained of my loquacious style in these epic tales, requesting that I edit it back to "maybe one or two pages." To which I respond: "Thanks for the input." 

Breakneck Hamlet Costume Design
by Kathleen Conery
I left you in the midst of the breathless Indiegogo Campaign for Breakneck Hamlet, following a flurry of donations in the first week and a drop off in weeks 2 and 3. We were slowly creeping up on $8,000 with just one week to go to hit $11,000. Just in case you didn’t hear me cheering from where YOU were, you should know that we hit that, and have since gone $896 past it! (Donations are still being graciously accepted...!) The collection of “Swag” has continued to expand, beyond “Breakneck Hamlet” stickers, coffee mugs, t-shirts, to, now, DVDs and, now, books! I’ve begun fulfilling on the “Living Room Performances” for those $1K donors, and am gradually beginning to catch my breath, even as the Fall Tour is in full swing!

And, THANK YOU to everyone (150 people!) who stepped up with support, moral, financial or otherwise! Here I am late at night after a full day of awesome fundraising...!


With the Fundraiser in the bag, I turned full-force toward opening night: May 29 at Clockwise Theatre in Waukegan, Illinois (about 3 blocks from where I used to run the Stage Two Theatre Company)! I applied for three fringe festivals, all of which I got into! (Sadly, the Orlando Fringe application deadline had already passed, but I’ve been hearing from folks who “missed me” there this year, and the build-up of anticipation should be that much the greater next spring!)

I tried the show out on it’s first audience… about 10 friends at Deb Pekin’s house. They were a theatre-savvy crowd and laughed a LOT at my Hamlet in-jokes. My performance was breathlessly rapid-fire, and I captured it on video to study the parts that drew responses and examine where I needed to “take my moment.”

And this is the BORING PART...
I was reciting my lines sometimes three times a day in my temporary Chicago basement apartment. Very conscious of the dues that need to be paid to make these things work, I struggle to get my psycho-physical-neurological self into the habit of repeating these things over and over and over again. My magic number is usually three times a day. If there’s a particular portion of the play that I really want to nail down: NINE times a day!

What I do is roughly 5% talent and 95% repetition. Since there are no other actors who quite do what I do, there is no standard benchmark or process for this work; I am inspired by the pianists who work their scales over and over and over again, or the dancers who execute their routines. I work to get the remembering and recitation so entirely unconscious that I can still contemplate the emotional nuances, the physical/vocal dynamics, and the perceived attention/distraction of the audience as I work. And so, I bored myself silly for well over a month!

Meanwhile... !
North Idaho College produced my “The Misanthrope!” Thanks Joe Jacoby!
Cast, Crew and Director of The Misanthrope at North Idaho College

The fundraiser enabled me to hire a publicist for the Summer’s run of shows, and enjoyed nice coverage wherever I went! Thanks Sabrina Wottreng!

Breakneck Hamlet t-shirts arrived! Awesome! You are going to want one for yourself

I did a pre-opening night Arts-Waulk event (in Waukegan, Illinois), performing in many of the galleries in Waukegan… and then this happened (quoting from my Facebook page):

In the midst of one of my Art Gallery previews of Breakneck Hamlet and Shakespeare on Demand last Saturday, a street person carrying a bible and what we assume was a tall can of some kind of alcohol, walked into the gallery, just after I had started the Henry V "St. Crispin's Day" speech. Walking right past the audience which was standing a respectful distance of 10-15 feet away, he got to just a few feet in front of me, staring for about 30 seconds, and then knelt down, leafing through his bible, with his head angled to the ground, waiting. No one, including me, had any idea what he was going to do, and everyone looked to me to see if I had any clue. Eventually, on the line, "For he today that sheds his blood with me... this day shall gentle their condition," I "knighted" him, touching the sword to his shoulder. At that point, he gathered his things, stood up, seemingly satisfied with a successful result, walking back out of the gallery. Everyone looked just a little bewildered. 
Arts Waulk: Performing in front of a local art gallery...

I drove east! 
After a brief stop in Harrisonburg, Virginia, getting fitted for the Hamlet costume, I continued to Annapolis, Maryland, in time for opening night of the world premiere of my The Servant of Two Masters. It was a blast! 

'Servant" Cast, Director and Adaptor

The five star review in “DC Metro Arts” concurred:
There is nothing more enjoyable than a pleasant summer evening, unless, you happen to be at Annapolis Shakespeare Company's 'Comedy in the Courtyard' at Reynolds Tavern [to] take in the madcap, drama-filled spectacle that is The Servant of Two Masters. For a play written originally in Italian and premiered in 1753 (262 years ago!), Carlo Goldoni's play holds up well for modern audiences. This new adaptation by Timothy Mooney is relevant, rhyming and raucous. Mooney's modern word usage and clever innuendos allow everyone to laugh at the jokes... (Winters Geimer, DCMetroTheaterArts)
Soon after, another review at theatrebloom.com: 
...A jewel in the firmament of Reynolds Tavern Courtyard, Director Sally Boyett choreographs a "Commedia D'ell Right Now" that doesn't just tickle the funny bone, it hits it hard and rubs it for you afterwards. Punny to a quip from the couplets to the sound effects... this consummate cast and crew returns us to a form that brings the laughs to the audience firmly in the know of all the inside jokes... This cast runs circles around each other, each one cranking up the volume of performance until the last moment rings out. (Paul Davis, Theatrebloom.com
(Since then, this play has been chosen as “Recommended” for competition in the DC area “Helen Hayes Awards!”)

Before heading west again, I tried Breakneck Hamlet out on another living-room test audience at my sister’s house in Maryland. Again, a terrific response this time from an audience vividly caught up in the internal/psychological character of Hamlet. (His choice to NOT kill the king in Act III, Scene 3 drew much response.)

In the brief time since my stop in Harrisonburg, Kathy Conery had developed her initial stitched-together take on the Hamlet costume to an awesome result which felt very flattering. 

Amber Peterson could not resist working a little Photoshop on this image...




Back in Chicago, feature articles started appearing in the papers, and (rare for me), I got to rehearse on-site for about a week prior to opening the show. And the Clockwise folks actually built a stage floor and set for the show! I videotaped a late rehearsal and clipped together a promo video. A photographer showed up to do some great shots. 

"Get you to my lady's chamber..." (Photo by Dale Jessen)

In addition to Breakneck Hamlet I would be performing a second act: a variation on Lot o’ Shakespeare, entitled Shakespeare on Demand… taking requests from whatever Shakespeare play the audience wanted to throw at me!

Clockwise Theatre windows
And then opening night! From my own remarks posted on Facebook:
The world premiere opening night of Breakneck Hamlet felt really awesome tonight! It taxes me to the limit, and a couple times in Act V (dying as Laertes, and then hopping back up to do Hamlet), I felt like I was on the edge of passing out! Looking forward to upcoming reviews, but in the meantime my dear friends seem to be unanimous in their enthusiasm!
These friends began to post their responses:

LAURA SCRUGGS:
Thrilled that I got to see Tim Mooney in his spectacular world premiere of Breakneck Hamlet tonight at Clockwise Theatre in Waukegan! I cried a lot; it's just so inspiring when you see someone who is really living in their purpose. He truly captured the essence of Hamlet in his one-man show; the versatility he displays in playing multiple characters and portraying the story in a clear and interesting way is stunning. He is brilliant and hilarious; during the second half, he asked the audience to call out ANY Shakespearean play and then he did a monologue from that show!
BOB BANKS:
...Tim Mooney as EVERYBODY Shakespeare ever created. WHAT FUN! ... Mr. Mooney digs into the speeches he likes and then fills in the plot on the rest of the interminable stuff with humor, yet never letting the art of the play disappear. Act II is forty-five minutes of interactive magic. Even if you are not a Shakespeare fan, I think you'll be amazed and amused by this simple, black box production, and by Mr. Mooney's incredible skills in both character portrayal and memorization. 
Over the following 24 hours, press response started to come in:
Brilliant... he seamlessly throw in asides, explanations and famous lines, as he whirls to the play's conclusion... (Jodie Jacobs, Examiner.com
Fun, Fearless Shakespeare… Great success… Cliff Notes on caffeine. (Cora Vasseur, Halfstack Magazine)
I started piecing some video together for promotion, including a raced-through capture from opening night (when I still wasn’t quite ready for some of the sudden laughs the show was getting from the responsive audience)!


Shortly after  Breakneck Hamlet opening, Laura Scruggs (quoted above) and her husband Jake, who do a podcast via skype with their friend Bryn Packard (“Are You Famous Yet?”) posted an interview we’d done a couple of weeks prior. They’d asked a lot of the questions that I get asked on a fairly regular basis. I always dread those inquiries, as any serious answer would require hundreds of pages of detail… but finally these answers are collected in a single place, so I can refer people there!

Three generations...!

More friends were coming to Breakneck Hamlet, and for the second performance, I had both Dad and Isaac in the house! One acquaintance who’d never seen Hamlet before summed it up thusly: “That guy had one hell of a rough day! And his girlfriend died!”
The amazing David Paige 
and the awe-inspiring Sue Page 
at my show!
The basement apartment that I’d been subletting flooded! Soaking a lot of my personal papers (essays, letters, scripts, files, promotional postcards…) that I’d been carting around for as much as 35 years (just in case some PhD candidate somewhere is researching their dissertation around the work of Timothy Mooney). I took that as an inspiration to toss some of the less relevant materials out!

With the audience reaction fresh in mind, I redoubled my work on The Breakneck Hamlet Companion, finishing the first rough draft detailing my thoughts on the dramatic structure, the character of Hamlet, the historical issues that a modern American audience might not realize, and about acting this greatest role of all time. (You can see me flashing my early scratches on the first draft in the top video above!)

SJS Mod Squad
I managed to enjoy a St. James grade school reunion! (Go, Bulldogs!) 

The roots of drama run deep among Bulldogs...

Back on the road! Kansas City here I come! 
The Kansas City Fringe Preview event was captured live on film, and I had 2 1/2 minutes to  do the opening of Breakneck Hamlet!



A group had dropped out of the KC Fringe Festival late in the process, and I snuck a second show onto the Fringe schedule: Criteria, A One-Man Comic Sci-Fi Thriller! And, both Criteria and Hamlet got great pre-festival notice from Pitch.com! (Thanks, Sabrina!)  Opening night would feature both shows in immediate succession, and Breakneck Hamlet proceeded to get more terrific response, notably this:

Arguably the greatest play of all time, Hamlet is a behemoth... Mooney provides stage directions; settings; weaves commentary, context, and criticism; and, most importantly, gives prominence to the recurring themes so much so that it’s as if they are lit up in neon lights… The highlight of Mooney’s presentation is his deft willingness to pause a beat, albeit a breathtakingly quick one. These caesuras were used both for comedic timing and to launch into monologue. It was so well done that the comedic beats never failed to earn a laugh and the soliloquies flowed naturally. There were no stage whispers here. His Hamlet is not a wishy-washy worry-wart; instead, he’s a man that sees all possible outcomes of his actions, and the one moment of his inaction causes all the ruin. Breakneck Hamlet is a whirlwind of wonderful. Hold on to your seats and watch a master at his work. (Lee Hartman, KCMetropolis.org)
Fringe Volunteer, 
wearing my t-shirt...!
The summer was just getting underway… Another review found both Breakneck Hamlet and Criteria winning honorable mentions in the annual “Pitch” list of favorites:
Don't skip the succinct and engaging Breakneck Hamlet, a fast-moving hour that condenses the great play... an animated and eloquent performance, and amusing as well... The entertaining Mooney also appears in his own play, Criteria... the absorbing, very personal tale of Albert and his experiences on a mission on enemy turf.
Here’s my favorite Facebook story from the Kansas City performances:
Last night I turned the mature woman in the front row into "Queen Gertrude," as Hamlet gave her holy hell. Momentarily, I turned to a sweet little four-year-old off to the side on "To flaming youth let virtue be as wax!" When I turned back to the now visibly shaken "Gertrude" to hassle her for lying "in the rank sweat of an enseamed bed, stewed in corruption, honeying and making love over the nasty sty," the woman's husband discreetly got up out of his chair, moving one seat away from his wife as the audience roared.
Twin t-shirts...!
And then, one more review from KC Metropolis, this time for Criteriafrom a reviewer who has cheered on my work several times in past festivals
Along with his signature comedic timing and vigorous delivery, Timothy Mooney is nothing short of an indefatigable creative force. After bringing pieces based on history and Shakespearean literature to previous KC Fringe Festivals, this year he shows off his talent for original speculative fiction. His flair for storytelling and imaginative worldbuilding completely immersed me in this vision of future America, focusing on totalitarianism, identity, security, and class structure... (Kristin Shafel Omiccioli)
When I'm in a rush, with only ten minutes to pack up my show, I generally pull out the bin of t-shirts and coffee mugs and trust people to toss in what they deem appropriate. On the last night of my Kansas City run, somebody tossed a hundred-dollar bill into the bin...! (Sweet...!)

As great as the response was, I have to note that attendance was down for this fringe. I was doing two shows and making less money than Shakespeare's Histories earned by itself just last year. I'm willing to bet that at least part of the problem was that I was, in fact, offering two shows rather than one, and the crowd wasn't being driven to my show with the single firm "elevator pitch" highlighting Breakneck Hamlet, which was, rather, being sold to them in conjunction with an entirely unrelated show.
Hamlet, Fruit Flies & Clowns...

On to Minneapolis!
The Minneapolis/St. Paul Magazine had already listed Breakneck Hamlet at the top of "Most Intriguing Titles" this year, and the first review out came from TwinCities.com (aka, Pioneer Press) which once listed my Criteria as "Avoid it like the plague," which now listed Hamlet as a "Must See."
Timothy Mooney's tour de force performance clocks in at exactly [an hour], and what an hour it is! Mooney, billed as adaptor, editor, explainer and actor, may have trimmed the bard's best-known play from 32,000-plus words to 9,000, but audiences will still come away with a thorough understanding of it and get a few laughs along the way -- from a work not exactly known for its humor. Be prepared, however. Breakneck Hamlet is truly breakneck, and may leave you panting with exertion as Mooney goes through his paces.
Also, the Minneapolis-oriented "CherryandSpoon" blog reported:
Timothy Mooney delivers an engaging, amusing, and respectful version of Hamlet that doesn't miss a thing, despite being less than an hour long. I've seen Hamlet many times (more than any other Shakespeare play), and yet I feel like I've gained new insights through this production. Timothy is a charming host as he leads us through every scene in the five-act play, sometimes describing the action, sometimes offering historical context, and sometimes reciting lines or monologues from the play. It's super fast but feels like a complete story, and Timothy delivers his adaptation with much energy, excitement, physicality, and a great use of the space at the Theatre Garage. You've probably seen Hamlet before, but you've never seen Hamlet quite like this. (Jill Schafer
Former Fringe Exec Dir 
Robin Gillette...
With a coffee mug...
As I'm sure I've mentioned before, the Minnesota Fringe Festival on-line-review website is amazing. I usually walk away with some 25-30 audience reviews which help me define and promote my shows. This year I came away with 35 reviews, brimming with hyperbole and I will spare you all but one... My favorite this year was from fellow performer, Amy Salloway...
Of the vast Mooney Canon, forsooth, methinks this show be my favorite of all. Cleverly hath Sir Tim compressed, like a grape 'neath stomping foot, the scenes of lesser import, thus carving time to strut & fret & utter the whole of Prince Hamlet's monologues. He includeth the "greatest hittes" of the play's verbiage, such that we, the unwashed masses of audience, might exclaim "What ho! Didst I not memorize that in sophomore English?", & thus feel smart. Tim's asides be mirthful yet unforced; his energy like a monsoon; his acting clear & stellar; &; best of all, his unique narration doth illuminate the story such that even I -- Hamlet-soaked for nigh 3 decades -- didst see things I had not seen afore now, & I LEARNED ANEW. The rest is silence.
Meanwhile a Facebook friend reported:
...Tim always presents Shakespeare in a way where it actually makes sense to the audience. His plays always make me feel smarter when I leave the theater because I just spent an hour with a Master. (Don Stremski)
My arms are too short to box in clowns...

Saying sad goodbyes to my Minnesota friends, the migration to Indianapolis got underway... I've been following the folks from "Box of Clowns" from one city to the next, but this time I found myself pulling up to my billet just behind their car! We were being billeted just across the street from each other, and got together for dinner before the festival got underway.



Those of you who remember the adorable four-year-old who came to see my show two years ago, will be happy to see her back, as a precocious six-year-old this time around.








She actually ran up to give me a hug during the curtain call of Hamlet, reporting that all of that dying in Act V had "freaked me out."


Also, the Mayor of Indianapolis, who had been to see The Greatest Speech of All Time took a moment to pose with me and Anna (Mango”) of Box of Clowns fame. 






Michael S. Drury of Grey Dragon Photography came to my dress/tech rehearsal and shot a bunch of awesome pics from Breakneck Hamlet. I surveyed my Facebook friends to help select the most popular images, which included... 

...and once again, Marcus Fernando worked his visual genius on the perfect composite:


Opening night won a standing ovation in the presence of at least two reviewers in the audience. The visceral reaction from the woman in the front row who I treated as “Ophelia” (actress/storyteller Lou Ann Holman) spilled over to one of the reviewers, as she clung to her two friends seated next to her… which included IndyStar reviewer, Allison Carter, who sent this series of tweets immediately after the show:
Breakneck Hamlet is my favorite show so far and it is EXHAUSTING. 9,000 words spoken in 59:42.
Breakneck Hamlet is basically a madcap Cliff's Notes with high-speed and breezy narration and impassioned monologues.
Breakneck Hamlet is by turns funny, frightening and lovely. How Shakespeare should be taught, really.
When the she posted her actual review, she called it:
...Madcap, high-energy and both funny and affecting take on one of Shakespeare's most beloved plays... Mooney struts and prowls through the makeshift theater... "Get thee to a nunnery!" he bellowed at my friend, prompting her to pull me closer for protection. This is not a show one watches passively. You are roughly three feet away from the actor. He is making eye contact with you... This is the way Shakespeare should be taught -- heard, lived, experienced... And Mooney brings it together with tremendous passion and way more energy than any one man ought to possess. (Allison Carter, IndyStar
(She also went on about my "electric blue eyes flashing," but... you know, modesty...)

The Nuvo reviewer began posting, too! (Indy is the “TwitterFringe”.) He tweeted out:
If you are like me, you've felt frustration with Hamlet for his inability to act at the right time. But Timothy Mooney can act, in a hyper-caffeinated performance that offers great history and insight and runs rings, not just rhetorical rings, around that other performance by Mel Gibson. (Dan Grossman)
Touring Artists' Brunch
(Thanks Tonya Jone Miller...!)


Unfortunately, neither the Indy Star nor Nuvo posted more than a fraction of their reviews in an actual printed paper... an unfortunate trend that is squelching theatre attendance. Like it or not, the theatre-going demographic (especially for classical theatre) tilts older… folks who still read their news in hard copy rather than on-line. Getting an on-line review that never shows up on a physical piece of paper feels increasingly like the tree-falling-in-the-forest.

But, the good response continued… Jay Harvey, an Indy institution (former entertainment editor for the Indianapolis Star) called it:
Astonishing... a concise cliff-hanger [with] distinct acting triumphs... an assured and lively adaptation...
Attendance remained low. In none of the three Fringe festivals were great reviews translating into ticket sales. And, perhaps no review can overcome the initial inertia that attaches itself to the name "Shakespeare," at least in a "fringe festival." There came one night in which I was feeling particularly down about empty seats, particularly as the late show I'd just performed was attended by more artists than ticket-buying patrons. I was coming away with the tiniest payout from the night's efforts.

The next morning, the head of the festival (Pauline) called to tell me that a local arts-funding patron/benefactor/foundation-head had been to last night's show -- loved it -- and wanted to present me with "an award." (At first this sounded vaguely like some sort of plaque or a certificate.) I slowly gathered that this would, in fact, likely be a check, from a very generous foundation. I met with her briefly that afternoon, and ended up with a check for $2,000!

It endlessly fascinates me how often Great Things follow Borderline Despair...

...and Vice Versa.

The final weeks of the Fringe Tour (and some weeks thereafter) were caught up in one more booking campaign, sending out my usual mass of 15,000 e-mails announcing the availability and the success of the new show. This time, however, I was also promoting a special discount. Given my obsessive-compulsive work on funding and performing the new show, I was way behind in getting events lined up!

And so, for this one semester, I've made a significant price cut, at least until the new year comes and my promotional efforts recover their momentum...

And, while I face the challenges of selling full-priced shows once again, I am also looking at the challenges of going not-for-profit. My Box of Clowns friends have gone NFP under the umbrella of a group called "Fractured Atlas." Given the remarkable success of the Indiegogo Campaign, followed by the $2,000 award, perhaps there are better ways of tackling expenses, and easing the costs that get passed on to schools that book the show. (If I were able to cut the cost of the show in half, more or less, might the reach of this program not expand to an audience of double the size...?)

Mooney Reunion...!
(Moonion?)

I had about two intensive weeks of e-mail campaigning, while family from the coasts came back in for a "Mooney Reunion." I also put together one more performance of The Greatest Speech of All Time for Dad's Retirement facility, where family and friends going all the way back to grade school days showed up for the event.

Off to the races...!
First stop: University of Jamestown (North Dakota)! Quoting myself:
A bunch of firsts tonight! First time performing Breakneck Hamlet for a college crowd! First time performing Breakneck Hamlet for a crowd of over 200 people! First time performing the show on a proscenium stage, where I was up on a stage above the audience. First time in a very large auditorium which sucked my lungs of every bit of oxygen I could pump out. And (fortunately) NOT the first time that the show's gotten a standing ovation!
On south to U-Nebraska-Kearney, where Janice Fronczak, who will be directing my Tartuffe this fall (she did my Imaginary Invalid about ten years ago!), brought me in to give an acting workshop.

Denver...! Where I performed two weekends with Denver's Dangerous Theatre (again). This time I was doing both Breakneck Hamlet and Criteria, but a lack of publicity left attendance much diminished from last year's terrific turnout, and solely thanks to the good graces of a couple north of the city (Felicia and James), who put me up for much of the run, I managed to come away without losing too much money on the proposition.

Between performances, I also managed to finish the latest round of promotional e-mails. The pickings were still slim for the first half of the semester, but bookings have continued to come in for the latter month of the tour, and late October/early November are looking almost jam-packed!

I dropped in at Boulder, Colorado, where the Boulder Fringe was getting underway... crashing their opening night party, surprising some of my veteran fringe friends, and getting surprised, in turn, as, halfway through a conversation with a fringer I'd never met before, she realized that she'd seen me perform Karaoke Knights at the Southeast Theatre Conference (way back in 2006), and that she's been my "volunteer tango dancer" on stage during the "Bite My Tongue" number! (It's an ever-shrinking world.)

This, by the way, was just one of many such coincidental encounters I've experienced in these last several months. In Kansas City I was approached by a half-dozen students (including Janae Trotter, pictured) who had been studying from my book, and recognized me on preview night! In Minnesota, Nathan Kelly Rouse, an actor from North Carolina (who'd been in my Misanthrope with Shakespeare Carolina) posted his excitement about my show. In Indianapolis, Anthony Logan Nathan, an actor attending Breakneck Hamlet, gradually realized that he recognized my voice and my face... Checking his program, he realized that I had written the version of Misanthrope he'd seen me perform on YouTube, and subsequently memorized as an audition piece! And, passing through Sacramento, Meg Masterson, the receptionist at the Sacramento Theatre Company remembered me from a performance at her high school several years back! (Eventually, these things -- I'm only citing the most surprising -- feel less and less like "coincidences.")


I finished up the final promised "Perk" of the Indiegogo campaign: The Breakneck Hamlet Soliloquy Collection, featuring eight soliloquies from Hamlet (six by Hamlet, and two by Claudius) recorded through the summer tour. These special videos are, of course, available for a small contribution... ( http://igg.me/at/BreakneckHamlet )

Utah next!
Utah Potholes



I had been working Lot o' Shakespeare back up to speed in my free time, and did a 40-minute performance for Snow college (my third visit there), immediately continuing north for a performance of Breakneck Hamlet that same night in the living room of my friend, Brenda Larson, who'd given generously to the campaign. It made for a very long, but very satisfying day.

I stayed over with Brenda and her husband, Ed, for an extra couple of days, putting final touches on The Breakneck Hamlet Companion; An Actor's Notebook, and finally hit the "Publish" button on that one! (...now available as a never-before offered perk... at http://igg.me/at/BreakneckHamlet.)

Yes, his heart is literally on, or under, his sleeve...

I swung through Spokane to catch dinner with my former SIU Acting Professor, Joe Proctor, who you may recall used to live in Missoula during previous passes through the vast northern states. Joe has relocated from Missoula to Spokane while awaiting a heart transplant. He is, very literally, carrying his heart around on his sleeve, with an external pacemaker, while he waits, somewhat apprehensive, without a heartbeat, but with great resolve and great spirit.

Following another performance of Breakneck Hamlet at North Idaho College, I was off once more, to a performance of Moliere than Thou in Astoria, Oregon, drilling lines I hadn't recited in quite some time as I drove. Astoria is almost as far northwest as you can go in Oregon, and the bed-and-breakfast that I stayed in was well within shouting distance of a group of sea lions who serenaded me all night long.

(The lions were not sleeping that night...)


Also in Astoria... 
I tried to get a seat, but it was, like, smothering in there!

Rebecca Pierce, the high school French teacher who hosted me in Astoria, was a delight, and she and her husband treated me to a terrific dinner the night before the show. (Rebecca had previously escorted groups of kids to catch my shows at Mount Hood Community College, but I was passing through too early in the semester for MHCC to host me this time around.)

There was a nice, enthusiastic turnout of perhaps a hundred French and Voice students for the show, but it was feeling a little rustier than usual to me... Only now do I look back at the calendar and notice that I hadn't performed Moliere than Thou since February 4 (seven months ago)!
This guy...!

Heading through Portland, after a quick stop at Powell's Books, I visited in quick succession with: two-thirds of Box of Clowns (happy hour, of course), William Luce (author of Belle of Amherst and more), Ruth and Gary (my t-shirt and coffee-mug suppliers), and The Famous Haydell Sisters. I had met the Haydell Sisters in Minneapolis, and Box-of-Clowns-Laura told me they were performing at the Rialto that night (dollar beer night), and I can never resist the opportunity to surprise somebody who probably assumes that I'm thousands of miles away. (It's my own special super power.) We had a brief, fun reunion, but it had been a very long day, and I could only stay for one set before heading off to a hotel. 


Book Proofs!
Following breakfast with my brother Pat in Salem, I pushed quickly south, stopping in Ashland, Oregon, for a visit with the awesome Cil Stengel. On the way, I met up with the manager of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Tudor Guild Gift Shop, who, delighted by the early proof copy I showed her of the new Breakneck Hamlet Companion immediately ordered 25 copies (sight unseen) for her store!

I resumed running lines for Shakespeare's Histories. Given that I haven't performed that one since last March, they needed a fair amount of "waking up" before they would be ready to perform later this month, and I had to check the occasional line in the published version. 

Glancing at the book, I realized that there was something to the printed text I seemed to have missed in my newest Breakneck Hamlet book. Grabbing a hotel in Redding, California, I sat down to figure out that, even though the font size (10.5) was identical in the two publications, my Shakespeare's Histories book used the "Book Antiqua" font for the actual Shakespearean lines, which gave the text greater "weight" or "presence" than the "Times New Roman" font in The Breakneck Hamlet Companion

Rather than order less-than-perfect books for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OCD ALERT!), I dove back in, changing the fonts... which, of course, changed the spacing of the lines... which made the text on the opposing pages line up kind-of-wrong. 

On the opposing pages, the text is generated via Power Point, and imported into the Word document as a pdf... a single "photo" of the opposing page, and the arrows which had been pointing across the span of the pages to indicate the relevant passage that was being discussed on the opposing side, were all now off by tiny fractions of an inch. I spent another four hours lining up each and every one of those annoying arrows, until they were all pointing at the perfect spot. I resubmitted this new text to CreateSpace, and gave myself the afternoon off, treating myself to a movie (The Martian) before heading down to Chico, to visit with my old Coeur d'Alene friend, Marina, and her husband, Steve, where we enjoyed a fun trip to the Sierra Nevada Brewery/Restaurant. 

On to Sacramento...
I always have trouble booking shows on the west coast, if for no other reason than that the venues are so much farther apart from each other. After Denver, I only had four performances lined up, and a couple of those were casual for-fun-and-tips performances... but even those were thinly attended. A couple of Southern California possibilities had fallen through, and several friends who have provided shelter along the way in past years were all out of town. I needed to linger at the Extended Stay America in Sacramento, awaiting a Monday meeting with the Sacramento Theatre Company before racing off, but I was quickly rethinking my path, which was now going to carry me back east as quickly as possible.

Not quickly enough... That Sunday morning, I needed to check on some paperwork I'd left in the passenger seat. It was my second stop down to the car that morning. And while all had been fine, thirty minutes before, this time the window on the passenger side... was smashed in.

Someone had broken into my car in the broad daylight of a Sunday morning... and taken stuff.

Most importantly, my big red vinyl bag was gone. This was the bag that held my Hamlet costume... my Hamlet boots... Hamlet t-shirts... Hamlet coffee mugs... Yorick's skull... The only human being to whom that bag could possibly be of use was me.

Something more seemed to be missing... Oh, ouch... the video camera. That, actually, was probably worth something on the black market.

Maybe an hour later I realized that my big black overcoat (useless on this leg of the tour, so far at least, but probably important soon) was missing, along with my brown jacket.

Between car glass, costume, props, swag, video camera and coats, I'd lost over $2,000 of stuff in a single stroke. (Still working with the insurance folks to see what I might be able to recoup...)

I tried to put a positive spin on the theft on Facebook, but one friend, realizing the impact of the loss, made a kind contribution to the Indiegogo Campaign (as you know, still operational at http://igg.me/at/BreakneckHamlet).

I spent the morning cleaning up glass and figuring out how to replace what was missing. And wishing I had accepted the gracious offer of an airbed the previous night in Chico.

Super Low Price Auto Glass did the work quickly the next morning (and for $80 less than the leading company in that field, which neither had the proper glass, nor an appointment available to do the work for another 48 hours).

I managed a rendezvous with the Artistic Director and Educational Director of the Sacramento Theatre Company, who had produced my Imaginary Invalid several weeks before and fell in love with my adaptation. We talked about my one-man shows, my availability for commissioned work, and the other scripts I had available already. 

East of Sacramento from I-80
I pushed eastward at last, with a brief coffee meet-up with David Jensen who had created the awesome "double-headed" Breakneck Hamlet illustration, as well as the “Bowing Moliere” for Moliere than Thou. I hadn’t seen David in person for well over 10 years (he’s living “off the grid” now, in the woods and hills northeast of Sacramento), but every once in a while, he comes up with a genius design for my work.

That night I made it to Elko, Nevada, followed by an extreme day of driving which brought me all the way back to the Denver area, visiting once again with Felicia and James. (I had picked up a copy of “Asimov’s Guide to Shakespeare” for them while I was at Powell’s in Portland, and was glad to not have to ship the very heavy book!)

East of Salt Lake City, along I-80
One more day of driving brought me across Kansas and back to Kansas City, where Allan and Sandy had their guest room ready for me once again, and I could take a few days of not driving and not worrying about hotels to push my way through the 360+ e-mails in my inbox, visit with a couple of KC friends, and work out the final details on the several bookings that were, surprisingly, still falling into place as the more-than-challenging westward swing transformed into a promising eastward swing to follow. The calendar now has 11 bookings in place yet to come, with a potential couple more that might still jump on.

Hiding out from the rain
I managed to capture five relaxing days in Kansas City while catching this blog up to speed... which took a surprisingly long time, what with typing, retyping (when pasted text looked all wrong on the page), uploading photos, editing and formatting, resizing and rereading... In the course of that time, I managed to catch up on a few other things and enjoy a visit with Alan & Sandy, as well as Anne Marie Kauffman, who suggested stops at a Renaissance Fair and a Karaoke Bar! Thanks!

Starting tomorrow: I resume the road warrior life...!

Oh, and... not to jinx anything but... "Go Cubs."  (That'll kill their chances...)

Tim

Discoveries: Life on the road is just like real life, but more exaggerated, with higher highs and lower lows! * The first lesson I get from every first performance of every one-man show I've done is when I can “take my moment.” * I work to get the remembering and recitation so entirely UNCONSCIOUS that I can still contemplate the emotional nuances, the physical/vocal dynamics, and the perceived attention/distraction of the audience. * Rather than doubling attendance, offering TWO shows rather than one, confuses the “elevator pitch” and depresses attendance. * Often Great things follow Borderline Despair... and Vice Versa. * If I were able to cut the expense of the show in half, more or less, might the reach of this program not expand to an audience of double the size? * It's an ever shrinking world. * I can never resist the opportunity to surprise somebody who probably assumes I'm thousands of miles away.
Upcoming Shows: Moliere than Thou, October 15 at Texas Wesleyan in Fort Worth, TX; Breakneck Hamlet, October 23 in Newnan, Georgia; Shakespeare's Histories, October 27 at Southwest Georgia State University in Americus, Georgia.

Tuesday, April 07, 2015

The View From Here #166: Winter/Spring, 2015

Well, it’s been all Hamlet, almost all of the time now!

I spent much of January working on Hamlet’s Act III, which is the longest of the five, at least as I’ll be performing them. As with all of my Fringe Festival shows, I’m fighting to keep this show under 60 minutes, which means that Hamlet’s five acts need to AVERAGE 12 minutes each.

Act III checks in at around 18 minutes! But it’s where all the fireworks happen: From “To be or not to be,” to “Get thee to a nunnery, to the “Advice to the Players,” to the crucial play within the play, to the passed opportunity to kill Claudius (“Now might I do it pat”) to the unfortunate killing of Polonius, to the reprimand of Gertrude (“Oh, Shame, where is thy blush?”)… It all kind-of had to BE there in order to tell this story.  (In time since January, I seem to have picked up the pace to get Act III down closer to 16 minutes, so there’s hope.)

I crossed my fingers that Acts IV and V would be shorter.

I paused to do another Pathways Weekend.

"Why so negative, man?"
As I’ve mentioned many times, doing Pathways fifteen years ago gave me the werewithal to realign my goals and priorities to take on the things that I really wanted to be spending my time and energy on, and over a series of deliberate steps, I managed to let go of my day job, and promote my scripts and performances, to the point that on September 5, 2002, I pulled out of the driveway on a tour, with no guarantees of success and a shadowy dread that I would, before long, come crawling back to my day job.

560,000 miles, 500+ performances,150,000+ students, and 7+ one-man plays later,  I seem to still be at it.

Over the years, I’ve gone back to Pathways, giving back for the great things I have received, and getting a renewed focus and energy each time. I signed on as a Group Leader for last January’s seminar.

With this new round of inspiration, I dove into working out of my own apartment, improving my voiceovers, recording my first book for an audio-book audience, chasing down acting and literary agents… and working on Hamlet.

There was a moment of honest inspiration this time around, when I found myself strongly moved by the generosity of the students and the attendees at large, who stepped up enthusiastically to support a friend in need.

Contemplating that discovery (people are genuinely supportive), in light of the new project (Hamlet) and the sticking point that I have found so challenging over the years (working my way out from under all of the production, promotion and travel expenses that my plays have demanded)… and the fact that I was reading Amanda Palmer’s terrific book, “The Art of Asking…”

I realized that amid my determination to make it all happen myself, as a “one-man show,” I was stubbornly holding on to my need to demonstrate that I could do it all by myself… to survive by work ethic and will power, perhaps embarrassed by any need to turn to others. But clearly, over the years of doing this, I had the work ethic and the will power, as well as a “base” of people who actively care whether this work gets done. What I needed was support.

And, as Amanda Palmer points out, amid issues of the modern predicament of downloading and cd burning, the question is not “how to get people to pay for music,” but “how do we let them?”

“The Hamlet Project” became “Something about Hamlet,” which became “The One Man Hamlet,” which became, and now is, “Breakneck Hamlet.” I was facing, once again, all of the start-up costs that come with a new show… Normally, I would throw it all on the credit card and hope to make it up over a year or so of performances.

But, given that I was also working to develop a home base (i.e., maintaining rent for a space that I might actually live in), with no immediate alternate source of income, might there be a way of making this show happen without putting myself in the hole? Might it be possible to actually secure the costume, the production, the promotion, the tour IN ADVANCE? To support the birth of the new show with confirmed resources, rather than doing it halfway, spending as LITTLE as possible on the event?

The vision for the Indiegogo campaign had begun to form, though it wasn’t quite there yet.

Because, I was back on the road!

January 22, I was performing “The Greatest Speech of All Time” for the Georgia Health Care Association. Their Vice President had seen me perform “Criteria” for the Georgia Theatre Conference last fall, and name-tagged me as a "Renowned Speaker."

January 23 I was back in Greenwood, SC, where my good friend, Bess Park was directing my version of “The Learned Ladies,” with a bunch of enthusiastic high school students. I sat in on a rehearsal that night, and another rehearsal and a workshop the following afternoon, pushing the boundaries of many of the stylized performance techniques that I’d been exploring over the years. (I shortened my usual “three second rule” to a “zero second rule,” so that the actors would sharply pivot to look directly out at the audience every time they had a line. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time!)

Fringe Friend Charlie Bechtel,
who showed up in Greenwood, SC
That night I had a performance of “Moliere than Thou” with a terrific audience, and a really nice reception sponsored by the generous family of one of the actors in “Learned Ladies.”

With a brief break between shows, I zipped down to Florida, visiting with the Pergandes, and my friend, Tisse, enjoying a bit of warm weather.

I was working on a last minute “Romeo & Juliet” project. A woman from Charlotte Latin School had contacted me some three weeks prior to ask if I might be able to do something on “Romeo & Juliet” for her students. The main North Carolina touring Shakespeare troupe had gone out of business, but they had funds set aside for programming in support of R&J, which their students would be reading. By the time I’d be passing through North Carolina, they would be somewhere around Act III in their work. Might I be able to do a performance of material from the first three acts?

The Lava Lamp B&B
Well, I already had Mercutio’s “Queen Mab” speech memorized as a part of “Lot o’ Shakespeare”…

I sat down and edited R&J down to it’s bare essentials, with my usual snarky narrative bridging through the important speeches of the first three acts. My hosts would be forgiving if I carried the script with me for this show, rather than performing “off-book,” and, given that my January assignment (memorizing Act III of Hamlet) was complete already, I gave myself a week to repeat all of this material some nine times a day. I actually had a good grasp on it by the time I performed it, and was able to get my eyes up off of the page for the majority of the show. It was the first time I’d ever done anything in depth with “Romeo and Juliet” and I was seeing it, almost for the first time, not so much for the plot, but for the imagery that saturates the dialogue throughout. I was noticing “star-crossed” themes of stars, light, the sun, the moon, the darkened night, sight and blindness and their relation to love, riddled throughout the play.

It struck me that this was a whole new opportunity: as long as I didn’t have to be word perfect on the dialogue, I might be able to “channel” a dozen or so of Shakespeare’s most in-demand plays, for schools like this, where the curriculum might be centered around “Romeo & Juliet,” or “Macbeth,” “King Lear,” “Midsummer,” “Twelfth Night,” “The Tempest,” “Julius Caesar,” “Measure for Measure” “Much Ado,” or “Shrew…” Of course, “Hamlet” was already well on its way, and I had the “Histories” covered.

"... or we will send Jesus after you..."
Following the performance, I presented to seven classes over two days. The teacher had been vague about what she wanted me to cover in these sessions, but after a little discussion, we went with “Shakespeare Spaghetti,” in which I take requests from the students, and disentangle monologues, illuminating their special challenges, before putting them back together for performance. It made for a fun variety of performances through all seven class sessions, and for just about every session that I performed, some teacher from outside the class seemed to be sitting in to observe. They seemed eager to get me back in again.

The next day I was back to Duke University for a second performance. (I’d performed here perhaps four years prior, with a nice audience and a fun reception following the show.) This time the teacher and the facilty seemed overpressed for time, and while I might get in to set up in advance, I wouldn’t have a technician, and the teacher and her class (of perhaps a dozen) wouldn’t arrive until just before the performance. They did, still, host a bit of a reception, and I secured a glass of wine to keep as a prop, on stage with me, not indulging until the end of the play. It was a quiet crowd, and I was surprised by the enthusiasm they expressed after the show was done. (I generally interpret quiet as discomfort or even hostility.)

21?! How is this possible?
Heading north, I swung through Georgetown, KY, visiting my cousin George, Ann Arbor, MI, catching a movie with my son, Isaac (in anticipation of his 21st birthday!), and continued the race back to Chicago, settling back in, and getting back to work on Hamlet.

Meanwhile, there were some Significant Life Decisions pending…

The opportunity in Annapolis seemed to be less focused on my work as an actor, with very little money to earn once I might relocate out that way. In the meantime, I picked up a new voiceover agency in Chicago, and seemed to be making and reestablishing more connections in that area. Also, I was getting more excited about “Hamlet.”

I made the decision to nix relocation out east, and concentrate my efforts on “Hamlet” and Chicago. And now that I had cleared my decks for the summer ahead of me, there was still time to apply for some of my favorite Fringe Festivals: Kansas City, Minneapolis and Indianapolis, thus premiering “Hamlet” in advance of offering it on the road.

But if I was going to premiere “Hamlet” this summer, following a spring of (purposely) few bookings, would I even be able to afford a costume? Or the Fringe tour? Or the million things that went along with producing a new show? I grew more focused on the Indiegogo campaign, while plotting out yet another tour for the fall…

I’d planned to give myself the month of February to memorize Act IV, and the month of March to memorize Act V. But once I finished my work on Act IV I just kept going, getting all five acts under my belt before February was through, and proceeding to run the entire play on a daily basis.

Getting a play memorized and getting it performance-ready are two very different things. Having “Hamlet” memorized simply meant that I could somehow make my way through it, with a modicum of accuracy, without looking at the script, even if, in those first run throughs, it might take me 70 minutes to make it through a play that I needed to be able to perform, ultimately, in 60. I often tell people that I memorized my first one-man show in about 6 months, but it wasn’t until about 6 months after that when I felt secure performing it. And so, my goal in subsequent productions has been to start that six-month clock ticking as far in advance of the first performance as possible!

With “Hamlet” mostly secure, I directed my energy back onto “Shakespeare’s Histories; Ten Epic Plays at a Breakneck Pace,” which I would be performing March 6 at the Southeast Theatre Conference in Chattanooga.

If my sister ran a donut shop...
But first! My promotional campaign in January had landed me an audition with the Folger Theatre in Washington D.C.! Of course, I’d sent to them while I still had plans for an extended stay in Annapolis this summer, but as one of the premiere Shakespeare companies in the country, I wouldn’t let the opportunity slip past. I plotted out a run-out to the east coast, checking in with the Annapolis Shakespeare Co, as Sally prepared for rehearsals of “Servant,” visiting with my sister, Maureen, and auditioning on March 3 in D.C.

The audition, itself, seemed a bit of a bust. Given that the auditor was not listed as the director of any of the plays in the coming season, and the questionnaire I filled out in advance had queries such as “Would you be willing to understudy, even if not cast?” I realized that exposure and/or income from this particular opportunity would be minimal, at best.

For years I have lectured students about “finding your light,” always using the audition session as my extreme scenario, but since I haven’t auditioned in years, I generally felt like I was mostly inventing the crazy situation where you find yourself auditioning in a darkend room with only a single light giving you perhaps five square feet of viable playing area. Well, that was pretty much exactly what I had to work with at the Folger: it was a conference room with dim window illumination, and only a couple of overhead “can” lights offering little spots of light, only one of which was in any relation to the director’s table.

I did my “Comedy of Errors” monologue right under that light, moving out of it only long enough for Antipholus to say: “They fell upon me, bound me, bore me thence, and in a dark and dankish vault at home, left me, and my man, both bound together, till, gnawing with my teeth, my bonds in sunder, I gained my freedom…” and, finding my way back into the light, I remained there for the rest of the speech.

From D.C., I raced on to Harrisonburg, Virginia, meeting with my costume designer, Kathy Conery (she did the cool “Lot o’ Shakespeare” costume) to talk “Hamlet,” and, from there, worked my way to Chattanooga.

SETC Style Council
It turns out that it was good that I headed out early and traveled the route that I did, as I arrived in Chattanooga from the east at the same time as a winter storm was working its way from the west. My friend and assistant, April, having car trouble, got slammed by the snowstorm, pulling up in a hotel in Kentucky. While she attempted to proceed south the following morning, so many cars and trucks had gotten stuck in the snow, the highway remained impassable, forcing her to head back to Chicago.

It was good to be back at SETC, which I’d missed the year prior, while performing “Scapin” in Michigan. I got to visit with a bunch of old friends, and performed “Shakespeare’s Histories” as part of their fringe festival. The show was very well received by an audience of about 80, and extending the one-man show metaphor, I also passed out programs prior to the start, and sold books as people were leaving. My favorite comment from the audience that night was “After seeing your Moliere play a few years back, I made a promise to myself to never miss a Tim Mooney show…!”

Heading back towards Chicago a few days later, there was very little snow left on the ground, but as I passed through Kentucky, the many broken branches and fallen trees testified to the massive weight of the snow that had descended along this highway!

Following one last performance of “Shakespeare’s Histories” at Lewis University, I put myself full-force into “Hamlet:” now entitled “Breakneck Hamlet,” a nod to the brand that I had begun to establish with “Shakespeare’s Histories; Ten Epic Plays at a Breakneck Pace!” Between that and “Hamlet” and the new “Romeo & Juliet” presentation, the new brand was taking shape as “Breakneck Shakespeare,” which seems to instantly dismiss our greatest fear surrounding Shakespeare: that we will sit there for a long time with very little action.


I engaged Marcus Fernando to do one of his fun photo compilations again, and with my usual illustrator, Lee Rushton, unavailable, I chased down David Jensen, who had done my original “Moliere than Thou” illustration 15 years before, to do a new piece for “Breakneck Hamlet”. (It will make an amazing coffee mug; it reminds me of how I feel just before that first cup of coffee.)

I started an on-line “countdown” on Facebook, putting up sketches and photos as they came in, beginning one week in advance of the anticipated “Indiegogo Breakneck Hamlet Campaign!”

Once I had gone “public” with the plans for the campaign, and a date for it to begin, suddenly, I had to take the launch of the campaign VERY SERIOUSLY! I composed text for the Indiegogo website, and repeatedly edited and re-edited a script for a video in support of the campaign. The video script started out somewhere around ten minutes long, carefully laying out all of the rationale and the need and the benefits of this program, with lots of detail and lots of talk about swag or “perks.” (I hate spelling the word this way, because perqs is actually short for “perquisites,” but I think that people just assume that these are extra things that “perk up” our interest.)

Meanwhile, I was researching successful campaigns, learning that videos really ought not be more than three minutes long. (I continued cutting and cutting, and then memorizing and memorizing…) I learned that the most successful day to start a campaign was on a Monday (when people got back to work with a fresh start), and the most successful day to end was on a Friday (when people got paid).

I was drawing and redrawing the website plans, but was having a hard time “seeing” how it would all look once it was officially launched. I noted that there seemed to be an interim step, where I could put up a draft of the website, and go back and work and rework it before officially setting the campaign in motion. There was a “button” there in the set-up phase that seemed to enable that process.

After much back and forth, I simply could not NOT work any further without seeing what this was going to look like and on Friday, March 13, somewhere around 3 pm, I hit the “LAUNCH” button.

Apparently, the button that I had intended to click was the “PUBLISH” button.

The Perqs are arriving already!
Three days early, the campaign was underway! There was no looking back, and there would be no “getting it right.” If ever I would need to “go with the flow,” this was it. (In fact, the surprise launch was probably going to work in my favor: it gave me a story to tell about this adventure, and underlined the urgency of the event. It also meant that the fundraiser would END three days early, too. So much for wrapping things up on a Friday!)

Of course, if you read my most recent edition of “The View From Here,” you know this already. If not, this might be a good moment to track back to “Issue #165: The IndiegogoCampaign!”


I raced that edition into publication that same night, all the while dashing off e-mails to my most likely and loyal supporters. I believe I was up until about 3 am that night, rather astonished at how quickly the contributions were coming in!

By the time I went to bed that first night, we were just shy of the $1,000 needed to guarantee the design/construction of Hamlet’s costume, and by the time I woke up the next morning, we were there! I recorded a video to commemorate the successful reach of the first goal, and turned my attention to the next major hurdle.


Raising the next $3,500 would not be easy. I had set my easiest hurdle for the opening of the campaign, since the costume was simply something that the show could not be done without. This time, I was taking on Photos, Art, Web Design and Publicity: less “sexy,” but very necessary. I was posting to Facebook repeatedly, creating an Indiegogo Facebook event, to which I could “invite” people, and hitting up good friends and family.

Early on, some $1,600 arrived via “snail mail” from friends who weren’t comfortable posting their credit card info on-line. That gave us a confusion of tallies, with the Indiegogo site reading one total, but with me knowing that we were significantly farther along. By Thursday, March 19, our cumulative total crossed the second goal, and I pulled together another video. (The videos were a further enticement to donate… or at least to keep the narrative going, as I promised to perform another monologue for each goal that we managed to pass.)


And there, the energy dropped…! While the first four days of the campaign had averaged about $800 each day, the second full week of the campaign was almost entirely under $100. (Only on that first day of that week did we reach $115.)

I started transferring over the monies that had come in to the post office, so that the success of the campaign would be reflected in the on-line totals, and potential donors would realize we were on-track to make our goals.

I found that campaigns that do, actually, reach their goals on Indiegogo, get to retain a higher percentage of their donations, which would mean more than $500 going to the cause, as long as we hit that magic number of $11,000.

I was biding my time somewhat, keeping the campaign afloat long enough until that final week, where a sense of “urgency” would once again, push the program forward. There is a clear difference between telling someone that there are three weeks left to contribute vs. ten days, vs. one week, vs. ONE DAY!

And as I post this, we are only SEVEN DAYS OUT from the exciting conclusion! We've leveled off at $7,847 (averaging only $10 over the last three days). Actually reaching our goal remains very much in doubt. The trending lines aren’t good at the moment.

It is still a HUGE success, and I can’t deny that we’re doing MUCH BETTER than I’d dared to hope, but hope is an addictive commodity. Poised, as we are, just shy of the goal, I’m gearing up to take one more run at it, hoping that I haven’t alienated everyone in my address book.

Of course, this is the moment that I turn to you and ask for your support, either by going to http://igg.me/at/BreakneckHamlet with a donation, or sending word to your friends. I do think that we will probably make it… though I don’t know quite how, quite yet.

And, just on the offchance that those last minute donations do push us through Goal #3 (Fringe Festival Tour) and Goal #4 (The Fall School Tour), I have begun work on a new “Stretch Goal,” which is the creation of a book: “The Breakneck Hamlet Companion,” in much the same style as last year’s “Shakespeare’s Histories” book: with script on one side of each page, and discussion on the facing side. Each time I rehearse these lines, I seem to think of new things I want to talk about in such a “Companion” book, and over the weekend, I drew up a bunch of ideas for Act I already. How cool would it be to hit the ground running with a fully produced, publicized, funded and, now, annotated production?


Speaking of hitting the ground running, the new “Swag/Perqs/Perks”, with t-shirts and coffee mugs and sticker that making great use of the new illustration have begun to arrive! These will be popular not only for the fundraiser, but for sale after performances, as well.



YES, WE HAVE STICKERS!
AND, not to bury the lede, but, in addition, I’ve begun negotiations with a theatre in Waukegan to host the World Premiere of “Breakneck Hamlet,” this June!

Yes, opening day just crept up about SIX WEEKS EARLIER than planned!

Good thing I’ve been drilling those lines!

Love,
Tim

Discoveries: People are genuinely supportive. * My need to demonstrate that I can survive by work ethic and will power, cuts me off from the potential of support. * Securing the production needs of the play in ADVANCE of the first performance is a radical idea, whose time has come. * My formula for “Shakespeare’s Histories” and “Hamlet” could be applied to a dozen or so Shakespeare plays, opening up the possibility of many exciting presentations, as long as I let go of the need to memorize each one of them to perfection. * What seems like discomfort or hostility from the stage, may simply be “awe” from the audience. * Getting a play memorized is one thing; getting it performance-ready quite another. * Our mistakes sometimes make great stories, which lead to unexpected success. * Hope is an addictive commodity. * Just when it looks like you could never possibly achieve your goal is when you should figure out what you will do next once you DO.















This blog dedicated to fond memories of Leonard Nimoy and Ernie Banks! I have been and always shall be your friend.

Timothy Mooney Repertory Theatre Tour Schedule

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

SUMMER, 2015
7/16-26   Kansas City Fringe Festival
7/30-8/9  Minnesota Fringe Festival
8/13-23   Indy Fringe Festival

FALL, 2015
9/1-4    ILLINOIS
9/8-11  IOWA / WISCONSIN / MINNESOTA / NORTH & SOUTH DAKOTA
9/14-18  NEBRASKA / COLORADO / WYOMING / UTAH / MONTANA
9/17     Snow College? (LoS)
9/21-25  IDAHO / WASHINGTON / OREGON
9/28-10/2  CALIFORNIA / NEVADA
10/5-9  ARIZONA / NEW MEXICO / TEXAS
10/9-10  Laredo Community College? (Hamlet & Criteria)
10/12-16  TEXAS / OKLAHOMA / LOUISIANA / ARKANSAS / KANSAS
10/14   Texas Wesleyan University (MTT)
10/18-23 MISSOURI / MISSISSIPPI / ALABAMA / TENNESSEE / KENTUCKY
10/25-30  FLORIDA / GEORGIA / SOUTH CAROLINA / NORTH CAROLINA
11/2-6  VIRGINIA / WEST VIRGINIA / MARYLAND / DELAWARE / DC / NEW JERSEY
11/9-13  PENNSYLVANIA / NEW YORK / NEW ENGLAND
11/16-20  OHIO / INDIANA / MICHIGAN / ILLINOIS
11/19-20  Southern Illinois University (MTT)

11/23-12/4  ILLINOIS