The Klingons Take Naperville….for a good cause(we promise)

I’m a day or two late, I know. We opened the show this week on Thursday and by the time Sunday’s show rolled around I was dead tired. I thought better of trying to write a blog post this weekend..not sure I would have been coherent.

First off, I thought I would draw attention to an article that appeared on DCtheatrescene.com today. It’s an interview with Marc Okrand, who created the Klingon languge. He is trying his hand at acting himself this year with a staged reading of “A Klingon Christmas Carol” in Washington DC.  He has many interesting things to say about the language and the show, so check it out below:

http://dctheatrescene.com/2014/12/08/klingon-language-creator-marc-okrand-plays-scrooge-wsc-avant-bards-klingon-christmas-carol/

Caity-Shea covered our tech week in her blog, for a detailed run down of it please check out her blog from December 5th.  Besides opening the show, I joined a few other cast members and the Klingon Assault Group at the Klingons for Tots toy drive at a Walgreens in Naperville. This is a big event for KAG and we were happy to lend a hand. It was fun to watch people’s reactions as they ran into a group of Klingons asking for toy donations as they entered the Walgreens.  Some of us even braved the cold to stand by the side of the road and cause accidents. Kidding, we stood by the side of the road to bring people in to donate toys.:) In the end, we ended up collecting two and a half big boxes of toys. Not a bad day’s work for some honorable Klingon warriors. There will be another Klingons for Tots drive this Saturday, Dec 13th from 10:00am-2:00am at the Walgreens at 1779 Sequoia Road (Sequoia &Rickert), Naperville, IL. We would love to see you there!

"Today...is a good day to donate a toy!"

“Today…is a good day to donate a toy!”

Ask and you shall receive! We get some toys for the tots.:)

Ask and you shall receive! We get some toys for the tots.:)

Our honorable band of warriors from Klingon Assault Group and Klingon Christmas Carol pose for a photo.

Our honorable band of warriors from Klingon Assault Group and Klingon Christmas Carol pose for a photo.

Lastly, if you still want to get tickets for the show there are a few tickets left. By a few I mean less than 50 for the entire run so get them as soon as you can before they are gone. Link is below. Have a great week!

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

 

Tech! Twitter Preview! Opening Weekend! Exclamation Points!

Before and After Klingon Makeup!

Before and After Klingon Makeup for SQuja’ marDa and Emli Qachit

After two months of rehearsals, we finally had an audience tonight and it was an important reminder of why we do this show in the first place: to share a fun, quirky story of transformation with an audience of people who are excited to see it. Everyone who comes to a show like Klingon Christmas Carol wants to enjoy themselves and they’re rooting for us to have a great time telling the story. As an actor, how much more set up for a good performance can you be? While I don’t subscribe to the notion of “tough crowds” (an excuse for a silent audience one might hear in the dressing rooms of the Sunday matinee performance of an absurdist Swedish comedy, you know, like hypothetically speaking), this show has a particularly warm and generous following.

Obligatory Before/After Klingon Makeup Selfies

Obligatory Before/After Klingon Makeup Selfies

This show was created to honor a beloved fandom and a timeless holiday story, and it’s being told by a company of trained professional storytellers and creative team who are committed to honestly living in the world they’re presenting. As a theatre-watching human, I’m not a huge fan of productions that spend more time winking at the audience than they do investing in the story. If I’m being completely honest, before the show started I was concerned it might go more the in the direction of winking (I’m sure there’s a joke in that sentence, but I’m too sleepy to catch it), and I think I mentioned in my first blog how relieved and excited I was to discover this was not the case. This show truly respects the trust that audiences give us when they purchase their ticket. Or, to quote the text I received at intermission from my friend in the audience tonight: “Okay, so this is weirdly amazing.”

Klingon Bar Fight as captured by an audience member at the Twitter Preview

Klingon Bar Fight as captured by an audience member at the Twitter Preview

For all of you less technologically aware people who might not know what a “Twitter Preview” is (I had no idea what it was), it’s a preview where audiences are encouraged to take pictures, tweet and post about the performance using the show’s hashtag #KlingonXmas. But, this is of course obvious to us social media savvy young people (I literally heard the phrase for the first time last night and just pretended to know what it was until I pieced it together using context clues. Shout out to my fourth grade reading teacher for the skill set, sorry for the sentence I’m about to end with a preposition). It was super fun to see pictures of parts of the show I’ve always been backstage for.

I’m grateful in advance to the audiences with whom we’ll get to share this story. (See, I know how to not end sentences with prepositions when I want to. <- ugh, I didn’t even try to do that). I’m grateful to my KCC cast mates, creative team and crew for their kindness, humor and friendship throughout the process. I’m grateful for the opportunity to use my love of people looking at me while I talk (see also: acting) to help contribute to a few hours of joy for everyone in the room. Qapla’!

Ticket Update: Shows are already selling out, so make sure to get your tickets in advance at: http://www.tinyurl.com/Klingontickets-2014

Do Klingons Dream of Electric Cell Phones?

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!

Always carry some ridges…..or was it a towel?

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.

IMAG0283

IMAG0285

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!

A Ridgy Love Letter

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Cast practicing Christmas carols in Klingon

Tonight is our first designer run!!! It will be our first time through the whole show and despite the show having a ton of fight choreography, prosthetic foreheads restricting the use of our foreheads/eyebrows to convey expressions, having a central character be a puppet, and being in a completely different language, we’re actually in better shape for a designer run than many shows I’ve done in the past. As much as I’d like to take any amount of credit for that, I really have to acknowledge our director Catie O’Donnell Glogovsky and our stage manager Shandee Vaughan. I’m continuously inspired by their respect for the work and every person in the room, as well as their willingness to listen to ideas, concerns or questions that come up along the way. It really is a “best idea in the room” kind of work environment that encourages people to take risks and fail big if it means that we could find something awesome in the process.

Klingons invading Chicago!

Klingons invading Chicago! Breon Jackson, Dylan Jost, Kim Fukawa.

Also, it’s pretty amazing to being a cast where you legitimately want to hang out with every single person. There are people all over the age/experience/fandom spectrums and from the first rehearsal both Catie and Chris (our playwright/artistic director/fellow actor) made it very clear that this is an inclusive process, and that any putting down of other humans, ideas or fandoms would not be tolerated. When you combine that with the fierce dedication to both work and play that all of my fellow performers bring to their work, it’s a seriously awesome result.

Now that we’re stitching the scenes together first in acts and tonight in the complete play, I’ve been able to watch scenes featuring actors I hadn’t worked with yet. I wanted to write about all of these ridiculously awesome performers, but for the sake of time, I’ll just call out two.

Timothy SullivanPretty much up until this week, I’d only really seen Timothy Sullivan’s work as a fellow blogger. Being able to see him play both ngevwI’ (Seller) and ben qeylIS qa' (Ghost of Kahless Past) has been such an absolute treat. He has this complete fearlessness in his approach to bold characters and artful integration of physical and vocal choices to bring them to life. It’s such a fun transformation to see him go from the relaxed, kind of quiet actor patiently waiting to go onstage to this cackling, crooked old man bounding across the stage.

Matty Robinson

Also, Matty Robinson plays vreD (Fred, Scrooge’s nephew) and Warrior 1 in a brief scene with me later on. From the second you meet Matty, you know exactly the kind of warm, generous and playful characters he brings to the stage. He creates the kind of characters that howl mid-line with such confidence, you assume it was written into the script. He’s always up for a quiet line-through of a scene while we’re waiting to go on and is always willing to say “Yup, I totally messed that up” when something falls apart.

When I was watching these guys perform, a quote from Steppenwolf ensemble member and Black Box Acting founder, Amy Morton kept returning to my mind. “When you’re onstage, you have license to do what everyone in the audience has wanted to do 5,000 times … You get to do it with no consequences. Do it all the way.” Both of these guys really embodied the spirit of those words and reminded me that we’re not just saying lines and going through the motions. We’re living these stories out loud for our audiences in a way they might never get to do, and the best way to fulfill that responsibility is to celebrate every second of it.

A little of this and that….

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 25th 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.

Tim-fbTwo 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

 

Meet Our Maker: Interview with KCC Playwright

Christopher Kidder-MostromChristopher Kidder-Mostrom is the artistic director of Commedia Beauregard, the playwright of A Klingon Christmas Carol and will be playing the narrator in this year’s final Chicago production. Since he’s been with the play since the beginning, I thought it would be interesting to hear about his journey with the show and see how KCC has evolved over the years. PLUS: Under the interview, I’ve listed some exciting opportunities to meet a Klingon in person or hang out with cast members!

CSV: So, you’ve been involved in almost every part of KCC from the beginning. Can you tell me a little about what that journey has looked like for you?
CKM: I started this wild journey back in 2007. CommBeau had just come off our 1st show with our new mission to do nothing but translated works. We knew we were going to need an end of the year fundraiser and one of the other board members suggested doing Dickens in Klingon. He thought he was joking, but we wrote it down and 6 months later we were in rehearsals for the first-ever full-length production of a Klingon play. The first year was a one-night-only gala event, but it was so well received that we decided to do it all again the following year. Each year it’s grown and changed. We rewrote the show a total of 13 times before we finally published it.

CSV: What was your relationship with the Star Trek franchise pre-KCC?
CKM: The Next Generation (TNG) premiered when I was in 6th grade, so I grew up alongside that series. But, I wasn’t ever one to go to conventions, or obsess over the characters. Now my relationship with the show is drastically different. I’m still not one who is going to memorize the names of the episodes, but I’ve seen every single one and have friends who were on each of the different series.

CSV: I want to go back to the decision for Commedia Beauregard to exclusively produce translated shows. What inspired that shift?
CKM: At the time, I was attending the University of New Orleans through their low-residency MFA program in playwriting. The best part of that program was that we spent the summers in Madrid, Spain. I discovered that there are so many works being done in other countries and other cultures that we won’t ever really get to know unless they are translated. So, I figured it was a niche we could fit into and do a good job with.

CSV: As someone who wasn’t fully immersed in the Star Trek fandom until you began the project, what was the response from fans you encountered and how did that shape the process for you?
CKM: Fandom has been exceptionally supportive of us. I think that is at least partly because of how we approached writing it. We aren’t doing a show that mocks fandom. It honors the people who have been following Star Trek all along. We also always co-produce the show with a local fan group. Here in Chicago we work with the IKV Spirit of Honor. And in MN we partnered with the IKV Rakehell. Anything that is important to fans is important to me.

CSV: Finally, this is KCC’s final production in Chicago. What do you want the final Chicago audiences to be left with after seeing the show?
CKM: I’m hoping they will leave with the same enthusiasm for the show as they have in the past. It is a show that changes lives. For those of us who are in it, it alters us forever. And for those who see it, it brings a new perspective to the original work. This show affects people in unexpected ways, and I hope that will remain true until all of its incarnations are complete.

Thanks to Chris for chatting with me and for all of his incredible work bringing this show to life over the years; I feel very privileged to help share this story. Below are some upcoming events where you can hang with the cast and even get a picture with a Klingon!

CLUE: The Drinking Game! November 22nd (Next Saturday) 9pm @ The Glenwood.
Join Commedia Beauregard for a staged reading of the 1985 classic mystery comedy “Clue”! Suggest $10 donation helps fund the production and enters you into a raffle for tons of prizes. Come along with us as we find the most ridiculous way to turn this film into a drunken good time.

Adopt-a-Klingon! Adopt a cast member for an official adoption certificate, a picture onstage with your adopted Klingon and a personal letter. Click below to adopt the Klingon of your choice.
http://www.cbtheatre.org/the-plays/a-klingon-christmas-carol/adopt-a-klingon/

More next week!

Caity-Shea

This is Klingon Christmas Carol’s 5th and FINAL year in Chicago, so tickets will be going quickly! Guarantee your spot by getting tickets in advance at: http://www.tinyurl.com/Klingontickets-2014

Why “A Klingon Christmas Carol”?

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.

A QachIt Family Affair

Hey, All!

QachIt Family Table Read

QachIt Family table read in Klingon. L to R, Shandee Vaughan, Phil Zimmermann, Jeremy Cowan, Christina Romano, Clark Bender’s forehead, Elizabeth MacDougald, Christopher Kidder-Mostrom.

We’ve been busy in the rehearsal room finishing blocking (!!!) and working through language. Almost all of my rehearsals this week were for QachIt family scenes and it turns out when you mix a room full of sleep deprived artists, a puppet and space language, things get super silly. Like painting with the windows closed silly. Giggle fits, Star Trek puns, and a surprising amount of cat references filled the rehearsal space as we blocked and incorporated language into our dinner conversation around the table.

Elizabeth MacDouglad

Elizabeth MacDougald and tImHom

In the show, my character marDa QachIt often interacts with her younger brother tImHom, a puppet brought to life by the talented Elizabeth MacDougald. Throughout blocking, Catie (our director) had tImHom and I improv some playful interactions to incorporate fun brother/sister moments into the scenes. Our puppet expert Alison Farajpanahi joined rehearsal one evening to work with the cast on puppet movement and etiquette.


(Alison teaching me how to pick up tImHom after several failed attempts)

Me: So, do I like aim for the armpits or try to just scoop him up or…

Alison: Think of it like you’re picking up a two-year old.

(Blank stare)

Alison: You know, like how you pick up a kid when you’re going to hold them?

Me: I just realized I don’t think I’ve ever held a child. Like ever. Does that say something about me?

Alison: …have you ever picked up anything similar to a child?

Me: Do cats count?

Alison: We’ll work with it.


Join some Klingon Christmas Carol cast members at Geek Bar in Wicker Park this Sunday, November 9th from 3-7pm for a “Klingon Cultural Symposium”! You might even see some ridges {{{:-)

Until next week!

Caity-Shea

This is Klingon Christmas Carol’s 5th and FINAL year in Chicago, so tickets will be going quickly! Guarantee your spot by getting tickets in advance at: http://www.tinyurl.com/Klingontickets-2014

It won’t be long…..

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:

Klingon

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