Rock, Paper, Shreddies
I feel a certain amount of Catholic guilt about doing this blog post, because my childhood ethics tell me that it is, quite simply, not my turn. I did the last post, ergo it is now Mario’s turn to take to the keyboard. If I had taken the toy from the cereal twice in a row in my younger days, there would have been trouble, let me tell you. If I had dared to unceremoniously shove my little brother off the computer before his allotted time was up, there’d be hell to pay. Precedents therefore dictate that Mario is within his rights to go to his mum and tell on me. Or hit me over the head with the cereal box.
So why have I forsaken my juvenile ethics of sharing for a blog post? Because I want to tell you about our entry in Tiny Dog Productions’ new writing showcase this week, which is happening here, Wednesday 21st – Friday 23rd March, at 7.30pm all three nights. The play is a 20-minuter, and you can see what it’s called and what it’s about here.
Oh, it’s a publicity thing, we get it. Fair enough. Bored now.
Well, it is and it isn’t. I would be delighted if all of you lovely people who take the time to read this blog (thank you, by the way) rocked up and saw the showcase; don’t get me wrong. The fact that you take the time to read this thing gives me hope that you’d enjoy watching our plays. And there seems, bizarrely, to be a negative correlation between how easy it is to view a Facebook event and how likely people are to actually look at the damn thing, so advertising the showcase here is as good a place as any. If you WOULD like to see the Facebook event, it’s here, by the way.
What I actually want to do is tell you a little bit about the two cast members. These are not sensationalist stories (“Drama Graduates in Unpaid Acting Job SHOCKER”), nor are they X Factor-esque sob stories (“I have to be in this showcase, because my great aunt’s next door neighbour’s yoga friend’s cat would be SO PROUD OF ME”). I would just like to tell you a few things, because I think the two cast members are pretty impressive people. And it falls to me to tell you about them, because Mario has been very busy these past couple of weeks with an excellent production called The Well and Badly Loved, and so I’ve run most of the rehearsals for the showcase. Hence the necessity for me to risk being whacked with a cereal box/get shouted at by Mario’s mum.
Lauren Baino is pursuing an acting career, and when I say “pursuing”, I mean she is literally chasing it across continents. The woman’s ambition has taken her to acting courses in New York and led her to take on half a dozen part-time jobs. Tenacity, thy name is Baino. And thank God it is, because she’s a great actress, and she deserves every moment of success she gets (and more besides). With huge, expressive eyes and a wickedly comic stage presence, she was the perfect choice for “Chaos Theory”.
Paul Williams actually has his own theatre company called Bad Host, who are doing ever so slightly better than Empty Photo right now, what with them having a Battersea Arts Centre residency under their belts. He’s also very talented at photography – as you can see here – among other skills like sound art, reviewing, and the horrifying ability to bend his arms and legs the wrong way. He’s doing the showcase as a favour to me, which I massively appreciate, and he’s surpassed himself by learning a huge number of lines in about ten days.
Ten days is not long, but thanks to Paul, Lauren and the lovely people at Tiny Dog Productions, “Chaos Theory” has been made ready for performance in that ludicrously short amount of time. I am hardly a laid back kind of gal, but I feel really happy and excited about these next few nights. I hope you feel the same. I hope you can make it to the showcase. If you can’t, it’s really no big deal. It just means that one day, when you least expect it, I’ll be standing behind you with a cereal box.
Empty Photo Theatre 
Very interesting info!Perfect just what I was looking for!