The View From Here #137: Moline, IL; Naperville, IL; New York, NY; Memphis & Henderson, TN; Cabot & Conway, AR; Hammond, LA

I settled into my series of December projects, and with a dozen or so readers having signed up to receive serialized releases of “Love’s The Best Doctor,” I completed that in record time (I always do better when I know that somebody out there is actually anticipating the next chapter), and sent if on ahead to Playscripts, who are now considering it for publication.

I dove full-time into my annual family calendar project, assembling a calendar with photos in the squares of relatives’ birthdays, which went through repeated changes as new photos came in from various points.

On December 11, I made my way to the snowy Quad Cities: in this instance, Rock Island, Illinois, where Augustana College was producing my version of “The Learned Ladies,”(and where I managed to catch up with an old high school friend, Mary Jenks). They were bringing me in for a nice long residency of a week, featuring several rehearsal visits, a French class, a couple of Theatre classes (including a new workshop on Physical Performance), and a performance of “Moliere Than Thou”.

They put me up in the guest house on-campus. Which was, as these often are, probably the oldest building on the campus, which meant that the students all had stories about it being haunted, while the building itself was horribly drafty. It also had at least one mouse, irregular internet service and no toaster. (The lack of a toaster was relevant due to the fact that I burned my finger rather badly trying to toast bread in the oven.)

In the course of my visit, I was able to hear the text of “The Learned Ladies” aloud for the first time, somewhere other than the inside of my own head, and reworked about one or two percent of the dialogue.

The challenge was to “hear” where the problems with the dialogue were actor issues, or were Tim-issues. Some of the actors were more talented than others, and some of the better ones might have been compensating for mistakes I’d made, while others weren’t bringing quite the texture to the dialogue that was available. Working closely with the director, we made certain cuts, for the sake of this single performance, while other adjustments were for the final version.

I always resist "permanent" cuts in the script (unless I'm consciously working on a shortened version), as my scripts mirror Moliere's originals line-for-line. My feeling is that Moliere, at least, was a master of comic timing, and if the words aren't working, it's because I have not yet found the right ones.

(It was about this time that I got news that I’d be performing the opening event for the Southeast Theatre Conference “Fringe Festival” in Birmingham, Alabama this March.)

On the last day in town, I had a final workshop to give mid-afternoon, and, as it had done for much of my week in attendance, the snow continued to pour down. The theatre host called to tell me that they’d gone ahead and extended my stay in the guest apartment an extra day, and so I took advantage of the time to make one last visit to rehearsals.

Somewhere in there I discovered that my cell phone was missing.

In the course of getting into and out of my car a half dozen times that day, and scraping my windshield anew each time, the phone had fallen out somewhere. When all I really wanted to do was cuddle up in a blanket, I found myself tracing my way through snowbanks, hoping to uncover the telephone … to no avail.

I drove home without a phone, and had Sprint enable a back-up phone I’d gotten, while I waited for the first thaw in the Quad Cities.

Back home, I dove back into the new play, the calendar, the brochure and a revision of my promotional DVD. I’d done up a couple of variations of the DVD in the past, but every time I had to re-do it, I also had to re-learn how DVD’s work, and how you create menus in DVDs, and how you make the scrolling from one menu item to another work in such a way that it matches the instinctive scrolling that a video watcher does when they hit the up-down-left-right buttons.

I was going to swing out to Detroit to visit Isaac on Christmas Eve, but suddenly a deep snow was looming, leading me to put it off at the last minute. Christmas happened on-schedule for the family at home, and for the first time I had the final version of the calendar complete for distribution on Christmas Day.

It was the day after Christmas when I headed for Detroit, where Isaac and I partied for two days: eating out, working out, and picking up last minute presents. The day after Christmas was actually quite warm, and in a final desperation move, I called the Augustana College information line, speaking to a woman who acknowledged that “Yes, I’ve got your telephone right here in front of me.” Somehow it had melted its way out of the snowbank, though it was not the particular snowbank that I’d been searching. Either way, it was a valuable phone, and it was found ... and when it finally met me back in Chicago, even more astonishing: it worked!

I drove back to Chicago, rehearsing the lines for “Criteria”, which I hadn’t performed in perhaps nine months, but which I would be performing again at the end of January. Reciting the lines three times on the way to Detroit, and three times on the way back, I had it suddenly refreshed in my memory.

Much of the remainder of the year, and the first week of January was taken up with re-doing, and replicating the DVD, while sorting out my receipts from 2008 for my taxes, and re-packing the car (changing the oil, getting my fourth (!) set of tires, washing the car …). I also got a really enthusiastic fan-letter from a student who’d been my Tartuffe volunteer at an appearance last fall.

“I just wanted to let you know you are one of the many reasons why 2008 is a year I cant and wont ever want to forget. … You truly inspired me to pursue acting. Thank you for being Tim Mooney lol.” (Angelique Santiago)

January 7 I was back on the road. The first day I had a quick workshop at an all-boys academy in Aurora, Illinois (Marmion Academy, where apparently I got good reviews from the Abbot/President of the school), and a show in Naperville, IL at North Central College. The French teachers took me out to dinner, and explained that they’d actually seen me perform at North Park College several years before, and one of the teachers (Norval Bard) put out this collection of Moliere-related tidbits to the school:

About this week's Molière events, you may be wondering what this is about. Here are some numbers to help you...

The plays of Moliere are performed more often in France than those of any other playwright;

There are more streets named after Moliere than any other writer in France;

"Moliere" is often put in the titles chosen to name new businesses in Paris. So there are six cafés, brasseries, restaurants named "Molière", three hotels, 2 patisseries, and one institute of Yoga-Judo-and self-defense (!) among them!

There are at least 18 different brands of products (from chocolate to ink pens to notebooks) with the name "Molière" in them

For the production of only 20 of Moliere's plays in its repertoire, the Comédie Francaise has 600 costumes reserved just for his plays and another 10000 in reserve that they also consider eligible for his characters.

And, finally, the number of wigs known to have been created for his plays is currently over 1,550! (Source: Le Petit Molière: 1673-1973. Paris: Editions Guy Authier, 1973.)

That night’s show was quite well attended, with an audience that was buoyant and lively throughout, including my good friends Bryan and Chelsea, who’d never seen my show before (I dragged Chelsea up as the “Doctor” volunteer, and she gave me great feedback about how great it was to finally see “the essence of yourself,” as fully expressed through my performance.)

The next day, I gave a rather animated talk about Moliere to a handful of attendees, and the French teachers were more enthusiastic than before, and started floating ideas about a more elaborate engagement, which might actually feature me supporting one of their classes with my own Moliere/performance insights.

But once that was done, I was straight onto the highway, stopping in Toledo that night, Scranton the night after that, and on into New York City the following day, dodging snowfall as I went, and destroying any positive effects of the pre-tour car wash.

Listening to XM radio, I found myself wondering if they had listened carefully to their new motto/tag-line: "Everything worth listening to ..." Because every time I heard it, I heard "Everything worthless ..."

As always, I hemorrhage money in New York City, and this conference (Assn of Performing Arts Presenters) had already cost me a bundle. Between Conference membership, conference registration, Exhibit Hall space, Showcase purchase, and a hotel for three nights, I would need at least four bookings from this event just to break even. The parking alone was costing me $55 per night! It was a good incentive to eat light for three days, and I have decided to go vegetarian for a while. (Since doing so, I’ve steadily lost the six pounds I’ve been trying to get rid of for the last year or so.)

Moreover, the conference wanted to charge me an extra $200 for each person I might add to my exhibit booth, which meant that the friends who were making themselves available to help me get set up, or watch the booth while I was performing at a showcase, could not get in. (Thanks Kurt! Thanks Suzanne!)

I found a parking garage halfway between the Sheraton and the Hilton and unloaded my personal effects to the Sheraton while unloading my booth and showcase materials to the Hilton. Ultimately, all was unloaded and in place in time for the opening of the exhibit hall that afternoon, and I was at last ready to distribute my brand new brochures and my brand new DVDs.

Traffic was light at the booth, and even lighter at the showcases, and while the first showcase may have had 8 people in the audience, the second one had about 12 and the final one had perhaps 30. Those who attended were responsive, and a couple of old friends showed up in the various audiences, including Lindsay Reading Korth, who’d booked me for a workshop at Nazareth College last fall, and Patrick Spradlin, an old friend I hadn’t seen in over twenty years(!) who was now representing a college in Minnesota.

I also met up with a guy who was doing his own one-man show on the circuit, playing Edgar Allan Poe. He was impressed with some of my materials, but adamant that I wasn’t charging enough for my services, given that he was charging about five times what I was. (“Don’t let anybody tell you that you’re too expensive!” was his main advice to me.)

I probably came away from the event with about twenty prospects, reminding myself to follow up on them as soon as possible (he said, eyeing a long busy spring), and getting the heck out of town.

I went on a quick visiting tour, dropping in on my sister Maureen, and her husband Tim, in Baltimore, on Sandra-the-Vegan in Boone, NC, and meeting up with former French teacher, Lori Etheridge, who was on a trip with her kids to Athens, GA.

All of this positioned me for a drop-in to Greenwood, SC, where we held auditions for “The Misanthrope”, which is going into production later in the spring, with myself directing and playing the role of Alceste. Over two days of auditions, we seemed to have found an excellent cast, and I sped off again, this time to Memphis, Tennessee, where I had a week to rehearse and perform both “Moliere Than Thou” and “Criteria” as part of a single evening’s entertainment.

While doing both shows in a single night was a challenge, it was a huge luxury to have three days of rehearsal leading up to opening night, and my first night in town, I simply worked to set up the equipment and talk through the cues with the stage manager.

The next day was inauguration day, and I sat transfixed in front of the television most of the time, getting a little bit irritated when things started running late (“Why are we listening to this musical performance when it’s 12:01 already?”), but mostly glad for the end of an error. That night, after rehearsal, I went out to Beale Street in Memphis to absorb the celebratory mood, but the weather had turned cold, and nobody was left out actually celebrating … so I wound up in a karaoke bar, doing damage to my voice.

On Thursday, I actually had three shows to perform, starting with a show at a local high school in the morning. The school was unprepared to host a show. What occasionally happens is that the host is someone who has seen me performing at a conference somewhere, with no lights, sound or set-up time, and THAT is what they expect me to do at their high school. As usual, we pulled together what technical support we could in the very limited time that the auditorium was available to us, and I proceeded to perform for the 30 or so who’d come to see the show.

With two shows that night, I was focusing my energy relentlessly, making one problematic misstep: I had a cup of coffee about an hour before showtime.

By the time I had emerged on stage, my heart was racing, and my tongue was twisting its way magnificently through the complex rhymed verse, with nary a slip-up. I recognized the theatre’s Artistic Director in the audience, and I was entirely in control, and racing my way through the play … though I wasn’t exactly taking the audience with me. They seemed mildly amused at best. The volunteer scenes went extremely well, though.

Regardless, the next day, a professor at the U of Memphis sent this to his colleagues:

“Just wanted to let you know that Tim Mooney performed his one-man show, “Molière Than Thou” in Memphis last night and that he did a marvelous job. … His adaptations from L’Ecole des Femmes, Tartuffe, Dom Juan, Les Précieuses ridicules, Les Fourberies de Scapin, etc. were remarkable. His acting skills are exceptional and his translations (or adaptations) captured the depth and poetry of Molière’s theater. …Performing Molière, and doing it so well, allows 21st-century spectators to appreciate that the comic dramatist was much more than “le premier farceur de la France”!” (Ralph Albanese)

Backstage I regathered my energy and framed my mind for an entirely different performance, reemerging to perform “Criteria”, which I hadn’t done “live” for almost a year. I used all of my energy to hold my rather taciturn character in check, and perhaps especially because the audience knew of the hyperkinetic heights of which I was capable, they were sucked into this more tightly reined characterization. They laughed, but this time they laughed at realizations they were making in response to the story and the character; not because I was doing something funny. And so, exactly where “Moliere” had NOT worked for them, “Criteria” succeeded, and I began to hypothesize that audiences would tend to prefer one or the other, but rarely both.

The next night, the reverse was largely true. “Moliere” was the success, while the projector that we used for “Criteria” suddenly wasn’t actually projecting. The stage manager worked on it during intermission, and eventually I went out to work on it myself. While I hate to reveal myself out of character to the audience, they tend to love having that backstage peek, and so we quipped back and forth pleasantly before establishing that I was not going to get the system to work in this situation. Finally, I simply turned the laptop around so that the audience could follow the slides in miniature version, while I performed as if the several maps were blown up large on the screen behind me. It made a complex concept even more complex, but the audience didn’t seem to mind all that much. (Though they weren’t by any means the hanging-on-every word laughers from the night before.)

For Saturday night’s show, I had a decent audience, and finally both shows seemed to go well. My fabulous stage manager, Caren, was taking care of all the details for me. She set me up with hot tea and cough drops every night, and even “pimped” for me, locating apt volunteers out of the incoming audience for the infamous “Doctor in Spite of Himself” scene.

That night I received the following from a school I’d performed at last spring:

I felt that I should drop you a line to tell you that all of my third year students who saw you perform are now seniors in French 400. This winter they are required to perform a dramatic interpretation of a piece of French literature after having finished a survey of French Lit this fall. Over 30 kids fought each other for the right to do Moliere! Even though they had studied Moliere last year, so it was the least fresh in their minds, they all remembered the performance and said that they thought it was one of the funniest shows they had ever seen. I just wanted to let you know what an impact it had on them, and to thank you for bringing this great work to life! (Jenny Hallenbeck, Inglemoor High School)

Sunday’s matinee was another small audience, and they were probably Moliere enthusiasts, because after performing the first show for about 16 people, I returned to perform “Criteria” for about 10 people left in the auditorium. I found this distracting in the extreme, and I realize that the Moliere fans were perfectly happy with the first show, and didn’t feel the NEED to stay to see “Criteria,” but I couldn’t help seeing this show through the eyes of audience that remained, who might wonder what the people who left early might know about the quality of the show that they were now watching. As such, I stumbled on my lines a few times.

I had very little energy left in my voice and my knee at that point. Because my knee gets exposed in the course of “Criteria,” I was performing it without the knee brace I wear for support during “Moliere”. The night before I had felt a bit of a “pop” in my knee as I went through the running that the scene demands. And so, performing the ninth show in four days, I was running on fumes and string.

The next day I was pushing back east, to Henderson, Tennessee (stopped by a SPEED TRAP in Oakland, Tennessee!) for two workshops and a performance at Freed-Hardeman University. The theatre prof wanted me to talk to a class about playwriting, and address issues of business and career. I talked at some length about the many twists and turns that my career had taken over the years, and while I was dealing with it from a strategic point of view, the professor was more interested from an inspirational point of view, alerting his students that “they don’t have to wait for someone to come along and cast them; they can go out and create their own careers.”

That evening the school’s broadcasting department was videotaping my show. In an exchange for a discount on the show, the school was doing a three-camera shoot of the event.

The auditorium was huge, and would fit as many as 3000 people, if it were to fill, although they weren’t expecting more than 70 people or so. There was a cold fan on up above, which was sending a strong breeze across the stage, and adding a humming noise to the background which I was constantly aware of trying to outshout.

The show, itself, went well, and my knee and voice held up through the course of the show … but we’ll have to wait and see how the video comes out.

Meanwhile, I received news that a school in Yorktown, Virginia had taken first place in the “Virginia High School League One-Act Theatre Arts Festival” with my shortened version of Moliere’s “The Misanthrope!” (I believe this is actually the very first performance of this 40-minute version.) Fingers crossed for the next level of competition!

The next day, I was on to Cabot, Arkansas, driving on past Memphis again, giving an acting workshop to seventy or so theatre and French students, several of whom remembered me from my performance in Arkansas a year before. I pushed quickly on to Conway, Arkansas, where my high school performance had been cancelled, but where I’d already arranged to perform at the University, again as part of a videotape/broadcasting arrangement.

This time, the show was being performed and recorded in a tiny studio theatre, essentially a small classroom, for an audience of perhaps 25. This time, with little effort my voice would fill the entire space, and the cameras couldn’t possibly miss a flutter of a muscle.

I worked with the TV team to arrange the chairs closely, which ultimately made a virtue of the small audience, which looked not only intimate, but full on camera. Only at one point during the performance, did I find myself staring down into the dark abyss of the camera’s eye, and spacing out my lines for several seconds. (The director assured me he could edit that part out.)

One of the faculty wrote me later to note:

“Outstanding show, Tim. I really enjoyed it and will never look at Moliere the same way. I wished all of my movement students had been there to see in action all of the things I talk about: specificity, full-body connection, 3-d characterization etc. i was so impressed by how in control you were that you could get a laugh with your knee or with a raised eyebrow. Fun to watch!” (Matt Chiorini)

And so, now, I’ll have two videos to work with in the coming months, both for dissemination on YouTube, and to use as sales tools for a potential future PBS programming campaign.

The next day I dropped south, discovering with some anxiety that my voice was getting worse. Somewhat absent-mindedly, I had been applying Ben Gay to my knee to rejuvenate it somewhat, forgetting that in the past, the menthol fumes that Ben Gay gives off tend to evaporate the protection coating my throat. And my tone was worsening quickly.

SIGN SEEN ON THE DRIVE SOUTH: "BBQ SO GOOD YOU'LL WANT TO SLAP YOUR MAMA!"

On the bright side, I was driving, finally, into much warmer weather, and Hammond Louisiana was in the 60-degree range when I arrived. My stay had been arranged at a bed and breakfast, however, and when I left my room to make a run to the store, I went to lock my door and the key broke off in the lock. An hour or so later, the management had broken the lock off of the door, reentered my room through the window, and relocated me to a room across the hall.

By the following morning, I was sounding even more like a frog, and somehow, when my voice is at its worst, and most painful to speak, that seems to be the time when people most enjoy asking me questions, or remark how much they actually like the sound of my voice.

My voice was actually the only bad thing about the performance that morning, and I was the only one who expressed any disappointment with my inability to provide more than the frog croaks that all of my characters were now imbued with. Otherwise, the enthusiasm was as strong as ever (I sold 5 t-shirts), with one e-mail showing up suggesting:

“I was fortunate enough to see your performance at my university this morning. I enjoyed it thoroughly. It was extremely clever and well-written! Twenty years ago I took a course in 17th century French classicism as part of my French major. I have read every play that you performed, but I had forgotten how truly good they were. Thank you so much for reminding me! They are classics for a reason. All of the witticisms, double entendres, and just general cleverness were preserved beautifully!” (Michele Burns)

This particular school had been very labor intensive, with about 30 e-mails traded back and forth, and demands for original signed contracts, as opposed to the faxed versions we might usually shoot back and forth. Even so, everyone was ultimately satisfied, and the school was already discussing bringing me back to perform again the following year.

I dropped south to New Orleans that afternoon, finding a nice bed and breakfast with a hot tub, and enjoying a couple of “hurricanes” that evening. The proprietor was a really wonderful man who fixed me up with tea, directions for anything I might want, and an offer to share my promotional materials with the nearby New Orleans school of the arts.

The next morning, with little voice left, I drove west, pausing after about 80 miles to shoot a video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYtCAts-Hg4

(It's actually probably preferable to go to the YouTube site at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYtCAts-Hg4 and watch it in the "HD" option for it to actually make sense.)

As you can see, my long-monitored Pontiac Vibe odometer stopped working, live on tape! I had reached the precipice of 300,000 miles, and was denied entry. As a result, I am, even more ambitiously cataloguing this tour, taking photos of all of the places that my car has managed to visit, all while registering 299,999 miles.

299,999 Miles!
299,999 Miles!
299,999 Miles!

It’s a very existential feeling. If my car keeps traversing the world, and doesn’t register any miles, have I really traveled there? How do I eventually prove that I have the most traveled Pontiac Vibe in the world? And why can’t Pontiac have invested the extra five cents to provide a digital read out which would also shift to “3” at the appropriate time? Or have they planned too far in advance for the strategic breakdown of their vehicles. Just how much borrowed time am I currently living on? And why am I suddenly conscious of the scent of anti-freeze in the cabin of my car?

I continued west, visiting cousins Kathy and Larry in San Antonio, watching the Super Bowl in El Paso, and pushing on to Phoenix and Los Angeles, with my voice finally restoring itself. Another few days of visiting in the west before a show in Monterey, and making the push back in the opposite direction once more.

Finally, I end, roughly where I began. While I’ve been running all over the country, the school that I worked with back in early December was staying home to work on my version of “The Learned Ladies.” And while the reviewer had mixed responses with some of the choices that the director and actors had made, he did happen to mention my text, suggesting:

“... I'm betting it'd be a lot of fun to read, as Timothy Mooney's rhyme-scheme adaptation of the material - completed this past December - is really quite good. (And this from someone who is, by nature, averse to theatrical rhyme scheme.)” (Mike Schulz, River Cities Reader)

Miles on the Vibe: 299,999!

Discoveries: Moliere, at least, was a master of comic timing, and if the words aren't working, it's because I have not yet found the right ones. * The reason that I do what I do, and why it feels so right, is because theatrical performance is my access to my ultimate expression of my true self, and aspects of my character or being which are only hinted at in "real life," are fully expressed on stage. * My show is actually very, very inexpensive! * Teachers who first get exposed to my work in conferences and meeting rooms need added input so that they know that the show is much more than just me showing up and doing my thing. * No caffeine before a show! I have to trust that my energy will rise to the surface in response to the audience! * No Ben Gay! Use Tiger Balm instead! * Sometimes what looks like a cold is really the result of chemicals drying out the throat, and treating it as if it were a cold would only make the throat dryer and the condition worsen. Simply talking less and drinking water cures the throat faster than anything.

Temperature: 75 Degrees (in L.A.)

Attendance: 15 + 15 + 200 + 15 + 75 + 150 + 8 + 12 + 35 + 25 + 12 + 24 +22 + 16 + 25 + 10 + 75 + 50 + 25 + 200 = 1009

Next Performance: 2/9/09: Monterey, CA

The View From Here #136: Buckhannon, WV; Roanoke, VA; St. Louis & Maryville, MO; Chicago, IL; Sarasota, FL; Green Bay, WI

Anonymous Feel Good comment on my last blog entry: “People like you that work hard to live their dream inspire many people to do the same. I love the fact that you dont only act because you love it but you act also to make people laugh and have fun!! I have yet found someone or have yet met anyone who can make me laugh as much as you did.”

Recent trend: My Moliere adaptations in competitions. My “Imaginary Invalid” will be at the Virginia High School League One-Act Play Competition, while my “Misanthrope” will be at the Massachusetts Drama Festival.

The folks at West Virginia Wesleyan had booked me once before, and brought me in at a discount, since I was nearby to do the West Virginia Theatre Conference. They put me up in the school’s guest house, which had about a half-dozen bedrooms to choose from, and I joked with my hosts that I was going to get up several times in the middle of the night, just to change beds.

I got a lot of work done, including updating these pages, from the guest house, while closely following the political race coming down to the wire. Of course no one knew, at that moment in time, just how close the vote might turn out to be, or how outrageously off the polls were. [FYI: www.fivethirtyeight.com proved to be the most accurate polling site.] And it looks like the state of Minnesota turned out to be this year’s Florida/Ohio, as even now, more than a month later, the votes continue to be counted.

The show went fairly well before a small audience, though without quite the dynamic that I’d felt in the Theatre Conference performance two nights before. Speaking of which, I have since received an e-mail from the Conference President with the following quotable quote:

"Mooney's performance is certainly energizing for a general audience, but if you put him in a room with about 90 theatre people, the event becomes electrifying. I've never seen young actors from different schools so mesmerized by a single performer." (Dennis Wemm, Glenville State University)

In addition to being election day, the next day was my birthday, and I’d planned a leisurely drive down the Blue Ridge Parkway, which is one of the most beautiful drives I’ve stumbled across in my travels. Also, I figured that the leaves would be just about perfect for photos by then.

What I didn’t calculate was that it would take a good three hours just to get TO the Blue Ridge Parkway (crossing the West Virginia Appalacians into Virginia), and by the time I got there, I was driving through low clouds and drizzle most of the day. This, along with the fact that the speed limit was lower and the parkway would bend a mile laterally for every two miles it went forward, it all proved to be extremely slow-going. As I’d planned to watch election returns from a hotel near Boone, North Carolina, I eventually got back off the parkway and onto the Interstate, pushing on through.

I met my friend Sandra the Vegan in Boone, and we didn’t have to wait long to get the big election result. As soon as they called Ohio for Obama, I knew it was over, but that didn’t undercut the big emotional response when the polls closed on the west coast and the networks anointed Obama as the “President Elect.” Perhaps the most moving sight was the face of Jesse Jackson, who’d weathered the civil rights struggle over many decades, and whose face was awash in tears at the result.

The next day, I headed north once more, this time capturing good pics in better weather from the Blue Ridge Parkway, and listening to the celebratory radio broadcasts on Air America. And while most of the enthusiasm was good natured, I must admit that there are a few nyeah-nyeah liberals out there who are “bad winners.”

I checked into the hotel in Roanoake, where the next day, I performed for a good 400 or so students. About four years before, this school district had brought me in to perform to a crowd of 700 or so, and they were, in fact, the only venue over the years that had complained of not being able to hear me well enough. This time around, the numbers were lower, and I overworked my articulators to the point that they would understand everything.

They might have actually understood too much, as it turns out, for while the response from these high school students was fairly sensational, the teacher later called to not that she’d gotten some complaints from parents about just how risqué the event was. (Between focusing on my volume, and a series of recent performances for colleges and more liberal parts of the country, I think I let my guard down on this one.)

I had long weekend break, and swung through Chattanooga, Tennessee, visiting Sabra, along with her new husband, Paul, and headed out to a recent haunt, the Red Lantern, where the karaoke was jumping once again. I also managed to catch some photos of a sunset from a Chattnooga bridge.
Heading west once again, I worked my way to St. Louis, where I caught up with one of my old NIU students, Marty Stanberry, who is now running a small theatre company of his own.

I had a performance that day at the Priory School, at none other than the “Kevin Kline Theatre.” Unfortunately, no one informed me that Interstate 64 was entirely shut down for construction work, and what I thought would be a quick 10-minute ride to the theatre took longer than an hour, as the technicians awaited my arrival. (My lone contact was unreachable, as she’d left her cell phone at home with her husband.) Upon arrival we pulled the show together in less than an hour, and launched into the performance.

The place was packed and the hosts had added 100 folding seats to the 200 permanent seats. Unfortunately, the 100 extra seats had a bad view any time I got down off of the stage to approach the front row, so I stuck to the stage more than I generally tend to. My cousins, Peg and Jeff, and their son, Doug, were in attendance, and they’d never seen me perform before (this was my first show near St. Louis), and we had a quick visit afterwards. (I had a bunch of “fans” approaching me for photos and hugs throughout the visit, which always helps make me look like a Big Deal when old friends or relatives are around.)

The next morning, it was an early drive out to Northwest Missouri State, with a mid-afternoon acting workshop, and a fun performance in their large auditorium. The faculty, at least one of whom was a fellow U-Nebraska grad, were particularly responsive, and were hinting that they might be considering a full Moliere production in the coming years. This host wrote:

We thoroughly enjoyed your visit. The workshop received rave reviews from all participants, and I know what was learned will be put to great use. I've also heard wonderful responses to your show, and I personally loved it. It was an excellent experience all around and one I will certainly highly recommend.

Finally, I got to turn my car towards home, heading back for Chicago once more.

It was a brief stop, with a performance at North Park University, where they had me performing in the “chapel.” The professor was working to build her French program, inviting High Schools from all over the area, and there were 250 or so in the auditorium.

I decided to try something radically different this time, making my initial entrance from the organ loft, far above the stage, and then racing down the steps, out of sight of the audience, in the middle of the opening speech. Yet, when I opened my mouth for my first line, my voice croaked out the first couple of words, and I realized that this would be a vocal challenge throughout. Luckily, the chapel, itself, had good acoustics.

I jumped onto the highway for a quick run to Minneapolis. A group of students from University of St. Thomas, who were seeing the theatre program getting cut from their curriculum, decided to put on my 40-minute version of “Tartuffe” as a class project. While no one was actually able to “bring me in” for a paid appearance, I couldn’t resist the enthusiasm that this cast and director had obviously thrown into this effort, considering that I kept appearing on the blog of the woman who was playing Elmire.

I arrived at the theatre just in time, and the director and “Elmire,” tending the box office, reacted as if a rock star had just walked in. Somehow, even before the show got underway, she got on-line and broadcast:

Opening night!!
Tim Mooney, Tim Mooney! He's here, and I got to hug him! He's going to watch the play!

The show was lots of fun, and held together fairly well, considering that I’d cut about half the dialogue from this version to bring it in under 40 minutes. I was timing each act fairly carefully though, and ultimately it ran 44 minutes.

I met up with a couple Minnesota Fringe friends while I was in town, and caught wind that the recently closed Theatre de la Jeune Lune was selling its stock at a rummage sale the next morning. Given that Jeune Lune has produced a lot of Moliere over the years, I decided to see if there were a costume piece or two that I might use. I came across a vest or two that might work, and a pair of colorful baggy pants that I have since integrated into the Scapin scene.

The check out line in the theatre lobby was about a half hour long, so I struck up a brief conversation with the woman standing in front of me, who was apparently buying the hats she was carrying for personal use, rather than a show. I turned to the girls behind me who were buying a drape as a photographic backdrop. When they asked about my purchases, I explained that I was buying stuff for my one-man show about Moliere.

Overhearing this, the woman in front of me turned back around and asked: “Are you Tim Mooney?”

I was immediately impressed with myself for my seeming popularity, and assumed that this girl must have seen me at the Minnesota fringe in the past year or two, but as it turned out, she’d remembered me from having seen me perform in Denver four years ago! We traded e-mail addresses, and corresponding ever since, as she’s been reading through my acting textbook, and I have found myself wondering how many people like her, over the years, I might have had such an impact upon.


That night, I returned for the closing night of “Tartuffe,” and the show earned a standing ovation this time around. The cast called me up onstage to join the curtain call, and presented me with a University of St. Thomas teddy bear and blanket as thank you gifts. I returned the favor with “Moliere Than Thou” t-shirts for Callie, the director, and Cindy, the blogging dramaturg-turned-Elmire, who later blogged: "Today has been one of the most absolutely greatest days of my life. And I have photographic and video evidence that I met Tim Mooney. I can check that off of my "To Do Before I Die" list." [Curtain call photos by Craig VanDerShaegen.]

I headed home for about 24 hours, and left directly from the dentist’s chair for the next leg of my tour. With Novocain wearing off as I drove, my tongue compulsively tested out (and shredded itself on) the temporary crown in my mouth.

I stopped in northern Georgia to visit with Lori, one of my hosts from the second season of my tour (five years ago!). She, and her late husband, Marc, had been among my best supporters early on, and I hadn’t seen her since Marc had passed away four years ago.

Following a nice reunion, I continued south to Sarasota, a much longer drive than one might guess. The hotel was comfy, and the show was well-received, with five t-shirts sold. The New College of Florida had been built onto the campus of the former Ringling Brothers School. It was the French teacher that had brought me in, and the venue was essentially a conference room with a stage at the far end. A bunch of high school students actually sat on the floor in front of the stage, which gave me some terrific opportunities for interaction throughout. (This "Tartuffe" volunteer was eager enough to get up on stage, but looked like she occasionally wanted to crawl out of her skin to get away.)

I took a few side trips on my way home, stopping first in Orlando, where the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages were holding a conference. I snuck into the exhibit hall, and visited around a bit, handing out a couple of brochures. I hung out at the bar for a few hours, but found it nearly impossible to distinguish the French teachers from any of the other teachers in attendance.

The next day, I continued on to South Carolina, sharing plans with Bess Park, the Artistic Director of the Greenwood Community Theatre, which is bringing me in to direct and act in “The Misanthrope” later this Winter.

Following one more side trip to Georgia, I raced north to meet with Isaac in Chicago. He was out of school for Thanksgiving week, but I still had one more performance before the break. Lewis University had me in to do a workshop as well as a show in Chicago’s southern Suburbs, and while Isaac had seen me perform before, he’d never seen me teach, and it was good for him to see this other side of his dad’s professional life. (He ran the camera, below.)



The show itself was a bit of a struggle for me, as the audience seemed to be perhaps divided between students with a genuine interest in the subject matter (Theatre/French students) and General Studies students who were there to get a credit for a class. And while they were respectful and responsive throughout the show, as soon as Moliere starts to wrap things up (“I would like to thank each and every …”) the students started reaching for their book bags and their jackets, which always leaves the curtain call feeling a little pathetic.

And yet, there was these responses from the host, and a student:

I heard, with a great deal of excitement, from students that the masterclass was “[expletive] mindblowingly awsome” (as one put it). Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the workshop, but the show was fantastic. You actively engaged an audience that is difficult to win over. On a personal note, you inspired me to revisit some of my favorite Moliere plays! I’m confident you inspired others to do the same. Your show and masterclass is exactly what our Arts&Ideas program strives to offer our students and community. (Mike McFerron, Lewis University)

Thank you, sir, for taking the time to share your incredible talent and wisdom with us. Your presence was greatly appreciated and I am very glad to have made your acquaintance! And even though sharing the stage with you brought set my cheeks ablaze, I enjoyed myself immensely. : ) (Natalie, Lewis U)

Isaac and I enjoyed about four days of video-watching and ping-pong, before he and his mom headed back for Detroit, and I headed north for a show in Green Bay.

The Green Bay folks had brought me in almost exactly a year before, and the Tech Director had a good memory of the show, which made our rehearsal a breeze. Unfortunately, while the French department had good attendance, the theatre department had scheduled “callbacks” for the same evening, which meant that some of the students who might’ve gotten the most out of the show were not present.

Apparently the French Club president, who was part of the play’s anticipated introduction, was late getting to the theatre, and the show was at least ten minutes late getting underway. Given the antsiness of the most recent audience, I made a quick decision to drop one of the less playful monologues out of the show and “cut to the chase” as it were. The French teacher had encouraged students to sit closer to the stage during her introductory remarks, and thankfully, at the last second she’d gotten four students to shift into the front row (at least one of whom was surreptitiously “texting” during the first monologue).

A brief rant about texting:

It is silently beginning to kill the theatre-going experience.

We (speaking collectively as theatre artists) need to address the issue of texting with the same aggressive repudiation with which we took on cell phones going off in the middle of a show. No one thinks that their one little text message is going to disrupt the show at large, but frankly, we are not far from a time in which half of the audience is spending more time looking at their laps than looking at the stage. At that point, the theatre is no longer a collective forum, communally examining humanity in action, but a single window on the screen of the audience’s attention span, easily clicked in and out of existence with the interruption of a single message.

We can drop “pagers” from the list of items that the audience needs to turn off during the opening announcement, but if we don’t double down on “texting” big time in the coming year, we’re lost. People may still show up and sit in the seats, but they’ll find themselves rather flummoxed about exactly why this was ever considered such a profound or moving experience to begin with.

I drove back to Chicago, where we celebrated Mom and Dad’s birthdays. While Mom’s remains a closely guarded secret, Dad just enjoyed his 80th birthday, with my brother Pat flying in with nephew Ryan, and cousins Maryellen and Rob and their spouses dropping by for the celebration.

Finally, I am knuckling down on a writing project. The good folks at Playscripts, Inc. have informed me that they’re interested in getting a new version of Moliere’s “Love’s the Best Doctor” into their catalogue, and I’m determined to write one before Christmas break is over! And so, I’m going to try an experiment! I'm going to paste my first draft of the opening scene below. And I will offer up new scenes as I write them, to anyone who wants to follow the show in its development.

In other words, IF YOU WANT TO READ ALONG, PLEASE SEND AN E-MAIL to tim_mooney@earthlink.net that says: "SUBSCRIBE: LBD", and I’ll send you new scenes in your e-mail!

I have discovered, in the past, that the best way to complete a project is to get as many people as I can interested in its my progress. The very publicness of this potential failure forbids me to sit idle on the project, but rather thrusts me into action. As long as I know that willing eyes are waiting to read the thing, I work more relentlessly to see the project through to fruition. Enjoy!

Love’s the Best Doctor
(1665)
by Jean Baptiste Poquelin de Moliere

© December, 2008

Adaptation by:
Timothy Mooney
All Rights Reserved

DRAMATIS PERSONAESGANARELLE, father of Lucinde
LUCINDE, his daughter
CLITANDRE, her lover
AMINTE, a neighbor of Sganarelle
LUCRECE, niece to Sganarelle
LISETTE, servant to Lucinde
MONSIEUR GULLIAME, an upholsterer
MONSIEUR JOSSE, a jeweler
DOCTORS (TOMES, DES-FONADRES, MACROTIN, BAHRS, FILERIN)
NOTARY
CHAMPAGNE, Valet to Sganarelle

CHARACTERS IN THE BALLETS
CHAMPAGNE, DOCTORS
COMEDY, MUSIC, BALLET, LAUGHTER, PLEASURES

SCENEThe Scene is in Paris, in the home of Sganarelle

Prologue
COMEDY, MUSIC, BALLET

COMEDY
Leave off, I say leave off these reckless quarrels
No more dispute one talent over others;
As reaching solitary laurels
Can but diminish ‘mongst we brothers,
Let us, as one, let all three revels ring,
To serve the bliss of this world’s greatest King.

COMEDY, MUSIC, BALLET
Let us, as one, let all three revels ring,
To serve the bliss of this world’s greatest King.

COMEDY
What greater conquest might we ever boast
Than to divert our king from stately cares?
Might greater honor quite come close?
Might there be any joy that dares?

COMEDY, MUSIC, BALLET
Let us, as one, let all three revels ring,
To serve the bliss of this world’s greatest King.

Act One, Scene One
SGANARELLE, AMINTE, LUCRECE, GUILLAME, JOSSE

SGANARELLE
How strange life seems from in this head;
How right that great philosopher who said,
That with great having comes great grief
And woes come not alone, but in a sheaf.
I had but one wife, and now she is dead.

M. GUILLAME
And how many would you wish to have wed?

SGANARELLE
My friend, she’s dead; I feel it as an ache;
The tears come when abed, or when awake.
And while, while she was still alive and strong,
There were times when we’d not quite get along,
And said some things one ought not quite pronounce,
She’s dead now, and death settles all accounts.
Good Heaven gave us children, yet, what’s more,
A single daughter’s all I’ve left in store;
One daughter, who’s the source of all vexation,
For some disturbance, some preoccupation,
Some melancholic source I can’t quite factor,
Holds her in bonds from which I can’t extract her.
And all my efforts to conceive the cause
But further hides the source as ‘neath a gauze.
And, as I’ve come up empty, on these questions,
I’ve brought you here, my friends, for your suggestions.
Lucrece, my niece, Aminte, my thoughtful neighbor;
(To GUILLIAME and JOSSE:)
You, sirs, are both my friends in trade and labor:
I ask you, please, to frankly share your view:
Advise me what you think I ought to do.

MONSIEUR JOSSE
I find young women long for finer things
Like necklaces, or bracelets or for rings;
It’s this stuff with which you ought to surprise her:
She’ll lighten up if you accessorize her.

MONSIEUR GULLIAME
It’s her environment you must address;
Her very walls should stir her beating breast;
Give her some tapestries; give her a grand drape,
Adorned with figures, or perhaps a landscape.

AMINTE
Well, I’d take neither of these routes to please her,
I think it’s time that marriage ought to seize her,
And you could change her churlishness to cheer:
Give her that man that asked for her, last year.

LUCRECE
To bear a child in her most fragile state
Would make her prey to some most fatal fate;
It’s death that waits a wedding to some suitor,
And I believe a convent better suits her.

SGANARELLE
All this advice suggests such earnest wishes,
And yet I can’t help be somewhat suspicious.
Such wary thoughts, we find, one quickly quells,
Were it not your advice so suits yourselves!
You are, yourself, a goldsmith, Monsieur Josse,
And your prescription seems a precious dose,
And yet your tone takes just a slightish ring
Of one with too much backstock of such … bling.
And Monsieur Gulliame, your tapestries
Are well designed to decorate and please;
All tell of how they’re stitched and draped and painted,
Although, I sense they leave your counsel tainted.
The lenses that you wear, neighbor Aminte,
I fear are likewise touched with selfish tint,
The man you sought now seems to want my daughter
And you’d prefer to see some other caught her.
And as you know, my niece, I haven’t planned
That anyone should win my daughter’s hand,
My reasons are but mine, and mine alone,
And yet your motives, if we’d have them known,
Are not so purely drawn from convent’s prayer,
As how that might leave you my only heir!
And so, dear ladies, and kind gentlemen,
I’ll hesitate to take advice you’ve sent till when
It doesn’t seem to so befit yourself,
And so, for now, I’ll keep it on the shelf.

Miles on the Vibe: 294,500

Temperature: 20 degrees-ish

Discoveries: I need to keep checking student age/maturity/community standards as I shape the level of my performance. * Double and triple check the route to the school, and make sure that all the roads still work! * “Texting” is killing the theatre-going experience. * I do better at the French-Teacher conferences than at the general Language Teacher conferences, as the French Teachers at these don’t quite walk around with badges identifying themselves as such.
On the DVD Player: Battlestar Glactica again (listening to the podcast commentaries this time)
Attendence: 60 + 300 + 320 + 30 + 100 + 250 + 120 + 20 + 100 + 75 = 1,375
Next shows: A residency at Augustana College (Moline, IL), Dec 11-16. North Central College (Naperville, IL), January 7.

The View From Here #135: Coeur d’Alene, ID; Overland Park, KS; Northbrook, IL; Washington, PA; Rochester, NY; Manchester, NH; Glenville, WV

... The Fall Colors Edition ...

Get out and vote, everybody! Take no state, nor district for granted! And then crack open a cold one to celebrate my birthday!

Twenty eight years ago my twenty-first birthday celebration was dampened. I look for the success of this year’s election to redeem those “lost years.”

Since the last computer crash … almost 8 months ago now, I never have gotten the chance to rebuild the document that captured my “Commedia del Arte” workshop. I have a hard copy of the material, but haven’t re-entered the stuff into a Microsoft Word or Power Point document. And since this is relatively new material, I continue to rearrange and reorder the lecture and exercises to improve the natural progression of the content.

Which means that I’m generally working by notes, by memory and by the seat of my pants. … Which actually helps, sometimes, since I’m not attached to a specific lecture, or a series of slides flashed up on a screen.

I gave this lecture in Coeur d’Alene, working and re-working the order, which seems to be settling into some sort of logical progression, and finding myself focusing more elaborately on the “What to do with the Dead Body?” lazzi, to which students seem to respond particularly well. (I do this one, along with the “Hiding the fingerprints” lazzi, and scenes from “The Misanthrope,” “The Flying Doctor” and “The Doctor in Spite of Himself” which are all fairly tried-and-true.

I said goodbye to Joe, my friend and host, as well as a couple of the students who I’ve now encountered over several visits to North Idaho College (where they’re producing my “Doctor in Spite of Himself” this winter), and raced off into Montana.

Stopping in Livingston, Montana, I awoke to find that an early Winter Storm had swept in during the night, with about five inches already on the ground and a total of twelve inches predicted.

I raced out as quickly as the conditions might allow, fighting snow and later rain most of the way through Wyoming, and pulling into Denver late that night.

In Denver, I camped out for about four days, visiting with my new friend, Trish, as well as Kelli, before pushing on to Overland Park, Kansas, where they had booked me for two workshops, a performance and a rehearsal of “The Comedy of Errors.”

While I’d done the usual preparation for the “Classical Acting” and the “Commedia/Lazzi” workshops (“what to do with the dead body” was way popular again), it was the “Comedy of Errors” rehearsal that I spent the most time getting ready for. I had no way of anticipating what kind of shape their show might be in, just how the director’s concept might impact my ability to contribute to the event, nor how far I might be able to get in boiling down my approach to the script in the context of my anticipated exploration.

I’d presented the idea for this rehearsal in the context of my projected “Shakespeare Monologues Project,” and pushed forward on the memorization of my Malvolio monologue as the assumed climax of the event.

But when I arrived, I found that Malvolio had only just been recast a couple of days before, and the actor now playing Malvolio wasn’t even going to be in attendance that night.

I improvised, covering much of the material in my “Classical Acting” workshop all over again (only two of the actors in this cast had attended the workshop the day before), and, with about an hour left, segueing into a deconstruction of the Malvolio letter speech. (In which he is tricked into believing that Olivia loves him.) We broke down the speech for words that were uncertain, and addressed what seem to be emerging as my most important steps in the rehearsal process: Answering “What is the essential transaction of the scene” and “How and when does the balance of power shift?”

I then finished off with a performance of the monologue: a 7 1/2 minute speech, which worked far and away, above my expectations. The actors were laughing at each little piece of the speech, and even the director was taking notes for bits she wanted to incorporate into the show (such as my arranging the prop letter in such a way that the postscript wound its way across the very bottom of the letter, up the right margin and across the top).

Afterwards the actors suggested that their biggest takeaway from this performance was that they could “go much farther” with their characters, “go way over the top” and “really take a chance with it.” I commented on how much more directors like to work with actors that they have to restrain, than actors that they have to drag more out of. About a dozen of the actors from my interaction with this group signed up for my blog, and three of them actually videotaped brief thank you’s following my show.

The next morning, I was up before dawn racing home. The Pathways Scholarship fundraiser was that night, and I was the emcee for the event.

I had no idea how this would go. I’d gotten a wild idea about a fundraiser where people get up to sing karaoke, and entice their friends to “vote” for them by tossing dollar bills into a bucket as “tips.” A small turn-out, or a limited willingness or ability to tip might dampen the success of the event. Meanwhile, I’d been out of town for a full month, and was entirely uncertain as to how complete the preparations would be. I walked in to find about 40 volunteers ready to go.

It was my job to share the “rules” of the game, and to encourage and incite the donation process, all the while making announcements about the ongoing silent auction, the availability of change at the back tables, the opening of the carving station, introducing the band, tallying and announcing the fundraising results. All of this had been predicated on the assumption that people would show up with money to spend … but would they get fired up with the enthusiasm I’d imagined?

Between event ticket sales (about 115 people), the silent auction and the tipping process (each of which brought in a roughly equivalent amount), the fundraiser essentially doubled our goals, bringing in about $10,000! When I was able to announce that we’d brought in $5,000, the crowd went wild. When we broke $7,500, they cheered even harder. We hadn’t quite tallied the final figure until the audience had gone home, but announcements were quickly circulated around the Pathways universe, and everyone was left satisfied that they’d made a significant contribution.

Briefly in town, I made a stop at the dentist, with a cleaning, x-rays and two fillings long overdue.

I pushed on to Washington, PA, where I did a workshop and a show for Washington & Jefferson College. There were only about four students in the workshop, so in some instances I had to get them to imagine what it might be like if there were many more voices contributing to the noise that this or that exercise was designed to create.

The show also went very well (clips, below, from the West Virginia performance), and I turned in early afterwards, with an early morning departure for Rochester the next day.

Somehow Mapquest had left me thinking that the trip to Rochester was about 7 hours, but in fact it was more like 5. Having gotten up at 4 am, the fatigue was getting the best of me, and though I arrived in time to meet the host for lunch, I begged off and checked into the hotel instead, catching a quick nap in advance of the events of the day.

That day I gave a quick “teaser” performance for a school assembly, followed by a workshop, a tech rehearsal and a performance. My grad-school friend, Lindsay was in attendance at the show, and though the audience was small, the attendees were very vocal, and a couple of strong gigglers kept the audience engaged.

The next morning, I was sitting in on a rehearsal of “Tartuffe”. They were performing my version of the script, and rehearsing Act V, when all of the excitement ratchets up to a fevered pitch. With permission of the director, I stopped the actors repeatedly, rearranging them on stage and placing the emphasis on the key speaker while encouraging them to take their responses higher into the emotional stratosphere. By the time we were done, I could feel a warm acceptance by the cast, and many of them have since “friended” me on my facebook page, with notes like ...

Hey Tim, I not only thought your show was cool but it was fun and you were hilarious lol. You made my day as soon as you walked on stage. … Your passion for what you do shined right through your eyes and it inspired me greatly to work harder on me being an actress as well. ... I miss you already and everytime i remeber being on stage with you i turn flush red lol it was my first time being on stage acting (Tartuffe is going to be my first play ever) and the fact i was on it with YOU made it a night i will never forget. …

And …

Monsieur Mooney, I just wanted to say thanks for the kick-ass show and workshop! … Thanks for bringing an entirely new creative force to our show, you really helped us a lot in the few hours we got to spend with you. Break legs the rest of your tour!

And …

… Thanks so much for everything you helped us with when you came to Rochester. The workshop was a great experience for me and all of my Tartuffe cast mates and we thank you very much!!

And …

I think your show was pretty darn great! People around harley are still talking about it, I'M still talking about it!! Thanks so much for the workshop/performing your show/helping us with act five of tartuffe (the chance to work with the writer of such a great piece of work really meant alot to me!)

And ...

I dont know how to put into words how happy i am to have met you!! ... I noticed every since you left i cant get the show "Moilere Than thou" out of my head. During rehersal or even when I walk with my friends through the hall ways at school I often stop and say "I contaplated here" and "Stop Theif"lol. I wish you never left :( ... Today I told my dad about when i went on stage with you but dont worry i made it clear you were acting lol... I went on youtube and showed my dad who you were and showed scenes from "Moilere than thou" and your other shows and he thought you were hilarious!!

I also got a really nice letter from a student’s mom:

This is Edith's mom, Laura, and I am thrilled that Edith had the wonderful opportunity to work with you...what a creative and alive and skilled and thoughtful person...the work last night was magnificent. Timely, as you said to the kids and Edith … went home and wrote everything she could remember you said down...she said you were fun to be with and were brilliant … and just in general it was magic for her… i hope you know that you make a difference in the lives of these kids...Edith was radiating ...

I stuck around until Monday, doing yet another variation on my "Commedia/Lazzi" workshop for Lindsay's stage movement class before pushing on, I headed for Southern New Hampshire University. I stopped in Boston, to pick up Martha, a friend who wanted to catch the show, and pulled in to the University just as a crowd was gathering to hear Hillary Clinton speak. (While all indicators point to a big Obama win, John McCain does seem to have a “ground game” in New Hampshire, as about 90% of the yard signs in the neighborhood were in favor of him. -- Right outside the university, some intrepid campaigner had lined up about twenty “Democrat for McCain” signs.)

It took a bit of time to find parking, and eventually, we found the performance space and the host, and loaded in the show. Nosing around, I couldn’t help noticing that there were no flyers promoting the show in evidence. As I’d seen nothing about the show on the school’s website, I started to predict a turnout of about 20 people. (Given that this school didn’t have a full Theatre Department or French Department, and that this event was sponsored by the History Club, I probably should have given them more input on how to promote the show to the rest of the campus.)

About a half hour before the show, though, a busload of twenty high school kids arrived, and I was reminded that a group that was working on a presentation of “The Doctor in Spite of Himself” had inquired about coming to see the show, and their enthusiasm (and ability to fill up the first two rows) kept the show lively.

The next day, I dropped Martha back off in Boston, and she proceeded to share a review with the “Playwright Binge” listserv:

He was absolutely wonderful! He is extremely talented and so funny as an actor, and his adaptations of the speeches of Moliere were unexceptionable. I had so much fun seeing this one-man show, during which he invites members of the audience onstage to read scenes with him. Best of all was his lusty Tartuffe, creeping sideways towards a young female victim, while licking his chops, in an attempt to seduce her.

Not all of my reviews have been such “raves”, unfortunately. An inquiry on the Dramaturgy Listserv, from a dramaturg wanting to know if it might be worth booking me, drew a response from a student who had a couple of disparaging remarks about my contribution, particularly feeling like I had been “talking down” to the students in my workshop. (No matter how many enthusiastic reactions I hear, it’s the complaints that stick with me, and leave me questioning whether all the effort is, indeed, worth it, or whether my time might be better spent by taking the bulls-eye off of my chest, and hiding amid larger casts.)

The next couple of days were filled with quick visits, dropping in on my ex-roommate, Deb, for lunch in Connecticut, on my new French-Teacher friend, Susie, who Isaac and I met last summer in Belgium, for dinner in New York, and Playwright Mike Folie, whose wife, Frances, booked me last spring. Mike took me to meet several of his playwright-companions for breakfast the following morning, and I pushed on to Baltimore to visit my sister Maureen, and her husband, Tim, who celebrated my birthday early by fixing pizza in the cool brick oven they’ve built out in back of their house.

The next day it was on to Glenville, West Virginia, with a day to relax (and work on my blog!) before a performance Saturday night at the West Virginia Theatre Association conference. I had a terrific feeling about this show, as, demographically, the audience would be similar to the theatre-heavy-crowd I'd had at the Colorado Thespian Association, which really rocked. It was a tiny lecture hall/performance space, with only 80 seats, but I knew right away that the intimacy would help the show.

It rocked. There were also some "bigwigs" in the audience from Southeast Theatre Conference, and the American Community Theatre Association who were later brainstorming, variously, about involving me in their next conferences. Again the volunteers were terrific, and the "Tartuffe" volunteer was especially charming (she looked a little like a young Angelina Jolie), and the audience was downright giddy in response.

I actually had to "pull the reins" on some of the humor as the high school students were so responsive that they threatened to get out of hand (and I can never tell how that might be going over with some of their teachers).


I finish up these notes in Buckhannon, West Virginia, where I'm performing Monday night, with Tuesday off to celebrate my birthday and a landslide win for Barack Obama. My plan is to enjoy a leisurely drive down the Blue Ridge Mountain Parkway (taking more pictures like these), stopping in Blowing Rock, NC to watch election returns late into the night. Hey, give me a call and sing me a round of "Happy birthday!"

Love,
Tim

Discoveries: I actually do some of my best work when I don't have detailed notes telling me exactly what to say. * This Shakespeare material really ... you know ... works. * Students need the example of someone who can burst past limitations and take a risk. * As many rave reviews and grateful e-mails as I get, it's the negative responses that get to me, and I'll be fighting that fight until I decide that what people want to say about me, one way or another, can't add or lessen the value of what it is that I do. * I've gotten fairly accurate in predicting attendance, just based on flyers and web presence. I should probably find a way of communicating that understanding to upcoming hosts.

Miles on the Vibe: 286,500

Attendance: 15 + 10 + 15 + 15 + 6 + 60 + 200 + 20 + 50 + 15 + 15 + 35 + 65 = 521

Temperature: Back up to Lower 60s, and clear.

Next Shows: November 5 in Roanoke, VA; November 10 in St. Louis, MO

The View From Here #134: Chicago, IL; Milwaukee, WI; Lake Forest, IL; Denver, CO; Galesburg, IL; Chickasha, OK; Kingsville, TX; Palo Alto, CA

My “month off” in Chicago zoomed by so fast I can barely remember it. Mostly, I remember editing scripts for publication. Playscripts has contacted me again, with news that they now want to publish my versions of “The Miser” and “The Schemings of Scapin,” in both full-length and 40-minute versions. This will bring me up to eleven plays published through Playscripts, including double versions (full-length & one-act) of “Tartuffe,” “Imaginary Invalid,” and Doctor in Spite of Himself,” as well as the Full-length “Misanthrope,” all of which may now be found at http://www.playscripts.com/author.php3?authorid=451!

I spent some time working on a fundraiser for the Pathways Scholarship Fund, , which will find me racing back to Chicago on October 18 to perform as the Emcee at this Karaoke contest event. (Sign up and come join us!) Among the items available in the silent auction is a performance of the one-man play of your choice, at the venue of your choice! (Those of you who can’t afford my high, high prices, could get a bargain!)

Hurrying to get stuff done, I finally packed and set out on the road! None too soon! After a summer of earning nothing, I needed to start the income flowing in the opposite direction! This year I set out with 42 bookings already “on the books” which is more than I’ve ever started out the season with!

The first event was a local workshop at North Park College in Chicago, which is hosting me again on November 13 with a daytime performance of my show. The day after, I was off to Cardinal Stritch College, doing another workshop, where they’re also producing my versions of “Sganarelle” and “The Flying Doctor” October 10-19.


Back in Illinois the next day, I did two workshops with Lake Forest College, followed by a performance of “Moliere Than Thou” that evening. All went very well (the "Don Juan" scene, above, was interrupted by spontaneous applause), possibly with the exception of the “Doctor in Spite of Himself Scene,” in which the (prearranged) undergrad volunteer decided to play a very “heavy” response to the Doctor’s frisky advances. I could feel the audience “turning against me” and strove to win them back over with my affable innocence, and could sense that they were back on my side by the final monologue. Afterwards I sent a note to the hosts to reassure them that “No undergrads were harmed in the performing of this scene.”

Meanwhile, however, I got a delightful note from one of the other volunteers:

… After your performance last night, however, I was positively electrified. It was a thrill to watch (and to participate in) "Moliere Than Thou." Your energy and enthusiasm were contagious, and I left the theater absolutely elated. Not only did I laugh to the point where my cheeks ached, but I had a sort of refreshed excitement about theater, performance, and most especially, Moliere. I don't normally write to people I don't know, and letters like this are rare, but I felt I needed to tell you the effect your performance had on me. I had so much fun, and I felt so inspired. ...
Adrienne Peters

And then from the French teacher:

“I thought the performance was absolutely fabulous, and my students did too. I can't imagine how you were able to memorize so many lines! And the translation/adaptations are perfect. Bravo, bravo! Thanks for coming to class, students really enjoyed your insights and passion for what you do…”
Cynthia Hahn

I was left wondering whether the need to win them back over was just an imaginary voice in my head that sees everything that I do through hyper-critical lenses.

I caught a long weekend back at home with my sister, Maureen, in town for a visit (while Dad went to his high school reunion), and the skies opened up, pouring rain for three days and filling the back yard with a lake.

Monday, I set out for Denver, Colorado and, arriving with a couple of days to spare, visited with my friend, Kelli, and caught up with my new friend, Tricia, who I’d met at the outset of the Fall, 2007 tour, at the University of Denver, though I hadn’t managed to get back for another visit until now, a year later. We had a fine time, and even managed to squeeze in another date in advance of my performance at the Alliance for Colorado Theatres.

The ACT show went as well as any performance of “Moliere” that I can recall. There were about 70 theatre teachers squeezed into a small studio theatre, and they got everything! An old Nebraska friend, Mike Pearl, who has seen the show twice before, was in the audience, and I got him up onto the stage to do the Scapin scene with me.

This group burst with extended laughs at all of the theatre in-jokes, particularly on one, almost casual reference to a life in the theatre, as Moliere notes, at the end: “… and no one is happier than I to be able to carve a living out of this most unsavory vocation.”

Something in me suggested that I take an extra beat to pause at the end of that, and as I did, the audience responded with a nice little laugh. I held the pause for an extra moment, and the audience laughed more. As they did, I raised an eyebrow and smirked knowingly and the laughter grew even more. It was one of those shows where I could feel the audience “in the palm of my hand” as it were, getting everything, and going where I was directing them. (Unfortunately, I didn't capture this one on video, but here's a clip of that same speech at the Texas Educational Theatre Association conference last January.)


I followed the show with a workshop, and some thirty high school teachers showed up, enthusiastic about my work, and buying several t-shirts and scripts. (At one point, I was standing in the first floor hallway, and could actually overhear several people raving about my show who were passing by on the second floor, and who, due to the layout of the building, didn’t know that I was overhearing them.)

At least one theatre prof who I had been writing to for the past seven years was newly enthusiastic about bringing my show in, and a couple days later I got a note from the head of the “Colorado Thespians,” reporting that he’d gotten a “rousing recommendation” about my work.

That night, I drove to Kansas City, visiting with a new friend I'd made at a theatre workshop in Chicago (which started me writing on a new play). She and I went to a Sox/Royals game with her family, and the next day I pushed heading on to Galesburg, IL and two workshops and a performance at Knox College. They were preparing a performance of “Tartuffe”, and I had a fun show, followed by a visit to a rehearsal of “Tartuffe.” Even though they weren’t doing my version of the play, I was able to coach the actors into stagings that reflected some of the energies of my first production of the play, and brought out aspects of Moliere’s humor that were intrinsic to the situation, rhythms and action.

The only drawback to this show was that the check wasn’t ready when I was there, and it didn’t arrive for another several days. With bills pending, I was counting on each check arriving on time, and as busy as the coming semester promised to be, I was not quite yet “liquid”. Fortunately, the IRS is very slow about cashing their checks, and a quarterly payment that I’d sent them two weeks before had still not yet found its way to the bank.

Later, the professor sent me a link to the Knox school paper where the workshop and show were reviewed, complete with photos. ("Portraying one character can be difficult enough. However Tim Mooney, actor and playwright can perform a dozen with ease ...")

I dropped back south, this time to Chickasha (rhymes with “ricochet”), Oklahoma, where the theatre teacher at the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma was trying to rebuild a program that had dwindled over recent years. She envisioned my show as a way to get students excited about the theatre, and I managed to set up a camera to capture some of the fun.

From Oklahoma, it was on south to Texas, and my third performance at Texas A&M University-Kingsville. The now-retired theatre teacher had brought me in to perform back in 2002, and the French teacher has brought me back twice since then. One of the students who was at that first performance (Michael) was now on the faculty, and he and I have continued to get together to celebrate after every show.

It so happens that I am signed up to receive “Google Alerts” every time particular words should appear on the internet. As such, I’ve indexed a lot of Moliere play titles, as well as my name. I then get an e-mail from “Google Alerts” to let me know when some relevant item is out there (such as news or reviews of someone presenting one of my plays), and so I was surprised when the following appeared in my mailbox, apparently entered into a blog by “Charlyn,” a student at TAMUK:

“I'm so excited tomorrow Timothy Mooney is coming to our campus to preform. My sister and I are going to go see him preform Moliere plays my french teachers says he's a really good performer and i think we'll enjoy it. ...”

This time around, the show was presented as a part of “Family Day” at TAMUK, which meant that this was a dinner-theatre event in one of the Student Center ballrooms, attended by a lot of people who had no interest in Moliere (they were there for the free spaghetti dinner), along with a few who did. Beyond this, I noticed that the student activities group had scheduled a free showing of “Kung Fu Panda” to begin an hour after my performance was scheduled to start! (“Oh, don’t worry about it,” they insisted. "We’ll just start the movie whenever you’re done, and they’ll just wait in the hallway when they arrive.” – I immediately started choosing which monologues to cut from the show.)

This performance was a major challenge, as I had to fill two ballrooms with my voice, and the second ballroom, off to my left was a continual annoyance, with servers clanking plates and dropping silverware, and others who assumed they were far enough out of the way to be able to chat casually without disturbing the event. As the show went on their disturbance increased, and I found myself shouting them down, particularly amid my performance of “Don Juan,” during which my host eventually took up the initiative to head over that way and shoo them off.

And while my focus was on overcoming the obstacles in the room, I must note that I am the only one who mentioned the issues surrounding the various disturbances and distractions. After the show, I got nothing but rave reviews from the audience, and some of the viewers cited “Don Juan” as their favorite monologue. Again, I was finding that the narrative going through my head did not necessarily jive with the perceptions of the people watching. While I was putting out every bit of energy that I might to outshout the disturbance, some people were actually listening for the content of the work, and all of the outshouting did, in fact overwhelm the disturbance.

During curtain call, the French club presented me with a bottle of French wine.

Michael and his friends joined myself and a couple of the students from the French club back at my guest apartment for a celebration, and a bunch of us finished off the evening at a local hangout.

The next morning, I was up early again, meeting up with cousins Kathy and Larry in San Antonio, before moving on west, with stops in Van Horn, Texas, and Silver City, New Mexico (visiting with a friend I met at the performance there last spring).

From Silver City, I pushed on west, with an extremely frustrating stay at a Motel 6 in Yuma, Arizona. (The wireless internet signal did not reach my room, and I wasted hours chasing around trying to get on line.) The Motel 6 folks put out absolutely no effort to help me get hooked up, nor did they refund any portion of the money I spent, so I have now, officially, sworn off of them for the remainder of this tour. (Avoid Motel 6!)

I dropped in on my friends Pete and Betty in San Diego, performing a couple of monologues for their daughter, Gemini, and her friends (Gemini still remembered my performance of “Stop Thief” from about three years ago, and was laughing so hard that her eyes were watering this time around.) I continued north for a visit with an old high school friend, Kirsten (who I had gotten reacquainted with due to one of those outrageous coincidences; mutual friends of friends), along with our mutual friend, Edwina. From there, I headed north to drop in on “Airplane Jayne” (with whom I enjoyed watching Joe Biden crush Sara Palin) before one further drive north to a show in Palo Alto.

The Palo Alto show came together at the last minute, with a church event that tied up the theatre until 90 minutes before showtime, and a technician who was another 15 minutes late. The audience was very, very quiet, and the teacher had requested the full 85-minute show, which meant that the very funny monologues wouldn’t kick in until about 15 minutes into the show. Little by little, the silence dissipated, and the audience figured out that this was, indeed, intended to be funny. And the way that I now have balanced the stage-scenes with the audience-participation scenes (my “Tartuffe” and “Scapin” volunteers were both adorably cute girls of eastern-Indian heritage) helps to build interest and keep the audience off balance, and enjoying the show more and more as it proceeds. By the time we reached “Stop Thief” I had won them over entirely, and they were laughing at everything.

From Palo Alto, it was on to Salem, Oregon, dropping in on my brother Pat, and family, and then further north, to North Idaho College, where I just lectured a couple of classes this morning, and am preparing a workshop on Commedia tomorrow.

Okay, so just as I was about to "publish" this view from here, another Google Alert came through my mail. This one may be my greatest review of all time. Since I don't have permission to reprint these words, I'll just refer you to the website: Live Journal. If I get permission later, I'll paste it in.

Ah! Permission arrived ... Here is as much of the posting as my ego will allow me to reprint:

The real truth:

Yes, I've said it before... and I will say it again:

I love Timothy Mooney.

Now, I hate translations of Molière. And I sure hate adaptations of Molière. And I hate abridged versions of Molière... But I love Mr. Mooney.

He is probably the only translator I've ever read who cares about Molière the man as well as Molière the playwright, plus the beauty of French language, some of which is inherently lost in translation. But this man? He gets it.

So when Roommate-the-Theatre-minor pitched to me the idea of being her stage manager for Tartuffe a few weeks ago, I almost winced. Almost. Then immediately did spring into my mind's eye the wonderful recollection of seeing clips of Tim Mooney performing scenes from Molière Than Thou on Youtube.

My heart skipped a beat. I gasped.

"CanwedoTimMooney'sversion?" tumbled the words from my mouth.

"Well," she said, "I was going to ask you, Miss French-Major-with-working-knowledge-and-three-semesters'-study-of-Tartuffe, to choose the best English translation."

I squeaked, "Tim Mooney!"

So we ordered the script for his 40 minute, shortened, English version of Tartuffe. Then I was cast as Elmire. So the more I read these lines, and not just the excerpts, the more I love his work.

Oh wait, but there is more! Our Orgon, my (Elmire's) husband, knows Tim Mooney. KNOWS HIM PERSONALLY! Possibly the only more exciting thing than knowing him would be knowing... .. . ... ... I.. .uh.... Adam West (yes yes, I am a Batman faaaaan. We already know this). And that's about it.

Wait. I don't actually think Adam West knows French, so never mind. ...

Love,
Tim

Discoveries: Perhaps I just imagine that I’m losing my audience from distractions or resentment, and that “voice in my head” has no connection to reality. … Or, perhaps it’s the energy that I put out to respond to the urgency of that voice in my head that is what makes me successful in countering the negativity that I imagine. * While I was putting out every bit of energy that I might to outshout the disturbance, some people were actually listening for the content of the work.

On TV: Lots of great shows these days: The Rachel Maddow Show has been amazing. Pushing Daisies is the best thing on TV this year, at least until Battlestar Gallatica comes back on. And the show SLINGS AND ARROWS (no longer on TV, but available on DVD) is maybe the best thing I've ever seen.

Temperature: 105 in southern Arizona, lower 50s in Idaho …

Attendance: 15 + 15 + 10 + 15 + 75 + 70 + 25 + 20 + 75 + 20 + 50 + 250 + 70 + 15 + 15 = 740

Next show: Johnson County Community College; Overland Park, KS, Oct 17, 7:30pm; Pathways Fundraiser: 7pm, Raddison Hotel, Northbrook, IL

Political Rant: The Obama offices are EVERYWHERE here on the west
coast, and late at night on Saturday night, it was as busy as a singles bar!