Columbus Day Round-Up

Today is a Monday and a Holiday for many folks so I wanted to do some round-up stuff and show you all the post card image for Kit Marlowe.

Once again Marigan has done a fantastic job. Thank you to Jenny and Rachel Miller for coming in and helping two Sundays ago to get all the images for Season 8 done and out of the way. I have to be honest Jenny and I sweated our brows to come up with four original images to create this years post cards, and I think after all of the todo was over we came up with some kick ass images. I will be sharing more in the coming weeks.

I want to thank everyone who has already submitted their Get to Know Me interviews and I will publish many of them this week.

I now draw your attention to an article that I had handed to me this morning by my boss from The New York Times. The article by Charles Isherwood, If You Discount It, Will They Come? takes a hard look at discount tickets and the effect they are having on New York theatre audiences. And Helen Pafumi, points our attention to Peter Marks's Theater Tickets for Movie Prices: Behind the Dramatic Reductions in The Washington Post yesterday, examining much the same in our own back yard, looking at our friends at Catalyst Theater and what Shakespeare Theater and Arena are doing to make theater affordable.

Isherwood points out that the best seats to Young Frankenstein are going to run you $450 dollars and that most broadway tickets in the Orchestra are already running $100 a pop. Time Warner has underwritten the costs of seats at New York's Signature Theatre for the next three years and seats that would usually run you $65 are now going for $20 thanks to the unwriter. Marks makes note that tickets to the Shakespeare theatre can run over $75 dollars to a weekend performance and tickets to the Kennedy Center's touring shows reaching the $100 mark.

Isherwood comments on the greying of Broadway and Off-Broadway audiences and how many theaters are trying to combat that with discounts for younger theater goers. Much the same can be said of DC audiences.

Please read the articles and tell me what you think. Rorschach is already one of the cheapest seats in town with regular tickets running $20 and students and senior tickets only $12. And I will be honest we are charging the bare minimum to encourage as many folks to come in and sample what we have to offer. This is the second year that Rorschach has participated in Free Night of Theater and tickets to Kit Marlowe were sold out for our Thursday, November 1st performance in under three minutes.

What is the future of theater? Is it a case of only those who can afford the luxuary of theater being able to come and experience what has been for thousands of years the cultural heritage of not just the elite but the whole of society? Should we be worried that the cost of seeing a play is continually rising while those of us who are trying to persue theater as a profession are still forced to work two and even three jobs in order to survive? Does anyone know a company that might be willing to underwrite an entire season of Rorschach so that we could pretty much just give tickets away, considering Time Warner is going to be paying over twice the Rorschach ticket price so subsidize the tickets of people going to see shows at the New York Signature?

Discuss.

Photo Shoots and the Setting Sun

Things slow down here at the old blog if your's truly isn't in the theater with the crazy kids trying to put on a show. That doesn't mean that things aren't happening, it is just that the information I have to impart is almost always of the marketing/press variety.

Marissa Molnar is a beautiful woman and she was kind enough to do two photo shoots for birds. The first shoot didn't turn out so hot.

Several months back we tried to shoot the post cards for the three remaining shows in Season 7. A group of about ten of us (models, photographer, costumes designers, Artistic Director and Marketing Director) all gathered in various stages of undress in the lobby of Woolly Mammoth to make us some art.

You all by now have seen how fantastic the images for Rough Magic and References . . . turned out. Well we also made an attempt at shooting birds that day as well. I have included a sample of what we were trying to achieve above, for some reason I haven't got any actual shots from the original shoot. The concept was as straight forward as my mind allows me to be. Marissa dressed as a prostitute with feathers sprouting from her body in various locations, shot down a long hallway with light in front of her and a trail of smaller feathers like bread crumbs behind her. Well let's just say this is not an easy thing to do and the final product by no fault of the model or photographer was crap.

So we needed to do a new shoot. Marigan and Marissa were champs. Marissa dusted off her streetwalker best and Marigan made the trek from B-more through thunder storms and traffic on 95 at rush hour to get to Jenny's place before the sun set in the alley behind Casa. It was a close call and we didn't get in the alley until after 7pm.

As you can see by the examples I have been doling out, the effort paid off. There will be several things done to the shot by our graphic designer Carrie before it is finished but a combination of talent, genetics and Jenny standing with a reflective dish in an alley trying to catch the light of a setting sun, made for some fantastic pictures.

Thank you to everyone for not just helping to fix something but in making it a whole lot better.

Just a Taste

This isn't the final image for the post card, but it is an example of the adventure that Marigan, Marrisa, Jenny and I had in the alley behind Casa on Monday Night. There are some beautiful pictures that we scrambled to get done as the sun set in the west. We had a rather interested audience for some of the shots as well. We will have more to show you soon.

Photo Gallery of Magic

Hello children! Jenny sent this email to the cast yesterday afternoon to the cast of Rough Magic:

Hi, Guys--

Just a heads up if you need tix for this weekend. Get your requests in now!

Here's what we have left as of this second:

Tonight: 5 seats left
Friday: SOLD OUT
Saturday 2PM: 7 seats left
Saturday 8PM: 17 seats left

See you shortly!

Jen

I can only imagine that those few seats have already sold, so I am sorry you missed it. You could try and get your tickets for either of tomorrow's two shows, but things don't look good. But I know all of you, you're fighters. And if there was only one seat left you would battle the hounds of hell to see this show.

Now for the cast, designers and crew of Rough Magic. I have uploaded all of the photos I have for the show to a web page. Please feel free to download anything you like. The rest of you can take a look as well here is the link.

Remember the photos were all taken by the lovely and talented Marigan O'Malley-Posada, so always credit her as such.

I will see what I can do about loading the candids I have as well at some point today.

See you all at the wrap party! I'll be the one with the pants on.

Action Heroes

And this is the final product. Thanks to Marigan O'Malley-Posada for some fantastic photo work and Carrie Oglesby for some great design work, we have ourselves our own superhero team to show the world. (Click on the links to see more of their incredible work.) Rough Magic opens in 10 days, previews begin in just 7 so get your tickets now folks this show will literally kick some ass.

Picture of Our Fantastic 4

Rough Magic Photo Shoot

No time to write much today. We did a photo shoot this weekend and here is a glimpse of what the Rough Magic post card will look like. Enjoy and more on all of this tomorrow!

Also real quick, check out this article in the Post about an event I was fortunate enough to be a part of on Saturday Night. It was kick-off event for The Shakespeare in Washington Festival that is going on from January until June of this year. Rough Magic is Rorschach Theatre's contribution to the festival and they asked me to represent Rorschach in a staged reading of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. If anyone is really interested in what it was like they can email me, but I was just proud to be representing Rorschach at a truly huge event.

Pictures of Monster

The photos you have seen on the blog and in the media of Monster have been taken by Marigan O'Malley-Posada. As evidenced by the striking postcard image and the striking way that these production photos have turned out, we at Rorschach are becoming big fans of Marigan's work. Enjoy some shots of the show and then call 1-800-494-TIXS to book your seats.

Monster Shoot

Hi Jenny!

Here is the rough shot – it looks really great in B&W as well. How about if you pass it on and if the graphic designer decides the text should on the top I can add more wall in photoshop – capeche? Let me know what you think.


I had a great time with you guys the other day – thanks so much for the opp!

Marigan