City Museum...

"The roof is 11 stories up. You can take the elevator, or if you're feeling adventurous, you can go through the Enchanted Caves."

This what the ticket girl told us at the entrance to the St. Louis City Museum. After that, the rest of the night was pure madness.

The City Museum is what would happen if a group of installation-artists tried to build a McDonald's Play-Place using only an empty office building, a million dollars, a limitless supply of scrap-metal, and enough mescaline for 3.5 Burning Mans (Burning Men?).

I understand the implications of my previous statement are dire. However, I stand by every word.

Pictured: The St. Louis City Museum's Board of Directors.

Simply put, the City Museum is one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. The term "Museum" is a loose one, playground being more appropriate. The entire inside and outside of the building is covered in tunnels, crazy-staircases, and slides (one of which spirals down about six or seven stories). There's also a bar or two. Exploring the museum feels like some sort of drug trip.

Todd utilizing the City Museum's main mode of transportation.

I adventured into this madhouse with Todd, one of my cast members from Secret Order. During our exploits, he ran into an actress friend who was in town on a national tour of The Phantom of the Opera. We ended up joining her and some of her cast-mates in the forrest-lodge-themed bar in the lobby. We drank apple-cider with rum and talked about life on a national tour, before parting ways to go climb more mind-blowing contraptions. During my time here, I've had countless opportunities to pick the brains of working theater professionals. Nothing gets me more excited for the future.

I wish I would have taken more pictures of the museum, but it was dark and rainy and I'm not a great photographer. It is simply impossible to describe with words alone, so I'm just going to have to take everyone there on a road trip or something. Who's in?

Expect another post tonight or tomorrow with a more complete update on the life and times of a St. Louis Assistant Director...

Action and Adventure!

Here we go again. With me as always is my co-host, bad ideas.

Funny thing about a first "stumble-through." Its beauty is really in the eye of the beholder. It's quite possible for actors to feel like it sucked, whereas at the same time the director sees — holy shit SWINE FLU PARTIES???

Let me get this straight. Go to swine flu party. Interact with infected individuals. Contract H1N1. Go about your daily life. Recover from illness with a fresh outlook, a spring in your step, and an immunity to this form of the disease.

Hmmm... nope. Can't see any hole in that plan. Looks pretty bulletproof to me.

Any other brain-busters, bad ideas?

more theatrical ramblings... and a little politics

Welcome back to the blog. Joining me as always is my co-host, breakdancing accidents.

That's BBQ spaghetti. Yes, you read that right. St. Louis serves up spaghetti tossed in BBQ sauce and pulled pork. Your move, California.

On Monday I caught "The Laramie Project: 10 Years Later" at Webster University in St. Louis. As the name suggests, the Tectonic Theater Project returned to Laramie, Wyoming ten years after their first trip (from which the original "Laramie Project" was born) and caught up with the citizens they interviewed to create the original play. In honor of the 11th anniversary of Matthew Shepard's death on Monday, staged readings of "10 Years Later" was performed simultaneously by theater companies all over the world.

I was in "The Laramie Project" years ago, and still remember it as one of the most rewarding theatrical experiences I've had. The world of Laramie and its inhabitants becomes a part of you, and it was fascinating and sobering to be reintroduced to them all over again. The play also covered the defeat of Wyoming's own "Defense of Marriage" Act. If the "Cowboy State" can do it, anyone can. (Once again, your move, California).

Unfortunately, the collection of interviews that told the story wasn't nearly as well composed as the original (indeed, that's a tall order). The acting was hit or miss in some places, despite a mostly Equity cast from touring companies. However, I must say my first and second favorite actors in the piece were clones of Abraham Lincoln and Ben Margalith, respectively. These guys were ballers, but the rest of the cast was a mixed bag. Top it off with sound design consisting of generic piano music piped into the theater at arbitrary moments, and you have a mildly engaging night of theater.

Overall, I appreciated the reading more as a work of journalism than as a work of theater.I'm thankful the Tectonic Theater Project revisited the Matthew Shepard story. It still needs to be told; as the story itself and the national struggle behind it are still evolving.

Plus, I'm down for any ensemble led by Abe and Ben.

Moving on, lets see if we can't lighten the mood... anything to add to the subject, breakdancing accidents?

Ah yes, very poignant.

And now, a brief foray into another pressing matter. When I started this blog, I promised myself I wouldn't let the discussion get too political, but my friends, I feel there is an issue that has been pushed aside in the national political zeitgeist as of late. Thankfully, I recently came across a galvanizing article on the subject that frankly articulates it much better than I ever could. It is my privilege to share it with you, and hopefully re-open conversation on this issue.


Whew! Next blog post will be shorter, I promise. For those of you who made it all the way to the end, lets hear from breakdancing accidents one more time.

ducks specializing in medical ethics

The play I'm working on deals heavily in medical ethics. As a matter of course, we had a medical ethics professor from Washington University at St. Louis come into rehearsal today to speak with the cast and artistic team.

She had a tremendous speech impediment.

Don't get me wrong, the professor had a wealth of wisdom to bring to the conversation, and even read the script so as to tailor her discussion and citations to the work at hand. Hearing about real life fraud cases in the medical research field helped add a good deal of perspective to our rehearsal process.

Seriously though, she sounded like a cartoon duck.

As such, I found the best way to deal with this mentally was to imagine her as such.

But shit, this duck person sure had a hell of a lot to bring to a discussion about ethics. Who am I to judge such a well-read creature?


Furthermore, I've discovered a great way to pass one's time while not discussing human research boards with matriculated anatidae is working out at a po-dunk college gymnasium while listening to an audiobook of Richard Dawkin's "The God Delusion." The book is narrated by the author and his wife, both of whom are too British to exist in our dimension. Listening to them speak while trying to sort through poorly-organized free weights is a mildly psychedelic experience.


And that's what happened today.

Moving right along...

Welcome back. Joining me as alway is my co-host, Germans.

It's day two of rehearsal, things are getting interesting. As mentioned in the last post, Bob Clyman's Secret Order is a play about cancer research, but it ain't exactly a science-y snoozefest (on a side note, "Science-y Snoozefest" was the name of quickly-cancelled game-show on CBS. Frankly, I don't know how it even got green-lit).

The play is written more in the style of The West Wing or Law & Order; intelligent, witty professionals at the top of their game taking care of business in fast-paced, efficient dialogue. I must have read it at least six times before yesterday, but hearing it aloud is a horse of an entirely different color. See a play grow from a script, to spoken words, to staged action, and finally a full performance is the single best part of doing theater. That, and getting free concessions.

However, there is a good deal of technical dialogue in the script, and in the weeks before rehearsal it fell upon me as assistant director to "elucidate" the techno-babel for the actors. My job was to create a packet that defined and explained every reference in the play that may be foreign to anyone without a brain full of science, as well as answer questions about said science that come up during rehearsal.

(pictured: Science)

I'm surprised how much of this I actually retained, as well. If anybody wants to know the difference between mass spectrometry and flow cytometry, I'm your guy. Just don't wait too long to ask me, it's sure to get pushed out of my brain sooner or later.

In other news, having my own apartment rocks. This place is huge.

Damn, I wish I had some pot...

Play me off, Germans.

Meet me in... well, you know.

Welcome to the blog. Joining me as always is my co-host, puppets.

Today I managed to fly all the way to St. Louis, Missouri, without this happening, so consider my blessings counted.

Tomorrow I begin assistant directing The Secret Order at St. Louis Rep, alongside the incomparable Risa Brainin. After a month of preparation and research (it's a play about finding the cure for cancer, so some homework was involved), rubber hits road tomorrow. Production meeting 11:00 am, first rehearsal at high noon.

Yesterday I went rock climbing in Santa Barbara for the first time since last summer's devastating wildfire. The Gibraltar area, up the hill from the Santa Barbara Mission, was hit hard. We chose the Toxic Waste wall, a brilliantly patinaed sport climbing crag that was previously obscured by all manner of trees and bushes, impeding access and hiding the face from the road.

Pre-fire

The trees are gone, the whole hillside covered with black ash and dirt. As the trees turned to ash, the soil loosened, and every step up the hill caused rocks to tumble and fall away beneath us. In some places, our feet sank into the sand up to our ankles. As the day went on, the wind picked up, whipping sand and ash into our faces. I had forgotten how much I like the climbing at Toxic Waste, but I never considered how much the ecosystem of a climbing area affects its character. Here's hoping the Santa Barbara hills recover quickly, or at least before next summer's fire.

I probably shouldn't end things on such a downer. Take it away, puppets.