Don't Make Me Release The Flying Monkeys

Happy Labor Day! So, because time waits for no one, I should tell you now that I have adapted for stage and will be directing a live radio theatre productions of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians,, our own interpretation of the classic B "worst movie of all times" holiday classic by the Post-Meridian Radio Players.

All roles are open and there are at least 14 of them to fill. Performances are December 1 & 2 in Davis Square, Somerville. Audition sign-up is open now, so please spread the word!

Details and sign-up here: http://pmrp.org/auditions

Well! It looks like I haven't posted here since June! I do still read about once a week, but I wanted to hop on to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!

Tonight is cooking and baking night, in preparation for tomorrow and our guests. Hard to believe, but this will be the 9th year for beowabbit and me hosting Thanksgiving together, and 10 years exactly since the first day we met at surrealestate's Thanksgiving.

Three pies are currently in the oven (pumpkin, spicy apple and a cherry-apple crumble). Wabbit's mom silverlibre is here from Illinois, and is making Waldorf salad, among many other treats. Wabbit is on potato duty as well as brussels sprouts. Everything but the turkey will be done before we go to bed tonight, and we won't be too exhausted to have fun with our guests.

What else is new? I was recently in the PMRP Halloween show, and have just been cast in the upcoming PMRP gender-swapped Star Trek. I'm still loving my work at the DOE. More in love with Wabbit with every day. Oh those pies are smelling so good!

I don't know who's still here, but wishing you and yours a delightful Thanksgiving!

A wish that you and your loved ones enjoy brightness and warmth, laughter and kindness, hope and promise, starry nights, sunny days, and love in abundance, now and forever.

For more than a decade, I've dreamed of somehow mounting a stage production of Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask of Amontillado. It's my favorite Poe story, but it just isn't an easy one to stage because of lengthy walking sequences and the need to build a brick wall during the action.

Finally, live radio theatre made it feasible to actually do. My dream came true. It's up now, set in the 1920s Prohibition era, with more shows next weekend along with awesome productions of Mask of The Red Death, The Fall of The House of Usher and The Raven.

( cast photo under cut for LJ flist-borking )

Show information and tickets can be found at http://pmrp.org/.

To my talented local theatre friends – I so hope you will come out next Monday or Tuesday evening and audition for "Tomes of Terror:Nevermore" with the Post-Meridian Radio Players. Your talent is needed, and you might get to have ME as your director! All Poe, all the time, plenty of scares and foley deaths. All the deets are in the link, and you can sign up right there. If you’ve never done live radio theatre, it doesn’t rehearse as much as traditional theatre, and there’s NO memorization. If you’re one of the people who has talked to me about it, I don’t see you on the list and I’m feeling the sads. Audition! http://pmrp.org/

Yesterday I accompanied vanguardcdk and beowabbit on an excursion to South Easton MA to visit Simpson Spring, the oldest independent bottling plant in the US. Lest you think we were there for booze, what they bottle there is spring water and many flavors of their own soda. We got a tour of the plant, where they have taken strides to preserve history by retaining antique office furniture, bottles, labels and everything they could hang onto for historical reference. We saw the actual spring, which has been active for thousands of years and is now enclosed in a beautiful 1920s-era tile room, where the pumping happens.

I remarked to Wabbit "This is like the Wonka Factory tour, except that one of us should be disappearing violently in each successive room."

We visited their marketplace, which featured crafts, artisanal pasta, and baked goods along with the soda. It was lovely and I recommend a visit if you have a way to get out there. We left with multiple cases.

You can get a taste of the old-time sodas that CDK procured if you come to the next PMRP show, Summer Sleuths 2014. He'll have a variety of flavors for sale. Quite a treat!

Here's a close-up of one of our Three Sisters garden's out in beowabbit's yard in Quincy. After getting the soil tested for safety, we built these mounds on which are growing sweet corn, pumpkins and two kinds of snap beans. They've been in the ground for one week, and there's already visible growth of the sprout. The beans were the only thing planted from seed, and they've broken ground already!



Back is Somerville, I have tomato plants (supposedly Sun Gold cherry tomatoes from Pemberton, but they have mis-labeled before so we shall see), cucumbers and green onions.

Growing food makes me so happy. There's something spirit-lifting about it for me. And I'm glad my beowabbit is joining me this year. More pix as things grow!

Ten years ago around this time, I wrote a piece in my then-new LiveJournal called A Tragedian's Tale. It's still there today, and I wrote it to share my experience in the newly born Theatre@First's inaugural production of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead in 2004. People who know me know the story of how I came to Theatre@First and the immediate positive impact the group had on me, and it's all there for readers who don't. On closing night of that little church basement run, I cried in the green room because there was no next show planned at the time and my heart was breaking at the thought of this group drifting apart. There was so, so much that I didn't know was ahead.

There was a next show, and a next one, and a next one and....we simply never stopped. The little church basement rag-tag team became a busy non-profit, producing shows year-round in venues all over Somerville. We are friends and neighbors making theatre for and with our friends and neighbors. We spawned a sister organization called the Post-Meridian Radio Players that takes theatre in a different direction. Our love of theatre craft and our desire to serve our community has kept us together and kept us growing for ten years now. And counting.

I would get all squishy if I tried in ernest to explain how many ways my life has changed as a result of my being a part of Theatre@First. My life is literally on a different trajectory than it would have been if Theatre@First hadn't happened. It would be an exhaustive list, but one that bears particular mention is that during our 2nd season, I met surrealestate in the cast of Murder In The Cathedral, through whom I met my life partner and forever-love, beowabbit. He has since joined the group and become a Firstie in his own right. For the rest of my life I will be so very grateful for that, and many other things.

A whole new generation of children has been born to group members, and the oldest has already made her stage debut with us. I've lost count of how many marriages and life-unions have come about from people meeting in casts or crews. We've learned together and created together. I've worked with lots of other theatre companies and groups and I go to their shows all the time, but Theatre@First is the only group I've ever regularly referred to as "my theatre group." No, I don't own it, but it is mine. It's my theatre home and family.

So here we are, ten years later and just about to open our anniversary production of Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead. It's very different than the first production, and the years or work show, I believe. I now have a bunch of physical limitations that I didn't have ten years ago, and they do limit how much and what kind of acting I can do, but I'm in this production, and I would have joined the crew if I hadn't been cast. I wouldn't have missed this for the world.

This morning I got teary-eyed, but they were happy tears as I watched the new video on the Indigogo page: Theatre at First: The Next Ten Years!. It's a retrospective of our first ten years work, and I was proud to see some of my own work in there.

I'm a terrible fundraiser because I hate asking people for money, but I will invite you to click through and watch the video if you'd like to see bits of what my past decade with the group has been like, and you can help if you like. If you're local, the door is always wide open for you to join in, onstage or off. Come make theatre with us....

I never got a chance yesterday to say Merry Christmas on LJ. But I don't consider Christmas over on December 26. It goes all the way until New Years for me, so I don't mind saying it now.

I've just spent a pleasant few days with my family out in Rochester. It was a white Christmas, and much easier than some we've had. And today, beowabbit is driving from Boston to retrieve me. A happy reunion ahead!

Sending happy holiday wishes to all!

I couldn't get on LJ yesterday to with everyone a happy Thanksgiving, or in our case, Thanksgivukkah. It was purely delightful to spend it with friends am amid laughter and great food. I hope everyone had a lovely holiday!