Posted by Fetch
Fri, 13 Jun 2008 00:54:00 GMT
Last month I had the opportunity to travel to Chicago to work on a project that On the Leesh has been involved with for quite some time, “Masquerade: calypso and home.” Along with the writer/performer, Roger Bonair Agard, Jennifer Conley-Darling, our producer, Bruce Steinberg, our production manger/lighting designer and myself, stage manager, traveled to The University of Illinois at Chicago to perform Roger’s one-man show about growing up in Trinidad.
We stayed in downtown Chicago, which was beautiful. We spent most of our time at the theatre on campus, gathering up our props and furniture pieces for the show. We had a wonderful experience working with the team at the theatre and with the Jane Adams Hull House Museum, which was the organization that brought us out there.
Since Slam-Poetry was first pioneered in Chicago during the mid-1980’s, Roger has performed there many times. Consequently we had many of his friends and colleagues among our diverse and enthusiastic audiences. After each show Roger gave a talkback where the audience could ask him questions about his performance and he could talk about the process of transitioning his poetry “concert” into a one-man show.
This was not the first time I have worked on “Masquerade.” I had the privilege of being the Stage Manager for the show when Roger performed during the Fortnight Festival (at the NYC based Barrow Street Theatre Company) earlier this year. Roger has been performing his show with terraNOVA for over three years now, ever since it’s debut at terraNOVA’s soloNOVA Festival 3 years ago.
Overall, doing a show out of town was a great experience. Good communication is key when you are setting things up over a telephone. It was very rewarding to be able to go to a place where you don’t know anyone and are able to produce something great no matter what the circumstances. It was a good reminder that you must be willing to make sacrifices, be flexible and be able to work with what is given to you. You always want to turn out a good product no matter what the circumstances are.
While I was there I also got a chance to walk around the city, meet up with some friends and visit Chicago’s biggest craft brewery: Goose Island. Thanks to terraNOVA and On the Leesh for giving me this opportunity to have some fun and do some theatre outside of my normal comfort zone!
Melissa Jernigan, Stage Manager.
“jack of all trades, master of none”
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Posted by Fetch
Tue, 10 Jun 2008 21:54:00 GMT
Joe and Julie Go to Ghana
In order to do a documentary about going on a trip, you must have someone doing the documenting. This someone is a sweet-tart-eating, pancake-loving, root beer drinking dude named Joe. Let me be clear on this – the list of foods and beverages that Joe will take into his body can be counted on one hand. Pancakes: Yes. Sweet Tarts: Yes. Root Beer: Yes. Burgers: Yes. Pizza: Yes. Salmon: Yes. Everything else: NO. Many questions arise from this list such as how salmon somehow got an acceptance letter to Joe’s stomach but say, Milky Way bars didn’t.
Now, if Joe were standing over me as I wrote this, I’m sure he would throw some more foods and bevarages onto this sad little pile, but there wouldn’t be much. In fact, a typical nonwork conversation between Joe and Julie goes as follows:
Julie: “Hey Joe, what about lasagna. Will you eat lasagna?”
Joe: “No. Gross”
Julie: “But you eat pizza and it has basically the same ingredients.”
Joe: “But pizza’s not gross.”
Julie: “What about vegetables? Don’t you need vegetables?”
Joe: “No. I take alfalfa pills.”
Julie: “Joe, you need to be studied by the AMA.”
Joe: “Bring it on.”
Somehow, every conversation degrades into me telling Joe that the American Medical Association should study him and Joe expounding on the power of alfalfa pills.
So, when I was first thinking about doing this documentary and talked to Joe about whether he was interested in going with me, my first question was not, ‘are you interested?,’ or ‘how do you envision this’ it was ‘what in the hell are you going to eat?’
Now Joe promises me that he will “iron man it” as he likes to say but we’ve been planning this documentary for awhile now and I have yet to see him show the slightest bit of interest in any foods outside of his safety list. So now on my Ghana ‘to do’ list is: visas, shots, permissions, and ensuring that Joe doesn’t whither away and die from lack of food and drink.
Now I have promised him one carry on bag filled with sweet tarts, but I’m not exaggerating when I say that I’m concerned that Customs in the airport will assume that Joe and I are somehow carting drug laced candies with us since NOBODY would understand needing to carry an entire bag of sweet tarts with them. Though I also realize that I tend toward worrying…while Joe tends toward… Relaxing.
Yes, this is going to be a great partnership.
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Posted by Fetch
Wed, 04 Jun 2008 23:01:00 GMT
Congratulations to our very own, Jeff Lycett – writer and director of such On the Leesh hits as Denim and The Sexually. Mr. Lycett is a man of many talents – not only does he write and director for film, but he plays a mean guitar hero and can eat an old fashioned steak frites with the best of them. However, Mr. Lycett moonlights as a painter and recently sold his very first painting. You can see the painting (black and white of skulls) behind our actors in the Sexually promos.
Yeah to Jeff!
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Posted by Fetch
Wed, 04 Jun 2008 15:48:00 GMT
Alicia was recently interviewed by Craine’s NY about On the Leesh’s ongoing webseries and the opportunities that the Internet provides production companies. Also featured in the article is Jessica Arinella as Holly Malone in our webseries, “The In-Betweens of Holly Malone.” Be sure to check out the article at:
Craines NY
And to watch all of our webseries go to:
www.ontheleesh.com/web-series/current
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Posted by Fetch
Thu, 29 May 2008 21:39:00 GMT
Planning to do a documentary throughout the trip was never my intention. I had really thought that I would just go to Ghana, experience doing the volunteer work, immerse myself in another culture and well… Sweat my arse off. The feeling that I needed to plan something to leave where I was, was palpable. However, as I started talking about my trip to friends, family and random subway riders, the idea of documenting things became more interesting to me. The number of people that told me that they had always wanted to do something like I was planning, or that they’d wanted to travel to Africa or do a volunteer vacation was astounding. I began to feel as if there was energy underneath me, propelling me forward toward this idea of not only getting myself out of my head and away from my comfort zone, but also showing others that they could to. After all, I truly believe that the expression ‘if I can, anyone can’ absolutely applies here. Let’s face it, comforts are usually not far from my life. I’m not a huge nature person. Don’t get me wrong – I enjoy nature. There is nothing like looking at a beautiful forest – from the passenger-side car window, and the expanse of the beautiful ocean – as you sip a cocktail on the deck of a restaurant. Okay, to some extent, I kid, but to say that the jungle I’ve been most familiar with is an urban one is the absolute truth. The main reason I’ve ever gone camping (and I can count these on one hand), is for the s’mores – and don’t even get me started on their bathrooms. So, here I am, going to Ghana. I have no idea what to expect, which usually quite frankly, makes me uncomfortable. But the entire year has been unexpected, so why not just learn how to…well…expect it.
Again, if I can, and you’ve always wanted to, then what’s stopping you?
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Posted by Fetch
Mon, 26 May 2008 20:51:00 GMT
OTL would like to wish you a Happy Memorial Day. In honor of the day, here is a bit of history about the holiday from the State Education Department:
“Henry C. Welles, a prominent citizen, first proposed the idea for a day completely devoted to honoring the Civil War dead. General John B. Murray, the Seneca County Clerk, who had commanded the 148th New York Infantry Regiment in the war, quickly advanced the thought and marshaled community support. Since that year, Waterloo has annually observed Memorial Day. New York, in 1873, became the first state to proclaim Memorial Day, or Decoration Day, as it was originally called, a public holiday.”
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Posted by Fetch
Fri, 23 May 2008 16:33:00 GMT
Best Laid Plans (Part 2)
Why Ghana?
Okay, multiple choice. If you had to couple your husband walking out on you with one of the following would you choose:
a: in the same day, somebody makes a copy of your bank card and steals $2000 from your accounts while your cell phone conks out and you have no land line to use
b: your cell phone bill spikes to over $500 because you no longer have rollover minutes from your husband’s account
c: your dog requires a biopsy for a bump on her back
d: all of the above
Well folks, whether it was just a run of bad luck, a case of bad ju ju or the gods coming together to hit me with a can of whup ass, I was faced with choice d. In the months after my husband left, I felt like I was surrounded by those weird black-liquidy spirits that took down the bad characters in “Ghost”. Had I been approached by a cult in those days, I probably would’ve asked them to lead the way to the compound. All I wanted was to escape somewhere and dive head first into the sand. To quiet my brain a bit I began contemplating where I could go. My family had a big trip planned but that was planned with my husband in mind and was somewhere I’d been with him before. Because of that, I knew I’d feel like he was still there – a hologram of him – following me around, reminding me that his actual body was decidedly absent.
So back in my dreamscape, I thought about where I could go. New factors that I was faced with regarding vacationing were:
1. Giving myself enough time to save money
2. Feeling at ease with going by myself
3. Trying to find something that I’d always wanted to do but had never had the chance when having to compromise with someone else.
First an Earthwatch vacation popped into my head. I’d always wanted to do one and I figured that, since you were with a group of volunteers, traveling alone wouldn’t really be an issue. They’re an environmental organization that offers volunteer vacations in which you learn and do work for any number of different projects. You can search for butterflies in Vietnam, do marine research on a boat in Greece, work on an animal preserve in Africa, etc. You are limited only by your finances and your interests. My personal idea was to try and become one with the dolphins. Me and Flipper, coasting the waters in Greece… Can a human marry a dolphin?
Then I found an organization called Globe Aware. They too, offer volunteer vacations but with a more Peace Corp-type bend to the work. (By the way, in a moment of utter confusion I looked into the Peace Corp but then realized that two years without my dog would make me feel like my left arm was cut off.) Their projects span the world and in their list of destinations was Ghana. I’d always wanted to go to Africa and the idea of going half-way around the world to either teach or assist in building much needed facilities (ASSIST being the operative word), really excited me. Their vacations are only a week long so it wouldn’t require too much time off of work, and if I went in August I’d have plenty of time to save (provided I never set foot into any clothing stores in said time frame). Globe Aware addresses lone female travelers on their website and they also focus on safety and security. I was in. All of my criteria were being met:
Time to save: Yes
Could go by myself: Yes
Could do something I’d always wanted to do: Yes, Yes, Yes.
I was off…
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Posted by Fetch
Mon, 19 May 2008 17:10:00 GMT
This weekend OTL, along with writer/director Jeff Lycett, headed to The Berkshire International Film Festival. We were headed there to represent our short film, Denim which Jeff had written and directed. It seemed to be one of the few comedic short films in their program but it played really well and the audiences seemed to enjoy it a lot. If you are looking for good festivals, that treat filmmakers really well and that have a community that comes out for movies that might otherwise have a hard time getting seen, then be sure to submit to this festival. We had a great time and hope to go back next year.
Some movies that we checked out and can highly recommend are two documentaries (one which is in negotiations for a distributor and the other that is still looking for one) and they are Flow: For Love of Water and Split: A Divided America, respectively. Flow is a documentary about both the need for clean, accessible water as well as the issues surrounding the privatization of water. Be sure to check out this film and visit their website for more information and to sign their petition at: www.flowthefilm.com. Split: A Divided America, deals with how partisanship has taken over the policitcal process. Check this movie out at: www.splitdoc.com. We also got a chance to see the Sundance darling: Teen America which was also incredibly engrossing.
Thanks to the Berkshires community for such a fantastic weekend and special thanks to Kelley Vickery and Lauren Ferin who ran an amazing festival!
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Posted by Fetch
Thu, 15 May 2008 19:43:00 GMT
2007 was looking to be a pretty exciting year for me. My first feature film, For Belly, was being produced by On the Leesh and we were scheduled to go into production that spring. I’d also penned the new webseries In the Can and we were looking to launch the show in late winter. Professionally, both as a writer and actor, things were looking good and I felt like I’d reached new heights in my career. Personally however, I’d been struggling. My husband and I decided that we wanted to start a family in the near future, but needed to work some things out first. However, in the time it would have taken to have a baby – approximately 9 months later, my husband wanted out. He wanted a new life. Now, to go into the details, to list here what I thought went wrong, what my impression was, what I thought his impression was, would not be worth it. It would develop into a he said she said that is neither fair nor informative. It is only necessary to know that I felt abandoned and given up on. As I’m sure most divorced people know, to be the one that is left, to be the one that is told you are not what the other person wants is unbearingly horrific. I found myself falling into some abyss in which I was consumed with unanswered questions and encumbered with insecurities about myself and my own failures. These thoughts can be a full time job. Added to that grief were questions about my new (and sad) financial status, my solitary living situation and the responsibilities of my dog and cat that I could no longer share with someone and I felt cooked. I began to think about how the idea of planning in life can sometimes seem ridiculous – how preparing can seem akin to predicting mother nature. By this time last year, I thought I’d be in babyland along with many of my other friends. But now, I find myself back in this single world that went from meeting people in bars to meeting people online. The handshake went the way of the online “wink” and the first phone conversation has turned into the first email exchange. I’m finding that your best laid plans are no plans at all. So what do you do when you realize you’re consumed with your own problems and your major plans having collapsed under your feet?
You go to Ghana.
This entry marks the first of my weekly logs about flying half way around the world to bring myself back to reality. That while my heartache is real, there is a world out there that is in much more need of attention than just another newly single girl living in New York City. This is my first entry in my attempt to spend sometime out of my own head and into a more hopeful world. Stay tuned…
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Posted by Fetch
Wed, 07 May 2008 16:39:00 GMT
Our DP, Joe Amon and Mary Micari on set
On the Leesh spent yesterday afternoon in Central Park shooting a promo for a pilot that our own Jessica Arinella and Mary Micari are working on. Although we can’t get into the details of the show now, we’re sure that this is just the beginning of their project and OTL hopes to continue to be a part of it!
Melissa Jernigan on boom
The promo featured Jessica Arinella, Mary Micari, Matt Rashid, Alicia Arinella, Julie Tortorici, Melissa Jernigan, Joe Amon, Jessica Jahn, Wayne Parillo, PG Kain and Jeff Lycett.
Wayne Parillo shoots his portion
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