Of Musk and Men

"I am the greatest actor in all of Rome! And yet… they say I merely mimic greatness and do not… embody it."

The rough draft of the poster came in this week, and it was pretty glorious. Striking black image on a flat red background. The artist used the font from the poster for Fellini's Satyricon and it fit perfectly inside the wolf's body. I had been concerned about a legibility issue, but I am a famous fool. I was immediately happy with it, waking Sara up to take a look. 

Having a keen eye for such things, she noticed the word Music in "A Play with Music and Prophecy" looked like "Musk." Turns out an I and a C together look like a K. A Play with Musk and Prophecy.  I pinged the artist, and I was like, "hey, music looks lik--" and he was like, "Musk! I know, I moved it all around, it's the font." 

And I was like, "can you--" and he was like, "I did, this is the best. Just change the word." 

So, now it says, "A Play with Song and Prophecy," which I like better and maybe invokes the first line of The Iliad. Sing, o' Muse... That doesn't take place in Rome, but judge not, lest ye be musked. I am very happy with it, and it's going to sell tickets. I ordered some stickers, something I've never done. Gonna look cool on skateboards and laptops and the banisters of staircases leading down to foreign railways. 

                                        

(Musk!)

The big plan was to have tickets available on the Ides of March, but the company that approves events took the Ides off, so... it wan't until Sunday morning that I got the link off and out. But off and out it now is.  

I always try and picture the attendees and what they're doing when the link is posted to social media. Like, is it a sleepy morning in bed? Will they be more likely to look before brunch? During brunch? At night when they are eating leftover brunch? 

You don't want it to be buried or forgotten, but... there was an immediate response with lots of cast members sharing and people posting about it. So... I reckon Sunday morning ain't so bad. It ain't like the audience is in church. 

Speaking of, someone only just now pointed out the show closes on Easter. No wonder the theater was available. I don't think it will cut into our audience too much, but it's funny to think any play you see that day will have Romans in it. Might as well make it ours. 

Light week of rehearsal. A prominent cast member had a birthday on a traditional rehearsal night, so we took that day off, and a band I love from Brooklyn was in town on the other night, and I had to see them. So, it was mostly working with the Roman Power Couple on Friday and the Full Cast on a big Saturday. 

The Power Couple are coming together very nicely. Once we swapped their roles, they got comfortable enough to play around. Can't wait to get them integrated into the play more fully. Soon. Sooooon. Helveticus had strep throat, so she acted across the room from us, but it gave her a cool husky voice that projected very nicely. 

They, the couple, do something in bed they call "the thing." It's never described or shown, but they take turns in different scenes saying, "Can we do 'the thing' tonight?" It's cute and sexy and strange at once. The actors asked me what it was, and I suggested they just picture a private enjoyment they've experimented with in their intimacies. 

Helveticus said, "You know what, maybe all along The Thing was the friends we made along the way." I rolled all over the chess set laughing. 

Saturday was another run-through of the whole script. I solved my "three fingers for two options" dilemma with a lot of wavery. And I've resigned myself to the cast doing the wave for Wave of Mutilation. Who am I to withstand the force of the tides?

The actor playing Flax was out, so we had people stand in for him, and we made marvelous jokes about them being a "flaxsimile." Oh, it was great craic, this joke. But maybe you had to be there. There was also a funny sequence where a character is supposed to open a scene by shouting "Action," but I had to cry "action" to trigger them saying it. 

Maybe you needed to be there for that, too. It's why we're called "Fleeting Inside Jokes Productions." 

In any case, we're all still laughing and loving one another, and the week ahead will be a lot of dance and fight choreography. We may end up using those broken yardsticks for weapons after all. All they need is a few swipes of paint. 

But, don't we all? Maybe the real stage weapons are the friends we made along the way.