A night off and ... well that's it. I will keep my emotions on an even keel as I have been called out by Dale in Austin who will be making the return trip.

I am depressed and confident that Dale will read this and respond with his usual compassion and gentile manner. Oh and my ballsack could use a suck!!!

Please visit Dale's blog at: http://www.roehenge.com/blogger.html


- posted by Eric @ 8:14 PM

 
The show is a week from tomorrow night. Huff huff. I think things are going surprisingly smooth. We had a reduced rehearsal tonight as only a portion of the cast was there, and we Steve and I spent some time cooking up some of the audio that is exceptionally important to the show.

New printer cartridge. I know you were all sweating that. Now I can get the programs out of the way. But not tonight. Tomorrow is a rehearsal free night and as far as I'm concerned, it's already started. Next week will be unbelievable.

I am concerned. A week to go and only a handful of reservations. The clock is ticking.
- posted by Eric @ 9:42 PM

 
And another night has passed. Business duties kept me tonight until 9:30. Luckily they were 2 blocks from rehearsal, so I was able to swing up there pretty fast. Ben Lundy dropped in for the evening. It's always great to see him. We rehearsed our big scene together which is absolute insanity, but funny.

The cast ran through nearly everything on the list tonight. HAHAHAHA I'm thinking that I shouldn't come to rehearsals anymore because I must be the one causing the disruptions.

I'm growing increasingly positive about the show. Either that or I'm hallucinating from exhaustion. Either way, the next week will be a rollercoaster of emotions; frustration, anger, nostalgia, joy and eventually the ear buzzing high of performance.

Dale has been following my blogs the last few days. Or as he puts it, listening to me whine. I justify the blogs by saying that I am trying to deter any would be comedians from jumping into this game.

Consider yourself detered :) SCAB!
- posted by Eric @ 9:32 PM

 
The show edges ever closer. The most frightening thing is that we won't really see the final product until performance night. We found out tonight that the venue, The Lincoln Inn (a banquet hall) will be closing at 9pm the night before so we will not have a proper tech rehearsal. It's happened before, but it's always unnerving.

The fear has started. We are underrehearsed. I blame myself. I haven't been running a tight enough schedule on rehearsal nights. I think everybody is picking things up fine, but I think we should be further along. However, I always think this. I'm sure that on the 19th evrything will be fine.

Marie-Anne Hogarth put in a little rehearsal time. Again the nostalgia is flowing. Eeewww, I clean that up.

My printer has run out of ink, which is bad since the programs are not done yet. This weekend! I swear. I now have to take our 30 sketches and put them into a running order that we can all live with. I have to take into account costume changes. However, with a show this long, we are looking at, potentially, half an hour of in-between music. I need to trim that where I can so the night doesn't drag on for the audience.

Just something I always have to do.
- posted by Eric @ 9:17 PM

 
Tonight was our first rehearsal with a former cast member. Mo Gannon slipped in and rehearsed her scenes with us. Mo has been gone since 2000 (her last performance was on the internet radio show). Since she is pregnant her roles in the show are limited, which is too bad. But it was great having her here and it will be great to have her back on stage. The pregnancy will be played for every laugh we can get. I guess MILKED would have been a better joke.

I am absolutely amazed at how quick Keith learns things. To accomodate the increased cast he has had to step into more new roles than most, and he's doing great. He has taken over a role in a really old sketch and I think he will have one of the biggest laughs of the night.

Everybody is doing well. Millie is sweating it because her night-time work schedule is reducing the amount of rehearsals she can make. Not to worry. SHe'll have all her lines and everybody else's too.

Tomorrow night Marie-Anne comes to play. She hasn't been with us since 01 . She too has a limited amount that she can do. But she is in one of the best bits of the night.

Well, for now, we are in a holding pattern or rather, I am. My work schedule this week makes for some funky hours. I have to leave at 5:30 tomorrow, so I am off to bed. I'm starting to get butterflies in my stomach because of how good this is going to be.

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- posted by Eric @ 8:52 PM

 
So I have decided to open up my head and let you all peer inside. I have decided to do a daily blog on the production of the big Gag Reflex celebration. (I'm sure, knowing me, this will probably continue after this affair.) Just to bring you all up to speed, Gag Reflex has been around now for 10 years. On Sept 19 & 20, we will be presenting our 10th Anniversary show. For this some old members are coming back to perform and some members of our sister Austin cast are making the trek up. Sounds like fun.

This has been floating around in my head (and everybody else's since I haven't shut up about it) for the last year. I began reconnecting old members sometime early last year. Unfortunately, 4 former cast mates have had to back out. There's several more that I could never track down. A year ago when plans were starting, this was going to reunite everybody who ever graced the stage. But reality turned around to bite me in the ass. This is, however, fine with me, because working this many people and trying to give ample stage time has been tough. I would loved to gotten back on stage with people like Dan and Josh or to trade quips with cast members who left before I ever joined in 1995. But I think, once the stomach acid and worry is over, this will have been a blast.

Now that we are less than two weeks out, I feel like I haven't done a fucking thing. On Friday I finally delivered the last sketch to all the cast. It is a reworking of an old bit that will open the show and include everybody. I will not devulge what the sketch is, but it will be great. I started it 3 weeks ago and could not for the life of me end it. After several failed attempts, I sent it down to Austin via email where Dale (co-founder) finished it for me. Fantastic, but I delivered a script to the cast 2 weeks to the day of the open. We rarely work that way.

On top of this, the final sketch list wasn't complete until last week. We have over 300 sketches to pick from and I had to weigh factors like; what sketch was this old cast member in? What do they want to do? Could we pull that off? Needless to say, it gave me several headaches. Several weeks ago the cast pulled together a short list of 50 sketches. That has been cut to 30. (A normal show has 20) This is going to be a LONG show, but worth it. On the night, I think the audience will catch the nostalgic vibe.

Christ, I hope.

I will be updating this blog daily up to the show. Yes it's a behind the scenes look, but I will not 1) reveal too much about the show or 2) bad mouth anybody. That would serve no purpose.

If you want more information on the show go HERE

Talk to you soon, Eric

- posted by Eric @ 9:43 PM