Friday, October 10, 2008

Doomsday Review (10/2/08)

Think the United States’ financial institutions and mortgage meltdowns of the last few weeks are bad? What if the world as you knew it was imploding around you with riots, destruction, fires, and violence? How would you survive or make sense of it? Could you stay positive and find hope?

First Light Players’ fine presentation of “Doomsday" features moving acting and intelligent writing to focus on how people face personal and societal apocalypse, finding faith in a better tomorrow.Frank (Greg Beastrom), owner of a downtown bar, and his employee Gigi (Trista Robinson) late one night find themselves inundated with people fleeing riots, fires, loss of power, and violence enflaming their city. Each has suffered tragic loss and searches for answers about how to move on. Can they help each other survive the night and their neuroses as well?Writer Beastrom keeps the dialogue extremely realistic with heated and coarse language. His story reveals its spiritual message in an understated, natural way.Director Cathy Holbrook makes fine use of the facility’s lack of backstage space by running the action down the center aisle, bringing a dynamic and realistic aspect to the piece. She draws fine work from the production staff, whose down-to-earth bar is spot on.A thoughtful, visceral story about what it means to spread love and forgiveness to yourself and others, “Doomsday” reveals that one can find hope in tragic circumstances by helping others and keeping the faith.

Doomsday! Closing Weekend

So it's Friday after closing weekend. I'm just now getting back to normal. Seriously, it takes a few days to decompress and get your head back into a good place.

Last weekend was awesome. We had a weak show Friday night. OK weak for this cast, which means it was still a great show! Saturday night rocked! Then came Sunday afternoon. North Hollywood was holding it's Arts Festival during the day Sunday. That meant we had to open our doors and allow the community in for free, those who had gotten free tickets from the booth up a few block on Lankershim. North Hollywood has a theater district there along with various art galleries and what not. So during the Arts Festival everyone opens their doors to promote the arts in the area.

So we were a bit concerned whether we were going to have an audience or not. Cathy and I got to the ticket booth early at around 10:30 AM and started handing out fliers as people gathered to get their tickets. There were others there doing the same. The line grew until it was down the street. OK. So we kept at it until we were out of fliers. There was a big board at the booth listing all the shows, maybe 15 or 20, one of which had a big SOLD OUT written on it. I wondered if we could "sell out" as well. So we decided to head back to the theater and check out the shows that were on stage before ours. There was an improv group that did a good job. They were funny. Then we got a bite to eat across the street but missed the next show because it took FOREVER to get our sandwiches. By then Trista (Gigi in the play) had joined us, so we had a leisurely lunch and got back to the theater just in time to set up for our show.

About 30 minutes before we were to open our doors, Brendan (Pete in the play) arrived having just come from the ticket booth. He indicated they had written "SOLD OUT" on our show on the big board, so we were going to have a full house! An audience that wasn't generally made up of family and friends. I was very curious. Could we play to the general community the same way we play to those that generally know us. Yes, we had been reviewed from opening night. And the review was an awesome one! One of our best ever. But I still wasn't sure.

So the house was full. The show began and, again, it rocked! The audience was laughing in all the right spots. They seemed to just eat it up! Great show! And great response! Everything went really well. So I was very excited. Here was a show that was so different from anything we've done, and people were loving it. Sunday night's show was good as well, but I think everyone was a bit tired. So it seemed a little slow. Again, with this cast, it was still a great show. All in all, a wonderful weekend!

So what now. Well, Friday night after the show, Diana and I sat down with Kayla (Tru in the play) and had a great discussion about the possibility of turning Doomsday into a film. Kayla has worked in the industry for many years in varying capacities including filmmaking. As I shared with her my desire to turn the play into a film, she got very excited and told me she saw the play as a film the first time she read it. At that point the ideas seemed to flow and I walked away from the conversation with a sense of direction. My next step is turning the script into a screenplay. Then Kayla and I will go over the script and do a "polish" which is industry-speak for tightening the script and making it fit into a reasonable budget. Then we'll formulate a workable budget and start the process of getting financial backing. Hopefully by the time the movie comes out, the world won't actually be facing Doomsday and the show will still be timely.

So the story continues. Next up? Our Christmas show which is 4 One Act Plays presented on one stage. Yikes!