Jerusalem's Open!

This was one amazing, exhausting, wild process-- exactly, maybe, as it should be for a play such as Jerusalem.  Jez Butterworth's lopsided masterpiece draws craziness to it like a magnet.  But the set-- which includes a camper we cut into three pieces and then re-assembled in the space-- is beautiful.  The costumes (designed by Scarlett Kellum) are rich and quirky.  The sound will get you dancing in your seats.  The lights (almost a 100 cues for a show that takes place outside during daytime) takes you on a journey.  During tech, we had photographer Olya Gary come take some photos, and that's what I'm sharing here today.

JERUSALEM
by Jez Butterworth
Directed by Misha Hawk-Wyatt

March 4-26, 2016
The Phoenix Theatre,
414 Mason St., San Francisco, CA
www.secondwind.8m.com
(415) 355-6087

Opening Weekend

I'm on the run so I won't say much: here is a photo montage from the show. It provides a little taste of the final product. We took many of the photos for the press, so they're also examples of what we think make for good press photos. What makes for a good press photo? RC Staab, my friend, fellow playwright, and ad man for the SJ Mercury News says: "you should have at least two photos, one that is horizontal for tabs like Sunday's Datebook -- 5x7 is fine -- and one that is a strong vertical for ROP (when you think about, papers are strongly vertical). A third photo, more square -- black space around -- would also be good." Of course he told me this after I took my pics.

So far both our Friday and Saturday performances on opening weekend sold out-- despite having not been listed in the Chronicle (thanks Chron, the only thing worse than poor service is unreliable service). Tonight's performance also appears that way headed....

Get your tickets while they're hot: http://www.secondwindtheatre.com/

Oh Where Oh Where am I? Tech!

My long absence (fueled only slightly by difficulties with my blog server) is a statement in itself. Tech was grueling: 12 stright days working at times until six in the morning-- and never quitting before 1pm. I fell sick for two days near the beginning. People fell off the stage. Repeatedly. We discovered one of our computers didn't have enough processing power to run both the video program and the videos smoothly so we bought another laptop, programmed it, tweaked it, and then learned that it had a faulty circuit on the power board that kept it from running reliable. We returned it on opening day, programmed, tweaked, and threw it into the mix. After having never seen all of the media elements together in the same show, we ran without a hitch to a standing-room only audience on opening, followed by an over-sold audience on Saturday. But all of that is another entry; this one is a little behind-the-scenes of tech itself.

We're open! So you can buy tickets at: http://www.secondwindtheatre.com