Posts for category ‘Movies, Music, Plays, Etc’

A quick update– I’ve been doing a show and you should come see it! It’s the People’s History of the United States with the Quest Theatre Ensemble and it runs through August 24th every Friday (8pm), Saturday(8pm), and Sunday(2pm). I have an unlimited amount of tickets to give out to friends… because the show is free (donations accepted, but not required)!

It’s been crazy hard work but a whole lot of fun; only in a Quest show could I play three different presidents, Johnny Cash, and a rain cloud. Yeah that’s not a joke, I play a rain cloud.

Read the reviews (Trib, Reader, Time Out Chicago), come see the show!

Oh and if you are coming. PLEASE make reservations! We’ve sold out every single show so far and we already have some pretty full houses for the last two weeks.

Wonder where I’ve been? Well me too sometimes, but for the last two months I’ve been rehearsing six days a week with Quest Theatre Ensemble in preparation for Sword in the Stone. It’s been a really great experience getting to work with the Quest folk and I think we’ve got a really fun show as a result. We open this Friday so come on out and see some theatre!

Well I’ve been busy but a few things have been happening that deserve a good blogging. In no particular order:

I’m now in rehearsal for Toy Chest with the Tantalus Theatre Group. I think it’s really going to be an interesting piece. It’s a bit more focused than a lot of the stuff we’ve done in the past and I hope it shows when we reach opening night. The (slightly) scary part is I have to do a little dance/sing number. I’m not scared of the singing but I’ve got a pair of left feet when it comes to choreography so I’m a bit trepedatious about the dance number. We open March 10th with a preview on March 8th so mark your calendar now!

I’m feeding my bike addiction a new bike frame that’s in process of being built in my apartment right now. She doesn’t have a name yet, but it’d better be a fast one. Feast your eyes on this little number. It’s all scandium alloy and carbon fiber and it weights about as much as a cup of coffee. There will be more pictures along with my new track bike when all of the pieces get put together.

The bears have made it to the Superbowl. I think they may burn this city to the ground if they win it (although I predicted the same thing when the White Sox won the world series and I barely even noticed the celebration).

The big holiday party that my apartment was all decorated for in the pictures from the previous post was a huge success in more ways than one. I won’t get into details, but I’m pleased with the way life works sometimes.

So life goes on and these days I seem to be on the upside of it most of the time.

Wheeeeeee.

It all began with this post to my blog about a year ago. I doctored up a picture about Samuel L. Jackson’s movie Snakes On a Plane, made a funny comment, and moved on.

Cut to a few days ago. I was checking the web stats for my blog (which I haven’t been particularly good at updating over the summer months) and I noticed a had some very odd sites linking to mine– people I don’t know about on topics I don’t care about. After a little digging it turns out the reason is that they are direct linking/in-line linking my Snakes On a Plane picture. Now in case you don’t know what it means here’s the brief version. There were using pictures hosted by my web server for their websites– more from wikipedia
This pissed me off pretty well. If you’re going to take someone else’s artwork (and yes I use the term VERY loosely) and post it on your site at LEAST have the decency to

A: host it yourself and

B: ask permission first.

So I replaced the image with this:

This made me a feel a bit happier and it was taking up a LOT less bandwidth since the new one is much smaller than the original.

Cut to this afternoon. I was taking a closer look at the past few months web statistics and discovered the extent the linkage had gone, and how much it was still going.

Holy Crap! Over 7 GBs of data in August! 800,000 people viewed it! I never suspected that it was so widely linked. After doing some more digging it seems it’s still in very wide circulation, the numbers are decreasing but we’re still talking hundreds of thousands of people looking at this image I control over the next few months. The number one culprit?

MySpace.

Now I really hate MySpace. It’s an unattractive, annoying, pit of Internet stupidness. Yes I DO have a profile there but only for the purpose of keeping up with a few friends who are otherwise difficult to reach/keep up with.

So here’s the dilemma– I have the ability to replace that image again with whatever I want. It can be crass, ugly, gross, insulting, or whatever I want it to be! I can even advertise a good cause or my own website. My revenge on MySpace for being a eyesore on the face of the Internet is at hand!

What should I do? If anyone has brilliant idea’s please leave them here as a comment– but for right now I’m going to ponder the possibilities and giggle happily.

I noticed a few days ago that good old Google will show you the local show times and locations of any given movie title (assuming you have saved your zip code with google local otherwise you will be prompted for a zip code). What I didn’t realize is they have a pretty full featured movie portal for current movies, and even more impressive is the search function for things within movies (I.E. try ‘movie:Arctic Explorers Vikings‘ to get one of my favorite 70s adventure movies).

Their database of movies both new and old seems pretty extensive and it’s already helped me track down a few movies where I could remember basic plot points but not the title or any of the actors.  The only thing stopping Google from being the one-stop-shop for movie stuff would be links to Netflix and Fandango (or movietickets.com) for each title.
Way to go Google!

(I suppose I should point out that according to the Googleblog this feature has been around since February, I just never noticed it before.)

Oh… By the way, does anyone want to see any of these soon?

• The War Tapes
• A Scanner Darkly
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
• Clerks II

Popcorn’s on me!

Tantalus has another show running that I somehow neglected to list here. I’m not involved in this one but please come out and support the arts, eat some food, and hear som great stories!

Here’s the press release.

The Strange Dreams of Nobody in Particular is a timeless pageant celebrating the power of stories. Tantalus Theatre Group presents a three-night mosaic of storytelling, song, spectacle, and food. Come hear the story of the child emperor, the tragic fall of his magical kingdom, and the hope that made his people whole again. Join us around the campfire and celebrate with us the simple magic of a story well told.

Matthew Rossi proposed this mosaic of storytelling and song to the Tantalus Theatre Group last year. His idea was to tell a story by telling the stories surrounding it. It would be like learning the story of Hamlet through the stories of Fortinbras, Polonius , Rosencrantz, and a guard in the castle Elsinore. The project began to take shape this winter with the help of Apollo M Weaver who joined the writing team and was signed up to direct the production. By the spring they had created a complete three-night epic that told the stories surrounding the Child Emperor and his palace made of paper. After a period of work shopping, the production got underway with the help of the talented cast of Mikayla Brown, Tina Carney, Jordan Keller, Joanna P. Lind, and Parrish Morgan. Each night’s performance is a celebration so come join us for stories, songs and food around the campfire.

Schedule:
The Storied Sun: Fridays June 16 – July 21
The Fall of the Tower: Saturdays June 17- July 22
The Rising Moon: Sundays June 18 – July 23*

All shows are at 7:30. In heavy rain, the show will be cancelled.

*On Sundays July 2 and 23 we will present all three stories:
3:30: The Storied Sun 5:30: The Fall of the Tower 7:30: The Rising Moon

Location:
Waters School Community Garden (Sunnyside and Campbell – 1 block West and 2 blocks South of Western Brown Line.)
Map

Cost: $10 suggested donation

Concessions will be available at all shows.

Yep it’s time for yet another Tanta-production! I’m AD on this one so you won’t see me on stage, but come on out and support the arts (and for that matter the artists). I really think it’s going to be a fun show to see– heck 12 foot tall puppets in a 11 foot tall space is reason enough to come see it.

Here’s the official press release:

02/11/06

– For Immediate Release –

The Tantalus Theatre Group Presents: The Serpent Woman

By combining elements of commedia, fairy tales, a classic love story, and giant puppets the Tantalus Theatre Group has created a new and exciting production of a classic Italian commedia script.

The original production of the Serpent Woman by Carlo Gozzi was popular in its time but the years, and subsequent translations, had not been kind to its audience appeal. Devin Brain (director and Tantalus Theatre Group company member) adapted the script to both simplify the overly complex plot lines, and to further explore the darker, more frightening side of the fairy tale archetypes.

The project really got off the ground when Brain teamed up with veteran puppet maker Marc Chevalier. Marc wasn’t daunted by Devin’s artistic concept; take a very small theatre (the Side Studio with a capacity of about thirty people) and place the largest, most technologically advanced puppets he could into it. Marc has created larger than life, fully articulated puppets of mythical creatures that take up to four actors to control.

The combat sequence between the main character Farruscad (played by Andy Kirtland) and the 12 foot tall skeletal giant posed a particular challenge to Lindsey Noel Whiting whose influence can also be seen in the hypnotic fire dance inspired by traditional Indian candle dancing.

Plot Abstract:

Farrascad is a mortal man trapped in a fairy kingdom who must overcome his own nightmares to be reunited with his true love, despite the efforts of the mischievous fairies Farzana and Zemina who long to keep her for themselves.

The show opens February 24 and runs every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 8 pm through April 1.

The Side Studio 1520 West Jarvis Street (map)
Tickets $10.00

Phone for reservations: 773-960-2066

P.S. I know I owe the world an U/RTA update but that post takes more time and energy than I have right now– Expect it once SW opens!

In the mad dash to get everything in order for Grad schools I realized I have no head shots that look anything like me, so I bought a 20 dollar tripod and walked over to the lake to take some pictures.

This was the result:

It’s not professional or anything but I like it quite a bit. I’m now off to the photo lab to see how well it prints.
(If you’re curious you can click on the one above and download the whopping 2mb version I’m going to try to get printed.)

Update: I just go back from CVS and I have to say I’m really impressed. The prints turned out simply fantastic. The only way you can tell the picture was digital is a little spot where I cut the mask wrong to fake the depth of field right around my ear. Anyone who says 1.2 Megapixels isn’t enough for an 8×10 is a dirty liar!

Thanks to pOps for the hints on how to set things up in photoshop.

I may have to see this movie, and this is why.

(thanks Ross)

Oh poor Samuel L.– You do know you CAN turn down roles don’t you?

This is a perfect example why I shouldn’t be allowed to do things on computers after 3am. I actually wrote this post last friday but I accidentally deleted it after a midnight showing of Aeon Flux. I was trying to delete a comment and go the whole post instead. Whoops!
Sooo…
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OK people in Chicago (or who I might see in NC between the 25th and the 28th) there are way too many movies out (or soon to be out) that I really want to see.

Lets get watching!

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe ✔
Memoirs of a Geisha
Rent ✔
Jarhead
Aeon flux ✔
The Producers
King Kong
The Weatherman
Oliver Twist
A History of Violence

If you have an interest in seeing any of these let me know!
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