Nick+beach

Birthday, work, end of fringe, Nick in town.

Went to Coney Island with Nick today. It still amazes me that you can get to the beach from the subway. Crazy. So tired from this week, but what a lovely weekend!!
Some pictures from today. More to come later. Sleep!

Interesting stuff

I learned something new today.
If you rent 4 semis to lug a whole lot of equitment to Maine, do not assume those semis will come with a lift gate.


That was our brilliant plan of using out own lift gate and then ramping it to the semi. My legs are like jelly and I wasn't even one of the people in the truck. Blugh.

BUT: first review!!!

http://www.nytheatre.com/nytheatre/review_fest.php?p=100223

MARS: Population 1

New York International Fringe Festival

reviewed by Kelly Aliano

Aug 15, 2009

MARS: Population 1, written, directed, and performed by James Allerdyce, presents the journey of the first man to travel to Mars. The audience meets the astronaut as he is about to make his landing on the Red Planet. A storm at the planet's surface causes his landing pod to crash land, inflicting much damage to the craft. The heart of the play takes place within this small vessel as he faces almost certain death; his oxygen tanks are damaged, leaving him with only a limited supply of air, maybe enough for 30 minutes at most, while help is at least 40 minutes away.

Allerdyce creates the entire world of his ship—the parameters, the control panels, even the speed and cabin pressure—and his interplanetary trip through the use of his body in precise physical movement combinations. He manipulates imaginary buttons and levers throughout his mimed spaceship; he is so consistent that it is easy to remember where things are within the ship and to follow exactly what he is doing at each moment. He is assisted by Lauren Wright's compelling lighting design that suggests both his location and his mental state as well as a detailed sound design (by Jerry Morris and Allerdyce) encompassing all of the surrounding noises created by and near his ship. Allerdyce performs in perfect rhythm with these sound effects; it is easy to believe that his actions are actually creating the noises. His movements synchronize perfectly with the sounds, coinciding to bring the play's setting to life.

The piece compellingly raises the question of the value of the sacrifices inherent in both attaining a personal goal and in the pursuit of national glory, recognition, or fame. Allerdyce contemplates the importance of the day-to-day in light of how the Earth can seem so small from far away. He also grapples with prioritizing a greater good against the importance of the individual.

There are moments of real poignancy in the text, notably during the astronaut's hallucination of discussions with his daughter, as well as in the performer's adept movements on stage. There is some truly fascinating material at stake in this piece. The work is somewhat inconsistent, particularly as the play winds toward its conclusion, though its high points greatly outweigh its flaws.

MARS: Population 1 is an interesting experiment in the place of science fiction within theatre. This work could open the door for many more plays that present and confront sci-fi material. This genre is largely undiscovered territory in dramatic work, and this play suggests a great deal of potential in bringing such source material to the stage. Allerdyce proves that even the outer reaches of the solar system could prove a viable inspiration for theatre.

Author: James Allerdyce
Director: James Allerdyce


Yah!!! It mentions me!!! Yay!!!

August: Best month ever!!

I know it is a bold statement to declare August Best Month Ever, but I feel it is true. So far August has been great! Nick comes into the city ever Sunday-Tues for his internship, I'm designing another Fringe show and loving it (more on that later), work is steady and while more hours would be nice I get to use my free time to hang in the city. Not to mention it got hot! For like, a day, but still...it was over 90!! I couldn't fall asleep!! I wished for air conditioning and then got excited it was hot enough to want that!!

Anyway, here's some stuff I'm up to.

Melinda likes to do what is called "blind contours" to warm up before she starts drawing for real, basically it is drawing without looking at the paper. Anyway, I love them ever so much and she sent me one she did of me. Love!

Hanging down by the River.

Out for expresso with Nick in the West Village. They are too fancy for coffee there. I don't normally hang in that part of town but it is where my show is. There are like 5 million theatres down there. I swear they are just tucked into alleys and corners.

Back to the river! Hanging with Nick and Christine. These are in no particular order.

This is my dramatic movie moment.

I do love sitting on the steps in Union Square.

Lightbulbs! We cleaned out the entire basement at work and my job was to inventory all the lightbulbs we've collected over 5 years or so. It was dusty work, but not as horrible as it sounds. I loved finding all the weird bulbs, and spent 3 days imagining all the chandeliers and such I wanted to make it I had the time, space, and money to do so.
This box was tiny chadelier bulbs and it was like playing with tiny unbreakable bubbles.

I also spend 2 days spray-painting old gear. This is what my hands looked like after 8 cans. Only 7 more to go! Man, my fingers hurt.

While testing out hanging methods, we essentially had 3 crosses standing in our shop. It was creepy.

I haven't been to a free friday at MOMA in awhile. The outside courtyard is just beautiful. It's sad I only go when it's free and therefore very crowded.

They've changed a lot of the small exhibits and it was full of new delightful things. This was balanced out by the fact that all their big summer exhibits they are advertising are awful.

They have a tiny theatre exhibit that they are not advertising. I don't know why they don't show more theatre stuff in museums. It's beautiful. Anyway, needless to say I was thrilled. I was practically drooling over these set drawings.

A set drawing by Robert Edmund Jones who is just...I don't know a good comparision but he's very important in technical theatre history. Just trust me.

Beautiful drafting.

A costume design for Puck from A Midsummer Night's Dream.

This is a costume! See the legs? Designed by Picasso!! How awesome is that?!

They were selling Sonic Youth CDs because of a music exhibit going on. I am so cultured. I just saw them in STL!

The park.

The roof at work. They don't like us going up there in the summer cuz clients go up there.

Espresso with Nick.

Nick+coffee on the train to work.

My fave spot to eat breakfast before work.

So pretty in the morning.

3 days of work and counting and this is what I have. Too bad I didn't take a before picture.

Sandwich+coke in a glass bottle for $5. Yay for the deli down the street.

We are learning sound stuff at work so we can pull sound gear, so that they don't have to hire more people for the sound shop, but whatever I like learning it. Anyway, we got to play with a turntable and it was predictably AWESOME. If you ever got a couple thousand to blow on something useless I highly reccomend this.