City Paper Best of DC Picks

Here at the Ol' Rorschach Blog we are big believers in lobbying for our place in the sun.

When contests come up where we can lobby you, our 10 or so loyal readers, to vote for us in an on-line poll we will pimp ourselves out like anyone seeking the presidental nod.

This time the City Paper has given us the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the ease and simplicity of on-line voting.

Washington City Paper's 2008 Best of D.C. popularity contest is up and running.

What you ask do I have to do?

Quite simple really. Follow this LINK and where it has a blank next to Best Theatre Company, just type in Rorschach Theatre. If you want you can even copy Rorschach Theatre from this blog and paste it into the appropriate slot.

Just scroll down the list to Best Theatre Company it's right after Best Strip Club (for which I recommend you write in the DAR Constitution Hall).

You can vote for anything else as you see fit. You'll have to hit the Orange Continue to next page button a couple of times to have your vote cast.

Remember it is only with your help that we can hope to oppose the forces of certain companies whose names begin with S, W, and A. Vote now and vote as often as they will let you (which is one a day it turns out). This is not a presidental election so your vote should actually count.

Thank in advance and remember the only payment I can offer is love. Not physical love but the spiritual kind that they talk about in books and world religions.

Which Company Member Are You?

I will try and expand it to include more company members later but I hope you enjoy!

Which Rorschach Company Member Are You? Your Result: Scott McCormick I am sorry. You seemed like such a normal well balanced person when this whole thing started but somewhere along the line you proved that not everything that is normal on the outside is balanced on the inside. You should also work on learning your lines!
Grady Weatherford
Tim Getman
Rahaleh Nassri
Jenny McConnell Frederick
Randy Baker
Which Rorschach Company Member Are You? Make Your Own Quiz

Housekeeping

There are so many things to remind you about before you all take your 4 day weekends.

Keep voting for References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot and Gabriela over at DC Theatre Scene. References . . . has a slim edge in first place but Gabi has slipped to the middle of the pack. Make sure everyone you know who loves Rorschach is voting, we can win this one. Click HERE to vote.

Page to Stage at the Kennedy Center this weekend and while there are many plays getting a first read this long weekend, there are none so important as Randy Baker's Dream Sailors. Sunday at 5:30 pm in the Family Theatre. Click HERE for all the details.

Also this weekend the playwrights will get their assignments for Myth-Appropriation: The Brothers Grimm. Then rehearsals start in earnest Monday for a one night only event next Saturday at 8pm and 10pm at Casa. Tickets are just $10 and can be ordered on-line HERE or call 1-800-494-TIXS.

Hope you have been having fun with the How Rorschach Are You? on-line poll. Let me know how you are scoring in the comments area and if I can suggest ways to improve, let me know.

For tomorrow I am working on something special so check in before you head out. All the best, and I am out!

How Rorschach Are You?

Click here and take our new exciting on-line test to see How Rorschach are you?

You are 81% Rorschach!

I am impressed. You know who we are, you get where we are going and I would even say given a little time you might consider yourself one of the tribe. Not quite yet though.

How Rorschach are you?
Make a Quiz

Poll Dancing

Which Rorschach Season 8 show would you most likely bring a date to see?
	Kit Marlowe
	The Skin of Our Teeth
	Dream Sailors
	This Storm is What We Call Progress
pollcode.com free polls

1/2 Way to 1000

From time to time I like to share some of the arty pictures I take in the world with you my Marianne Faithful readers. It's a tower in Gettysberg by the way.

This is our 500th Entry here on the Rorschach Blog and as in the past I will list off some of my favorite entries of the past 100 or so, but first some house keeping.

We are ahead in the DC Theatre Scene's Peoples Choice Awards in both Best Play and Best Actress, but there are still 2 weeks to go before the polls close and we seem to have bottomed out at 22 or 23 votes. We need more. So figure out the best way to get more votes people, without cheating that is! VOTE HERE!

Tim Getman was interviewed by our friend Jane Horowitz forabout his past in Woolly Mammoth's upcoming production of The Unmentionables. Read what Tim has to say about missionaries and his parents from last Wednesday's BackStage Column in the Post. Scroll down to the part of the article where is says Culture Clash for the interview.

6 Best of the last 100 Entries

• 10 Reasons References is Cooler than Star Wars
• God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut
• References to Tennessee Williams . . .
• Gilgamesh and Enkidu at Uruk
• Post Cards and Results
• Inspiration

See you again when we get to 600!

Business Day

There is a beginning to everything.

First off thank you to everyone who voted in the DC Theatre Scene's People's Choice Awards yesterday.

Lorraine Treanor at DC Theatre Scene sent me this email:

Our Back-Up Plan
In case of a tie, we'll have a wrestling match.
Would like to see you go up against Michael Kahn and Gabriella against Nancy Robinette. Now THAT's entertainment! Thanks for ratcheting up the excitement.
-Lorraine

Gabi and References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot have pulled ahead of all the nominated actresses and shows, but there is still more work to do. If you haven't voted vote, if you think it might be worth sending an email out to your friends to have them vote, please do so. This thing is in our grasp until someone else starts lobbying harder than we do. Vote HERE if you haven't already and read below if you need a refresher on the 411.

Two big new play events coming up in the following weeks. The first one is Rorschach's contribution to the Kennedy Center's Annual Page to Stage Event. Rorschach's Co-Artistic Director Randy Baker, will be having a preview of the first Episode of his new work Dream Sailors on Saturday, September 2nd at 5:30 p.m. in the Family Theater at that Big Theater on the Potomac.

Dream Sailors will play out over four episodes and will receive its World Premiere this Spring as part of Rorschach's Season 8.

The event is free and you can make a day of it or even a weekend as other theaters will be giving free readings of new works. This is a great event and fantastic way to see some of your favorite actors, directors and especially playwrights bring life to new words and works.

In the same vein of getting in on new works, how about seeing six of them in one night.

Rorschach proudly announces, our own new annual event. Myth-Appropriations will bring 6 playwrights, together with 6 directors and numerous actors and designers to bring six new plays to life in just six days.

The plan is that each year a different set of myths, fairy tales and sagas will be tapped for their dramatic potential and will be fully produced in just 6 days. This year the playwrights will tackle the works of The Brothers Grimm. Yes, all of those warm stories of sibling torture, children being eaten and matricide of your childhood will be brought to theatrical life in about the same amount of time that it takes a lot of shows to simply get through a first read and table work.

Here are some of the folks who will bring this thing to life:
WRITTEN BY Norman Allen, Randy Baker, Ally Currin, James Hesla, Jacqueline E. Lawton, Gwyddion Suilebhan
DIRECTED BY Jessi Burgess, Michael Dove, Dan pruksarnukul, Patrick Torres, Catherine Tripp, Andy Wassenich
DESIGNED BY David Ghatan, Robbie Hayes, Debra Kim Sivigny
FEATURING Evan Casey, Jenny Corbett, Nicola Daval, Christopher Dinolfo, Daniel Eichner, Dana Edwards, Heather Gaither, Maggie Glauber, Jeremy Goren, Michael Grew, Cesar Guadamuz, Lauren Krizner, Jason Linkins, John Michael MacDonald, Adrienne Nelson, Sasha Olinick, Helen Pafumi, Ghillian Porter, Betsy Rosen, Mark Ross, Jesse Terrill, Amanda Thickpenny, Wendy Wilmer, Simone Zvi
PRODUCED BY Randy Baker and Jenny McConnell Frederick

Participants are subject to change. But you know you want to be there.

Tickets are just $10 and there are only two shows. So if you want to book your seats early for this one night only event on September 8th at 8 and 10 p.m. I suggest you follow this link and do so now or call 1-800-494-TIXS.

Help Us Win Something for a Change!

I have never been one to try and interfere in elections. I was accused of voting irregularities when I ran student government elections in college. I was cleared of all charges and was given a half hearted apology by the man who did the accusing. That being said I think Rorschach has a shot at winning an on-line poll and I am not demanding your vote but we would appreciate it.

DC Theatre Scene (née DC Theatre Reviews) has created a sort of DC People's Choice Award. They asked all of their staff and critics to list their favorite plays, musicals, actors and actresses for the 2006-2007 Season. They then took the top three choices from each staff member and created an on-line poll to choose a people's choice.

Well Rorschach is up in two categories, thank you very much Ronnie Ruff, Best Play - References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot and Best Actress - Gabriella Fernandez-Coffey for References . . .

Now I am not telling you that have to vote for us, but since you are apparently interested in Rorschach enough to read this blog, I think you might take a minute to help us win something.

Here is what you do:
1. Visit DC Theatre Scenes home page by clicking HERE.
2. Scroll down until you see the on-line poll section.
3. Click in the bubbles next to References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot and Gabriella Fernandez-Coffey.
4.You need to click the vote box at the bottom of each category.

If you want to vote in the other categories feel free, but we need your votes in Best Play and Best Actress. I can't make you vote for us, but References . . . was such a special show and I know that we loved putting it up, we hope you loved it as well.

There May Be Actual News Later This Week

There seems to be some worry that all I am going to do for the next two weeks is talk about the Channel 9 Poll. And you should be worried. I was never an athlete and therefore all of my competitive nature was channeled into elections. I was class president for three years in high school and then Student Government President my Senior Year, so as you can see I like winning elections. As many of you know I was in fact a political science major in college and therefore the nature of elections has long held a keen, if not unhealthy, fascination for me.

I remember the first time I won a school wide election, the thrill of my name be announced over the PA and all the kids in the band room coming up and saying, "How you doing Mr. President?" See that is what happens when you win elections people give you titles and you get to lord it over the whole freshman class, people who used to laugh at you in middle school now look at you and go he must be more popular than I thought he was, you know you have made it.

So excuse me if I am a little fixated. Pardon me if a popularity contest on a local CBS affiliate holds the same fascination for me as winning not one but three class presidencies and a SGA election. I will apologize to no human, man or woman, for my desire to see the other theaters of DC crushed beneath the heal of Rorschachian Supremacy. We may not be able to impress the Helen Hayes judges with our passionate performance style and our inventive ways of stretching a dollar bill into three, but we will pick away at the lead of Classika, Arena and Signature until we stand as equals on the battle field of cyber space. We will let loose our barbaric YAWP from the battlements of our blog and say "Here we are, come and get us! We are Rorschach Theatre and our fans are smart enough to vote on line."

By the way we jumped another 1% so we are at 12% now. Good work and keep voting.

Two Number Ones

I thank you. I thank you from the bottom of my shrivelled little heart. I ask and you deliver. It also helps that we have got a mention on Jason Linkins, Dceiver blog which gets a whole hell of a lot more traffic than this one.

11% People! In under a week we have crawled our way up to the top four vote getters. Beating Shakespeare Theatre and eating steadily into Arena and Signature. I would talk about Classika-Synetic but it just isn't good form. They are small and in Virginia and if they win more power to them for using the same weapons at their disposal as we, trying to take down the big boys. But make no mistake I want them to go down as well, with Rorschach holding the bloody knife at the top of the Channel 9 Heap, our enemies lying before us in a mound of death.

As a disclaimer I hope you all realize that I am of course speaking in Metaphor and while I abhor death in the normal sense I use it all the time in every day speech, like I would kill for a bagel or I could rip the guts out of some soup right about now. No one should kill any theater for me! Please remember my most sacred vow, first do no harm. I know that is a doctor's oath but I played a doctor once and thought it made good sense.

Keep voting until we are ahead of Arena by the end of the week! We only have until September 7th. Follow the link.

Now I want a Pony

See this is what I call action people. When I posted the first notice about this little experiment in being the popular kid, Rorschach wasn't even in the top five. Then we knocked Roundhouse off the list. Second time I mentioned this I told you all I wanted to move ahead of Shakespeare Theatre and once again you all delivered. Thank you! Special thank you also to SAS over at City Mouse for giving this groound swell a plug. If you have never visited City Mouse do it today.

Now today is a Friday in August and our readership falls like a Led Zeppelin on Fridays so I am expecting no miracles, but a big little boy typing on Wisconsin Ave. can wish, can't he? Here is my wish, I want to eat into Arena's 19% as much as possible between now and Monday. I know all of you have at least one or two extra email addresses you use when you are entering forbiden sites. I want you to use them all. You may be asking yourself is that fair? Voting twice isn't that some sort of violation of the spirit of our Constitution? Yes, in fact I feel it is very fair. I feel it is the fairest thing any of us can do. Look at the competition people do you think Synetic is relying on the precept of one man one vote? Do you know how large the subscriber base is at Arena and Signature and Shakespeare? We at the little theater that can are merely using all of the tools in our box people.

So if you haven't voted people vote as many times as you possibly can. You know the drill follow the link and then make those big theaters pay for every time they haven't called you in for a show you would have been perfect for. Make them pay for every lame ass show they have ever put up just because the tourists will love it. Make them pay for every Helen Hayes nomination that they stole away from you and the $100 budget you had for costuming a cast of 15. And then we will know who truly is better at fixing an election.

Only Make Believe

First off thank you to everyone who took the time to vote at the Channel 9 A List yesterday. Thanks to you all we have broken into the top five with 8% of the vote. This puts us just one point down from the Shakespeare Theatre Company. I think that if we all try a little harder we can knock those guys down to fifth and take over fourth place. Here is my goal, it looks like Classika/Synetic has the same idea we do, lobbying hard people, and they are just behind Signature. If we could beat Shakespeare and Arena in this popularity contest I would be pleased as punch, so keep sending your friends to the site and have them use every email address in their arsenal to win one for the plucky little theatre with a heart of gold.

There comes a point in a young man or woman's life where they stop playing. They put away their toys, comic books, fairy wands and crayolas and start acting like adults. And as the toys go away so do games like make believe.

When I was a kid in the 70s and 80s all the neighborhood would participate in cross neighborhood games of Superfriends, Star Wars or GI Joe, much in the same way that my neice and nephews apparently now pretend to be Yu-gi-oh! or Dragon Ball Z. Eventually they will stop playing these games of make believe and settle down and be grown-ups. Actors on the other hand never really stop playing make believe and that is what makes us the objects of so much curiosity in the real world.

As an actor I can't tell you how many conversations I have had where I tell someone what I do and they say, "Oh I did a little acting in high school." These people see acting and pretending as something you give up when you grow up.

Here is what I believe, actors keep pretending so those without the desire or the talent can go on and do the big grown-up important stuff in the world. Do things like runs stores, fix things or start wars. Actors allow everyone else to grow up so that they can go to the theatre, watch a movie or tv and experience someone doing something they loved to do when they were younger, pretend.

For me the real world creeps in all the time, issues like rent and health insurance have made in necessary for me to grow-up just a little. To balance that I purchase toys, comic books, watch cartoons and every chance I get I go up on stage and play pretend, so that someone else can run a multi-national corporation or look for a cure for cancer. Actors and artists make it possible for those who have grown up to keep a little bit of that child they were alive.

You can thank us later.

Rorschach: We Are Good at Filling Out Things

It has been on my mind as of late that Rorschach as a whole has not received the kind of grass root support it has needed as of late. Yes you all are doing your job; you have been visiting the blog, you come to all of the shows and you show up when we ask for your help. And believe me despite what you might hear we appreciate it. Here is the thing though we have no stupid awards to flash around.

Recently the Washington Post published their Best of Picks for 2006 and the winner in the best theater catagory was the Kennedy Center. I make no commentary on this choice, it was a fine choice for a group of people who chose the Best Place to Get Coffee as being Starbucks. Am I comparing a large Federally Supported building that has hosted a certain hair themed murder mystery that is fun to send your out of town visitors to when you are sick of them to a chain coffee places that has all the character of a rest stop on the Pennsylvania Turnpike? Me no, but there has been talk.

Where is all of this leading me? Well you ever think what would happen if one of us gutsey little theater companies got the gumption together to actually turn out the vote for one of these rediculous little exercises in vanity? And make no mistake we are vain and we would shove it in everybody's face if we ever won one of these Best Bets. Well here is our chance to take a test run at the this for next year.

Channel 9 has a similiar poll going on right now. A List 2006 is their way of getting into the listing of things based on how many people bother to vote on a web site. The contest has been going on since July and we just got our names in the poll yesterday, so I have no illusions in my mind that we can win, but what if we could? What if we got really good at voting on-line and next year, we beat out the Kennedy Center? What if people saw the name Rorschach and realized how very very good we were at fixing on-line polls and contests.

So I ask you to please vote for Rorschach. Follow the link and cast your vote in this rediculous contest that seems to think that the Uptown Movie Theater should be listed in the Theatre Catagory. And then mail this link to all of your friends and tell them to vote for Rorschach. And then next year we will rule the Best Bets at the Post. We will parade our ability to get people to fill out silly polls before the world and bring the Best Bet back to the people who need it most, not the people who are drinking their coffee at Starbucks but at funky places like Sparky's.

Rise up people and show how much better Rorschach is at filling out on-line polls!