west uptowner

UCLA sculpture garden, originally uploaded by plastictaxi.

So we left Los Angeles a couple of days ago. Still getting over it - literally: I've been running every day so by the end of a day the jet lag catches up and I get a little stoopid. Good for not much but watching movies and eating. mmmm food.

L.A. is one of those cities that are exciting to visit, and even more exciting to leave. It reminds me of the boring friend you make in grade school because he has the best toys or because his mom always makes hot dogs and kraft dinner: it's awesome to go there after school, but the next day you have to sit with buddy in the cafeteria while he picks his nose and flicks it. At that point it's not fun for everyone anymore.

I do miss the gig though. It's always a bittersweet thing, closing a show -- the intensity of the work, the feeling of being away in a new place with only these few new friends to explore it, the solid feeling of travelling with one clear purpose. But when it's all done, there's something unusually beautiful about a quick goodbye.

# posted by trev @ 11:14 p.m. 3 comments

flyhouse grid, originally uploaded by plastictaxi.

This is the view from the stage at the Freud (pronounced 'Frood') Playhouse theatre, where we are staging "Recent Experiences". Why do they pronounce it 'Frood?' ... there are 2 theories: First: the family that sponsored the construction of the building were actually related to Sigmund, and after emigrating to California changed the pronunciation of their name to distance themselves from his less acceptible eccentricities. Second theory: they were just too stupid to know how to pronounce their own name.

We loaded both "Recent" and "Revolutions in Therapy" into UCLA, and opened them, all in 4 days. It's been a marathon, and now we are able to relax a little and see the city during the day before the shows.

Los Angeles is both gorgeous and horrifying. Warm sun and sweet air -- LA is an idlyllic place if you can let it be just that. Problem is there is always so much going on. Cars racing at you as you cross the street, work scheduled into a tight clump of dense hours, and nothing, absolutely nothing, is available without cash.

Unless it's in your rider.

Nowhere is humanity more plastic than here.

# posted by trev @ 5:13 a.m. 2 comments

victor con text, originally uploaded by plastictaxi.

this is Victor Gomez as a Colombian science fiction writer, from our tech workshop of Madre - Bea's current script-in-development. we're playing with some lighting things and ... well I don't want to talk much about it other than to say workshops are fabulous things and I feel like an actual artist when we are experimenting with how to create our art. Often I get a day to set things up and a few hours to create anything interesting out of that setup... usually not really giving us a chance to tweak and discover new technical methods of making interesting work.

# posted by trev @ 11:39 p.m. 2 comments