Creative inspiration
It’s no secret that I have been in theatre denial the last three months. It’s been bad. So bad that I have actively avoided going to see anything, and I have even avoided doing anything theatre related. My work has taken me elsewhere (which has been interesting, stressful and eye-opening) and I have been totally out of the loop.
I was nervous when I agreed to play TheatreSports last night, in the final performance of a week’s run at The Kalk Bay Theatre; I haven’t played or been involved for months. The anxious excitement had me listening to hard-core kwaito in the car on the way. Really, I had nothing to be afraid of. It was a tiny, intimate audience and we were on top form!
I haven’t played with Heather Mac, who has rejoined the group, in 12 or so years, and we were in a team together. What a delight! We started off by singing the National Anthem of Gobleenya. We discussed an Irish poem called The Slimy Green Goblins under the Rock, and Heather and Leon put it to music. We made friends for life after a navel staring incident in the bathroom of the Woodstock library. We were camels in a Western. I was her English daughter-with-a-beard in an English period drama set in India. I can’t remember when last I had such total and complete fun!
It was also a special night for Anne Hirsch; it was her first performance in front of an audience, and she was fantastic. She spent the evening with fabulous TS veteran, Candice D’Arcy, who looked after her in the best, creative and supportive way.
I have to admit that I am already thinking about when I’ll play again. TheatreSports, you are the other beautiful game, and I love you!
The gift of improv
There is no doubt that performing improv (in my case, in the form of TheatreSports) in front of a live audience is one of the most rewarding things you can do on stage. I think it’s because the possibilities are endless, the experience is unique and totally unrepeatable, and there is that short cut to the feeling of magic because you are present, in yourself, totally truthful and responsive.
Improv has become my religion. I find myself sprouting it as a cure-all for everything. If people want to be good leaders they need to know how to improvise. If companies are dealing with change and fear they need improvisation skills. People suffering from presentation anxiety need to learn to improvise. Actors need improvisation as a fundamental tool of their craft. The skills of improvisation and the mindset it can help create change the way people live and respond to things. It’s altogether a more positive, problem solving, cooperative way of being.
So I am so excited and happy that I am going to be facilitating the new TheatreSports improv workshop over the coming two weekends. A group of wannabe improvisers will be gathering for this intense course. Some will be coming because they want to ‘let loose’ and free themselves from inhibitions. Some will be entertaining the fierce desire to join our existing group of players to perform TheatreSports in front of an audience. Some will not even know exactly why they are there until, in a moment, it falls into place. It’s not too late to sign up. Contact me and I’ll share the details.
The Week that Was
It’s Friday morning and I’m about to go and walk the old ladies, Bayla and Gally, try and get to the damngym (I have been making a bit of an effort this year) before rehearsals, then rehearse, then perform a TheatreSports gig at a pre-barmitzvah thing in somebody’s lounge tonight. And it looks like the weekend will be full of work stuff too. And Big Friendly and I are going for a romantic 2020 game at Newlands on Saturday night!
But I thought I would take a couple of lines to reflect on the week that was.
TheatreSports had good one, with that fab show on Tuesday night, and a really successful corporate performance yesterday. We performed for a company that I had first performed for 16 years ago. They were our first corporate client! Love it.
Rehearsals for my industrial theatre project are going really well. I have been working for the same client for five years now, creating plays, based on the same characters, that go on a country wide roadshow, and I love it. I love my team of actors, I enjoy the process which we have honed into something easy and painless, and it’s the one sure gig I have that pays the rent! it is also the one kind of theatre that I know reaches its target audience, who love it.
I am irritated with our Prez and the country in general. Come on guys, this guy was voted in with a completely public track record of sexual expediency and polygamy! It’s not new news. I’m just irritated that because he is the most important public servant, we taxpayers have to pay for this all. I am irritated that a red carpet was laid for the opening of parliament. I am irritated by the predictability and insincerity of our politicians, and the fact that their promises are totally empty and meaningless; a series of random placatory and warning words strung together and haltingly read out.
I am depressed that I seem to be enjoying pop music again, at my age. I catch myself with Lady Gaga as my earworm of the day. I am dancing to hip hop at my hip hop classes at the damngym!
I am delighted, and this should have been higher on the list, by the Proteas, who mafferated the Indians, on their home turf, by more than a total innings! I can’t wait for the next test to begin on Sunday.
Lots to reflect on, but it’s getting late and the dogs are milling about!
TheatreSports – my mojo
Yesterday was intense; for a number of reasons that included me getting a fdc nomination for Noah of Cape Town (yay for me), and being sad and disappointed that others didn’t (I’m not going into it here), it being so very hot and sticky while we rehearsed the industrial theatre project I work on every year, my damncar remaining unfixed after many days at two different garages, and lots of admin (my absolute worst)!
So driving to The Kalk bay Theatre yesterday evening, I had to muster up the energy for a TheatreSports performance; I was hot, tired and a teeny bit grumpy, to tell you the honest truth. But I was so cheered up when we were done! Firstly, we had a fabulous and enormous crowd, of mainly TheatreSports virgins, in the audience. Secondly, the show itself was most delightful, wacky, hilarious and entertaining. We were on top form I tell ya. It is like the best medicine.
I am one of the lucky ones. I have this thing; it cheers me up, it’s what I love to do, it makes people laugh, it isn’t rude, it’s with a team, it’s totally feel good, and it’s been in my life for 18 years now. TheatreSports is my mojo.
2010 and TheatreSports
I have to admit that I don’t completely have my finger on the pulse of this year yet. I just don’t know exactly what I’ll be doing, or when or how I’ll be doing it. It’s not entirely unusual, with me being a free-lancer, but compared to the hecticness of last year, I seem to be in a bit of a slow start. I got a diary two weeks into the month! I have only written down about four things.
The one certainty I have is TheatreSports, and I must say, we have gotten on to a groovy start. In fact I have just come back from our second Kalk Bay Theatre show tonight and I’m still a bit hyper with the lekker energy and fun of this evening’s performance. Firstly we were almost full, with a crowd of mainly TheatreSports virgins who had never been before. Then, we did some amazing games. My favourites were a scene on a Bolivian hillside involving a llama that had gone astray, a Radio Play (a scene played totally in the dark) called “Shine your Light”, set in 1955 and sponsored by Eskom, a disgusting East Enders type British soapie with British scum of the earth and a sprinkler, and finally a Vampire movie called “The White Board”.
The audience were rolling in the aisles and it was fantastic.
So, at least I know that every Monday and Tuesday night I am busy. Doing the best kind of stuff. For an audience.
Cycles
I have just come from a delightful little meeting securing a TheatreSports performance for a corporate client. When I was met by the woman who had contacted me, in the foyer of their most glamorous head office building, I felt the prickles of familiarity on the back of my neck; I knew her from somewhere. We started chatting as she took me to the room where we would be performing, and it turns out she organised TheatreSports’s very first corporate, about sixteen years ago, at the long disappeared Long St Theatre (in Waterkant Street). She is still with her company, and so am I with mine!
So, in February we will be performing for her and her team, again. I love it.
One down
So, last night’s TheatreSports show has to be called great. We had a newie, Lisa, perform for the first time and she was fantastic. We had a full house, which rocked. We had balloons, and we even got Pongratz for after the show by a Claire Watling, a TheatreSports veteran (who did the second course that I ran in Cape Town in 1994!)
The show itself was a fantastic mix of hilarious; an expert egg poacher, some inexpert Telkom service men and a Double Script game about a mangled cat, completely weird; a massaging lawyer, two twin sister co-principles of a boarding school, and a Jonathan’s Lisp sci-fi where all L’s became B’s. And those are just the things I can remember.
Sorry for you if you missed it, but not really. Because…there are five more shows this week, at The Kalk Bay Theatre. Tickets are cheap. There is no excuse for you not to come. I can’t wait
TheatreSports; 16 years and going strong
Right, I have to get right down to it. Tighten the straps, batten down the hatches, draw on the resources, etc. It’s going to be a crazy two weeks of TheatreSports. This week we celebrate our 16th birthday with performances every night and then next week we play here in Slaap Stad on Monday and Tuesday, and then a small team zips off to Knysna for four sold out fundraiser performances.
For everyone who has been or said they would come or meant to come or even thought about coming to a TheatreSports show, this is the week to do it. Let me remind you how cheap it is (R40 @The Intimate and R50 @ Kallk Bay Theatre) and that every single show is different, so you can see it more than once and never see the same thing twice.
Phone me now on 0834403961 to book, or check out the TheatreSports website and book on line.
The Tent comes down
I’m feeling quite sad actually. Tonight is the final performance of this run of The Tent and I don’t really know if it is ever going to happen again. I want to thank everyone who made this run possible; cast, crew, Artscape’s New Writing Programme and those of you you who came, gave feedback, encouragement and affirmation.
TheatreSports birthday Movember
I have just properly woken up to the fact that we will be celebrating TheatreSports’s 16th anniversary of performances in Cape Town next week. How is that for totally amazing, terrifying, brilliant, scary and plain fantastic?
We are celebrating with a week of performances; the usual Monday 16 Nov at The Intimate and then Tuesday 17 to Saturday 21 we have shows at The Kalk Bay Theatre. Then, the following week we perform the normal Monday and Tuesday here in CT and then we dash off for four shows in Knysna, as part of a fundraiser for an overseas tour by Oakhill School grade 11s.
I also love that our birthday month coincides with Movember, the month of growing moustaches, for fun and charity. I don’t know why, but we have often given discounts to ‘tache wearers to TheatreSports, be they real or fake.
Please come and play with. I think these shows are going to cook. 
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Randomness
