Drive-By Fringe Update
May. 19th, 2008 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thehefnerMy first performance... didn't happen. No one showed up. A number of factors at work here: I'm a complete unknown and not a local, I'm performing at the outdoor tent (a space that was both more intimate and cheap) which can be pretty bloody warm, and it was a Thursday. That said: my second performance (read: my first actual performance) was three seats away from being completely sold out.
Clearly, anything could happen over the next two shows. But as it's finally raining here today, I'm seriously praying for a cool, temperate 6:20pm performance today.
So far, I've seen about ten shows here. I could go on about many of them, but the real stand-out has been THE CODY RIVERS SHOW, a sorta-sketch comedy work of experimental theatre that is downright fucking brilliant.
I kept thinking about the current style of "new generation" surrealist sketch comedy from the MR. SHOW and TIM & ERIC people (comedy which seems primarily to be derived from people feeling smug about how it pissed other people like me off, so they can go, "Look at them, they don't get it, how much more clever we are!"), but having seen THE CODY RIVERS SHOW twice now, I can honestly say, "No, this is the future of surreal sketch comedy." Utterly brilliant, mind-bending stuff that couldn't work the same in any other format but the stage. It's pure glorious theatre.
Plus, the performers are super-cool. I'm actually making a ton of friends here. I just wish they all had LJ so I could keep up with them, since I doubt I'll be pen pals with most of 'em. I have a hard time meeting people and getting into the flow, often just sitting on the outskirts quietly and listening with nothing to add to conversation.
I'm also slowly building up a tolerance for coming up to strangers, handing out a flyer, and saying "Come see my show!" I can do about four or five at a time now before I give up out of terror! Yay progress!
Back to work. Will return online in about eighteen hours.
Clearly, anything could happen over the next two shows. But as it's finally raining here today, I'm seriously praying for a cool, temperate 6:20pm performance today.
So far, I've seen about ten shows here. I could go on about many of them, but the real stand-out has been THE CODY RIVERS SHOW, a sorta-sketch comedy work of experimental theatre that is downright fucking brilliant.
I kept thinking about the current style of "new generation" surrealist sketch comedy from the MR. SHOW and TIM & ERIC people (comedy which seems primarily to be derived from people feeling smug about how it pissed other people like me off, so they can go, "Look at them, they don't get it, how much more clever we are!"), but having seen THE CODY RIVERS SHOW twice now, I can honestly say, "No, this is the future of surreal sketch comedy." Utterly brilliant, mind-bending stuff that couldn't work the same in any other format but the stage. It's pure glorious theatre.
Plus, the performers are super-cool. I'm actually making a ton of friends here. I just wish they all had LJ so I could keep up with them, since I doubt I'll be pen pals with most of 'em. I have a hard time meeting people and getting into the flow, often just sitting on the outskirts quietly and listening with nothing to add to conversation.
I'm also slowly building up a tolerance for coming up to strangers, handing out a flyer, and saying "Come see my show!" I can do about four or five at a time now before I give up out of terror! Yay progress!
Back to work. Will return online in about eighteen hours.
