The View From Here #126: Colorado Springs & Denver, CO; Coeur d'Alene, ID & McMinnville, OR

Forsyth’s daughters Mary and Anna are recovering well! Thanks for all your generous thoughts and concerns! (Anna has needed further back surgery, but she is effectively out of the danger zone!)

QUICK HEADS UP! I am caught up to the 21st Century and am now up on YouTube! Check out http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=molierelover ! There, you’ll find several clips from recent shows! Go take a look! (I'll wait.) Rate them as generously as your conscience will allow! Add me as a “Favorite”! Or “Subscribe!”

A new game seems to be afoot.

While I’m every bit as busy as I’ve ever been (the exception being the 20 days I seem to have off between my last performance and my next one), I’ve added a new mission to the mix. Performances are now mixed with audtions, and I’m doing more advance work in setting up meetings and get-togethers with old friends along the way. Somewhere, a lightbulb went off over my head, and I realized that I would be wasting the time and promotional effort I had exerted in getting to the neighborhoods of some highly regarded theatres if I went through without reaching out to make contact with the directors working there.

For instance, I’ve had some contact with the leadership of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, and they know of my work, but have never seen, nor (of course) booked my show. Stopping in to share a couple of monologues with them might drive home the value of my particular adaptations of these plays. Whether or not they cast me in a play, Shakespeare, Moliere or otherwise, was less relevant in light of the exposure that I and my work would be getting. If, however, someone wanted to produce a Moliere play, AND wanted me to come in and perform the show as well, then so much the better.

It’s interesting that when it comes to taking such a proactive step in my acting career, the fear of rejection leads me to hesitate. When the process of pushing my personality on people also gets my text out in front of people, I’m much more aggressive. Perhaps it’s a matter of being able to objectify the value of my words, which live outside of myself, on the page, much better than I can objectify the value of my performances which live in-the-moment and are then gone. Rejection of my acting work is less daunting when my real goal is to promote my scripts.

In Lincoln, I met with the University of Nebraska department chair, and the Artistic Director, as well as Bob Hall, who wrote “The Passion of Dracula,” my first show at UNL as a grad student back in 1982. Paul, the department chair was getting ready for the grand opening of the refurbished theatre space, complete with fancy new lobby, the result of a last-minute grant from Johnny Carson (before his death in 2005).

On to Kearney, Nebraska, I visited with Janice Fronczak, who has settled further into her role with the University of Nebraska-Kearney, and moved into a terrific house out in the country with her artist-husband, Jeff. Janice is ALSO talking about bringing me in for a guest artist gig, perhaps in the coming year, so I’m trying to strategize how I might stack a pair of guest artist visits in Nebraska, should both schools want to bring me in. (I was also hearing from Bess in South Carolina about a similar gig!)

I pulled in to Boulder for my audition with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. I did my “School for Wives” and my “Tartuffe” for them, and they seemed nicely impressed. I continued down to Colorado Springs, where Colorado College had me in a terrific hotel. The French teacher had brought me in for this performance, and I showed up for a French class, where, as this was an informal gathering, I did not tease them with a sample of the show as I usually do. (All were promising to show up for the evening’s event, so I didn’t want to give anything away.)

After the class, I noticed a running store, where I broke down and bought some “real” running shoes, significantly lighter than the ones I’d been running in. I took them back to the hotel and ran on the treadmill in the fitness center, which faced the impressive “front range” of the Rocky Mountains just across the way. Before the show, I spotted a theatre professor, who was coming to watch the performance, but it turned out that he was a visiting prof, on loan from a school in Pittsburgh, and was amazed that I was still dawdling about in the lobby a half-hour in advance of the show.

The performance had me up on a stage, elevated over the audience, and so I took what opportunities I could to get down into the space in front of the first row. The audience, which filled only, perhaps, fifteen percent of the seats, were slow starters, particularly in the first monologue, which cued me once more to skip the “Misanthrope” scene and go straight to “School for Wives,” performed virtually in the lap of the audience, drawing lots of titters. Likewise, “Tartuffe” and “Doctor” and “Scapin” won increasingly squealing approval and cheers, and by the end, the audience belonged to me. The theatre professor stuck around afterwards, enthused about the possibility of bringing me to his school in Pittsburgh.

The University of Denver had been in constant contact to be sure that I had everything I needed for the next day’s show: parking pass, directions, hotel reservations. I did my rarely-performed workshop on Commedia (“Lots of Lazzi”), which was significantly better than the one I’d given at the Texas Theatre conference a year ago.

This show was the most expensive “Moliere Than Thou” ticket to date. While the Theatre students got in free, the public was paying $100 a pop. And while the audience was very thin, they were indeed committed, and the laughs were thick and hearty. I had, once again, set up my video camera to capture this particular performance, and the theatre found a volunteer to work the camera, which gave me one of the clearer captures of a performance than I’d acquired yet. [Clips now up on YouTube!]

Perhaps the funniest part was during the “Doctor” scene, when a group of the students who were sitting off to the side could see what my chararacter was doing with the volunteer from behind his back, laughing hilariously while the rest of the audience wondered what it was they were missing.
Afterwards, the theatre threw a reception for the $100 per ticket guests, and in anticipation of the special attention they were giving me, I changed into the suit that I had packed for the occasion.

I was receiving inquiries from my old buddy Joe Jacoby about bringing me in for class appearances at North Idaho College the following Monday. I set off early the next day, driving north from Colorado into Wyoming and Montana, pausing in Livingston, Montana for the night (there was a karoke bar right next to a hotel). By Sunday night I was in Coeur d’Alene, visiting with Joe, and crashing early for a full day of classes and driving on Monday.

At Joe’s 7 am intro to theatre class, I assembled a quick variation of my classical acting workshop, which I repeated again for the 9 am class and as usual they responded enthusiastically to the material, particularly the “Tartuffe” monologue. I was also exploring a performance of a “Hamlet” monologue, which I’d been working up for my upcoming auditions.

It was the 1 pm acting class, however, which really rocked. Word had spread beyond the class itself, and several students from previous classes returned to sit in on this class, with some (knowing what was coming in the “Tartuffe” demonstration) camping out in the front row. (One girl said, “I could watch that scene a dozen times!”)

Joe later wrote:

“Several of the students have enthusiastically thanked me for having you here. When I met with my Intermediate Acting students today and asked about what sorts of things they learned from watching you, the first response had to do with working the consonants to connect to the character, and the student clearly was surprised at its effectiveness (I've been touting that to them, but seeing it in such evident action is so terrific). He also was impressed with your idea of consonants as obstacles to the vowel's objectives. It was a wonderful visit all around. I thoroughly enjoyed getting to visit and loved watching you interact and share with the students. Thanks so much for taking the time and going so far out of your way.”

On to Oregon: I drove to McMinnville in about five hours. Fortunately the sky was overcast, so I didn’t have the challenge of having the sun setting in the same direction I was driving. I was having trouble with my neck, which has been bothering me for more than a month now. Between sitting at the computer, driving for hours and sleeping with unfamiliar pillows, my neck has gotten out of whack. I picked up a special pillow at Sharper Image to support my cervical vertebrae. Little by little, my neck was stretching out and recovering, but I made the mistake of working some Ben Gay into the muscles, which seemed to be loosening it up … However, the vapors that come with that particular product were also drying out my sinuses and the back of my throat, and I was feeling the early signs of a cold. (An early morning run through McMinnville, trying out my new shoes outside, probably didn’t help.)

I was performing in the Linfield College black box theatre, positioned on the stage floor, with about 75 seats set up, also on the floor. The faculty (two of whom I knew from SIU back in the early 80s) were uncertain about how many people might show up for an event like this, and in such a case, I usually assume that I’ll see a dozen or so in the audience, but I was surprised to see ushers grabbing more chairs and setting up more rows at the back. By the time the show got underway there may have been about 120 people in the audience. Including my brother Pat, who hadn’t seen me perform in about seven years! Between his presence, the packed house and the videotaping, I was really charged to give one of my best shows.

It’s sometimes funny to look at videotape from early performances of “Moliere Than Thou” versus the latest shows. There are moments that I’ve learned to milk, longer and longer, such as the pauses before “Stop, thief!” which I have filled with more and more mugging, as my lips purse and rearrange variously … a quirk that several people were imitating and laughing about after the show.

The staff of the theatre were extremely supportive, and the costume designer even offered to launder some of my costumes overnight, while the hosts were already thinking about bringing me back for future performances, and perhaps even a guest artist visit. The next day, I did my workshop for the acting students. They had put us in an art gallery (they were building a set in the theatre), and I’d inquired if our level of noise might bother anyone around us. The answer was, of course, “no,” but when we reached the heights of our “Hamlet” exercise, someone peeked their head in, asking if we might finish up the workshop outside. This did break our stride a bit, but we got back into it outside, and later came back in to finish up our conversation.

The next day I was on the road, heading south. The cold was starting to catch up to me, which seems to be a recurring byproduct of me having time off. With twenty days before my next shows, in Arkansas, my body apparently felt that it could shut down, and I worked to counter the cold with extra doses of Re-Liv.

I got a hotel about a hundred miles north of Sacramento, and rather than continuing in to San Francisco the next day, I lingered for 24 hours to let the cold work its way out of my system (and to do laundry and get an oil change). By the time I was driving in to San Francisco the next day, the cold was well on its way out, and I got to visit with my old friends Steven and Kajsa, and their cute toddler, Anya (which was the reason I waited for my cold to pass). Steven and I caught up on his plans to take his show (“Adventures of a Substitute Teacher”) to an educators’ convention, and I gave him some input on my experiences in conference-world.

That night, Steven and Kajsa brought me along to a 50th birthday party for a friend (where I met another friend of theirs, coincidentally named Pat Mooney), and I later caught a bus downtown to join Todd Pickering’s masquerade birthday party (Todd also went to University of Nebraska).

The next day, Steven’s friend Edwina arranged for an extra ticket for me to join them at a concert fundraiser for San Francisco’s “Pets Unlimited,” where her amazing daughter was singing, and I crashed in Todd’s apartment (while Todd was off celebrating his birthday in a fancy hotel).

Unfortunately, the only downtown parking space I could find Sunday night demanded that I move my car by 7 a.m. the next morning, so I was up early on Monday, and off to Fresno, meeting up with Jayne, one of the organizers of the Rogue Performance Festival.

Tuesday found me heading in to Los Angeles, where I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the Hollywood Video store. Somehow, I would have thought that the “Hollywood” brand would be much less impressive to people who lived in the shadow of the famous “Hollywood” sign year round. I caught dinner with Tony and Donna, two friends from the ‘06 Minnesota Fringe, and headed over to visit Michael Hofacre, who had saved me a spot on his couch. Michael was another old Nebraska friend, who now works as editor of indy films and assistant editor of some major titles (currently working on the latest Will Ferrell vehicle). With all of this time off, I was chipping away at a few projects. I was working the e-mails in my inbox down to a manageable level (struggling to hold it under 400 messages at the moment), and committing an hour a day to writing original material. I’ve had a bunch of short story ideas that usually die on the vine from a lack of follow-through, but looking lengthwise at a long time off, I realized that there was the opportunity to add some substance to my body of work, if I chained myself to the computer through the layoff period.

On Wednesday I drove out to Claremont College, where they were rehearsing a musical version of “The Miser” which used my verses for the songs. The sound was lush, and I was amazed that the composer had retained the original iambic pentameter for the most part, and still made it work musically. It was wild to hear words that I’d written in the middle of the night over ten years ago being sung in 6-part harmony by about 15 voices! Later that night, I met up with more fellow Nebraska Alums, Todd Nelson (now working for CBS) and the adorable Crystal Carson (now teaching Acting). Today I catch up with Todd and Mari Weiss (who’s doing great with voiceover these days) before heading for an audition at the San Diego Rep on Monday, and a last-minute-arranged workshop in Phoenix on Tuesday.

Miles on the car: 244,000

Discoveries: I would be wasting the time and promotional effort I had exerted in getting to the neighborhoods of some highly regarded theatres if I went through without reaching out to make contact with the directors working there. * Rejection of my acting work is less daunting when my real goal is to promote my scripts. * A “committed” audience is much more vocal, intent on getting their money’s worth. * Go easy on products that come with their own “vapor action.” * A significant body of “time off”, gives me the perfect opportunity to make headway on writing projects.

Attendance: 70 + 40 + 15 + 20 + 35 + 125 + 15 = 320

On the I-Pod: Best of Bread (New songs for “Charles” to sing) and “Seder on Sundays” (Air America Radio)

Next Performance: Siloam Springs, AR (10/29), Little Rock, AR (10/30) and Conway, AR (10/31).

Political Commentary: George Bush’s approval rating has now dropped to the level of Richard Nixon, the day he was driven from office.

The View From Here #125: Summit, NJ; Florence, SC; Glenville, WV; Bowling Green, KY; Detroit, MI

My dear friend Forsyth, in North Carolina has always kept a couch available for my use on my passes through Raleigh, and this recent pass-through was no exception. Sadly, her daughters Anna and Mary were rear-ended by a drunken driver traveling over 100 mph last Saturday. They have survived the accident, but are still in intensive care as of this writing. Please send your thoughts and prayers of healing, warmth, love and recovery to Raleigh, NC.

The two final Minnesota Fringe shows were a blast, though the attendance showed a sharp drop for both Sunday performances (a second one being added with the designation of the “Encore” show). I had a few second-time, and even a third-time attendee, and the excitement of the final day was followed with a fun wrap-up party, in a bar apparently made famous by Prince’s movie, “Purple Rain.” We took lots of pictures with some of my new friends at least one of whom (Katherine) turned out to live only blocks away from where I was staying in Evanston. She and I managed to hang out together for a few days as she prepared for trips to Europe and South America, while I geared up for my move out of the sublet and onto the highway once again.

It was then that news came in about the death of Ray (Lewis) Pickens, and my blog entry in memoriam has received more replies (including friends and relatives of Ray who had found me on-line) than any previous entry.

I pushed through the final efforts of the summer’s e-mailing campaign, with promos going out to those final states of the alphabet (Tennessee to Wyoming) which ultimately tallied to over eleven thousand e-mails! At last I moved back out of my summer sublet, rotated my tires, washed my car and took to the road with more performances already on the books (twenty-nine) than any previous touring season.


Following a brief stop to visit Isaac in Detroit, I pushed on to New Jersey, where Summit High School was planning a Moliere play for the coming semester. Anne, the teacher, was trying to choose between “Imaginary Invalid” and “Tartuffe,” but when she heard that I’d created a 40-minute version of “Invalid” for high school use in Texas, and that I was interested in creating the same for “Tartuffe”, she decided to produce both plays as part of an evening of Moliere. (I’m currently finishing up the “Tartuffe” cutting.)

I did a two-hour after school workshop for a group of perhaps thirty kids, and Anne, who had booked me four years ago sent along a collection of thank-yous from her students, who raved about “The Tim Mooney Three-Second Rule,” my three Hamlet exercises (“Rattle the lights!” “Make ugly faces!” and “Spit!”) and my brief performance of “Tartuffe.” (One tenth-grader wrote: “Your special section on the seduction in Tartuf helped me see that I shouldn’t be afraid to go all the way.”) (Public service message to the girls at Summit High School: Watch out for Michael Gorman!)

That night I continued south, listening to the books-on-disc version of “Ender’s Game” (and eventually, “Speaker for the Dead”) by Orson Scott Card, dropping in on Maureen and Tim in the suburbs of Baltimore (who proudly showed me the amazing fish pond they are building in their back yard), before pushing on through to Raleigh where I stayed, once again, with Forsyth, Mary and Anna, for an evening of making fun of the cop shows on TV.

I continued to Francis Marion University in South Carolina, a booking that had been arranged by a playwright whose work I’d produced back in the halcyon days of Stage Two.
Jon Tuttle’s “The Hammerstone” was a brilliant and hilarious piece of theatre, but he and I had never actually met, and I wished I’d reread the play before meeting him, as details of the work were coming back to me in dribs and drabs as we spoke.

Booking an outside show was a new experience for Jon, and he had no idea what to expect, attendance-wise. Fortunately, the turn-out was good, with a fair number of French students and faculty coming out. The lighting technician was a theatre professor who knew what he was doing (and even took a couple pics from the booth) and all went without a hitch.
I was just learning about how the tweaks from the Minnesota performance impacted the rest of the show when performing the full-length version. With a new, extended version of the “Don Juan” monologue, I could feel some of the gas going out of the performance towards the end.
By the time we got to the several repetitions of “Stop Thief,” most of the laughter had been wrung out of the audience. I’d planned for a return bow in the curtain call, but about half of the audience was already getting up and heading out by then.

The several faculty members, however, were very impressed and Jon gave me the idea of relocating the “Imaginary Cuckold” monologue (which seemed to have killed the laughter late in the show) to earlier on. Perhaps seven years ago I’d initially put “Cuckold” late in the play to ease the costume transition between “Imaginary Invalid” and “Scapin,” but that consideration was largely irrelevant by now.

I had a few days to spare before my next show in West Virginia, and I took the time to plot out NEXT year’s tour, so that I could circulate word of the 08-09 schedule (at the end of this blog entry) to those folks who plan a year in advance. While most of my business has come from people who book the show perhaps the semester prior, there are “presenters” whose very job it is to assemble a full season for the coming year. As such, they go to work on next year just as soon as the current year is up and running. And so, my schedule is already laid out through May of 2009!

I drove a couple of hours to Greenwood, South Carolina, where Bess Park (who once brought me in to perform at West Virginia Wesleyan) now runs the Greenwood Community Theatre. Coincidentally, Bess’ gentleman friend, David, was hosting a karaoke contest at the Chili’s restaurant that night. I explained to them that “karaoke was kind of my thing,” but I don’t think they quite understood what I meant until I performed. David took to introducing me as coming “all the way from Chicago,” and the crowd warmed up to me with each subsequent song.

At the end of the night, they presented me with a $50 gift certificate (which was good for this particular Chili’s only, and only for the next ninety days). I passed it on for David to put to good use, and he asked me to come back on a night he was running the karaoke show again.

That weekend, I met up with Sandra (better known in these pages as “Sandra the Vegan”) who has recently relocated from Orlando to Boone, North Carolina where she works for Appalacian Voices to end mountaintop removal (www.ilovemountains.org). Sandra was working a table at the “Bristol Rhythm and Roots Reunion,” a mostly-bluegrass festival that takes over several blocks of downtown Bristol, a city that straddles the state line separating Tennessee and Virginia.

During the day, she would work the table (I witnessed her at one point deftly responding to a couple of coal miners who clearly did not agree with her point of view), while I mostly worked on mailings, and during the evening we watched some of the musicians. Our favorite was Diana Jones, who performed in a coffee shop without a microphone. Her rich alto voice was warm and powerful, and I could feel it vibrating the whole room, even as I discovered that I wasn’t listening to the lyrics at all.
After the show, we said hello, and when Diana discovered that Sandra was with Appalacian Voices, she gave us an impromptu performance of a couple of songs that she had only recently developed about mountaintop removal. (By now, she’s over in Europe getting ready to open for Richard Thompson’s tour.)

On to West Virginia, with a performance at Glenville State College. (West Virginia is actually gorgeous when you get off of the interstate … or at least it is when the trees still have leaves; it seems the only time I’ve raced through, the hills have seemed stark and barren.) I passed a couple of politicians’ billboards proclaiming themselves as being “a Friend of Coal,” and my host in Glenville quickly passed me a bumper sticker from the opposing side which declared me a “Friend of Mountains.”
The next morning I met with a creative writing class, where I told the tale of “my life as a writer” or at least as much of it as I could fit into 75 minutes. The climax, though, was a performance of the old, reliable “Tartuffe” monologue, which suddenly took my conversation from the theoretical, abstractly waxing on about writing and creativity, to the practical, where discussion of rhymed, iambic pentameter verses gave way to a densely layered, hilarious seduction scene. Suddenly the few students who had been nodding were fully alert.

That night was another performance of the show, and when I saw that they had drawn up their own programs for the event, I took advantage of the opportunity to rearrange the order of the monologues.

Previously, by the time “Imaginary Cuckold” would come up as the third scene from the end, the audience was only looking for the broad, overt gestures rather than the witty dialogue. With “Cuckold” as the third monologue in the series, people were actually listening to it in a new way. This time the audience was still able to discern and appreciate the many double entendres that run through that piece and, removed from its previous, late introduction, it wouldn’t detract from the climax.

This was also a venue where I was easily able to perform off the stage, on the same level as the audience, and when I approached a woman in the second row during “Tartuffe,” she absolutely convulsed with laughter, even throwing in the occasional “Oh, my God!” when I came in close in to whisper in her ear. The second half of the “Tartuffe” scene worked extremely well, with a generously-built volunteer that no one from the theatre department seemed to know, followed by the new, extended, “Don Juan” scene, the new, audience-participatory “Doctor” scene, the audience-climbing “Scapin”
scene, and finally, “Precious Young Maidens.” “PYM” was not quite the climax that it has been in previous performances (as measured by the laughs during “Stop, Thief!”), but the faculty appreciated it for its meta-theatrical qualities, and the performance was deemed a great successs.

I had a show at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, and I spent a lot of time at the hotel working through mailing lists. I was de-constructing the 11,000 piece mailing list to pull out the Performance Series Directors, Student Activity Coordinators, Deans of Students and Vice Presidents for Student Affairs, for whom I compiled yet another e-mailing announcing the 08-09 season (sent to 1,100 people this time).

I led two workshops: my usual “Life of Moliere” workshop for a French class, and another on my development as an actor-of-one-man-shows. They were interested mostly in the aesthetic principles which guided me (yes, there are some), as well as my personal history. Once again, however, it was the performance of the “Tartuffe” scene to a seated volunteer which made the “light bulb” go on for them, and they laughed at each nuance and entendre. When I finished with this seduction scene, a cute girl in the class jumped up and ran over to where her friend sat, calling out “My turn! I’m next!”

The Western Kentucky performance was the only one that had been booked from a Campus Activities conference I’d attended last spring (where my 20-minute preview had mostly bombed), and I was concerned that this group might well be more accustomed to stand-up comics and rock bands. They’d estimated that the crowd might be forty to fifty people, and we were all greatly surprised when 150 people showed up, laughing throughout. Again, I was able to redistribute the monologues to my liking, and I brought that afternoon’s nicely-built “Tartuffe” victim back up to play the Doctor’s patient with all it’s touchy-feely hilarity.


I stopped in Louisville, checking out the Louisville Slugger museum, and the Actors Theatre of Louisville, before visiting with a new friend, Colleen, who I’d first met when she’d shown up at a performance of “Criteria” in Evanston last summer.

I pushed on to Detroit, but Isaac was now out of town, on a camping field trip in West Virginia of all places. I had a show the next day for the Detroit Alliance Francaise, where I performed in a musty old club, complete with a fireplace at one end, old sofas and easy chairs as well as a bunch of wooden captain’s chairs. The lighting in the room was terrible, so I rearranged the space to place myself opposite from the windows. It would make for a wide stage running most of the length of the room, but it enabled them to see me without strain. As I returned from hauling the trunk up the several flights of stairs, I found Corinne Stavish, who’d directed me in “Harvey” back in the mid-80s!

There were at least fifty in attendance, with a wine and cheese reception preceding the event, and I milled about in street clothes assessing the audience. All but one seemed to be well over the age of forty, and so I quietly approached the young woman who affirmed her willingness to do the “Doctor” scene with me, and then slipped backstage to get into costume.

This show started slowly. These French speakers and natives may not have approved of this buffo performance of their nation’s greatest author. The elbow-to-elbow proximity was very tight and the laughs gradually started to trickle in during “School for Wives.” The chuckles increased with “Bourgeois Gentleman” and began to burst with “Tartuffe.” I was choosing good volunteers to play to, and the first “Tartuffe” victim was blushing vividly, brushing his hair out of her face as I stooped over to whisper in her ear.

From there, the response continued to build, with great response to “Don Juan” and “Imaginary Invalid,” an exciting “Doctor” scene (the bewildered young woman won the audience’s sympathy and delight), and this time “Precious Young Maidens” returned to its former success. getting bigger laughs. The audience interrupted my closing speech with applause, and when I headed off backstage, they simply continued clapping. Having been burned before for trying to stretch two bows out of one, I hesitated, but they cheered their approval when I returned for a final curtain call. Afterwards, several of them wanted to get my contact info for possible future bookings, and I visited at length with Corinne, who fixed me dinner as we recounted events of the last twenty years.


I hustled on home, where I have finally put out the huge e-mailing, and managed to assemble my thoughts as I ready yet another assault on the road, this one a much longer, protracted tour of the west and south, with no end in sight until sometime in December.

Miles on the car: 240,000

In the CD Player: Books on CD: “Ender’s Game” and “Speaker for the Dead.”

On the I-Pod: Diane Jones, Roy Zimmermanand The Prince Myshkins.

Discoveries: Subtle material works early in the show; broader later. * Enable people to do their job (in booking me) before they’ve filled their dance card for the coming year. * Get off the stage and into the audience as early and often as possible. * Keep business cards inside the trunk for when people want to ask about booking the show.

Next Performance: September 28: The Aliance Francaise of Chicago.

Political Commentary: Did anyone notice that the occasion of Alberto Gonzales FINALLY resigning was driven from the headlines almost immediately by the implosion of Senator Larry Craig? Did anyone wonder who might have thought to leak that information? Or consider that the almost overlooked guilty plea by a US Senator might not have been overlooked by the Attorney General’s office? The result was that Gonzalez resignation was a single-day’s story, not even mentioned on most of the Bobblehead Sunday Talk Shows that very weekend. (Thanks to Sam Seder of Air America for use of the term "bobblehead.")

The View From Here: Remembering Ray Pickens

From the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: “Ray Lewis Pickens passed away unexpectedly August 12, 2007. He is survived by his wife, Alice (Kanack) Pickens; children, Daphne & Alexander; parents, Homer & Norma Pickens; brother, Drew (Jill) Pickens; nieces, Laura, Beth & Kate Pickens. He is also survived by Alice's parents; brothers; sisters; nieces, nephews and dear friends.”

I got a call Wednesday night from Alice Pickens. Going through Ray’s things, she had come across my business card, and was reminded of Ray’s work on several of my projects. He had written music to perhaps twenty of my pop songs, many of which were used in “Karaoke Knights,” wrote incidental music for my Cleveland production of “Imaginary Invalid” and a full score for my yet unproduced adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s “All Summer In A Day.”

Ray was a brilliant composer, and wrote in every imaginable genre. He was educated at the Eastman School of Music (where he was the winner of their concerto competition), and was a fellow at Tanglewood and Yaddo. In New York, Ray had a very successful career composing, singing, playing on, and producing national television and radio commercials, as well as playing piano and singing in clubs and restaurants and performing with the Metropolian Opera Orchestra. In Rochester, where he and Alice were to settle, Ray had an opera of his performed to much acclaim, and taught piano and composition, playing for several schools and many stage productions.

Ray found me on my website on-line, looking to create a musical of Moliere material, and for a time, I was exploring Moliere’s “Amphitryon” as a possible musical, though I found myself continually reverting to my familiar iambic pentameter, which was not particularly condusive to musical composition.

Ray did, however enjoy my collection of original lyrics, and through an amazingly productive period of perhaps six months, he churned out one tune after another, the result of which I occasionally get to perform as “Karaoke Knights, a One-Man Rock Opera”. It was Rays blues-tinged composition of “The Dreaming Tax” that gave me the idea for my “Charles” character, which was to lead me to the plot concept of the show, featuring five distinct characters vying for the karaoke competition prize.

Ray had his good days, as well as his bad, and his death comes at the conclusion of what was seemingly a troubled time. I think what amazed me most about him was that, on the rare occasion that his music did NOT capture the spirit of the song as I'd intended to perform it, the very next day, there would appear in my inbox a completely different interpretation of the song, crossing genres as disparate as Rap, Tango, Blues, Folk, Techno, and Tin-Pan Alley, along with the occasional nods to Elton John and Kurt Weill.

I performed the show in my living room last night for a couple of friends, just to connect once more to the spirit that Ray left behind, something I hope to continue to do for many years to come, and couldn’t help but think of him in the middle of the performance of this favorite song. Perhaps some of you will remember the fast and furious tune that Ray provided:

NEXT

I’m on top of the heap I’ve been climbing
And I’m proud of these muscles I’ve flexed
My success somehow needs better timing
Cause already I’m on to the next.

I spend much of my lifetime frustrated,
Chagrined and decidedly vexed.
Such feelings are never abated
When their owner moves on to the next

There is always a next:
It comes on with a burst
And somehow I am cursed
With not getting immersed
With the thing that comes first
It’s as if I rehearsed
Fearing if I dispersed
All my words sharp and terse
All my fears would be nursed
And my life would turn out for the worst.
There is always a next.

I stop out at the bar for a nightcap
And I sing as a lady inspects
She leans over to give me a light tap
But already I’m on to the next.

Such romantic pursuits light my fires
And some guess that I’m just oversexed
But I never fulfill those desires
Cause I keep moving on to the next

There is always a next,
It comes on with a burst
And somehow I am cursed
With not getting immersed
With the thing that comes first
It’s as if I rehearsed
Fearing if I dispersed
All my words sharp and terse
All my fears would be nursed
And my life would turn out for the worst.
There is always a next.

If a Greek tragedy was in store here
And I found I’d been Oedipus Rexed
Would I put out my eyes from the horror
Or would I just head on to the next?

When it all falls apart at the ending
See the good part’s not getting perplexed
‘Cause you can’t upset someone who’s sending
All his hopes down the line to the next.

There is always a next,
It comes on with a burst
And somehow I am cursed
With not getting immersed
With the thing that comes first
It’s as if I rehearsed
Fearing if I dispersed
All my words sharp and terse
All my fears would be nursed
And my life would turn out for the worst.
There is always a next.

I will die; there’s no getting around it
And when people all pay their respects
They will say I left life like I found it
Cause by then I’ll be on to the next.

There is always a next:
It comes on with a burst
And somehow I am cursed
With not getting immersed
With the thing that comes first
It’s as if I rehearsed
Fearing if I dispersed
All my words sharp and terse
All my fears would be nursed
And my life would turn out for the worst.
There is always a next.
There is always a next.
There is always a next!

The View From Here #125: Minneapolis, MN

The last issue of TVFH was perhaps the first time that I forgot to attach “Discoveries” to the bottom of the issue, perhaps due to the long layoff of about two months since the previous edition. But if I were to attach a discovery to it, it would suggest that repetition is the key to marketing. Your message needs to get in front of your audience perhaps six or seven times before they “see” it.

Also forgotten in the rush to pull together a new issue of the blog was a really nice review that had come in from one of the faculty with whom I’d shared the latest draft of my acting book. David Deacon, formerly of Texas A&M, Kingsville, wrote me with the following remarks:

“I have been reading your text of Acting at the Speed of Life with unmatched enthusiasm. Thank you for sharing. I see the distillation of your vast workshop experiences in its pages. This future book unquestionably fills a niche in the lexicon of acting texts now on the market—one that needs filling. As a product of "the 1950’s era Method" I feel that this easily read text redresses some of the excesses of that Brando dominated era. I recall one of the "darlings" of the Boston University stage at that time in an acting class exercise mumbling with interminable pauses his way through "To be or not to be." How little attention was paid in those years to the art of playing as so deftly defined by you in this book. Looking back, I think that I was obliged in my acting career to instinctively grope my way toward an understanding of those twin objectives—those of being seen and heard. Such stumbling was mightily influenced by the Actor’s Studio et al which put such a premium on "inner truth" at the expense of communication on a more immediate level. Although I shall always remain an enthusiastic proponent of Stanislavski’s teachings I believe that you are right on in your analysis here. I think what you say is applicable to all manner of plays—modern as well as those from the classic past. I certainly found truth in what you say as I tackled the role of Norman Thayer in Pond at the Springer. Perhaps a "Forward" could outline some of your well reasoned prejudices toward the art of acting and alert the reader that they should expect some fresh perspectives on the subject. Bravo my friend!”

(If anybody out there wants a preview of the text, please drop me a line!)

Reviews seem to be the theme of the day, and I expect this report will be mostly a collection of these – in fact, I’ll just interlace them through the text – but first, let’s look at a few intervening events.


I had four days at home to surf the schools of Pennsylania before actually driving to Pennsylvania, itself, for the memorial service/building dedication to Cousin Mary. Mom and Dad also made the trip, along with siblings Kevin and Maureen, and the Clarion University people took a picture of us looking at the replica of the plaque which will dedicate the building to Cousin Mary. Everyone who spoke at the memorial told a joke of some sort, which was a fitting tribute to a woman who seemed to laugh at everything.


Later, we headed back to Mary’s and went through the attic to see if Dad’s baseball cards had, indeed, ended up back there. (No sign of baseball cards, but she had left some lovely artifacts behind for us.)

(Five Stars)"See.This.Show." by Clint Weathers:This show is what is best about the Fringe: Taking art that has been fluffed up to be "Art" and bringing it back down where it belongs -- to the people. I'd never seen or read any Moliere before this show, but after seeing Moliere Than Thou, I'll read through all of it. The show was wonderfully performed, paced and executed.

I drove hurriedly back to Chicago where I pulled together my final preparations for the Minnesota Fringe Festival (drew up new flyers incorporating the new photos) and headed north.

I arrived in Minneapolis about ten minutes before the bridge collapse. I was about five miles south of it at the time, unloading my car.

That night I performed in the out-of-towners showcase, with five minutes from “The Precious Young Maidens”. It went well (the boyfriend of one of the fringe bloggers called my performance “The second greatest performance ever in the history of the theatre, ever”), but they ended up finishing the showcase about a half hour earlier than planned, because some of the performers had apparently gotten caught in traffic on the wrong side of the bridge. And thus we segued into the nightly Fringe Nightcap, which was the ongoing opportunity to catch up with folks met at the 06 Fringe, as well as to make new friends.

(Five Stars) "Simply a Pleasure..." by David Lind:
...to hear an actor who understands how to handle verse. Mooney's translations are clean and crisp and contemporary. If you like Moliere's works - Go! If you don't like Moliere's works - Go! If you don't know who Moliere is - Go! Go! Go!

Most of Minneapolis was in a state of shock the next night and attendance for the opening day of the festival was way down. My own venue was perhaps six blocks from the site of the bridge collapse, and few people wanted to get caught up in the traffic tangles. Of course, we assume they were glued to their television set for most of that time.

Fortunately, I only had to concern myself with a tech rehearsal for most of that time, and my own biggest problem was figuring out how to keep myself well-lit while navigating closer to the audience whenever possible.

(Five Stars) "Language heaven..." by Jason D:
I've referred to myself on occasion as a wordsmith, a lover of weaving them together in unique ways that bend the ear and tickle the mind. Tim Mooney is a MASTER, translating Moliere lyrically and evocatively with incredible delivery. Two lessons I learned: More Moliere in my diet and never make direct eye contact with the performer asking for volunteers in a one-man show.

The next morning I woke up with an idea. We would leave the house lights on all of the time, which enabled me to bring certain scenes: “The School for Wives,” “Tartuffe” and “The Doctor In Spite of Himself” into the large semicircle between the performance platform and the first row of seats, and keep the audience off-balance. In fact, I realized that, this being the Fringe, there was an opportunity to add even more “danger” to the show, by bringing a volunteer onstage for my “Doctor in Spite of Himself” scene. For years I’ve been performing that scene with an imagined “patient,” but what if that was a live human being?

(Five Stars) "Educational and Entertaining" by William Weiler:We learned more about Moliere's plays in an hour than in a lifetime of going to the Guthrie and at the same time were entertained. Mr. Mooney is a good actor and brings the audience (literally) into the act.

It’s not the sort of thing that I could spring on an audience member out of nowhere, so I floated the idea past the woman whose house I was billeting at. She was planning on coming to opening night. Would she be willing to be my first victim? She said yes, and I ran off to pick up the copies of my program, across town. There was a flaw with the programs, so they gave me a coupon for a cup of coffee across the way while they redid them, and having a cup of coffee that late in the day, three hours before my opening night, hyped up my energy to an incredible level. By the time of the show I was practically climbing the walls and dancing on the ceiling.

(Four 1/2 Stars) "I Am Not Scarred" by Julie Blaha:
I was one of the volunteers at Tuesday's show. Oh yes, THAT volunteer. I won't give anything away, but I was really surprised at the level of concern some members had in the audience about my treatment. Again, to avoid spoiling anything, I had no problem with it, but found it fascinating how many people did. I enjoyed the show, and that the actor was able to cause that much consternation over a very dead writer's work is the kind of thing you can only get at the Fringe.

There was a very generous audience of about 25 in the house that night, and with my extra energy, and my particular mantras (“I am going to f*** with their heads.”), I found myself adding extra impish fun on a moment-by-moment basis. What this seems to translate to is a series of facial tics, which, judging by the on-line reviews, some people find more amusing than others. Moving the series of scenes from the stage to the “pit” and back seemed to be very effective, and Nancy Donoval, a highly-respected local storyteller, spoke enthusiastically about my “command of the space,” a comment that was picked up several times, particularly in describing my Scapin scene, which climbs over the laps of the audience.

(Five Stars) "A sumptuous repast of Moliere" by Mark Roemer:Until I saw this show, I was completely unfamiliar with the works of Moliere, although I am an aficionado of works of that period. Tim Mooney’s translations and performance of Moliere has thoroughly ignited my interest in experiencing more of Moliere’s work. This I consider to be some of the highest praise I can give. Tim’s energy, enthusiasm and love for the material are very contagious, and he brings the characters to life with an amazingly expressive face and voice. I found the format the theatrical equivalent of dining at a tapas bar—not a single, overly heavy entrée, but a fine selection of delicious morsels of Moliere, whetting my appetite for more. This is truly one of the most entertaining shows I’ve seen at Fringe this year.

This version of the show was also the product of some renewed work over the summer, in which I added a new “Don Juan” monologue, in the middle of two pieces in the character of Sganarelle, also from “Don Juan.” It gives the impact of a back and forth dialogue between the two characters, and lends, I think, some greater gravity to the work, as we see Moliere confronting head-on, the single issue which is probably the most memorable theme of his work: Hypocrisy. I’ve been reading this monologue in some of my Moliere workshops for the last few years, as well as my living-room performances, but the recent days on the road have enabled me to finally commit the thing sufficiently to memory to take it on in public without a script. I had also written a new aside in Moliere’s closing curtain speech, which, I think, lend a greater understanding to the piece and the character of Moliere:

“Beyond any personal satisfaction, however, I take it as a great victory over vice to be able to transform wickedness into the object of your laughter, for a man may well be willing to be the subject of your scorn, but not your mirth. He may consent to be evil, but never ridiculous.” (This is very close to being a quote from the introduction to “Tartuffe” which Moliere spent years trying to get permission to produce, and in the process of justifying the moral value of the script, he ended up making a great case for the ethical impact of comedy, which has often been considered the unfortunate stepchild of “Serious Theatre.”)

(Four 1/2 Stars) "stands the test of time" by Dave Stagner:How many Fringe show scripts will still be in print CENTURIES from now? Moliere has stayed around for centuries, and Tim Mooney cherry-picks from his best work. I had a passing familiarity with his plays, but the show brings the best moments to life, showing WHY this material has stood the test of time. And the in-character acting as Moliere himself ties the show together thematically, and covers ground not in the plays themselves. It's all held together by Mooney's fine comic acting. His tics, dramatic gestures, and verbal asides had me in stitches, along with the hilarious source material. A great, lighthearted show by a very talented actor - the sort of thing that makes stage comedy worth watching!

(Four 1/2 Stars) "Future 5's to French favorite" by natalie ballinger:Timothy Mooney is such an enjoyable performer. Great energy, comic timing, and involvement of the audience. Quite a different subject and style than last year's, showcasing this performer's flexibility and talent.

(Four Stars) "Does The Original French Rhyme?" by Dave Romm:Tim Mooney is having an enormously fun time playing Moliere and assorted Moliere characters. He never stops moving, and he plays off the audience well. You don't have to know the original plays, though it helps. The dialog from the 1700s sounds a bit archaic but the subject matter remains bawdy and funny. A Shockwave Radio Theater review.

(Five Stars) "Excellent" by Susan HEIL:One of the best of this years Fringe. It was entertaining and the actor was in full command of his material. BRAVO! A must see.

And so, I had a lot of stuff bubbling around in my head that night, including a frisky volunteer scene. I had no idea how it was going to go over, but I felt pretty sure it would grab people’s attention.

And while I was thinking about all of that stuff, I blanked on one of my lines in the “Tartuffe” scene (which I have performed THOUSANDS of times). I was quickly remided of yet another of my mantras: “Even when I f*** up, I will enjoy myself in the process.

(Four Stars) "funny, frenetic and entertaining" by vickijoan keck:Timothy Mooney has an incredible amount of energy and comic talent, bringing a variety of characters (as well as a few audience members) to the stage. Classial theater lovers will find themselves thoroughly entertained as Mooney sweats out his hour onstage through a variety of characters and quick costume changes. Even when he drops a line he manages to remain in character and recover quickly. His facial expression is wonderful, especially when saying "stop thief". Fun stuff! vjk

I finished the show, took my bows, headed out for drinks and waited for the reviews to come in. (Performing this show on the road, in town one day and off on my way the next, the newspapers don’t tend to cover the shows, and critical feedback is rare. This fringe represents a rare opportunity to receive the exact opposite, and I enjoy seeing new perspectives framing and reframing my work, which ends up giving context to the value of what I present.)

(Four 1/2 Stars) "wordier than thou!" by evelyn blum:How many words can one man recite within an hour? You find out in this hysterical, energetic, classical show taking puns at the Classics. I loved the reminder of the relevance of the classics and how they are never outdated. From Don Juan to Tartuffe, the words came flying out in perfect poetic form, in great visual flair. The costumes and physical comedy add brilliantly to the energy of the show. All this and you can have a beer in this venue! So have an ale and be prepared to be entertained by this bard.

Mostly, the reviews were very positive, as the audience submitted their responses on-line. Those first few were all between four and five stars in the Fringe’s rating system (which tends to skew upwards from a traditional rating system, since many people go on line to write about their friends, or simply write to promote stuff that they already like), but eventually a couple of negative reviews came in to skew my average downwards, and as of this writing, at least, my play is averaging four stars with 21 audience reviews submitted.

(4 1/2 Stars) "Moliere is delightful, frothy fun" by Hazen Markoe:Timothy Mooney presents a wonderful display of puckish wit and "ham" acting in this hilarious one-man show that presents the great French playwright Moliere attempting to entertain an audience when his cast is indisposed due to food poisoning. Mooney never misses a beat in presenting what could be called the "best of Moliere's comic gems." A published translator of Moliere, Mooney clearly knows his material and succeeds in both entertaining and educating his audience. Definitely a show worth seeing.

It seems that the negative reviews all came in after my Thursday night show, and the respondents drew attention to a sameness in my voice or in my vocal pattern. It was also a night that “Stop, thief!” seemed to get almost no laughs, and I wasn’t sure how to take that. My feeling is that I may have simply drilled some of these scenes too much, and so, while it feels a bit risky, I’ve decided to “fly blind” in the last two performances, doing the play with no rehearsal at all.

(5 Stars) "Tim Mooney touched my ...!" by Chani Ninneman:This was lots of fun! One man shows can so easily loose the audience's love and attention but I was engaged the whole time. Mooney was active to the point of me wishing I had brought along some Dramamine... I do wish I had more familiarity with Moliere's work but even though I know I missed some jokes, his delivery made up for it all. He was very charming and put the audience at ease with his "in your face" delivery. And this actor made me love him even more when at the end he let all the Fringe artists in the crowd stand up and plug our shows! (Snow White Ate the Apple or Peter Piper Picked A Who? - go see it!) So yes, two thumbs up!

The audiences have gone from 25 the first night, to about 50 the second and 75 the third. I fully expect that this trend will continue, as my final two shows are in terrific Saturday and Sunday afternoon slots, and I look forward to feeling the audience’s energy feeding my performance.

(4 1/2 Stars) "A definite treat" by Tim Wick:Postcards do work, artists. Never forget that. Tim Mooney was working the sidewalks on opening night and as a result, I found myself at his show on Tuesday. He is a Moliere geek in the way some people are Star Trek geeks. He knows how to take his love of Moliere and make the playwright's works accessible to a broad audience. I was frequently laughing, always entertained and never bored.

Meanwhile, of course, I have been seeing shows – perhaps 15 or more, already, and every time I see one, I am reminded of who my audience is: what they come in knowing or not knowing, what gestures they respond to, ,the level of theatricality that they long to experience. It helps to get me out of myself and recharge my own batteries. The “bad” stuff reminds me of the quality of my own work, and the “good” stuff challenges me to reach higher.

This has been a festival for which the fringe website fuels the word of mouth, and one of the central facets of that website is the constant effort of the bloggers, who write their own reviews and comment on the entire fringe experience. Each blogger has his or her own preferences, and while most of them have not come to see my show, a couple of them have, and Phillip Low, in particular, who championed “Criteria” last year, came out with a strong response this year.

"I'll admit it right up front -- I have no critical faculty for this show. I love the material so much, I was sitting there the whole time with a big smile plastered across my face, happy to just sit and hear some of my favorite comedy monologues again.

Hopefully for more than just Moliere geeks, too -- good material never dates, and there was plenty of laughter from the audience throughout. He's chosen to eschew some of the author's darker material to focus on Moliere the comedian, Moliere the farceur.

That said, it's impossible to avoid those satiric touches -- Don Juan speaks like every seedy politician I've ever heard. Scapin's speech detailing how going to court is hell on earth is every bit as relevant as it ever was -- you couldn't alter a syllable. And Tartuffe -- Tartuffe is the same terrifying, monstrous figure that he's always been.

It strikes me that one of the reasons that Moliere's work has survived is that, sadly, his enemies have outlived him -- we still have a class of politicians and lawyers who profit from our losses -- and we may not be using leeches anymore, but thanks to organizations like the AMA, the medical profession wields more devastating power now than it ever did in his lifetime -- and, of course, his greatest foe of all, the Church, still looms above us all.

But what he left us were his vast quantity of words, cries of impotent rage from a bitter old man cursing his own uselessness, articulate, brilliant, hilarious, disgusting, despairing. There's a reason he was my hero growing up, enough so that I devoted many years to trying to emulate him.

Because we need his voice. And he's funny as hell."
—Phillip Low

I wrote all this on Saturday morning, before going in to see shows and to perform. The Satuday performance continued the trend, with an increase in attendance of perhaps another 25, and I looked forward to yet another such increase for Sunday’s 5:30 performance, bringing the attendance up to at least 125, and a total of 375 for the run. I was on my way to the Fringe “nightcap” where I’d fallen in with group of fun friends in a nightly ritual of celebration, when an unexpected call came in: Apparently my attendance numbers were higher than anyone else in my venue, and my show had been chosen for the “Fringe Encore” performance.

Which means that I’ll be doing TWO shows today (Sunday). I don’t anticipate that the final performance will actually come anywhere near the attendance that I’ve been getting, particularly as I haven’t been able to publicize this show, and the Fringe Website seems to be the only way for the audience to find out about which shows are doing the “encore.” (Not to mention the fact that my competition for that time slot are all very popular shows.) But I still count it as an honor and a breakthrough.

Love,
Tim

(Show photos by Dave Stagner; Pennsylvania photos by Maureen McHugh.)

Discoveries: Repetition is the key to marketing: Your message needs to get out in front of people six or seven times before they “see” it. * Three bad reviews can drain all of the joy out of fifteen fabulous reviews … if I let them. * There is very little that is more important than navigating my way into the closest relationship that I can create with the audience. (Eventually I ditched all of the lighting cues in favor of having the technician work the house lights, which enabled me to get down directly in front of them.) * I have finally found a way to capture the real sense of Moliere’s crusade against hypocrisy, and the way in which he justified the ethical value of comedy. * A series of reviews places one frame after another around my material, enabling me to appreciate the perspective separate individuals have on this work. * Seeing other peoples’ material reminds me of exactly what the audiences walk in looking to see and to hear.

Miles on the vibe: 234,000
Temperature: 70s-90s
Reading: Blog post on the fringe website: www.fringefestival.org
On the I-Pod: “Faulty Intelligence” by Roy Zimmerman (the Tom Lehrer of our generation)