[Derek Miller reporting]

Ah, the first night at Fringe Central!  It's that weird Thursday late-night thing that every Fringe performer nervously anticipates, sometimes even more so than his or her imminent Fringe opening.  Before heading out to Bedlam last night, I was confronted with the fact that our company needed to be represented at this event, but, alas, I was dead-ass tired.  We've been working on our show non-stop for a few weeks, and I haven't slept very many full nights lately, and my tight, tight, tight costume jeans make me sweat so much I feel like I'm in the Sahara.  

Of course, all this didn't make me very up for hanging out and partying last night.  Then my girlfriend suggested that we should have a "slumber party."  [Insert innuendo here].  So, what's a guy to do?

Well, as it turns out... go to Fringe Central anyway.  For "one drink."  You know, that "one drink" that you always intend to have before you quietly and politely excuse yourself and trot off to get a responsible night's rest?  You know, that "one drink" that quickly turns into several, and then, without your knowing it, you hit a wrinkle in time and end up way on the other side of midnight not caring that you have to get up for work in less than five hours?  Yeah, so we went to Fringe Central for "one drink."

Besides the fact that it was a good old-fashioned booze-fueled theater romp, it turned out to be extremely worthwhile.  I realized this immediately upon walking in when I ran into Chris Kidder (whose purposefully random Fringe By Numbers blog is now hosted at CityPages), who said to me, "I didn't even know you guys were doing a Fringe show this year."

Yikes... that's not good to hear.  Fringe shows live and die by word of mouth.  They feed on buzz and slurp up hype.  They are curious beasts that can be swiftly laid to rest despite having production and performance quality worthy of the late Jeune Lune.  It's not a good sign when no one knows you're performing.  There are 156 shows out there this year, and it's easy to drown in that crowded of a pool.

So, we went to work, pressing the flesh, drinking, meeting and greeting, drinking, and handing out the ubiquitous promo cards.  I was beginning to lose heart in our ability to raise buzz.  We used to be so damn good at this.  What happened?  Even when we went to Toronto where absolutely zero people knew us, we drummed up hype and media interviews.  People were talking about us back then, and now...

...well, I have to stop myself from thinking we might become Mike Mahony, the sad-sack one-hit wonder of our current show...

But, then, things turn around.  The right about of beer is consumed, and I sit down with a group of people, cards in hand, ready to make my pitch, and hear three people say, "Oh, I've already scheduled your show."

Hallelujah!

And, I discovered last night that the key to quick infiltration of your message is to bring in a extroverted ringer.  We got that in spades with our particular go-to gal, Ms. Victoria Pena.  For only the price of a ride, cigarettes and beer, she worked the crowd, handing at scads of cards, and, at one point, announced that she needed a sharpie marker from one of us so that she could write something on someone's butt.  I still haven't figured that one out, but, suffice it say, by the time I left last night, bleary-eyed and tipsy, I saw many, many "One Night Only with Mike Mahony" cards flipping back and forth in people's hands.

Good job, Victoria!

Now, it's the next day, I'm drinking copious amounts of caffeine, and my show hasn't even opened yet.  (Tomorrow!) 

Here's to you and another Fringe!

is actually HERE <-----

Thanks for listening!

See you at the show.

PMTC had the night off from rehearsal on Wednesday. This is a rarity, being so close to go-time (Saturday, folks! Saturday!); but we needed a break. So, Mark and Derek partially squandered their break from the show by putting some finishing touches on the official "One Night Only with Mike Mahony" soundtrack. Yes, people, come Fringe time, you will be able to get your hot little hands on the official soundtrack to the show, featuring finished, fully realized studio recordings of the songs from the show! We will be offering them every night after our show (but you can get an advance copy for $3.00 by emailing Derek at derek@perpetualmotiontheatre.org)

"A studio?" you may ask. "You guys rented a recording studio?" Well, not precisely. Let's just say that for a few months now, Derek's studio apartment has been disarranged and realigned as our makeshift recording space, being as how he has the quietest apartment and has the built-in air conditioning that makes keeping noise-reducing windows shut tight feasible. It's all done in true DIY fashion, using a conglomeration of instruments and devices that have been culled from garage sales and cobbled together with know-how and electrical tape. (For example, did you know you can make a windscreen for a microphone using a pair of panty-hose? It's true!)

Last night, Derek and Mark put the finishing touches on a wonderfully dark version of "Cardboard Cutout," a song that features heavily in a bizarrely awkward scene of our show. We won't go into too much detail here, but let's just say that making out with a cardboard cutout of someone isn't nearly as satisfying as the real thing.

Come check back here later on today, and we'll have a link to some of the music. Consider it a "sneak listen," a phrase that lacks the pleasing rhyme scheme of "sneak peek," but is more literally true.

UPDATE!
We've slapped a couple songs up on Mike Mahony's MySpace page. You can listen in at www.myspace.com/geniusdickheads

So, tech happened. 

Yep, it sure did.

Damn, there's a lot of stuff in this show.

You see, we here at Perpetual Motion have a bad history of putting in a lot of stuff that seems simple at first and quickly balloons into complex procedures that require incredible timing and luck.

In our 2005 outing, Common Frequency, we had virtually no set.  The idea was that we left the space open for actors and props to move fluidly and paint the rest in with sound.  Simple concept, eh?  It became a long, hard experiment in putting wheels on every single piece of furniture that we used (including a bed, which is much harder than it looks), tracking the complex movements of props across three storylines, and creating a soundtrack that kept expanding until we had 96 sound cues from two separate sources in a 55-minute show.  I thought our stage manager's head was going to explode.

In 2006, we rolled out The Depth of the Ocean, which had such a pristine, simple stage picture: one raft and one backdrop.  No scene changes, no light changes, only 4 sound cues.  Simple, right?  No.  This plunged us into a months-long field study in the chaotic dynamics of keeping a goddamn raft still on water.  Four or five complicated rigging systems resulted in an elaborate underwater network of ropes and weights, and the raft still moved around somewhat willy-nilly.  Add to that the fact that we had to retrofit this and a 40-foot-long backdrop into a pool and set up seating everynight, and it kind of made me wish for a quick drowning some nights.

In 2007, we took The Depth of the Ocean up to Toronto, and we thought we had all the kinks worked out and there would be no trouble.  Then Eric dropped a board on his head, the pool started making gigantic sucking noises, our raft sprung a leak, and we realized that nothing we had set up in the Minneapolis Y was going to work in the U of Toronto's Athletic Centre. 

Now, here we are doing it to ourselves again.  We thought it would be cool to have a pair of ropes traveling over our heads.  It would be a simple, visually interesting convention for flying in props, signs, lights, and whatever else we could hang on a rope.  Such a simple little idea...  Now we have four 8-foot-tall uprights we have to cram into each vom at the Arena Stage, each one supporting a wheel that will rotate and feet those simple little lines on and off, the whole works held in place by 50-pound bags of sand.  And then we decided to light some scenes only with flashlights.  And then we decided to have a bunch of sound cues.  And then there was the Billy the Big-Mouth Bass... (but that's a whole other blog entry on it's own)

Anyway, we survived tech with some timing and luck.  The timing was snagging a great tech slot on a Sunday evening, when it's easy to get in and out of the Rarig.  The luck was snagging a stage manager who ended up also being one of the official Fringe Techs at our venue.  We didn't plan this.  It just happened.  And it was awesome.

So, Jenny Moeller, our wonderful Stage Manager, to you we say:

Please don't hate us!

Oh, and you rock.

Hi. Derek here. I just wanted to talk about my costume for a second. More specifically, I wanted to talk about these pants:



Yes. These pants. These are the tightest jeans I have ever slid into in my life. They are sweaty. They are uncomfortable. They are probably lowering my sperm count as we speak.

Now, I have never been a fan of skinny jeans like this. I have nothing against those of you out there who choose to wear them. It looks good on some wearers, I suppose. It's a hip little trend right now, as I have surmised by watching the college music students wandering through my neighborhood, their bumper-sticker-laden guitar cases in tow.

But for me? If people are going to be looking at the outline of my balls, I guess I'd rather just be naked. It's much more comfortable. Honestly, though, it's mostly this round butt of mine. Skinny jeans aren't tailored with my rear-end in mind. They may fit the lead singer of the Black Crows like a glove, but my protruding posterior pulls them a bit too snugly against my, shall we say, "area."

But, hey! It's the Fringe. If we can sell tickets for anything, we can sell tickets for a good look at my tightly-wrapped batch.

And, speaking of costumes, check out this T-shirt:


Rockford! Doesn't this look like an awesome band? They are. They totally kick ass. What? You've never heard of them?

Well, if you like Mike Mahony and the Genius Dickheads, you'll totally dig Rockford. What? You've never heard of the Genius Dickheads?

Man, I can't believe you've never heard of the Genius Dickheads.

As we were writing this show together, the last thing we were really thinking about was making out. We had plenty of other stuff to think about: music, the meaning of happiness, how to fly in a giant album cover for a fictional band named "Skwlr" (that's pronounced "squalor")... Kissing just wasn't at the forefront of our minds.

As it turns out, though, it was always in the backs of our minds. So, now, by purely transitive properties, we have all made out with each other. It's getting a little creepy now...


Which lovely lady will be locking lips with our loquacious lothario?


They each make their case.


It's a difficult proposition, but, as musical theatre has taught us, there is no crisis that cannot be resolved through song. (In this case, it is a Sweeney-penned number called "After Three Years I Expected More")


And Katie wins! (Sorry, Alia)


Meanwhile, director Eric looms quietly to the side...


...until it's time to show Mark how to really kiss a girl.


So, we're trucking on. The Fringe is less than two weeks away, folks! We'll see you at the Rarig Arena.

We here at Perpetual Motion Theatre Company like to dream up stupid physical comedy bits. We can't explain it. We just like them. Unfortunately, this means that we constantly write things that sound really funny and easy on paper, and end up being insanely difficult to choreograph on stage. To that end, enjoy today's photo essay on how we worked out Mark's attempted escape.



Mark practices the feel of being bound at the hands and feet.


Alia demonstrates her "slither" technique for attempted escape.


Then she impersonates a turtle.

Then Mark makes his first full-out attempt as Katie watches on.





Trust me. This maneuver is much more difficult than it seems, especially when you can't use your hands or feet.

YES! YES! YES!
My friends, we are back, creating a new show from scratch, and you are back to see it happen. Perpetual Motion Theatre Company has a little more than two weeks to go before our newest show, One Night Only with Mike Mahony premieres in the 2008 Minnesota Fringe Festival! Hooray!

So, here is your chance to peek in on our rehearsals once again. (Please forgive the relative crudity of the photos. We don't have an expert photographer watching us anymore.)

Today's installment is a few shots from our very last writing workshop, conveniently held amongst the barest bones of our set.


It's a long way away from our old living room, but at least we still have hardwood floors on which we can bruise ourselves.



We are also proud to introduce our brand new stage manager, Ms. Jenny Moeller.



Imagine you've held someone hostage in your basement for a few weeks, and things are getting out of hand, and you've broken into the apartment of your hostage's ex-girlfriend so that you can persuade her to do something before someone gets seriously hurt. Any idea what you would say? Yeah... that's what Erin and Alia are pondering here.

Derek and Mark will be performing music from the show this Saturday at the Rum River Library around 1:30pm with other musical orientated fringe shows. Come out and get a listen to what we are preparing.



Rock on! Don't miss the show!


For more information on the Fringe Festival showcases, click here.

Do you like Ice Cream?



Do you like music?



Do you like music about Ice Cream?






If you answered any of these questions, Don't miss ONE NIGHT ONLY WITH MIKE MAHONY!



RARIG CENTER BABY!


Despite popular though, the show actually runs more that one night!

(Mark blows dust off the old motion blog, takes it out of it's dust jacket and drops the needle down as it begins to spin)









Keep your ears tuned, we have a show this summer!

So, we keep hearing the question:

"What are you guys doing for the Fringe this year?"

It's a natural question, I suppose.  We hit the MN Fringe two years in a row, and came out with a pretty big hit last year.  Naturally, people are curious.

Alas, we must report that Perpetual Motion will not be featured in in our home Fringe this year.  Sorry.  We spent a lot of money, energy, and tears getting The Depth of the Ocean up to the Toronto Fringe, and, as it turns out, we didn't have much left to give the MN Fringe a go.

But, never fear, folks!  We are brainstorming, regrouping, and planning on coming on strong next year with a new show, maybe even one that exists on its own outside of a Fringe Festival!  Huzzah!

In the meantime, those hard-working men and women from Perpetual Motion Theatre Company are out there working their butts off for other theatre companies.  Allow me to elucidate:

(1) Alia Mortensen will be appearing in the MN Fringe in Who We Found Instead at the Pillsbury House.  She plays a slavishly-dedicated soldier stuck defending an abandoned golf course in Afgahnistan, and she is hilarious.  (Derek Miller also makes his grand stage managing debut on this show.  Trust me, he is stage managing the hell out of this show.)  See the Fringe Festival site or the Warm Gun Productions Myspace page for more information.  After that, Alia gets ready to head off to Costa Rica for three months to exercise horses on an organic farm.  No, really.  That's the truth.

(2) Eric Sharp is busy putting together a staged reading of Chay Yew's Porcelain. (more information will be forthcoming).  Mr. Sharp will also be appearing in Theatre Mu's Bahala Na at Mixed Blood Theatre, September to October.  See the Mu website.

(3) Mark Sweeney is deep in the middle of rehearsals for Bloomington Civic Theater's A Little Night Music, opening next month.  (Now, keep in mind that he is learning the elaborate songs and dances for this show while still working full timing and training for the Twin Cities Marathon.  Impressed, yet?  I am.)  Visit BCT's website for more.

(4) Derek Miller will be wearing masks and squirming around like a giant newt while performing in Sandbox Theatre's War With the Newts October to November.  If you visit Sandbox Theatre's website you might figure out what the hell that's all about.  He will also be teaching puppetry to kids at Youth Performance Company this fall, and working on getting a writing residency somewhere far from Minnesota.

(5) Erin Appel continues her work/meditation at the Diamond Way Buddhist Center, doing her part to spread enlightenment through the Twin Cities.

Perpetual Motion Theatre: We're everywhere.

Many thanks to the following:

Peter Shortridge: Without your generosity, we wouldn't be here right now. We can never thank you enough.

Theatre du Mississippi: Thanks for helping Peter to help us. We owe you.

Bridget at the Fringe office: We never expected so much help from the Fringe office. You made the whole process 10,000 times smoother than any other Fringe we looked at this summer.

Erin Klee: Stage manager extraordinaire, Toronto expert, and American ex-pat. We never would have found the Surplus store or the nude beach or any number of other cool things in the city without you. Thanks for spending part of your summer with us, and we expect to see you in Minneapolis sometime in the future.

Casssandra: Our wonderful box office manager. You were given one of the most difficult BYO Venues, and you handled it wonderfully. (Also, you're cute as a button, and that counts for something, too.) Thanks for putting off your nightly count so that you could watch the show.

Cathy Hughes, and all the lifeguards at the Athletic Centre: Your venue was amazing, and you gave us so much more than we asked or paid for. You let us come in early, shut off the pool pumps, and even lowered the water lower just to help us out. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Kaji and Olia: Our first Toronto friends! Kaji, the first Glaswegian I ever met that I could understand, and Olia, born in Ukraine and most recently of California, you were both enjoyed immensely. Good luck with the new apartment together, and thanks for coming to the show.


Ted and Elizabeth of Evidance on CIUT: Thanks for the radio interview. I'm glad that you guys liked the show.

John Kaplan of Now Magazine: Thanks for the interview and the preview in your publication. Sorry that you couldn't be the one to actually review our show for Now.

Frank and Danielle from CBC Radio: Thanks for the second radio interview. We never actually caught it on CBC, but several audience members heard it and came because of it.

Gord and Moses: Your debate over the usefulness of pi was something I never expected to see at Fringe Central. You're both fascinating people. More thanks to Klee for bringing you along to the show.

Heidi, Ken and the rest of the Diamond Way Buddhists of Toronto: If only every person in the world were as kind and supportive as you guys... Heidi, thanks for your guided tour of Kensington Market. Ken, thanks for showing us a great place for brunch. And thanks to the rest for making that night at the Rower's Pub so enjoyable.

Raymond: Thanks for not kicking Alia out of her second coffee shop of the day, and thanks for giving her the low-down on Toronto. Also thanks for plugging our show at the Jewish Centre.

Ewan: Thanks for bringing a book of Keats to a bar. That was cool.

Ryan Paulsen of Pentecostal Wisconsin: Thanks for teaching us the true meaning of "oh."

Jimmy Hogg of Curriculum Vitae: Aside from being a fantastically funny man, you were the first of our fellow performers to plug our show at your own show. We tried to return the favor. Also, we learned a hell of a lot about how to flyer properly by studying your tireless technique. We look forward to seeing you at our home Fringe again soon.

Clare and Dan of Die Roten Punkte: Your comedy/punk rock show not only kicks ass, but also made us laugh for the entire week after we saw it. We still quote it and sing the songs. After you develop your new show in Australia, swing on out to Minneapolis. We'll have the city plastered with posters ahead of time, should you decide to come.

The entire cast of Yabu No Naka: Thank you so much for performing the most beautiful and interesting show at the Festival, and for having the balls to produce a Butoh play in 4 different languages at a festival dominated by sketch comedy and musicals. You guys rock, and the above offer to Die Roten Punkte stands for you as well.

Terry: Round as a beach ball and gay as Pride Week in San Francisco, you regailed us with stories about Soho in the 1960s that may very well have been lies. Even though we grew annoyed with the fact that you would not stop talking to us as we tried to sunbathe at the nude beach, we all had to agree that you were a character that we could never forget. We hope you get to swim back in Syracuse.

That wonderful family from Tennessee: You came up from the south for a family reunion in Detroit, and decided on a whim to swing up to Toronto with your sons in tow just for the Fringe Festival. That is the most amazing parenting I have ever seen. We hope you enjoyed the show.

Grossman's Tavern: Thanks for being just about everything a blues bar should be: a slightly dingy hole-in-the-wall with surprisingly great music.

Paige and the band playing at Grossman's: When you sat down you looked like a couple of frat guys about to break into covers of Jack Johnson tunes. Turns out, you're pretty damn good bluesmen. Kudos to your drummer for playing with a broken arm (and for smiling continuously at Klee).

Leslie from Two Figs for Don Quixote...: Thanks for the hula-hooping and the One-Less-Car stickers.

The dancers of Found and Lost: Thanks for the rainbow tattoos. We will become Rockers.

Here is a clip Mark created after Tuesday's great show and rather memorable day. . .




(you might want to turn your volume down a little and work it up, lots of shouting in Pubs)