Quarter-Life Crisis

One of the stranger side-effects of the spread of internet culture is the fact that, thanks to any number of myspace/ringo/facebook memberships, my twenty-fifth birthday is now public knowledge. (I've even gotten automated messages from online dating services, offering congratulations from "the team." Uh, thanks.) In any case, this means that I am now able to officially begin my quarter-life crisis, as opposed to the 4/25 crisis of last year, or the 23/100 crisis of the year before that. As if I needed permission.

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Had a preview at a coffee shop early in the evening (I nearly said "early in the day," since I'm on Fringe schedule now, which means working all night and sleeping all day), which basically ended up being a bunch of artists entertaining each other -- which I'm totally fine with! Most likely the largest audience I'll end up playing this month. It was sort of barely organized, half-MC'd by the Festival director, with a bunch of us impulsively leaping onto the stage and performing pretty much whenever the hell we felt like it.

Y'know, the Minnesota Fringe is large enough -- and has been around long enough -- that, a few glitches excepted, for the most part it chugs along pretty much like clockwork. (At least, from the artist's perspective -- I'm sure it seems much more chaotic than that backstage.) But I'm really falling in love with this scrappy little festival, the last-minute wild ideas that just sort of *happen*. It's fun to be getting my foot in the door here, and I'm looking forward to returning.

My only real regret is that the run is so *short* -- I've made a point of not bringing up the Festival to the locals, just asking "Is there anything going on in terms of theatre here?" And they always think for a minute and say "Well, there's Spamalot..."

Nobody knows what the Fringe *is* yet, but they're always interested once they find out. Give me a week and I can drum up some interest. I don't know how to do that in four days.

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Had another audience of three people tonight (was nearly two, but a friend from Minneapolis surprised me by driving down to catch the show) -- which is apparently kicking ass and taking names, from talking to the other out-of-towners. A number of other performers have had to cancel shows entirely due to nobody showing up.

After my first run-through with an audience yesterday, I'm starting to relax with the material, simplify some of my punchlines, replacing words with gestures and expressions in a few places -- growing more comfortable with the story, at any rate. Hopefully I'll have this down to a science by the time I hit the Mini Apple again.

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Closed out the evening with a recption at the hotel, which naturally led to my becoming obnoxiously drunk. Took the opportunity to get out as many postcards as I could, since it's becoming rapidly obvious that I've printed more cards than the total population of Des Moines.