Friday, September 01, 2017

The View From Here #171: Summer, 2017



I began my summer heading south, with the last performance of the year’s “school tour” at the Christel House Academy in Indianapolis. The Christel House is one of a group of schools sponsored by Christel DeHaan, who, after seeing my show at the Indianapolis Fringe Festival, made a healthy donation, and later hosted a “salon” performance of “Moliere than Thou.”  They were bringing me in for a performance of “Lot o’ Shakespeare,” in a somewhat odd setting in what was essentially a music rehearsal room (somehow adjacent to a gym, with basketball noise that bled directly through the walls).

It was a fun performance for a bunch of kids who obviously didn’t get a lot of exposure to Shakespeare. They were attentive and responsive, but it wasn’t until “Julius Caesar” came up that they kids (and their teachers) seemed won over, recognizing a connection to Shakespeare that they hadn’t previously imagined.

That same night was the final night of the Big Fundraiser! I had announced the Fundraiser back in February, once we received confirmation of not-for-profit status (simultaneous to the beginning of the winter/spring tour). And, while the fundraiser enjoyed a fairly good first week, things lagged as I focused on the ongoing tour, constantly working to revive the memorized lines in my head before the next performance.

With the summer festival season looming, I put a deadline to close out the fundraiser that night in Indianapolis, and camped out at the home of one of my best supporters (Sandi Palombi) and engaged in a series of “Facebook Live” videos, almost as if it were a telethon, performing“Shakespeare by Request” live on Facebook, doing about 20 minutes of monologues each hour, on the hour, eventually pulling in a couple of thousand dollars in the final 24 hours.



While the fundraiser did, eventually pull in about $6,800, this did not quite bring us up to our goal of $7,500, and if you’d like to give that total a little nudge, please click on this link  to help us out!

I worked my way on down to Florida, with the inaugural running of the Tampa International Fringe Festival.

The famous "Trish" of the Tampa Fringe production staff

I’ve done three inaugural fringe festivals over the years, and have mostly sworn off of them. There are rookie discoveries that first-time festival organizers make along the way, and mostly they are playing to an audience who has no idea what a fringe festival is… (which means that I end up playing to the occasional audience of 3). This time, however, a couple of savvy fringe promoters, Will and Trish, friends and veterans of many festivals, had set up the festival as an “opening act” to the Orlando Fringe, which would follow on the subsequent weekend. Up until about 4 weeks prior, I wasn’t actually “in” for the Orlando Fringe, but with a last-minute drop-out, I was now on the schedule there, too, and would be able to do a kind-of one-two punch from one festival to the next.

The Tampa Fringe hadn’t quite built up a coterie of willing billets in town, which meant that a bunch of us out-of-towners were coming to town with no place to stay. I took the initiative to find an “AirBnB” home to support eleven outcast fringe artists some ten minutes from “Fringe Central.” Which made for a really friendly artist-home for five different fringe productions to share a space, sip coffee and, sometimes, drink late into the night.

I was noticing an increasingly lengthy crack growing in the windshield of my car as well as a seriously deflated tire in those final miles. Within 24 hours of hitting Tampa, I’d racked up about $900 in car repair for my “new” MoliereMobile, which after 18 months and 65,000 miles, needed 4 new tires and a new windshield.

A Tampa reporter had responded to my media release with the inquiry: “Is there any chance to see the show before the first fringe performance?” I proceeded to extend an invite to the reporter to come to the Wednesday afternoon tech rehearsal, in advance of my opening night.

There’s a growing tradition with the Orlando Fringe of opening up the tech run-through to press and Fringe volunteers and sponsors to attend this first tech-through, with the understanding that it will get EARLY publicity out to the public before the show hits the ground running. I’ve lived through many festivals in which the rave review doesn’t show up until all of the shows are actually complete, leaving no opportunity for the review to have an impact on attendance and, thereby, income.

My early Tampa Fringe exposure was really good; one of my photos was prominently featured, and fringe friends (who knew me from other festivals) seemed to have been putting in a good word for my work.

But when the tech rehearsal arrived, it was a race to get set up and set a few cues before the reviewer arrived, about 45 minutes into the process. The reviewer (not the one who’d been in touch requesting the preview), sat silent through the (highly audience-participatory) show, with only one other viewer in attendance.

This mediocre review ("...little more than a rambling monologue that's difficult to follow or understand...") showed up on-line about an hour before going on… and I note that the reviewer herself seems to target me for having requested her attendance at the tech in the first place, which is not quite how this all came about.

Meanwhile, I got to see some great shows: I revisited a performance of a show I’d seen at last year’s Winnipeg Fringe, “Beers about Songs,” which was just as awesome as it was a year ago, as well as a really disturbing look at the global warming issue, called “Planet Hospice,” which called into question all of the timelines that we have seen so far regarding the impact of global warming in the very near future. (Which has me starting to sketch out a global warming epic of my own my own…)

While the Fringe started out slow with some 15-20 people coming to my first two shows. By the end, I scored much better, with some 40-45 attending the last show, and some of my fellow artists giving great response:

Photo by Tisse Mallon
“Whether you are a lover of the bard or simply of the occasional barbs, Tim’s shockingly and impressively accessible and audience participatory interpretation will have you crying “huzzah.”… with this one man dynamo in the driver’s seat, it’s Shakespeare at its schizophrenic finest! (Heather Bagnall)

“This is vintage Mooney but it’s kicked up a notch. Even better than his Hamlet because it covers a play that not as many people know. And it’s so good! Wonderful characterizations and LOTS of audience participation make this the best Breakneck yet… (Thom Mesrobian)

Almost as good: A teacher came up to me afterwards and said: "You managed to cover in just one hour what it usually takes me five weeks to teach...!"

With Lauren Anderson, first met at the
NY Fringe back in 2003!
Following one last big party, we made one final Facebook alliance between the Tampa-to-Orlando groups who were moving on to the next festival, and said our fond goodbyes, pressing on to the Orlando Fringe.

Immediately upon my arrival, I found myself listed first among the Orlando Sentinel preview!

I had ANOTHER invited tech rehearsal early that afternoon, with another quick tech-through, followed by another invited run-through. This time, the Orlando audience shocked me with a group of some 40+, mostly good friends who have supported my work for years.

As I addressed the audience with my usual pre-show instructions, I found myself tripping over my own tongue, and interrupted myself to say: “Okay, last night was the Tampa Fringe Closing night party…” This broke the ice, as everyone laughed heartily, all having been through post-fringe parties of their own.

Photo by Tisse Mallon (from the O-Fringe Preview)
This was by no means my best performance: I skipped, and redoubled backwards to pick up “Beware the Ides of March,” and found myself sweating profusely (as whatever was left of the previous night’s alcohol escaped my body). But everybody laughed and responded in all of the right places.

Within 24 hours, reviews were already showing up on-line, reaching far beyond my expectations and, perhaps, even my hopes. Seth Kubersky from the Orlando Weekly has given me some nice response in the past, but nothing to prepare me for…

“If you think senators backstabbing their rivals is something recent, let Mooney reacquaint you with the Bard’s Roman tragedy of tyranny and rebellion, minus all the boring bits. Mooney is like the high school English teacher you always wished you had… with a wild-eyed energy usually only exhibited by amphetamine addicts, but he doesn’t condense this epic by rushing roughshod over its poetry. On the contrary, his elocuation is so well-enunciated that it illuminates the archaic language for the modern ear, elucidating familiar but frequently misunderstood phrases like “Brutus was an honorable man” and “We must take the current when it serves.” Best of all are Mooney’s snarky asides, fourth-wall-shattering footnotes that poke fun at the play’s oddities, such as Caesar’s irritating habit of referring to himself in the third person, and that infamously anachronistic chiming clock. Even if you usually fall asleep during sword-and-sandal sagas, lend Mooney your ears for this hour of electrifying edutainment.” (Seth Kubersky)

In the past, Matt Palm of the Sentinel has given me some enthusiastic response, and when I didn’t see him in the rehearsal audience, I assumed he’d overlooked my show. Later, I learned that he’d passed the assignment on to an even more enthusiastic Shakespeare-fan, who produced an almost-as-perfect review.

“Fasten your seat belts, Fringe-goers, Tim Mooney is back with another Shakespearean classic performed at breakneck speeds… 60 cardiovascular minutes that leave Mooney sweating, and his audience shouting “Huzzah!” Mooney is obviously well versed in all things Shakespeare, and his depth of knowledge makes him the perfect guide for this Elizabethan journey, which is enjoyable for “literary-dorks” and “Shakespeare-virgins” alike. His play on words and inflections offers a fresh perspective to a well-known story, and new interpretations take shape as we “friends, Romans, [and] countrymen” look on… Mooney is like mixing your Shakespearean Sparknotes with a triple shot of espresso. (Lania Berger, Orlando Sentinel)

Somewhere between my first tech rehearsal in Tampa (which left me wondering whether this show might work at all), and the reviews coming in from Orlando, the show had improved, not only in the staging, but in the confidence which the response was giving me.

Every show seems to go through this phase. There always seems to be that existential moment in which I find myself questioning, just what is it all worth, anyway? Is this any good? Was this last year of my life a misguided effort to put something together that doesn’t really hit home? Once Thom Mesrobian cited this as “the best Breakneck of all,” I began to realize that I was on to something. (I’m still not 100% convinced of this: as I write this, I’ve now had over a month between performances.)

Favorite comment received from an Orlando Fringe patron who remembered me from last year: "I went back and read 'Hamlet' this year, and I 'heard' the whole script in your voice!"

Photo by Tisse Mallon
Maybe the most gratifying part of what I do: Quite often, parents bring their kids, or kids bring their parents (or boyfriends/girlfriends) who HATE Shakespeare (or are, at best, indifferent or ambivalent), confident that I will turn them around!

Another patron wrote: "It's rare to find something thatt the entire family loves equally and you manage to impress, entertain and inform each of us. The kids (20, 17, 12) are still thanking me for 'finding you'. (Jennifer Carr McCoy) 

That same Orlando Fringe Tech performance was attended by my favorite photographer, Tisse Mallon, who captured more fun pics of the show in action.

The downside to this year's Orlando Fringe was that since the show was a late addition to the fringe, it didn't appear in the printed program, which makes it hard to bring in an audience who hasn't circled the show as they review the day's line-up of shows that they want to catch. 


Departing Florida
I did get to see loads of great friends and drink my share of beer. I especially enjoyed Rob Lloyd from Australia, who was in town doing a "Dr. Who" one-man show, and who commended me on my "bold American accent" in Julius Caesar! 

I had another week in town, with three performances planned for Winnie Wenglewick's new theatre in Sanford, Florida. She's just finished building out a terrific new space with two theatres that will ultimately be able to operate simultaneously for audiences of some 50-65 people. We draped her current set in black and threw a white sheet over it for the "Caesar slide show. There was some nice coverage in the local Sanford paper and a "festival holdover" article in the Orlando Sentinel. I did three performances there to audiences that started out tiny, but grew on subsequent nights.

I headed back to Chicago, stopping in Chattanooga to celebrate Paul Steurmer's surprise 60th birthday party. (The surprise was: we held it on his 59 1/2 birthday!)

And I dove, once again, into a massive e-mail campaign. Yes! I had just recently FINISHED a massive email campaign. But with the new NFP standing, I've lowered my prices and need to make up the difference in Volume-Volume-Volume! So far, so good: I've booked about 17 shows for the fall so far! 

Somewhere in the thick of all of this, the world got hit with the closest thing to a Shakespearean “scandal” that I’ve seen during my lifetime, as a production of none other than “Julius Caesar” at the Public Theatre in New York, depicted an obvious Donald Trump in the role of Caesar. A cell-phone video of the infamous “stabbing scene” leaked out onto the internet, and the staging of it was so GOOD that people got really BOTHERED by it!

(I’m not saying it was good because “Trump gets attacked;” I’m saying that it’s good because it was really disturbing, and we really SHOULD feel a little stomach-churned about the grisliness of this assassination.)

Anyway, there are a few interesting parallels between Trump and Caesar, much as Caesar has interesting parallels with Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush-the-Elder, Reagan, Lincoln and probably even Washington. Unfettered presidential power will always echo “Julius Caesar” to the fertile creative mind. This time, however, there are a lot of folks noticing stuff like this who don’t have quite the NUANCE to understand that Shakespeare is suggesting that the killing of Julius Caesar was, overall, a BAD thing. And many of the folks who are getting so upset don’t stick around to see the assassins get their come-uppance in the latter acts of the play.

Photos by April Peterson; Compilation by Marcus Fernando
But, hey! It’s publicity. And it’s publicity for the precise Shakespeare play that I just spent the last year of my life FIGURING OUT!  (I may be benefitting from some really fortunate timing right now!)

My overseas fringe friend, Marcus, had an idea for a new photo compilation for “Breakneck Julius Caesar” (BJC for short) and, with April’s help, I staged a bunch of shots of Caesar being assassinated. I touched up the pics, sent them to Marcus and he came back with these two compilations, above…!

Early morning departure for Lincoln Nebraska
I raced off once again: this time to the International Thespian Festival in Lincoln, Nebraska, where I had a booth once more, spinning ping pong balls in the “Lot o’” cage, and performing Shakespeare monologues for wide-eyed theatre students, while collecting as many of their teachers’ email addresses as I could.

Also at this conference was my new publisher, “Stage Rights,” with copies of my new Moliere scripts: “The School for Wives” and “The Learned Ladies.” I was delighted to see them show up with a big stack of them, and a sign promoting the fact that these would be personally signed by author, Timothy Mooney.

From there, I continued on to the American Association of Community Theatres (AACT), meeting in Rochester, Minnesota, promoting more scripts and sundry schemes.

My booth-neighbors have been very indulgent of my monologue-performing through the course of a given day. In Lincoln, a former editor with Playscripts videotaped me performing for a few giddy students, while in Rochester, they just seemed to enjoy every time they got to see a new monologue come up in the rotation.

With Phil Margo, one of the original "Tokens"!
One fellow who was attending to promote a Greek-themed musical he was promoting,  stopped by to commend my toga costume, citing his credentials as one of the guys who worked on the original “Wim-o-weh” version of “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” Somewhat skeptical, I asked him: “You mean you worked with the Tokens?”

He seemed amazed that I knew the name of the band, and reached into his bag, pulling out an 8x10 glossy of the original foursome of the Tokens, pointing out himself, considerably younger, in the line-up.

My new books!
Given my karaoke proclivities, I told him that I think I owe him some royalties.

When the traffic at the booth was slow, I was continued to make progress on the e-mail campaign, which I would ultimately wrap up a couple of days after my return to Chicago. On the last day of AACT, I was packing up my booth as a guy from a booth one aisle over was walking by. I’d noticed this guy at least ten times through the course of the conference, but this time I said hello, and actually read his nametag.

“Dan Culhane… I used to know I guy named Dan Culhane. Where was it… I think it must have been back in undergrad.”

“Really? Where did you go?”

Front cover
“Um, well this would have been Southern Illinois University.”

“Wow, I went to Southern Illinois University!”

“No kidding. This would have been like way back in the late-70s/early 80s.”

“I was there in the late-70s/early 80s!”

Of course we eventually figured out who each other was, a little shocked that we’d recognized each other by name, but not by face, and spent a half-hour catching up before I got back to the business of packing up my stuff and loading out to my car.

Isaac and I at the train station (of course...)
Back in Chicago, I dug in further on a new book (available now!), “The Breakneck Julius Caesar Companion.” It’s filled with the full script of the play, as well as a “concordance:” parallel notes on all of the stuff that I couldn’t quite fit into the one-hour BJC. David Jensen put together a set of maps of Rome, which make sense out of the expanding Roman State/Nation/Empire, the vast travels of Caesar that predate the play, and the relocation of the action to the distant east where eventually, Brutus and Cassius battle it out against Antony and Octavius.

Pausing for a fourth of July party, Isaac came out to visit once more, just as Pat’s family flew in from the west for a big barbeque shindig.

Most of the Mooneys
I had about two weeks in town to complete a ton of work, catch up on emails, re-apply for my passport, arrange posters, postcards, press releases and paperwork for the coming conferences and festivals. I set up one more performance of “BJC” at my dad’s retirement facility, and invited local friends who keep bugging me about sharing my new work in-town. Ultimately the facility meeting room filled with 80 or 90 people, and the older folks got the jokes just as well as the newer ones do. A retired teacher came up to tell me that after years of teaching “Julius Caesar” she “finally understood it now!” And Bob Sanders, who’d produced the premiere of my “Breakneck Hamlet,” said “I directed that play a number of years back, and found myself getting stuff that I hadn’t gotten before!”
Safe to travel...

Perhaps one of the most important comments came from my erstwhile co-director Deb Pekin, who remarked that her favorite part of the show was my pre-show warm-up of the crowd. In recent years I’ve taken to simply hanging out to welcome the audience in, almost as if I was the host of a party. It spares me the nervousness of hanging out backstage worrying about whether they’ll like me or the show. Deb notes that it also gets the audience into the spirit of my personality and playfulness, so that they’re more ready for the play by the time it launches (which seems to be a common refrain in some of the reviews to come).

With that, I hit the road again… hoping for my voice to recover from the last night’s show. (The senior citizens got the jokes, but I had to speak up a little more than usual to make sure they could actually hear them!)

First stop: St. Louis, where the American Association of Teachers of French was holding their annual conference. I hadn’t been back to this conference for at least three years, but they remembered me well. I had a booth in the exhibit hall where they would drop by to visit, and occasionally sign in. I collected about a dozen email addresses from sign ups, and later the association sent me along the list of some 400 attendees, so I had my hands full with mailings for a while.

A little bit after the exhibit hall closed, I had one final appearance at a workshop presentation of “Moliere than Thou.” Unfortunately, they scheduled me to appear at exactly the same time as they were holding their “Delagate Meeting,” (and about 90% of the people at this conference were delegates, so I ended up with an audience of perhaps 5 people for “Moliere than Thou.” (I think I’m going to take another year off from this conference.)

Apparently my name and Moliere's 
have become interchangeable 
as far as AATF is concerned. 
I am sparing you, gentle reader, the long tale of the many strategems of setting up my booth (about 6 trips from car into exhibit hall), driving to the hotel that I am actually staying at, another 3 trips from parking garage into the hotel, crossing back and forth between hotels through the conference, repacking the car on the morning of the final day of the conference, disassembling my booth on the final afternoon, and moving it into a holding room for two hours while I go to perform, after which I walk back to the previous hotel to pick up my car (no way I was going to pay an extra $35 for a closer parking lot when I was already paid up through 3 pm), and then out-load my packed-up booth into the car on a hot July afternoon, before finally making the drive to Kansas City. (Okay, I guess I didn’t spare you the details after all…)

My first major task in Kansas City was finding myself a coffee table at a local thrift store to act as a small platform in my show (with more unloading and reloading the car to create coffee-table sized space!).

KC Fringe Preview Flyering
The tech rehearsal went well, and so did the preview performance the following day, for an audience of some 300 or more “fringers.” I had two minutes to work with and hauled out Casca’s “I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown” monologue, which includes my pun of “epileptic Caesar” and concludes with “it was Greek to me.”

The show opened the following day, and the audience was like a “who’s who” of favorite KC Fringe fans. Over the course of six KC Fringe appearances, I’d developed a following of a loyal audience who all seem to show up for my very first performance. (That steady parade of audience doesn’t seem to actually last through the course of the festival, which makes me think that this fringe doesn’t have quite so much depth in the demographic that comes out to see classical theatre.)

My new business cards catch up with me in Kansas City!
I was, however, getting good reviews! Deborah Hirsch with “The Pitch” has probably reviewed me four or five times now, and though I don’t believe we’ve ever met, we’re Facebook friends, and she messaged me to obtain photos to go with her review. I was happy provide them, a

nd she insisted that she’d “never miss” one of my shows. Within about an hour the review was posted, and it was another good one!

...the charismatic and talented Tim Mooney, whose breathless one-person-one-hour tour through the Shakespeare play is yet another outstanding production by this Fringe Festival performer who has built a genuine following in KC. Mooney alone stages this condensed Caesar run-through – he says he has “sliced this play up… to see more of the forest by removing some of those obstructive trees” – which highlights the major characters, plot points, and important speeches and delivers a side of commentary and historical context... The Shakespeare tragedy has never been so much fun and simultaneously instructive. It's a fringe go-to... (Deborah Hirsch, the Pitch)
People started spreading the rumor that my show was really great, and that I’d probably be selling out by the end of the run. As much as I tried to help spread that rumor and send people into a frenzy of ticket-buying, the show never quite sold out.

The first night of the Fringe late-night beer tent found a smattering of a dozen or so of us huddled under the tent as an approaching storm lit up the sky. As it came closer, the winds picked up and a serious downpour commenced. All of a sudden, the electricity in the tent went out and it threatened to blow away. All 10-12 of us grabbed onto one of the tent poles, literally holding it down (occasionally lifting off of the ground) as the rain poured.

There was some legitimate fear that one of us might get seriously injured or that, if we let go of the tent, the tent itself would hurt one of us, or someone nearby. In the face of the panic, I started to shout out the King Lear “Storm Speech,” “Blow winds and crack your cheeks,” which at least seemed to soften the tension. (See video above... storm kicks in around the 4 minute mark; King Lear at the 5:15 mark.)

Last night's torrential downpour... It's all fun and games until the storm kicks in about 5 minutes in, and we're hanging on for life through the 20 minute mark, at which point our cameraman heads off for the train station...!

With Anne Marie Kaufmann and Michael Shaeffer
The second performance of “Caesar” in Kansas City was one of the best shows I can remember. There were at least two English teachers in the audience, including Michael Shaeffer from Alaska (a long-time fringing buddy), and a student (Shawn Murphy) from Northwest Missouri Community College, where I’d performed last fall. They were getting all of the literary humor, and broke into applause at the end of “Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!”

Just as importantly, there was a 10-ish year-old girl front row center who REALLY got into the audience participation portion. She was jumping furiously to her feet during “Friends, Romans, Countrymen,” as the audience lines appeared on the screen.

And they all cheered out “huzzah” during the curtain call.

Terrific reviews continued to show up through the course of the festival, with this one showing up on the Fringe Festival site from a staff reviewer: 

“...I never ceased to be impressed and delighted by Mooney’s virtuosic performance… an enjoyable, holistic,  theatrical experience for the audience. From welcoming each audience member at the entrance (with stickers!) to explaining the anachronistic conventions by which the audience will participate and speak their lines as the character, “Citizens,” Mooney sets the entire space – not just the stage – for his production. What’s left is for the audience to hold on to their seats and resist blinking for the next 60 minutes as Mooney solo-performs his way through over 20 characters, several oratory speeches, a couple death scenes and two nifty on-stage costume transitions. Regardless of whether you are a Shakespeare fan or not, this is a must-see – a theatrical treat, really – for KC Fringe-Goers.” (Hephzibah Dutt, KC Fringe Reviewer)
Towards the end of the week, two more reviews showed up, including this one from a reviewer for "KC Applauds" who has lamented two years prior that he hadn't heard how good "Breakneck Hamlet" was until it was too late to catch the show. 
FIVE STARS: Timing is perfect for the Shakespeare tragedy of an over-reaching emperor of the Roman Empire as told by the Bard of the Renaissance… This performance needs to be filmed and sold to school districts nationwide… This pared-down recitation strips away much of The Bard’s poetry but preserves enough to keep the action moving and the story interesting and compelling… Mooney races through the piece with accuracy and sweat. He’s well-prepared, focused, and magnificent in his performance. (Bob Evans, KC Applauds)

And, then just as I thought there would be no further response, this review showed up on Broadway World.

Remarkably cogent… always excellent… His preparation and rehearsal are obvious, seamless, and audience appreciated. (Alan Portner, Broadway World)

Map by David C. Jensen
Between performances, I was throwing all of my time into the completion of the new book, The Breakneck Julius Caesar Companion. My artist-friend, David C. Jensen, finally had the time to re-work the maps that I was using for the ongoing slide-show and the book. (I had been using maps downloaded from the internet as place-holders, but David’s work was much more specific in capturing the exact locations, dates, and travel paths of the various characters in the two year span of the play.) I assembled and reassembled the book a few times during those last days of furious activity, until I was finally ready to hit the “Publish” button on July 30!
Opening Night Party with 
Orlando Fringers

Closing night party with 
Orlando Fringers
Attendance at the KC Fringe fluctuated, but probably averaged around 45 people per show. We enjoyed one final party by the beer tent (in much better weather), and some of us fringers who had traveled to Tampa, Orlando and Kansas City finally said good-bye, and I realize now that I seem to have a favorite party shirt for warm-weather opening night and closing parties!

The next day I was racing off to Colorado, where I caught a night north of Denver, swung through Colorado Springs to visit with Amber, Andrew and their baby, Charlotte (photo by Amber of me on our walk through the hills), and pushed on west.

I was heading on toward Las Vegas, where the Association of Theatre in Higher Education was having their annual confab.

Somewhere in Utah
This time, my friend, Robert Hubbard, from Northwestern College was presenting a paper on my work, tracing historical one-person Shakespeare performances from Sarah Siddons on through John Geilgud and Ian McKellen, to an overview of my work on Lot o’ Shakespeare, Shakespeare’s Histories and Breakneck Hamlet. (Bob has yet to see Breakneck Julius Caesar.)

The view from my Las Vegas hotel...
Let me take a second to register the bizarre notion that someone was delivering a paper about the work of Tim Mooney in a formal, intellectual symposia.

Bob’s presentation followed a discussion of another one-person performance artist (whose work was very different from my own). That performer was not present at this event, so I was the only one who got some sort of a “rebuttal” in this setting. Which is not to say that I had anything to contradict Bob about, so much as to draw a distinction between what someone’s work may look like on the outside looking in, as opposed to on the inside looking out. While Bob had researched my books, program notes, and reviews of my work, to demonstrate my place in a tradition of Shakespearean one-person performers, I explained how each of my particular works had developed from a place of the need to express or explain something, such as the overall arc of the ten Shakespeare History plays, or the deep dive into Hamlet, or the need to make sense of Julius Caesar, after having performed “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” so many times (but being otherwise, so disappointed by performances of Julius Caesar).

And then I demonstrated the results of those tasks, presenting the opening of Shakespeare’s Histories, the lead-in to Hamlet’s “Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I,” and the resolution of Julius Caesar.

Severe case of "rainbow head" in Twin Falls
It was time for me, once again to pack up and race off. I headed for Alamo, Nevada, in the thick of a pouring thunderstorm, and continued on up into Idaho, visiting with the Larsens in Twin Falls, and with Carrie Lasher in Coeur d’Alene. (Carrie had recently gone through the Pathways Advanced program, and was sorting out a lot of shifting tectonics in her life.)

From Idaho, I made the trip north, finally crossing the Canadian border (for once NOT having to go inside to present my financial papers), and continuing on through the southern Canadian Rockies and into Calgary, where the final weekend of the Calgary Fringe Festival was almost concluded.
Canadian Border

I had told no one but my previous hosts that I would be coming through town, so when I got to the Fringe, I headed for the main ticket booth where a handful of people were selling tickets and Michelle, the Fringe director was staring down at a computer screen. Someone asked “Can I help you?” and I responded, “Are there any tickets still available for ‘Breakneck Hamlet?’”

Canadian Rockies
Michelle, still looking down at her screen, piped in, “That was LAST yea—“ when, looking up, she realized who was asking. We had a nice reunion, and I spent the next day going around catching shows, before continuing up to Edmonton on Monday morning with my good friend, Bremner Duthie riding shotgun.

My new books!
In Edmonton, I finally caught up with copies of the new book! It was almost two weeks since I’d ordered the delivery, and an attempted delivery to meet me at the Las Vegas hotel had fallen victim to an intransigent business office at the Planet Hollywood Hotel (which, GRRR, seems to hold packages hostage for a $15 fee).

I managed to get some quality time with a video recording of my performance in Kansas City. My friends, Ken and Kim Hill had videotaped a fairly good performance, and I chopped the hour-long show down to some 19 minutes, and, from there, down to 7 minutes, to 3 minutes and to 1:30. I pasted in some review quotes for a promo and put it up on YouTube (as seen above at the top of this blog). 

Performances got underway in Edmonton, and I was delighted to find that my late night opening (10:45 on a Saturday night), was fairly full, with an audience of some 90 people, much due to an active ticket giveaway program, and the hiring of a flyering assistant, who was putting in a couple of hours a day while I was in town.

Almost immediately there was a review up on the Edmonton Vue website, which rated the play at four stars:
Meeting up in Edmonton with the friend who
introduced me to "Fringing," Beth Amsbary
“An excellent fit for the fringe… what makes Mooney’s adaptation of Julius Caesar so great [is that] he tells the brunt of the story within an hour, in a one man display of dramatic prowess… Mooney shows a great command of the original text… with real time commentary that criticizes the story’s details through a modern lens… Mooney helps the audience follow the action in intelligent ways too…His production also cast the audience as ancient Rome’s gallery to shout mob-like lines when they appear on screen [which] keeps the audience invested and helps cut through the period jargon, making for a Shakespeare production that’s well worth seeing.” (Kevin Pennyfeather, Vue)
I had a single day off, before beginning two sets of three-performance-days-in-a-row. Monday had another reviewer in the house, but I didn’t find out who until a few days later when a tweet led me to:
“It’s all amazing stuff, and surprisingly unhurried given that Mooney has whacked Shakespeare’s three-hour historical play down to a brisk and brilliant 60 minutes… Mooney, who just might be the most affable performer at this year’s Fringe is a welcoming sort of guy. Before the show begins, he moves among his audience handing out Caesar stickers, trading quips, swapping a few jokes, and setting the tone for what’s to come… Mooney’s seamless editing of the Bard means that he’s kept all the good stuff… But this is not exactly Shakespeare-lite, played for laughs and little else. There is fun to be had here to be sure, but there’s also serious intent at work… Breakneck also manages to provide a fresh interpretation of Brutus, who is presented as a very stubborn, somewhat pompus ass. What if Antony’s final speech, the “here lies the noblest Roman of them all” number, was delivered with the same irony as his “lend me your ears” bit? What then? That changes the whole texture of the play methinks. Hey, I’m convinced. Huzzah!” (Marc Horton, 12thnight.ca)

And then, on my “BJC” Facebook event page, this commentary was posted…

Give Timothy Mooney credit for truth in advertising, it’s the whole play in 59 minutes and 50 seconds. Or more specifically it’s an exposition of the play with reference to the major speeches and dialogues. Now, I’m a Shakespeare fan, not a fan of pre-digested Shakespeare or one-person shows, but I’ve got to admit Mooney does a darned good job of contextualizing the action, speeches and dialogues (including providing maps and timelines for scene changes which escaped me completely when I watched this in Stratford Ontario). Also, Mooney was entirely consistent in using his toga folds to indicate which chatacter was speaking from moment to moment. All in all, an excellent production. (Gunnar Blodgett)

Unfortunately, no review ever appeared in the Edmonton Journal (which had given me 4.5 stars the year before), and while attendance was up from last year’s show, I never quite threatened to sell out any of the performances. And the final three shows of the run showed a decline in attendance.

All that said, this was still the most financially rewarding festival of the 50-60 festivals that I’ve performed at. While last year’s festival enabled me to buy a new laptop (which I’m typing on now), this year I’ll settle for being able to pay off my credit card bill.

Just as I thought I'd written the last about the Edmonton Fringe, with one final performance just 90 minutes away, one last long-awaited review went up on the "Global News" site, with the reviewer giving the show four stars, and calling it "a feat of condensation and memorization... outstanding performance." (Todd James) 

In the thick of griping about the review which arrived too late to do me any good, I went on in to the Fringe grounds to pass around some flyers for the final performance, and after hanging out there for about 30 minutes, I somehow flashed upon the fact that I'd left my billet with my laptop (used for my slide show) sitting back at the house. 

I raced back to the house (an 18 minute drive), picked up the laptop and started to race back to the fringe when I realized that both of the remote controls that I use to actually make the slides go forward were still in the laptop case. I raced back once again, grabbed the remotes and got back to my venue at almost exactly the time that they were about to let the audience in. I hooked up the laptop, aimed the projector and threw my costume on, with just enough time to do my usual pre-show banter and start. 
The Alberta/Saskatchewan Border

I generally, actually LIKE having a last-minute crisis to throw me into action. It keeps me from sweating the small stuff when I've got plenty of "big stuff" to concern myself with. But this time it felt like one too many crises. By the time the audience came in, I was feeling a bit bewildered and dizzy, and while it didn't affect my performance at first, I think I came off a bit brusque to my audience (like, when they didn't sit close to the stage as is my usual preference), and eventually I missed a cue to move the slides forward, which threw me off in the middle of Brutus big eulogy in Act III. 

And, as "off" as I might have felt, at the end, the audience still came up and told me how very much they'd enjoyed the show. 

Cue the closing night party, packing up my car, and hitting the road first thing the following morning. I made it back to Chicago in three days, and while I was driving, my new publisher, Stage Rights, put out this blog post interviewing me about my work.


Discoveries: “There always seems to be that existential moment in which I find myself questioning, just what is it all worth, anyway? Is this any good? Was spending the last year of my life, a misguided effort to put something together that doesn’t really hit home?”  * “Hanging out to welcome the audience in spares me the nervousness of worrying about whether they’ll like me or the show. It also gets the audience into the spirit of my personality and playfulness, so that they’re more ready for the play by the time it launches.” * I like having just ONE last minute crisis just before a play gets underway. More than that and I get befuddled.

On the I-tunes: Ivy Levan, Gin Wigmore and Elle King

On Netflix: Shameless and The Defenders


While the outline of Michigan is usually called "the Mitten"
The outline of Manitoba looks like "a Mitten with the thumb
and fingers chopped off in some horrible threshing accident."
Next performances: Emcee, Pathways Fundraiser, Sept 9; Lot o’ Shakespeare Riverside High School, Indianapolis, (Sept 11); Breakneck Julius Caesar, Centre College, Danville, KY (Sept 12), Breakneck Hamlet, Tusculum College, Greeeville, TN (Sept 19); Shakespeare’s Histories, North Adams, MA (Sept 21); Breakneck Hamlet, Berkshire School, Berkshire, MA (Sep 26)

Temperatures: 50s-70s in Edmonton (or, as they call it 10-20s)

Timothy Mooney Repertory Theatre Tour Schedule

(Already-booked dates in GREEN; Tentative bookings in RED)
MTT = “Moliere than Thou”; LoS = “Lot o’ Shakespeare;" GSAT = “Greatest Speech of All Time;” SH – “Shakespeare’s Histories” BH – “Breakneck Hamlet;” BJC -- "Breakneck Julius Caesar"
           
FALL, 2017

Sep 5-10:       ILLINOIS
Sep 9:            Pathways Fundraiser, Wheeling, IL (Emcee)
Sep 11:          Riverside High School, Indianapolis (LoS)
Sep 12:          Centre College (BJC)
Sep 13-14:    KENTUCKY, TENNESSEE (Daytime Only)
Sep 14-16:    EdTA Conference, Nashville, TN
Sep 17-18      TENNESSEE, KENTUCKY
Sep 19:          Tusculum College, Greeneville, TN (BH)
Sep 21:          Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts, North Adams, MA (SH)
Sep 22-25:    NEW ENGLAND, NEW YORK, PENNSYLVANIA, NEW JERSEY, DELAWARE, MARYLAND
Sep 26-27:    Berkshire School, Berkshire, MA (BH)
Sep 28-29:    DELAWARE, MARYLAND, D.C., VIRGINIA, NORTH/SOUTH CAROLINA, TENNESSEE, GEORGIA, ALABAMA
Sep 30-Oct 1:  FLORIDA
Oct 2:             TEXAS, LOUISIANA, MISSISSIPPI
Oct 3:             TEXAS, MISSISSIPPI
Oct 4:             Texas Lutheran University, San Antonio, TX (LoS)
Oct 5-6:         TEXAS
Oct 8:             Black Box Theatre, Las Cruces, NM (BH & BJC)
Oct 9-10:       NEW MEXICO, ARIZONA
Oct 11:          CALIFORNIA, OREGON
Oct 12-13:    CALIFORNIA, OREGON, WASHINGTON
Oct 12-14:    Rocky Mountain Modern Language Assn, Spokane, WA
Oct 14-15:    WASHINGTON, IDAHO
Oct 16:          IDAHO, MONTANA
Oct 17-18:    MONTANA, NORTH / SOUTH DAKOTA
Oct 19-21:    NACA Central Conference
Oct 19:          MINNESOTA
Oct 20:          MINNESOTA, WISCONSIN
Oct 21:          WISCONSIN, ILLINOIS
Oct 22-23:    Monmouth University, Monmouth, IL (BJC)
Oct 24:          The Webb School, Bell Buckle, TN (BH)
Oct 25-26:    Lee University: Tennessee Theatre Association (BH)
Oct 27-28:    Young Harris College, Young Harris, GA (BH)
Oct 29:          MISSISSIPPI, OKLAHOMA
Oct 30-31:    Southeast Oklahoma State U, Durant, OK (MTT)
Nov 1:            ARKANSAS, MISSOURI, KANSAS, NEBRASKA, COLORADO, UTAH
Nov 2:            ARKANSAS, MISSOURI, KANSAS, NEVADA, NEBRASKA
Nov 3:            IDAHO, WYOMING, NEBRASKA, NEVADA
Nov 4-5:        COLORADO, NEBRASKA
Nov 6:           Iowa Wesleyan University
Nov 7:            MINNESOTA, IOWA, MISSOURI, WISCONSIN
Nov 8:            ILLINOIS       
Nov 9:           Herron High School, Indianapolis, IN (BJC)
Nov 10-12    APCA Midwest Regional Conference, Chicago, IL
Nov 10:          MICHIGAN, INDIANA
Nov 11:          MICHIGAN, INDIANA, OHIO, WEST VIRGINIA, NORTH CAROLINA
Nov 12:          WEST VIRGINIA, VIRGINIA, NORTH CAROLINA
Nov 13:         Georgetown College, Georgetown, KY (BH)
Nov 14:          SOUTH CAROLINA, GEORGIA                                   
Nov 15:         Marietta Senior Center, Marietta Georgia
Nov 16-17:    GEORGIA
Nov 18:         Old Theater, Oriental, NC (BH or BJC)
Nov 20-22:    VIRGINIA, FLORIDA, GEORGIA, TENNESSEE, KENTUCKY, INDIANA, ILLINOIS

WINTER/SPRING 2018

January 5-9: APAP Conference, NYC
January 4-7: MLA Conference, New York City

January 24-27: International Performing Arts for Youth Showcase, Philadelphia, PA
Jan 10-12:     NEW YORK, PENNSYLVANIA, NEW JERSEY
Jan 13:           NEW JERSEY, MARYLAND, DELAWARE, DC, VIRGINIA
Jan 14-15:     MARYLAND
Jan 16:           VIRGINIA, NORTH CAROLINA
Jan 17:           NORTH CAROLINA, SOUTH CAROLINA
Jan 18:           SOUTH CAROLINA, GEORGIA
Jan 19-22:     GEORGIA, FLORIDA
Jan 23:           ALABAMA, MISSISSIPPI, LOUISIANA
Jan 24-27:    Texas Educational Theatre Association, Galveston, TX
Jan 28-29:     TEXAS
Jan 30-31:     NEW MEXICO, ARIZONA
Feb 1:             Snow College, Ephraim, UT
Feb 2-4:         CALIFORNIA
Feb 5-6:         CALIFORNIA, OREGON, NEVADA
Feb 7-8:         OREGON, WASHINGTON, NEVADA, UTAH
Feb 9:             NEVADA, UTAH, COLORADO
Feb 10-11:    COLORADO
Feb 12:          COLORADO, KANSAS, NEBRASKA, MISSOURI
Feb 13:          KANSAS, MISSOURI, OKLAHOMA
Feb 14:          OKLAHOMA, ARKANSAS, MISSOURI
Feb 15:          ARKANSAS, MISSOURI, TENNESSEE
Feb 16-17:    TENNESSEE, MISSISSIPPI
Feb 18-19:    TENNESSEE, KENTUCKY
Feb 20:          KENTUCKY, INDIANA, OHIO
Feb 21-22:    INDIANA, OHIO, WEST VIRGINIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Feb 23:          WEST VIRGINIA, VIRGINIA, DC, MARYLAND
Feb 24-25:    MARYLAND
Feb 26:          VIRGINIA, DC
Feb 27:          VIRGINIA, NORTH CAROLINA
Feb 28:          NORTH CAROLINA, SOUTH CAROLINA
Mar 1:           SOUTH CAROLINA, GEORGIA
Mar 2-5:        GEORGIA, FLORIDA
Mar 6:           ALABAMA, MISSISSIPPI
Mar 7-10:     SETC, Mobile, AL              
Mar 11-12:   LOUISIANA
Mar 13-14:   OKLAHOMA, ARKANSAS, MISSOURI, KANSAS
Mar 15:         USAO, Chickasa, OK (LoS)
Mar 16:         OKLAHOMA, TEXAS
Mar 16:         AWTY International School, Houston, TX (MTT)
Mar 17-20:   TEXAS
Mar 20:         Laredo Community College, Laredo, TX (BJC)
Mar 21-22:  NEW MEXICO, ARIZONA
Mar 23:         ARIZONA, NEVADA, CALIFORNIA
Mar 24-25:   CALIFORNIA
Mar 26:         CALIFORNIA, NEVADA
Mar 27:         CALIFORNIA, OREGON
Mar 28:         OREGON, WASHINGTON
Mar 29:         WASHINGTON, IDAHO, OREGON
Mar 30-31:   IDAHO, MONTANA, OREGON
Apr 1:             Easter
Apr 2:             MONTANA, WYOMING, UTAH, OREGON
Apr 3:            Portland, OR, Reynolds High (MTT)
Apr 3-4:         UTAH, NORTH / SOUTH DAKOTA, NEBRASKA, WYOMING, OREGON
Apr 4:             MINNESOTA, IOWA
Apr 5:             MINNESOTA, IOWA, WISCONSIN
Apr 6:             WISCONSIN, ILLINOIS
Apr 7-8:         ILLINOIS                   
Apr 9:             ILLINOIS, INDIANA
Apr 10:          INDIANA, MICHIGAN
Apr 11:          MICHIGAN, OHIO
Apr 12:          OHIO, WEST VIRGINIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Apr 13:          PENNSYLVANIA, NEW YORK
Apr 14:          NEW YORK, NEW ENGLAND
Apr 15-16:    NEW ENGLAND
Apr 17:          Blair Academy, Blairstown, NJ (LoS)
Apr 18:          NEW JERSEY, PENNSYLVANIA
Apr 19-20:    Geneva College, Geneva, PA (GSAT)
Apr 21-23:    WEST VIRGINIA, VIRGINIA, MARYLAND, DELAWARE, D.C., NORTH/SOUTH CAROLINA
Apr 24-26:    GEORGIA, FLORIDA, TENNESSEE
Apr 27:          TENNESSEE, KENTUCKY
Apr 28:          KENTUCKY, ARKANSAS, MISSOURI
Apr 29:          MISSOURI                                                                 
Apr 30:          MISSOURI, KANSAS
May 1:           KANSAS, COLORADO
May 2:           COLORADO, UTAH
May 3:           NEBRASKA, IOWA 
May 4:           Northwestern College, Orange City, IA (BH)
May 5-6:       MINNESOTA
May 7:           MINNESOTA, IOWA, WISCONSIN
May 8:           WISCONSIN, ILLINOIS
May 9-11:     ILLINOIS, INDIANA

SUMMER, 2018

May 10-13    Tampa Fringe Festival
May 15-28    Orlando Fringe Festival
May 23-28    Oregon Fringe Festival (estimated dates)
Jun 21-Jul 1:  San Diego Fringe Festival
Aug 2-12       Minnesota Fringe Festival
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Aug 15-25     Indy Fringe Festival (

FALL, 2018

Sep 4-7          ILLINOIS, INDIANA, MICHIGAN
Sep 10-11      IOWA, WISCONSIN
Sep 12            WISCONSIN, MINNESOTA
Sep 13-14      MINNESOTA, SOUTH/NORTH DAKOTA, WYOMING
Sep 15-17      MONTANA, IDAHO           
Sep 18            IDAHO, WASHINGTON
Sep 19-20      WASHINGTON, OREGON
Sep 21-23      CALIFORNIA
Sep 24            CALIFORNIA, NEVADA
Sep 25            NEVADA, UTAH
Sep 26            UTAH, COLORADO
Sep 27            COLORADO, NEBRASKA, KANSAS
Sep 28            KANSAS, NEBRASKA
Sep 29-30      KANSAS, MISSOURI
Oct 1              MISSOURI, IOWA
Oct 2              IOWA, ILLINOIS
Oct 3              ILLINOIS, INDIANA
Oct 4              INDIANA, MICHIGAN
Oct 5-7          ILLINOIS, INDIANA
Oct 8              INDIANA, MICHIGAN, OHIO      
Oct 9              OHIO, PENNSYLVANIA
Oct 10            PENNSYLVANIA, NEW YORK
Oct 11            NEW YORK, NEW ENGLAND
Oct 12-14      NEW ENGLAND
Oct 15            NEW ENGLAND, NEW YORK, PENNSYLVANIA
Oct 16            NEW YORK, NEW JERSEY
Oct 17            NEW JERSEY, DELAWARE, MARYLAND, D.C.
Oct 18            DELAWARE, MARYLAND, D.C., VIRGINIA
Oct 19            D.C., VIRGINIA, MARYLAND
Oct 20-21      MARYLAND
Oct 22            VIRGINIA, NORTH CAROLINA
Oct 23            NORTH/SOUTH CAROLINA
Oct 24            SOUTH CAROLINA, GEORGIA
Oct 25            GEORGIA, FLORIDA
Oct 26-28      FLORIDA
Oct 29            FLORIDA, GEORGIA
Oct 30            GEORGIA, TENNESSEE
Oct 31            TENNESSEE, KENTUCKY
Nov 1             KENTUCKY, VIRGINIA, WEST VIRGINIA
Nov 2             VIRGINIA, WEST VIRGINIA
Nov 3-4          WEST VIRGINIA
Nov 5             OHIO, KENTUCKY
Nov 6             OHIO, KENTUCKY, TENNESSEE
Nov 7             TENNESSEE, KENTUCKY, ALABAMA
Nov 8             ALABAMA, MISSISSIPPI, ARKANSAS
Nov 9             MISSISSIPPI, ARKANSAS
Nov 10-11     LOUISIANA
Nov 12           LOUISIANA, TEXAS
Nov 13           TEXAS, OKLAHOMA
Nov 14-15     TEXAS, OKLAHOMA, KANSAS
Nov 16           TEXAS, NEW MEXICO
Nov 17           NEW MEXICO
Nov 18           NEW MEXICO, ARIZONA
Nov 19           ARIZONA, CALIFORNIA
Nov 20           CALIFORNIA                         
Nov 21-27     CALIFORNIA, HAWAII, OREGON, WASHINGTON, NEVADA
Nov 28           NEVADA, UTAH
Nov 29           UTAH, COLORADO
Nov 30           COLORADO, NEBRASKA
Dec 1             NEBRASKA, IOWA
Dec 2             IOWA, ILLINOIS

SPRING, 2019

Jan 3-6           MLA Chicago
Jan 7-Feb 16 Available for Residency
Feb 17-18      ILLLINOIS
Feb 19            MICHIGAN
Feb 20            INDIANA
Feb 21            INDIANA, OHIO
Feb 22            OHIO, KENTUCKY
Feb 23-24      KENTUCKY, TENNESSEE, MISSISSIPPI
Feb 25            MISSISSIPPI, ALABAMA
Feb 26            ALABAMA, GEORGIA
Feb 27-Mar 2 SETC Conference, Knoxville, TN
Mar 2-4         GEORGIA, FLORIDA
Mar 5-6         FLORIDA
Mar 7             GEORGIA, SOUTH CAROLINA
Mar 8             SOUTH CAROLINA, NORTH CAROLINA
Mar 9             NORTH CAROLINA, VIRGINIA
Mar 10          VIRGINIA, MARYLAND
Mar 11          VIRGINIA, DC, MARYLAND
Mar 12          D.C., MARYLAND, DELAWARE
Mar 13          DELAWARE, NEW JERSEY, PENNSYLVANIA
Mar 14          PENNSYLVANIA, NEW JERSEY, NEW ENGLAND
Mar 15          NEW ENGLAND
Mar 16-18    NEW YORK, NEW ENGLAND
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Mar 19          NEW YORK, PENNSYLVANIA
Mar 20          PENNSYLVANIA, OHIO
Mar 21          OHIO, MICHIGAN, INDIANA
Mar 22          MICHIGAN, INDIANA, ILLINOIS
Mar 23-24    ILLINOIS
Mar 25          ILLINOIS, IOWA
Mar 26          IOWA, MISSOURI
Mar 27          MISSOURI, KANSAS, ARKANSAS
Mar 28          KANSAS, ARKANSAS, OKLAHOMA
Mar 29          LOUISIANA, OKLAHOMA, TEXAS
Mar 30-Apr 1 TEXAS
Apr 2              TEXAS, NEW MEXICO
Apr 3              NEW MEXICO, ARIZONA
Apr 4-5          CALIFORNIA, NEVADA
Apr 6-8          CALIFORNIA, NEVADA
Apr 9-10        UTAH, COLORADO
Apr 11            COLORADO, NEBRASKA
Apr 12            NEBRASKA, MISSOURI, IOWA
Apr 13-19      ILLINOIS, WISCONSIN, INDIANA
Apr 22-23      WISCONSIN, MINNESOTA
Apr 24            NORTH DAKOTA, SOUTH DAKOTA
Apr 25            NORTH DAKOTA, SOUTH DAKOTA, WYOMING, MONTANA
Apr 26            WYOMING, MONTANA, IDAHO
Apr 27-29      IDAHO, WASHINGTON, OREGON
Apr 30            WASHINGTON, OREGON
May 1             OREGON
May 2-5         Oregon Fringe Festival, Ashville, OR
May 6            OREGON, CALIFORNIA
May 7            CALIFORNIA
May 8            CALIFORNIA, NEVADA
May 9            UTAH, COLORADO
May 10          COLORADO
May 11          KANSAS
May 12          MISSOURI
May 13          TENNESSEE
May 14          GEORGIA, FLORIDA
May 15-26    Orlando Fringe Festival, Orlando, FL

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