Grand Finale...

Hello to anyone still out there. I've been belating my final post because I hit the road and have yet to stop. I unfortunately don't have any photographs to post of my book making or the show, however I will describe to you the show itself, as it was quite something.
The show took place on a surreal Saturday night, January 3rd. I'd had four actors drop out the few days leading up to the show. Some of them simply flaked out (excuses of family emergencies, jobs, and just no communication at all), but what was most heartbreaking was Fannypack Dan was flown to a hospital in Seattle with a kidney failure. I spoke with him on the phone a few days later and he wanted to know every detail of the show. He's back now, and seems to be recovering fine. I will say that offering him a part in the show has opened him up in a way I've never seen--and I've known this man since I was fourteen! A couple hours before the show was to take place, I had a terrible feeling that something would occur that would be completely out of my control. Then, an hour before curtain, I was driving downtown when I heard a car horn and from the corner of my eye came a huge flash of light. I continued to drive downtown and noticed that the power was out in select places downtown. Well, a few of these places were my venues. I arrived at The Boiler Room, our meeting place, to find my actors in the pitch and a riot. With one, "The Show Must Go On!" we dispersed to collect candles. The hour devoted to setting our scenes and warming up (as well as a chance to explain how this thing would actually go down) was spent finding light. By curtain, we were lighting candles in the first venue and dressing the set as about fifty people poured into the dark building. They were an eerily quiet audience. My fliers were very minimal. They simply stated, 'Four on the Town/Meet at Jefferson Community School at 7 pm on January 3rd/This is a theatrical event and it is FREE" so many of the audience members had no idea they would be walking to different scenes, or what they were getting themselves into content-wise. The first scene was a total bust. My one professional actor not only forgot his lines but broke character and started laughing, saying "Shit, sorry Madeline!" My other actors were baffled and did not know what to do. They painfully shuffled through the scene and we hiked to the next show. By this point the audience had grown and The Boiler Room was packed to the brim. Actors were all over the scene, shouting their lines and making audience members jump with surprise. Bill Shepard delivered a haunting monologue under a flashlight hung from the ceiling. A buck-toothed actor jumped in and played a bizarre country song at the end. The third scene was in a staircase and people were sitting on the steps watching the reading located in the doorway. It was this scene that brought a sense of organization to the event, and people began to feel more comfortable with the event. The last scene took place underground, where you had to duck through a little door to get in. I acted in this scene as an eighty year old woman (age make-up, cane...) and held a candle. Luckily, the candle was planned from the beginning. Many people found the scene moving and it was a perfect ending to the show, partly because the last line was "We are absurd." Afterward there was a big candle-lit show at The Boiler Room where we danced till midnight, when the power came on and we went to bed. It took me a couple days of wallowing in what I could've done differently to realize that it was a very cool event. It's been urged that a sequel take place, this time 'Five on the Town,' with new writers in new venues. Many of the original actors and others not involved want to put on another show. With about seventy audience members by the end, I think we'd get a pretty good turnout. I keep thinking about what this could turn into, if perhaps after 'Five on the Town' there was 'Six on the Town' and on until there are some fifty perspectives on PT, all performed and documented.I would like to say that this project has been the most passionate and wildly fun part of my semester. I've never done a show that's brought on so much support from the community, as well as collaboration! Basically, I can't wait to do it all over again. I wish all of you could have been there to see it, as my books feel so meaningless without the town, and the people, and the flickering candle light...