Crazy Good Time Peace of Mind

Holy cow, what a month. I've wanted to post more about the extraordinarily good time of Roger Ebert coming to see the Factory Theater (of which I am now a proud Ensemble member) and Siskel and Ebert Save Chicago. I'm so glad he came to see our little show and enjoyed himself. It's been a great run which will sadly end next week. Happily, though, we've added two extra shows on Sunday the 29th. Here's a little background and here's just a little more background behind the show. The Factory Theater is a damn fine place to call home, and credit an outstanding cast, whipcrack direction, indisputably exceptional stage managing, and a slickly smart playwriting mind as major components of the latest, greatest success. It's fair to say I love being a part. Tonight, we were graced by the Siskel family and some other terrific people who hopefully enjoyed our playful and sweetly vulgar show. Thanks all.

Would that my new job's firewall did not block Blogger or I'd be posting my gushing like a fiend. As it is, I'll put up my giddies whenever I can. I'll have to find means of coping with show withdrawl a week from now. It's painful to let a good thing go; I get sad and weepy throwing out old notebooks from classes I took 15 years ago. Memory is precious to me. I know it's abstract, but I remember many things physically, and I never feel I'm holding tight enough to the good stuff. That's the difficult part of closing a show since there's not many tactile reminders of the laughs, sweat, and work that's gone into months of work and good times. Being in a show like Siskel & Ebert Save Chicago (and doing theater in general) is a bit like having a security blanket; I value it so highly but I know it's something I have to give up eventually and move on. I'm very glad to be in the Factory Theater family because I know there will be more good times to come. Plus, I may just have access to video files of past shows so I can relive the magic. Still, nothing will replace running back and forth between scenes from backstage to the front of the house, sweating my guts off, working a scene or watching the Roller Girls, Socombie minions or shtickingly accurate portrayals of local media celebrities work their magic while we and the audience happily laugh in the fun. Memory scrapbook moments. I wish I had these comforting peaces of mind on paper protected by plastic, but quoting lines to myself and snickering aloud in public (not so silently) will just have to do. Thumbs up.

Show Wrap Up

Bittersweet weekend as the very successful run of GI's in Europe at the Factory Theater came to a close. Boy, did I enjoy that show. One of the best casts I've ever worked with, a killer crew that made everything on stage look good, and nice crowds throughout the run. I'm sad to be losing it. I'll miss the people and the exercise, but this show was a damn fine way to get back into the theater. Appropriate that there was a surreal ending to our celebrations on Saturday: upon closing Chief O'Neill's around 3 AM, all of us stumble outside to see Elston avenue drowning in a sea of bicycles heading northwest. Most likely this was an opening event for the Chicago Gay Games, but I never found out. There was no end in sight to this line of people whirring by. I don't know how many thousand people went past us, but we stood for several minutes while this river of cyclists clicked by at a leisurely pace, stirring the early morning air into our faces. The constant, high-pitched hum of thousands of bike chains and gears sounded almost like water running past. Maybe this was my need for a romantic moment of nostalgia, a unique snapshot to burn an image into my mind so I could hold on to the experience of the past few months and hold the people in my show a little tighter in memory. The evening was a swirl of the heartachey celebration of accomplishment and sadness of moving on to other things combined with quite a few vodka tonics: a guaranteed recipe for heavy maudlin. Still, this was a unique and happy moment, a feeling that moving on from this show is not a loss, and other fun, weirdly composed, and good experiences await. I must have been drinking happy vodka.

Factory Theater's next project: a horror movie on stage called Operation Infiltration. Oh yeah. See a trailer for the show here.

My next project: traveling to Minnesota and a taking a long winding road home through North and South Dakota. The Black Hills, Badlands, and Deadwood await. Then comes the final month of summer, new work for the fall, and who knows what else. I hope my next show comes soon and I'm so glad my spring and early summer were filled with GI's in Europe and the people of that show. There will always be happy memories and I suspect I'll still quote lines out-loud while at work and crack myself up. My co-workers have gotten used to my crazy person behavior of snickering to myself while saying non-sensical things. They know the source and they know why I laugh. A few of them even came to see what makes me laugh. It's enough for now for me to hold the memories and say the lines to myself. I hope there's more soon.