Piccolo Spoleto - Done
I'm back. I am so glad to be back. It's done. It was a fun thing all and all.
The National Best of No Shame Theatre at the 2005 Piccolo Spoleto Festival is over. We did 12 performances in two weeks, presenting a total of 180 pieces pulled from the No Shame archives that go back almost 20 years. Most of the performers were from the No Shame in Roanoke, Virginia, but there was one performer who came down from Iowa City and two from the now defunct No Shame in Charlottesville. (That would be, in part, me.) The people were the nice, open, fun, very funny, very talented, slightly messed up people you expect from No Shame.
I performed a number of my own pieces including "The Steely Dan Piece" (which is actually titled "The Best Days of Your Life" but has never in the history of its life been called that), "Ezra Jack Keats", "Four Jokes", "the unnamed piece about poems, which is starting to be called, 'The Poem'", Everything You Feel is Wrong", "Two Black Girls, One of Them White", the untitled "Old Piece", "Ristau", "Greek to Me", "What Kind of Music Will You Have in Your Heaven?", plus a number of my songs in addition to, of course, also being in many other pieces by other writers.
Our final houses were small, but we had just enough people to surpass the cost of the theater rental. I don't know the exact number. I think it's some two or three hundred dollars that we can throw into other costs.
For me, the whole trip was worth being able to do "The Steely Dan Piece" again, which I have always liked and which felt strangely relevant to me now at this stage of my life even though I wrote it three years ago. I also got to see my first ever No Shame piece, "Taking Sides" done well. And for those of you who have heard the story of its first performance, that means something. That's just gravy. And for the cherry on top of the gravy (Just go with me, okay?) I got to see some brilliant pieces by other No Shamers.
Final thoughts on Charleston, South Carolina. Don't let people tell you that the huge bugs flying around looking like roaches are not roaches but "Palmetto bugs". The "palmetto bug" is another name for the disgustingly large, American Cockroach. Don't be surprised if you go looking for the Slave Mart Museum around Water Street and East Bay and find, instead, the Charleston Yaught Club. The pancakes at the Bookstore Cafe are so good that were you required to slap your momma to get them, you would do so without hesitation and consider it a bargain. It is as humid as a sea monster's crotch. King Street is the main drag with almost no places to sit if you have a bad back. And it certainly is a drag trying to get a decent poured drink in a mini-bottle state.
Now that I'm back in the land of decent margaritas I'll be checking in on our 10 minute play and starting a job at the wine shop tomorrow. Boy do I wish I had given myself more down time.
The National Best of No Shame Theatre at the 2005 Piccolo Spoleto Festival is over. We did 12 performances in two weeks, presenting a total of 180 pieces pulled from the No Shame archives that go back almost 20 years. Most of the performers were from the No Shame in Roanoke, Virginia, but there was one performer who came down from Iowa City and two from the now defunct No Shame in Charlottesville. (That would be, in part, me.) The people were the nice, open, fun, very funny, very talented, slightly messed up people you expect from No Shame.
I performed a number of my own pieces including "The Steely Dan Piece" (which is actually titled "The Best Days of Your Life" but has never in the history of its life been called that), "Ezra Jack Keats", "Four Jokes", "the unnamed piece about poems, which is starting to be called, 'The Poem'", Everything You Feel is Wrong", "Two Black Girls, One of Them White", the untitled "Old Piece", "Ristau", "Greek to Me", "What Kind of Music Will You Have in Your Heaven?", plus a number of my songs in addition to, of course, also being in many other pieces by other writers.
Our final houses were small, but we had just enough people to surpass the cost of the theater rental. I don't know the exact number. I think it's some two or three hundred dollars that we can throw into other costs.
For me, the whole trip was worth being able to do "The Steely Dan Piece" again, which I have always liked and which felt strangely relevant to me now at this stage of my life even though I wrote it three years ago. I also got to see my first ever No Shame piece, "Taking Sides" done well. And for those of you who have heard the story of its first performance, that means something. That's just gravy. And for the cherry on top of the gravy (Just go with me, okay?) I got to see some brilliant pieces by other No Shamers.
Final thoughts on Charleston, South Carolina. Don't let people tell you that the huge bugs flying around looking like roaches are not roaches but "Palmetto bugs". The "palmetto bug" is another name for the disgustingly large, American Cockroach. Don't be surprised if you go looking for the Slave Mart Museum around Water Street and East Bay and find, instead, the Charleston Yaught Club. The pancakes at the Bookstore Cafe are so good that were you required to slap your momma to get them, you would do so without hesitation and consider it a bargain. It is as humid as a sea monster's crotch. King Street is the main drag with almost no places to sit if you have a bad back. And it certainly is a drag trying to get a decent poured drink in a mini-bottle state.
Now that I'm back in the land of decent margaritas I'll be checking in on our 10 minute play and starting a job at the wine shop tomorrow. Boy do I wish I had given myself more down time.
posted by - caj at 1:36 PM
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