Larpocalypse signups begin!

Festival signups opened last night, and the flurry for game registration began! As I predicted, Jesriah filled within the first few minutes, but I was fast on the button and made it in. Glad I made that my first-round pick. Congratulations, morethings5, lightgamer, and ninja_report! You win the brass ring for this Festival. The tiered system I think is really good, as nobody will get shut out of everything they want. There were some minor technical issues that some people observed in that some of the games didn't have a signup button appear even though signups were open-- both The Stand and Paranoia were affected by it. But our intrepid con chair and heroic webmaster were on it, and before long all issues were solved. We even got a few people making those two their first round pick! I am flattered that katiescarlett29 and nennivian chose The Stand-- can't wait to cast them! --and there's also a young man I don't recognize but who appears to be a Brandeis student. Yay, new larping blood! In Paranoia we have, among others, Prentice and niobien, Emily Baum, and Nat Lathrop. I am confident that everything will fill within the next few rounds, and I look forward to the final cast roster.

My next pick will be Folding the River, and if I don't make it into that, High Rollers. I want to play both of them very much so I won't be disappointed either way. Jared's going for High Rollers as well. Remember to be at your computer at 7PM this coming Thursday so you can get into the game you want before it fills!

Jonathan Kindness as Rowan Loring

Last night I had the honor of having morethings5 over to record his part for Tailor of Riddling Way. Kindness is one of those actors that I will go out of my way to work with. Having cast him in Hamlet, To Think of Nothing, and now Tailor, I have included Kindness in more of my dramatic projects than any actor excepting only Jared and Steph. I like his style, and I like the way we click as actor and director. He's very receptive to ideas, but also inventive and able to extrapolate; when he is so inspired he springs off of what you told him in a way that makes the character more real to him, and thus gets a better portrayal from him. He has a way of GETTING characters, of absorbing all their complexities and blending them into a cohesive whole that takes them all in account and balances them. While most actors that I've worked with tend to shoot for a particular performance, he is more experimental, trying this and that to see what effect it has and how he feels about it before settling on his ultimate approach.

I wanted him for the part of Rowan Loring for two major reasons. First, the sound of his voice; he has a cultured, even-toned voice that I thought would convey a man of manners, breeding, and integrity. Secondly, it was different than anything I'd cast him before, which as you all know I love to do sometimes. His previous roles with me were Rosencrantz and Palamon, the first one played totally for laughs and the second one a humorous voice of satire. I liked the idea of having him play someone who made his point straightforwardly, but still felt bound by his personal code; Palamon, by contrast, is a truth speaker who uses jokes and irony to express himself, and does not feel obligated by convention. Rowan is my Honorable Man in this story whose only fault was that he stuck so closely to his code that had to place the needs of those he loved in the secondary position.

Jonathan did a fantastic job last night; I was incredibly pleased with the performance he gave. I found it interesting that he would mark his script to give himself cues as he read, delineating beats, transitions, and extremes. I'm always interested in process-of-the-artist stuff, so I thought that was cool. Also, best of all, he is an unusually good self-editor. He would record the piece, listen to it, and hear the places where he wasn't satisfied or where he wasn't feeling like he was giving me what I wanted. He would then use his observations  to improve himself on the second pass through. I've rarely worked with actors with that capability to critique their own performance. And of course, he is wonderful to work with, which makes me enjoy having him in my projects even more.

This is him at my fancy party, but he's kind of Rowanish here, I think. :-)

Bizarre sewing whim - authentic priest's cassock

I have always been a fan of cassocks, the long, severe coats worn by priests outside of liturgical dress. I like how many different vibes they can give off; authoritative, modest, powerful, reliable, separated, even scary. If anyone ever saw that lame comic book adaptation Ghost Rider from a few years back, you may remember the way Peter Fonda playing Mephistopheles. My mom pointed out to me, "They have him dressed like a bishop." So they did, and I thought it looked incredibly creepy and cool.

Ever since seeing Andy Kirschbaum in his awesome black cassock at Venezia I have had a bee in my bonnet about having one. I'm not really sure why. Women don't really wear them, and it's not like I don't have enough coats, or an abundance of opportunities where it would be appropriate to dress like a priest. But I like the idea nonetheless.

I bought this pattern on eBay as a compromise, so I could eventually make my own one day that would fit me if I really really wanted. It came in the mail yesterday along with the costuming I ordered. Looking at it, the front is pretty simple but the back looks complicated, with lots of tailored placed and pleats in the folds, so it's probably too difficult for my current skill level. It also doesn't have the capelet like higher-ranking priests wear either, though that would be easy enough to draft. I don't know what I'd do with it if I did make it, maybe just take lots of weird pictures of myself as a girl priest or something, but now I have the option if it bugs me enough.