Park Bench!!

We had the chance to take our Park Bench Venue out on Friday. It’s a great new fun idea that we’ve added to our Trailer Tales piece (or as we call it here in Ozzie “Caravan Chronicles”). Basically we it is a mobile venue where the audience is the star. Our hope is to park our ‘rolling hill’ in urban settings and then invite those passing by to come have a seat with us on the bench and then share a story about their family. Llysa bought a very cool little recorder that we can use (it’s the size of an ipod, but even lighter!) Once we get a few fun stories, we will edit them into a podcast and post it here....Keep checking back here to listen to our first one!

Our first outing was a bit crazy as communication didn’t get through to all the people involved and there was some concern when we arrived down by the Council building that we were actually protesters instead of performing! Thankfully the policeman who arrived, within minutes understood exactly what happened and liked the idea of our piece so much that he is planning on coming to our family performances on Sunday!

And by the way, I tried to post a video above but it isn't working just yet...When it DOES work the cool music that you'll be hearing on the clip is composed by Chandra Cogburn! She’s a GREAT musician and composer working down in the LA area.
Thanks Chandra for letting us use your grooves!

Here: Try this link until I can get this placed on the blog itself! :)

http://picasaweb.google.com/moniquelk/ParkBenchVideo

All Simpletons Present and Accounted For…

Weds, March 14, Adelaide, AU

Andrew here.

theater simple is no longer a two continent operation. We are a team once more.
We have all finally made it to Adelaide; Monique, nine days ago; and Llysa and I just yesterday afternoon. From Seattle to Canada, Canada back to Seattle, Seattle to LA, and then LA to Australia, we arrived all punchy and ready to achieve. Which we did. The Day Two Energy Drop has happened, though. No way around it. Two and a half days of nearly continual travel culminating in 28 hours of pure transit takes it’s toll.

About those two and a half days: with Monique magnificently flying solo in Adelaide, Llysa and I finished packing and repacking all of our Oz luggage, only to leave it on the couch, take an overnight bag and our 52 Pick Up show bag and catch the puddle-jumper to Kelowna, in the interior of British Columbia. We knew that this would truly be the beginning of our overall journey as we would have only 4 more hours at home before jumping “the big puddle”. We were picked up at the airport and taken straight to a truly staggering B & B in Vernon, overlooking one of the many lakes, and run by the fabulous Alan and Gary (http://www.theeaglesnestbandb.com). Only one "problem" with the place: it was 30 minutes away from our performance venue with no transportation. So we were forced to spend the evening looking at the staggering view, eating a lovely meal cooked by Gary…..oh, and sitting in their awesome jacuzzi. A lovely calm before…..

The next day....the longest day. Truly surreal to be ready to leave on a big trip to do a big project, and to have to slice a large part of your consciousness free to achieve something else. 52 Pick Up is a show that is in our DNA. Like The Master & Margarita, we have performed it somewhere around 100 times. All of which makes it very easy to underestimate, and at some point during our technical rehearsal, we both just had to lock in and realize that in a few hours we were to be performing before our biggest 52 Pick Up audience ever (the Vernon & District Performing Arts Center, run by Michael Cade, had sold over 400 tickets!) on a huge stage in an auditorium that seats 700. And…….? Great audience, great space, great show, and a very fun discussion with about 60 folks afterwards. And just like that we were back to Alan and Gary’s for a 2.5 hour nap before returning to the airport for the start of the above-mentioned 28 hours of pure transit.

About the only hitch in all of this came right at the start. Daylight savings time had happened overnight (robbing us of a critical hour) and while freakin’ Y2K had been weathered by the airline industry with no problem, this move of the clock was more than the Alaska computer system could handle. So all was being done by hand. Now, this 6am flight was booked because it was the only one available that would allow us to make our connection…..to Australia!!!! After waiting for over an hour in line, we got to the desk to check in at the exact time that our plane was to take off! Not fun. But as there were a dozen of us in the same boat, they held the flight and we made it on.

And more than a full day of mind-numbing air travel later, we are in one of our favorite places on the planet, being looked after by great friends (some of whom we’ve known for a decade!), being blown away by the fruits of Monique’s labor, and ready to dive in.

Ta da!