Favorites so far – Rachel
So far, one of my favorites parts of writing the show was choreographing our Barack dance. I had it in my head a year ago that I wanted a dance like this in the show…should we we write one, and that it would either be all of us or just me and Erika. I had no context for said dance…other than possibly a shockingly fun opener…so it was quite wonderful that Erika not only had the same dancy thing in mind – but went so far as to have a kick ass idea and context for it. I had the best time choreographing this with her – Erkia and I were on the exact same page as far as style and creating the dance was like being back at a 4th grade slumber party with your closest girlfirends. I can’t wait to do it in the show.
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personally, with 5 days until we open, i’ve moved from nervousness to a weird sense of excited acceptance.
i’m really excited to put it up.
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WHAT ARE YOU SAYING??? – DAVE
We finished up our two songs last night with Ratlff last night Jeez, what a blesisng John has been. He totally gets our sense of humor and he is at least as old as us. Which is nice to count on. No offesnse to the Tweeners out there, but there’s a shorthand of values that you don’t have to worry about when you work with someone who grew up in the 70’s & 80’s (snobbish? perhaps. true? yes.)
…we have about 3 short (1 minute) pieces to finally commit to, lines-wise, and one ending to rewrite….
But for the most part. Writing has stopped and now the arduous tasks of memorizing begins.
Here’s a good question…When we will have time to memorize?
This is a good one. We are in Best of Frontera Fest tonight and Saturday Night. We have to be there from 7 until we go on at 9:45 ish. We are in the Double Barrel with the Cupholders on Friday Night. I have Thursday Night Awesome (www.thursdaynightawesome.com) on Thursday Night. (Thursday. Thursday. Thursday. What a funny word) .
Sunday is load in. And we strart Teching with Kacey Sunday night. Oh, and we all have 8-5 day jobs…(E-dawg don’t, but she’s go so many contract work gigs that she might as well).
So, a fair question on m’lady’s part…I plan on using my lunch hours to memorize my lines (I am not going to worry about cue lines right now) and hope that once we are all roughly 80% off book, we can perosnalize it the rest of the way.
Plus, props and costume buying, set design, tranisitions, a CD of music intros…So much to see so much to do.
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and on the same friday as our weekend run.
there’s a dance tribute to Barack Obama in our show (peformed by Rach and I), kind of like the Bird Flu piece bob and i did in “Great Americans”. although i am a super spaz, i love to dance. i also love Barack, and was a volunteer for his Illinois Senate campaign when we were living in Chicago.
i got the idea to perform a dance tribute to Barack when we were writing Great American’s last year, but it didn’t get developed in lieu of the other stuff (and more timely, similarly-veined movement pieces like Bird Flu). i’m sooooooo excited that he is running for president, and that i will get to see him speak (hopefully).
without talking it to death, i wanted to have a dance tribute to Barack that comments on the good and bad aspects of idolization. i’ve watched a couple of documentaries about north korea in the last few months, and find their worship of kim jong il II simulatenously fascinating and disturbing.
so, we’re gonna dance it out!
OBAMA!
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I’M A GONNA CUT YOU! – DAVE
First post, y’all! And not a day too soon. We are putting the barn up and seeing the frame as I type this. We are putting a running order together and cutting some of the weaker scenes in the flock. I love this part of the process… (“Process” — oooh, how most sketch comedians hate that word these days…but, F ’em, I still use it). We can really see what the show flow will look like and dag nabbit, I can rest assured that there is not a clunker in the whole setlist.
Not to toot my own horn, but I was kinda hesitant starting this whole writing thing, because, truth be told. I have barely written an actual show. I have directed over a dozen sketch shows, but have never really written one that I would be acting in (outside of Tight:Asses in last year’s Lone Star Sketch Fest). Most of the shows I have directed I have co-written with that particular cast. So, I was kind of suspect of my own skill for writing for my own voice and Point of View. But I am generally pround of the things I have written. Some scenes (like Gate 12** and Rain) came from my own personal experiences. These past two months have really given me so much more confidence as a writer.
And that feels good.
🙂
**I should point out that Gate 12 would be nothing but an idea if it weren’t for Rachel, and then Erika and Bob, collecting all the bits being bandied about since October.
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We are meeting tonight to work on our running order, as well as the opening/closing parts of the show. The running order is somewhat solidified in terms of which part of the show we think each sketch should be in. Now we are just working out (and will continue to as we tech) scene to scene transistions and energy level/flow things for each act. Also, we are slowly getting off book for the scenes that are in the can. Some are a little more memorized than others at this point…
Also, we were informed last night that we would be the closing act for Frontera Fest’s Best of Fest Wednesday/Saturday shows at Hyde Park Theatre. We are very honored. The line ups for all of the Best of shows look great, so come out and support Frontera if you haven’t already.
We are also performing this week during Friday’s Double Barrel show at the Hideout at 10pm. We’re going to be putting up a few more scenes from the show (including our musical number, “Meth Lab”). Putting up these scenes ahead of time over the last few months has been a great help to understanding what things are actually funny, what things really just work on paper, and sometimes even what unexpected things are hitting in a scene.
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In the Chronicle – Bob
The new issue of the Austin Chronicle has a great write-up of this past week’s Best-of-Fest Frontera show by Hannah Kenah. It was a great night, with sets seen and heard (I was backstage for much of the show) from the Available Cupholders, Big Poppa E, Luna Tart, Genevieve Van Cleve, and us. We’re pretty proud of that show and are certainly honored to have been included in such a great review.
Read it here: http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/review?oid=oid%3A444363
We’ve also been taking the meat of what we improvised that night (“Passover”) and turning it into a sketch for our Feb run. It’s gone through a few iterations so far but I think it should be done this weekend.
We’re also performing in tomorrow night’s Double Barrel show at the Hideout (10pm, with Parallelophonogramophonograph), performing some sketch stuff we’ve been working on, as well as some improv with our friends Mac and Mike from Houston’s Massive. Saturday, P-graph and us will be doing it again at Coldtowne Theater (10pm). Come out and say hello!
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For More Information
Please Call Erika May
At 773-551-0124
thefrankmills.wordpress.com
THE FRANK MILLS PREMIER NEW SKETCH SHOW AT THE BLUE THEATRE
February 22nd- February 24th the Austin-based, award-winning comedic ensemble perform a workshop production of their upcoming sketch show “One Classy-Ass Show” in preparation for May 2007 run.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: January 24, 2007 Austin, TX —- Veteran comedic performers – The Frank Mills – are proud announce three workshop performances of their upcoming sketch show “One Classy-Ass Show” on Thursday, February 22nd, Friday, February 23rd and Saturday, February 24th, 2007 at 8:00pm at The Blue Theatre (916 Springdale Rd, Austin, TX).
Continue reading ‘Press Release for Workshopped Production “One Classy-Ass Show”’
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2 things – rachel
Thank you FronteraFest. I felt so happy that we got asked to come back for Best of the Week…and then to have a really nice show that night too – that was cool. Sometimes I have no sense of how our show was..maybe I get afraid of being too exicted about things …I’m glad everyone felt it was a good show. One of my favorite moments was when Dave asked that brilliant and personal question about _____ (I don’t want to reveal it right?) and then Bob and Erika’s perfect reaction…so funny – I wanted to laugh during the scene. Last night I transcribed our “best of” show and now we will tighten it and put “Passover” in the February run. It was good to get a lot of work done together, fun and productive…. I felt inspired (and caffinated) – so after we got home and watched the Lost episode where….stuff happens, I finished the spider sketch.
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sugary snacks and a computer for everyone.
our rehearsal was at our house last night. we have 2 PCs in our office (which bob and rachel are pictured on at R), dave has a laptop and i just recently got a laptop. so everyone had a PC. at the start of the rehearsal, we went through the big list of scenes. some are fully written, some were just ideas, some were from improvised shows, some partly written.
we started off reviewing them all, discussing their merits and having people take primary and back up responsibility for getting em done. after 2 hours, we all came back with our work and read through them.
after 7 hours of work, we have 3 new scenes and several rewrites that are supasolid. we also decided to include one or two from ‘mcnichol &may: great americans’ in the show, since we know those work and they are good times for the audience (not to mention, they haven’t been seen by most people outside of the improv/sketch community).
this was a really great way to have a writing meeting. tuesday is our deadline for final RO and writing.
on an entirely separate note, our frontera fest show on friday and saturday night went well. i was proud of us and happy to leave the audience with some good improv and new perspective on what the craft can be. i think rachel planned on posting about the show on saturday (the suggestion was “Passover”)…
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The Frank Mills: An Improvisation and Sketch Blog 
