Wednesday, June 20, 2007

June 20th, 2007

Some random things:

This weekend I had the pleasure of staying at the Seafarers & International House, a Lutheran mission/guest house in Gramercy/Union Square. The room was clean and well kept, if small, and it was a shared-bathroom (also impeccably clean) situation, but where else are you going to stay two blocks off of Union for $80/night? Furthermore, it's non-profit, so all the proceeds are heading into the ministry, which works with sailors and seafarers in NY and all along the northeastern coast.

We have tentatively received our venue assignments; we've been asked to not release the info until the 29th, in case changes need to be made. All things remaining equal, we're in an amazing space, nice and big, and very conveniently located as far as getting there is concerned.

Look for us to be going up on http://www.nytheatre.com sometime over the next few days, as part of the Fringe preview.

More as we get it. Peace!

Tuesday, June 19, 2007

June 19th, 2007

The Marketing Mixer was... excellent.

Got to meet a few more people that I hadn't gotten a chance to last time, and further develop some prospects for cross-marketing. We're going to be in FringeHIGH, which is the program for shows that reach out to local high school students, so that's some added marketing as well. So far, so good.

My adopted family at Divinity Lutheran Church, in Towson, MD has come through HUGE on the budgetary end of things. Wherein huge = we now have the necessary budget to do the show. There's still some outlaying 'possible' expenditures, but things come down to it, we're good to go. I owe them big for this.

There's more to report and all, but I'm going to wait until I'm in a mood to write. 'cause right now I'm boring, and that's not good.

Peace!

Saturday, June 16, 2007

I've arrived in NY for

I've arrived in NY for marketing mixers tonight. They're a chance for shows to meet and organize cross promotion. At a bar. I love theatre.

Monday, June 4, 2007

6/4/07 2:08pm

Yesterday was the FringeNYC Town Meeting, which upon retrospect was absolutely worth the trip up to New York to attend.

The meeting is generally to introduce everyone -- staff, artists, so on -- to one another, as well as to go over administrivia, the bulk of which I will spare you here.

The meeting was held at The Player's Theater, which has a very nice "Age of Opulence" feel to it, while still being rather intimate. We then all headed over to Washington Square Park (where bocci is played with the same intensity as baseball in other parts of the country), where the Village Voice people kindly provided us with lunch. (note to self: in the Village, "lunch outdoors" apparently involves some kind of French bread sliced hors d'oerves style with various strange toppings applied to it. It's always interesting to visit different cultures.)

Got to walk over to the park with Martin and Rochelle Denton from NYTheatre.com, who are wonderful people and amazingly supportive of the Festival. They're also some of the few people I've met other than myself who use the "re" rather than the "er" spelling of the word. As it turns out, Martin was a student at GW at the same time as Alan Wade, who I worked with on Enigma Variations at Washington Stage Guild. World shrinks every day.

This year they're starting up a podcast, which they recorded things for yesterday..so sometime in the next week or so you'll be able to hear my voice on their website -- I was the first one interviewed, for what it's worth.

During the meeting, a running joke became "JesusFringe," used to describe any of what turned out to be a decent amount of shows dealing with Jesus, Faith, or Biblical themes. I had a chance to talk to some of the reps for these shows at the picnic, and we're going to try to do some cross-marketing and generally supporting one another. I spent a good deal of time talking with H.R. Britton about Jesus Rant, which I'm looking forward to seeing; he'll be delving into the topics of the historical Jesus, and his own personal understanding of faith, which he says is more universalist, he's come to realize. Action Jesus is coming from Boston, Hillary Agonistes should be a fun take on Greek tragedy (and Hillary Clinton), and Animals includes gay unicorns. Which is awesome.

I've probably rambled on for far too long, but a lot happened yesterday. Before I close, a few notes:

* Never use the bathrooms in the LIRR wing of Penn Station, no matter what that pre-packaged turkey sandwich you bought on the train did to you. It's just not worth it.
* Waterfront Ale House is not near the waterfront, but their beer selection is passable, and their menu is intriguing. (Buffalo and Kangaroo on the same menu?)
* If you decide to walk from the Village, to a restaurant, then to Times Square, to Port Authority, and finally back to Penn Station, your feet will no longer fit in your shoes. Plan accordingly.

I'm done now. I've rambled on long enough. Look for Myspace/Facebook groups/events this week. Also, if you're reading this, I'm assuming you've seen, but just in case, the website's up.

Peace!
Jarrod

Sunday, June 3, 2007

What is more racist, assuming

What is more racist, assuming the hispanic busboy speaks spanish, or expecting him to know english?

Bocci in washington square park.

Saturday, June 2, 2007

6/3/07 11:36pm

And so this begins.

This will be my attempt to keep the inquiring minds informed of the goings on of the company while we mount this show in New York.

This is the first post, but far from the first day's worth of work on the show. To recap, we've been accepted into, and registered for, the 2007 NY Int'l Fringe Festival. We're producing "The Life and Times of Martin Luther (Reformed)," a show which I wrote.

I = Jarrod Jabre, director for the company; if another company member posts on this, I'll make sure they identify themselves. Otherwise, assume it's me.

It's late, I have a FringeNYC meeting in New York tomorrow, so I'll cut here. I look forward to talking with you all over the coming months.