Oct. 15, 2006
Sunday
Alright, so I just finished doing the Mime Troupe summer show, "GodFellas", and now I'm getting ready to meet up with a couple of the Gang's touring companies of 1984. This should be interesting. I've always toured as an actor, with actor things to do - like act. I mean I did do that one tour as the director of "Veronique of the Mounties," but I was there to watch Zachary while Velina acted (and a brilliant hottie job she did, too), but I was more in a supporting role. This time I'm
"THE WRITER."
I'm not going to all the gigs - hey, they don't all want
"THE WRITER,"
but I'll be doing some of them, and right now that's Salt Lake City, Utah, and Melbourne International Arts Festival, Australia. Utah/Australia... so different, so diametrically opposed... literally and figuratively opposite ends of the planet in so many ways - except, of course, they are both possess a plethora of caucasians. Which, by the way, I can point out in my own inimitable style, since I am, apparently,
"THE WRITER."
Salt Lake City
This is one place I never thought I would be. When I was a kid, Utah was America's own little slice of apartheid South Africa, only with harems. But I met a few of the people from the presenting University back during the first LA workshops, and again at the opening, and they seemed nice. Utah was always on the list of places '84 was going to play.
As we drove past the Mormon Tabernacle Wally, the very nice guy who picked me up at the airport kept saying this is the "reddest of red states." I don't know if this is a Travelers Aid disclaimer, he's trying to lower my expectations about audience turnout, or it's a desperate, understated warning to get my other kind of Red butt back on the plane, but it's too late now, I'm checked in. Oh, and I ran into one of the actors. Now they all will know that
"THE WRITER"
has arrived. which has got to suck. Bad enough if the director shows up to peek over your shoulder, but to have the person who wrote it there to maybe tell you how you are not fulfilling his/her vision - what an annoyance.
So, after I settle in Greg, the guy who seems to run Kingsbury Hall, where the show is going to be, invites me out to a dinner with him... and his partner. This guy has a young, hunky domestic partner. In Utah. The partner is a brilliant young scientist, and apparently makes a killer polenta.