Ophelia Pre-Show at Fringe Art Space

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Mallory Sabetodos Vance founded Phoenix Tears Productions, a local acting troupe that experiments with interactive theater. I have been sketching their quirky shows for years. They are now staging Ophelia, an original musical about Hamlets amore.

It was pouring as Pam and I drove to the theater. We honestly thought we might be the only people willing to go out in such insane weather. We got to the theater an hour early to be able to see the pre-show in the lobby of the new Fringe Art Space. Sure enough we were the only people in the lobby.

Mallory came out and explained that the show would be starting late because of the weather. Apparently the drummer could not get off from work. With time to kill Pam and I looked around. The show has a well designed and illustrated poster. The poster artist also had her thick impasto floral paintings on display outside the bathrooms.

Originally I had not planned to sketch the pre-show but with an hour and a half to kill I decided there was plenty of time to get a sketch done of the lobby and ensuing frivolity.

The actresses began to trickle out and interact with the gathering crowd. Combine,  in a peach colored dress (Emily Sheetz) kept dusting all the surfaces in the room. She asked the couple next to us to get up so she could dust their seats. Thankfully she left me to sketch in peace. Violet, (Carson Holley), in a light purple dress came over. welcomed us and offered her hand which I delicately shook. In Hamlet’s day a gentleman would have stood and kissed her hand, but I was busy sketching.

There was an Ophelia backdrop where people could have their pictures taken. Violet was gleefully encouraging people to pose. In contrast, Rue (Lex Bently) lurked nearby all in black exuding her goth menace. Fennel (Ashley Vogt) in her bright pink stippers outfit and fabulous white leather boots with massive heels, made her way into the sketch.

Posthumous

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Phoenix Tears Productions presents, Posthumous an immersive interactive Zoom show where you act as investors or new employees and through your choices take one of five paths and cause one of ten endings. Audience is encouraged to interact, participate, ask questions, talk to Posthumous employees, and directly affect the story.

I sat in and sketched a beta version of the show which I imagine is the equivalent of a dress rehearsal. After a quick introduction to the Zoom interface, I was moved into a zoom meeting room for new employees. There were about 30 people in the zoom meeting to start who were new employees, prospective clients, or potential investors. Having so many people in the meeting set me into panic mode as I scrambled to fit everyone on the page. I probably wasn’t the ideal new hire since I was sketching the entire time.

The general premise is that Posthumous is the the biggest and best afterlife company who supplies an ideal scripted afterlife for people’s souls after they die. As part of the new research team I got to meet one of the recently deceased who was a bit disoriented. We got to experience one of her final waking life memories and began to unravel both the mystery of her death and the darker side of the Posthumous corporate culture. An amazing twist is that we were able to interact with the memory as if we were in the body of the deceased. Any questions asked would alter the memory.

I felt a little disappointed that I had lost so many people as they branched off to their own individual adventures. Slowly however people began to trickle back into our meeting to share their experiences as investors and prospective clients who had been given a tour. Giving a corporation the ability to curate death has menacing consequences and it became our responsibility to get to the bottom of a dark mystery.

Only at the end did we discover who was in the cast and who was in the audience. Those distinctions blurred and didn’t matter as we worked to unravel the corporate mystery. I fully enjoyed the experience. I certainly would have been able to contribute more if I had not been distracted with sketching, but there was a dark delicious humor to the show as a whole.

Show times are,

  • Fri., Sept. 23, 2022 at 8 p.m.,
  • Sat., Sept. 24, 2022 at 3 & 9 p.m.,
  • Sun., Sept. 25, 2022 at 1 & 7 p.m.,
  • Fri., Oct. 7, 2022 at 8 p.m.,
  • Sat., Oct. 8, 2022 at 3 & 9 p.m.
  • Sun., Oct. 9, 1 & 7 p.m.

Tickets are $35 to $45.

Recovery

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Recovery is an interactive theatrical presentation of Phoenix Tear Productions. Zoom is the online platform where we got to meet the performers. Attendees were informed that they are new recruits in a firm called Posthumous whose job is to help the recently deceased find their way into an afterlife which is crafted by the company. Beatrice with her bright pink hair and round glasses was our guide, introducing us to the task at hand. Over the course of the evening it became clear that she was rather new to the job as well.

As I sketched, I was not sure if I was sketching audience members or one of the cast. The couple who had recently died were disoriented having lost many of their memories from their past life. They were referred to as “Blank Slates” and the audience could ask them questions and speak to them. We were split up into two online meeting groups and I was assigned to the group who got tot talk to the boyfriend. A partial memory played back with Melanie Leon defending her friend. If an audience member asked questions Melanie would think the question came from the boyfriend and she responded appropriately. This was a primary way to learn what had happened in the boyfriend’s life leading up to his death. Mel as the Memory  had known him since they were seven years old and she threatened consequences if his heart were broken.

The other group got to speak to the girlfriend, who apparently was a talented singer. I wish I had seen some of that performance. Slowly the truth unraveled with each question asked. Our primary goal however was to convince the boyfriend to be prepared for an eternal afterlife sponsored  by Posthumous. We kind of dropped the ball. I blame myself since I didn’t ask any questions since I was focused on sketching as fast as I could. Maybe I could have convinced the boyfriend that he deserved eternal happiness even if he didn’t find it before his death in this life.

This was a fun interactive experience and the talk back after the show was as fun as the performance. Audiences are limited to only 20 people so that each person can experience unique interactions with the performers. The show has multiple endings and different tracks to follow. Show tickets have been selling out and the run has been extended to September 6, 2020.

 

10 Minute Tuesdays

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I drove to the Turpin Garage Theater for 10 Minute Tuesdays presented by Phoenix Tears Productions. I love this idea. Spot lights were strung up all around a suburban garage, illuminating a mini set inside the garage. The theater opened at 7:30pm. Tickets are just $2 at the garage door. Meg
had created some adorable buttons and other merchandise from past
scripts. There were four rows of Dick’s lawn chairs set up in front of the garage for the audience. 10 Minute Tuesdays happens on the first Tuesday of every month featuring plays in a set theme. This month’s plays celebrated all things pink and red with a plethora of love and murder. I decided to sit in the back row to get an overall view of the garage theater set up. In most theaters the seats are set up on a ramp that rises towards the back of the theater. A driveway on the other hand slops down towards the street.

My favorite play of the night was the first in the line up of three. Called, Misfortune by Mark Harvey Levine and directed by Madison Payne, the show featured two women who sat in a Chinese restaurant having just finished dinner. The waitress with chop sticks in her hair served them fortune cookies. One woman (Melissa Riggins) read her fortune which was bland, sweet and reassuring. Then her friend (Kira Silverman) read her fortune which said something like, “You will be murdered tonight.” In a furor she called over the waitress, read her the fortune, and insisting on getting another cookie. Each time the one woman got a soothing and uplifting fortune while the other got a menacing premonition of certain death. The waitress was just as surprised as the couple and she stayed at the table curious to hear each reading of the fortunes.

If your fortune is so set in stone then it must be true, and perhaps there would be now way to escape your fate. The woman who had been getting the reassuring fortunes began to believe that there might just be a reason her friend might need to be murdered. She picked a sharp knife off the table and questioned her friend about possible affairs as she paced around the table. A mistake by the waitress changed the fortunes of this distressed couple.

A guest performer, (Mathew Stephens) followed with a monologue and then a reenactment of a planned murder of Batman (Vex Batchelder). Outlandish humor was added by Harlequin (Michelle Papaycik) playing a weird tune on a kazoo. Her amazing costume and acting stole the scene.

The final play was, Played for A Sap by Rex McGregor directed by Jade Roberts. In it, a couple having an affair tried to extort money from the woman’s husband. The show featured murder, money and mayhem with affections that turned on a dime. A guy sat in front of me wearing a cowboy hat, so I really didn’t see anything house left for the entire final show, but I was busy painting anyway. With only 10 minutes remaining, I had to rush. By the end of the night, every seat in the driveway was full.

This 10 Minute Tuesday at Turpin Garage Theater is such a fun concept. I was laughing out loud at very twist and turn. When you have a theater full of actors and supporters, you are in for some fun and enthusiastic audience reactions.

Here is a full listing of upcoming productions of 10 Minute Tuesdays.

March 3, 2020        Ladies Night

April 7, 2020          Shakespeare

May 5, 2020           Shows about Show Biz

June 2, 2020           TMT with Pride

July 7, 2020            Christmas in July

August 4, 2020       Come Away with TMT

September 1, 2020  Get Back to Hogwarts

October 6, 2020      Spooky Sendoff

Carnival of Wonder

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I went to a dress rehearsal for Carnival of Wonder which is an interactive spectacle unlike any other, an immersive murder mystery produced by Phoenix Tears Productions. The audience is invited to attend Madam Mystique’s Carnival of Wonder, a place full of games, fun, magic, and on this August night in 1938, a murder! It’s up to each audience member to watch the suspects and solve the mystery.

A bright pop corn machine at the entrance set the carnival mood. The wall to the left was lined with carnival style games. People were invited to knock  over tin cans, for a prize of jelly beans. I was surprised that no one managed to knock them all over. A magnet might have been involved. Other games included flipping a ring on bottle necks and some game involving a fish bowl.

I was mostly fascinated by the Saoirse the Fae Fortune Teller, (Leanna Bailey) who was illuminated in a faint purple glow. She would read peoples fortunes from Cleromancy or the casing of lots. Between clients she spoke with the Dragon Handler, Tarran Rhodes, (Jason Laramee) and things got heated. Charlie (Melissa Riggins) had been demoted to being a game handler. I wondered what had caused her fall. Roulette: Mistress of Blades, (Madison Payne) gently entertained the rubes by juggling colorful silks. Mallory Sabetodos Vance, Jade Roberts and Vex Batchelder ran the games and kept the rubes in line. Elaine Pechacek of Dragonfly Studios also acted as the consummate hostess.

Madame Mystique (Kathy Romero) in a top hat ran the carnies with an iron fist. Late in the evening the Masked Magician (Kate Murray) entered and was much loved in comparison. A hula hoop performance on the main stage by Lil Red (Jacquelynn Allene Powers) gathered the crowd for what would ultimately be the main event. I went in anticipating a murder and had a suspect in mind from the first moments when I began the sketch. Though a wild guess my artist instinct was correct. The person who guesses the killer correctly got to keep the computer 3D printed murder weapon as a prize.

The last show of Carnival of Wonders is Saturday August 24th at 8 PM

Tickets are $20 in advance or $25 at the door.

Dragonfly Studio & Productions

133 W Mckey St., Ocoee, Florida 34761

Death Day Players.

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Sunshine (Mallory Vance) of Phoenix Tears Productions, invited me to a dress rehearsal with an audience in Davenport Florida which is just west of Kissimmee. The Death Day Players offered an evening of fun and exciting interactive theater.  This acting troupe of ghosts  travels around performing the
night of their death for living audiences. Audience members are invited
to interact with the players as they take on characters from the Ghost
of the Evening’s death. For those just wishing to be onlookers, the
amount of interaction is up to you. In my case, I quietly sketched the entire time. Miss Clara White (Michelle Jacqueline Papaycik) asked me about the digital tablet I was using to sketch. I explained that it was like drawing on paper, but the paper was behind glass. Being from the Edwardian era, she didn’t understand. She gently poked the surface to feel the paper’s surface and left quite confused.

The evening was a Valentines Part in Clara White’s honor. Each ghost in the cast was from a different era. Sunshine was a flower child from the 60s. She spun under the ceiling fan in the center of the room enjoying her the way her dress billowed. Ghost Lord Ernest Bray was played by a modern day ghost with a leather jacket (Logan Blake). On slender woman in a black pants suit looked like she was from the 80s. An argument erupted between her and Lord Bray in the middle of the party. Everyone in the room listened. In this production, the audience is as much a part of the action as the cast. I would have discovered more about the story had I interacted and asked questions of each of the ghosts.

Clara’s story takes place in England on the evening of Valentine’s Day
in 1907. Travel back to the Edwardian age of ragtime, horseless
carriages, and courtship as the cast recreates the evening of Lord Ernest
Bray’s (Logan Blake) Valentines Party. All of the rich young ladies around have been
invited to the party at the Bray Estate, Hensley Court, in hopes of
finding Ernest a wealthy wife to save the failing estate. Enjoy the
romance, courtships, and music as the events of the evening of Clara’s
death unfold before your eyes. Was it a scheming sister who wants their
inheritance for herself, a poorly treated maid, the very suitor vying
for her hand and money, or a scorned lover? The clues will be there for
you to find and decide for yourself who you think murdered Clara White.

 The show runs Saturday Feb. 10th at 7pm. For Tickets CLICK HERE. Tickets are $15 online and at the door, Or take advantage of our Valentine’s Special and buy two tickets for $20 online only.