Black Wood at Fringe

Posted on by Thor

Pam and I happen to have been binge watching Dark Shadows, a goth 1960s live TV show. The show ran for an incredible 1,225 episodes. We are still watching the first season, though it seems like it has been forever. Black Wood, written by Steve Schneider and directed by David Russell, recreated what it might be like for the cast of that tradition of live TV. I have a rather personal memory of watching Dark Shadows as a child. My mother was diagnosed with cancer and she spent most of her time in a NYC hospital away from our suburban New Jersey home. Towards the end, she came home and I would sit in bed with her watching Dark Shadows each day. To me the show seemed dark and sinister, often dealing with people struggling to stay alive after having their blood sucked away by Barnabas Collins… a VAMPIRE! This was one of the last memories I had of being close to my mom. I was 10 years old.

Black Wood featured a young method-acting student, Caroline (Melanie Leon) landing a prize role right after graduating from acting school. Her excitement and enthusiasm was thrilling. The long time cast of the show, however, was jaded, just trying to get through each episode without stumbling. To open her first appearance, Caroline read an opening monologue into the mic. Her throaty, reflective, and dreamy performance was perfectly in line with every intro that proceeded the actual on-air drama. In her monologue, she dreamed of how her life would change once she was finally confronted by Black Wood. The intern on the program, William (Hannibal Callens), was black and he tried to hold back a giggle. This was an ongoing joke.

The cast were professional actors faced with having to go live before the cameras for each show with only a brief rehearsal and script rundown. The sinister vampire of the series was Peter, playing Victor (J.D. Sutton.) He had a magnificently chiseled face, reminiscent of Vincent Price. One constant when watching the TV show live is that actors often stumbled horrifically over their lines. In this stage comedy, Victor as an aging actor was the one who would forget his, leaving the cast stunned as they tried to redirect him on the live broadcast. It left room for plenty of comedy and dark terrified stares off into the scary unknown.

This is my favorite Fringe show so far. I have the advantage of being in the midst of watching Dark Shadows. If you have never seen the goth 1960s drama, then some of the subtle jokes might be missed. But I had a blast. When Caroline let it slip that she was proud to be working on a soap opera, the whole cast gasped. They didn’t like referring to their show as a soap opera. They preferred to call it a daytime drama. Soap operas suck, but reality bites. I am certain that Barnabas Collins would approve.

Tickets are $12 plus a $10 Fringe Button. Show dates are:

Thursday May 16, 2019 at 8:45 PM to 9:45 PM

Saturday May 18, 2019 at 3 PM to 4 PM

Wednesday May 22, 2019 at 1:45 PM to 2:45 PM

Saturday May 25, 2019 at 1:45 PM to 2:45 PM

Sunday May 26, 2019 at 10:45 PM to 11:45 PM

Showgirls at Fringe

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On May 14th the Orlando International Fringe Festival begins. It will be 14 days of fun and theatrical fancy. Fringe is the longest running Fringe Theatre Festival in the United States. It is founded on the principle of being 100% uncensored, unjuried, accessible, and inclusive. 100% of ticket sales are returned to the performers.  To Fringe you need to get a Fringe Button, necessary to get into any show. No button = no entry. Tickets are around $12 and most shows run for about an hour.

The first show I saw was A Showgirls Musical presented by JMEG Theatrical, Winter Garden, FL. The show featured sequins, sabotage, and sex in the pool. Nomi Malone arrived in Las Vegas with a dream of being a famous showgirl. When she arrived, she caught a ride from a stranger and immediately had all her possessions stolen. She took her anger out on a random car and in the process met a girl who took her in.

The first club she worked in was a total dive. When told to show her breasts she said she wasn’t getting paid enough and stormed out. She changed her tune over time – for the money – and she did a disgruntled lap dance for a customer. As a 20-somethinglearning for the first time, she yearned to fit in on the strip. She saw a woman walk by in a dress she loved. She wanted the dress, which she bought with money borrowed from her friend. It was $900.  Though she bought it, she didn’t bother learning how to pronounce Versace. “Ver-sayse!”

A musical-sex-in-the-pool number brought an audition opportunity and advancement. But, even a better showgirls’ troop was far from ideal. There was plenty of glitter and cat fights in the dressing rooms. She fought her way to the top only to find it wasn’t really what she had even wanted.

The press preview I saw had technical difficulties, in that the mics kept cutting out, so I didn’t hear half of what some characters said. That said, This is still a show I would recommenced for fun dance and plenty of sass!

Tickets for the remaining show dates. The show is in the Orange Venue in the Orlando Shakespeare Theater. Don’t forget to get your Fringe button as well.

10:00 PM

8:00 PM

10:30 PM

8:15 PM

6:30 PM

10:15 PM

Chef Nite

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Chef Rashaad Shears was lured to Central Florida by Disney. They were looking for talented chefs for their themed restaurants. For a time, it was a dream job, but eventually things changed. Rashaad set out on his own, setting up Chef Nite in a warehouse (3477 Parkway Ctr Ct, Bldg 608 Orlando, Florida) which he converted into a kitchen and teaching space. Now, he works on his own introducing couples and groups to the pleasures of cooking, while also catering custom meals and offering personal chef experiences.

Pam is a fine chef herself, cooking each weekend by taste and experimentation. She arranged for us to take this cooking course together. Finding the workshop was an adventure in and of itself. It was at the end of row of warehouses. It reminded me of a scene in Good Fellas, where the wife of a mobster was encouraged to walk into a dark alley to get some free clothes. Inside burly men loomed in the dark. She got spooked and drove off. We weren’t spooked, and when we got inside we found a warm inviting kitchen space. The converted warehouse space allows for individualized cooking stations and prep areas. All the food items, appliances, tools, equipment, and knives were provided. Outside the entry was a home-grown herb garden.

The longest lesson was on using a knife. We would be dicing all the vegetables for our creations. As he put it, boys know from adolescence how to firmly grip a long, firm handle. He demonstrated the rocking motion needed for quickly slicing the vegetables and demonstrated ways to avoid also slicing off a finger in the process. Safety was repeatedly stressed, with a sense of humor.


There were four couples taking the class. The next step was to mix a bowl of spices for our personal creation. Pam has a refined palette so she mixed our spices. There was no step-by-step process, each couple was free to blend to their own tastes. One couple was snuggling the whole time, which was mildly distracting, but also a little adorable.

This was a different kind of date that gave us a shared memory. We already worked well together in the kitchen, but this was also a way to mix and mingle with a larger group as we created. When our dishes were finished, we shared our dish with others and they tasted our creation. I might be biased, but I think that what Pam and I cooked that night was pretty spectacular.


Should you want a unique date night contact Rashaad Shears at Chef Nite.

Aloma Bowl

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My intrepid group of urban sketching students from Crealdé School of Art went for a sketch outing to Aloma Bowl (2530 Aloma Ave, Winter Park, FL 32792) which is just a block away from the school. On Sundays Tournaments are held, so there are some pretty talented bowlers working the lanes.

The goal of this sketch workshop was to help students catch gestures in their sketches. For the first half hour of class we worked in the Crealdé studio, doing quick, two minute sketches to catch gestures. We used a round shaped radio to substitute for a bowling ball and posed, keeping gesture and storytelling in mind. I stressed the importance of using fluid action lines to catch the motion.

The Aloma Bowl lanes were active when we arrived and they grew more crowded as we sketched. I made the rounds, showing the different stages of my sketch as I progressed, and also giving tips and some demonstrations on how to catch a pose in repeated attempts as the parson stepped up to the line to bowl again and again. The large overall sketch was intended to demonstrate one point perspective. I suggested that students only focus on the bowling pins on one lane so they didn’t spent much time obsessing over that one detail.

Families came in to bowl, and guard rails were raised on either side of the one bowling lane so that stray balls didn’t go down someone else’s lane. For the very small kids there was a ramp that could be put on the line and the child just had to get the ball to the top of the ramp and gravity would “bowl” the ball down the lane. I had never seen that contraption before. The first bowler I sketched was finished with his game after only a few times of going up to the line to bowl. I started getting better about watching the score board of people I was sketching, because the board could let me know if I had much time to sketch the people before their game was over. My quick demo sketch stressed the importance of making the figures in the foreground dark against the illuminated lanes. I didn’t spend much time on the sketch since I kept checking in with each student as they worked.

There is a wonderful energy to a bowling alley, as folks celebrate their strikes or spares and chat between games. The place had an auditory buzz about it, punctuated by the loud sounds of the pins getting smashed. As an artist, it is exciting to feed off that energy and try to infuse some of it into each sketch. This was unfortunately the last class with this crew of talented artists. It is always hard to say good by after working with artists for six weeks straight.

My next Urban Sketching: Tips and Techniques class starts June 16, 2019 running each Sunday Morning from 9:30am to 12:30pm. Usually, the first hour we cover a premise in the Crealdé studio and then we break out into the community around the school to sketch on location.

Orlando Fringe Abridged Sketchbook

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The Abridged Orlando Fringe Sketchbook documents 10 years of the Orlando Fringe in sketches. The project began in 2009 and today, 10 years later, the sketching continues. Above is a sample of the first 10 pages of the book.

This Abridged Fringe Sketchbook is 110 pages with over 200 full-color sketches. The book is going to press now and will be available by the 2019 Orlando Fringe Festival. Each year has a few paragraphs highlighting my favorite shows of the year. The goal has been to assemble every sketch done at Fringe shows over the past 10 years at an affordable price.

The books will sell for about $25 at the Orlando Fringe. If you would like to pre-order a book, contact pam-schwartz@hotmail.com. If you pre-order, we will arrange to give you the book when you arrive at the Fringe Festival. If there is enough interest we will print more books. We can take orders via pay pal, checks, or of course, the preferred cash. As an added bonus, prints and original Fringe paintings, are being offered at HALF OFF. $100 per print, and $200 for an original. Should you want me to frame the art I can arrange that for $100 more. If you order original art, you will receive an Abridged Orlando Fringe book thrown in for free.

A much larger 249 page book that has all the original articles written for Analog Artist Digital World is also being produced if we have enough pre-orders and interest!

Weekend Top 6 Picks for May 11 and 12, 2019

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Saturday May 11, 2019

10am to Noon Free. Empty The Tanks Worldwide. Outside entrance to Sea World Orlando, 7007 Sea World Dr, Orlando, FL 32821. Empty The Tanks worldwide is a global event which aims to raise
awareness of the truth behind Sea World and other captive marine animal
facilities. This is a day for everyone around the world to stand up
against marine mammal captivity. The abuse and exploitation of these
sentient beings has no place in the 21st century.

4pm to 6pm Free. Young Voices. JB Callaman Center 102 North Parramore Ave Orlando FL. Teen Open Mic Every second Saturday of the Month.

10:30pm to 12:30pm Get food and drink. Son Flamenco.  Ceviche Tapas Orlando, 125 W Church St, Orlando, FL 32801. Hot blooded  Flamenco dancing set to acoustic guitar.

Sunday May 12, 2019

10am to 4pm Free. Lake Eola Farmers Market. Lake Eola, Orlando, FL 32801.

Noon to 1pm Free. Yoga. Near red gazebo in Lake Eola Park. Bring your own mat.

1pm to 4:30pm Free. Family Day. The Mennello Museum of American Art, 900 East Princeton Street, Orlando, FL 32803. The make-and-take craft table is open from noon-2:30 p.m., and docents
are available to give mini-tours of the museum. Then it’s open house in
the galleries until 4:30 p.m.

Thursday Night Hang: Chris Cortez Trio

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At Blue Bamboo Center for the Arts (1905 Kentucky Ave. Winter Park Fl), Chris Cortez performed on guitar and vocals; Ron Jenkins was on bass and Walt Hubbard was on drums. Chris is an international recording artist with a wide range of musical interests, he ranks among the top jazz guitarists in the world. He’s been featured in Downbeat, Jazziz, Jazz Times, Le Jazz and Hot Paris. He’s performed at clubs and festivals all over the world. His recordings are critically acclaimed.

This was a free jazz jam session and great sketch opportunity. I was able to find a small table in the front row to set up and relax to the music. They have a small bar in the back of the room for drinks and some snacks. Blue Bamboo is one of the newer venues in Central Florida and they are always hosting amazing musical talents. Blue Bamboo is part venue, part recording studio, part art gallery. More of a concert hall than a night club, they’re open
to all ages and present all kinds of music, theater, dance, and
spoken word events.  They’re also available for private parties. Check the web site to stay up to date on all that is happening.

There is a Thursday Night Hang with the Dave Sheffield Trio tonight May 9, 2019 starting at 8pm.

The trio has been performing together for almost 30 years, and the group is regarded as one of the finest jazz trios in the central Florida area. The group features Dave on piano, Jeff Green on bass, and Don Sanderson on drums. This is an authentic jazz trio with repertoire consisting of standards from the American song book. The group can easily crossover from easy listening dinner music, to hard bebop.Admission is free.

Creative Cay Life Dawing

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Monthly artists meet at Creative Cay (5959 Anno Ave, Pine Castle, FL 32809) for life drawing sessions. The fee is $10. Old school drawing horses are circled around the model stand. It is the type of artistic environment that makes me feel at home. When you enter the studio large historic photos from the Disney Feature Animation greeted me. I always feel proud to have been a small part of that period of animation history. I don’t get out there as often as I would like since events I plan to sketch often are during the same hours.

Most evenings the models wear costumes so that there is a fun theme for the night. This evening the theme was “Dawn of Man” so less was more. We listen to music that supports the theme for inspiration as we work. It makes for a great work environment.

Most poses were 5 minutes or less, so there is always a high pitched frenetic energy in the room. When the model took a break, I took that as a a cue to do a sketch of the studio space and sketch the model in his bathrobe.

I really should get out to these type of sketch opportunities more often. It loosens me up and helps the next sketch done on location feel more spontaneous and inspired. Artists have sketched since the days of cave paintings. It is  important to keep that tradition alive in this digital age. Most of the sketches I did this night were done digitally on mu iPad using Procreate. It is hard to get messy since there is nothing to spill when working digitally.

UCF Woodwind Ensembles

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UCF Celebrates the Arts presented UCF Woodwind Ensembles in the Alexis and Jim Pugh Theater inside the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts (445 S Magnolia Ave, Orlando, FL 32801). The stage is referred to as the Pegasus Stage. The evening began with an Oboe Trio. As they performed I was busy sketching the audience around me.

The UCF Flute Knights performed Pegasus Gallop and March of the Trolls which I rather enjoyed. The UCF Clarinet Choir performed The Tournament which had four movements, The Entry of the Knights, The joust, Lament for the Wounded and Triumph of the Victors. I always like compositions that follow linear story lines.

The Centaurus Woodwind Quintet was followed by UCF Saxophone Ensemble. 17 saxophone players crowded the stage with every shape and size of saxophone. They performed Colonial Song and Molly on the Shore both composed by Percy Granger.The final performance was excerpts from Carmen by Georges Bizet. The stage was filled with every form of woodwind. One instrument I had never seen before it looked like a six foot tall paperclip. It was a contra bass flute and gave off a deep resonant sound.

Fisher Fiesta

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Fisher Miga was the little Pomeranian pup who brought joy to so many in his recurring role as the dog behind Dog Powered Robot. I was back stage for the very first performance of that epic show and still remember the wild and boisterous laughter from the crowd. Every artist was given the same 3 minute song to act as the inspiration for their performance and Dog Powered Robot blew the concept wide open. I peeked out from behind the back stage curtains to catch a glimpse of the wild reception.

The Fisher Fiesta was a low key party to celebrate the dog who made so many people smile.

Fisher was diagnosed with cancer, on top of the other health issues he was dealing with, and his humans, Evan and Christie Miga wanted to make sure everyone had a chance to pet his little head before his ailments got worse. He was doing great given his circumstances, Christie and Evan described the last months as bonus time. Every day that Fisher was happy and comfortable was a gift.

He definitely seemed on his game, begging for treats and greeting people as they arrived.  The whose who of the Orlando Theater Community showed up to pet the little guy. I of course struggled with one last sketch. By the end of the party, Fisher retired to Christie’s back room studio where he had a comfy spot under her art table. City Commissioner Patty Sheehan was there discussing big green eggs and smoking meat in the kitchen with Pam. Photo albums were out showing the vast collection of magazine articles and clippings about the famous Pomeranian and Dog Powered Robot. I was proud to see some of my framed prints among the archives.

When Pam and I finally left, people were still arriving. Opera director Eric Pinder was parking as we pulled away. That little puppy lived an operatic life. Evan announced on Facebook on March 31, 2019 that they had to let Fisher go on Saturday morning.
He passed peacefully in a small park in Christie’s arms, looking into Evan’s
eyes, and surrounded by love. The cancer got the best of him over that last week. Fisher was a world traveler, a performer, a therapy dog, and a friend to so many. He is, and forever will be, deeply missed. I am publishing a book about the past 10 years of Orlando Fringe and he appeared so many times in my sketches, being one of Fringe’s biggest stars.