More Fringe rehearsal

Tonight was overall ok, though not all the actors were off-book.  A few swore they would be by Wed.  Let's hope so.

Taking notes at the end

One thing that is gratifying is that the actors are helping to start promote the show, taking some of the smaller posters and agreeing to take a bunch of postcards.  (I mean one would certainly hope they believed in the show by this point; I think a few of them are excited about it.)  

Ted has been helping out a lot on getting the final images together for the posters and the postcards, and then Alex created the QR code to get added to everything, which adds that professional touch (and will hopefully lead to more ticket sales).

Lynn is taking charge of getting matching polo shirts for herself and Brian (to be a bit of a uniform for the Bards) as well as the cast t-shirts, so that is all quite cool.

We've sold 80 tickets (though a few are going to reviewers!).  I think if we manage to sell 300 tickets we'll basically break even, aside from the stipend I plan to guarantee the cast and crew.  It might take more like 400 tickets to cover that, and the math may still not work, but it isn't really about the money, for me at least.  If you are interested, you can use this link (since I am behind the times on QR codes...).

Cooking Interlude

Sunday was an interesting day.  I started off making a pancake.  This was on the smaller side, partly because I didn't throw in a banana.  This was a cherry-blueberry pancake.  I thought I would try to keep it a bit more modest because we were going to try this African place near the LCBO.

Thus, I got a bit of a late start, not making it to the gym until right before noon.  I did a compressed workout and did the grocery shopping, and was back by around 1:30.

We set out, only to find that due to "technical difficulties," whatever those might have been, the restaurant was closed until sometime next week.  This was incredibly frustrating, and I debated just giving up and rescheduling, but we ended up wandering down to Queen.  

After some debate, we went into BKK Thai.  I ordered the curry noodles and a Thai iced tea.

It was tasty, but it was pretty soupy and would have been better with some rice to soak up the extra broth.  I had thought it was something else with silver noodles, and I'll just have to ask what that was the next time I am there.

We didn't get back until 3:30!  So I had a bit of time to try to get a few work things done, including laundry, though I did not manage to get the Fringe brochure finished, sadly.  I also only got halfway through cooking my red lentil dish. 

Then I went off to rehearsal, making it just in time.  It is close to an hour bike ride away!  I'll share some posts from rehearsal in the next post.

On the way back, I had hoped to stop at an interesting Indian place at Bloor and Lansdowne.  Given, I don't think I'll be back this way that often after next week, I thought I might as well check it out.  (There are two Indian places next door to each other on Bloor between Christie and Ossington, and I finally made it to one, and it was quite good, but I will be going back and forth to the Paradise a lot more often than west of Dufferin!)  Anyway, this place is only open until 9 pm, even in the middle of the week, so maybe what I'll do is hit it up on Wed. before rehearsal (and pick up extra napkins!).

Anyway, I continued on and dropped in at the burrito place.  The young woman at the counter was there again.  It seems Sunday evening is one of her regular shifts.  She asked what I was reading today, and I told her it was more poetry.  She said she was reading Harpman's  I Who Have Never Known Men, which sounds like a total downer.  I'm really not sure this is something I would ever read.  She said she was a bit addicted to buying books rather than getting them from the library, At some point, I showed her the picture of my bookshelves, and she was a bit overawed.  If I am not too pressed to do other things, maybe I'll make one more stop next Sunday and take her a few things from the Little Free Library out front.  I think Frayn's Headlong is still there and Findley's The Telling of Lies.

I got home and talked with my son who wished me a Happy Father's Day, and I tried to pin him down on when he will be back in Toronto and which day he plans to see the show.  Sadly, I fell asleep without finishing the red lentil dish, but I finished cooking it this morning.  It should be fine, though I will need to try to finish it early in the week, as sometimes the sweet potatoes go "off" a bit.

So those were my Sunday culinary adventures.

At Home with the Bards: the Poster

I think this looks pretty snazzy. 

I'm off to try to get a bunch printed off and have them (and a huge stack of postcards) ready by Wed.  Ticket sales aren't much higher than they were last week, but still decent for this far before Fringe starts.  Still, if you want to make sure you don't lose out, tickets can be purchased here.

Arts Interlude

I'll be back to promoting my Fringe show any moment.  I was looking over all the things I ought to post about that I have been up to.  

Since I didn't enjoy it, it won't take too long to go back and discuss The Caged Bird Sings over at Tarragon, which I saw last Thurs.  I was supposed to see this, basically as theatre in the round at Aga Khan, but it was in the open courtyard in the middle of the museum, but that day there were storms all day and the show couldn't go on.  I couldn't make any other dates, so I got a refund (but still saw the rest of the museum...).  I don't think I would have liked it any better in that set-up, though it would have been more intimate.  I think it was just too chopped up and there really was no emotional payoff, largely because they were trying to illustrate various poems and legends that Rumi had written, so there was no connected story.  I might have been ok with 45 minutes of this, but it was 90 minutes without a break.  I will say I think generally the audience was on the same wavelength, as only one or two people rose to give the obligatory standing O.  There was also a talkback, which I had zero interest in attending.

I had tentatively planned to go over to Hirut on Friday, but ended up working until 8!  I got some Thai food over at the Well, though I didn't enjoy it as much as I usually do (maybe because I had anticipated having Ethiopian food).  I was really bummed that the Samosarie seems to have closed.

I was reasonably pleased that I made it over to the library and got my swimming laps in by noon.  Then on the way back, I picked up the second print from the framers, and I'll get that hung up tonight or tomorrow.  I'm about to hit up a few small art galleries and perhaps the AGO if there is time.

Then I'll probably drop by work for an hour or two, and then aim to get to the Rex at 7:30.  I have a ticket for a show that starts at 8 and runs until 9:15, though I'll probably split at 9:05, since I am seeing Pearle Harbour at the Royal York Fairmont at 9:30!  So it will likely be a fairly packed day after all.  I guess I better get going...

Edit (6-21): I did make it to Corkin Gallery and Thomas Landry over in the Distillery (though they didn't have much new on, so I needn't have bothered), then I decided to go up to Dundas to get to the AGO.  I remembered that there was something new at the Image Centre at TMU, so I ran in to see that.  The AGO visit was extremely brief, as it turns out it is next week that the big new exhibit (Impressionist masterpieces on loan from the Dallas Museum of Art) opens next week.  Oops.  So I'll have to go back right away.  Then I hit 401 Richmond for the last day of the Selling Canada exhibit at Red Head Gallery and there was a new exhibit at Gagne Contemporary, so definitely worth swinging by.  I went to work a couple of hours before the Rex and then the Royal York Fairmont for Pearle Harbour Walks into a Bar.  So a pretty busy day in the end.

As I was biking home, I ran across some night bike ride, all glowing and having a good time.  Nonetheless, they acted far too much like Critical Mass for my taste, and I made sure to go in the opposite direction.  

I also stumbled across another Luminato installation called Pyramid Fields.  I haven't seen this during the day, but I think it must have a greater impact at night.

Fringe Postcard - First Draft

I'm having someone spruce this up a bit, but this was the early incarnation of the Fringe postcard for our show.  (I actually tried to post on Instagram, but something keeps going wrong.  I definitely won't last long there if I keep running up against these glitches.)

Anyway, here is the link for a bit more info and to book your tickets!  Ticket sales are actually not too bad, given we are still about two weeks out.  We had 70 tickets sold and 3 reviewers showing up (gratis).  Every date has at least a couple of people so far, and two night already have decent-sized crowds.  It's a hit!  Hope to see you there!

Fringe rehearsals

Just a few shots taken during rehearsal last Sun.  I didn't manage to get any from Wed. (tonight), but I'll see if I can get a few more (now that the set is really starting to shape up!) this Sun.  However, we are going off-book, and I will be handling the line prompts, so I may be a bit tied up.  Anyway, it's starting to come together, and I hope people can come out to see the show.  Link here for more info and tickets!

 

Book Recommendations in Unusual Locales

I can't recall if I mentioned that I was at a concert (something that Tapestry Orchestra was putting on) and I was next to a young woman reading an interesting looking book.  I finally figured out that she was reading Desai's The Inheritance of Loss.  I had Nabokov's Ada with me.  After the concert we talked just a bit about both authors.  I mentioned that Desai had just been in town for TIFA, and she was disappointed to have missed out on that.  I think I was planning on mentioning Reva's Endling to her, but we went our separate ways before I could do that.

I had an opportunity to plug the book another time, however.  I was coming back from rehearsal on Sunday and stopped off at the burrito place near the Spadina TTC stop.  A young woman was behind the counter, who I hadn't seen before, not that I go in there all that often.  She certainly looked like she might have been a UT student, though hard to say.  I was reading some of Jennifer LoveGrove's poetry.  She asked me what the book was about, and I said it was poetry, so it wasn't really about anything or maybe it was about everything.  She then asked if I read a lot, and I said I was a heavy reader since I was a child, and that I probably had read a couple of thousand books (which I think is true, not that I have ever tried to count).  She then asked what was my favourite, and I said that was an impossible question and she agreed.  I did recommend Reva's Endling, but she didn't seem too sold on it (perhaps the bit about the mail order brides or she just doesn't like stories about the war).  Then I said she should read Atwood's Cat's Eye, and that interested her a lot more.  She said she had been reading Dostoevsky, starting with White Nights, which was such an internet thing a few months (years?) back.  Impressively, she had pushed on and read Crime and Punishment and something else.  I told her she should read Demons, which was an underrated masterpiece.*  She said she would check  that out too.  So this was all pretty amusing, and definitely one of the more interesting literary conversations I've had outside of a book club.

It was particularly a bit amusing how she kept the conversation going, but it can only have been because she was a bit bored and really liked to talk about reading.  I have to go back close to 30 years before I can recall anyone flirting with me over books.  It was at the Seattle hostel when a young woman said that reading a book in a semi-public place like the dining area of a hostel was like a flame to a moth.  I have no idea what I was reading at that time.  She said that she just adored the work of John Fante.  (Years and years later, I read most of Fante's work but was left fairly cold...)

Maybe for my planning epic, I do have a young female employee of some sort who keeps trying to flirt (though on-going discussion of books) with a somewhat oblivious male planner.  In addition to being a bit oblivious and not really thinking a woman would be all that into him, he also has been "trained" to think that retail employees 1) don't really want to be hassled and asked out at work (which is overwhelmingly true) and 2) that retail employees are always extra nice to customers in order to get larger tips (also true), which indeed makes it a challenge for a retail worker who truly is trying to flirt with a customer.  This could be an interesting if low-key side plot.  Let me think more upon it.  

At any rate, I wonder if I will see the same worker if I stop by after rehearsal next week.  In case she asks again about the best book I've ever read, I could prepare by going through this list, which is probably the equivalent of my all-time favourite books, though probably a list that needs a bit of revisiting, as I would definitely drop Powers's Morte d'Urban and possibly Beckett's Waiting for Godot...

 

* From my review, I see that I was really, really big on Demons 12(!!!) years ago.  I suspect I was particularly primed to be reading Demons back then as I had see Stoppard's The Coast of Utopia back in April and then read quite a few Russian novels and even Herzen's memoirs.  Looking over the list, it is pretty astonishing even for me!  All this to say that I wonder if I would feel quite so positively towards Demons if I read it today (and should I continue to promote it so highly).  I would hope so, and I would love to find the time to read it again in the near future, though that seems a bit unlikely.

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