You might be able to find out the answer to that question this week. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving holiday and safe travels. Everyone at Klingon Christmas Carol has had the week off for Thanksgiving, so I don’t have a great deal to report right now. We had only our second rehearsal of the week tonight. However, it was significant because it marked our final rehearsal before tech week starts tomorrow. From this point on we start layering the technical aspects of the show into what we have been working on for the past 2 months. Then on Thursday….we add what is perhaps the most important part of the show..the x factor…the audience. We will be having our Twitter preview on Thursday, December 4th at 8:00pm. This is both your chance to see the show before it officially opens and also the only show where phone use will be allowed in the audience during the show. You can report on what you are watching live on Twitter or Facebook! If this sounds like something you are interested in, as of the writing of this blog, there are $12 tickets to the Twitter preview on Goldstar:

http://www.goldstar.com/events/chicago-il/a-klingon-christmas-carol-1

Otherwise, you can buy tickets here:

https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/936560

We cleaned out the rehearsal space tonight and loaded the set pieces and props into the moving van. By the time I post next, Klingon Christmas Carol 2014 will be opened! I’m looking forward to having all of you see our work!

Happy Thanksgiving week! I’m sitting in Sunday night’s rehearsal watching fight call and thinking about the week. The fights are really starting to take shape along with the rest of the show. Speaking of taking shape, on Wednesday we spent the rehearsal learning how to make our faces take the shape of a Klingon’s. This is a part of the show that I did not get to experience last year so I was really excited to learn. We started off by watching our producer and Klingon makeup master Ali demonstrate proper Klingon makeup technique on James, one of the cast members.

After this we gamely made an attempt to do it ourselves. I won’t bore you with a step by step process. I’ll simply say it involves latex, more latex, a type of sensitive skin adhesive, makeup, and most importantly….a dash of honor. My results were mixed, I’ll admit. There was bit of trial and error in figuring out which base would mesh the best with my skin color but we got it figured out. I’ll also have to spend some time mastering the fine art of applying highlights and shadow to forehead ridges. My ridges have just enough irregularity to them to make things difficult. However, I will get better with time and practice I hope.

We ran through the entire show on Friday for all of our designers.  It was the first time we had run the show from start to finish without stopping, which is always valuable. It helps us as actors to get a feel for how the different scenes flow together and how to transition between them. It was also nice because it gave us an audience watching the show other than us and reactions we had not heard before.  I’m looking forward to seeing what they have come up with for the show.

Tomorrow is the last rehearsal before a five day break for Thanksgiving. Next up, one final rehearsal and then tech week! Everyone have a great week!

About three weeks to go till Klingons come to a stage near you. Specifically, we will be at the Athenaeum Theatre in Southport. You can get your tickets here:

https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/936560.

As you may already know, it’s our last year here in Chicago so tickets may go fast.

This week of rehearsals has been very productive.  Off book day is officially this coming Monday but Klingons are always prepared and most of the cast has already been rehearsing off book this week. As any actor will tell you, the faster we can get off book the better. It’s hard to connect with your fellow actors and to the world around you with your head buried in a script. Now the real fun of play and experimentation can start.

Last week I shared some answers from fellow cast members on why they wanted to be a part of the Klingon Christmas Carol cast. Since I did not include my own thoughts I thought I would do that now. This is my second year in the show, so my reasons for wanting to be involved this year reflect the fact that last year I loved doing the show and wanted to do it one last time before it moves on next year. However, putting that aside, I originally wanted to do the show for a few reasons. First, I grew up with Star Trek and loved that whole universe. I can’t say I was what you would call a Trekkie but it was one of those stories I really connected with along with Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, The Chronicles of Prydain,and pretty much anything by John Steinbeck and Robert Heinlein. Those are just a few but I mention them because I watched and read them multiple times. I also read most of the James Blish Star Trek books and adored the Star Trek: The 25^th Anniversary role playing computer game. I kind of wanted to be Captain Kirk. I also wanted to put myself through the challenge of doing an entire play in another language. It was a great experience last year and continues to be this year as well. I am excited for people to see our work.

Two final things, this week Adopt a Klingon started up. If you have always dreamed of having a Klingon of your very own, this is your chance. Please see the details below:

http://www.cbtheatre.org/the-plays/a-klingon-christmas-carol/adopt-a-klingon/

Also, putting on theater costs money unfortunately and so Commedia Beauregard is having a “Clue! The Drinking Game” fundraising event at The Glennwood in Rogers Park. There will be a raffle and a staged reading of the script by Commedia Beauregard company members. I will include the link below. That is all for now. Have a great week!

http://tinyurl.com/CommBeau-Drinks-Clue

Hi all! This week, I asked a few cast members to share what attracted them to A Klingon Christmas Carol and why they auditioned for the show. Their answers are below. Enjoy!

Dylan Jost

Weapons Merchant, Qe’ pa

I auditioned for Klingon Xmas for multiple reasons. First of all, I really wanted to work with Commedia Beauregard because of the content and quality of their shows.

Secondly, Star Trek is awesome!

Thirdly, I really like to do stage combat and I have always wanted to try fighting with bat’leths.

Colin Fewell

Young SQuja’, Warrior

Last year’s production was a real adventure and since this is Klingon’s last year in Chicago I couldn’t pass up the chance to audition. It’s been a blast so far.

Stephen Dale

wIlqInS

I auditioned for the show this time around because I had such a blast being in it last year, I wanted to do it again. I was happy to play wIlqInS again because he gets to beat the crap out of half the cast. That’s a lot of fun as both a Klingon and a human.

Happy November everyone! It means that Thanksgiving turkey is on it’s way…and Klingon Christmas Carol is about a month away from opening. Eeeek! With the advent of November we are also going to be ramping up publicity about the show. As awesome as the show is, these tickets won’t sell themselves. Already, posters for the show may have started appearing in your neighborhood. They feature an awesome painted picture of our SQuja’ sporting a look that says, “I look fierce but I’m just a big teddy bear inside. Also, come see my show or prepare to die!” It’s a sales pitch you can’t refuse. It looks something like this..only more vertical:

We will have live promotional events around town as well. So, if you see a ridged forehead coming your way, put your phasers down. We’re just actors.

I did not have many rehearsals this week so I don’t have much to report from behind the scenes this time. I promise I will make it up to you all next week. For now, fellow blogger Caity-Shea has a great interview with Phil Zimmerman, this year’s SQuja’, that you all should read. Get your tickets and tell your friends! Have a great week!

Tickets can be purchased here:

https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pr/936560

We took some publicity photos this week and so my lumberjack beard has been shed in favor of something that might resemble what I have during performances. This Monday we went over scenes we had done last week a second time. The first time we did them it was in English, now it was time for the Klingon to commence. We sat down with our language coach Jeremy and repeated every line of the scenes in Klingon. First syllable by syllable, word by word, and then line by line. It’s a process that takes a good chunk of the rehearsal but is well worth it.

We got up on our feet to do the scene in the original language. My first line of the season in Klingon was uttered with such enthusiasm that it launched a rather gross amount of moisture onto poor SQuja’. Rehearsal was brought to a halt while SQuja’ took care of my unintended gift. This is probably a good warning for those who have never seen the show before. Klingon is a very spittacular language. If you come and see the show and don’t enjoy getting showers like that, it’s always a good idea to maybe choose a seat a few rows back.

We also were fitted for our ridges on Thursday, which was well covered by Caity-Shea. While they were pulling people away for that, the rest of us were playing games designed to help our characters build relationships and work on our physicality. My favorite was a game simply called 3 minutes with SQuja’. Each actor got three minutes with our hard working and patient SQua’ Phil to do whatever we wanted to do to him as our character. It was both fun and revealing and I think people made a lot of discoveries that may be useful for the future. That’s all for this week!

Ali inspects our wigs.

SQuja’ is about to learn…it is not wise to mess with a Vulcan.

A SQuja’ and his love…

Photo time.

Beard Week 2

Heeeyy it’s the end of week 2. My beard is starting to look like a beard, much to the chagrin of my wife. It’s been a busy week for KCC. We started blocking rehearsals, had great qepHom during which I achieved honorable victory at Bananagrams, and had our first fight rehearsal. Speaking of game nights, I went to the House Theater Game Night last night and spoke some Klingon to Peter Sagal. He immediately ran away. Kidding. He was very good natured about it.

As I mentioned before, our fight choreographer Zach joined us to begin mapping out our first fight scene yesterday.  I’m not going to get into the details of the fights themselves…you will just have to come watch them December 5^th-21^st at the Athenaeum Theatre. However, I will whet your appetite with a few pictures. Short blog today but fights are more interesting to watch then describe. I can say even in their beginning super slow speed, they are looking pretty rocking.

Our fight choreographer, Zach.

Zach demonstrating how to safely slam into a wall.

Matty is about to look like he is in a world of hurt.

           I’ll be including a photo tracking the progress of my beard growing for KCC with every blog post. Not much to see yet but hopefully it is the beginning of an intimidating face of hair. Much like this guy’s, I hope:

Yeah, that’s the ticket! Caity-Shea did a thorough job of covering the language portion of the rehearsal process. I won’t add much other than to say it doesn’t get easier a second time around. For me at least, there was a little more comfort with the sounds of the language and my ability to wrap my mouth parts around how to form them. However, the grammar portions and how to construct a sentence in Klingon? It still makes my brain melt out of ears, which is better than Ceti eels being stuck in them I suppose.

Language is not the only aspect of being a Klingon we have to cover before starting blocking for the show. In addition to our three language lessons, we have an entire rehearsal dedicated to exploring our physicality as Klingons. This happened last Thursday after we had completed our third and final language lesson.  Our director Catie handed out colored bandanas to each of us and had us tie it around our heads so that they covered our eyebrows. Due to the ridgy nature of a Klingon’s forehead, almost every cast member will be sporting beautiful rubber forehead pieces. This means that we will be without the use of our eyebrows and forehead during the show. If you stop and think about just how much we rely on our forehead and eyebrows in our facial expressions, this is no small deal. Try it out.  Furthermore, if we move our forehead and/or eyebrows during the performance we may very quickly become ridgeless Klingons mid-scene. No one wants to see that, so the bandanas will help us practice acting with only the lower half of our face.

We also practiced walking around the room and moving through space the way a Klingon would. Many of our individual physical characteristics will depend on the characters and how the actors interpret them. However, the element that all of us Klingons will share will be a readiness to be attacked and an awareness of what is around us at all times. No one will be back on the balls of their feet. It is the beginning stage of the actors discovering how to inhabit the bodies and lives of their characters. It is going to be a lot of fun living in this world once again. Qapla’!