December, 13 2008
By: stacey_in_ma
Picture: stacey_in_ma
Edited by: Marcy

The play was good. It was interesting but very odd. I'm not quite sure what to think of the play as a whole (and, it turns out, neither is Randy, lol). It was certainly well acted and well staged. This is the sort of play that I think it helps to have read it some beforehand. There are a lot of schemes and things to keep track. I think one of my biggest faults of the play is that it was difficult for me to keep track of who all the people were. I realize I haven't given you any of the plot but I really can't think right now so I'll do it tomorrow.

Karyn and I had seats C15 and C16, literally one row behind where we sat for The Malcontent. So we got there around 7:30. I knew there was a cocktail party beforehand but I didn't know if it was something we invited to or not so we showed up in time just in case. It turns out that we were only on the list for the party after the play which was totally fine. So, we just got into the theatre early and took our seats. We were just sitting there talking, hanging out and people were coming in, the place was starting to fill up. Maybe 15 minutes or so before the scheduled time, some people started to fill our row (up to the point it had been me and Karyn on one end and a woman at the other end and nobody in between. Then Randy arrived. And at in C12. That would be 3 seats away from me. You read that right. Three seats away. When he saw Karyn and I (as we were standing up to let him through), he smiled brightly and said, "Oh, hi! How are you?" We said fine and asked him how he was and he said he was well. So he sat down and there was a woman in front of him and talked with him for a bit (turns out she's a fan but I also think she's a theatre goer). After a few minutes, I say to Randy, "I have a Christmas card for him with a tAB donation. Do you want me to give it to you now or later?" He sort of chuckles and says, "Whenever you want". LOL So I decided to give it to him then. I hand him the card and he said something about hoping he didn't lose it. I said, "Well, you haven't lost mine yet." He smiled and said, "Oh, good", like he was relieved he hadn't lost any of my donations, lol. He also mumbled something like, "I'm the one that usually loses them. Marci usually handles them" or something like that. I then said, "I was going to donate on the Fractured Atlas site but I lost my internet access yesterday and since I was going to see you I figured I might as well just give it to you in person." He said, "Oh, I didn't have internet today." So later, Kathy (I think that was her name), the woman sitting in front of Randy, turns to Karyn and I at one point (I think it was during intermission) and tells us that she was at the "thinking..." screening and that she has a nice picture of us with Randy. I knew there was another woman there who'd been taking pictures but I didn't know who she was and she didn't say anything at the time. So, funny meeting her there. We gave her our emails so hopefully she'll send us the picture.

So, the play ends and the party begins. We get down there (it was in the rehearsal room - at least I think that's their rehearsal room) and they have all kinds of great looking food and some wine and other drinks. We staked out a table so we had a place to put our coats and then started looking around. There were only a few others there when we got there. Anyway, shortly after, Randy arrived. I went over to him and asked him what he thought of the play and he said, "I'm not sure yet." I said, "I liked it but I know what you mean. There are parts I enjoyed but other parts I'm not really sure about." He agreed, saying "It was kind of strange". I mentioned that I'd tried to find a copy online (well, I went to the Wiki page) and there wasn't a copy online so I hadn't had a chance to read it, which probably would have helped me a bit. He said, "I'm still processing it. I have to think about it." I said, "I really need to see it again just to get better sense of it." Then, I asked him about tAB (btw, Karyn was standing around but didn't really have much to say so she was just hanging back listening to Randy. So I said, "So, since I'm a tAB donor what's going on?" He got all smiley and talked about how they'd just gotten out debt for the shooting portion of RSE (Return Shift Escape). Now, they're trying to raise the money for post, some of which is extremely expensive. He specifically mentioned the sound editing and color correction. He also made it a point to say something like (I don't remember the exact wording), "It's small donations - or donations like yours (I've donated quite a bit though certainly not huge in the scheme of how much it costs to finish a film) that helped us get out of debt." So, anybody reading this from now on, know your donations are going to be going to covering the costs of post. Randy said he expected that the would be going on to the summer. He said they're hoping to have a rough cut by June or so (at least I THINK that's what he said. He might have said rough cut by summer). So then I said, "I know how it can be, how expensive things are. I actually worked on a movie that a friend of mine directed." And Randy said, "Oh, really?" I said, "Yeah, my friend directed this super low budget movie and I worked as the script supervisor on it." For those of you who don't know what a script supervisor is one of the people responsible for continuity (depending on the size of the production the job can be broken down so that multiple people do it) and for keeping notes of EVERY SINGLE take (bad takes, particularly good takes, and what film rolls and sound rolls are used for each take. It's a very detailed job. So, Randy says, "That's not an easy job." I said, "Well, I wasn't working at the time. I'm a paralegal but we had some downtime and I knew my friend was doing this movie so I asked him if he needed any help and he says, 'How would you like to be script supervisor?' I said, 'What the fuck is a script supervisor'. Next thing I know I'm at Samuel French [that's a bookstore in Hollywood that is the go-to place for reference books on the movie industry] buying the script supervisor book." Randy smiled and said, "Oh, what did you think of it? Did you have any continuity issues?" I said, "It was interesting. Because of the nature of the production, most of my job consisted of taking notes for the editor. The editor seemed to like my work." I swear, I don't know if tAB's looking for script supervisor or what. He certainly perked up when I mentioned it though. Then, I mentioned how the reason I'd done it because I'd wanted to see how a film was made. My ex works in the industry (though in animation) but we have a lot of industry friends and I was curious about the process. I said, "Like, I didn't know how when you have a single camera and you have two people talking you shoot them the one way, then you shoot the other way. So it's like take after take of the same thing, sometimes for hours." Randy said, "Yeah, it can get really tedious." Then, I said, "Yes, it definitely can. It must have been quite change when you went from theatre to QAF, they're completely different." He said, "Yeah, it's definitely can be pretty tedious."

Then, he said, "I need to get something to eat." He'd been standing there talking and starving, lol. I said, "I'm SO sorry. I didn't mean to keep you from eating" and he said, "No, that's okay. I just only at a little bit a while ago so I'm REALLY hungry." Or something like that.

So he went and found some food and chatted with lots of other people. The Managing Director of Red Bull Theater came over to Karyn and I at one point and talked with us. He was a lot of fun. Great guy. Very enthusiastic. I talked to a few of the actors but one of my problems was I had no idea who some of the actors were who'd been in the play. I couldn't recognize them. So, I only ended up speaking to a couple of the actors. There are some others I would have spoken with but they were talking in their own little groups and I didn't want to interrupt. Later on, I saw Randy was headed out and I wanted to Karyn to get a picture with him if he didn't mind. She wasn't feeling the greatest and the crowd was really staring to get to her so I thought it would be a nice thing. I went up to Randy and asked him if he was heading out. He said he was and I asked him if he had a minute. I actually had wanted to bring up that tAb apparently has my wrong address in their system since my ex is getting donation letters. So, Karyn and I followed Randy out into the little lobby area where there weren't any people. I said, "I forgot to mention earlier that you apparently have my old address in your system." He said, "Oh?" I said, "I did send an update to the tAB email." He said, "It should be fine then." I aaid, "My ex is still getting donation letters" (I didn't say it like I was mad or anything, I just mentioned it). Randy sort of cringed a little and said, "Oh..." So, hopefully that will get straightened out once and for all. Randy was very sweet. I asked him if he'd mind a quick picture and he said, "No, that's fine." So, Karyn got her pictures (though Randy wasn't smiling - I think he was just kind of tolerating the pictures at that point, lol). I didn't even bother getting a picture with Randy. I said "Thank you" and we hugged (he hugged me - squee!). He looked good. He was wearing THE COAT I was raving about. He was also wearing the shoes/boots that we wore during The Malcontent, with the blue stitching. The first thing I noticed is that they've taken a bit of a beating, lol. He was also wearing black skinny jeans and a verticle-striped black and white or navy blue and white button down shirt with a black or navy blue sweater (looked like cashmere but I didn't touch it).

So it was a good evening. The play was good. It was nice to get a chance to talk with Randy. Hopefully he'll be doing something soon. Oh! I specifically asked him about the short in January, since he'd mentioned it to me at the "thining..." screening and he brought it up during one of the interviews in France. I don't know if he was just not wanting to talk about it but he didn't sound very definite on it, at least not for January. Maybe since they've gotten the financing squared away for the filming of RSE and now they're focusing on getting the funding for post, the short is getting pushed to the back burner for the time being.




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Written by Stacey edited by Marcy