I took the first tour of the preview last night! And witnessed an assault! Don't you love New York?
Craziest thing that happened took place during Birdbath (by Leonard Melfi, dir Kay Mitchell). I am not even sure exactly what happened. Hopefully someone can comment or post who saw it better? I was being a good little audience member and following the cart like I was told (I guess I would also be a good Nazi or have drunk the koolaid in Jonestown! But, they SAID follow the cart, and I am very LITERAL).
Anyway, a homeless guy passed us as we were watching the scene and then I think after we were about 50 feet from him, someone jumped him and started beating him??? Not sure, but it was loud-- it may have been a security guard or police officer grabbing him. I couldn't see and was stubbornly trying to watch the performance. The group was confused for a moment as to whether or not the jumping was part of the show-- but the cart was definitely being wheeled AWAY from the assault in progress, so most of us followed it. When we were about 75 feet away, someone started yelling "Call 911!!!" Our actors kept going-- about half the tour group was watching the beating or whatever going on, and half of us were following the actors. I don't think anyone knew exactly what was going on. By the time were at the end of the scene, a half dozen cops were on the scene at the other end of the block, police cars were there and an amublance was arriving. I asked some of the other group members what was going on as we were walking to the next scene, but noone seemed to know.
I think our cart got stolen at the next stop, Murder Cake (by Diane Di Prima, dir Lauren Keating). I was very disturbed not to have a cart to follow to the next stop-- I was FIXATED on the carts (MUST FOLLOW CART-- no matter if people scream, desperately want you to call 911, or sirens are screaming all around you-- MUST FOLLOW CART).
Other highlights, a woman come out from the abandoned-looking building that the Futz (by Rochelle Owens, dir Jose Zayas) scene was performing in front of and started yelling at them to move their "practicing" elsewhere. They just went on with show, while she stood right beside them, arms folded, yelling at them to go away. Someone (director?) finallly went went up and tried to explain to her what was going on-- she just yelled "What? I don't CARE! Go away!" Finally she went back in the building and shut the door in a huff when the actors just ignored her. This was the FIRST tour-- so I've been wondering what happened when the other tour groups came through.
Huge kudos to crazy actors Moti Margolin and Eric C. Bailey, who stand outside wearing boxers and suspenders ALL NIGHT shouting obscene sex dialogue from Sam Shepard's The Rock Garden (dir Bryn Manion). I had to hide my face behind my program to hide the blushes as passerbys caught some of their graphics lines out of context-- I don't know how they do it. Ditto, underwear clad Liche Ariza and Jennifer Whitman (A Corner of the Morning by Paul Foster, dir Belinda Mello) and Catherine Porter and Nick Matthews (Why Hanna's Skirt Won't Stay Down by Tom Eyen, dir Mark Finley). And the whole cast of Conquest of the Universe or When Queens Collide (by Charles Ludlum, my soulmate, and dir Gabriel Shanks) I don't know what they are wearing-- but it ain't much.
Loved the passerby during The Mulberry Bush by Phoebe Wray, dir Casey McLain, who said "YEAH! Me too!" emphatically when one of the actresses said "I always wanted to fly" and just kept walking down the street.
Great Night. Hope that guy's not dead from the Birdbath scene, though. Anyone have any info?
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I can talk a little about the crazy lady at "Futz", which is 84 Second Avenue: she called the police (which I had expected, actually...more on that later). I got the call on the walkie-talkie that the cops were at "Futz" and could I get over there right away? Gotta love those kinds of requests.... The officers were very nice and after I explained that Detective Hernandez knew about our performance, so we have permission to be here, they asked us if we could move the performance next door to 82 Second Avenue. 82 is actually the real site of Cafe LaMaMa #2, but it's also an active coffeeshop, Mission Cafe, whose business I was afraid we'd be affecting if we were in front of 82. As it turns out, they close before the tour gets to "Futz", but our we also REALLY like the glass store front at 84... But, we knew we had to say yes and move everything over.
While we were resetting, the woman started talking to me. Ralph, Justin (lighting) and I had met her earlier in the week to ask about performing there--she'd said no, she hates theater people and we'd be dirty and annoying. Technically, I couldn't argue with her second point--this is her home, after all--but I told her that we're very conscientious and we would not leave it dirty. No dice. But we pushed our luck anyway at the site and it bit us. So now she starts telling me again how she hates theater people--Jose may be able to talk more about the details of her unhappiness with Ellen Stewart and LaMaMa, which dates back to when they were neighbors in the 60s--but the main premise was that she didn't like Ellen and she didn't like us. I just agreed with her and told her how sorry I was about her problems with LaMaMa (40 years ago--let it go, people!). I think my commisserating with her (and not disagreeing with her, even when I did disagree) at least molified her temporarily, because she went inside.
However, I heard later from Jose that she came back out... and perhaps he can tell about how that last encounter, which was much better than the first 2!
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