So another long stretch between posts, but a busy and exciting one!
The Carnegie Hall Show is still going great. We've been playing every week, nailing down what is essentially a new improv format, introducing our show to the community and the city at large and response has been very encouraging. I do think that lousy Toronto weather has kept audiences on the conservative side (size wise, not politically) so I hope that if this God awful weather ever breaks, then we'll get more happy people on the streets looking for fun things to do. Kensington Market is very quiet this time of year it seems.
Also, another ongoing yet irregular show I've gotten to play is the improvised soap opera Dysfunctional Utopia: A Serialized Romance. Directed by Ron Pederson, the improvised soap features over-the-top characters in a developing overdramatic storyline complete with adultery, conspiracy, murder and mad scientists - and we're doing it again this Sunday! Ghost Jail @ Clinton's on Bloor St.
On the writing front I'm still doing more reading about writing than actual writing, but I'm reading a lot. The latest book I've picked up is "The Way of Story" by Catherine Ann Jones - A book that while it contains some good reminders of the process of builsing outlines and developing characters that I've read in better books, there's a lot of new-agey type stuff about visualization and seemingly letting the story write itself, which I can't stomach to believe is actually very effective. As well, Jones packs the book full of self-congratulatory anecdotes about the few productions her career has consisted of, which do little to sell me on her advice since all the stories and ideas she's sold are never ones I would want to put my name on. (This isn't to say there isn't a market for writing a movie where Dolly Parton plays a country singer (what casting!) who dies and can't get into Heaven so has to go back to earth and do a good deed to get eternal bliss - but good God who would want to?)
More educational than any book I've read or heard of so far though has been the community of TV writer/bloggers that I've be uncovering. Alex Epstein has a great book and accompanying blog [Complications Ensue] about writing, the business of writing and (most importantly to me) the business of writing in Canada. Through him I also found Denis McGrath's killer blog of similar themes [Dead Things on Sticks] which also led me to blogs, groups and a killer weekly meeting of TV pros from Toronto. Last Friday I got to have a beer with Denis, Ed McNamara, Rob Pincombe and Rob Sheridan just because I showed up. This week was even bigger, plus George Strombo showed up. I've never been a proponent of networking (probably only because I haven't ever been good at it) but I feel like I meeting a lot of the right people to know a thing or tow about where to go and what to do once I actually have some product to show.
Anyway, Carnegie Hall is still every Wednesday and Ghost Jail is every Sunday. Come say hello!
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