Liberatr Media Network

Apparently the initial list offered has stirred the masses into requests for more coverage. Here is the NEW list of SoTG teams. My apologies to the Giant fans of the world, I thought I had that on my old list — but rest assure they are there now.

Tampa Bay Bucs
Jacksonville Jags
Miami Dolphins
Pittsburgh Steelers
Minnesota Vikings
Indianapolis Colts
New York Giants
Cleveland Browns
Seattle Seahawks

If there are any other teams that you want to see — it’s not too late. Just E-mail us at sotg@thestudentofthegame.com

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Back in April, a bunch of local theatre folks got together to have dinner and meet up. Tonight was the second installment in what seems to be a 3-or-4-times-a-year event, held in local theatre spaces. The April 6th pot-luck was hosted by Mad Cow Theatre downtown, and today’s was held in the lobby of the Orlando REP.

From the Wikipedia page on Potluck:

Folk etymology has derived the term “potluck” from the Native American custom of potlatch; the word “potluck”, however, is actually of English origin. It is a portmanteau word formed from (cooking) pot and lucke. The earliest written citation is from 1592: “That that pure sanguine complexion of yours may never be famisht with pot lucke,” Thomas Nashe. As this shows, the original meaning was “food given away to guests”, probably derived from “whatever food one is lucky enough to find in the pot”, i.e. whatever food happens to be available, especially when offered to a guest. By extension, a more general meaning is “whatever is available in a particular circumstance or at a particular time.”

Potlatch is actually a good custom from which to derive this kind of dinner - the potlatch is often celebrated at special events, like births, celebrations of the harvest, and weddings. It is a show of wealth and prosperity, where the person holding the potlatch holds a feast, and trades some prized commodity for things they might need.

The tech community’s BarCamp and the PR and Media community’s BlogOrlando could be seen as a kind of potlatch - we’re trading ideas and experience.

The idea for the Theatre Pot-Luck was originally spawned by local actor John Baker via Elizabeth Maupin’s Orlando Sentinel theatre blog, which is also the best place see announcements for other upcoming events. The Orlando Arts Blog is another good place to check. Apparently, the Orlando Shakes has volunteered to hold the next one in a few months. Right now there is no organizer, it just sort of happens as someone steps up to offer space - which is, in my opinion, as it should be.

With Florida Creatives and BarCamp, the geeks are really fixated on a single person having all the ideas, and I think this is stifling the creativity and experimentation that could be happening if the organizations were more headless. One way we can do that with Florida Creatives is having chapters in other cities, which we are getting going in Melbourne/Brevard now, and hopefully more successfully in Jacksonville some day - the only stopping other cities is an initial organizer.

Yes, someone does have to take the reins, but only until it gains critical mass. Even when I tried to move the Happy Hour to the Fringe Beer tent some of the downtown folks still went to Crooked Bayou looking for their regular 3rd Monday beer-and-tots… funny.

I really meant to take some pictures, but when I was there, I just didn’t see an opportunity.

What goes on at a theatre potluck? Well I talked to Arwen Lowbridge from Fractured Atlas in New York - she’s down here visiting so she could check out Beth Marshall and Tod Kimbro’s My Illustrious Wasteland - they were both also there, along with Betsy Maupin, of course - I ate dinner with them and (for a few minutes) John DiDonna, but he had to run.

Arwen and I waxed delicious about non-GMO, CSA farms, picking your own fruit, and having fresh food delivered to your house. I also had my first face-to-face meeting with Maupin, who said something to the effect of “You look bigger than on the Internet”.

I later moved over to a table with David Almeida , Marcie and Stephen J Miller from Here Be Dragons. There were some interesting threads there too, like one about experimenting with different roles while you’re in school, because once you’re out, you get cast as yourself for the rest of your life. The other hot topic was nudity, since David had done a play at Fringe with an extended nude scene.

I also got to hear about the history of this event, which is really important to me. The more I get into this, I see myself leaning more towards the role of documentarian and historian. I’m actually thinking about shooting a 20-25 minute documentary in a few weeks if I get the logistics figured out - I also hope that I will be able to get the help with editing that I’m hoping for… more on this later.

Looking forward expectantly to the next Pot-Luck - next time I promise to bring something. Betsy’s chicken and David’s brownies were great, and I heard good things about some lo mein and Stephen’s apple pie too.

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They thought it would never happen. “Blasphemy!” they said. Also, “My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard.” (Although, to be fair, this doesn’t make any sense.)

But it seems they are wrong, for I am writing a post. Stranger things have happened.

For example.

Since living in the UK, I have noticed several seemingly tiny but culturally huge gaps in the things British and American societies deem important. Soccer and peanut butter respectively top this list.

However, it seems the gap is closing and we are embracing one another’s traditions. In return for the Americans embracing Victoria Beckham as a valid human being (in some cases), British teens have run away with the concept of senior prom.

Prom, where memories are made, is typically tacky and gross and therefore unsurprisingly something of an industry. I was too cool (read: misanthropic) for the prom committee, but I have been in physical contact with catalogues containing everything you need for your perfect magical evening.

Sometimes this gets out of control. My best friend, who was on the prom committee, claims that her senior prom’s color scheme was established to match a committee member’s dress. Further to this, she claims that she visited her high school during prom season years later and found that they had developed a new and unique prom theme all by themselves: Candyland After Dark.

If I remember anything whatsoever about Candyland, I recall it being relatively frightening in broad daylight. Not only did it feature Gloppy the Molasses Monster, the Lord Licorice of the ’80s looks like Satan and the Candyland Kids themselves look like they belong to Aryan Nations or Prussian Blue. I can’t imagine anything in Candyland being improved by darkness.

For that matter, the idea of any character-based board game after dark has potential to be utterly frightening. Clue After Dark. Guess Who After Dark. Don’t Wake Daddy After Dark. Hungry, Hungry Hippos…After Dark.

Is prom’s UK invasion a good thing? Will the obnoxiousness be lost in translation? Let’s consult our Magic 8 Ball After Dark.

Hmm. Outlook not good.

TRICKS AND TREATS

A Deterrant
Prussian Blue - Skinhead Boy
What’s Your Prom Style?

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Months still must pass before the NFL is under way once again, but now is the time to see which teams deserve love from the SoTG and Weasel.

Here’s the list so far.

Tampa Bay Bucs
Jacksonville Jags
Miami Dolphins
Pittsburgh Steelers
Minnesota Vikings
Indianapolis Colts

If you want your team on board . . . the answer is simple — e-mail us at sotg@thestudentofthegame.com

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Five fifths of Romeo & Juliet - a teaser for the Minnesota Fringe. Take a play, cut it into five pieces, give them to five Fringe companies, and see what they come up with… sounds awesome.

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Episode 37
crapface_37.mp3
Running time: 57:32

• Coming soon... maybe!
• The PFA Manifesto, RetroLowFi.com
• The Zanzibar Lounge
• The PFA MySpace Page
• PFA Frappr
• Get us on iTunes
• Hosting and bandwidth provided by Cervo Systems
• Liberatr.net

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This year I thought I’d employ a bit of science to my Blogging of Fringe - I was worried the site had turned into all Fringe Crush, all the time, and completely about local acts instead of National and International. I was mostly right.

Here are some handy graphs to point out why we suck:

Here we see Text only posts at 10%
VoiceMail Reviews and audio at 13%
Any non-Fringe Crush videos at 37%
Fringe Crush takes it home with 41%

My second criticism is that we favored local, and the numbers don’t lie:

International 6%
National Acts 13%
On the Fringe 38%
Local Artists 43%

This scale is even graded on a curve, because I counted Bric-a-Brac as national because they’re from Austin, but they all used to live here, and they were produced by Beth. And the only things in the “On the Fringe” category were folks who were not in shows, but many of them have been in the past.

That means we had a distribution like this:

I guess 19% isn’t bad for Long Tail content. I’d like to do better. It’s a mission of mine to keep that number above 20% all the time, so I guess we did pretty well this time.

The Videos and Audio did have some categories we threw them in:

The new Fringe Moments were 11%
The VoiceMail Reviews at only 13%
The favorite Fringe Crush with 41%
Everything else this year with 35%

Also, I was very proud of us when I found out Beth would be presenting a Fringe Crush award for the show with the most crushes. Denna counted up the results, and by no surprise, VarieTease won! I think that’s a challenge to the cast of Oral to do some more campaigning for next year.

One last statistic, of the 32 shows I saw, 55% of them were not local.

Again, we’re counting Bric-A-Brac and Parlour Games as National, because they are… sortof.

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IMG_1007, originally uploaded by MarkBaratelli.com.

While doing some web surfing, I noticed some video of the Silent Rave Dancers on the Green at Loch Haven Park.

Then I started clicking around…

There is some great stuff in there, like this one with Brian Feldman doing some audience participation. I don’t know if the gay lover story was the same every night, but I’m really sorry I missed that show.

Props go out to Tisse and her camera. But don’t forget, she’s “Not just a photographer” (her words). She also does a brand of life coaching she calls Artist Development, and she’s organizing some events around town, like Artissed Night.

Why did I start a blog about Mark and finish it about Tisse? Mark was how I first heard about her, and they have been working together a lot lately on the Orlando Arts Blog, which has always been awesome, but now is starting to be even more multimedia. Please go check them out.

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I came across this Canadian improv troupe somewhere in my web surfing this year, and this week I saw their videos on the Montreal Fringe’s Facebook page.

It looks like their show is called “Argument With A Dolphin”, and I think they specifically do long-form shows. Watch more of Without Annette’s behind-the-scenes footage on their blog.

Some of our friends from previous Orlando Fringes will be there, like Barry Smith (Jesus in Montana, American Squatter), TJ Dawe (Totem Figures, Slipknot), and Greg Landucci (Dishpig, Mr. FOX), and Influx Dance (Goals for 2002). Also, some new friends from this year’s festival - The Cody Rivers Show (Stick to Glue) and Andrew Connor (Boom), will be there too.

If this information is wrong, sorry. Iwas having some trouble finding info on the Fringe site. If I’m missing anyone, I’d love to include them too.

Funny thing about Montreal and Blogging Fringe - if you search for it, we come up on the first page, from my post-fringe show last year where I was Seeking Updates from Montreal Fringe. My offer from last month (and last year) still stands - anyone who wants to can do whatever with Blogging Fringe - we have set up some conventions - Fringe Crush, Voicemail Reviews, and Fringe Moments - do with them what you will. If you send me links I will post them here, or I will give you an account and plenty of attribution on the site.

We will even import your blog posts word-for-word, but a warning that MySpace blogs are not very good for that purpose, since the feeds only include a few words for each blog post.

If you’re in Montreal or any other Fringe City, get in touch. I’d love to just know you’re out there.

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From Libertina’s Revamp

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A piece of impromptu Visual Fringe art.

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TJ Dawe tells us about the moment when he fell in love with Fringe Feativals.

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Donnelly, Dana and Sparky share some Fringe Moments

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Download VoiceMail Review 10
fringe_2008_voice_10_dragons.mp3
Length: 1:54

I finally saw Here Be Dragons on Patron’s Pick Day. This was one of the few issue-based shows at Fringe, but it was really fabulous.

Thank you to Cervo Systems for providing bandwidth and hosting for Blogging Fringe.

The file is just an MP3 - no iPod is required to listen to this show, although that is a popular way to enjoy podcasts. We have also made our feed available for easy linking to iTunes or other feed readers.

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Download VoiceMail Review 07
fringe_2008_voice_09_crush.mp3
Length: 0:24

Our first ever Fringe Crush via voicemail! You can call 321-441-3964 to leave a Fringe Crush report, a short radio bit or a review of a show.

Thank you to Cervo Systems for providing bandwidth and hosting for Blogging Fringe.

The file is just an MP3 - no iPod is required to listen to this show, although that is a popular way to enjoy podcasts. We have also made our feed available for easy linking to iTunes or other feed readers.

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