Monday, September 22, 2008

Bury My Heart At Dumbass Cowboy - hope you caught this show

Bury My Heart At Dumbass Cowboy
Jon Ferguson Theatre

Jason Ballweber – Luck the Horse, Sheriff Carl Sbadcavers
Noah Bremer – Leslie Peppercock
Lisa Rafaela Clair – The Catus
Dario Tangelson – Jose Del Rio
Sara Richardson – Darlene Sugar-Bottom, The Dumb Ass Deputy
Kimberly Richardson – Cookie
Amy Stockhaus – Shirley Gonnafightcha
John Ferguson – Director

Wow a real theatre company that is working together and doing great things. This is the closet thing in the festival to Commedia dell’Arte. From speaking with the director after the show I discovered 25% of the show was improvised – which in my book is on the road to how it should be. It is a great use of using aspects of Commedia dell’Arte and Clowning and why they are both vital if your doing Clown Theatre. (Of course I encourage people to study Commedia dell’Arte because I teach it.) This is Clown Theatre – not straight clowning or mime or just juggling shows. It is combining all the talents into a theatrical piece. Jon Ferguson Theatre does it well.

This company knows their show is not perfect and it is still growing. Some thing that is important for all shows to know. They are never perfect. There is always room for growth. It is one of the most important show to see at the festival. Jon Ferguson’s leadership in directing and pulling together a company like this is great. These clowns/actors/etc all use their voices very well. Performers at the festival if you’re using your voice – your voices should be trained or be good enough to look trained so you can do anything you need to do with it. This company does that and does it well. They work together not against each other. They know how to share the focus on stage and give there fellow actors on stage what they need to work with to make the show better.

The show is the bluest raunchiest shows in the festival in a very positive way with a lot of verbal with some physical scatology.

Guess what one of the members of this great company – the woman that played The Catus, Lisa Rafaela Clair is planning on staying in NYC. I do now know her plans but performers in NYC should take note of that. (Just hope I got that right - if it is wrong post a comment and if I am right Lisa feel free to post your web site.)

Why are these people only doing three shows and they come all the way from Minneapolis with this many people? The festival needs to give people at least a chance of breaking even financially! Hay who is doing all the press? Are there members of the producers that are handing out this great Clown Festival Program to people in Time Square or Wall Street? Wall Street needs us clowns now more than ever!

Performers – from seeing the sizes of the audiences at this festival – it looks like you need to do your own PR gathering your own audiences. Try phone calls to friends of friends of friends or flyering Wall Street and Time Square in costume.
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WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THIS FULL COLOR PROGAM is anything in it correct this final week and a half?

According to the program their last show was on Sunday Night - but you never know - with this program because more and more information in it seems wrong.
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Last night I went to see “Brazilian Hulk Show” with a show from Maine, “The Crows Funeral”. “The Crows Funeral” canceled which most of the people in the audience did not know and most of us had no idea what the $#% was going on. I was planning on see the last performance of KILL ME LOUDLY: A CLOWN NOIR on Saturday September 26th at 10:30. Two of the performers asked me if I was going to their last show on Friday night – which is a problem for me. Looking at the program their doing their last show on Saturday Night not Friday Night. But maybe this may have changed and the festival producers are keeping it a secret. I also found out that “THE CANCAN DEW" is doing two more shows this week I believe on Wednesday and Thursday night. If the schedule has changed I suggest that performers start telling people because I have heard nothing about it except from performers that are not telling anyone unless they are asked.

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