Songs of the Logan

So one regular feature that we haven't been telling everyone about is our usual post-rehearsal routine. It's called the Carry Rehearsal Furniture Back Up To Justen's Apartment routine. It's pretty much what it sounds like. Our esteemed director has begun bribing us up there by showing us some of the show's awesome in-progress media stuff each time- posters, photos, handbills, press releases, and recently, a music playlist.

I mention this last one because, after scanning the thirty-odd songs that are under consideration for the show, I realized I... have a very different musical bent. Like, not even in the same zip code. Not in a disliking way; (the snippets we heard were catchy and fun and I very much approve), but the style of music that fills my iPod airwaves is... just so different that it'd be very weird to think what the show would sound like if I was doing the music for it.

With that in mind, I'm sharing something I've been assembling for the last month or so: Logan's Playlist. Behold a smattering of songs from my music library that represent bits of his general personality. Now, this isn't the music he personally listens to, (though I'm reasonably confident he does listen to Matthew De Zoete). They sort of chart his progress through the play, and sort of not; it's not verbatim, and it's not perfect, but what I know is that if you diagrammed these tunes on a grid, there'd be a tiny area of overlap, and he'd be somewhere in there.

The selections, like my iPod, are eclectic; I've got everything in here from Newfie folk rock to Christian punk to light country, but it's a very fun set; I've been using it as my morning workout / travelling music for awhile, and it's uplifting and fun enough to not get dull. It's not music from the show itself by any means, but it's a small window into where I'm going with this guy.

(I considered doing a write-up of each track to explain why I chose it, but I decided it'd be better just to let the songs sell themselves. Enjoy!)

Knock Yourself Out (Jon Brion)
Why we're put in this mess is anybody's guess;
It might be a test. Or it might not be anything we need to worry about.


Bite My Tongue (Relient K)
Sweepin' up the seconds that tick off the clock,
Saving 'em for later when I'm too ticked to talk,
And I need some time / to search my mind,
To locate the words that seem so hard to find.


The More Boys I Meet (Carrie Underwood)
Cheap date, bad taste, another night gone to waste,
Talkin' bout nothing in so many words.
It's not like I'm not trying;
I'll give anyone a shot... once.


Not On Fire (Matthew De Zoete w. Jenn Grant)
If these walls had ears, why would they listen in
When there's no kissin' in here / and nothing that you desire?
Oh my love... we're not on fire


Morningside
(Sara Bareilles)
I need to let go / need to want to keep letting you know
That we both have a reason to follow
Long as we let this lead,
I'm barely breathing.


Hold On (KT Tunstall)
Searching the land for a hero of a man,
You say I need more than my fair share of attention,
But I think you know that just isn't so.


A Perfect Day(Matt Hires)
So let's not walk away / from the one thing we know is great;
Life can trip you up
On a perfect day.


Second Chance (Faber Drive)
Instead of holding you, I was holding out,
Tried to let you in but I let you down,
You were the first to give, I was the first to ask,
Now I'm in second place to get a second chance.


Pressing On(Relient K)
To go back to where I was would just be wrong,
So I'm pressing on, pressing on;
All my distress is going, going, gone.


And last but not least,


The Entire Movie Soundtrack from Josie and the Pussycats
(2001)
Why do you do what you do to me, baby?
Shaking my confidence, driving me crazy?

David Johnston
Actor (Logan)

Interview with David Johnston (Logan)

We interviewed the cast and crew of Addition: An Unconventional Love Story and asked them each four questions. Here is the interview with David Johnston, the actor playing Logan.

Keep watching for the rest of the videos to be posted in the near future!

Justen Bennett
Director/Playwright

Tickets Are On Sale!

Tickets are officially on sale for Addition: An Unconventional Love Story and all other Edmonton Fringe shows!

There are 3 ways to buy a ticket for the show:

Online: Edmonton International Fringe Festival Box Office Website
In-person: Fringe Festival Box Office - 10330 84 Ave. (in the TransAlta Arts Barns)
Ticket Hotline: 780.409.1910

General: $12
Student: $10

Venue 5 - Fringe Cabaret
10330 84 Ave.
(North end of the TransAlta Arts Barns)

Performances

Thursday, August 13	8:00pm
Saturday, August 15	2:15pm
Sunday, August 16	10:00pm
Tuesday, August 18	4:00pm
Thursday, August 20	6:15pm
Saturday, August 22	Noon

We'd love to have a blockbuster start to our performances, so if you can come to the Opening Night performance (Thursday, August 13 @ 8:00p), buy your ticket for then! If not, we'd love to see you at any of our other performances, too! Feel free to buy two tickets so you can share the experience with a friend!

As a bonus, the venue has air conditioning, so not only do you get to see a fantastic show, you also have an opportunity to escape some of the summer heat!

We're looking forward to seeing everyone out at Addition: An Unconventional Love Story, so get your tickets now!

Justen Bennett
Director/Playwright

Media Photos and Other Updates

We've been keeping quite busy with rehearsals as of late. Tomorrow night (well, technically tonight, given that it's after midnight) will be the first off-book day. The actors have all been excellent so far about doing portions of the show off-book all on their own initiative but now that security blanket is going away. It'll be a little rough at first, as with any show, but once we push through the memorization that's when the real show can finally start to come out.

Outside of rehearsals, promotion of the show has been progressing nicely. We've been working with our sponsor, Play Night Club, to confirm the final details of our fundraiser there on the evening of August 9, 2009. Also, if you take a chance to visit our Flickr photostream you can see images of some other things that haven't even been posted on the blog, like the GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine print ad, the ad for the Walterdale Playhouse Members' Newsletter, and the front and back designs for our handbills.

Though, probably the most interesting things added to our Flickr photostream lately are the official media photos for the show. Enjoy!

L–R: David Johnston (Logan), Robert Medeiros (Ben), Richard Lee (Daren)

L–R: David Johnston (Logan), Robert Medeiros (Ben), Richard Lee (Daren)

L–R: Robert Medeiros (Ben), David Johnston (Logan), Richard Lee (Daren)

L–R: Robert Medeiros (Ben), David Johnston (Logan), Richard Lee (Daren)

Standing: Robert Medeiros (Ben)
Sitting L–R: David Johnston (Logan), Richard Lee (Daren)

For all photos:
Photographer: Justen Bennett
Photo Editing: Tess Chappell
Justen Bennett
Director/Playwright

Interview with Amanda McLeod (Stage Manager)

We interviewed the cast and crew of Addition: An Unconventional Love Story and asked them each four questions. Here is the interview with Amanda McLeod, the Stage Manager for the production.

Keep watching for the rest of the videos to be posted in the near future!

Justen Bennett
Director/Playwright

Interview with Robert Medeiros (Ben)

We interviewed the cast and crew of Addition: An Unconventional Love Story and asked them each four questions. Here is the interview with Robert Medeiros, the actor playing Ben.

Keep watching for the rest of the videos to be posted in the near future!

Justen Bennett
Director/Playwright

Behind the Scenes: Media, Rehearsals, and Design

The show's been moving along very well so far, in all aspects. Rehearsals have been going very well and yesterday we had our first rehearsal since the Nextfest reading with every actor and crew member. Both Richard and Amanda were out-of-town for varying periods, so it was fantastic to have everyone in one room again. In terms of our rehearsal progress, we're currently ahead of schedule which is always a nice place to be. I've been involved in a few shows that have much last-minute scrambling in order to get everything done, so to know that we may have a little bit of buffer room helps me feel more at ease.

Outside of rehearsals themselves, much hard work has been going into preparing the advertising for a show. It doesn't matter how good a play is, if you can't find ways to let people know about it you won't have an audience. If you've been following the blog and the Facebook group, you'll have seen some of the media that Tess has created for the show. Much of my time outside of rehearsals has been spent co-ordinating these efforts by providing feedback, writing press releases, and passing on deadline information, among other things, in my many ongoing conversations with Tess.

About the only other main thing aside from rehearsals and advertising has been design. The set's been established for quite a while, but we've been taking steps on our props, sound, light, and costume design. I've starting some preliminary sound designs and on Tuesday we'll be looking at potential costume pieces. Props have been ongoing since the beginning and we have a basic idea for lighting already. It's a lot of hard work and long hours that get put in to a show, but it's certainly all worth it.

Also, while I was doing some research for the press release, I found a great blog called Polyamory in the News. It collects articles from all over the world about polyamory. There are some interesting reads in there and I'd recommend checking it out.

So, as you can see, Addition: An Unconventional Love Story is moving along at a great pace. I hope you've also taken a chance to read David Johnston's blog posts on here as well. He talks about the show from the perspective of an actor and, unlike me, who has been thinking about the show since before I put the first work on paper, he has a fresh view on Addition that's really interesting to read about. And, if you haven't already, we'd love to see you join us in the Facebook group and please share this blog and the group with your friends, so they can learn more about the show and come see it at the Fringe Festival!

Stay tuned for more media and fun behind-the-scenes information to be posted in the next few days!

Justen Bennett
Director/Playwright

The Nosey Neighbour Factor

In my opinion, every love story has conflict that results out of a factor I like to call ‘What Will The Neighbours Think?’

This is a measure of conflict and worry in a relationship stemming exclusively from an outside source; moreover, we’re not talking direct intervention here, but more of an emotional or expectational wedge that’s driven between people, simply based on their speculations of… well, what the neighbours will think of their doings.

Now, this doesn’t have to mean actual, literal neighbours, (though if you’re doing Three’s Company, then it probably does.) Rather, the ‘neighbours’ can refer to any outside force, group, family, friends… basically, anyone whom the subjects of the love story are influenced by, and anyone with the power to change their minds simply by existing.

Romeo and Juliet, for instance, is basically all about the What Will The Neighbours Think. Left to their own devices, those crazy kids would run off and elope in Act II, and there’d be a whole lot of awkward standing around and head-scratching for the second half of the play, because the leads are off canoodling in Venice or whatever. But because of the high WWTNT value, they’re forced apart, then together, then apart, then there’s a lot of stabbing and poisoning and everyone dies. (Sorry if I spoilt the ending for you, but… it’s Shakespeare. Nine times out of ten, ‘Everyone dies’ is practically the subtitle.)

The antithesis of WWTNT is of course conflict that’s generated inside a relationship, problems and issues that the involved parties are forced to accept aren’t anyone’s fault, just… bad stuff that happened, or people drifting apart, or disagreements of a sort that you can’t blame on the neighbours. Inter-Relationship conflict is harder to quantify because it’s messier, and because it can’t be personified through a wacky-Kramer-buddy bursting in and tsk-tsking at the goings-on.

I don’t think, overall, one form of conflict is always better than the other; going through my favourite love story movies, Brokeback Mountain is almost solely about what everyone might think of Jack and Ennis, whereas The Notebook quietly brushes away its WWTNT trappings to let Noah and Allie realize that they’ve got their own screwed-up problems to deal with regardless of judgemental mothers and hoity-toity society lines. And I love both films, because you can get wonderful conflict and drama out of either aspect, as long as it’s painted properly. On the whole, though, I think I prefer Inter-Relationship conflict, because most of the time the WWTNT can be quietly defused with the equivalent of saying ‘I don’t care what the neighbours think’ and that’s that. IR conflict can’t necessarily be swept aside, and most of the time, there’s more generated from that.

Addition is interesting (and unconventional!) because there’s a very low WWTNT value; part of that’s because we couldn’t afford to pay extras to come in and be our Mr. and Mrs. Roper. But even the offstage folks in the script are pretty open and nonjudgmental; the closest we get to a nosey neighbour trope is Daren’s landlady, who… is kind of awesome, honestly, and has a wonderful moment we hear about midway through the play. But aside from that, there’s no one to really stand around and clutch pearls and whisper to each other that they don’t know why those three young men are spending so much time together in that little apartment, my word, Alice, it’s immoral is what it is. Shame! Not much of that going on in the script.

Sure, there’s some subtle WWTNT stuff going on; Ben and Logan mildly worrying what everyone will think of their thing with Daren, Logan’s persistent curiosity about how Daren’s family regards him, the unspoken fear of how the whole shebang would function in society if they just came out in the open as a threesome… for the most part, though, the conflict is very internal, as the trio bounce off one another and try to figure out who’s right and who’s wrong and who’s scared and who’s confused. A lot of that, I think is that with a three-way love story, you can have multiple viewpoints and ideologies, and you don’t need the constant interruptions of the neighbours to generate conflict; there’s plenty to debate already. It’s why Closer works so well; it plays the emotions of four people up against one another, and that’s enough drama to keep the story going for awhile.

But let’s open this one up to discussion: what are your specific/favourite love stories with odd levels of WWTNT? How do they work or not work for you? Which style of conflict generation do you prefer? Are there any glaringly obvious facts I’m misplacing? And really, what will the neighbours think about all this?

David Johnston
Actor (Logan)

The Official Poster

Finally, after weeks of anticipation, I have the final poster design for Addition: An Unconventional Love Story! Thanks to Tess Chappell for her fantastic work thus far on all our media!

Please, as with everything we post on this blog, leave us your comments. We love reading them!

The official poster for Addition: An Unconventional Love Story
Designed by: Tess Chappell of TC design
Justen Bennett
Director/Playwright

How Far? Productions Logo

Tess Chappell, our wonderful graphic designer from TC design, has been working diligently on all of our media. She just finished putting together the final logo design for How Far? Productions. Here's a snapshot of the logo in-progress and the final project.

The evolution of the logo for How Far? Productions
Designed by: Tess Chappell of TC design

The official logo for How Far? Productions
Designed by: Tess Chappell of TC design
Justen Bennett
Director/Playwright

My Life In Four Cameras

“You’ve got yourself a real nice place here.”
“Glad you like it. You know, we couldn’t decide whether to buy a house or a condom.”
“…”
-Hi Honey, I’m Home! pilot episode

The last bit of advice that Justen gave us before we headed out from our last rehearsal before the Nextfest read was “Think sitcom-y. Think those rhythms and timing, and play with that.” Now, at the time, I was slightly offended, because I was all up in my Comedy Is Serious zone, with a side of I Am Doing Important Acting Work, So I Better Do It Properly. The more I think about it, though, the more right his suggestion was, on a lot of levels.

Hi, I’m David Johnston. I’m playing Logan in this production of Addition, and as I told Justen early on, I’m a writer/blogger myself, so I jumped at the chance when he opened the blog up to the rest of us lowly flesh puppets. I wanted to talk about something that’s been growing on me more, and more as I work on the project: viewing Addition as a sitcom.

Not just, of course. I’d rate the play 80% comedy, 20% drama with unusually raised stakes in the tense moments, but in all fairness, that’s the approximate ratio of most of your standard Friends or That 70s Show memorable episodes. From the second it opens, with a darling little I Love Lucy-esque moment that the characters correctly identify, diagnose and mock as being hopelessly kitsch. Except they’re both guys, so instead of your Ricky Ricardo character coming in and smooching your Mary Tyler Moore, character, he’s going after the Fred Mertz, or the Dick Van Dyke. (Claim your punchline… now.)

Continuing on, there are more broad set-em-up-knock-em-down jokes than I can count, at least three instances of someone barging into a room without knocking with hi-larious consequences, bad puns and extended metaphors out the wazoo and one clever moment involving a surprise costume change that only works if I am a complete dunderhead and cannot see what’s happening two feet behind me. There are moments of joke, pause and beat that you can just hear a cheesy canned laugh track going insane at. (Though live audiences will also respond, I’m guessing.) Most of the action is centralized in one location (Ben and Logan’s living room) with only a handful of scenes showing the outside world, and the time-frame is alternately simplistic or spelled out clearly for the audience to see. There are sitcom-y touches sprinkled throughout the play, subtly inviting the audience to a simpler, broader time.

And what I like about the script is that, yes, it’s that, it’s not just that; it doesn’t rely only on any of the obvious stereotypes for the humour, and it doesn’t take itself so seriously that we can’t laugh at the absurdity of the situation. Ben and Logan and Daren demand to be taken as real people coping with a realistic situation, no matter how witty and acerbic the dialogue gets, no matter how mildly contrived the resolutions are, no matter the plot twist that get thrown their way.

There isn’t anything wrong with that; one thing I’m amused at in rehearsals is how well the broad sitcom timing works with both comedic and dramatic moments. You can be serious and thoughtful while playing to four cameras; you can make the cheap jokes and the clever jokes all at once, and no one will think any less of it. The play continually straddles that line, and I love it for it.

So in conclusion, Addition is your big ol’ wacky gay sitcom, and I think it’s important to view it occasionally in those terms. Specifically, it has become my ongoing quest to convince Justen that there’s no way the play can move forward if we don’t have 1) a door (for slamming and entrances and huffy exits) and 2) a couch (for lounging and leaping and sitting and living on.) Come on! What kind of sitcom doesn’t have at least one couch somewhere? They’re great! Right? Guys? Anyone?

Hmph. I’ll be in my condom.

David Johnston
Actor (Logan)

Photo Shoot Outtakes

During our photo shoot on June 20, we ended up with a few pictures that maybe won't be making it into our press kits. We figured while we work on touching up the press kit photos and preparing them for print that we would share some of the outtakes with all of you! Enjoy!

L–R: Robert Medeiros (Ben), Richard Lee (Daren), David Johnston (Logan)

Standing: Robert Medeiros (Ben)
Sitting L–R: David Johnston (Logan), Richard Lee (Daren)

Standing: Richard Lee (Daren)
Sitting L–R: Robert Medeiros (Ben), David Johnston (Logan)

Standing: Robert Medeiros (Ben)
Sitting L–R: David Johnston (Logan), Richard Lee (Daren)

For all photos:
Photographer: Justen Bennett
Photo Editing: Tess Chappell
Justen Bennett
Director/Playwright