Fri 25 Aug 2006
I’m sitting on Ben Evan’s couch composing this blog entry on his computer. I’ve spent so many of my waking hours in town, since transportation is tricky in Boulder when you don’t have your own wheels, that internet access has been sporadic; but today is a slow morning of sleeping in and taking my time about getting ready to rejoin the waking world. Boulder has been lovely. The day we arrived, everyone was tired, and David (Claytie’s stepdad) picked us all up from the airport; Scofie and I dropped off our bags at Ben’s and hitched a ride downtown with David, and Claytie and Anna went home to their rooms at David’s while Scofie and I explored Boulder for a few hours. We found some killer burritos at a place called Illegal Pete’s and figured out that the buses stop running here at 9pm–bit of a pity, since our first two shows wouldn’t even START until 10pm. Well, it’s a short cab ride. Boulder’s public transportation system leaves something to be desired, compared to New York.
But what a lovely little town. Everyone we’ve met has been incredibly nice and willing to go out of their way for a stranger. The folks who are running the Fringe are SO welcoming and excited to have the artists around, and the beaurocracy of the event has been astonishingly minimal. Unlike New York, the artists here recieve 100% of what they take in at the Fringe box office, and the festival is run on initial festival fees, t-shirt sales, and generous donations. The community here seems more than willing to support the event, and attendance at our first two shows was enormous compared to our best night in New York. The space we’re performing in is the Dairy Arts Center, and I haven’t seen a more lively space dedicated to the arts; there’s a coffeeshop in the atrium, several art galleries, and three performance spaces housed in one building, and any day or time you go there the place is full of people mingling, emerging from shows or waiting to be seated, drinking coffee and talking about theatre or the Fringe or what shows to see, and strolling through the galleries. It really feels like a living space, a true art-centered social arena, which is rare these days, and I love it. If there’s something like this in Seattle, I want to see it; where people don’t go for a specific event and leave, but linger, check out associated events, share their opinion, and finally wander home.
Our first two shows here have been quite successful and we have generated a good buzz for this weekend. Yesterday I stopped by University Bicycle and rented some wheels, so now I can get into and out of town with a bit more freedom, and travel from venue to venue with more time to spare. I’ve seen some great shows here (and some bad ones; that’s Fringe) but I have really enjoyed Maria Est Perdue, a play directed and created by my genius friend Liz Watt from the International Theatre Collective and two other performers; Arachne, a puppet/mask/classical Greek show by Sophie Nimmannit, another ITCo gal, and directed by Ben whose house we’re staying at; and Curriculum Vitae, a one-man comedy show about the difficulties of getting a job (and the author’s own employment history) by a charming fellow who is also going to San Francisco after this, and who we promised to cross-promote with when we arrive there. Last night we finally got to mingle with the Fringe crowd out at a bar called Trinity. The company was fantastic, the bar terrible; at a quarter to one, when apparently not many people were ordering drinks, they went around bellowing “last call” and turned the lights up bright to make everybody leave. When people stayed, finishing their recently-ordered drinks and talking, they starting asking everybody to leave because the staff wanted to go home. Mind you, this is about 1:15 on a Thursday night. I’ll not be back there.
Wednesday I got to go out to Brainard lake and Long lake with my ITCo friends, and it was lovely to see some national-park wilderness so soon after leaving the concrete-and-neon jungle of New York. I jumped in an ice-cold lake and jumped right back out again, and life was good.
That’s the mundane update! I think Nebunele is starting to get a little tired. We’ll need our week at home for recharging before we head off to San Francisco, our final leg. On the road, la la la…
-Alissa
Aren’t you gonna blog’em with the LATEST NEWS??!!
Oh yeah. We won Gold Pick of the Fringe in Boulder! We stayed an extra week to do the super-fun extra performance!
Boulder rocks.
(Hee hee. I’ve been wanting to say that for weeks.)