God is a Scottish Drag Queen

Posted on by Thor

If you have ever questioned how God can do some of the things he does, then the notion that “God is a Scottish Drag Queen” makes some sense. Mike Delamont from Victoria BC Canada was God. Two Colbertesque posters of god in a floral dress pointed at the audience. The second God stepped on the stage with his rain barrel sized Gastronemius muscles bulging, the laughter never stopped. He skewered everything from Justin Bieber to the Pope. I grew a bit uncomfortable as he made fun of the Irish with a photo of an obvious slovenly drunk. I’m half Irish on my mother’s side, but who cares, I laughed anyway.

God called up an audience member to teach her how to dance. She followed along with a practiced line dancers confidence. By the end of the hour, I had been laughing so hard my sides hurt. The buzz on the Fringe lawn that this was a hilarious show was right on the mark.  God was matronly yet always ready with a sharp quip. Thank God that God has such a sharp sense of humor. If he had a prime time news hour show, I most certainly would tune in.

The Dark Fantastic

Posted on by Thor

I had seen Martin Dockery give an amazing performance at last year’s Fringe Festival. He delivers his monologues with explosive expressiveness. A single spot light illuminated him seated at a small table wearing a cowboy hat at the beginning of this performance. I was itching to draw, but I couldn’t see the sketch page. In time I realized the house lights would never come up , “duh, it is called the DARK Fantastic”, so I blindly put lines on the page as Martin spoke about an incredibly evil character. The stark empty stage forced the audience to imagine the depths of the story.

At first, I was mesmerized by every cadence of Martin’s delivery. Faint music underscored his delivery and there was a verse like cadence as he spoke. He would speak fast and then hang on a word, teasing the audience with what might come next. In time however my mind wandered. I couldn’t follow the murderous meanderings of a deviant mind for long. As the story turned to terminal fear, I struggled with finding order in the darkness.

Weekend Top 6 Picks

Saturday June 8th 2013

10am – 6pm FREE Bizarre Buying Bazaar, Ripley’s Believe it or Not 8201 International Drive

7pm – 8pm $10 Boogie Shoes starring Marcy Schwalm at Breakthrough Theater 419A West Fairbanks Avenue Winter Park FL

7pm – 11pm Apartment E “Essentials Saturday” 20 Year Anniversary. Lake Ivanhoe Orlando, Florida. A day of giving back. A celebration of Orlando creativity and community.

Sunday June 9th 2013 

noon – 2pm Broadway Brunch at Hamburger Mary’s 110 West Church Street, downtown. I heard this is an all Disney show. Show tunes, drink specials, and an amazing
show with Broadway performances by The Minx, Ginger Minj, and special
guests. Seating at 11:00am with show starting at 12pm

1pm – 3pm $5 Film Slam. Enzian Theater. Originally a project of University of Central Florida’s Downtown Media Arts Center, the Enzian became the home of FilmSlam when DMAC closed in 2006. Now in its fifth year, Film Slam continues to be a popular outlet for indie and student filmmakers throughout the State of Florida.

3pm – 4pm $10 Boogie Shoes starring Marcy Schwalm. Breakthrough Theater 419A West Fairbanks Avenue Winter Park FL

If you have suggestions for the weekend top 6 Picks, contact us at analogartistdigitalworld@gmail.com or leave comments here.

The House of Yes

Posted on by Thor

At Fringe, I was handed a “House of Yes” button on the green lawn at Lock Haven Park. It was red white and blue so I assumed the show might be a political comedy. The Penguin Point Productions play and its polished production values took me by surprise. It was about a brother, Marty (Justin M.G. Hughes), who returned home with his naive fiance, Lesly (Monica Joyce), from the city. I quickly became obvious that his twin sister, Jacqueline (Adele Papoosha), had suffered a nervous breakdown. She was ecstatic about his return. She fancied herself to be like Jackie Onassis. It became clear that Marty and his Mom (Marcie Schwalm), didn’t get along. Mrs. Pascal’s sarcasm,wit and cold high brow detachment added much needed humor to every scene. The whole family put on airs. I knew nothing about the play or the later film staring Parker Posey. I grew more uncomfortable as the play progressed.

When Jackie-O finds out her brother is engaged her mood sours and it is clear to all that she is off her medications. Late that night she convinces her brother to play a childhood game. They reenact the Kennedy Assassination and she nurses him and her gentle kisses turn to passionate love. Lesly discovers them and slips away disgusted by the incest. Meanwhile the younger brother, Anthony (Max Herskovitz), became obsessed with Lesly and he seduces her with a story of a brain tumor and his virginity. The mom discovers these two and in a comic moment just shakes her head and walks off stage as if nothing would surprise her.

The next morning Mom tries to convince Leslie to leave, blackmailing her with what she had seen the night before. Leslie has much more backbone than anyone in the family gave her credit for and she refuses to leave without Marty. She wants to save him from this strange incestuous family. To keep him home, Jackie-O flushes Marty’s car keys. She convinces Marty to play the KFK Assassination game one last time saying he could leave afterwords. Crying she pulls the trigger. This time the gun was real. Jacky-O held the president’s blood stained head in her lap. I left feeling unnerved and shocked.

Loon

Posted on by Thor

Wonderheads from Portand, Oregon brought “Loon” to this years Fringe.  This life sized puppet acted out every scene in mime. A sad faced aging man stood at the beach with his mothers remains in a jar. He went to scatter the ashes and just got his hands and clothes covered in ash. He is faced with dating and when asked about his favorite person he wrote mom. There was a collective awww… from the audience.

Things look up for him when he falls in love with the moon. He pursues the moon with a child like ambition.  There is one magical moment where he has the moon cupped in his hands and his hands spread apart leaving the glowing orb floating in space between his hands. I still don’t know how it was done. I haven’t experienced that type of wonder and amazement since I saw a planetarium show about beings of light as a child.

Loon was the well deserved patron’s pick for the green venue. It was funny, touching and heart breaking. When the actors came out for a bow after the show, I was surprised to discover that the old man was played by a young woman.

Magical Mystery Detour

Posted on by Thor

The Fringe Show, “Magical Mystery Detour” featured Gemma Wilcox as more than 20 characters. The story followed her on a road trip that the actress took as she questioned life and love. The actress would switch characters on a dime even becoming inanimate objects like the car or a coin. As she drove down the road, the dog would be panting happily in the back seat and the car would talk about road conditions. There was a certain child like joy as Gemme became an annoying buzzing fly who spouted rude comments. Catching Gemma as she switched characters every few seconds was a challenge, but luckily she drove fairly often.

A particularly memorable scene involved her decision to get a massage. Her dog stayed behind at the car and she was lifted by a brawny masseuse.  As she floated in bliss, wondering if the masseuse was single and how many children they should have, she switched back to the dog who had just met another dog and they were sniffing butts. Switch back to Gemma as she planned a life filled with pleasure and sensitive touch. Back to her dog who was humping wildly. Gemma panted and thrush her hips with abandon. As she intellectualized and reasoned, her dog was just being a dog. It was hilarious.

There is a dancer’s grace as she shifted from a soaring seagull into the woman climbing lighthouse steps. It is from this high vantage point that she surveyed her life. The troubled reason for her pilgrimage became clear and she was ready to move on. Her relationship was on the rocks and her mother had just died. The ending was poignant as she blew her troubles into a coin and threw it into the ocean. As a one woman show, this was a real tour de force, theater at it’s best. I left the theater glowing.

Chocolate Thunder White Lightning

Posted on by Thor

Some Fringe shows offer incredible drama, uncovering personal insights, while others are just plain silly. Chocolate Thunder and White Lightning fell under the second classification. It was a blaxploitation written by a white guy, Al Pergande. The play was performed in the Orange venue in the John and Rita Lowndes Shakespeare Center.

Valensky Sylvain starred as the flashy Chocolate Thunder. He wore a loud yellow feathery hat and a long pink boa. Jackie Pitts played his new partner in crime, White Lightning. She played her part with a British accent and innocent wit. The premise was that Chocolate Thunder was an old school cop whereas White Lightning was tech savvy. Eric Branch played an over the top villain always petting a stuffed penguin. I felt bad that his silly antics got no response from the audience.

The Expositionettes filled in the gaps between scenes with song. There were gaps everywhere. This production reminded me of plays I had seen at “Play in a Day” in which everything had to be thrown together in 24 hours. There were awkward moments where actors forgot their lines and everyone stood still, wondering what they should do next.

Granted the show was a hot mess, but I was still rooting for the local talent to push through and make the show work. If the show was just a touch worse, it could have classified as a campy cult classic, but, no it struggled short of that mark. There were a few loud laughs from the audience, but the long interludes of silence hinted that all too often the humor missed the mark.

Once Upon a Wonderland

Posted on by Thor

Terry and I bumped into Tod Caviness outside the Silver Venue in the Rep Theater at Fringe. He was going to see his wife, Christin Caviness, dance in Once Upon a Wonderland by Yow Dance. She performed as Little Red Riding Hood. Yow dance had a similar Fairytale themed show last year. From talking to Christin at an open mic Speakeasy event at Will’s Pub, I learned that some magic had been thrown into the mix.

A large canvas map was propped up on stage right. It resembled a large curtain map that had been used in the traveling Broadway hit “Wicked” at the Bob Carr Performing Arts Center. A golden egg in a nest was fixed in the center of the kingdom. The Queen of Hearts walked down the theater isles towards the stage in drag. She sat down and messed with a few audience members before taking to the stage.

It was hard to decipher any story line that might pull the production together. The dancing was graceful and  it was interesting to see someone sawed in half, but there didn’t seem to be any underlying motivation behind anything that happened. Micro phoned singers sang Wickedesque show tunes with thin watery lyrics. I had hoped this production would build on last year’s “Classically Demented” show but none of the elements seemed to fit together. There was plenty of flash but little heart.

Later speaking with Christin, I made a blunder by thinking  she had performed as Snow White, when she had performed as Little Red Riding Hood. It was sad proof that my attention had wandered.

Girls at Gay Days Kick-Off Party “One Hot Mess”

Posted on by Thor

Drip, ( 8747 International Dr. Suite 102, Behind Denny’s and Senor Frogs, Orlando, Florida), has been hosting parties and performances for Gay Days all this week.  I was slated to do a painting live of two Drip dancers in an erotic embrace, so I went to the women’s kickoff party, “One Hot Mess.” I arrived at around 10pm and the 8:30pm performance had just wrapped up. After a performance there is a monstrous amount of clean up work that needs to be done. Wet sand has to be shoveled aside and all the water has to be removed.

I settled in a chair near the Drip T-shirt paint station where red, blue and yellow paint is available. As I started this sketch of a body painter at work, I got pelted with blue and then red paint. Women were slinging the paint at each others shirts, and I was in the line of fire. The blue and red splotches can still be clearly seen on my sketch. One woman apologized and I said it was fine. You know going in to a party called “One Hot Mess” that things could get messy.

The woman whose body was being painted didn’t have a top on, yet the Drip logo across her chest hid any signs of nipples. She checked her cell phone often as swirls and wings were being painted on her back. Jessica Mariko‘s voice announced that the dance floor was now open.  Two drip dancers worked their magic in the center of the room while the DJ cranked up the eardrum splitting beats. Jessie Sander did a solo rain dance performance standing in a kiddie pool under a Drip paint can chandelier. The crowd of 50 to 75 women were loving it.

Later three Drip dancers performed a new number I had never seen before. They each had a sack filled with white powder that covered their bodies and filled the air in rich thick clouds. After that, Jessica wanted me to do my live painting In the main dance area. Lights pulsed green blue and yellow. Painting under those conditions would be a challenge. Regardless I set up my portable easel and the dancers, Meagan Nagy and Paige Metelka, posed in front of a back lit screen. The canvas was more textured than expected and the paintbrush would run dry too fast. Regardless, I just tried to cover the canvas as fast as I could. Surprisingly this was the one time when I felt that acrylic paint was taking to long to dry. Whenever possible I shouted to the intertwined dancers to take a break. I was sweating up a storm and they had to work hard to keep the pose. When I stepped back, the canvas was a hot mess but I learned a lot doing it. A woman asked if it was for sale and I sold it on the spot. In my rush to clean up, I forgot to sign the painting. Painting on a crowded dance floor pushed me out of my comfort zone but sometimes, that is a good thing.

Two shows for the Ladies remain…

8:30PM-10:30PM $35 DRIP Shows- for the ladies (all female cast). Drip 8747 International Dr. Suite 102 (Behind Denny’s and Senor Frogs), Orlando, Florida

11:30PM-1:30AM $35 DRIP Shows- for the ladies (all female cast). Drip 8747 International Dr. Suite 102 (Behind Denny’s and Senor Frogs), Orlando, Florida

Drip Gay Days

Posted on by Thor

Through June 1st, Gay Days is being celebrated at Drip on International Drive (8747 International Dr. Suite 102, Behind Denny’s and Senor Frogs, Orlando, Florida). Tonight, May 31st, there is an all male cast performing at 8:30PM and 11:30PM. On Saturday June 1st at 8:30 and 11:30 there will be performances by an all female cast. I had seen the all female performance before, so I wanted to see how the tragic love story played out for the men.

The band got on stage and soon the room was ripped open with the ear splitting riffs of David Traver who also is the music director for Blue Man Group. Quickly the room was filled with men. The male dancers performed inside a makeshift inner structure where paint and sand flew. Jeans were suspended from the ceiling and when tugged they became erotic showers of sand. People were screaming and shouting.

Overall the show’s story remained the same, Blue and Yellow spark a romantic dance and as they smear their colors together they turn green. There is infidelity and a very sexy scene performed under pulsing strobe lights. With the men there was a bit more masculine shoving and athletics. Yellow was left to wash away the past to find some sense of self.

I found out that Jessie Sander who usually dances the part of yellow in the production was seeing the show for the first time as an audience member. I saw her watching the male Yellow’s every move and she shouted encouragement at the top of her lungs. The male cast had three weeks to rehearse and fine tune the show. Jessica Mariko, Drip’s founder stood on the side lines watching the show unfold. At one point she whispered to a male dancer in the dark offering advice.

There is no passive seating for the show. The audience stands on either side of the huge performance space. Everywhere inside Drip is a splash zone, everyone gets wet. I knew when to close my sketchbook this time to preserve the sketch. When water balloons were handed out to audience members, a big bear of a guy hid behind me to try and avoid getting pelted by his boy friend. I ducked left and right and he followed my every move. Ultimately he was pelted.

Weekend Top 6 Picks. 

Saturday June 1, 2013 

6PM-9PM  Superman Art Show, Acme Superstore 905 E. State Road 434 Longwood.

8:30PM-10:30PM $35 DRIP Shows- for the ladies (all female cast). Drip 8747 International Dr. Suite 102 (Behind Denny’s and Senor Frogs), Orlando, Florida

11:30PM-1:30AM $35 DRIP Shows- for the ladies (all female cast). Drip 8747 International Dr. Suite 102 (Behind Denny’s and Senor Frogs), Orlando, Florida

Sunday June 2, 2013

 8:00AM-10AM Free Total Body Transformation Workout. Gaston Edwards Park – Lake Ivanhoe Boat dock / next to Gargis 1414 North Orange Avenue, Orlando, FL

7PM-Midnight Free Jesse and Amy get hitched and reception/open jam all nite! On the Rocks, Lake Eola Park 195 N Rosalind Avenue, Orlando, Florida 32801.  Everybody is welcome! Only request is that everyone wear some sort of white shirt (for photographic reasons). We’re def not expecting wedding gifts (gravy boats, microwaves,etc…) but if you’re so inclined, we are trying to get a house, so any cash donation would be welcome (again, not in anyway necessary). We just wanna have the coolest wedding/jam fest EVER!! Bands are welcome to do 2-3 song sets, but must use stage equipment (except for guitars, if u want your own) and notify Jeremy Hagen so he can organize the chaos. We’re hoping the jams just materialize outta the insane assemblage of all the musicians in the house.

10PM-Midnight Free Sick Of It Presents: Rancid Karaoke Cover Set. Will’s Pub 1042 N. Mills Avenue, Orlando, Florida 32803. You come up out of the crowd and sing your favorite Rancid songs with a live band…YOU’RE the singer!

Ses-qui-cen-ten-nial

Posted on by Thor

Joe Rosier with his grey beard and weather worn leathery complexion is a dead ringer for confederate general Robert E. Lee. It was raining like a banshee when I parked my car near the Orlando Fringe Festival. I waited in my car until the rain slowed a bit. When I did step out, I was amazed to see the tires half engulfed in a raging muddy gutter flow. It looked like the car could be swept away.

The premise of the presentation was that General Lee was addressing students at Washington College in Lexington Virginia, recounting his time in the Civil War and his relationship with General Ulysses S. Grant of the Union troops.  The Purple Patron’s Room Venue was empty when I found a seat. Only two other theater goers came in. Joe later confided that the woman in the third row was a theater reviewer from the Orlando Weekly. The General let us know he was pleased that we had all braved the elements to hear his story.

I think you need to be a real history buff to fully appreciate the show. At one point the general had some trouble remembering the battle of Appomattox. He apologized for his brief memory slip as he is getting on in years. I couldn’t decide if it was the actor searching for a line or the General’s lapse in memory. I paid close attention as he recalled his surrender to a very disheveled Grant. Grant let the rebel officers keep their side arms after the surrender. The General was spry for his age, moving constantly on the stage. I caught him in a rare moment when he chose to sit.

Tonight 

10PM – 2AM

Girls at Gay Days Kick-Off Party “One Hot Mess”

Drip 8747 International Dr. Suite 102 (Behind Denny’s and Senor Frogs), Orlando, Florida 32819

I will be doing a live large scale painting of two Drip dancers embracing.  I should be able to sketch several other willing couples as well. If you are an exhibitionist, come on by and get sketched. This is likely to be a hell of a party. It is preceded by a Drip show with an all female cast which is very hot. The show is $35 but the “One Hot Mess” after party is free.

  • DJ Lez Spins
  • Appearance by Jude the Lesbian
  • Budlight colored beer taste testing
  • Barefoot Wine Bar with special grape stomping performance by DRIP.
  • DRIP performance art in white powder
  • DRIP dancers performing in rain
  • DRIP ticket giveaways
  • Dancing
  • Interactive Paint Station
  • Body Painting
  • Gay Days themed visual art show
  • Art Sales