Dan Posluns

Well, Rocky came to its bittersweet conclusion this past weekend. I had somehow talked myself into the responsibility of making gifts for everyone who had been helping out on the show, and this proved to be a fairly monumental task, as there were no less than 17 people helping out at every single performance, plus five others we wanted to suitably honour: the director, producer, stage manager, music director and costumer. My initial plan called for a cast photo to be taken, which would be turned into photo-greeting-cards that we could sign and distribute to everyone. I was then going to find five inexpensive collage-frames for the others and load them up with photos of the show.

I ordered the greeting cards online and they arrived on Wednesday, but were printed at about a quarter of the resolution of the original file I sent in and looked horrible, so without sufficient time to place another order I wound up spending an evening designing them myself, going to Kinko’s and getting them printed and cut there. Meanwhile I was unable to find suitable collage frames in the budget I’d requested from the cast, so at one person’s suggestion I undertook the task of making the collages myself and fitting them into generic 16×20 inch frames, which was of course a much larger project than I’d originally signed on for or imagined.

In addition to these, in a stroke of luck/genius I’d come across mad scientist alphabet blocks which seemed like a perfect cast gift, but in order to give everyone blocks with meaningful letters on them I would have to order several sets. In a quick correspondence with the business, however, I found out that not only for a small price increase per block I could select individual blocks, but for a slightly greater increase they would let me pick all six sides for each block, which meant I could custom-tailor a block for each cast member. So for a smaller price than ordering multiple sets I was able to get each cast member their own customized mad scientist alphabet block with letters that I found meaningful to them. Sweet.

On top of this, I wanted to give the cast members a framed cast photo, so I had to get that taken care of as well. So last week was pretty much spent embroiled in getting all that together, and my condo looks like an arts-and-crafts tornado ran through it as a result.

Emotions ran pretty high for closing weekend. All three shows had sold out early in the week, so we knew we’d have good audiences. It was a long run and a good run and of course the only alternative to ending it while still wanting to do more would be to end it once we were sick of it, so there’s no option but to grieve and move on. My only frustration was that after many months of pristine health that was nothing short of miraculous I finally succumbed to a cold on our closing weekend, which of course had to be when they decided to make a video recording of the show. Boo. Fortunately the cold hasn’t affected my throat much, but it hit my lung capacity pretty badly, which wreaked havoc on my solos. The various meds I put myself on also impacted my acting in general, I think. Oh well.

I’ve added some more photos of the production to my gallery, including a whole slew that were taken when we went to see the movie version at the Admiral Theatre, and a couple of the cast with our most famous guest narrator, United States Congressman Jim McDermott:

Some newspaper came and snapped photos of the event as well, but I haven’t heard anything yet about the article.

As sad as I am to see Rocky pass on from my living world and into my life’s history, I finally made it back to an ensemble workshop at Unexpected yesterday and was startled at how much I missed my life there and doing improv. As much as I love doing scripted work, there is a naked honesty that improv provides that other forms of theatre cannot, and the people over there are so excellent that it pains me retroactively to have been removed from them for so long.

I suffered from the usual I’ve-been-away-I-sure-hope-I-remember-how-to-do-this syndrome, but I managed a couple of really decent scenes (and one spectacularly terrible one, but that’s how the improv cookie crumbles) and once I got into it and the feeling of it started flooding back to me, I was almost shaking from how much I missed doing it. I really look forward to sinking my teeth back in over there.

Dan.

The last week or so has been stressful. A friend who is close to me had a health scare, and my personal life has been even more heightened and ineffable than normal. It’s Friday, though, so the show reopens tonight for its second-last weekend and I get to leave my mundane life and problems behind and go lose myself in the insanity and inanity that is my character.

Rocky Horror only has six more shows, so please buy a ticket and come see it before they all sell out! (Oh, I just stumbled on another awesome idea for cast gifts, so that’s something else I’m looking forward to.)

Out of the blue, I’ve been offered a spot through Unexpected Productions to go down to Austin, Texas for a week in November and perform improv at an annual Microsoft conference, expenses paid (and a handsome stipend for myself to boot). Normally they request six specific company members, but this year they asked for a delegation of twelve and I suppose I lucked out in getting offered a spot in the remaining six. It actually took some time to decide if I would do it, as it means liquidating my remaining vacation time for the year, and just as our team is starting to ramp up it’s size. But on further consideration and consultation I realized that I would be a complete idiot to turn down the chance to have a free vacation somewhere warm and that I’ve never been before, where I’ll be getting paid to do the thing I love alongside some of the most fantastic performers I know. So I ultimately said not so much “yes” as “hell yes”.

Once Rocky Horror wraps up I’m going to have nearly half a dozen shows of various friends to go and see, improv to catch up on, and this conference in Austin. I’m still optimistic that November will be less busy than September and October were, but the gap is narrowing.

Dan.

Rocky Horror continues to consume my life, but in a good way. The microphones are still the one stinging issue that persists in being a downer for the cast… we’re now more than half way through the run, and there really is no reason for us to keep having these problems. It sucks not having any control over it, and the band is so loud that if a soloist’s microphone cuts out it’s as jarring as if they were to hit the “BLACKOUT” button on the lighting board and leave everyone in darkness.

In spite of this, it’s a great show and well worth checking out… we only have 8 more performances, so if you’re thinking of seeing the show be sure to get your tickets right away. Our Friday and Saturday performances have all been selling out as word gets around… Sunday matinées are a bit safer: we’ve been hitting about half capacity on those, although both this coming Sunday (with U.S. congressman Jim McDermott as guest narrator) and our closing Sunday are liable to be a lot more packed.

For the curious, we have some photos of the show, and I’ve uploaded a bunch of them to my album, including the following:

… Told you the show was sexy.

Dan.

Tuesday our condo board had the meeting about the impending assessment. Unsurprisingly, when you try to cram both debate and vote into less than three hours over what, for most people, will be the most important financial decision they make in a 5-year timeframe, things get a little hectic. In spite of that, I truly expected the measure to pass and the project to get approval. I was more than a little stunned the next day when I heard that it hadn’t, with the yes-votes only managing 48.2% and 22 people abstaining (which is really unfortunate).

As much as the assessment is a bitter pill to swallow, I had actually hoped it would pass, as it gets the problem taken care of and out of the way. Now it may be another few months before we can get some kind of alternative project started, and while the board frankly did a terrible job of involving the homeowners and really manipulated the circumstances to force this particular solution down their throats (and I think this is the main reason they voted against the project), we really don’t have a lot of choice: either we do something, or our homes continue to depreciate until they are condemned.

Our situation and the outcome of the vote bears an uncanny resemblance to what recently happened with the failed attempt to pass a $700 billion congressional bailout of Wall Street. Since then, a slightly revised (mainly pork-ified) version has passed. Hopefully we will follow a similar path, minus the pork, and with a greater expectation of return on our investment.

Of course, I cannot let the impending assessment halt my spending entirely. Every now and then I get a flash of inspiration for cast gifts, and this time it came in the form of lips and underwear… specifically the lips from the movie’s logo in the form of an embroidered patch which I proceeded to iron onto sexy briefs for the guys and very sexy v-strings for the ladies (the black version). It was a bigger project than it perhaps sounds (it took a couple of weeks to research and obtain all of the necessary pieces), and was well-received by all and as sound an investment as any I have made as of late.

The show continues to go well in our second weekend, although we are still plagued with microphone troubles. I’m really trying to get over myself and my own feelings of inadequacy enough to properly enjoy some of these stage moments, which I know full well I am unlikely to ever see again once this month passes. When the band strikes up and I get to hear myself over the speaker system uttering quite possibly the most famous words from the show: “It’s astounding… time is fleeting… madness takes it toll…” there is a kind of excitement and tension I’ve never experienced in another production. For many people, this is the stuff of legends… and I am delivering it for them. It’s a responsibility that gnaws at me, but I’m also discovering the joy of owning those moments.

Tonight after the show we are going to the Admiral Theatre in west Seattle, where a local shadow cast known as The Zen Room performs the show in front of the movie, as tradition dictates. I’ve negotiated between the two parties of them and our theatre company so that we are able to attend in our show costumes and makeup, and they’re going to give us a nod and allow us to hand out fliers/coupons for our own production. I am excited that I’ve been able to facilitate a fun group outing that will allow us to directly market to potentially upwards of 400 people who are the very literal definition of our target demographic.

I need to take a moment to expound upon how much I love this cast, and how much fun they are. Between the group I had for Urinetown, the folks down at Unexpected, and now this, I am both blessed and spoiled. I adore the Rocky Horror cast and love every moment we get to hang out after or between shows. I’m not going to say “this is why I do theatre” because I do theatre for plenty of reasons, but if I didn’t have any of those other reasons then people like them would still make it worth my while.

Dan.

Opening for Rocky Horror was pretty good, although we had some severe technical problems with the microphones. I had forgotten that there had been a guy with a video camera at our tech rehearsal on Wednesday, and was a bit mortified to be shown the following:

Not a particularly good rehearsal night for me (my voice is tired and inconsistent and breaks toward the end), but it’s at least some evidence for those of you who can’t come see the show that I’m actually doing this.

So, if you’re not too turned off by my performance there, be sure to get your tickets while you can… unsurprisingly, Five-Buck Friday is already sold-out. Only thirteen performances remain!

On the subject of morbidly embarrassing videos of me I didn’t know existed until today, you can check out this final scene at the end of the 54 Hour Improvathon, where I was made to deliriously retell The Fellowship of the Ring from the dead bodies of everyone else on stage. Please be kind and remember that I had been performing for 54 hours straight, and had been awake even longer:

There is also an interview of me after the fact:

Yeesh.

Dan.