I don't know if any of you out there are still using the Myspace. Remember 2 years ago when it was THE THING everyone talked about. You've gotta be on Myspace, they all said!

If you are still one of the few the proud sticking it out waiting for Myspace to make its comeback, come check out the return of our 2007 CapFringe hit: Cautionary Tales for Adults and the Many Adventures of Trixie Tickles.

More info at: bouncingballtheatre.com

As I've been researching places beyond DC where I could spread the Bouncing Ball brand of musical theatre, I have been sad to discover only press releases announcing the closings of the companies that were most likely to touch my work. The companies that seemed to be doing what we were doing with legitimate success apparently weren't, and it was a thinly veiled facade that they couldn't manage to keep up.

I wish I could say, "Support your local theatre," but I no longer think that is the answer. So instead, I ask, local theatre, what are we doing wrong that our support is dwindling? Do people really just want Wicked? If that's the case, then I'd say the problem is all my fault for not writing another show just like it. Why do I always try to be the sore thumb?

Feeling cynical about my own cynicism.

Shawn

If you happen to be hanging out in the District of Columbia on Labor Day this year, please come check out the reading of my new show at Page to Stage. The Playdoh Golem was a show originally commissioned by Theatre J. We did an awesome reading of it on Purim last spring, and now we're doing it on Labor Day, which, I believe is the Capitalist-Pig Purim.

Here's the infro(sic):

Bouncing Ball Theatrical Productions presents a staged reading of The
Playdoh Golem by Shawn Northrip and directed by Shirley Serotsky (the
team that brought you Titus X, Lunch and last year's Cap Fringe "Pick
of Fringe," Cautionary Tales for Adults and The Many Adventures of
Trixie Tickles).

Leah Goldstein, Rebecca Goldman and Abby Goldberg are life-long best
friends. When Leah's crush, the cutest boy in Hebrew school, Josh,
starts dating a Catholic, they do the only thing they can to try to
win him back: they make a golem. This klezmer-rock musical features
The Shuligans, the world's worst post-punk Bar Mitzvah band.

2pm, Millennium Stage
Kennedy Center

http://www.kennedy-center.org/programs/millennium/schedule.html

And I THINK this is the cast:

Daniel Eichner, Gwen Grastorf, Betsy Rosen, Michelle Hessel, Tom
Howley, Sam Ludwig, Adam Minton, Casie Platt, Rachael Saltzman,
Michael Grew, and Danny Gavigan

My brain was already on to the Trixie video, so I never took a minute to do a Fringe wrap up. Sadly, this year's Fringe was not the huge bang it had been. We started with a bit of a fizzle. But we ended with a blast. The last two audiences really enjoyed the show, including a good friend who said to me, "Don't let this show die." Away from Fringe, and in the right venue that would support the sound and environment needs, he argued, this show would be great.

So, despite all the hate and bile this show managed to encourage from people early on, we did find an audience... including this dude who actually showed up in his sci-fi gear. Anyone get a picture of that dude? Bad ass.

Thanks to everyone involved.

The world keeps spinning,

Shawn

Full effect.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_8IGqG5TyaI

The cast from Bouncing Ball's The Many Adventures of Trixie Tickles reunites for the pilot episode of Trixie and Chums. Stay out of the zoo! Shawn

In the furry of Fringe bloggers, the most recent made me giggle. Not because he said he liked it, but because of something he did. Let me elaborate: so the blog starts off with a review that was pretty brutal, but frankly not completely undeserved (at the end of a day in which we had tech and two shows, we were all exhausted and still resolving technical problems of the space we were in). This brutal review was followed by a bunch of Fringers reprimanding the reviewer for being too harsh. This was then followed with a bunch of responses saying the reviewer was right about the show. Then there was a sexy aside. Then Landless Theatre, the "other" company doing crazy rock musicals, comes to our defense... and plugs their show. Then someone questions why people are allowed to question the reviewer publicly (but shit, the reviewer gets to question us publicly). Then more hatred of us. Then more support. And then finally someone who says the simple words, "I liked it." But what amused me about it was not that the person claims to like it, but that in the place to insert their personal link, they included a porn address. And that cracked me up. I'm not even sure if it is a real comment or someone trying to get hits on their porn site. And if it is a real comment, what a great way to buck the system and say, hey, we're all taking this way too seriously.

The world keeps spinning,

Shawn

I'd like to give a special shout out to a girl who saw the show yesterday. I don't know who she is, I'm not sure who she knows or how she heard of the show. But Sunday night, from start to finish, she danced her ass off. She could have cared less who was watching. And if no one else was going to dance, she was going to do the work for everyone and took up as much floor in her dancing as she could. And people made room. She was in her little black dress and shimmer tights, despite it being 7:30 on a Sunday and just had a good time. Give us a room full of these people.

The world keeps spinning,

Shawn

Well, friends, after five years of collaboration Shirley and I have made our first flop. Check out the reviews on CityPaper and Washington Post (I'd link them, but seriously, I'm too lazy to find the URLs... it has nothing to do with them being bad.) To the cast and crew: I know it will be hard to do four more shows with this kind of press, but we must carry on. You all are doing great work and the flaw here really is in concept, for which I must take both full credit and full blame. This show came with an odd idea. I mean, who really watches German Near-Realism, let alone, who dances to it? Sure, it seemed like a neat thought to do a dark-future techno-rave musical, but I guess it isn't the kind of trip people want to go on. Next time I feel the uncontrolled urge to generate a bunch of techno-beats, I'll just bring out the music and leave the story at home.

All we can do now is embrace it.

When I was a relatively young writer, I was invited to write for Cherry Red's Day Old Plays. It was my first time writing for a 24-Hour thingy... I think I've done six... or seven? by now. But I learned a lot that first night about the format for doing a 24-hour play. 1. Short and sweet and funny. 2. Lines that are easy to remember and seem innately natural progressions from the first line. 3. Don't be clever. (OH! And 4. Dick jokes!) As I stood in the back with the rest of the standing room, watching my play, a woman standing near me leaned over and said, "This is terrible." What could I do at that point? I couldn't say, "Hey, I wrote that." Instead, I turned to one of the more "seasoned" writers for words of wisdom (Coincidentally, that writer's show was called the Vagina Dialogues, this year at Source's 24-Hour, there was also a Vagina Dialogues), and he said, "You've got to wear that like a badge."

And that's what we have to do.

Woody Allen said, "The whole concept of awards is silly. I cannot abide by the judgment of other people, because if you accept it when they say you deserve an award, then you have to accept it when they say you don't." And well, we've already accepted the award for Pick of the Fringe last year, so if this year we are bound to be the show that is talked about for being the worst, well, at least we're talked about. Plenty of shows don't get the paper space that has been used to tell us how bad we are.

Keep the faith. And if we've already been branded as the worst, let's have some fucking fun doing it. (Let's Grastorf if up!) We can still be bigger and crazier. And who knows, maybe the 70 people on Facebook who replied in the affirmative will still show up to see it!

And if you're reading this, and you're not in the cast, here's your last chance to see a genuine Bouncing Ball flop... until the next one. Or better yet, come and decide for yourself. Maybe you will love it. It's a little different, and fair warning... read the reviews.

Of all the shows I've written, every time I've always worried, "What if everyone hates it?" Now that it has finally happened, I'm a bit relieved. It was a bit like losing my virginity, I almost expected the world to end. But it didn't. It was actually easier for me to read these bad reviews than it was for me to read the good reviews of Trixie and the reviewers who would start off saying how great it was, but then proceed to include how they would make it better.

And my last little thought on critics: During my first production, Peter Marks was my first review. It was mixed, but not bad, not great either. After he reviewed me I wrote him and asked him to have coffee with me, saying, "As my first critic, I'd be grateful to meet so I don't go through my career seeing critics as people to hate." Or something along those lines. He agreed, reluctantly he told me at our meeting, because, having seen TITUS, he thought I might get him into the restaurant and start screaming, "Fuck you! Fuck you!" Instead, we had an awesome coffee break and he gave me this advice as I continued on my career, "Don't listen to what critics say." And he's Peter Fucking Marks.

Let's have a crazy good matinee today!

The world keeps spinning, friends.

Shawn

PS Thanks to the people who wrote those nice things on Fringe and Purge. The critic who came from CityPaper WAS very drunk and belligerent, and more interested in getting email addresses from people in the cast than watching the show (I believe his line was, "Me and my friend have a bet about who can get more email addresses tonight."). If it wasn't for the fact that I like performing for audiences who've had a few (why we love doing shows at the Black Cat), I'd call it a bit unprofessional for someone who has to do a write up. I imagine him drafting his review on a cocktail napkin next door at Bar Pilar. But I guess since our postcard encouraged audiences to B.Y.O.E., fair is fair, and if you live by the sword, you die by it, too.

Insomnia.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYuIpJq638g

Here's a little teaser for our show.