We’re not talking Cyrano, here, but Cameron Dobbs’ nose features prominently in the plot for the show.  Again, it takes a village (thank you VERY much, Anna).  And latex, and sealer, pretty colors in little round boxes (I was sternly admonished that they must be cheap pretty colors)…and testing.  When you’re looking at yourself, even a regular mirror magnifies imperfection.  It’s looking pretty real, and it ain’t pretty.  So then it’s a dash to the stage, lights up, oops…it needs a little more…  Seriously.  And a little more…

Every night John refines it.  And drips and smears.   He’s been acting the nose for weeks, but now when people look at it, it’s really there.  And more there.  He’s heroically enduring what it takes to create the nose, and kudos to him for dealing with what it takes to remove it.  I don’t recommend nose remover, but we must suffer for our art, right?

Now I just have to remember the ice.

At work today, we had more food than the entire building could consume, and it went on all day long.  It became ridiculous, because we knew we were all going back to eat more just because it was there.  I began to think of porcine images, of words like glut.

Then I thought, no – a surfeit.  Now doesn’t that sound more genteel?  Like a bunch of turn-of-the-century people being served on platters?  With white gloves?  Pinkies in the air?  It’s the weekend, and there’s theatre being served up in several venues all over town.  I have friends in shows, friends working on shows, and my entire family is going to the show tomorrow night.  It’ll be just one portion of what’s out there, family fare at that, but we’re going.

I hope you’re swinging by the all-you-can eat St. Louis buffet of theatre this weekend.

There is a great article in The Beacon about improv with puppets…yeah, ok, I’ll just let that sit there for a moment while we all just meditate upon it.  OK, now we’re all back, and..anyway, it was really interesting – read it here.

http://www.stlbeacon.org/arts-life/26-theater-dance/116047-take-five-with-patrick-bristow

Bristow makes some great points about acting in general, improv in particular.  That you make strong choices, you live in the current moment because that’s all you have – you don’t really know what’s going to happen next in improv, and in other acting you have to live like everything is fresh, and never experienced before even though you’ve been working on it for weeks.  Acting like that engages the audience, makes them travel with you into uncharted territory.  The outline is there, you know where you’re going and where you need to end up, and the challenge is to have a more “acute sense of the immediate.”  Isn’t that a great way to put it?

The benefit of that is that it “wakes up” the audience – they are more conscious that something is unfolding in front of them.  Reading stuff like this makes me glad I work in a really creative medium with a bunch of amazing folks.