Rereading the Odyssey

I guess it is somewhat natural, but everyone is talking about The Odyssey nowadays.  I haven't booked a ticket yet to see Nolan's Odyssey yet, but I will fairly soon.  Interestingly, Market Square is showing it, but I want to try to see it at an IMAX theatre, at the very least, though I am not going to fly to Regina or wherever to see it in Super IMAX.  There are even podcasts dedicated to the Odyssey this summer (Secret Life of Books Eps. 154-158, in particular), as well as plenty of articles talking about what Nolan left out (the bed riddle and almost all of the sex with Circe and especially Calypso) or added, most notably the ending.  There are in fact some scraps of legends talking about what happened to Odysseus post-Ithaca, so it isn't as if this ending was completely tacked on, but it certainly isn't what is in the Odyssey itself.  His final voyage is discussed in passing in Dante and is actually the focus of Tennyson's Ulysses.  I suspect I will overall enjoy it, though I've heard parts are extra loud and then there are long stretches with people whispering.  I honestly wonder why no one can seem to convince him that his audience would actually grow more if he didn't tinker with the sound balance so much.  I will not go to see Tenet again for this very reason...

I'm debating rereading The Odyssey or at least large chunks of it before I go off to the movie, along with many, many others.  (There is even a piece on how bookstores can't keep up with demand for The Odyssey, The Iliad and other classics (paywalled unfortunately).)  I recall that back in 2019 I read the Fitzgerald and Lattimore translations of both The Iliad and The Odyssey back to back, coming down firmly in favour of Lattimore, and fortunately I still have my copies of Lattimore's Homer.  I've only read a very few snatches of the Wilson and Mendelsohn translations.  I'll dig a bit deeper, but am almost certain I will come back to Lattimore as the best translation for what I am looking for in Homer.  (As a bit of a follow-up to this post, I did end up getting Musa's Portable Dante, and I really ought to read that fairly soon, alternating with Ciardi's translations.  I even have Longfellow's translation of Dante!  I don't think anyone finds that a particularly good translation, but it has all of Dore's illustrations, which makes it worth perusing as well.)

Interestingly, Mendelsohn has a memoir or fictionalized memoir (An Odyssey: A Father, a Son and an Epic) about his father sitting in on his class about the Odyssey and their bonds growing stronger through exploring the text.  This sort of sounds like what Night Journey at this year's Toronto Fringe was going for, though it was ultimate pretty disappointing.  

I had high hopes for this, but they were dashed.  It's hard to say just what went wrong, though pretty much every critic agreed that the social media influencer who comes in at the very end and tries to stir up trouble was a huge mis-step.  This wasn't even remotely believable.  I would say that it suffers the most from the playwright not actually writing about anything he knows about personally (academic politics) so filled in the gaps from what he pulled from diverse headlines over the years.  It wasn't really clear whether this was all taking place at a university or a college (which in Canada are basically community colleges).  

The professor clearly operates as if he is in a classics department in a university, and the rich heir would never be sent to a college (his character was not remotely believable, which was another major problem).  However, the bizarre under-resourcing, the other three students and the way that the board of regents tried to bend over backwards to pacify a loony social media agitator all reek of college.  Aside from the complete lack of insight into how the college politics would play out, the play just didn't dive into the poem itself enough and show how wrestling with the thorny issues in the poem changed the students' lives.  Most of the character growth (generally not believable) came through interactions that had nothing to do with the source material itself.  And the staging was just ridiculous with so many short, unlinked scenes, making this drag on for too long.  So this really requires a complete rethinking and rewriting.  It was such a missed opportunity.

 

Edit (7/27): I spent a bit of time looking into the other translations, and I do not like Emily Wilson's at all.  Far too spare and not really poetic at all.  Am I at all influenced by how she so needlessly ran down Nolan (saying she would be "ashamed" to be associated with it), even after he praised her highly (and certainly increased sales of her translation)?  Perhaps.  I don't really need to justify my opinions.  I thought Mendelsohn's wasn't bad, but still always was a close second to Lattimore, and I don't really see what it adds, so I'll just stick with Lattimore for now.  (I don't have an edition with this cover unfortunately, but at least I have a physical copy at hand.)  I probably will try to flip through Mendelsohn's memoir at some point.

 

Life Away from Fringe

The Toronto Fringe wrapped up Sun.  I never did get around to posting my Fringe schedule, so I will do it retrospectively at some point with comments on what I saw.  I would say I enjoyed pretty much everything I saw with one unfortunate exception.  I will also post a few thoughts on my show and how things went and what I might do differently the next time.  (Each time at Fringe you learn something new...)  But I'll just write down some non-Fringe thoughts for now.

My son came down from Ottawa (admittedly in order to see my Fringe play).  He was scheduled to leave tomorrow, but with the extreme heat, Via is saying that the trains will have multi-hour delays(!), so it looks like he will stay until Thurs. or maybe even Friday.  It has been quite hot here.  Last week wasn't so bad, but the first week of Fringe there was a massive heat wave.  Which is back now.  I'm still planning on biking to work tomorrow, but will try to set up before the worst of the heat, and then perhaps I'll go swimming on the way home, which might help a bit.

I haven't done too much other than Fringe for the past two weeks.  I had wanted to see Silent Running over at the Paradise.  But it overlapped with Galen's Grocer: the Musical, which was amusing but quite goofy, and Night Journey, so I really couldn't make it.  I also had thought very seriously about catching the first set of Kirk MacDonald with Neil Swainson at the Rex.  This is very similar to the group that I saw at the Jazz Bistro, though Neil wasn't sitting in.  In the end, my wife and son went to an Indian restaurant (after coming back from You Choose), and then I biked off to see 2076 at Sweet Action Theatre.  While I would have enjoyed the set, 2076 was pretty good, and I wouldn't really wanted to have missed it.  I'll probably be going to the Jazz Bistro once or even twice this week, so it's not like I won't get my jazz fix in.

That day I also took them to the AGO (in between my Fringe show and You Choose), so that was at least something different.  The current exhibition is Impressionist paintings on loan from Dallas.  The exhibition runs through mid Oct., so I'll go back several times.  The room with the two Monet's was definitely the most popular, and it was very hard to see the paintings at all.  Here's one of them:

Claude Monet, The Water Lily Pond (Clouds), 1903

My favourite was probably this painting by Pissarro:

Camille Pissarro, The Fish Market, Dieppe: Grey Weather, Morning, 1902

I really have not been able to keep up with my reading.  I did read Sayaka Murata's Convenience Store Woman (in the course of a single day!) for Book Club, but didn't care for it very much.

I am midway through Copland's Microserfs, and this is a bit more to my taste.  It explores a world that I remember, even though I was never particularly into coding in the late 80s or 90s and mostly just used computers for course work.  I'm pretty sure I never took a course in computer science or computer engineering, though by the late 90s I was using quite specialized programs for work (and indeed the need to move back and forth between work and home computers led me away from Macs in the late 90s, as they were not compatible with these programs).

I finally gave up on Dorfman's The Last Song of Manuel Sendero.  It just felt so incredibly static with all these unborn babies trying not to be born to stick it to the (Chilean) dictatorship, but nothing happened at all even as I skipped ahead.  (In some ways, Midnight's Children also deals with a large cadre of children, albeit those that were born, but then these children get up to all kinds of things in the real world.)  Apparently, there is this whole meta-fictional thing going where thousands of years in the future, they are trying to uncover the truth about the events in the book (not unlike what happens in Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play) but either I didn't reach that stage or more likely I didn't understand what Dorfman was trying to convey.  I just found it all intentionally obscure, and I generally can't bear books like that.  My recollection is that Fuentes's Christopher Unborn, which came out a couple of years before Manuel Sendero, is far more interesting and engaging.  I'd like to try to read it this year, though I am certainly worried that I won't like it nearly as much this time around.

I have started Jennifer Offill's Weather, and this is far more to my taste, so I plan to read this and a few other short books that I am fairly sure I will like, including Narayan's The Vendor of Sweets and perhaps rereading Iris Murdoch's Under the Net and perhaps Denis Johnson's Train Dreams (which I am less sure I will like, but it is quite short whenever I can actually get it from the library) to try to get back into my reading habits.  I guess that is enough for now, as I do need to get back to work.  My next posts will probably be those Fringe round-up posts, but I definitely don't have time to tackle them now.
 

A (Nearly) Sold Out Show!

Yesterday afternoon was the best ticket sales so far.  I knew it was going to be a big crowd, but I was expecting around 75 people.  In the end, with a few last walk-ups, we had 101!  

Here we see people actually wrapping around the corner, waiting to get in!

Alumnae is one of the bigger theatres, seating 123 (or so), so it wasn't sold out, but very close.

It was a solid show, though we had some problem with the sound cue between scene 1 and 2, and then a rushed entrance midway through scene 2.  But people seemed to get the jokes and generally had a good time.

I didn't hang out with the actors this time around, but I talked briefly to the Fringe staff (one of whom wants to do more producing of her own, so we may connect) and then biked up to Tarragon to see You Choose (again).

I haven't had much luck passing out postcards at Soulpepper, but I have always had better luck at Tarragon, and tonight was no exception.  In fact, as I was passing out the cards, one guy said that he didn't need one, he had seen the show.  I asked if he had liked it, and he said yes.  Then I passed out the postcard to the next person, and he said to her that it was a fun show.  So that's amazing, and that's exactly the word of mouth we need for a strong second week.

In fact, sales for this second week of Fringe are pretty good, with the exception of tonight, where sales are on the low side (20) but I'm expecting some late sales and walk ups.  I think every show after tonight is at least 30 and usually 40 or more, so we should have a strong second week to close out Fringe.  As ever, more info and a link to buy tickets to see the show yourself can be found here.

I've kind of personally hit a wall, and am a little tired of all the hustling.  I wouldn't say I really want Fringe to be over, but I don't want to feel responsible for stirring up more ticket sales (or trying to break even, a more or less impossible task) or if anything goes wrong at one of the shows.  I'd rather just focus on the shows I have booked to see and let everything else go for now...

 

2nd Show over

There is so much more I wanted to write, but I am running so late today (and I absolutely need to get my time sheet in before I run off to MOCA!).  I'll see if I can add more tonight after I am back from our 3rd show and You Choose.

We have our own mini Fringe tent right outside Alumnae Theatre. This does attract a few passers-by, which is great.  We're pretty close to the Fringe Hub, but Berkeley is still a little bit out of the way.

 

 

Last show of the night at Alumnae

Last night was always the lowest in terms of sales, but the Daily Discount helped.  In fact, we had been stuck at 9 for days.  Then I got word right before the start of the show that we were up to 20.  There were a few people buy tickets at the door and had two more volunteers get rush tickets (which is itself a good sign).  In the end, we had 27, which is not bad for an evening show on Sat.

It was a very good performance of the show, and the audience was engaged (and laughed at the funny parts).  It ran 54 minutes, which is incredible.  I think we're pretty much in the groove from here on out, and I'll see if we want to add in any shout outs tonight.  Still, it is tight, and there are always a few people that run out immediately after curtain call.  There was also one guy who left mid-show, which is a bit odd, though I wouldn't be surprised if he thought Eric Peterson was involved and then wasn't so interested after that...

Definitely looking forward to the rest of the run. Link with more info (and tickets) here. 

Edit: I really thought I would make it over to MOCA today, but I think it's just one too many things.  I'll get ready to go swimming, then see Medusa at Soulpepper and then make sure to run off a few more programs, as today's show will have close to 100 people!  I don't think I'll have time to hit MOCA.  I'll see if I can go another time, or wait for the first weekend in August when it will be free (again).

Dialing Back (Slightly) on Fringe This Weekend

Our show has two shows over the weekend, and one on Monday, so I definitely won't be cutting back much, but I was toying with the idea of sneaking in Camp or Such Ado around 3 pm today (when I had a gap in my schedule), and I just don't feel like it.  I may see if I can do one more pass by Fringe Central and pass out postcards, but I'm kind of tired of Fringe at the moment.  (Maybe due to seeing 3 yesterday, including a late show last night...)  I'll write more about what I got up to on Friday later.

I am about to head off to the gym.  There is a bit of a break in the rain, and it's cooler.  I suspect it feels much better outside than inside...  Then I am going downtown.  I think I'll try to hit the AGO, but only to see one exhibit, then stop by City Hall Library to get a couple of DVDs that should be on the shelves.  Maybe put in an hour or so at work, as I am quite behind on one project, and it is starting to weigh on me.  On the other hand, I could just hit 401 Richmond and then get to Factory early (I have a 5:30 show there) to pass out more postcards.  (I probably should have cut the order in half when I reordered them.  I am going to end up with a lot left over...)

Then I'll grab something to eat (maybe at the Well) and then make sure to get to our show around 8:30.  That might give me another hour or so at work.  We'll see.

Sunday is a little simpler, but it does depend a bit on good weather.  I am planning on leaving around 9:30, getting to MOCA a bit after 10, check out the exhibit there, then come back to Regent Park and go swimming, making sure to wrap by 12:45, to get over to Soulpepper to see Medusa at 1:30.  Then we have our show at Alumnae, and I have one more chance to check out The Howland Company's You Choose at Tarragon at 7.  And that will be a wrap on the weekend.

Gotta run now.

Opening Night!

I think, all in all, it went off incredibly well.  There were a few snags, as always.  They let us in 5 minutes late, so we scrambled a bit.  Next time we'll set up the stage first and then get into costume.  The sound was a bit low at the very start, but they fixed that.

There were a few line drops but nothing too significant and nobody froze.  The most significant misstep was when an actor skipped pretty close to a whole page, leaving out a song!  (In fact the only song, though intentionally it wasn't an amazing song.)  Amazingly, the other two actors in the scene were able to keep going, even after he realized his mistake and redirected back to the song.  (I would have been upset for the actor who is supposed to sing if his whole moment was lost.)  So it feels like things are under control, and I can probably just leave the script at home from here on out.

One slight downside is that while Alumnae is air conditioned, it is so loud, they only run it between performances, so the audience did start to wilt and I think the second scene suffered a bit due to that.  But there were good laughs in the first and third scenes.  

We had over 40 people for the opening, which is terrific.  Most night we are doing pretty well, though Sat. evening is low, so I will make it one of the Daily Deals.  We have 75 people booked to show up on Sun., which is incredible.

We're sitting at just over 240 seats sold (plus passes).  I will have to adjust my expectations somewhat, as I thought we would be doing pretty well if we got to 250, and we will clearly surpass that.  Maybe 300, with 350 as a stretch goal.  We still won't actually break even, that would take probably 500-600, but it isn't going to be a complete financial disaster...  I thought there was an outside chance we might be Patron Pick at Alumnae, but we are up against a ringer -- Every Fringe Show You've Ever Seen All At Once.  I think the only way we would get it is if they had too many schedule conflicts (as they are already performing on Sunday!) and bowed out, which they would be crazy to do.  So I think I will likely be able to see Whose Lineage is It Anyway again on Sunday, but again I will hold off for a while.  Hopefully that performance doesn't sell out.  (I mean I do have an unused voucher, so I could book it anyway and pass it to someone else if we somehow do end up being Patron Pick for Alumnae.)

Today, I am off to see Little One, by Leroy Company.  I'm still looking forward to it, but am still also annoyed that they moved the venue from Bloor down to Queen, so getting between Little One and Fray will be challenging, particularly if this when we get hit with the sporadic thunderstorms in the forecast.  I wouldn't have constructed my schedule this way if I had known beforehand what the ultimate venue would be.  Interestingly, Fray is in a tiny black box theatre not far at all from Aluna, where we did all our rehearsing.  There is an outside chance that I will hit Potato Potato Saves the World at Soulpepper.  (It's more or less on the way back, though I would have to dip a bit further south, but it is at the brutal time of 10:30 pm.  In fact, I see they made this show a Daily Discount, though I would use my rush pass, given I don't want to commit to going until I know how I feel, and if I get soaked in the rain...)

 

 

Day One (and a Half) of Fringe

Day One got off to a pretty good start.

I stopped by Fringe Central (in the Distillery).  I was there to try to get the artist lanyards, but they still weren't ready!  They will have some temporary lanyards, apparently on Thurs.  Then I will need to stop by one last time when the real ones come in.  Sigh.  I was able to pick up the artist rush passes, so I'll bring those to the show on Thurs.

I also talked to someone about upping the number of comp. tickets I can request for each show, which I do need to fix before I book the next round of comps.

I saw our poster has a decent position on wall of posters in Fringe Central in Distillery.  It has decent but not amazing positioning on the wall.

 

I was also able to leave a decent amount of postcards inside the Soulpepper atrium.

Then I swung by Equity, which has an office on Victoria St.  I was pretty late on the paperwork, and I really wanted to get it in before the first show.  I had to call someone, since you can't just go up to their floor.  Then I got a voice mail saying they had closed early.  I was a bit miffed, but I saw a security guard and asked him if they had a drop box or something.  He actually agreed to drop off the envelope to the floor, which I thought was great.  Then he came back down and said the receptionist was still there, and she wanted to talk to me.  This was pretty baffling to me, but I quickly realized she had thought I was Eric Peterson (whom she knew), but she then told me twice that she wasn't disappointed I wasn't him...  Anyway, she had my cheque and said it would be processed on Thurs.  At any rate, she said she knew Mark Terene, who is playing one of the leads in At Home with the Bards, and that she and a few others were coming to see the show.

I had a very short stint at work after this, mostly coming in for Book Club, where we were discussing Murata's Convenience Store Woman.  I didn't really care for it, as I am just not feeling up to reading books about autistic characters.  It was a quick read, however.  And Nermean brought in rice cakes as a snack.

On the way up to Tarragon to see You Choose (an improvised murder mystery by the Howland Company), I was able to stop by Robarts and return the book.  It wasn't a bad ride up there, though it was hot.  I was wearing the cast t-shirt and passed out a ton of postcards.  My 5 second pitch is "Stratford bed and breakfast comedy" and hand over a postcard, which worked pretty well.  In general, I think Fringe audiences really respect the hustle more than anything.  One couple I talked to already had tickets, which is a pretty great feeling!  Inside the theatre, I was sitting close to the actor who was in King Gilgamesh.  We didn't really talk about it, but I said I liked it, and then handed over a postcards.  I definitely convinced the woman sitting next to me at the show to come to see our show.  

You Choose is quite good, though it doesn't quite hit the same heights as Entrances and Exits, which was truly next level improv.  I'm actually seeing it two more times, so we'll see how it goes the other times.

I thought the next show was at 9 at Tarragon, so I would go around the corner to grab some pizza and get back in line (as I had almost no postcards left!).  However, it turns out Whose Lineage is It Anyway? is at Factory, so I biked straight down Bathurst to see that (and didn't eat after all).  Because they have added red paint and made the central lanes streetcar only, the cars are in the right lane, and it truly feels like a deathtrap for cyclists.  I certainly hope I don't have any other days I need to go straight from Factory to Tarragon or vice versa!  I'll have to investigate some other routes, as I really want to avoid Bathurst from here on out.

I ran into our stage manager, Victoria, at Factory.  We were both going to the show.  I told a few people in the line about our show (and displayed a smaller poster I had with me).  One woman is going to be at opening.  

Whose Lineage is It Anyway? was outstanding.  They do an improvised show in the style of a Shakespeare history play (using Victoria's prompt no less!), and often manage to speak in rhyming couplets.  It really is impressive.  I'd like to see it again, but I think the only time I could go is late on the last Sunday.  I'll forebear from booking that time slot for a little bit longer, even though I just realized we are up against a ringer for Critic's Choice at Alumnae.  Every Fringe Show You've Ever Seen All At Once is almost certainly going to be the show at Alumnae that gets the extra show on Sunday, and we'll likely come in second.  (Which means I might go see Whose Lineage is It Anyway after all, though I won't book just yet...)

We're still doing quite well.  When I checked on the numbers, we had jumped from 150 to 190 in a single day.  I know I can't take credit for all of that...

Canada Day is a more low-key day, as there are very few shows going on, not least because it is super hard to convince the main venues to open up, so it is mostly stuff happening at Fringe Central and the unconventional venues.

I had certainly considered going to see Such Ado, but it was sold out today!  And I might still have run up and tried to use my rush pass, but I was actually proctoring my daughter taking a math test at that time!

I did get to the gym a bit later than I hoped, and it was so very crowded.  I put in about half a workout (and I still need to make up for skipping the gym last Saturday!).  Then I biked straight over to Fringe Central and participated in the Fringe parade.  Brian (the actor playing Robin Bard) was there, along with the director.  I'm glad I turned up, as they didn't have any posters to promote the show.

The crowds watching the parade were on the thin side, probably due to the extreme heat, as well as competing activities (like watching the World Cup).  Nonetheless, I talked to several people, and I think I convinced some volunteers to go.

Our first performance is tomorrow after work.  I'm excited and yet still nervous all at the same time.  I guess at this point, I just have to let it all go and let the actors do their thing.

More Fringe odds and ends

I do wish I had been just a bit more prepared, as I really should have had the Equity info printed out for the 5 Equity (and ACTRA) members to sign last night.  I've been meaning to deal with this, but the form was lost in a deep email chain, and I have been so busy (including being behind on some work work).  I'm pretty sure as long as I drop this off with Equity (with the cheque* to cover insurance!) they will overlook this, or in the worst case I can get the signatures before the show on Thurs.  (I did get the cast to sign one of the big posters, as discussed here.)

I also got everyone to sign off on their bios in the program, so I will run a bunch of those off, as well as one more round of postcards from the printer.  If I had had them ready, I could have done a bit of a folding party last night at my place.  Oh well.  It would have been premature in case someone needed any rewrites; then I would have had to reprint the programs.

Anyway, the cast came by and we did two more run-throughs of just the lines.  I don't think it was a mistake doing this, though a few of them found it hard to do their lines without all the blocking and the set, etc., since it is all tied together in their mind now.  I'm actually at the point where I don't need to hear the play again; I need to see how outsiders react to it, which is why Thurs. and Sat. will be so exciting and terrifying.  (Tickets here!)

The lanyards still haven't come in, which is annoying, though I worked pretty late on Monday anyway, which would have made it hard to break and mosey on over to Fringe HQ.  I sure hope they are in soon, though I am not sure if there will be a way to get them on Wed. (Canada Day!) if they aren't in today.  I'm not even sure how I would pick them up today, though maybe if I took the Queen streetcar over, then I could hit Equity as well.  That's probably not a terrible plan...  But it does depend a great deal on when the lanyards actually come in.

Our t-shirts came in and look quite snazzy.  (They do run a bit small, which I was pretty sure would be the case.)

I'm off to Tarragon this evening to see two improv shows, so I will wear the t-shirt and hand out some of the remaining postcards while I am there.  Two birds with one stone, as it were...

 

* Between the extra fees and more postcards and covering part of the cast t-shirts, we are back in the red (appropriate given the t-shirts, I guess).  I'm not sure I really want to know how many tickets we would need to sell to cover everything.  Maybe 500 or 600.  Probably even more than that now that I think about it.  But we are at 150 sold, and the Fringe is just starting, and I'm actually hoping for pretty good word of mouth, so here's hoping...

Tech Date

I now have the photos from our Tech. date on Sunday.

Here we are, just slowly getting set up, deciding how much space we need between the table and the cart and so on.  We actually have much more space in front of the furniture, though the stage isn't actually as wide as I had thought, due to how the side curtains are arranged.  (And oddly enough, their back curtain has a bit of a gap in it stage left, which really shouldn't be that hard to fix...)

This is the view from the stage out into the audience.  Not a view I am used to...  (And the ladder will be gone during the actual performances...)

Then we worked on the transitions and the sound and lighting cues, and then had nearly enough time for a full run.  Probably needed 10 more minutes.  So things are definitely falling into place.

Here are some shots from that last run-through.

.

And practicing for the curtain call...

We may or may not have time for shout-outs to other companies.  I don't think we'll really know until we've gotten through an actual performance or two.

Anyway, it is all very exciting to see it come together finally.  More info on the schedule and links to tickets here.

Dress Rehearsal - Sat.

Quite a bit of news, but I am running quite late.

Saturday, I did a fair bit of postering, which I'll discuss separately.  I made it there around 7:15, and the actors were just assembling.  Then they ran some lines in the parking lot, making it midway through Scene 3, then we did the first dress rehearsal.  The actors were definitely off book, though there were a couple of weird exchanges where someone skipped a few lines.  I'll post quite a few photos below.

Sunday was tech day over at Alumnae.  I think the best moment for me was when I realized we did have (just) enough space to get all the props in place, and there is even a bar in our space so the actors can leave costumes if they so choose.  It's good I picked up some extra bungee cords!

It took a bit longer than I had hoped to get the tech down, and there was some miscommunication at the end where the actors thought we were starting with a full run-through, but we were actually working out the cues between the scenes.  We needed perhaps 10 more minutes to get through the whole show, but it looks like we are on track for a 55 minute show, which would be incredible.  And there were very few significant goofs, except one actor missing a cue.  At this point, I have simply seen it too many times.  I'm very curious how it will seem to someone coming at it fresh.

I actually had to cab it over with my 5 folding chairs.  Everything else was brought by other people.  (At least it was only a regular cab and not the extra charge for a cargo van...)  In the end, we only needed one parking permit for Alumnae.  It was a close thing, but I managed to return it to Alumnae before the performer drove off, and then I caught a ride from Lynn.  It was only a few blocks, but I didn't have my bike with me for once.  I put in a couple of hours at work, though truthfully I mostly worked on the program, which I sent around to the cast for comments.  It looks like I did manage to get it down to 1 page, double-sided, though there was no remaining space for ads or sharing space with another company.  C'est la vie.

I missed one group I had wanted to see at the Jazz Festival, but I did make it up to Yorkville to see the Charley Rose Trio.  I was about 10 minutes late, but I managed to catch the vast majority of the set.  I was going to stop in at a Kupfert and Kim's, but they weren't serving any more food, so I backtracked to Spadina and went to the burrito place.  My favorite server was there, and we briefly talked about books.  I left a poster to see if they might put it up, but they didn't really have space for it.

I got home and did a fair bit of work, then just crashed.  My hopes to see Jen Lo at the Pilot were just not that realistic with everything else that's been going on.

Anyway, here are some of the photos from the dress rehearsal.