Salutations, Tenors!

I hope everyone’s batteries are recharged after this past holiday week and subsequent rehearsal-free weekend. It’s been non-stop here in the Jocular front office, but I guess I’ve got no one to blame but myself 🙂

First and foremost, I would like to thank our valuable team members whose efforts take place mostly behind the scenes and don’t always receive the recognition they deserve.

Rosa has been dreaming with the show and is doing her all to make sure that you all look absolutely fabulous when we open next month. If you haven’t met with her already, prepare for a visit from the costume fairy. You should know what costumes we’re looking for so you can, you know, go look for it! We want you all looking gorgeous and rehearsing in your final costumes by May 1 at the latest.

Joe has been feverishly brainstorming publicity schemes and is hard at work developing a fabulous poster to draw in the masses. Think “art deco”. Oh no, I’ve already said too much. We should have posters and flyers for you to diligently distribute in the coming weeks.

Ed has been measuring and planning and sketching and designing our grandiose set (to fit into our big new theater!). While we’re prancing around playing silly theater games this Saturday, Ed will be chopping down an entire forest to build our elegant hotel suite – and doors.

Siavash has been meticulously maintaining our props (search) list while, at the same time, assembling the musical accompaniment for this theatrical extravaganza. Have you found all your props yet? Starting this Saturday, if a prop appears in one of the scenes we’re rehearsing, I’d like to have it there! Pretending to throw vases and drop suitcases only works for so long. I imagine we’ll have our sound effects ready for the 1st of May. Huzzah!

What a great team we have.

Oh yeah, and then there’s our actors. Anyone feel like fleshing out some of these scenes we’ve been blocking? Good, me too. Here’s where we’ll begin Phase 2:

Saturday, April 10
Acting Act 1 Scene 1 – pages 11 to 31
11:00 am: Ben, Jo, Hunter, Julian, Nicole, Alex

Sunday, April 11
Acting Act 1 Scene 1 – pages 32 to 52
10:00 am: Ben, Jo, Hunter, Julian, Nicole

Please note that Sunday’s rehearsal is called for 10:00 instead our usual 11. We will continue to rehearse at the Riereta until further notice.

I know I promised shorter emails. Maybe next time.

Please reply to this email RIGHT NOW to confirm that you have received, read, and understood this weekend’s schedule and these instructions.

Thank you,
The Management

ps – off book yet?
😉

Dammit, I gotta break this dry spell. I get into this viscous circle of not posting, planning too many amazing (and long-winded) posts in my head, then feeling overwhelmed by all the things I should be writing about, and then not knowing which to attempt first and so I just don’t write. I need to just write something. Anything! Even if it has nothing to do with the many amazing stories currently clogging my brain.

I’ve also fallen behind with uploading my photos. I’ve got a backlog dating back to the beginning of 2010! But here’s one of my favorites from January:

Don’t Do It!

As I’ve promised umpteen times before, I’ll try and write more frequent short posts and then I won’t feel so bad about not getting around to the long ones. Maybe I’ll post a poll asking which “long” stories you’d like to read about. If there’s anyone still reading this page…

There are exactly 427 things to potentially stress out about when directing a play. No, wait… 428. And if you’re also producing said play, you can go ahead and add a few more.

After a year’s hiatus from the helm of my theater company, also known as a Sebbastical (hee hee, get it? like sabbatical?), we decided it might be safe to venture back into those murky dramatic waters. But which play to do? I stressed about that. And what if I didn’t get enough actors to show up for auditions? That was stressful. And then who to cast? Stress! When to start rehearsals? When to rehearse? And where? And what to actually do in rehearsals? And who’s going to stage manage? And build the sets? And design the costumes? And where are those costumes going to come from? We need a couch? And a bed?! And six doors?!! Where are we going to put this play on? Is the stage big enough? Do they have enough lights? What’s their sound system like? Microphones? Who’s designing the publicity? How many flyers do we print? How many posters? And where do we hang them? Where can I get recordings of opera songs without the vocals? Will my current plan leave the actors under-rehearsed? Over-rehearsed? Do I have to pay for the performance rights? Who’s funding this whole thing? And how can we possibly sell enough tickets to an English-language play in Spain to cover the costs from this whole thing?

These are just a few of the things that I can thank for my current stress levels. The easiest part of directing a play is directing the play.

Yes, many of these “challenges” have been resolved. Many have not. And then there are the other 399 stressful things that I have spared you. But just this week we took care of a doozy. We had reserved a small theater downtown for an early June run. After just one week of blocking rehearsals, I quickly realized that the play would not fit on the stage that we had reserved. We would need a bigger stage. About twice as big! And June was only a few months away. Most (respectable) theaters program their lineups way more than three months in advance. So I asked around, made a bunch of phone calls, sent a bunch of emails, and scoured the city. Long story short: I found one! I cannot begin to describe the tremendous weight that has been lifted from having this massive item removed from my to-do list.

Oh, there was only one catch. The new theater was only available for mid-May. That basically means that, instead of the 16 rehearsals I was counting on, we now have 10. Great, one more thing to stress about.

And in case you were wondering, here are the answers to some of the previously asked stress-inducing questions:

Lend Me a Tenor
I did
They’re perfect
Beginning of March
Every weekend
In the small theater
Improv, choreography, and character-building exercises
Siavash
Ed
Rosa
Don’t know(!)
Yes
Yes!
Yes!!
Hostafrancs
Yes
Barely
Decent
Yes, but do they work?
Joe
700
50
Don’t know(!)
Don’t know(!)
Don’t know(!)
Don’t know(!)
Maybe
Me
Don’t know(!)

I forgot how many people ride public transportation in and out of Barcelona every day at rush hour. I have the luxury of setting my own timetable so I never have a problem finding a seat on the train. But this morning I was to begin shooting another marketing video for HP so I had to arrive first thing in the morning. I should have taken the hint and turned around and gone home when my normally 15-minute morning bus ride turned into an hour-long ordeal in the windy torrential downpour.

But I eventually made it to the train station and hopped aboard the next Sant Cugat-bound train only to find myself sandwiched amongst the aforementioned rush-hour commuters. I luckily found a seat just as we were leaving Sant Gervasi and headed through the tunnel under Tibidabo north of the city. With my umbrella still dripping on the floor between my legs, my jaw dropped at the other-worldy sight outside the window that met us upon exiting the tunnel on the other side of the mountain. The entire landscape was covered in snow. And not just a little snow. A lot of snow. And it was still coming down. Was it ever coming down! Snowflakes as large as my fist.

Being from New York, I am not unaccustomed to the occasional snow storm. But I now live in Barcelona. Spain. On the Mediterranean Sea. It doesn’t snow in Barcelona. At least it hadn’t snowed like this for the past 12 years that I have been living here. And, according to many grandmas who were later interviewed on the news, it hadn’t snowed like this in Barcelona… ever!

The snow outside the train was impressive. But the proceeding events inside the train were even more wonderful. Everyone, like myself, couldn’t help but stare outside at the unprecedented winter wonderland. People put down their books, took off their headphones, and they smiled at the snow. And then, myself included, the people on the train began looking around at the random strangers sitting across from them and smiling at them. Without saying a word. And then they’d try to catch the eye of someone sitting across the aisle so they could smile at them, too, as if to say, “Can you believe this? Isn’t this amazing what we’re sharing? Have you ever seen anything like this before?” And a general feeling of magic and joy swept through the train. There was an eight year-old boy sitting not far from me who had apparently never seen snow before in his life. He was elated.

So I got to work and everyone was still smiling at everyone else and giggling and pointing at the snow on the palm trees. I went to the Demo Center, met the film crew, and began my job for the day. The HP Demo Center is tucked away in the back of the HP building. There are no windows there so we weren’t able to enjoy the gradual accumulation of snow banks over the course of the next few hours. Nor were we able to appreciate how the rate of snowfall was markedly increasing.

At 11am everyone in HP received an email saying, “Due to today’s extraordinary weather conditions, the Security and Health and Safety departments are recommending all HP Barcelona site workers to leave the site no later than 4:00pm. According to the official local weather forecast, snow will continue to fall during the rest of the day and temperatures will decrease considerably with the consequent risk of ice.” We just kept shooting.

At 2pm we all received another email saying, “The Security department has just received a new weather forecast informing that it will snow even more heavily for the rest of the afternoon and will last until dawn. It would be appreciated if you could stagger your departure to avoid later congestion.” We just kept shooting.

At 4pm we decided to take a look outside. On our way to the front door, we passed through an eerie haunted ghost town. I could have sworn the European marketing department was there this morning. Sure enough, the snow had blanketed everything as far as the eye could see. And almost everyone from HP – almost every one of its 2000 employees – had already gone home. Curious.

We were scheduled to stay on site and shoot until at least 8pm. That was to be day one of a full two-day shoot. Today, the printer look a lot longer to warm up than expected. The lights reflected in the printer’s steel chassis a lot more than expected. The batteries in the cordless mic didn’t last as long as expected. We still had a lot of work left. And so we decided to stay a little longer and shoot some more.

It was soon thereafter that the rumors started to roll in. Did you hear? A tree fell on the train tracks and they’re no longer running to Barcelona! No taxis are running! The tunnels from here to Barcelona have all been closed! The highway that runs around the mountain on its way to Barcelona is at a complete standstill and has been for hours. It was time to check Facebook.

Every single one of my Barcelona friends had either left a snow-related status update or uploaded some amazing “Barcelona in the midst of it’s first snow storm” photos. Or both.

from Val

Juls noted how her husband, Joan, had left work in Sant Cugat at 3pm and was still stuck in his car on the highway at 7pm. Any other day, this is a 25-minute drive.

What to do?

The film crew supposedly had a van on its way to pick them up and chauffeur them back to Barcelona. They offered to take me. I wasn’t so sure. So I called Joan.

Joan was still stuck in his car. Only 500 meters closer to home than he was an hour earlier. It had now been over four hours since he left work. Having nothing else to do, he had been listening to the radio for hours and was able to confirm for us that the trains had, in fact, all stopped; the taxis were not running; the tunnels were all closed; and the highways were all at an infuriating standstill. He calculated that, if I was lucky, I would arrive home by 1am. I thanked him and promptly decided, much to the surprise of the film crew, to spend the night at HP. It was warm, I had internet access, the vending machine had sandwiches, and I am capable of sleeping anywhere and under any conditions. Though not my first choice, I would be just fine. And I would already be there in the morning when I was definitely going to be needed again for the mandatory second day of the shoot. Genius!

Then the van arrived. The driver said that the road conditions were improving. And that the tunnels may be re-opening. I was torn. This was now a grueling exercise in probability and chance. I did the needed calculations and begrudgingly agreed to go with them in their van. Seeing my family was the motivating factor that eventually forced my hand.

from Sheri

Seven of us got into the van with tinted windows and, surprisingly, no back seats. It felt like we were being smuggled across the border to some unknown and dangerous country. The roads were slippery but manageable. We had to drop off the director at his hotel in a nearby village before trying our luck on the now-infamous highway. Mission accomplished and off we went to… wait a minute, where are we going? What? Another stop? Your sister’s house? We were all now standing on the snowy street, freezing, socks soaking. The crew spontaneously decided that the roads were too dangerous and that it was illegal to ride in the back of a van with no seats anyway. What?! Why the hell did you convince me to leave the warm confines of my office? I could have easily slept under my desk and been happy!

It was 9pm. And it was cold. The van left for Barcelona with two brave people in the front seat as if to discover if the world was really flat. And we were left standing outside the camera operator’s sister’s house in a village a few miles away from HP. The sister called hotel after hotel and they were all completely booked. People had apparently started to abandon their cars on the roads and seek shelter for the night. This girl’s apartment was too small for all of us so, instead of just standing around and complaining for hours on end in the frickin snow, which is what I was convinced was this group’s plan all along, I took change and commanded the two girls among us to stay at the sister’s house while the brother, the two other guys, and I took the sister’s car in search of a hotel. We started driving (slipping around actually) when the sister called and said that she had found us a hotel. And it was right next to HP!! We headed for the hotel. The sister called back. There was a mistake and there were no more free rooms. We started driving again. The sister called once more. There was another mistake and there really were two rooms left and they were now reserved under our names.

It was 10pm. Tired and hungry and sick of riding this freezing-cold roller coaster any longer, we ignored all traffic safety rules and raced to the hotel.

Four stars 🙂
The check in clerks were major jerks 🙁
But it was paid for by the company 🙂
There was at least a half hour wait at the restaurant 🙁
I got my own room 🙂
The heating didn’t work 🙁
The WiFi was free 🙂
The WiFi was slow 🙁
The dinner and drinks (also paid for by the company) were more expensive than I would normally pay for 🙂
The food was mediocre 😐

And here I am. 2am. Fed. Showered. Tired. Only ten minutes away from HP. Signing my own death warrant by writing this absurdly long blog entry instead of getting a much-needed good night’s sleep. They say it will be sunny tomorrow. And very very cold.

Joan arrived home safely at 9:30pm.

I knew it wouldn’t be very wise to blog last night about how well adjusted everyone was after flying back from our two-week trip to Florida. True, we all went to sleep at what seemed like a decent hour and everyone even managed to sleep through most of the night. But I never forgot the false sense of optimism that they both lulled me into after the first day back from our last trans-Atlantic flight. And just like last time, it all fell apart tonight.

I was convinced that we could work through it this time by simply adjusting immediately to our new local hour; no napping during the day and all meals and bedtimes fully in sync with the Spanish timetable. But kids are not as dumb as we are, trying to stay up when every cell in your body is remembering that for ten zillion years humans have slept generally when they are tired. And that is why Emily got so very frustrated with us for over four hours while we tried to put her to bed when she “wasn’t tired”. Sebastian felt the same but his arguments were far less eloquent. They finally got the better of us at around 11:30pm and we agreed to let them stay up in the living room watching TV for one more hour. And that hour turned into two. They all eventually went soundly to bed and I’m still up like a schlamazel writing blog entries out of guilt from not writing anything for two weeks with so much to write about. It was a great two weeks and it’s good to be home.

Sebastian is one year old today.

Baby Boy

one year later…

By The Sea Shore

• He’s got seven teeth.
• He’s no longer walking. He’s running.
• If you say “bye-bye”, he’ll wave. His first trick! He loves waving.
• Still can’t get up onto the couch or a bed, but he knows how to safely maneuver down from them.
• We’ve definitely got a future soccer player here. He can dribble the ball down the field with confidence and I’ve seen him outplay kids twice his age.
• We’ve already cut his hair twice. He’s ready for another trim.
• His two big obsessions: wheels and shoes. Study them for hours. Play with them. Eat them.
• Words we think he has said: bye-bye, fish, mama, daddy.
• He’s always up for a good chase. Either you chase him or he chases you. It’s all good.
• He still has the loveliest little giggle. Sounds like a bird chirping.

Here is a lovely yet small collection of photos from Sebastian’s first year. Just click on the following link for a short trip down memory lane:
**Fancy-shmancy full-screen slideshow**

Hot damn, I’ve missed being in the theatre! Auditions for my new play were last week and optimism is high. We had a much better turnout than expected with respect to both the quantity and quality of people who showed up. Now I just need to decide who to cast. This is usually the fun part but I’m really having trouble with it this time. But in a good way! Mostly.

Whereas before I was stressed from the thought of not getting the right people to come to audition, now I am stressed from trying to find the right venue in which to perform the show. Hopefully I’ll find one this week and then I can stress about not having enough time to rehearse, or about how we’re going to build a set that won’t shake when six doors are all slammed at once, or my favorite one of how we’re going to get enough people to come and see the show to pay for all of the production costs. Why do I keep doing this to myself? Oh yeah, because I love it.

I do not have enough free time to be wasting two hours on useless crap like this. But I like it 🙂

ManBaby

Check out ManBabies.com for more creepy goodness.

Hey, wanna see the lovely photos I took while my dad came to visit in November?

Sitges Beaches

In my recent photo-organizational whirlwind, I discovered that I had never posted any info about my dad’s trip to visit us a couple of months ago. What a terrible oversight and in no way a commentary on the wonderful time we had while he was here. It was so nice to have time for him to get to know Emily and Sebastian better and vice versa. It’s hard not being able to see family as often as we’d like.

So here are some photos from when we went to the beaches at Sitges, hung out around the house with fairies and chocolate, got lost in the mountains on our way to a fantastic rustic lunch, discovered Gaudi around town on our way to visit the Sagrada Familia, and frequented our local diner (more than once!). Just click on the following link and be whisked away:
**Fancy-shmancy full-screen slideshow**

Hello fellow theatre lovers,

Happy 2010! We here at Jocular Theatre, after a brief hiatus following the wonderful reception of our last production – Fuddy Meers – are anxiously planning our next show. And we’d love for you to be involved.

You are cordially invited to the casting for our spring production of Ken Ludwig’s madcap screwball comedy, Lend Me A Tenor. Auditions will be held the weekend of February 6th. If you are interested in auditioning and would like to reserve a time, or if you have any questions, please give me a call. I’d love to see you there! And please forward this invitation to anyone you know who may be interested in auditioning or getting involved behind the scenes in any way.

See you in the theatre!

Joshua Zamrycki
Director, Jocular Theatre
www.joculartheatre.com
656 982 623