Time to Plug My Latest Show!

Smoke on the Mountain opens tomorrow night at the Farmland Community Center (100 North Main Street, Farmland)! The show runs December 2-3, 9-10, and 16-18! The Friday and Saturday shows start with a dinner at 6:30 pm with the performances beginning at 7:00 pm. The Sunday matinee (December 18th) starts with a dinner at 12:30 pm with the performance at 1:00 pm. It's twenty dollars for the show and the meal (Eighteen dollars for seniors) and only ten dollars for just the show!
 For reservations and more information, please call 765-468-7631
Hope to see you in the Amen Corner!

Oh, Happy Day!

It has been a fairly happy day. I was featured in The Star Press, we performed Smoke on the Mountain in front of our largest audience to date, and Roger and Rita Wessel bought me my onion rings and cherry milkshake at the Chocolate Moose. I need more days like this!

Not Necessarily the News

GOOD NEWS: Smoke on the Mountain winds up its run this weekend at the Main Street Studio Theatre and, like the previous two weekends, we’re sold out! Yay! I’m so proud of our little cast and crew! Everybody is doing such a great job with their roles and the music is so rich and energetic. I knew during our first week of rehearsal that we had the potential to create something wonderful on stage and it’s nice to be proven right for a change!

BAD NEWS: According to Thursday’s Star Press, Muncie is on the verge of losing its public access channel. Apparently, Comcast eliminated its public access coordinator position due to budgetary reasons and is hoping the City of Muncie will step up to the plate and assume the duties of making the channel run. Of course, depending on the city government for any type of help is laughable and, since Muncie is currently running on fumes, I’m afraid public access is on its way out. It’s a shame to see it happen, but Comcast and Muncie never truly gave the channel the support it needed to survive.

As you probably know, Those Funky Idiots started out as a show on public access so I have a certain fondness for the channel. It had so much promise and potential at first. I love the idea of local people making their own programs and I’m still disappointed so few took the opportunity to do so. I know all us Idiots had a blast making our humble garage sitcom. Making those episodes all those years ago were some of the best times of my life and I still miss creating the show to this day so it’s sad to think my old TV “home” is about to become history.

GOOD NEWS: I was recently interviewed by John Carlson from The Star Press for an article that will be in next Saturday’s paper (February 28, I do believe). I still find it hard to believe anybody would be interested in reading about this particular fat cartoonist, but I’m sure the piece will look nice in my scrapbook. Of course, expect a link once the big day arrives!

Smoke on the Mountain

We opened Smoke on the Mountain last night and the show was great fun! You couldn’t ask for a better opening night! Everybody sounded great, the harmonizing was pitch perfect, we got plenty of laughs, and the audience really seemed to have a good time. It definitely felt good on stage, too! And I didn’t screw up the lyrics to Jesus is Mine for a change! In other words, top shelf all around! Yay!

Mountain Man

Well, tomorrow is the night. After weeks of rehearsals, Smoke on the Mountain debuts at Muncie Civic’s Main Street Studio Theatre! Why should you go? Here’s three simple reasons: Great music, a great cast, and I shake a mean tambourine (But, to be honest, my pitch pipe needs work)! Tickets are only 10 bucks (5 for kids/students)! I know I’ll be there. Will you?

Twenty Days

I never did mention I was recently cast in Smoke on the Mountain, a gospel musical-comedy that will be playing at the Main Street Studio Theatre in February. I’m playing Pastor Mervin Oglethorpe and we’ve been in rehearsals for the last three weeks. Things are going pretty smoothly so far. The music and the singing sound great and the cast is populated with a talented bunch of folks. On top of that my friends, Judy and Jerry Cole, are directing and they are doing a bang up job putting things together. Fun times!

Of course, since I’m in a new show, I’m working first shift for a few weeks at Touchy Feely Fotos. I don’t mind first shift though I miss the extra money second shift brings, but I guess that’s the price an artist must pay for his art (Did I just type that with a straight face?)!

What else? I just got an account at Twitter. Of course, I blame John Oak Dalton for that.

Standing Room Only

So I went down to the Civic for the general auditions today and the place was swarming with kids and teenagers. Besides One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, they were also casting for Godspell and Anne of Green Gables. I was late so I ended up having to wait a bit before my name was called. I spent my time trying to lock up my monologue into my memory. I chosen a piece from a play by Lillian Hellman called The Autumn Garden. I originally wanted to do something by David Mamet, but I was too lazy to go to the library so I ended up finding what I needed on-line. The monologue starts with this line: "I live in a room and I go to work and I play a game called getting through the day." After I read that opener, I realized I had my piece. It was so relatable!

While waiting around the box office as stage moms and their brood roamed about, I noticed a script for a musical called Smoke on the Mountain was just sitting on the counter. Bored with forced memorization, I decided to read the script and it wasn't too bad. It was about a family of gospel singers performing at a Southern Baptist church during the Great Depression which reads more amusing than it sounds. The musical was written by actress Connie Ray who I remember as the mom on the short-lived sitcom, The Torklesons (Anybody remember that one besides me?). Connie Ray has a special place in my heart because I can do a kick ass impression of her voice. On the show, she had a pleasingly Southern accent that I can match to a tee. I used her voice when I auditioned for Greater Tuna awhile back and it still lingers in my catalogue of voices that I keep in my head.

Finally, my time comes and I do my bit. It helps that I'm auditioning in front of some people I know (Hello, Judy! Hello, Jerry!) so I'm not a bundle of nerves as I stand on the stage. It doesn't go as smoothly as I hoped, but it's nothing embarrassingly bad either. I make callback and soon I'm sitting in the Studio theatre with some familiar faces (Hello, Joe!). Everybody gets a chance to read some lines from the play and we improvise a couple scenes. As usual, I feel slightly awkward at first, but I loosen up more as we progress. Soon the director tells us he's seen enough and we're officially done. It'll probably be a couple weeks before final casting is completed, but I walked out of the theatre feeling pretty pleased with what I done. It's been awhile since I last played make believe with some other people and I had fun doing it today. All in all, not a bad way to spend a Saturday afternoon.